Dreams Into Lightning 2

Morning Report: 2012-05-25

Jason Abdo convicted. YNet: 'A federal jury has convicted an AWOL Muslim soldier of attempting to blow up a Texas restaurant full of American troops. The Waco jury convicted Pfc. Naser Jason Abdo of the most serious charge, attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction, which could land him in prison for life. ...'

The butler did it. The butler who serves in the apartments of Pope Benedict was arrested on Friday in connection with an investigation into leaks of confidential documents, a senior Vatican source said.

Nigeria Church Attack Kills 21

Gunmen attacked worship services at a university campus and a church Sunday in northern Nigeria, killing at least 21 people in coordinated assaults that saw panicked Christians gunned down as they tried to flee, witnesses and officials said. ...

Raymond Ibrahim has some background on Islamist persecution of Christians. Walter Russell Mead:

Nigeria is a major flashpoint for the religious conflict seen across Africa as a surging Christian presence shakes the confidence of traditional Islamic communities and as radical currents in global Islam make themselves felt in sub-Saharan Africa. Since independence, Nigeria’s Christian community has doubled as a proportion of the population (from roughly a fourth of the population to roughly one half) as animists and believers in traditional African religions converted to Christianity. Additionally, some Muslims have converted. The surge in Christian numbers comes at the same time that the Christian population and the predominantly Christian regions of the country are becoming more prosperous than the mostly Muslim north. Political power is also flowing to the south. ...

Go read the rest.

Totten: Fake Terrorism in Syria

'No one who follows Middle East conflicts should be shocked to discover that the Syrian government is staging terrorist attacks against itself. ...'

The Other Shoe

(For you Yanks who may need to look up "supergrass" like I did, it's an informer.)

BBC:

A British man jailed for plotting to blow up a plane has given taped evidence in the trial of an al-Qaeda operative accused of trying to bomb New York's subway system.

The Brooklyn courtroom was silent as Saajid Badat, the ex-grammar school boy from Gloucester, described meeting Osama Bin Laden in Afghanistan soon after the 9/11 attacks.

Bin Laden was justifying Badat's planned mission to blow up an aircraft - and himself - with a shoe bomb. The al-Qaeda leader told Badat how more attacks like 9/11 "will help us ruin the US economy".

Ten years later and Bin Laden is dead, while Badat thought better of being a shoe bomber and turned supergrass instead.

Now Badat has become the first terrorist convicted in Britain to testify at a trial overseas. ...

Easter Bombing in Kaduna, Nigeria by Boko Haram Terrorists

At least 38 people were killed on Easter Sunday by a car bomb blast in Kaduna, about 100 miles north of Abuja, Nigeria.

The blast struck Kaduna, the capital of Kaduna state, leaving charred motorcycles and debris strewn across a major road in the city where many gather to eat at informal restaurants and buy black market gasoline. Nearby hotels had their windows blown out of by the force of the powerful explosion, which engulfed a group of motorcycle taximen. ...

CNN: 'The blast occurred in Kaduna, a city located about 230 kilometers (140 miles) southwest of Kano, around 8:40 a.m.'

Long War Journal has more.

Who are Boko Haram?

People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet's Teachings and Jihad[5] (Arabic: جماعة اهل السنة للدعوة والجهاد, Jama'atu Ahlis Sunna Lidda'awati Wal-Jihad), better known by its Hausa name Boko Haram, is a jihadist terrorist organization based in the northeast of Nigeria.[6] It is an Islamist movement which strongly opposes man-made laws. Founded by Mohammed Yusuf in 2001[7] or 2002,[8] the organisation is a Muslim sect that seeks to abolish the secular system of government and establish sharia law in the country.[9][10]

The movement, whose name in the Hausa language, Boko Haram, translates as "Western education is sacrilege"[9] or "a sin",[11] is divided into three factions, and in 2011, was responsible for more than 450 killings in Nigeria.[9]

Though the group first became known internationally following sectarian violence in Nigeria in 2009, it does not have a clear structure or evident chain of command.[12] Moreover, it is still a matter of debate whether Boko Haram has links to terror outfits outside Nigeria and its fighters have frequently clashed with Nigeria's central government.[9]

Boko Haram is an islamist, jihadi group with links to Al-Qaeda:

The Daily Telegraph understands this transformation has come about partly because of the help Boko Haram has received from al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), a branch of the international terrorist network based in the Saharan states of Mali, Niger and Algeria.

Boko Haram demonstrated its new potency on Jan 20, when at least 100 of the movement's fighters executed eight assaults in Nigeria's northern city of Kano, overwhelming the security forces and killing 185 people. ...

In this latest attack, casualties may have been lower because of security measures around the church area, or because the bomber detonated prematurely.

Nigeria is about evenly divided between Muslims and Christians, with the prosperous, coastal south being mainly Christian and the poorer inland north predominantly Muslim.

Al Qaeda Claims Baghdad Police Station Attack

Stratfor: 'The al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq on March 17 claimed responsibility for a Feb. 19 suicide bombing on a Baghdad police academy, AFP reported. ...'

Jihad Fail

The Iranian regime, in search of that elusive kaboom, apparently entrusted one Saeid Moradi with a suicide bombing operation. Mr. Moradi, for his part, seems to have been bent on setting the record for "most incompetent suicide bombing attempt":

An Iranian man carrying explosives blew off his own legs and wounded four other people in two blasts Tuesday in Bangkok, Thai authorities said. A third blast occurred in a nearby house.

Police say a passport found at the scene indicated the man was Saeid Moradi from Iran. Authorities in Tehran could not immediately be reached for comment.

I'll bet they couldn't.

I'll let Harry's Place have the last word on this:

Yes, I know Iranian agents will no doubt continue to try to kill Israelis. And unfortunately there’s a chance that sooner or later they’ll succeed. But in the meantime, I hope I can be excused for finding some grim humor in their failures.

US Foils Plot to Kill Saudi Ambassador, Bomb Israeli and Saudi Embassies

Daily Mail:

The United States has stopped a 'significant terrorist act linked to Iran which wanted to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador in Washington DC, as well as other attacks.

The assassination of Adel Al-Jubeir would have been followed by bomb attacks on the Saudi and Israeli embassies in Washington.

The plot has support from the Iranian government and two men allegedly working for 'factions of the Iranian government' have been charged with the plot, Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday. ...

MSNBC: 'Two men allegedly working for "factions of the Iranian government" have been charged with plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador to the U.S. and to attack the Saudi and Israeli embassies, Attorney General Eric Holder said Tuesday. The criminal complaint, unsealed Tuesday in federal court in New York City, identified the two as Manssor Arbabsiar and Gholam Shakuri.'

NOW Lebanon:

The criminal complaint named Manssor Arbabsiar, a 56-year-old naturalized US citizen holding both Iranian and US passports, and Gholam Shakuri, an Iran-based member of Iran's Quds Force, in the plot.

Shakuri remains at large, Justice Department officials said.

Arbabsiar was arrested on September 29 at New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport and was to appear in court later on Tuesday in Manhattan.

Long War Journal:

The US Treasury Department has designated five individuals involved in an alleged plot to assassinate Saudi Arabia's ambassador to the US, including Qasem Soleimani, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps-Qods Force (IRGC-QF). Soleimani "oversees the IRGC-QF officers who were involved in this plot," according to Treasury.

Another of the five is Abdul Reza Shahlai, an IRGC-QF officer who planned the Jan. 20, 2007 attack on US soldiers stationed in Karbala, Iraq. That attack left five US soldiers dead and wounded three others.

Shahlai, according to the Treasury Department, "coordinated the plot to assassinate the Saudi Arabian Ambassador to the United States Adel Al-Jubeir, while he was in the United States and to carry out follow-on attacks against other countries' interests inside the United States and in another country."

Shahlai was previously designated by the Treasury Department in Sept. 2008. At the time, Treasury noted that he was a "deputy commander" in the IRGC-QF and planned "Jaysh al-Mahdi (JAM) Special Groups attacks against Coalition Forces in Iraq." One of the attacks he "planned" was the 2007 raid in Karbala, a daring and sophisticated operation in which Iranian-trained terrorists posed as American soldiers during an assault on the Provincial Joint Coordination Center. ...

Israel Excluded from Obama's Counter-Terror Coalition

Barry Rubin:

Inasmuch as the plan for the group expresses any real-world purpose, it is to help the countries most targeted by terrorism. There are 30 founding members. Most of them—I’d say two-thirds—face no serious terrorist threat today. The Middle East members include Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Morocco, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.

Switzerland is a mmber; Pakistan and India, despite the former’s sponsoring terrorism agianst the latter, are members; Israel is not. ...

But there’s more. The United States is not leading this new organization alone. It has a co-director. That co-director is Turkey.

From the US Department of State:

As stated in President Obama’s National Counterterrorism Strategy, the U.S. is committed to strengthening the global counterterrorism (CT) architecture in a manner that complements and reinforces the CT work of existing multilateral bodies. The Administration’s signature initiative in this area is the Global Counterterrorism Forum (GCTF), which is intended to ensure the necessary international architecture is in place to address 21st century challenges.

The U.S. proposed the creation of the GCTF to address the evolving terrorist threat in a way that would bring enduring benefits by helping frontline countries and affected regions acquire the means to deal with threats they face. It is based on a recognition that the U.S. alone cannot eliminate every terrorist or terrorist organization. Rather, the international community must come together to assist countries as they work to confront the terrorist threat. ...

Structure: The GCTF will consist of a strategic-level Coordinating Committee, co-chaired initially by the United States and Turkey; five thematic and regional expert-driven working groups; and a small administrative unit that the U.S. will host for the first few years. ...

"The Jews invented lawfare, the Jews invented law ... "

Commentary on Shurat ha-Din:

At a radical left-wing coffee shop in Washington, D.C. last month, Code Pink founder and “Freedom Flotilla II” passenger Madea Benjamin woefully recounted the moment she realized her boat, the Audacity of Hope, wouldn’t be legally permitted to leave a port in Greece to sail to Gaza.

“There was something called a ‘complaint’ that was put against our boat,” Benjamin explained to a crowd of anti-Israel activists stuffed into the back room of the restaurant. “Well, it didn’t take long for somebody to uncover that the person, or entity, that lodged the complaint was none other than this right-wing Israeli law center based in Tel Aviv, that knew nothing about our boat and certainly had no interest in the passengers’ safety.”

The “right-wing” law center that caused Benjamin so much grief is Shurat HaDin – the Israeli group that single-handedly took down the “Freedom Flotilla II” simply by filing creative lawsuits. In total, nine out of the 10 boats in the flotilla never touched Israeli waters, largely due to Shurat HaDin’s work.

Led by Nitzana Darshan-Leitner and her husband Avi Leitner, the legal center is pioneering a new strategy of Israeli-self defense: Pro-Israel Lawfare. ...

Read the rest at the link. And pay a visit to Shurat ha-Din.