DC Court: Iran Helped al-Qaida Build Bombs

A "little-noticed" November 28 ruling by a DC district court details Iranian training of al-Qaida [AQ] operatives, the Long War Journal observes. The ruling shows how Iran used al-Qaida as "a useful tool to destabilize U.S. interests," by providing heavy explosives training and equipment via Iran-controlled terrorist group Hizballah.

"Prior to their meetings with Iranian officials and agents, Bin Laden and al Qaeda did not possess the technical expertise required to carry out the embassy bombings in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam," said in Judge John D. Bates in his opinion [Owens, et al. v. Republic of Sudan, et al.].

"The Iranian defendants, through Hezbollah, provided explosives training to Bin Laden and al Qaeda and rendered direct assistance to al Qaeda operatives," the judge found. The hearings were not attended by Sudanese or Iranian government representatives, resulting in a default judgment for the defendants.

The trial court decision details that Hizballah and al-Qaida operatives met in Sudan in early to mid 1990s, where they worked out an agreement to train AQ members in South Lebanon. During the training sessions, which were attended by the Nairobi Embassy bombers, al-Qaida members were shown how to carry out large-scale bombings. They then returned to Sudan with "videotapes and manuals 'specifically about how to blow up large buildings," and began to plot how to attack American interests abroad.

Data about Iranian-al-Qaida cooperation isn't new. Al-Qaida operative Ali Mohamed testified that he had arranged a meeting between Hizballah foreign operations chief Imad Mughniyeh and Osama bin Laden, in his 2000 plea hearing in American court. He also claimed that Iran used Hizballah to supply the Egyptian Islamic Jihad [EIJ], which later united with al-Qaida.

However, the new opinion sheds more light on AQ-Iran cooperation and how the relationship developed. Saif al-Adel, who became al-Qaida's interim leader after bin Laden was killed, received training from Hizballah and later fled to Iran. After a brief period of loose house arrest in Iran, he was freed in 2010 and disappeared shortly thereafter.

Al-Qaida Posts Demands for Release of American Hostage

Al-Qaida has released a set of written demands for the release of its most recent American hostage, 70-year-old Warren Weinstein. The Jewish-American aid worker was seized nearly four months ago from the Pakistani city of Lahore, but al-Qaida only recently claimed the kidnapping during a videotaped speech by senior leader Ayman al-Zawahiri.

Al-Qaida's justification for the random kidnapping of an aid worker was revenge. "Just as the Americans detain whomever they suspect may be connected to al-Qaeda or the Taliban even in the slightest of ways, we have detained this man who has been involved with US aid to Pakistan since the 1970s," BBC reported Zawahiri as having said on his latest video release.

The senior terrorist also spoke directly to Weinstein's family, telling them not to believe President Obama if he claimed he was working to free the hostage. "He [President Obama] might say to you, 'I sought to release your relative, but al-Qaeda was stubborn.' Do not believe him," Zawahiri was quoted as saying.

While al-Qaida may claim that it is interested in negotiation, its conditions would involve massive changes to American foreign policy. Topping the list of demands was a call for "lifting the sanctions entirely on the movement of individuals and products between Egypt and Gaza."

Al-Qaida has recently paid more attention to the Palestinian conflict, particularly since the issue has become a popular rallying cry for Arab Spring protesters.

The group also insists on an end to Western air raids on Pakistan-Afghanistan, Yemen, Somalia, and Gaza. Practically, meeting this demand would mean halting anti-piracy operations off the coast of Somalia, stopping Israeli counterstrikes on Gaza rocket fire, and an American withdrawal from Afghanistan.

The remaining demands center on the release of all al-Qaida prisoners being held in American jails and international facilities. Demand #3 calls for "releasing all those arrested on the charge of belonging to al-Qaida or the Taliban even if they were handed to another country, like 'Abu Musaab al-Suri,' and even if they were non-Muslims." It also demands that America and the West "drop all the charges directed to them, stopping any legal pursuit of them, and transferring them to the place they choose, dignified and endeared."

Further demands include the closing of Guantanamo and American rendition prisons, the release of prisoners serving time for the first World Trade Center bombing, and the freeing of Aafia Siddiqui and other female prisoners convicted of terrorism charges. They also stipulate an end to the purported harassment and charging of members of Osama bin Laden's family, without regard for their participation or support for al-Qaida.

Foreigners are not common targets of Pakistan's kidnapping culture, although there have been a small number of high-profile abductions of Westerners. A Swiss couple remains missing after they were seized in July. The case of Wall Street Journalist Daniel Pearl also made headlines for its particular brutality. Pearl was taken and murdered in 2002, after being forced to confess that he was a Jew.

Hamas Celebrates Muslim Brotherhood Victory

Hamas saluted the Muslim Brotherhood's strong showing in the first round of Egyptian elections, where it won approximately 37% of the ballots cast. The victory of the Muslim Brotherhood and Salafist parties in Egypt, as well as Islamist successes in Morocco and Tunisia, may strongly affect the balance of power in the region.

"It is a very good result...it will mean more and more support for Palestinian issues," said Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhum, about the Egyptian election result. "The relationship of the next regime in Egypt with the Palestinians will be very good." The Hamas representative also praised "Islamic gains in Tunisia" and "served notice to the West that its attempts to politically marginalize Islam were failing."

Western nations and Israel have expressed concerns about the growth of terrorism and the legitimization of Hamas, particularly as Islamist parties take power around the region. The charter of Tunisia's an-Nahda movement, which won a strong plurality of votes in recent elections, expresses support for Hamas and the "liberation of Palestine." There are also concerns that the Muslim Brotherhood, which helped to found Hamas and continues to back it, may provide material support for the group or break Egypt's treaty with Israel.

Virginia Man Pleads Guilty to Supporting Lashkar

A Virginia resident and native of Pakistan pleaded guilty Friday to providing material support to Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT), a designated foreign terrorist organization.

Jubair Ahmad was charged in September of providing material support to Lashkar and lying about it to federal authorities in a terrorism investigation.

An FBI affidavit alleged that he produced and posted a propaganda video for the LeT on the Internet. The video sought to "develop support for the LeT and recruit jihadists." During the video's production phase, Ahmad communicated with a LeT operative named "Talha." Talha was later identified by Ahmad as Talha Saeed, the son of LeT leader Hafiz Mohammed Saeed.

The five-minute video showed LeT leader Hafiz Saeed leading a prayer in Arabic that included words like "mujahideen" and "jihad." The video also contained images of jihadi martyrs and armored trucks being bombed by improvised explosive devices.

Ahmad wanted to include images from the November 2008 terrorist attacks on India's financial capital of Mumbai, the affidavit alleged, but he changed his mind after Talha warned him against using any reference to the attacks. The LeT has been blamed for the attacks that killed 166 people, including six Americans. The terrorist group has come under increased pressure following calls by India on the Pakistani government to clamp down on LeT jihadists operating from its soil.

A government filing released Friday added new details saying the video was uploaded to the YouTube account "AbuDujjana." Ahmad named the video "Hafiz Muhammad Saaed Qunoot e Nazila Very Emotional."

"Foreign terrorist organization such as LeT use the Internet as part of well-orchestrated propaganda campaigns to radicalize and recruit individuals to wage violent jihad and to promote the spread of terror," U.S. Attorney Neil MacBride said in a statement about the plea.

Ahmad faces a maximum penalty of 15 years in prison and is scheduled to be sentenced in April.

Iran May Target American Bases in Germany

Iran is planning on attacking U.S. military airfields in Germany, to preempt a possible strike on Tehran, reports Germany's Bild news source. Evidence of the plot was uncovered by federal investigation into a German businessman, on charges of "suspicion of espionage activities to sabotage," who was working with Iran's embassy in Berlin.

German Attorney General Harald Range confirmed the case on Thursday, stating the federal law enforcement had "launched an investigation and conducted operational measures." This included a house search authorized by an investigating judge on Nov. 2.

Iranian terrorism expert Dr. Wahied Wahdat-Hagh told the Jerusalem Post that the Islamic Republic's terrorist operations are directed from their embassies. "He [the suspect] had contact to Iran's Embassy – and was clearly a part of the Iranian terrorist cell that was led by the Islamic Republic's embassy in Berlin," Wahdat-Hagh said.

However, not all news reports confirm the plot. The German Federal Prosecutor's Office told the Jerusalem Post that the businessman was not subject to an arrest warrant and that there are no "indications that in Germany an attack against US American installations was planned or will be planned."

Relations between Germany and Iran have recently deteriorated. Nuclear negotiations with Iran are at a deadlock and the recent attack by Iranian protesters on Britain's embassy prompted the recall of several European Union ambassadors, including Germany's.

Muslim Brotherhood Will Not Moderate

The Jerusalem Post's Khaled Abu Toameh takes issue with the Obama administration's engagement with the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood [MB] in a new opinion piece for the Hudson Institute, arguing that the group is, and always will be extremist. Toameh's statements echo fears expressed by moderate Egyptians, who are trying to organize against an Islamist takeover.

"If anyone thinks that the Muslim Brotherhood will abandon jihad and extremism once its members come to power, they are living in an illusion," Toameh argues. "The Muslim Brotherhood and its allies will do everything to hide their true intentions from Western governments and people. But once they come to power, they reveal their true colors."

As evidence, Toameh points to the rhetoric and ideology of the movement. The MB has not changed its motto, which preaches "Jihad is our way and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations." Recent statements at the group's events, like at "The Friday of Supporting Al-Aqsa Mosque" rally, illustrate the group's consistently anti-Semitic and anti-Western rhetoric.

Secular Egyptians share the same worries. "Many Egyptians share our concerns about the prospect of an Islamist government," said Naguib Abadir, the executive director of the secular Free Egyptian Party, Canada's The Globe and Mail. "We expect large numbers of such people to come forward and support us."

Political organization isn't the only response to Islamist electoral gains. According to the Canadian paper, many Egyptian Christians and secularists "are quietly discussing what they call 'Plan B,' an exit strategy – first for their money, then for their family." International Christian groups are also pushing the American president for a change of policy, one that they hope will protect vulnerable religious minorities in Egypt.

Europeans React Strongly to Iran's UK Embassy Attack

Britain is expelling Iran's diplomatic representation from London and has shut its embassy in Tehran on Wednesday, following the invasion and looting of the embassy by Iranian protesters. The measures are the latest break in relations between the United Kingdom and Iran, and could be the beginning of additional isolation of Iran by other Western countries.

"We wish to make absolutely clear to Iran and to any other nation that such action against our embassies is a flagrant breach of international responsibilities and is totally unacceptable to the United Kingdom," British foreign secretary William Hague told Parliament. However, he also claimed the move does not amount to the severing of relations entirely, and Britain will still conduct negotiations with Iran about nuclear issues and human rights through international channels.

Other European nations are advocating further Iranian sanctions and diplomatic punishments. "France is advocating sanctions on a scale that would paralyze the regime: freezing of central bank assets and an embargo on hydrocarbon (oil) exports," said the French foreign minister Alan Juppe. France, Germany, and the Netherlands have recalled their ambassadors, and Italy has threatened similar measures.

Iran has countered the moves with propaganda of its own. Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani attacked Britain and defended the looting of their embassy, saying that the move reflected popular hatred of the United Kingdom. Even before the attack, Iran had approved a downgrading of relations with Britain over ongoing conflict about its nuclear program.

Syrian Christians Fear a Future without Assad

Seeing Islamists rise to power in the wake of Arab Spring revolutions throughout the Middle East and Africa, the Christians in Syria have chosen to back their beleaguered president, Bashar al-Assad. For them, Assad's despotic rule may be preferable to the potential persecution in an Islamist takeover.

Playing on their fears, Germany's Der Spiegel reports, Assad was quick to secure the support of Syria's 2.5 million Christians, calling their leaders to the presidential palace in Damascus only days after the anti-government protests began in March. He reportedly warned them that their fate would be uncertain should he no longer be there to protect the rights of religious minorities.

Assad has always permitted Christians to practice their faith in peace and has protected their churches. He also considered Christians for senior positions within important government institutions that are not assigned to those within Assad's own Alawi group.

Syrian Christians seem to be aware of what they stand to lose if Assad falls, especially after seeing how Islamists targeted Coptic Christians and their property in Egypt after the ouster of President Hosni Mubarak.

"President Assad is a very cultured man," Gregorios Elias Tabé, 70, the Syrian Catholic archbishop of Damascus, told Der Spiegel. "We're a nation of 23 million and no law can ever satisfy everyone. That's true in every country -- there are always 10 percent who are sacrificed."

In further defense of Assad's regime, Tabé has called the media liars and the Syrian protesters terrorists.

Christian villages have also refrained from participating in the protests and have remained largely silent or outwardly supportive of Assad's regime.

Outside these villages, thousands of opposition members are still taking to the streets calling for Assad's removal, even though Assad's regime has killed more than 3,500 people trying to quell the protests and has allegedly engaged in torture, executions of unarmed civilians, and mass executions of army deserters.

A few hundred Christians are among the remaining protesters. They are mostly students who are getting support from Christian opposition groups in exile in countries like the United States and Britain. These Christians have partnered with the Syrian National Council, the most prominent opposition group, and are hoping to pressure the West into a military intervention.

MPAC Proud to Host Radical Tunisian Leader

A radical Tunisian Islamist leader, denied an entry visa into the United States during the 1990s, is scheduled to make two appearances on Capitol Hill Tuesday.

Rachid Ghannouchi, leader of Tunisia's Ennahda Party, will attend a forum on the Arab Spring at the Cannon Office Building, an announcement from the event's sponsor, the Muslim Public Affairs Council's (MPAC) said. He'll also attend a special dinner Tuesday evening.

Ghannouchi's Ennahda Party recently won the majority in the first free parliamentary elections since the ouster of Tunisia's longtime ruler, Zine El Abidine Ben Ali. Though hailed as a pro-democratic and moderate party by several media outlets and political figures, Ennahda, and its leader, have provided ample evidence to the contrary.

In a May interview with the Al Arab Qatari website, for example, Ghannouchi called for the destruction of Israel and expressed optimism that the Jewish state would disappear in the very near future.

The Arab Spring "will achieve positive results on the path to the Palestinian cause and threaten the extinction of Israel," Ghannouchi said. "I give you the good news that the Arab region will get rid of the bacillus of Israel. Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, the leader of Hamas, said that Israel will disappear by the year 2027. I say that this date may be too far away, and Israel may disappear before this."

Ghannouchi has also blessed the mothers of Palestinian suicide bombers, defended rocket attacks carried out by Hamas against Israeli civilians and "martyrdom operations," and called for Muslims to fund and provide logistical support for Hamas.

Similar sentiments prompted the U.S. State Department to deny Ghannouchi a visa in 1994, when he was invited to speak to audiences in America, including a forum in Tampa organized by a think-tank run by Sami Al-Arian, who was a member of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad's governing board. The State Department did not immediately return a call seeking comment.

MPAC's promotion of the event lauded Ghannouchi as "One of the most important figures in modern Islamic political thought and theory."

"Confirmed! MPAC hosting Rachid Ghannouchi on Tuesday evening for a forum on Islam, Democracy and the Arab Spring in Washington DC!," boasted Haris Tarin, director of MPAC's Washington DC office, on his Facebook page. "Ghannouchi is an [sic] modern intellectual giant on Islam and governance. BIG TIME! If you are in DC and want to come, hit me up!"

Ennahda's platform declares "the need to challenge the Zionist colonial attack" and refers to Israel as an "alien entity planted in the heart of the homeland, which constitutes an obstacle to unity and reflects the image of the conflict between our civilization and its enemies."

MPAC is certainly no stranger to controversy and has made countless radical statements of its own. Its embrace of Ghannouchi, whose party is predicting the rise of the 6^th Caliphate, further calls into question the wisdom of government partnerships which legitimize MPAC as mainstream.

Pakistani Parties Want New Jihad

Leaders of two Islamist parties in Pakistan called for a jihad against the Pakistani government if it did not stand by demands for the United States to vacate the country, India's Zee News reports. Leaders of Jamaat-ud-Dawah [JuD] and Jamaat-e-Islami [JeI] also called America an enemy of the country and demanded a military response to Saturday's air raid that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers.

President Obama called the bombing "a tragedy" and officials promised to investigate what happened.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani responded to the NATO attack by calling it a "grave infringement of Pakistan's sovereignty," and temporarily cut supply routes from the country into Afghanistan. He also demanded that American forces vacate Shamsi Air Force Base in southwestern Pakistan. The steps have drastically raised American-Pakistani tensions, which were already high over the nation's sheltering of militants including Osama bin Laden.

But the leaders of JuD and JeI are calling for harsher steps.

During a rally for its student wing, JuD leader Maulana Abdul Rauf Farooqi pledged a new jihad against the government if it did not evict American forces. The organization would hold a meeting of the Defense of Pakistan Council on Dec. 18 to declare "jihad is the only solution" for all types of American "terrorism." Another senior JuD leader, Ameer Hamza, called for all U.S. citizens to be kicked out of the country.

JeI Secretary General Liaqat Baloch called for the Pakistani government to follow through with anti-American resolutions. He encouraged Pakistanis to unite under JeI's "Go America Go" campaign, which called for the expulsion of NATO from the region and an end of Pakistani cooperation with American counterterrorism efforts. The head of JeI's Punjab chapter, Syed Waseem Akhtar, demanded a military response to American "aggression."

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