Breaking News: Iran-tied Assassination, Bombing Plot Disrupted

Two men have been charged in what law enforcement officials say was a bombing plot in the United States approved by senior members Iran's Revolutionary Guard Quds Force.

The plot targeted the Saudi ambassador to the United States for assassination and may have included other targets including the Israeli embassy, ABC News reports.

During a news conference Tuesday afternoon, Manhattan U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara called the plot's details chilling, saying the suspects didn't care that they could kill dozens of civilians along with their targets.

The principle conspirator, 56-year-old naturalized American citizen Manssor Arbabsiar, repeatedly discussed the plot with what turned out to be a Drug Enforcement Agency informant. In conversations with the informant, who posed as a Mexican drug cartel representative, Arbabsiar mentioned bombing a restaurant where Ambassador Adel Al-Jubeir often eats. He also discussed attacking the Saudi embassy.

The informant claimed to be tied to a cartel which "has engaged in numerous acts of violence, including assassinations and murders," a criminal complaint said.

Arbabsiar and Quds Force member Gholam Shakuri are charged with conspiracies to murder a foreign official; to use a weapon of mass destruction; and to commit an act of international terrorism. Four men and $1.5 million were needed to carry out the plot, the informant claimed. Arbabsiar arranged for $100,000 to be wired to an account in New York in August and said the balance would be paid after the Al-Jubeir was killed.

Arbabsiar made it clear he didn't care how the ambassador died, or how many innocent people died with him. "They want that guy done, if the hundred go with him, f*** 'em," he allegedly said. When the informant said he could use a bomb or shoot the ambassador, Arbabsiar said "it doesn't matter … whatever is easy for" you.

Arbabsiar was arrested Thursday at New York's John F. Kennedy airport, but Shakuri, a Quds force member, is at large. Arbabsiar allegedly confessed to law enforcement agents after his arrest, saying "he was recruited, funded and directed by men he understood to be senior officials in Iran's Qods Force. He allegedly said these Iranian officials were aware of and approved of the use of [the informant] in connection with the plot; as well as payments to [the informant]; the means by which the Ambassador would be killed in the United States and the casualties that would likely result."

Arbabsiar's cousin allegedly is a senior Quds Force official, the complaint said.

UK Intelligence: Suicide Bombers Await London Olympics

British intelligence officials say there could be 200 potential suicide bombers in the country, many waiting to strike during the 2012 Olympic Games in London.

Senior intelligence officials called the figure a "conservative estimate" and that the network behind them could involve up to 2,000 active Britain-based Islamist extremists.

Train stations or public events are the most likely targets, the Telegraph reported, rather than Olympic venues where high security measures will make it more threaten the success of their operations.

Earlier this year, classified documents disclosed by Wikileaks predicted an increase of suicide bombers by British-based Islamists who had recently received training in terrorist camps located in Pakistan, the Telegraph reported.

The information is believed to stem from a report on the enduring terrorist threat despite the death of al-Qaida leaders including Osama bin Laden. Officials are actively investigating suicide bomb plots, as seen in recent charges against six men from Birmingham.

Some plotters may be stopped by either a 'chance encounter' or by an intelligence-led investigation," an unnamed intelligence officer said. He added "that if a terrorist cell was properly organized and secure there was very little the authorities could do to prevent an attack."

Meanwhile, recent budget cuts may enable terrorists to more easily evade detection and actively plot attacks. In addition, "up to 70 jailed terrorists being freed this year may not be monitored properly due to cuts in services," the UK-based Sun reported.

"These men required maximum supervision and we won't be able to do it," said Harry Fletcher, of the National Association of Probation Officers.

The potential bombers live freely, the Telegraph reported, actively planning attacks.

The report comes as Syria's grand mufti threatened a wave of suicide bombings in Europe and the United States should Western governments attack Bashar al-Assad's dictatorship. Syrian Grand Mufti Ahmad Badreddine Hassoun, a staunch Assad supporter, made the threats Sunday night in a speech translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).

"I say to all of Europe, and to the U.S.: We will prepare martyrdom-seekers who are already among you, if you bomb Syria or Lebanon," Hassoun said.

Palestinians Pursue Backdoor Statehood Strategy

With a bid for full recognition of statehood still sitting in the United Nations Security Council (UNSC), the UN's Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) gave its initial approval to recognize Palestine as a member state. The move is an attempt to bypass a UNSC veto of Palestinian statehood by the United States, but will also result in an end in American aid to UNESCO.

Against the will of the United States and several European countries, UNESCO's 58-nation executive board approved recognition of Palestine as a full-fledged member of the group. The recognition also automatically grants acknowledgment of a Palestinian state, as a necessary criterion for membership in UNESCO. In effect, Wednesday's move would mean that Palestine would be deemed a state in some of the UN's affiliate organizations, without any formal recognition by the UN's governing body.

If UNESCO's full membership approves the Palestinian bid, the body's stance will be in direct contravention of American law. Existing legislation mandates a cutoff of money to any UN agency that grants "full membership as a state to any organization or group that does not have the internationally recognized attributes of statehood."

Currently, the United States provides 22% of UNESCO's funding.

"Membership would allow Palestinian officials to seek the protection of Palestinian historical sites by the cultural organization," which "would create further conflict with Israel," The New York Times reports. "For instance, some of those sites are in east Jerusalem, which Israel has annexed."

"We hope and pray that the Unesco authorities will realize — and the Palestinians will realize — that there is a very high price to be paid, in American participation in Unesco," said Nimrod Barkan, the Israeli ambassador.

Turkish PM Brands Israel Regional Threat

Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan called Israel a "regional threat" to the Middle East and accused it of having engaged in "state terrorism" during a foreign policy speech in South Africa Wednesday.

Erdogan also took on the topic of civilian casualties, charging that the Jewish state had killed "tens of thousands" of Palestinians in Gaza, while discounting the number of Israeli civilians maimed and killed by rockets fired from Gaza.

"I right now see Israel as a threat for its region, because it has the atomic bomb," Erdogan said in Wednesday's speech. His latest comments follow months of rebuking the West for supporting Israeli nuclear ambiguity, while demanding Iran relinquish weapons.

The Turkish PM has led his country's growing condemnation of, and distancing from, its former ally. Last month, he called for UN sanctions on Israel during an interview with Time Magazine, and he accused the Jewish state of manipulating the Holocaust for public sympathy during an interview with CNN.

Unregistered Pakistani Agent's Web of Deceit

A man accused of being an agent for the Pakistani government told federal interrogators that he did take money from Pakistan's notorious Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI), a new report finds.

Ghulam Nabi Fai is on house arrest, charged with failing to register as a foreign agent. A new report by ProPublica.org traces Fai's rise as a leading proponent of the disputed Kashmir province, as well as his web of connections that linked to Saudi funding, Pakistani intelligence, and several American Islamic organizations.

After his arrest, Fai told FBI agent Sarah Webb Linden that he had been affiliated with the ISI for 15 years, the story said, pointing to court transcripts. Fai claimed that no one on the board of his Kashmiri American Council (KAC) knew about the ISI connection. Fai also "agreed that the ISI directs him, Mr. Fai, to go to certain conferences and to report on certain people, including some that were mentioned in the criminal complaint," Assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg said during a bond hearing,

ProPublica's report connects Fai to South Asian extremist organization Jamaat-e-Islami, the imam in charge of Saudi Arabia's most important mosque and holy site, the Ka'aba, Saudi Arabia's King Faisal Foundation and Muslim Brotherhood activists in the United States.

Fai served as president of Muslim Students Association (MSA) chapter while studying at Temple University. Correspondence showed that Fai had already started to work for the ISI while still a student, the FBI revealed in an affidavit.

After earning his doctorate in 1988, Fai became a member of the advisory council for the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), an umbrella Islamic umbrella group started by Brotherhood members. The ISI then tapped to run the new Kashmiri American Council (KAC) in 1989 to try to influence American politicians on policy toward Kashmir.

Fai was joined by Rafia Syeed, the wife of ISNA founder Sayyid Syeed, and Pakistani accomplice Zaheer Ahmed in creating KAC in April 1990. KAC secured a $20,000 loan from the ISNA-controlled North American Islamic Trust to help get started, ProPublica reported.

Fai spent the next two decades becoming a D.C. power player who hobnobbed with President Clinton, Republican Senator Dan Burton, and scores of other national and international politicians. The complaint against him alleges that he used straw donors who passed along contributions from the ISI.

Officials warned him to register as a foreign agent of Pakistan in March 2010. That June, Fai was pulled over by New York police with $35,000 in cash in his car, and officials doubted his story. FBI agents probed deeper into plans to use ISI money to buy political support for Pakistan's view on Kashmir. Fai denied connections to Pakistani intelligence in interviews with law enforcement.

His lawyers claim that even if he received IS money, Fai called the shots for the KAC. Read the full ProPublica report here.

Reps Place Hold on Palestinian Authority Aid

Arab League officials are promising to provide $200 million to the Palestinian Authority (PA) if a congressional hold on similar U.S. funding continues.

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, R-Fla., placed a hold on the transfer of $200 million in aid to the PA in response to the Palestinian bid for statehood at the United Nations. Reports indicate similar action was taken to freeze the aid by two other committees since August.

A bipartisan congressional group made clear during a September hearing that a bid for U.N. recognition would lead to severe consequences for the PA.

"Congress will not sit idly by. The U.S. will likely reconsider its assistance program for the PA and other aspects of U.S.-Palestinian relations should the Palestinians choose to move forward in requesting a vote on statehood," House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, R-Va., and Minority Whip Steny Hoyer, D-Md., wrote in the New York Daily News last month.

Palestinian and Arab leaders strongly criticized the freeze. Ghassan Khatib, chief spokesman for the PA, called the move a "collective punishment" on the Palestinian people.

"The Arabs will assist the Palestinian Authority," Arab League head Nabil al-Arabi said Sunday. This will be the strongest answer (to the U.S. threat)." And Nimer Hammad, a top adviser to President Mahmoud Abbas, said that if U.S. financial aid to the Palestinians was conditioned on recognizing Israel as a Jewish state, "we won't do so at all."

Abbas, also known as Abu Mazen, formally requested Palestinian membership during a speech at the U.N. on September 23^rd. Ros-Lehtinen called Abbas' speech a move away from peace.

"Abu Mazen could have used his speech to grasp Israel's outstretched hand," she said. "Instead, he chose to double down on Ramallah's cynical, anti-Israel, anti-peace course. It was very telling that Abu Mazen demonized Israel in vicious terms and described the events of Israel's creation in 1948 as a 'catastrophe.' And when he condemned 'terrorism,' he specifically referenced Israeli behavior, while saying not one word about Hamas or Palestinian attacks against Israeli civilians."

The U.N. Security Council is reviewing the bid. The Obama administration has promised to veto the move but opposes the freeze of PA funds.

Norquist's Cynical Response to Criticism

Political powerbroker Grover Norquist offers a compelling example of hiding behind false cries of racism in deflecting criticism this week. U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., made the unusual step of calling out Norquist during remarks Tuesday on the House floor.

The broader issue was the no-new-taxes pledge Norquist's Americans for Tax Reform (ATR) promotes that has been signed by a majority of Republican lawmakers. That pledge, Wolf argued, helps keep the government "shackled in ideological gridlock" rather than seeking long term debt solutions.

In criticizing his foe, Wolf invoked a series of relationships Norquist had with Muslim political activists shown to be involved in terrorist support. Among them, Palestinian Islamic Jihad board member Sami Al-Arian and Abdurrahman Alamoudi, once the nation's most influential Muslim political figure, Alamoudi pleaded guilty in 2004 to illegal dealings with Libya and aiding a plot to assassinate then-Saudi Crown Prince Abdullah.

Norquist "served as a key facilitator" helping grant Alamoudi and Al-Arian access to the White House, Wolf said. These are specific references supported by a court record. But that didn't stop Norquist from crying bigotry.

"Some staffer of his went onto the racist websites, you know, dug up stuff from ten years ago," he told Yahoo News. "I'm married to a woman who's Muslim, and it's sad and it's disgusting. It reflects poorly on him. I think given his district, he's going to spend a lot of time apologizing for getting into the gutter and anti-Arab and anti-Muslim bigotry. I suppose this staffer who got this stuff off websites did as much chucking as the idiots who put it forward."

Here are Wolf's full prepared remarks. Before allowing Norquist to make accusations of anti-Muslim bigotry, he should be challenged to provide specifics. Wolf's remarks contain no blanket smear on anyone. Any reference to Islam or Muslims is tied to an organization's name, e.g. Alamoudi's American Muslim Council or Norquist's Islamic Free Market Institute.

In addition, Wolf criticized Norquist for is relationship with convicted Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff, an observant Jew. Abramoff "essentially laundered money through ATR and Mr. Norquist knew it," Wolf said.

These relationships are relevant, Wolf said, because "the appearances of impropriety are raised over and over again with a person who has such influence over public policy. That, I believe, should give any fair-minded person pause."

You can see Wolf's floor statement here.

Courtroom Antics in Two Radical Islamist Trials

Defendants in two terrorism trials which started this week disrupted proceedings with empty gestures of defiance.

In Minneapolis, one of two women charged with raising money for the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab refused to stand for the presiding judge. Regardless of how her trial ends, Amina Farah Ali will serve 50 days in jail for contempt.

Ali and co-defendant Hawo Mohamed Hassan allegedly went door- to- door in Somali communities in Rochester, Minn. and elsewhere soliciting money for refugees. But, prosecutors say, the donations were routed instead to support "the jihad."

Ali told the court her religious views led her to believe standing as the judge entered the courtroom was wrong.

"I was told that there's a freedom of religion in this country," she said. "I don't think I should be punished or inconvenienced in any way for practicing my religion."

Meanwhile in Detroit, the man accused of trying to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner with explosives sewn into his underwear on Christmas Day 2009, hailed slain al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki and called America a "cancer" Tuesday.

"Anwar is alive," Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab said before jury selection began. He also said that "the mujahideen [holy warriors] will wipe out the U.S. — the cancer U.S."

He is acting as his own attorney in the case.

U.S. Diplomat Confirms Direct Talks with Egypt's Brotherhood

American officials have met with members of Egypt's long-banned Muslim Brotherhood, an unnamed senior U.S. diplomat told Reuters.

The official did not specify when the meetings took place, but noted that there has been no formal distinction between members of the Brotherhood or its affiliated political arm, the Freedom and Justice Party (FJP), whose formation was first announced in February.

"We have had direct contacts with senior officials of the Freedom and Justice party," the American diplomat said, adding that the administration does not "have a policy that makes a distinction [between the Brotherhood and the FJP], that one or the other is off limits."

The latest talks involved "high-level" party members, the official said, in contrast to earlier contacts, which were mostly with Brotherhood-affiliated parliamentarians running as "independents."

It's pointless to try making distinction between the Brotherhood and its political arm: the senior leaders of the FJP were plucked directly from the Brotherhood's Executive Bureau after the FJP was formed, and the Brotherhood has shown time and time again that one cannot be a Muslim Brother without supporting the FJP and its political line.

This weekend's acknowledgment runs counter to earlier claims by senior Brotherhood leaders that the group had not met with American officials after the widely publicized June announcement that the United States would resume a policy of limited contacts with the Islamist group.

"It was not immediately clear why the two sides gave different accounts," Reuters noted.

"From our perspective it is important to be in touch with all of the emerging political forces here in Egypt, across the board, that are peaceful and committed to non-violence," the diplomat answered when asked why the United States is engaging with the long-banned party that has already begun to set its sights on an Islamic state in Egypt.

Peaceful and committed to non-violence? They must be talking about a different group.

New Jihadi Book Permits Murdering Civilians

Jihadi forum Ansar al-Mujahideen recently published a new e-book, The Just Scale – On the Permissibility of Killing the Infidels' Children and Women, according to the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). Each of its eight chapters presents alleged proof from the Quran and Islam's legal tradition, in an attempt to refute mainstream arguments against killing certain types of civilians.

"When the infidels, the enemies of the faith, [began] to harm the Muslims and rushed to [perpetrate] evil and tyranny, violate taboos, and kill women and children, to the extent that things could not get any worse... a band of believers stood up to end this hostility and pay [the infidels] back for it many times over, with justice and fairness..." claims Sheikh Abu Al-Hassan Al-Azdi in the introduction. Muslim warriors today still are commanded to act in this fashion, the author goes on to say.

Although al-Qaida has already murdered tens of thousands of Iraqis and other Muslim civilians, the book is meant to strengthen the weak theological argument for such attacks. Al-Qaida currently justifies its attacks as the necessary elimination of apostates and heretics, or denies collateral damage to civilians.

Murdering women and children has also been a prevalent part of terror campaigns by nationalist terrorist groups, particularly Palestinian groups. Hamas and clerics supporting Palestinian suicide bombing argue that Israelis are not really civilians, because the vast majority serve in Israel's army.

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