Turkey to Indict Israeli Commanders Over Ship Raid

A Turkish prosecutor is preparing to indict four former Israeli commanders over Israel's May 2010 raid on ships violating the Gaza blockade. The move, first reported by Turkish newspaper Sabah and the Jerusalem Post on Wednesday, is likely to further damage strained ties between the two former allies.

Istanbul state prosecutor Mehmet Akif Ekinci drafted the 144-page indictment with heavy cooperation from several branches of the Turkish government, including "correspondence from the Turkish Prime Minister's office, the foreign and justice ministries, and the intelligence service." The file seeks life sentences for the four Israeli army commanders, including former Chief of the General Staff Gabi Ashkenazi, but must still be approved by Istanbul's chief prosecutor.

Nine people on the Mavi Marmara were killed in the incident. The ship ignored repeated warnings to turn away from the blockaded area and passengers attacked Israeli commandos with clubs, knives and other weapons as the troops rappelled onto the ship.

No one was injured on five other ships which did not attack the troops.

The indictments are the latest Turkish move to push its version of the events aboard the blockade-running ships, despite a United Nations report which found Israel's Gaza blockade of the Hamas government in Gaza to be legal. Turkey previously drew up a list of 174 Israelis, including Israel's Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who it threatened to indict. The Sabah newspaper claimed that the list was prepared by Turkish intelligence agents operating in Israel.

Israel has refused to give into previous Turkish demands related to the incident, including a formal apology and paying compensation to Turks injured in the clashes. The U.S. had been trying to reconcile the two nations, urging them to cooperate on regional cooperation.

Ample evidence suggests that the diplomatic hullabaloo has more to do with the Islamist politics of Turkey's government, than with genuine Turkish grievances.

It already began to support Hamas against Israel, even before the flotilla incident. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan accused the Jewish state of murder during Israel's January 2009 war to stop Hamas terrorists from firing rockets into Israeli towns. Israel's counterterrorism effort, he said, was "defying the world and mocking the world," before asking how the Jewish state dared "to enter the doors of the UN."

Huffington Post Hires Controversial British Islamist

The Huffington Post UK has hired Mehdi Hasan, a controversial Islamist and former senior editor of the leftist outlet The New Statesman, the Guardian reports.

It's a step-down, writes the Washington Free Beacon's Adam Kredo, perhaps due to Hasan's extremism and pro-Iran perspectives.

Kredo accuses Hasan of defending Iran's Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and of functioning as a mouthpiece for the Iranian regime. Hasan has also proposed a one-state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict – one which would lead to a Jewish minority, embarrassed The New Statesman with claims of "A Kosher Conspiracy" by Britain's pro-Israel lobby, and blamed Israeli influence for the war in Iraq.

He also harbors extremist religious views. In an undated sermon posted to YouTube in 2009, Hasan states that Muslims must "keep the moral high-ground" over disbelievers. Otherwise, "we are no different from the rest of the non-Muslims; from the rest of those human beings who live their lives as animals, bending any rule to fulfill any desire." In a separate recording, he praises the notion of "disbelief [in Islam] as an infirmity, as an illness, as a disease of the human mind."

"There is the ongoing speculation around Westminster as to whether he was dropped due to the sheer scale of negative attention he brought to the New Statesman magazine," Raheem Kassam, editor of the conservative The Commentator, told the Free Beacon.

"Everyone knew that the status quo couldn't continue with Hasan," he added. "It was only a matter of time until he was rightly held to account for what became increasingly nonsensical journalism and a repeated refusal to comment on his extreme views as highlighted by the videos."

Yemeni Jewish Community Leader Murdered

A leader of the Yemeni Jewish community was stabbed to death in that nation's capital after a Muslim man accused him of witchcraft, the Jerusalem Post reports. The incident is the latest in a series of incidents around the Arab world which have threatened and uprooted the region's small remaining Jewish communities.

Yehya Zindani, the son of murdered leader Aharon Zindani, described the attacker as a "well-known person who says my father has ruined and bewitched him." The murderer, described by a Zindani family friend as a "member of al-Qaida," stabbed the Jewish leader 12 times before he was stopped by a group of local men.

Aharon Zindani had returned to Yemen after immigrating to Israel, rejoining the small Jewish community in the Yemeni capital Sana'a, which numbers around 80 people. Many of those living in the capital moved there from the Yemeni town of Raidah in December 2008, following threats from Islamist extremists and the murder of Jewish teacher Masha al-Nahari.

In the Arab world's largest remaining Jewish communities, in Morocco and Tunisia, the recent rise of Islamist politicians has awakened dormant anti-Semitism. Anti-Semitic chants at a Tunisian rally, welcoming Hamas' prime minister, prompted Tunisian Islamist politician Rachid Ghannouchi to apologize to the concerned local Jews. He, like many Islamists, claims that Zionism is the problem not Jewry, even if the distinction is often blurred.

While the hate hasn't scattered the lingering remnants, it has raised the sense of alarm.

Ohio Man Gets Over Six Years for Hizballah Support

A Toledo man was sentenced to more than six years in prison for providing material support to Hizballah, a U.S.-designated Foreign Terrorist Organization.

Hor Akl and his wife Amera Akl, who hold dual American and Lebanese citizenships, pleaded guilty last year to sending hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Lebanese terrorist group.

In August 2009, the Ohio couple was approached by an FBI informant to send money to Hizballah for him. The Akls agreed to transfer the money in exchange for a 30 percent commission if they transferred $1 million to the terrorist group. The Akls were arrested on June 3, 2010, after the informant delivered $200,000 to them at their home in Toledo.

Hor and Amera Akl plotted different schemes to transfer money to Hizballah overseas, including stashing $500,000 in cash in a 2004 Chevrolet Trailblazer and shipping it to Lebanon in a container ship. In discussions with the informant, Amera Akl said that "she dreamed of dressing like Hizballah, carrying a gun, and dying as a martyr."

Amera Akl is currently serving a 40-month prison sentence after pleading guilty to providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.

"Money is the lifeblood of terrorist organizations, and stopping the flow is a key component to choking off these organizations," U.S. Attorney Steven Dettlebach said in a Department of Justice press release announcing Hor Akl's sentence.

Shifting U.N. Language Threatens U.S. Free Speech

The body representing the world's Muslim nations, the Organization of the Islamic Cooperation (OIC), has shifted its strategy for limiting free speech about Islam before the United Nations Human Rights Council. A move away from language about limiting "defamation of religions" and toward preventing "religious hatred," has "easily duped" the West into adopting the OIC's agenda of limiting discussion about Islam, reports Ann Snyder for the Gatestone Institute.

The OIC pressed for "speech-restrictive" resolutions on religion in U.N. forums for more than a decade. Ratification of these U.N. resolutions would have internationalized anti-blasphemy laws found in Muslim-majority countries.

Western nations resisted such attempts, arguing that the laws criminalized free speech. The move could also result in international prosecution of Westerners for criticizing practices by some Islamists, just as similar laws have been used against Middle East Christians.

The OIC adjusted its strategy accordingly, but not its goal. It dropped calls to criminalize the "defamation of religions" and now relies on interpreting pre-existing language in the U.N.'s International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights [ICCPR], Article 20(2). The United States Senate ratified the ICCPR in 1992 but with an explicit reservation against the article, which would have made "any advocacy of national, racial, or religious hatred…prohibited by law."

The new U.N. Human Rights Council Resolution 16/18 "condemns any advocacy of religious hatred against individuals that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence" using "print, audio-visual or electronic media or any other means." It "bears a striking resemblance" to new legal restrictions on "hate speech" in Europe that has been used to prosecute alleged offenders, writes Snyder, a senior fellow at the Middle East Forum's The Legal Project.

Despite the obvious similarities of language and implementation, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "applauded" the compromise and described the efforts as beginning "to overcome the false divide that pits religious sensitivities against freedom of expression."

American Shabaab Leader Showing Signs of Life

Two months after a frenzied appearance on YouTube warning that his life was in danger at the hands of fellow jihadists, American-born designated terrorist Omar Hammami has launched a media blitz to prove he is indeed alive and well in Somalia. This, after various reports made their way around the web alleging that the American al-Shabaab leader, more commonly known as Abu Mansoor al-Amriki, was executed on April 4.

In his first public move since reports of his death surfaced, Hammami reportedly reached out to Vanguard/Current TV correspondent, Christof Putzel, three weeks ago for an exclusive interview. The interview was conducted from afar, and Hammami claims he is alone in hiding in Somalia. According to Current's report, Putzel was told that he was singled out for the interview because Hammami had recently seen his 2010 Vanguard documentary, "American Jihadi." The Daphne, Alabama native is the main subject of the film.

Then, late Wednesday, Hammami brought his message to a wider audience with the online release of his 127-page autobiography, entitled The Story of An American Jihaadi Part One. The document was posted on the hosting site Scribd.

In the memoir, Hammami not only explains his motivations for jihad, but also details al-Shabaab's formation and his insights about American Muslim organizations. His inclination towards violent jihad began in the 11^th grade, when the former Baptist became enamored of his father's religion, Islam.

But it was not long before Hammami strayed away from mainstream Islam, connected with a Salafi teacher in Alabama, and gradually became more extreme.

American terrorist Daniel Maldonado was another key figure in his journey to jihad, and reportedly the person who eventually introduced Hammami to the idea of making Hijrah [immigrate] to Somalia to join al-Qaida.

In his Story of An American Jihaadi, Hammami also sheds light on the 2006 emergence on an independent al-Shabaab organization, although he stops short of sharing sensitive, recent details. Typically thought of as the youth wing of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU) government, Hammami says that factional disputes led to al-Shabaab's consolidation as a separate pro-al-Qaida movement.

It emerged during Somalia's chaos under the ICU government, with constantly reforming alliances and Somali tribal wariness of foreign fighters. At several points, Hammami asks himself what he is doing in the country, as war with Ethiopia exposes cracks in the Islamist alliance along religious and tribal fault lines.

Hammami also makes interesting observations about American Islamist organizations, as well as the evolution of Muslim American opinions on violent jihad. He remarks that his Salafi teacher in Alabama had once been attracted to jihad as well, "when it was still acceptable to the U.S." He asserts plainly that the Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR, has "ties to Hamas," even though he is critical of political Islamists, who don't move fast enough in trying to replace Western democracy with Islamic theocracies.

Treasury Designates Taliban and Haqqani Network Figures

Two men connected to the Haqqani Network, a key faction of the Afghan Taliban that operates in the troubled tribal belt along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, were designated as terrorists Thursday by the U.S. Treasury Department.

Bakht Gul, a key communications official for the terrorist group, was designated for his work with the group's leaders, including Badruddin Haqqani, in supervising the movement of Haqqani insurgents, foreign fighters, and weapons.

Badruddin Haqqani was designated by the State Department in May 2011.

Gul operates as a "gatekeeper" for Badruddin, relaying operational orders from Badruddin to fighters in Afghanistan. He also communicates critical information from commanders in Afghanistan to the Haqqani Network leadership, Taliban media officials, and Afghani media outlets. Gul also delivered money to Haqqani Network fighters traveling into Afghanistan in late 2009.

The other individual designated, Abdul Baqi Bari, is a Taliban money launderer and financier. Bari set up businesses to channel money in support of Taliban and al-Qaida activity in Afghanistan. At one time, Bari carried out a $400,000 hawala transfer for Mullah Omar, the Taliban's one-eyed spiritual leader.

Omar is wanted under the U.S. State Department's Rewards for Justice program since October 2001, for harboring Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida terrorists in the years preceding the 9/11 attacks.

The Taliban transferred $2.8 million from an account in Europe to Bari for fear its assets would be frozen by the incoming Afghan government subsequent to its fall from power. Bari kept the money in accounts outside of Afghanistan to keep it safe from the new Afghan government. The Taliban was able to obtain money from Bari when needed. Additionally, Bari helped procure weapons for the Taliban.

"By designating these individuals today, Treasury is taking another step to ensure all those who perpetuate ongoing violence and terrorist activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan will continue to be marginalized and cut off from the international financial system, and they will find it increasingly difficult to carry out their objectives," Adam Szubin, Director of Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control, said in U.S. Department of Treasury announcement.

Tehran: West Caving on Iranian Nuclear Program

Iranian and United Nations officials claimed to have made progress in negotiations over Tehran's nuclear program on Tuesday. But initial reports have provided little substantive information beyond an announcement that representatives of the Iranian regime and the U.N.'s International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) will meet again next week in Vienna, Austria.

Iranian officials waxed optimistic, claiming the West is coming to terms with the inevitability of Iran's nuclear program. In a New York Times interview, Hamidreza Taraghi, an adviser to Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, bragged that Tehran had managed to skew the current nuclear negotiations in its favor by making uranium enrichment (a potential path to nuclear weapons) a reality that the West cannot stop.

Taraghi told the Times that Iran had convinced the West of the importance of a fatwa against the possession of nuclear weapons that Khamenei issued. Iranian officials emphasized that edict during last month's negotiations in Istanbul.

American officials countered that they brought up Khamenei's fatwa in an effort to provide the Iranians a "face-saving" way to reach a compromise. But Iranian negotiators left Istanbul believing they had prevailed. "We have managed to get our rights," Taraghi said. "All that remains is a debate over the percentage of enrichment."

That may be posturing. But a new analysis by Anthony Cordesman of the Center for Strategic and International Studies suggests the Islamist regime has good reason to believe it has the upper hand in the nuclear standoff.

The IAEA's own reports show "that Iran has moved far beyond the point where it lacked the technology base to produce nuclear weapons," Cordesman writes. "Iran has pursued every major area of nuclear weapons development, (and) has carried out programs that have already given it every component of a weapon except fissile material." Moreover, "there is strong evidence that it has carried out programs to integrate a nuclear warhead on [to] its missiles."

Cordesman finds that Iran's nuclear efforts are diversified and can be concealed from international inspectors. Even if it were to suspend uranium enrichment, Tehran could "pursue nuclear weapons development through a range of compartmented and easily concealable programs without a formal weapons program."

Even if Tehran agreed to controls on its current enrichment facilities or saw them destroyed in a military strike, it would not necessarily put an end to the regime's nuclear capability. It "would take an amazing amount of intelligence access to prevent" Iran from creating replacement enrichment facilities if its existing programs were destroyed in bombing raids, Cordesman writes.

In short, "Iran could appear to agree to arms control or appear to have had its programs destroyed and still go on creating better future enrichment capability."

Read the full article here.

Similar to FBI cutoff, DOJ urged to sever ties with CAIR

At a May 10^th House of Representatives meeting, the Department of Justice (DOJ) was urged to officially sever ties with the Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR), as reported by The Daily Caller.

Citing CAIR's designation as unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation (HLF) trial, The Committee Report of Fiscal Year 2012 Commerce, Justice, Science Appropriates Bill urges Attorney General Eric Holder to wholly disengage with CAIR.

The section reads, "The Committee acknowledges the Attorney General's refusal to attend certain meetings knowing that CAIR officials would be present, as indicated in testimony before the Committee on February 28, 2012. The Committee understands that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has an existing policy prohibiting its employees from engaging in any formal non-investigative cooperation with CAIR. The Committee encourages the Attorney General to adopt a similar policy for all Department officials."

Passed in The U.S. House of Representatives on May 10^th, the bill's Committee Report similarly echoes the FBI cutoff with CAIR in 2009, also citing CAIR's HLF involvement.

However, the FBI does not entirely adhere to this official severance of ties.

The Committee Report also advises the FBI to sever ties with other unindicted co-conspirators in terror-linked cases, "The Committee also encourages the FBI to adopt similar policies, where appropriate, with regard to other individuals and organizations identified as unindicted co-conspirators in terrorism related cases."

Both CAIR and The Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) are listed on the HLF case documents of unindicted co-conspirators and/or Joint venturers.

However, the FBI still routinely meets with unindicted co-conspirators of the HLF case, specifically CAIR and ISNA.

As recent as May 2012, U.S. Attorney Wilfredo A. Ferrer, U.S. Attorney Norman Heming and an FBI official met with representatives from CAIR's Florida Chapter "to discuss issues of mutual concern" as part of the DOJ "outreach effort to strengthen relations with the Muslim community."

"Being able to meet face-to-face is the best way to address issues," CAIR South Florida's Executive Director Nezar Hamze stated.

Similarly, in February 2012, the Public Affairs Office of the FBI Director Robert Mueller met with both The Muslim Public Affairs Council (MPAC) and ISNA to discuss the anti-Muslim bias in training materials used by the FBI.

"We welcome and appreciate Director Mueller's commitment to take positive steps towards eradicating such materials and rebuilding trust and an open dialogue," ISNA President Imam Magid stated.

Since the FBI continues to meet and cooperate with unindicted co-conspirators in the HLF case in "non-investigative" circumstances, the likelihood of the DOJ adhering to this recommendation appears distant.

Samir Khan Releases Advice for Mujahideen

Jihadi forums have released a new guide with practical advice for aspiring mujahideen, posthumously attributed to former al-Qaida propagandist Samir Khan. In "Expectations Full," Khan recommends carrying out attacks at home, but provides advice about how to function in foreign jihads.

"I strongly recommend all the brothers and sisters coming from the West to con­sider attacking America in its own backyard," Khan says in the section, "Why not the West?" "The effect is much greater, it always embarrasses the enemy, and these type [sic.] of individual decision-making attacks are nearly impossible for them to contain."

To emphasize the point, he goes into detail about the various difficulties encountered by mujahideen in foreign combat. In the section "Base-to-Base," Khan describes how endless training can be boring and end without ever seeing combat, the ultimate goal. "This is why I strongly recommend those brothers in the West to wage jihad inside their countries since they can choose when to fight and when not to," he states. "In the lands of jihad however, you get to taste the fruits of sabr [patience]," he adds.

Khan also gives a lot of other practical military advice. He tells would-be warriors to follow rules about not using electronics on base, to avoid giving out personal details that would be useful to spies, and to follow domestic politics in their chosen land of jihad. He also says it's ok to be scared when facing aerial bombardment.

Hygiene and comfort matter too. Would-be warriors should shower regularly and be especially careful to wash their feet, he says. They should also bring medicines and bug spray, avoid overeating, and recite prayers to ward of magical jinn [spirits] conspiring with the disbelievers against them.

Although killed more than 8 months ago, Khan's influence is still being felt. "Expectations Full" is his first and possibly last independent release. The recently released final issue of al-Qaida's English-language magazine, Inspire, also contained Khan's lengthy last testament.

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