'Hacktivists' Set Sights on Muslim Brotherhood

The group responsible for attacks on Amazon, MasterCard, Paypal, and the Spanish Police has announced its intention to launch a crippling cyber-strike against Egypt's main Islamist movement.

On Monday, Anonymous—a decentralized international hacking group— posted a video on YouTube warning that on Friday, the group's members would band together to launch a coordinated distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on the Muslim Brotherhood's main Arabic site, IkhwanOnline.

According to the video, the operation, billed "Operation Brotherhood Takedown," aimed to crash the group's servers because the Brotherhood's "blatant, corrupt ways" have made it a "threat to the people" and "a threat to the revolution Egyptians had fought for, some with their lives."

Brotherhood-affiliated candidates are expected to fare well in upcoming Egyptian elections, with control over parliament considered likely.

It is unclear whether the Anonymous threat will succeed—or even materialize. While the headless "hacktivist" group has seen a number of successful intrusions attributed to it, it has also seen its fair share of glaring failures, including a planned attack on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) that never came to be.

At this point, it appears that IkhwanOnline is the only Operation Brotherhood Takedown target, although the scope may later expand. The site is but one of the many owned and operated by the media-savvy Egyptian Brotherhood—a fact readily admitted by the group itself.

And the group sounds ready to defend its cyber-interests, staying true to the Arabic script on its official logo, which simply reads "Prepare."

"The MB technical teams and engineers will deal with the message of 'Anonymous' as a serious threat, and will take necessary measures to secure its websites," Ikhwan Portal (a branch of the Brotherhood's media arm) CEO Khaled Hamza said in a statement responding to the threat.

"Appropriate legal actions will be taken against these perpetrators if they proceed with their threat," he added.

Al-Qaida Claims it Acquired Libyan Weapons

Al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghrib [AQIM], the terrorist group's North African franchise, obtained weapons from the cache of deposed Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, according to Agence France Presse. A statement by AQIM leader Mokhtar Belmokhtar reinforced concerns about lost Libyan arms ending up in jihadi hands, and underlined questions about the Islamist wing of the Libyan revolution.

"We [al-Qaida] have been one of the main beneficiaries of the revolutions in the Arab world," Belmokhtar told Mauritanian news agency ANI. "As for our acquisition of Libyan armament, that is an absolutely natural thing."

AQIM is believed to have acquired surface-to-air missiles, which could pose a serious threat to air traffic in the region, AFP reported.

The statement follows a February report from now-defunct Libyan newspaper Oea, which was cited in jihadi forums, about a group of al-Qaida-style militants acquiring the government's weapons. Other reports indicate that Hamas acquired some of the loose armaments, including surface-to-air missiles.

Belmokhtar also said that Libyan rebels, who have now conquered the country and killed Dictator Muammar Gaddafi, were from a similar ideological background as AQIM. "We did not fight, alongside them [Libyan rebels] in the field against the Gadhafi forces," he added. "But young Islamists, jihadis ... were the ones spearheading the revolution in Libya."

This Islamist bent of the Libyan rebels has been noted repeatedly on jihadi forums, and independent observers report that an al-Qaida flag is hanging from the revolution's starting point in Benghazi.

Iran Accuses America of "Iranophobia"

Islamists have spent years casting any criticism of radical Islam as inherently bigoted, dismissing it with a pejorative label of "Islamophobia."

Now Iran's political and military leaders are using a similar strategy to fend off heightened scrutiny of their nuclear ambitions and other diplomatic crises facing the Islamic Republic. These are products of an "Iranophobia" project to control their country, government officials claim.

Leftist Israeli scholar Haggai Ram coined the phrase in 2009, for his book Iranophobia: The Logic of an Israeli Obsession. Ram argued that Israel used anti-Iranian fear to avoid dealing with domestic anxieties and to create an external enemy to match the West's war on terror. The term only came into vogue with Iranian officials in the past month, however, and was then recast as a way to reflect any legitimate criticism of Iranian government actions.

"Iranophobia" was used to malign American accusations about an Iranian plot to assassinate the Saudi ambassador in Washington and to bomb the Saudi and Israeli embassies there. "The US drive to promote Islamophobia and Iranophobia is the root cause of its accusation against Iran regarding the alleged terrorist plot on the US soil," said senior political figure Mehdi Mahdizadeh told Fars New Agency.

Iranian news agencies and politicians then picked up on the term, as the Supreme Leader and other political heavyweights adopted it into common usage. "The repeat of ineffective and stupid methods by hapless and distracted policymakers in the West (to spread) Iranophobia will again bear no result," Iranian Ayatollah Ali Khamenei told the nation's army on Oct. 13.

News site like Iranian.com and Press TV then used the term to describe an elaborate Western conspiracy, termed the Iranophobia Project, to control the Islamic world and maintain troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. There were even calls for America to apologize for promoting a phobia of all things Iranian, which the United States dismissed as a "rant."

"Iranophobia" has become the go-to response to other Western accusations for which the Islamic Republic has no answer. Concern over Iranian nuclear ambitions is a form of "Iranophobia," and the "irrational fear" of Iran is being used as an excuse for new Iranian military deployments

Palestinians to Build Homes for Released Prisoners

Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas has announced plans to build homes for prisoners released in the Gilad Schalit exchange, including those with blood on their hands. The move is seen as part of the competition between Fatah and their political rivals Hamas, who have both used the exchange to shore up lagging popularity.

The initiative would be funded by the Palestinian Investment Fund, Abbas said. That's an independent investment company "which aims to strengthen the local economy through key strategic investments, while maximizing long-run returns for its ultimate shareholder; the people of Palestine." The announcement followed separate monetary pledges by Fatah and Hamas to the former prisoners.

Hamas, which secured the release of more than 1,000 prisoners in exchange for one kidnapped Israeli soldier, has capitalized on the issue to strengthen its reputation among Palestinians and Arabs abroad. Hamas political chief Khaled Meshaal called the exchange a "national achievement for the Palestinian people" and thanked the "Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank for their steadfastness against the Israeli siege." He also promoted the event as proof that the path of violence secures Palestinian gains, as compared to his rivals' use of diplomatic manipulation alongside incitement against Israel.

Many of the released terrorists have pledged to return to violence, heightening concerns among Israelis and America that the exchange was ill-conceived.

Attorney: U.S. Should Extradite, Prosecute Hamas Killers

An attorney who has represented American victims of Palestinian terrorism has a suggestion for some of those Hamas operatives recently released in exchange for the freedom of Israeli soldier Gilad Schalit: If the United States can apprehend them, prosecute those responsible for killing American citizens.

Some of those killers were sent to Jordan, which has an extradition treaty with the United States, writes Nathan Lewin Sunday in the New York Sun.

"No provision of any extradition treaty should preclude bringing these criminals to justice in the United States," Lewin argues. "The Jordan treaty bars extradition for 'political offenses,' but it would be hard to claim that the mass terrorist killings of civilians in Jerusalem and Haifa were only 'political offenses.' At the least, Jordan should be put to that test."

American casualties are fairly common in Hamas attacks, including the 2001 bombing of a Sbarro pizza restaurant in Jerusalem, the 2003 bombing of a bus in Haifa and the suicide bombing of a Jerusalem café that same year.

Terrorists responsible were serving life prison sentences after being convicted in Israeli courts.

U.S. laws dating back to the 1990s make it a crime to kill Americans outside the United States and to bomb Americans abroad.

Congress passed such legislation "to insure that those who murdered American citizens like Judy Greenbaum, Abigail Leitel, and the Applebaums [father David and daughter Nava] would not be able to avoid just punishment for their crimes," Lewin writes. "That goal can now be realized only if the United States Department of Justice takes prompt and effective action."

Hizballah's Aggressive War Plans

Hizballah continues to discuss battle plans for its next war with Israel, promising to take a much heavier toll on the Israeli people than the 2006 conflict in Lebanon. In recent weeks, Hizballah leader Hassan Nasrallah has held a series of meetings with the group's senior military commanders to prepare the group for a future war, which reportedly include plans to fire missiles at Tel Aviv, seize parts of the Galilee, and take Israelis hostage.

Hizballah forces say they are training to fire at least 10,000 missiles at Israeli maritime facilities, military installations and airfields and cities at the outset of the next war, said a new research paper from retired Israel Defense Force (IDF) Brig. Gen. Shimon Shapira, a senior research associate at the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (JCPA). It also will try to occupy the Galilee region – an operation Hizballah forces have been training for since February.

Hizballah's plan includes a fighting force comprised of five brigades which have been trained in Iran – each with 1,000 soldiers – who would be responsible for seizing a different area in the Galilee.

One brigade would occupy the coastal town of Nahariya, with part of the Hizballah force arriving by speedboat. Others would capture different sections of Northern Israel in order to take hostages, block travel from Acre to Safed, and drain IDF resources by forcing it to send reinforcements to dislodge enemy forces. Hizballah also hopes to use land mines to deter the Israeli military from targeting terrorist bases in the Bekaa Valley, a Syrian-dominated region in the eastern part of Lebanon, Shapira wrote.

It is unclear whether Syrian President Bashar al-Assad can help Hizballah's plans as he wages a brutal war against his own people to remain in power. A Lebanese newspaper that is sympathetic to Hizballah Oct. 27 that Assad and Nasrallah had met several days before in Damascus, Shapira wrote. The newspaper published a correction the following day, denying that the meeting had occurred, possibly a reaction to Assad's unpopularity in the Arab world.

Read Shapira's full paper here.

Islamists Seizing Control of 'Arab Spring'

While the Western media portrays the recent wave of Arab revolutions as victories for democracy, evidence mounts that the big winners could be Islamists affiliated with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Jerusalem Post correspondent Khaled Abu Toameh writes that in Syria, "What started as a secular Facebook revolution against the Assad regime is now beginning to look like a jihad [holy war] led by Muslim fundamentalists." In an op-ed published Friday by the Hudson Institute's New York affiliate, Abu Toameh points to signs that Islamists, many of them associated with the Brotherhood, are pushing aside secular democrats and coming to dominate the Syrian opposition.

Arab press reports say Islamists have been smuggling weapons into the country from neighboring Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon. Most of the weaponry has been obtained by fundamentalist Muslims who are now waging guerrilla war to overt against the dictatorship headed by President Bashar al-Assad.

As in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen, Syrian Islamists laid low at the start of that nation's uprising. As it became clear that the Syrian revolution might succeed, they began to play a more open role. Brotherhood members and "independent" Islamists hold 10 of the 19 seats on the general secretariat of the Syrian National Council, the country's main opposition group.

According to Abu Toameh, it is disturbing that Washington and many European governments have endorsed the Islamist- dominated opposition council. "For many Syrians, the only choice today is between a murderous secular regime led by Assad and Muslim fundamentalists seeking to turn their country into an Islamic state."

The Hudson Institute's Lee Smith writes that, like its predecessors in the George W. Bush administration, the Obama administration has sought reach out to Brotherhood supporters and other hostile Islamists rather than opposing them. President Obama, in particular, has sought to cultivate Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, "a demagogue who has patterned his career after the Middle East's most famous radical, Gamal Abdel Nasser" – the Egyptian dictator whose aggressive hostility toward Israel helped provoke two Middle Eastern wars.

Smith believes that in some ways, "moderate" Islamists like Erdogan could prove to be more dangerous than terror groups like al-Qaida. The latter are dependent on the support of rogue states to commit crimes. But "so-called moderate Islamist parties, on the other hand, win electoral contests that leave them in charge of Middle Eastern governments, security services and militaries with artillery, tanks, air forces and navies," Smith writes.

Read more about how radical Islam is benefiting from the Arab Spring here.

Israeli Navy Boards Gaza-Bound Ships

Israeli navy commandos boarded two ships heading toward Gaza on Friday after the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) informed the activists that they were heading toward a blockaded area.

The Canadian and Irish ships were part of a flotilla that left Turkey Wednesday to "challenge Israel's illegal blockade" of the Gaza Strip.

The boats were informed via radio Friday that they could turn around or head to a port in Egypt because they would be breaking a maritime security blockade in accordance with international law. "Goods can be unloaded at the Ashdod port and will be transferred into the Gaza Strip via the legal land crossings," and IDF spokesman said.

After activists refused to cooperate, IDF Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Benny Grantz ordered the navy to board the vessels. "The Israel Navy soldiers operated as planned, and took every precaution necessary to ensure the safety of the activists onboard the vessels as well as themselves," the IDF said in a statement Friday.

The vessels are being led to the Ashdod port. There, the passengers will be placed in the custody of Israeli Police and immigration authorities.

In a September report, the United Nations supported Israel's blockade on the Gaza Strip, imposed to block arms shipments to the Hamas government there, as legal. "The naval blockade was imposed as a legitimate security measure in order to prevent weapons from entering Gaza by sea and its implementation complied with the requirements of international law," the UN report said.

On Thursday, State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said "we are renewing our warning to U.S. citizens not involve themselves in this activity." She added that American citizens who support Hamas materially or with other resources could face civil and criminal penalties.

Despite repeated warnings from the United States against flotillas to Gaza this year, Huwaida Arraf of the Free Gaza Movement said Thursday that the group plans to continue sending ships to the region. "The name Freedom Waves indicates that we will keep coming, wave after wave, by air, sea, and land, to challenge Israel's illegal policies towards Gaza and all of Palestine. Our movement will not stop or be stopped until Palestine is free," Arraf said from Ramallah.

Hamas, AMP Slam Balfour Declaration

Judging from its reaction to the 94^th anniversary of the Balfour Declaration, Hamas probably isn't about to change its commitment to terrorism and the destruction of Israel anytime soon.

On Nov. 2, 1917, British Foreign Secretary Arthur James Lord Balfour announced that his government views "with favour the establishment in Palestine a national home for the Jewish People," laying the foundation for the creation of Israel more than 30 years later.

Hamas issued a statement Wednesday calling the Balfour Declaration "infamous" and "illegal," and declaring that Great Britain and other supporters of Israel are to blame for "racist and Zionist crimes." It cited Palestinian success in kidnapping Gilad Shalit and winning the release of imprisoned terrorists as proof that only "resistance" (terrorism) can "liberate Palestine and the stolen rights."

Similar statements bemoaning the Balfour Declaration were issued by Islamist groups.

"Everything thing (sic) that has befallen Palestine – It's (sic) partition, the settlements, random arrests and detentions, the Apartheid Wall, the siege on Gaza, and the millions of Palestinians living in exile…was made possible because of the Balfour Declaration," said American Muslims for Palestine, whose leaders include at least two men connected with the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development, a Hamas fundraising front.

The declaration "began the Zionists' process of ethnically cleansing … Palestinians from their homeland, which continues until today," AMP said.

Surprise Flotilla Leaves Turkey for Gaza

Two boats departed Turkey on Wednesday for the Gaza Strip in a surprise move to challenge the Israeli embargo on the Hamas-controlled region.

"Freedom Wave to Gaza" includes the Canadian ship Tahrir and the Irish ship Saoirse, two boats that planned to take part of the failed Freedom Flotilla 2 in July. The boats are currently in international waters and plan to reach the territorial waters of Gaza within a few days.

The two boats trying this time carry a total of 27 passengers including activists and journalists from the United States, Canada, Ireland, Australia, Germany and other countries. Activists have been preparing for the flotilla for months without drawing media attention. The group declared that their stated destination was a port in northern Cyprus in order to avoid putting Turkey "in a spot," according to one activist.

"The Palestinians living in Gaza want solidarity not charity, and have made it clear to the world that their primary demand is for freedom. While humanitarian aid is helpful, Gazans are still prisoners with no freedom of movement," one of the Canadian organizers said in a statement today.

The Israeli navy said it is monitoring the vessels and it will offer the ships to dock and unload at the Israeli port of Ashdod or an Egyptian port. "In any case, we will not let them reach Gaza. The naval blockade is legal and was even recently approved by the Palmer committee. This is an incident that is intended mainly to draw media attention," a senior defense official said Wednesday.

The May, 2010 Freedom Flotilla drew international media attention when leaders of the IHH-owned Mavi Marmara ship launched a premeditated attack on Israeli commandos. Following repeated warnings, Israeli commandos boarded the Mavi Marmara and were immediately attacked by activists wielding knives, axes, clubs hammers and other weapons. The encounter claimed the lives of nine passengers.

An Israeli source said "We're not aware of any IHH presence" on the ships.

Canadian Immigration Minister Jason Kenney said Wednesday "We don't think that this kind of provocative approach is at all helpful," and "It doesn't serve anyone's interests." The July flotilla attempt that was blocked from sailing to the Gaza Strip from Greece was condemned by the United Nations, the European Union, the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC) and at least five countries, including the United States.

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