Category: Terror War

Fox News reports that last week the US Navy intercepted another shipment of small arms probably to Yemen and orchestrated by the Iranians in their proxy war against the Sunni Saudis;

The Navy said the shipment included 1,500 AK-47s, 200 rocket-propelled grenade launchers and 21 .50-caliber machine guns.

After the U.S. seized the weapons stash from the dhow, a traditional sailing vessel, the Navy let the crew go. A U.S. official told Fox News current rules do not allow western naval forces to seize the crew in addition to illicit cargo. “You have to find a country willing to prosecute,” the official said.

A defense official reached by Fox News would not reveal the nationality of the dhow’s crew.

The Navy says that this is the third time an arms shipment to Yemen from Iran has been intercepted in the waters off of the Arabian peninsula in the last few weeks. It’s nice to see that they’re not squandering their billions of dollars in their recent windfall facilitated by John Kerry and the Obama Administration.

ADDED: The Virginian-Pilot says that it was the Norfolk-based USS Gravely which responded to a call by the coastal patrol ship USS Sirocco.

This is the third time in recent weeks that international forces have seized weapons the U.S. believes originated in Iran. On Feb. 27, the Royal Australian Navy’s HMAS Darwin intercepted a dhow with nearly 2,000 AK-47s, 100 rocket-propelled grenade launchers and 49 machine guns, among other weapons.

On March 20, the French Navy destroyer FS Provence seized nearly 2,000 AK-47s, 64 Dragunov sniper rifles and nine anti-tank missiles.

That far-Right wing media organ, NBC News reports that CIA officer Doug Laux has written a book that tells the story of how he provided a plan that would have resulted in the ouster of Syrian President Bashar Assad to the Obama Administration back in 2012. A plan that Obama failed to approve;

Laux, an Indiana native who joined the CIA in 2005 at age 23, says he wrote an “ops plan” that included all the elements he believed were necessary to remove Assad. He was not allowed to describe the plan, but he writes that his program “had gained traction” in Washington. His boss, the head of the Syria task force, regularly briefed members of the Congressional intelligence committees on what Laux was seeing, hearing and suggesting.

A former senior intelligence official said Laux’s ideas—many of them shared by other members of the CIA’s Syrian task force–were heavily represented in the plan that was ultimately presented to Obama.

But the president, who must approve all covert action, never gave the green light. The White House and the CIA declined to comment.

That’s hardly surprising – this administration is the least pro-active presidency in recent history. They seem unwilling to display anything even resembling leadership either at home or in conducting our foreign policy. This administration has no problem using the troops and force to clean up that which has turned to shit, but they don’t want to fix problems before they are problems. From Libya to Syria. From sub-Saharan Africa to Yemen.

President Obama seemed surprised yesterday when he noticed that, although they’re complying with the letter of the treaty, Iran isn’t following the spirit of the nuclear deal that John Kerry caved to last year. Iran complained that they haven’t reaped the economic benefits that were promised to them, according to The Hill;

“Iran so far has followed the letter of the agreement, but the spirit of the agreement involves Iran also sending signals to the world community and businesses that it is not going to be engaging in a range of provocative actions that are going to scare businesses off,” Obama said at a press conference.

“When they launch ballistic missiles with slogans calling for the destruction of Israel, that makes businesses nervous.”

“Iran has to understand what every country in the world understands, which is businesses want to go where they feel safe, where they don’t see massive controversy, where they can be confident that transactions are going to operate normally,” he added. “And that’s an adjustment that Iran’s going to have to make as well.”

Iran has squandered their windfall on continuing to be the main state supporter of terrorism in the world, and that seems to surprise this administration – as if they’ve been asleep for the last thirty years. Obama is referring to the news last month, from USAToday;

Iran test-fired two ballistic missiles, one of them with the phrase “Israel should be wiped off the Earth” written on it in Hebrew, Iranian news media reported Wednesday.

The country’s semiofficial Fars news agency said the missiles were fired at a target 870 miles away.

It came the day after Iran’s Revolutionary Guard said it test-fired several ballistic missiles as part of a military exercise.

Good use of their billions of dollars, you know, instead of making life better in Iran. And, oh, yeah, Iran’s agent in Iraq, Muqtada al Sadr is back in business in the Green Zone reforming the Iraqi government in Iran’s favor;

Muqtada al-Sadr, the cleric whose militia repeatedly battled US troops more than a decade ago, is back in action in Iraq – this time as a battler against corruption who seeks to change the face of government.

On Thursday, after spending five days holed up in a tent inside Baghdad’s heavily fortified Green Zone to press his demands, he was handed a victory, in the form of a proposed new government presented to parliament by Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi.

CNN reports that that the Pentagon is contemplating even more US troops in Iraq;

A U.S. defense official told CNN earlier this week that the U.S. currently has between 4,500 and 5,000 troops in Iraq on a regular basis, about 1,000 over the stated limit of 3,800. This includes 200 Special Operations Forces whose presence is not publicly acknowledged, the official said.
The coalition has made a decision not to publicly reveal the exact number of U.S. troops currently in Iraq, coalition spokesperson Army Col. Steve Warren told reporters earlier this week.

So, basically, it’s 2005 all over again.

I’m sure you heard about the Taliban’s attack on a peaceful gathering of folks celebrating Easter in Lahore, Pakistan yesterday. Fox News says that there were more than 70 killed and hundreds injured. Most of the casualties were women and children;

Ahsanullah Ahsan, a spokesman for the breakaway Taliban faction Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, which has sworn allegiance to ISIS, told The Associated Press late Sunday that the suicide bomber deliberately targeted Christians celebrating Easter in the park. The mostly-Muslim country has a small Christian community, accounting for less than two percent of Pakistan’s total population.

The same militant group also took responsibility for the twin bombings of a Christian church in Lahore last year.

The article continues that only 14 of the murdered people were Christians – most were Muslims. But that doesn’t seem to matter to the Islamist thugs. From Yemen, we get reports that ISIS crucified a Christian priest, Father Tom Uzhunnalil, according to the UK’s Daily Mail. He was captured from an old folks’ home where he ministered. 16 folks were murdered in the raid, including four nuns.

While the case can be made that there is no war against Islam in the middle east, no new Crusade, there is evidence that Christians are being targeted by the Islamists. Christians have been targeted in Syria and Iraq, The Sudan and Pakistan, Tunisia and Libya. Yet, the Catholic Pope, in his Easter message to the masses, urges us to accept more of the refugees from the region – some of whom intend to cause mayhem.