During Ceasefire, Hamas Girds For War

Just three weeks ago Secretary of State Hillary Clinton welcomed an Egyptian-sponsored ceasefire ending eight days of fighting between Israel and the Hamas terror organization that rules Gaza.

Clinton thanked President Mohamed Morsi "for his personal leadership to de-escalate the situation in Gaza and end the violence" and declared that his role showed Egypt to be a "cornerstone in regional stability and peace."

Since then, Morsi , a longtime member of the Muslim Brotherhood, has come under increasing fire domestically over Islamist efforts to ram through a controversial new constitution. And there are growing indications that the Gaza ceasefire brokered by the Egyptian leader is tenuous at best.

After last month's fighting, Israel and Hamas began indirect talks mediated by the Morsi-led Egyptian government over border arrangements. Hamas wants Israel to lift what remains of its Gaza blockade, while Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu insists on an end to the arms smuggling through the tunnels.

During last month's fighting, Israel said it successfully targeted 140 of an estimated 500 tunnels that line the Egypt-Gaza border.

The Associated Press reported Wednesday that the underground tunnels used to smuggle Iranian rockets that can hit Tel Aviv are "back in business." An AP reporter was shown tunnels that appeared to be reserved exclusively for Hamas weapons smuggling.

For its part, Hamas has said it has no intention of giving up weapons used to target Israel. "These weapons protected us, and there is no way to stop obtaining and manufacturing them," said Mousa Abu Marzook, Hamas' second in command. During a recent visit to Gaza, Hamas boss Khaled Meshaal vowed that the group would continue its armed struggle "to retake Palestine," including Israel, "inch by inch."

Meanwhile, the purportedly moderate Fatah organization headed by Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas responded to the war by embracing Hamas, which included accepting an invitation to attend the group's 25^th anniversary celebration last week in Gaza. Senior Fatah official Nabil Shaath, a top adviser to Abbas, went on record praising Hamas "martyrs" during last month's fighting against Israel.

Netanyahu lamented Fatah's backing for Hamas and said Meshaal's calls for Israel's destruction vindicate Israel's refusal to relinquish more territory to the Palestinians. "We have again been exposed to the true face of our enemies. They have no intention of compromising with us," he said.

Alabama Men Charged With Seeking Jihad Abroad

Two residents of Mobile, Ala. were arrested and charged Tuesday in connection with a conspiracy to travel from the United States to Mauritania to wage jihad.

Mohammad Abdul Rahman Abukhdair and Randy Wilson (also known as Rasheed Wilson) met online in 2010. In August 2011 an FBI undercover agent met with Wilson who told the agent that he and Abukhdair were plotting to travel overseas to seek jihad. Wilson told the informant about his connections to Omar Hammami. He described Hammami as a "friend" and showed the informant "an al-Qaeda video on his laptop praising jihad and the downfall of the West."

Hammami, an American and former resident of Alabama, has been charged in absentia in a U.S. federal court with providing material support to the Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab. He is believed to be in hiding in Somalia.

The defendants discussed fighting with al-Shabaab in Somalia. "Like jihad is the pinnacle of Islam. There is no deed better than Islam," Wilson said. He and Abukhdair also discussed going to Mali to join the mujahideen fighters in the emerging jihadist front.

Abukhdair, Wilson, and the informant spent hours watching jihadi videos that included lectures by senior al-Qaida leaders such as Osama bin Laden, Anwar al-Awlaki, and Ayman al-Zawahiri. Some videos showed graphic violence including "prisoner beheadings and bodily mutilations of the dead including children and adult soldiers."

Abukhdair argued that "the end goal for Islam was to take over the world, and that jihad was the means of achieving this goal." He contended that "Islam was not spread by dawah [proselytizing], but rather by the sword of jihad." Both Abukhdair and Wilson agreed that bin Laden and Awlaki were "great Muslims for giving up their lives of luxury to pursue jihad."

According to the complaint, Wilson explained the meaning of jihad to Abukhdair and the informant as a war between Islam and Kufars [Arabic for "non-believers"]: "It's not like a small war anymore. It's either we're gonna kill them and defeat them, or they're gonna kill us and defeat us."

The complaint further detailed a sermon Abukhdair gave at the local mosque in which he "discussed how Muslims have forgotten about their struggles of persecuted Muslims around the world, especially in places like Afghanistan, Pakistan, Egypt, and Syria." He told worshippers to support Islam by engaging in dawah, giving to charity "and by supporting the mujahideen," the complaint said.

The Al Nusrah Front: Syria's Jihadist Epicenter

The U.S. government has formally designated the Al Nusrah Front, a jihadist group working to overthrow Syrian President Bashar Assad, as a terrorist organization. Monday's designation bars Americans from financial dealings with Al Nusrah – which Washington says is an alias for al-Qaida in Iraq – and has reconstituted itself in Syria.

The announcement came just hours after Al Nusrah and allied jihadist organizations captured a critical Syrian Army target, the Sheikh Suleiman military base in Aleppo province. The news is regarded as a blow to Assad and the major non-jihadist force fighting to overthrow him, the Free Syrian Army. The latter organization was not involved in the capture of the base, which came after several months of fierce fighting.

Media reports said that many of the victorious fighters were from Central Asia and other Arab countries and described themselves as mujahideen. An estimated 300-400 Syrian soldiers defended Sheikh Suleiman before it fell, and the jihadists raised al-Qaida's black flag during the final battle.

The base was rumored to be part of the Assad government's covert chemical weapons efforts. One defecting Syrian Army soldier said Sheikh Suleiman contained a secret research facility whose purpose was unknown to the rank and file. For its part, the regime warned that its jihadist foes could use chemical weapons after the Al Nusrah Front captured a chlorine factory near Aleppo last week.

Al Nusrah "has by far taken the lead among the jihadist groups in executing suicide and other complex attacks against the Syrian military. The terror group has now claimed credit for 42 of the 51 terrorist attacks that have taken place in Syria in the past 12 months," the Long War Journal reports.

Last month, Al Nusrah joined 13 other jihadist groups based in Aleppo in calling for the establishment of an Islamic state. It has also conducted numerous joint operations with the Free Syrian Army. In October, for example, Al Nusrah and the FSA joined with Chechen fighters to overrun a Syrian air defense and Scud missile base in Aleppo.

Recent events underscore the major role that other radical Islamist groups are playing in the Syrian opposition.

The fall of the Sheikh Suleiman base occurred "just days after the supposedly secular rebels established a joint military command that is dominated by the Muslim Brotherhood and individuals linked to the various Salafist-jihadist groups," according to the LWJ. It excluded senior military officers who defected from the Assad regime and commanders who clashed with the Brotherhood and the Salafists.

The Al Nusrah Front has not taken a clear position on participating in the joint command. Read more about the terror group's activities here.

New Report Confirms Islamic Terrorism Trumps Others

While partisans try to diminish the role radical Islam plays in fueling global terrorism, a new report released by the Institute for Economics and Peace (IEP) finds that "The most prolific religious terrorist groups are almost exclusively Islamic."

The IEP's 2012 Global Terrorism Index rates 158 countries related to terrorism from 2001-11 using data from the Global Terrorism Database (GTD), which is collected and collated by the University of Maryland's National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START).

START is directly affiliated with the US Department of Homeland Security (DHS).

"The rise of religious extremism is well-documented," the report says, with Islamic groups being the most prolific. It notes a decrease in attacks from nationalist/separatist groups since 2008, but adds that some Islamist groups like "the Taliban or Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) have nationalist/ separatist aspirations."

The nationalist characteristics of such Islamic terror groups do not, however, negate their violent Islamist nature.

For such Islamist/nationalist groups, "'True' Islam only exists when it is the primary source of governance, manifest today by the implementation of a fundamentalist interpretation of Islamic law," the report says. "It supersedes tribe, or nationality today, it is to be defended everywhere it exists, and when it exists it is an ascendant force. According to this logic, in the current moment of extended crisis Muslims are duty-bound to follow the example of the Prophet and emigrate from places of persecution to a place where they can fight on behalf of 'true' Islam. If they cannot make that journey, they are to fight where they live."

The report ranks 158 countries by the terrorist violence it suffered, both the raw number of attacks and the resulting casualties. The top 5 are Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan, India and Yemen.

It is a refreshingly candid, data-driven assessment from a group which describes itself as a "non-profit research organization dedicated to shifting the world's focus to peace as a positive, achievable, and tangible measure of human well-being and progress."

Hate Crimes and Instant Spin

Reported hate crimes in the United States fell by 6 percent in 2011 from the previous year, newly released FBI statistics show.

Attacks based on a person's religion fell 3.4 percent from 2010 levels, including a 13 percent drop in crimes targeting Jews. Anti-Muslim crimes dropped less than 1 percent. Even with that improvement, Jews still attract the lion's share – 62 percent – of crimes targeting religious groups.

Hate crimes can include acts of violence like assault, rape and murder in addition to property crimes like vandalism. In many cases, then, the report reflects a status quo when it comes to crime motivated by bigotry, with some slight improvements.

The Southern Poverty Law Center's Mark Potok uses the same data to argue anti-Muslim crimes are skyrocketing. In an article republished by Salon, Potok first describes the data as "notoriously understated." The 2011 figures maintained a spike in anti-Muslim crimes reflected in the 2010 report, Potok writes. He blames this on "continued high levels of anti-Muslim propaganda" in the United States.

Even though immigration reform remained a hot topic in 2011, Potok even speculates that the anti-Muslim sentiment contributed to a dramatic drop in crimes targeting Latinos "as negative attention focused on Muslims."

But a review of FBI data shows a consistency in who is targeted. In 2006, Jews were targeted in 64 percent of religiously-motivated hate crimes, while Muslims were victims in 12 percent of the cases.

That's within a percentage point for both minority groups in the 2011 report. The "Islam-bashing propaganda" Potok blames for last year's increase, in the form of anti-Shariah and anti-mosque campaigns, didn't exist in 2006. Yet the data then mirrors the latest FBI report.

There are fluctuations from year to year, but despite the spin, nothing in the annual reports reflects a dramatic change in which group is targeted.

The "Moderate" Brotherhood's Torture Chambers

Despite President Mohamed Morsi's recent attempt to seize dramatic new powers over Egypt, some in the West still have trouble seeing the Muslim Brotherhood – Morsi's home organization – as anything but a "moderate" political movement.

The challenge grows steeper as reports emerge about Brotherhood torture operations and as the group's supreme leader claims to control Morsi while he leads Egypt.

New York Times Cairo bureau chief David Kirkpatrick last week described the Brotherhood as "politicians" who "are not violent by nature" and in the short run "just want to win elections."

In an interview with talk-show host Hugh Hewitt, Kirkpatrick suggested that Egyptian liberals' concerns about the group are exaggerated and that in recent decades it has "evolved" into "a moderate, conservative but religious, but moderate, regular old political force."

Writing in Egypt's al-Masry al-Youm last week, Mohamed Jarehi describes visits to what he described as several Muslim Brotherhood torture chambers, including what he referred to as its "central torture facility in the Cairo suburb of Heliopolis."

The Daily Caller reported (warning: extremely disturbing photograph) on a translation of the story by al-Monitor.com. "The torture process starts once a demonstrator who opposes President Mohammed Morsi is arrested in the clashes or is suspected after the clashes end," Jarehi wrote, and security forces separate Morsi supporters from foes.

"Then, the [Brotherhood] group members trade off punching, kicking, and beating him with a stick all over his body. They tear off his clothes and take him to the nearest secondary torture chamber," Jarehi wrote. "Before the interrogation process starts, they search him, seize his funds, cellphones or ID, all the while punching and slapping his face in order to get him to confess to being a thug."

Detainees' health conditions appeared poor, with some bleeding from wounds all over their bodies and not receiving medical attention.

The report on the torture centers is the latest allegation of MB human-rights abuses. Egyptians also accuse the Brotherhood of using mob sexual assaults as an intimidation tool against female protesters.

Raymond Ibrahim notes that during this year's presidential campaign, Morsi's foes portrayed him as a "stooge" for Muslim Brotherhood Supreme Guide Mohamed Badie, who has referred to Israelis as "rapists" and called for jihad against the Jewish State. Brotherhood officials and Morsi promised that he would be his own man. But in a recent interview with an Egyptian television station, Ibrahim writes, a Brotherhood official was asked point blank if Badie was the real ruler of the country.

The official responded, "Yes, the Supreme Guide rules Muhammad Morsi."

When Demonstrators Echo Terrorists

Hamas leader Khaled Meshaal's return to Gaza Saturday drew a lot of attention, both for his defiant rhetoric and for indications that Hamas' power is on the rise.

"Palestine belongs to us and not to the Zionists," Meshaal told a cheering crowd. He vowed never to recognize Israel or "give up one inch or any part of it."

As the Jerusalem Post's Khaled Abu Toameh reports, Meshaal's defiance "stood in sharp contrast to a recent interview he gave to CNN's Christiane Amanpour, where he said that Hamas accepted a Palestinian state within the pre-1967 lines."

In the interview last month, Meshaal said a peace deal creating a Palestinian state "according to the border of 1967 with the right to return ... is something we have agreed upon as Palestinians, as a common program."

But Meshaal's language also was significant in understanding the motives and goals of American Islamists and their anti-Israel allies.

"Palestine – from the river to the sea, from the north to the south – is our land and our right and our homeland; there will be no surrender of even the smallest piece of it," he said.

Palestine "from the river to the sea" is not a statement for a Palestinian state. Rather, it is a demand for Israel's destruction. It's not a new sentiment. Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative Sami Al-Arian used nearly identical language during a fundraiser in Cleveland more than 20 years ago.

And it's a chant commonly heard in anti-Israel rallies in the United States, including one in Cleveland last month.

It has been used to raise money for aid convoys to Gaza, ventures intended more to score political points than alleviate any humanitarian suffering. "Historic Palestine from the river to the sea; that is Palestine," said Archbishop Atallah Hanna of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Jerusalem during a July 2009 event. "Therefore, friends, we must not talk about the people of '67 or the people of '48. The Palestinian people are one people, no matter where they are or where they are found. The Palestinian people are one people indivisible."

It's not just fringe groups that call for Palestine "from the river to the sea." It was chanted at a March 2009 rally an MPAC-sponsored rally in by the Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC), a group which the White House relies upon for advice on policy, including programs meant to combat extremism.

Meshaal's Gaza comments may sound aspirational for a Palestinian state, but the subtext of Israel's destruction is anything but subtle. Remember that the next time "From the river to the sea" is chanted on American streets.

CAIR Cares About Terrorists Again

Two South Florida brothers have pleaded not guilty to federal charges involving a disrupted terrorist plot.

Few details have been released about the alleged plot involving Raees and Sheheryar Qazi, two naturalized Pakistani immigrants. An indictment issued Nov. 30 charges them with conspiring to provide material support to terrorists and conspiring to use a weapon of mass destruction. Media reports indicate the men wanted to make explosives and had specific targets in mind.

In response, the head of the Council on American-Islamic Relations' (CAIR) South Florida office told a local television station that the Qazi brothers prayed in area mosques, but were not well known in the South Florida Muslim community or among mosque leaders.

CAIR and its officials notoriously obfuscate in favor of Muslim terror suspects and attempt to deflect their terror actions away from Islam. In this case, Nezar Hamze's attempt to distance the Qazi brothers from the community may not tell the full story.

The Broward tabloid Red Broward reported Sheheryar Qazi appears to have been an online donor to the Islamic Center of Broward (ICB), a mosque with a heavy-representation of Pakistani natives on its board of directors. The ICB website has been down at least since the Qazi brothers' arrests.

Meanwhile, public records indicate the Muslim community around the Qazi brothers may be closer and more insular than Hamze suggested.

One of the former officials of the ICB, listed in its articles of incorporation of 2008 and the 2009 and 2010 annual reports, is Altaf Sattar. Sattar is also an official in a LLC called "Investment Group Five, LLC," which shares a listed address in Boca Raton with "Super Stop Stores, Inc" owned by Mahammad Qureshi.

Qureshi is a wealthy and somewhat infamous convenience store owner who founded the "Cricket Council USA" and who has been involved in a number of questionable business dealings leading to civil court actions and bankruptcy filings.

Super Stop Stores owns property where ICNA Relief USA Florida has its offices. ICNA Relief USA is affiliated with the Islamist organization Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), an Islamist group with a long record of advocating ultra-conservative theology.

ICNA Relief Florida's registered agent, Abdulrauf Khan, also runs a nonprofit called "Community Fest Florida, Inc." The Community Fest's listed address is the same as ICNA Relief Florida. Community Fest Florida was incorporated in October 2012. Its vice president is CAIR's Nezar Hamze, who assured us the Qazi brothers are not well known in the south Florida Muslim community.

Seattle Man Pleads Guilty in Military Center Plot

A lead conspirator in a plot to attack a U.S. military facility in Seattle pleaded guilty Friday to terrorism and firearms related charges. Abu Khalid Abdul-Latif (aka Joseph Anthony Davis) and Walli Mujahidh (aka Fredrick Domigue Jr.) of Los Angeles were arrested and charged in June 2011 with planning an assault on the Seattle Military Entrance Processing Center (MEPS) using grenades and machine guns.

The center recruits prospective candidates to the U.S. military. The MEPS building houses several civilian and military employees and also includes a federal daycare center.

Mujahidh pleaded guilty last December. Another individual recruited by Abdul-Latif to aid in the attack reported the plot to the FBI and became a paid informant. The informant promised to provide weapons for the attack. The three machine guns he subsequently supplied to the defendants were rendered inert by agents investigating the attack, the complaint said.

The plot was inspired by the November 2009 Fort Hood massacre carried out by Army psychiatrist Nidal Hassan that killed 13 people and wounded 30 others. The co-conspirators condemned U.S. military actions in Afghanistan, Iraq, and Yemen. In secretly-recorded conversations, Abdul-Latif criticized the U.S. military for "invading our lands…stealing our resources…locking up our brothers and sisters, you're raping our sisters in Guantanamo Bay…you're in Islamic countries and even when you're asked to leave, you won't leave…"

"This defendant plotted to kill American servicemen and women and other innocent people in furtherance of his extremist views," U.S. Attorney Jenny A. Durkan said in a press release announcing the guilty plea. "The continued vigilance of the community and the work of law enforcement ensured that we were able to successfully disrupt his deadly plan and bring Mr. Abdul-Latif to justice."

If the plea agreement is accepted by the court, Abdul-Latif will receive a sentence between 17 and 19 years in prison at his sentencing hearing scheduled for March 25.

Iraqi Man Held as Threat in Ariz. Bombing

An Iraqi refugee living in Arizona is being held without bond as a security risk after he was arrested last week in connection with a bombing attack at a Social Security office.

No one was injured in the Nov. 30 explosion, which damaged the Social Security Administration office south of Phoenix, Ariz.

Abdullatif Aldosary was arrested after witnesses recorded the license tag off a car seen speeding away from the building. An indictment issued Wednesday charges him with the bombing and with possessing firearms despite a previous felony conviction.

Local police found Aldosary washing his 2003 Hyundai when they got to his home 14 miles from the Social Security office. One witness described seeing flames shoot from the car as it sped off, and an FBI bomb tech later found "thermal damage to the vehicle, which likely was caused by explosive material," wrote FBI Special Agent Carey A. Cooper in an affidavit.

Neither the indictment nor a preceding criminal complaint refers to any jihadist connection or motivation for Aldosary. Agents searching his home found a rifle and a Ruger semiautomatic handgun, along with hundreds of rounds. And, tucked behind a picture hanging in his study, they found handwritten notes about explosive materials and instructions from the Anarchists Chemical Cook Book.

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