Eilat Terrorists Linked to Hamas, Global Jihad

The group responsible for last week's coordinated terrorist attacks in Southern Israel is an alliance of three groups, two operating under the aegis of Hamas, and one with ties to global jihadists, a new report by the Meir Amit Intelligence and Terrorism Information Center (ITIC) finds.

The Aug. 18 attack near Eilat, which killed eight people and wounded 30, was carried out by the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC). Israel responded by bombing a house in the Gaza town of Rafah, killing five PRC terrorists, including Kamal al-Nairab, head of a PRC faction that collaborates with Hamas and was involved in the June 2006 kidnapping of Israeli Defense Force soldier Gilad Shalit.

"Those who gave the order to murder our citizens, while hiding in Gaza, are no longer among the living," said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

Gaza-based terror organizations then fired almost 160 rockets, with 120 landing in Israel through Monday. The PRC claimed responsibility for attacks on Beersheba and other cities in southern Israel. Although the group joined Hamas on Monday in accepting a ceasefire, rocket fire into Israeli territory continued.

A branch of the PRC, the Army of Islam, is affiliated with global jihad, the ITIC report says. That organization participated in the Shalit abduction in collaboration with Hamas and has also been responsible for the killings of dozens of Palestinians in Gaza in recent years.

In the wake of Israel's launching of Operation Cast Lead in December 2008, Hamas and the PRC stepped up efforts to have terrorists infiltrate into Israel through the Sinai to reduce the likelihood of Israeli retaliation. Army of Islam operatives were captured in 2009 trying to sneak into Israel through Gaza in order to detonate bombs and kidnap Israeli soldiers, the ITIC report says. In 2010, an IAF airstrike in Gaza foiled an Army of Islam plot to abduct Israelis vacationing in the Sinai.

American counterterrorism officials are investigating whether a new al-Qaida-linked group based in the Sinai may have helped the PRC carry out Eilat attack. The officials told the Washington Times they are investigating whether Salafi-extremists in the Sinai who want to link themselves to al-Qaida may have been behind the attack.

Read more here and here.

Sultan Calls for Killing Zionists

An Egyptian radical with strong ties to American Islamic organizations called for the murder of Zionists in response to the unintentional killing of Egyptian soldiers along Israeli's border. Salah Sultan's comments, reported by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), took place at a Muslim Brotherhood-sponsored rally against the Jewish state.

During an August 19^th rally outside Cairo's Israeli embassy, Sultan told attendees that "any Egyptian meeting a Zionist on Egyptian soil is entitled to kill him, just like Israel killed the Camp David Accords," MEMRI reported. Rally attendees chanted slogans like "Jihad, jihad … open the door to Jihad," and "Give us weapons, give us gunpowder, and we will finish the Jews."

This wasn't Sultan's first time publically inciting violence against Jews. He also was active with islamonline.net, a website linked to Muslim Brotherhood spiritual advisor Yusuf al-Qaradawi. During a question and answer session in September 2005, he spoke about the "role of Jews in sowing anxiety among Muslims."

Although Sultan is currently based out of Cairo, where he works as a shariah lecturer at Cairo University, he has extensive connections in the United States. He was a longtime member of the Fiqh Council of North America, serving as president and trustee from the years 1999-2004, as well as the former head of the Islamic American University. He also spent time in Columbus, Ohio, as scholar in residence at the Islamic Society of Columbus. He continued to work with the Fiqh Council even after MEMRI reported a blood libel he made against Jews as well as other anti-Semitic and anti-American comments.

Sultan has also attacked American counterterrorism efforts, including those linked to al-Qaida designations. In 2006, MEMRI reported that Sultan had ridiculed the United States' designation of Yemeni cleric Abd-al-Majid Al-Zindani, despite his "long history of working with Osama bin Laden… serving as one of his spiritual leaders… and actively recruiting for al-Qaida training camps."

Israeli-Turkish Ties Further Strained

A United Nations report scheduled to be published this week on the May, 2010 flotilla fiasco between Israeli commandos and violent demonstrators in the Mediterranean Sea has been delayed for a third time.

The UN's Palmer Report is an inquiry into the events surrounding the Israeli raid of the Turkish-IHH sponsored Mavi Marmara ship during last year's flotilla to Gaza, which lead to the death of nine activists.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon told Israeli officials Sunday that he was postponing the publication of the report to give Israel and Turkey time to reach an agreement in order to prevent the need to release it. According to Israeli officials, Turkey requested the delay.

Turkey is demanding that Israel issue a formal apology over those killed in the raid. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Sunday that if Israel does not issue a formal apology, he will consider moving to a "Plan B" which will lead to a downgrade in diplomatic relations between the two countries. "Plan B" would also include an anti-Israel campaign at the UN, as well as encouraging the families of the raid's victims to file suits against senior Israeli figures.

The Turkish prime minister, who supports Hamas, is also considering visiting the Gaza Strip, which could further complicate relations between the two countries.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said last week that Israel does not plan to apologize despite diplomatic pressure from the United States. "I agree to express regret and to pay compensation, but an apology won't restore the relations with Turkey to what they were before in any case," the Israeli newspaper Haaretz quoted Netanyahu as saying.

U.S.: AQ "Affiliates Have Grown Stronger"

Al-Qaida's core in Pakistan has become weaker, while al-Qaida franchises have grown stronger, a new government report finds.

The 2010 State Department Country Report on Terrorism released Thursday highlights growing dangers from the Yemeni-based al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and al-Shabaab, a Somali Islamist group which has pledged allegiance to al-Qaida.

The report notes the groups' abilities to hatch terrorist plots outside of their stomping grounds. AQAP was behind the December 2009 failed attempt to blow up a Detroit-bound airliner and a 2010 plot to destroy several U.S.-bound cargo planes. Al-Shabaab claimed responsibility for the 2010 twin suicide bombings that killed 76 at the World Cup in Uganda.

AQAP, the report said, has taken on "a great share of the propaganda work," with the launch of the glossy English-language magazine Inspire.

Al-Qaida in Iraq (AQI) and al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), the terrorist group's Algerian-based North African affiliate did not represent a serious threat to the United States in 2010, the report said.

Al-Qaida "remained the preeminent terrorist threat to the United States in 2010," it concluded. The group "developed stronger relationships with its affiliates in the Middle East, North Africa and Europe in 2010."

Much of the 2010 report's findings remain true in 2011. Witnesses at a recent House hearing said that al-Shabaab poses a "direct threat" to the United States and AQAP has been identified as the most dangerous al-Qaida branch by officials. U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates in March called AQAP "the most active and at this point perhaps the most aggressive branch of al-Qaida."

But 2011 may also mark the beginning of al-Qaida cells metastasizing in countries experiencing Arab Spring unrest.

Recent reports indicate the creation of another al-Qaida branch in Egypt. A statement from a group claiming to be the newest al-Qaida branch was posted online earlier this month. In March, a Libyan rebel commander admitted that his fighters included some al-Qaida militants who had fought in Iraq.

Meanwhile, President Barack Obama said Tuesday that "lone wolf" extremists are a greater threat than a well-coordinated attack. Al-Qaida is a "much weaker organization with much less capability than they had just two or three years ago," he added.

Gaza Terrorists Strike Israel, Israel Retaliates

A series of Palestinian terrorist attacks and an Israeli military response have opened up a tit-for-tat battle between Gazan terrorists and Israel. The latest violence has disrupted an uneasy and inconsistent quiet between Israel and the multiple militant organizations vying for control of Gaza.

"I have set out a principle – when the citizens of Israel are attacked, we respond immediately and with strength," said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin 'Bibi' Netanyahu. "That principle was implemented today. Those who gave the order to murder our citizens, while hiding in Gaza, are no longer among the living." He also pledged that this was just Israel's "initial response."

Over the course of two days, Israeli jets pounded terrorist targets in Gaza connected with the Palestinian Resistance Council [PRC], a group loosely affiliated with Hamas but known to carry out its own operations. Israel's initial strike killed the PRC's most senior leader along with several other ranking terrorists, and successive assaults have hit seven Hamas security installations and other PRC targets.

Although none of Gaza terrorist groups have claimed responsibility for the initial coordinated attack in Eilat, several have praised it and called for more violence against Israel. Hamas denied a connection to the attack, but they praised the killing of Israeli soldiers. The group's military wing also issued a flier saying "the blood of resistance leaders has not been shed in vain; the continuance of Israel's crimes will bring a disaster on its head." A spokesman for the PRC denied the attacks, calling them Israeli's own "internal problems," and vowed to retaliate against "everything and everyone" involved in killing their members. They also fired around 16 rockets into Israel, including one that was shot down by Israeli missile defense and one that hit an Orthodox Jewish seminary.

Another Gaza group sympathetic to al-Qaida, the Tawheed and Jihad Group, seemed to hint at a different identity of the attackers. The group lauded the "blessed arms" used against the "vendeta-filled (sic) Jewish enemy," and said the attacks were a message that Egypt had joined the struggle against the "enemies of Allah." This may have been a reference of the presence of an al-Qaida affiliate in the Sinai Peninsula, or aggressive rhetoric between Israeli and Egyptian officials. Several Egyptian soldiers were killed during the gunfight between the terrorists and Israeli soldiers, apparently while trying to corner the armed group. Egypt has strongly condemned the attack and demanded an Israeli probe.

Liberal Elites Have Their Own "Islamophobia"

Blogging in the London Telegraph, Boston University History Professor Richard Landes provides some cogent analysis of the failure of Western liberals to acknowledge the threat posed by radical Islam.

In sections of European cities such as London, Sharia has replaced secular law. Islamists are able to get away with refusing to tolerate criticism from "kufr" (infidels) because liberal elites shrink from saying no to their demands for special treatment.

"We in the modern (and post modern) West, who first forged these remarkable rules of self-restraint and created so rich….so tolerant a culture, have a right to demand that Islam adopt these rules, certainly those who live in and benefit from the civil politics we have created," Landes writes. Instead, "we avoid dealing with the problem."

The situation has gotten worse in recent years. "Our journalist and academic talking heads are subject to a different kind of Islamophobia: an inordinate fear of criticizing Islam," according to Landes. "We cannot defend modern, tolerant political culture with such fearful people dominating the public sphere."

He believes European elites are disconnected from reality and out of touch with the views of voters, who have grown skeptical of mass immigration and question Muslim willingness to integrate.

Landes points to a recent public-opinion survey of attitudes in nine European countries about immigration. Majorities in seven countries ranging from 76 percent in Great Britain to 56 percent in France and Italy agreed that "Immigration has placed too much pressure on public services in their country."

A Pew survey showed most Europeans believe Muslims in their countries do not want to integrate (72 percent in Germany; 69 percent in Spain; 54 percent in France and 52 percent in Great Britain). Asked which religion is the most violent, 75 percent of Britons; 79 percent of Germans; 87 percent of Spaniards and 90 percent of French said Islam.

Despite these and other polls indicating considerable public skepticism in Europe over immigration and Muslim attitudes, European elites still refuse to confront reality, Landes writes. Fantasizing that it isn't a problem is "cultural suicide," he concludes.

Read the blog here. Read the Hudson Institute's recent analysis of European public opinion here.

Self-Immolation Pressures Moroccan Regime

The self-immolation of a young Moroccan has highlighted growing popular frustration with nation's lack of reform, according to an article on the United States Africa Command's news site. Suicide by fire helped trigger revolution in several other Arab countries, and has been a popular form of revolt against oppression and lack of opportunity.

Hamid Kanouni, 27, burned himself alive August 7 outside of a police station in a city in northeastern Morocco, sparking debate in Moroccan society over the act and reform in the society. Onlookers said the act was provoked when the police beat and humiliated the man, seizing his bread cart over accusations from another vendor. Police claimed the man's cart was destroyed by an unknown assailant and that he killed himself in grief.

Various elements of society saw the act differently, even if they agreed that it highlighted popular frustration. "Hamid wouldn't have set fire to himself if he didn't have good reasons for doing such a thing. It's a real sign that the supposed change hasn't happened," said a member of the February 20th Movement, a pro-reform, pro-monarch alternative to leftist and Islamist factions. Islamist groups rejected the suicide as against Islam, while some leftist rejected its extremeness, but representatives of both group's expressed frustration with the pace of reform.

Self-immolation sparked the revolution in Tunisia, where Mohamed Bouazizi's suicide by fire brought the people to the streets. Copycat acts soon sparked all over the Arab world, with the self-immolation being seen as the embodiment of frustration with corrupt and brutal regimes.

Al-Qaida, Other Terrorists Using American Archiving Site

Jihadi internet users are using the Internet Archive, an American website that documents web history, to pass information and media. A report by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI) outlines how al-Qaida and its supporters have used the website, which is also popular with American law enforcement and the Library of Congress.

The report notes that Al-Qaida and other jihadis "are continually and increasing using the Internet Archive to spread their propaganda/recruitment messages." Posting to the site requires only virtual library card, which can be secured by having a valid email address. And although the Internet Archive has not replaced other downloading services like 2Shared and Multiupload, it has become an increasingly popular option.

The types of materials uploaded to the archive include video and audio files, accounts of attacks, and major jihadi publications. These files are meant to encourage attacks or reinforce the jihadi world view, as well as to document the rapid expansion of jihadi media.

It's an ironic use of a website meant for a noble cause. "Libraries exist to preserve society's cultural artifacts and to provide access to them. If libraries are to continue to foster education and scholarship in this era of digital technology, it's essential for them to extend those functions into the digital world," the Archive's "About Us" page reads. However, jihadis have also seen the site as a tool for education and preserving their own culture.

Obama Calls On Assad to Resign

With the slaughter in Syria continuing and the White House under fire for failing to demand regime change, the Obama administration took a tougher line toward President Bashar al-Assad on Thursday.

President Obama announced new economic sanctions against the Syrian regime and joined Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, French President Nicholas Sarkozy, British Prime Minister David Cameron, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, and the European Union in calling on Assad to resign.

The Syrian people's campaign for democracy had been met with "ferocious brutality" by the Assad regime, Obama said. Although Syria's future "must be determined by its people," Assad "is standing in their way.

"His calls for dialogue and reform have rung hollow while he is imprisoning, torturing and slaughtering his own people."

His administration had urged Assad to lead "a democratic transition" in Syria, which has been ruled by the dictator's family for more than 40 years. But "Assad has not led" and needs to step aside "for the sake of the Syrian people," Obama said.

On Thursday, the White House announced an executive order imposing additional U.S. sanctions on the Syrian government. These include provisions barring Syrian government agencies from access to the U.S. financial system; barring Americans from engaging in transactions "related to Syrian-origin petroleum or petroleum products"; and prohibiting "new investment in Syria by a U.S. person, wherever located."

The White House also released a fact sheet detailing U.S. sanctions, financial actions and diplomatic initiatives taken since April to support "the Syrian people's universal rights" and push for "a democratic transition."

The "transition to democracy in Syria has begun, and it's time for Assad to get out of the way," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said. On Tuesday, Clinton had reacted dismissively to calls for the Obama administration push for Assad's ouster. "It's not going to be any real news if the United States says, 'Assad needs to go.' Okay, fine, what's next?" she asked.

Clinton has come under fire for previous remarks depicting the Syrian dictator as a "reformer."

Read more about Syria here and here.

Breaking News: Coordinated Terror Strikes Hit Eilat

At least six Israelis were killed and 25 more injured during a multi-staged terrorist attack Thursday near Eilat, a resort town near the Egyptian border.

Details are still emerging, but the attack started when terrorists started shooting at an Egged bus at around noon Israeli time. Then, bombs exploded near an Israeli military patrol at the Egyptian border. Terrorists then fired anti-tank missiles at a bus and a private car.

Israeli media reports indicate anywhere from two to seven terrorists were killed by soldiers.

The attackers are believed to have entered Israel through the Egyptian border, but Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak says the terrorists came from Gaza, and indicated that is where retaliation will be focused.

"The incident shows the weakening Egyptian grip on Sinai and the widening operation of terrorists there," Barak said. "The source of these terror acts is in Gaza and we will act against them with full force."

Updated 12:55 p.m.:

Israeli Defense Forces working with Shin Bet struck targets in Rafah in retaliation for the Eilat attacks. Officials claim five people were killed, including Kamal al-Nairab, who leads the Popular Resistance Committees (PRC).

Israeli officials believe the PRC is responsible for Thursday's terrorist attacks. Meanwhile, a search continues for other terrors who participated in the attacks.

Hamas, which controls Gaza, issued a statement praising the terrorist strike, but denying any involvement.

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