Aletho News

ΑΛΗΘΩΣ

Hamas Senior Member Assassinated in Damascus, Group Blames Mossad

Al-Manar | June 28, 2012

The Islamic Resistance Movement, Hamas, said on Wednesday that one of its senior members was assassinated in Damascus, blaming the Zionist entity’s secret service for the attack.

The announcement, posted on the group’s official website said it was unknown who killed Kamal Ranaja.

Hamas said it was launching “an investigation to discover who is behind the despicable crime.”

The statement added that Ranaja “was martyred in the service of his cause and his people,” vowing that his blood would not be wasted.

For his part, A Hamas official in Lebanon blamed the Zionist entity’s Mossad for the death of Ranaja.

The leader, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said that “a group of people entered the home of Ranaja (also known as Nizar Abu Mujhad), and killed him,” Israeli website Ynet reported.

According to information that we have gathered, the Mossad is behind the attack.”

Shortly after the assassination was announced, the new pan-Arabic television station, Al-Mayadeen, reported that he used to serve as aide to Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a senior Hamas member who was likely killed by Mossad in a hotel in Dubai in the year of 2010.

A delegation of senior Hamas politburo officials including Khaled Mashaal and Mousa Abu Marzook is set to arrive in Jordan to attend Ranaja’s funeral.

The group was meant to visit Jordan over the weekend or early next week but its members decided to push up their visit in order to attend the funeral. They are slated to meet Jordanian officials and possibly also King Abdullah II.

June 28, 2012 Posted by | War Crimes | , , , , | Leave a comment

Khalil al-Wazir: Paving the Way of Armed Struggle


Abu Jihad coordinates with fedayeen (Palestinian guerrilla fighters) during the siege of Beirut in 1982. (Photo: Archive)
By Mohamad Bdeir | Al Akhbar | April 17, 2012

It took Israeli intelligence over two decades and many assassination attempts before they managed to hunt down the PLO’s military mastermind Khalil al-Wazir. On the 24th anniversary of his death, Al-Akhbar recounts his story.

When Khalil al-Wazir (Abu Jihad) began his endeavor in the early 1950s, Israeli intelligence had no idea he existed. At the time, he was the twenty-something leader of the Palestinian al-Haq Brigade in Gaza. His family had been displaced from Ramleh in 1948.

Back then, the security establishment in Israel did not believe that Palestinians were capable of organizing a resistance movement. Operations by the fedayeen (Palestinian guerrilla fighters) were believed to be entirely orchestrated in Egypt.

It took Tel Aviv about 10 years to begin to know al-Wazir, who would go on to play a major role in establishing the first and largest Palestinian national liberation movement. Moreover, he would coin the idea of “armed struggle” as the only path to liberate Palestine.

News of Abu Jihad first reached Israel in 1964 through a secret Mossad unit named “Ulysses” whose mission was to spy on Palestinian refugee communities in Arab countries. Operatives spoke about the creation of a Palestinian national liberation movement led by Yasser Arafat and al-Wazir and sounded the alarm in Israeli security agencies.

According to the Israeli newspaper Yediot Aharonot– which pieced together the story of the assassination of Abu Jihad based on public and private sources – the Mossad formed a secret unit in 1965. Its prime directive was to investigate methods of countering “Palestinian terrorism” and approve assassinations. It immediately suggested two primary targets: Abu Ammar (Arafat) and Abu Jihad.

The first assassination attempt was in Damascus when a planned car bomb operation was not executed properly. It was carried out by an agent of Unit 504 of the military intelligence, responsible for recruiting and running operatives.

Abu Jihad’s role in pushing for armed struggle against Israel became apparent, especially in the period following the naksah (the defeat of Arab armies in 1967). In 1970, Israeli prime minister Golda Meir retaliated by issuing him a “Red Card,” essentially a direct assassination order.

The Israeli secret service was adamant to settle scores with Abu Jihad and put an end to his dossier. In 1975, the Israeli air force raided a building in Beirut based on information of a Fatah movement meeting taking place there. In addition to Abu Jihad, Fatah leaders Arafat, Faruq Qaddumi, and Mahmoud Abbas were supposedly attending.

The Ben Hur operation missed the target and encouraged an escalation of attacks on Israel, coordinated by Abu Jihad, who was now the deputy chief commander of the Palestinian revolution.

On 11 March 1978, he planned the Kamal Adwan operation (named after a Fatah leader assassinated in Beirut in 1973), which was carried out by the Deir Yassin group led by Dalal Mughrabi.

The operation led to the death of 35 Israelis, with dozens more injured. It created a shock wave inside Israel especially following Abu Jihad’s announcement that the operation “demonstrated the ability of the revolution to reach Israel and carry out operations anywhere it wants.”

Following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon and the PLO’s relocation to Tunisia, Abu Jihad attempted to reverse the setback in armed struggle.

He visited various Arab countries, exposing himself to three assassination attempts, according to the Israeli account.

Abu Jihad, for his part, was planning an “unprecedented” operation that would strengthen the PLO’s position and impose new conditions on the struggle with the Israelis.

Twenty resistance fighters were supposed to reach Yafa by rubber dinghies, hijack a bus, drive it to the defense ministry in Tel Aviv, and attack the entrance known as Gate Victor. But the Israeli navy surprised their ship and sank it on 20 April 1985.

Abu Jihad did not hesitate and pressed on with plans for another major operation. In 1988, he picked Dimona, the location of Israel’s nuclear reactor.

On March 7, three Palestinian commandos captured a bus carrying workers from the nuclear facility. The fighters were consequently killed along with three of the workers in an exchange of fire with an Israeli army unit.

The Mossad concentrated its resources on the pursuit of Abu Jihad, by now the number one wanted person in Israel. Defense minister at the time, Yitzhak Rabin, ordered a direct operation that would not resort to remote targeting such as an air raid. He wanted to send a message to the Palestinian movement that Israel can reach its enemies in their homes.

The Mossad surveilled al-Wazir’s home in Tunis, 4km from the beach. It began planning an assassination attempt and sent a unit from Sayeret Matkal (General Staff Reconnaissance Unit) to the Tunisian shores.

It was to repeat the same scenario used successfully 15 years earlier against three Palestinian leaders in Beirut (know as the “Verdun Operation”).

On 13 April 1988, the quarter century chase after al-Wazir was almost over. Mossad agents carrying Lebanese passports arrived in Tunis and split into two groups.

The first group rented cars to transport the assassination unit from the beach to the targeted house, which was being closely watched by the second group.

In the meantime, Israeli navy vessels carrying the assassins were waiting at sea. In the evening, a unit of 26 Israeli commandos reached the beach and took the rented cars to al-Wazir’s home. After 23 years, they finally managed to assassinate him.

The next day, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir was asked about Israel’s involvement in the assassination. Scowling, he replied, “I just heard about it on the radio.”

From Ramleh to Yarmouk

Omar Nashabe

Khalil al-Wazir was born in 1935 in Ramleh and was expelled from Palestine along with his family in 1948. He studied in Alexandria University and then moved to Saudi Arabia.

Later, he went to Kuwait where he met with Yasser Arafat and joined him in creating the Fatah movement.

Leaving Kuwait in 1963, he founded the first Fatah office in Algeria, where he was allowed to establish the first Palestinian military camp.

He then moved on to Damascus in 1965 to establish the military command headquarters and coordinate with fedayeen cells inside Palestine.

During the 1967 war, he planned and executed operations in Upper Galilee, then became the head of the western sector of Fatah until 1982.

Abu Jihad strived to develop military capabilities throughout his struggle, playing a leading role in defending Beirut against the 1982 Israeli invasion.

In his meetings with the fedayeen, he would focus on tactics and also on ethics, telling them to save ammunition and explosives, not to be zealots, and not to steal.

One time, when he was ordering the fedayeen to avoid killing children, one of them replied, “Our children in Shatila and Sabra were the first to die… I lost 12 members of my family.”

Abu Jihad’s reply was clear, “In spite of this, we will not become like those fascists. We are not fascists. [The Prophet Muhammad’s second successor] Omar Bin Khattab commands us not to cut down trees or kill children.”

Memory of Resistance

Qassem Qassem

Those who knew Abu Jihad speak of his special relationship with Imad Mughniyeh. At the end of 1978, a 16-year-old Mughniyeh joined the Fatah cell in Chiyah.

Bassem Haidar, who was in charge of the cell between 1977 and 1979, says that the boy was always with another young man, Ali Khodor Salama (Abu Hassan), assassinated by Israel in 1999 in Abra, near Sidon.

The newcomer soon caught the attention of the higher command of the Palestinian revolution, specifically Abu Jihad, due to his skill in planning ambushes in the area between Tayouneh and Asaad al-Asaad street (south of Beirut).

He was none other than Mughniyeh, Hezbollah’s military commander who was assassinated in Damascus in 2008.

“Mughniyeh was the only person able to provide the cell with the weapons they needed. He would go to the Fakhani neighborhood (PLO headquarters in Beirut) and get it,” Haidar remembers.

“Once, we needed 3.5 inch anti-tank missiles, so he was sent to get them.” Haidar continues, “Had Mughniyeh’s relationship with Abu Jihad not been good, he would not have been able to get them, since they pass directly through the leadership.”

In 1978, Mughniyeh left the Chiyah cell after “he was summoned by the leadership in Fakhani and began clandestine work in a secret security unit. We never saw him again.”

Related articles

April 22, 2012 Posted by | Timeless or most popular | , , , , , , | Leave a comment

US-Israel War on Iran: The Myth of Limited Warfare

By James Petras :: 04.04.2012

Introduction

The mounting threat of a US-Israeli military attack against Iran is based on several factors including: (1) the recent military history of both countries in the region, (2) public pronouncements by US and Israeli political leaders, (3) recent and on-going attacks on Lebanon and Syria, prominent allies of Iran, (4) armed attacks and assassinations of Iranian scientists and security officials by proxy and/or terrorist groups under US or Mossad control, (5) the failure of economic sanctions and diplomatic coercion, (6) escalating hysteria and extreme demands for Iran to end legal, civilian use-related uranium enrichment, (7) provocative military ‘exercises’ on Iran’s borders and war games designed for intimidation and a dress rehearsal for a preemptive attack, (8) powerful pro-war pressure groups in both Washington and Tel Aviv including the major Israeli political parties and the powerful AIPAC in the US, (9) and lastly the 2012 National Defense Authorization Act (Obama’s Orwellian Emergency Decree, March 16, 2012).

The US propaganda war operates along two tracks: (1) the dominant message emphasizes the proximity of war and the willingness of the US to use force and violence. This message is directed at Iran and coincides with Israeli announcements of war preparations. (2) The second track targets the ‘liberal public’ with a handful of marginal ‘knowledgeable academics’ (or State Department progressives) playing down the war threat and arguing that reasonable policy makers in Tel Aviv and Washington are aware that Iran does not possess nuclear weapons or any capacity to produce them now or in the near future. The purpose of this liberal backpedaling is to confuse and undermine the majority public opinion, which is clearly opposed to more war preparations, and to derail the burgeoning anti-war movement.

Needless to say the pronouncements of the ‘rational’ warmongers use a ‘double discourse’ based on the facile dismissal of all the historical and empirical evidence to the contrary. When the US and Israel talk of war, prepare for war and engage in pre-war provocations – they intend to go to war – just as they did against Iraq in 2003. Under present international political and military conditions an attack on Iran, initially by Israel with US support, is extremely likely, even as world economic conditions should dictate otherwise and even as the negative strategic consequences will most likely reverberate throughout the world for decades to come.

US and Israeli Military Calculations on Iran’s Capability

American and Israeli strategic policy makers do not agree on the consequences of Iran’s retaliation against an attack. For their part, the Israeli leaders minimize Iran’s military capacity to attack and damage the Jewish state, which is their only consideration. They count on their distance, their anti-missile shield and protection from US air and naval forces in the Gulf to cover their sneak attack. On the other hand, US military strategists know the Iranians are capable of inflicting substantial casualties on US warships, which would have to attack Iranian coastal installations in order to support or protect the Israelis.

Israel intelligence is best known for its capacity to organize the assassination of individuals around the world: Mossad has organized successful overseas terrorist acts against Palestinian, Syrian, and Lebanese leaders. On the other hand Israeli intelligence has a very poor track record with regard to its estimates of major military and political undertakings. They seriously underestimated the popular support, military strength and organizational capacity of Hezbollah during the 2006 war in Lebanon. Likewise, Israel intelligence misunderstood the strength and capacity of the Egyptian popular democratic movement as it rose up and overthrew Tel Aviv’s strategic regional ally, the Mubarak dictatorship. While Israeli leaders ‘feign paranoia’ – tossing clichés about ‘existential threats’– they are blinded by their narcissistic arrogance and racism, repeatedly underestimating the technical expertise and political sophistication of their Arab and regional Islamic foes. This is undoubtedly true in their facile dismissal of Iran’s capacity to retaliate against a planned Israeli air assault.

The US government has now overtly committed itself to supporting an Israeli assault on Iran when it is launched. More specifically, Washington claims it will come to Israel’s defense ‘unconditionally’ if it is “attacked.” How can Israel avoid being ‘attacked’ when its planes are raining bombs and missiles on Iranian installations, military defenses and support systems, not to mention Iranian cities, ports and strategic infrastructure? Moreover, given the Pentagon’s collaboration and coordinated intelligence systems with the Israel forces, its role in identifying targets, routes and incoming missiles, as well as integrated weapons and ordinance supply chains will be critical to an Israeli attack. There is no way that the US can dissociate itself from the Jewish State’s war on Iran, once the attack has begun.

The Myths of ‘Limited War’: Geography

Washington and Tel Aviv claim and appear to believe that their planned assault on Iran will be a “limited war”, targeting limited objectives and lasting a few days or weeks – with no serious consequences.

We are told Israel’s brilliant generals have identified all the critical nuclear research facilities, which their surgical air strikes will eliminate without horrific collateral damage to the surrounding population. Once the alleged ‘nuclear weapons’ program is destroyed, all Israelis can resume their lives in full security knowing that another ‘existential’ threat has been eliminated. The Israeli notion of a war, limited in ‘time and space’, is absurd and dangerous – and underlines the arrogance, stupidity and racism of its authors.

To approach Iran’s nuclear facilities Israeli and US forces will confront well-equipped and defended bases, missile installations, maritime defenses and large-scale fortifications directed by the Revolutionary Guards and the Iranian Armed Forces. Moreover, the defense systems protecting the nuclear facilities are linked by civilian highways, airfields, ports, and backed by a dual purpose (civilian-military) infrastructure, which includes oil refineries and a huge network of administrative offices. To ‘knock out’ the alleged nuclear sites will require expanding the geographic scope of the war. The scientific-technological capacity of the Iranian civilian nuclear program involves a wide swath of its research facilities, including universities, laboratories, manufacturing sites, and design centers. To destroy Iran’s civilian nuclear program would require Israel (and thus the US) to attack much more than research facilities or laboratories hidden under a remote mountain. It would require multiple, widespread assaults on targets throughout the country, in other words, a generalized war.

Iran’s Supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei has stated that Iran will retaliate with a war of equivalence. Iran will match the breadth and scope of any attack with a corresponding counter-attack: ‘We will attack them at the same level as they attack us’. That means Iran will not confine its retaliation to merely trying to shoot down US and Israeli bombers in its airspace or launch missiles at offshore US warships in its waters but will take the war to equivalent targets in Israel and in US-occupied countries in and around the Gulf. Israel’s ‘limited war’ will become a generalized war extending throughout the Middle East and beyond.

Israel’s current delusional fetish about its elaborate missile defense system will be exposed as hundreds of high-powered missiles are launched from Teheran, Southern Lebanon and just beyond the Golan Heights.

The Myth of Limited War: Time Frame

Israeli military experts confidently expect to polish off their Iranian targets in a few days – some might think a mere weekend – and perhaps without the loss of even a single pilot. They expect the Jewish state will celebrate its brilliant victory in the streets of Tel Aviv and Washington. They are deluded by their own sense of superiority. Iran did not fight a brutal, decade-long war against the US-supplied Iraqi invaders and its western/Israeli military advisers, to just turn over and passively submit to a limited number of air and missile attacks by Israel. Iran is a young, educated mobilized society, which can draw on millions of reservists from across the political, ethnic, gender, religious spectrum, galvanized in support of their nation under attack. In a war to defend the homeland all internal differences disappear to confront the unprovoked Israeli-US attack threatening their entire civilization – its 5,000-year culture and traditions, as well as its modern scientific advances and institutions. The first wave of US-Israeli attacks will lead to ferocious retaliation, which will not be confined to the original areas of conflict, nor will any such act of Israeli aggression end when and if Iran’s nuclear research facilities are destroyed and some of its scientists, technicians and skilled workers killed. The war will continue in time and extend geographically.

Multiple Points of Conflict

Just as any US-Israeli attack on Iran will involve multiple targets, the Iranian military will also have a plethora of easily accessible strategic targets. Though it is difficult to predict exactly where and how Iran will retaliate, one thing is clear: The initial US-Israeli strike will not go unanswered.

Given Israeli-US supremacy in long and medium range sea and air power, Iran will probably rely on short-range objectives. These would include the highly valued US military facilities and supply routes in adjoining terrain (Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan) and Israeli targets with missiles launched from Southern Lebanon and possibly Syria. If a few Iranian long-range missiles escape the Jewish State’s much vaunted ‘anti-missile dome’, Israeli population centers may pay a heavy price for their leaders’ recklessness and arrogance.

The Iranian counter-strike will lead to an escalation by US-Israeli forces, extending and deepening their air and sea war to the entire Iranian national security system – military bases, ports, communication systems, command posts and government administrative centers – many in densely populated cities. Iran will counter by launching its greatest strategic asset: a coordinated ground attack involving the Revolutionary Guards together with their allies among the Iraqi Shia troops, against US forces in Iraq. It will coordinate attacks against US facilities in Afghanistan and Pakistan with the growing nationalist-Islamic armed resistance.

The initial conflict, centered on so-called military objectives (scientific research facilities), will spread rapidly to economic targets, or what US and Israeli military strategists refer to as “dual civilian-military” targets. This would include oil fields, highways, factories, communications networks, television stations, water treatment facilities, reservoirs, power stations and administrative offices, such as the Defense Ministry and headquarters of the Republican Guard. Iran, faced with imminent destruction of its entire economy and infrastructure (which occurred in neighboring Iraq with the unprovoked US invasion of 2003), would retaliate by blocking the Straits of Hormuz and sending short range missiles in the direction of the principle oil fields and refineries of the Gulf States including Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, a mere 10 minute distance, crippling the flow of oil to Europe, Asia and the United States and plunging the world economy into deep depression.

It should not be forgotten that the Iranians are probably more aware than anyone in the region of the total devastation suffered by Iraqis after the US invasion, which plunged that nation into total chaos and devastated its advanced infrastructure and civilian administrative apparatus, not to mention the systematic obliteration of its highly educated scientific and technical elite. The waves of Mossad-sponsored assassinations of Iranian scientists, academics and engineers are just a foretaste of what the Israelis have in mind for Iran’s outstanding scientists, intellectuals and highly skilled technical workers. Iranians should have no illusions about the Americans and Israelis who seek to thrust Iran into the brutal dark ages of Afghanistan and Iraq. They will have no more role in a devastated Iran than their counterparts had in post-Saddam Iraq.

According to US General Mathis, who commands all US forces in the Middle East, Persian Gulf and Southwest Asia, ‘an Israeli first strike would be likely to have dire consequences across the region and for the United States there’ (NY Times, 3/19/12). General Mathis “dire cost” estimate only takes account of the US military losses, likely several hundred sailors on warships within missile distance of Iranian gunners.

However the most delusional and self-serving assessment of the outcome and consequences of an Israeli air attack on Iran, emanates from top Israeli leaders, academics and intelligence experts, who claim superior intelligence, superior defenses and supreme (if also racist) insight into the ‘Iranian mind’. Typical is Israeli Defense Minister Barak who boasts that any Iranian retaliation will at worst inflict minimal casualties on the Israeli population.

The ‘Judeo-centric’ view of re-ordering the balance of power in the region, which is prevalent in leading Israeli war circles, overlooks the likelihood that war will not be decided by Israeli air strikes and anti-missile defenses. Iran’s missiles cannot be easily contained, especially if they arrive several hundred a minute from three directions, Iran, Lebanon, Syria and possibly from Iranian submarines. Secondly, the collapse of its oil imports will devastate Israel’s highly energy dependent economy. Thirdly, Israel’s principle allies, especially the US and the EU, will be severely strained as they are dragged into Israel’s war and find themselves defending the straits of Hormuz, their army garrisons in Iraq and Afghanistan, and their oil fields and military bases in the Gulf. Such a conflict could ignite the Shia majorities in Bahrain and in the strategic oil-rich provinces of Saudi Arabia. The generalized war will have a devastating effect on the price of oil and the world economy. It will provoke the fury of consumers and workers rage everywhere as factories close and powerful shocks throughout the fragile financial system result in a world depression.

Israel’s pathological ‘superiority complex’ results in its racist leaders consistently overestimating their own intellectual, technical and military capabilities, while underestimating the knowledge, capacity and courage of their regional, Islamic (in this case Iranian) adversaries. They ignore Iran’s proven capacity to sustain a prolonged, complex multi-front defensive war and to recover from an initial assault and develop appropriate modern weaponry to inflict severe damage on its attackers. And Iran will have the unconditional and active support of the world’s Muslim population, and perhaps the diplomatic backing of Russia and China, who will obviously view an attack on Iran as another dress rehearsal to contain their growing power.

Conclusion

War, especially an Israeli-US war against Iran is indissolubly linked to the asymmetrical US-Israeli relationship, which sidelines and censors any critical US military and political analysis. Because Israel’s Zionist power configuration in the US can now harness US military power in support of Israel’s drive for regional dominance, Israeli leaders and most of their military feel free to engage in the most outrageous military and destructive adventures, knowing full well that in the first and last instance they can rely on the US to support them with American blood and treasure. But after all of this grotesque servitude to a racist, isolated country, who will rescue the United States? Who will prevent the sinking of its ships in the Gulf and the death and maiming of hundreds of its sailors and thousands of its soldiers? And where will the Israelis and US Zionists be when Iraq is overrun by elite Iranian troops and their Iraqi Shia allies and a generalized uprising occurs in Afghanistan?

The self-centered Israeli policy-makers overlook the likely collapse of the world oil supply as a result of their planned war against Iran. Do their Zionist agents in the US realize that as a result of dragging the US into Israel’s war, that the Iranian nation will be forced to set the Persian Gulf oilfields ablaze?

How cheap has it become to ‘buy a war’ in the US? For a mere few million dollars in campaign contributions to corrupt politicians, and through the deliberate penetration of Israel-First agents, academics and politicians into the war-making machinery of the US government, and through the moral cowardice and self-censorship of leading critics, writers and journalists who refuse to name Israel and its agents as the key decision makers in our country’s Mid East policy, we head directly toward a war far beyond any regional military conflagration and toward the collapse of the world economy and the brutal impoverishment of hundreds of millions of people North and South, East and West.

Related articles

April 5, 2012 Posted by | Corruption, Deception, Mainstream Media, Warmongering, Militarism, Wars for Israel | , , , | 3 Comments

Is it an Israeli False Flag Again?

By Gilad Atzmon | March 22, 2012

Israeli press reported this evening that French gunman Mohamed Merah had been on a trip to Israel in the past.

According to the report, Merah’s passport had Israeli stamps in it. The purpose of his visit is  unknown. Israeli analysts suspect he was either trying to visit the Palestinian territories or preparing for a terror attack.

However, I won’t rule out the possibility that Merah was actually trained by Israeli forces. Marah may have conducted a false flag operation. By way of deception is,  after all, the Mossad’s motto.

Read the story of Naeim Giladi, an Israeli agent operating in Iraq in the late 1940’s.

“On May 10, at 3 a.m., a grenade was tossed in the direction of the display window of the Jewish-owned Beit-Lawi Automobile Company, destroying part of the building. No casualties were reported.

On June 3, 1950, another grenade was tossed from a speeding car in the El-Batawin area of Baghdad where most rich Jews and middle class Iraqis lived. No one was hurt, but following the explosion Zionist activists sent telegrams to Israel requesting that the quota for immigration from Iraq be increased.

On June 5, at 2:30 a.m., a bomb exploded next to the Jewish-owned Stanley Shashua building on El-Rashid street, resulting in property damage but no casualties.

On January 14, 1951, at 7 p.m., a grenade was thrown at a group of Jews outside the Masouda Shem-Tov Synagogue. The explosive struck a high-voltage cable, electrocuting three Jews, one a young boy, Itzhak Elmacher, and wounding over 30 others. Following the attack, the exodus of Jews jumped to between 600-700 per day.

Zionist propagandists still maintain that the bombs in Iraq were set off by anti-Jewish Iraqis who wanted Jews out of their country. The terrible truth is that the grenades that killed and maimed Iraqi Jews and damaged their property were thrown by Zionist Jews.”

March 23, 2012 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | , , , , , | Leave a comment

Iran Falsely Charged with India and Georgia Attacks

By Stephen Lendman | February 15th, 2012

Last October, Iran was falsely charged with a fake terror plot that didn’t pass the smell test. At best, it resembled a bad film script too implausible to believe.

Tehran was bogusly blamed for plotting to kill Saudi Arabia’s US ambassador. According to spurious accusations, an Iranian/American used car salesman and Mexican drug cartel hired assassin were involved.

You can’t make this stuff up, but major media scoundrels headlined it for days. They regurgitated a scheme too implausible to believe.

Official lies substituted for proof. They’re repeated to incite fear and justify retaliatory measures with public support. They include belligerence if ordered.

Unasked always is cui bono. Clearly, Iran’s only harmed by alleged terrorist attacks against America, NATO partners, Israel, or their allies. In contrast, Washington and Tel Aviv benefit greatly. As a result, new charges follow old ones.

On February 13, The New York Times headlined, “Israel Blames Iran for Attacks in India and Georgia,” saying:

On Monday, “(b)ombers targeted Israel embassy workers in” both countries’ capitals. New Delhi witnesses said a motorcyclist attached a bomb to an Israeli diplomat’s car, injuring his wife.”

An alleged Georgia plot was foiled. Conveniently, an Israeli Tbilisi embassy employee spotted a “strange object” in full view attached to its envoy’s car. If something real was planned, it would have been placed underneath out of sight. Even an amateur knows that.

Notorious pro-Israeli flack/Times writer Ethan Bronner headlined, “Israel Says Iran Is Behind Bombs,” saying:

“If actually carried out by Iran (implying they were), the attacks would be another indication that the leadership in Tehran was willing to reach beyond its borders against its enemies and expand its attacks to civilians.”

Bronner repeated the canard about Iran plotting to assassinate the Saudi ambassador, adding:

“….Israel has said that Iran has planned to attack its citizens in various countries, but that those plots were stopped.”

Major media scoundrels are so used to suppressing truth and full disclosure, they wouldn’t recognize it if it jumped up and bit them in the nose.

For years, Israel manufactured bogus threats against its overseas based officials and other citizens. America does the same thing. Duplicitously pointing fingers the wrong way conceals their own crimes. They’re numerous, frequent, and horrific.

In contrast, Iran threatens no other country and hasn’t attacked one in over 200 years. Israeli/Washington terrorist charges are spurious. They’re made to stoke fear and justify ‘retaliatory’ measures.

Iran painstakingly avoids provocations. Despite clear evidence of Mossad’s involvement in killing its nuclear scientists and other destabilizing actions, Tehran refrained from retaliating.

Blaming Iran for the New Delhi and Tbilisi incidents is entirely spurious. Yet major media scoundrels headline it. So did Netanyahu calling Iran and Hezbollah “the world’s greatest exporter(s) of terror.”

“In the last few months, we have witnessed several attempts to target Israeli citizens and Jews in a series of countries, such as Azerbaijan and Thailand. In all of these cases were able to thwart these attacks in cooperation with local forces.”

Of course, doing so suggests Israeli involvement. Conveniently, alleged terror plots were foiled in the nick of time. Be suspicious. Be very suspicious.

At issue, of course, is blaming Iran, Syria, and other Israeli targets. It’s an old stunt used often by Israel and America. Both countries specialize in false flag attacks. They’re also behind alleged foiled terror plots.

Netanyahu added:

“The Israeli government and its security services will continue, with local security, to act against the international terror which Iran produces.”

In fact, Israel and Washington are the world’s leading state terror exponents. Incidents are conveniently blamed on others. It doesn’t wash.

Though evidence so far can’t prove it, Mossad, not Iran, was likely responsible for the latest ones. The tactic chosen replicated one of its favorites. It was classic Israeli state terrorism.

Mossad and Shin Bet (Israel’s Security Agency) have long, odious terrorist histories.

Blaming victims, lawlessness, violence, crimes of war and against humanity, collective punishment, intimidation, attacking unarmed civilians, and overall brutality are Israeli specialties.

Combined, they define a rogue state, defiant of international law principles. It pursues its own interests ruthlessly and extrajudicially, anywhere in the world.

Israel began honing its skills during the Mandatory Palestine period. At the time, Jewish terrorist groups targeted Jews, Brits and Arabs. Involved were paramilitary Hagana members, Irgun headed by future prime minister Menachem Begin, and Lehi (also called the Stern Gang) led by another future prime minister, Yitzhak Shamir. They were rogue killers before entering politics.

Today the tradition continues under new management. Little wonder Israel’s history is so bloodstained. It involves individual and mass killings. Alleged Arab terrorists are blamed. Current favorites include Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, Hamas, and other Palestinian resistance groups.

Mossad specializes in various type car bombs. Assassinating former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri was classic Israeli state terror.

On February 14, 2005, compelling visual and audio evidence revealed real time intercepted Israeli aerial surveillance footage of routes Hariri used on the day he was killed. Israel was clearly involved.

Syria initially was blamed. Assad denied responsibility. Hezbollah was later falsely named and indicted. It was typical Mossad targeting though no one at the time knew for sure. The powerful car bomb ripped a 30 foot crater in the street, injuring over 100 besides those killed.

No evidence proved Hezbollah’s involvement. Moreover, it had nothing to gain but plenty to lose. […]

Neither the India or Georgia incident caused deaths. That alone is suspicious. If Israel or other professional assassins want someone dead, bet on it. If targets escape unscathed or with minor wounds, smell a rat. The odor from New Delhi and Tbilisi is telling.

India Responds

India’s Foreign Minister SM Krishna announced an investigation. Protection for Israeli embassy staff was added. India’s Home Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram said the attack was committed by a “very well-trained person.”

Tali Yehoshua-Koren, wife of Israel’s defense attache was slightly wounded. After hospital treatment to remove shrapnel, she was released. Her husband said she’s recovering nicely.

The incident occurred one day after the fourth anniversary of Hezbollah leader Imad Mughniyah’s assassination. He was falsely linked to terror attacks on American and Israeli targets.

In 2008, a Damascus car bomb claimed him. Israel was blamed at the time. It was typical Mossad terror. Israel, of course, denied it. In the 1970s, Mughniyah was a student brigade organizer. He aided Arafat and other senior PLO officials in Lebanon. He was falsely accused of masterminding the 1983 US Embassy Beirut attack, as well as truck bombing French and US marine barracks in Lebanon.

Without evidence, he and Hezbollah’s rap sheet include the 1983 US Lebanon embassy and marine barracks bombings, highjackings, hostage taking, rocket attacks against Israel, suicide bombings, and more. He and Hezbollah denied them, saying they only respond defensively when attacked against militants, not civilians.

Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah accuses America and Israel of making false terrorist charges for political, not legitimate, reasons. At issue is its resistance to imperial aggression.

Argentinean officials also bogusly charged Mughniyeh in connection with the 1992 Israeli Buenos Aires embassy bombing. It killed 29 and wounded another 242 civilians.

In 1999, its authorities issued an arrest warrant for this attack and the 1994 AMIA (Argentine Israelite Mutual Association) Buenos Aires bombing. It killed 85 and injured hundreds. Argentina has Latin America’s largest Jewish population. It numbers around 200,000.

Once named, it’s easy to pile on more accusations. Mughniyeh faced many, including the 1996 Saudi Arabia Khobar Towers bombing and a 2006 border incident Israel used to wage aggressive war on Lebanon.

A Final Comment

When it rains, it pours. On February 14, Haaretz headlined, “Suspected Iranian national maimed by own bomb in Bangkok,” saying:

“A man thought to be Iranian was seriously wounded in Bangkok on Tuesday when a bomb he was (allegedly) carrying exploded and blew one of his legs off, police and a government spokeswoman said.”

Be suspicious. If a professional assassin wanted someone dead, he or she would wouldn’t be wounded in the process.

The report added that “Shortly before, there had been an explosion in a house the man was renting” in central Bangkok. Both incidents smell, especially by pointing fingers at Iran with no corroborating evidence. Yet Haaretz headlined it without questioning charges that appear baseless.

Israel and Washington are spoiling for a fight. What better way to justify one than by state-sponsored false flags blamed on intended targets.

It’s the oldest trick in the book with a long sordid history. Be suspicious whenever headlines feature incidents without evidence. It suggests none exists and those blamed are innocent. Believe it!

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

Related articles

February 15, 2012 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism | , , | 14 Comments

Azerbaijan Hub for Mossad’s Assassination & Espionage Operations against Iran

To-Be-NATO Ally Azerbaijan Proves its NATO-Worthiness

By Sibel Edmonds | Boiling Frogs Post |February 12, 2012

Today Iran’s foreign ministry summoned Azerbaijan’s ambassador to rebuke him for Azerbaijan’s alleged link to Mossad operations against the Iranian government. Earlier today, the London Times reported that Israel’s Mossad has been using Azerbaijan as a hub to spy on the Islamic Republic, citing testimony from a still- anonymous Mossad agent.

“Following the movements of the terrorists involved in assassination of Iranian scientists in Azerbaijan republic and the facilities provided to them to go to Tel Aviv in collaboration with Mossad spy network.”

Iran’s Press TV reports further on the meeting:

In a Sunday meeting with Azerbaijan’s envoy to Tehran Javanshir Akhundov, the Director General of the Iranian Foreign Ministry’ Office for Commonwealth and Caucasus Affairs voiced strong objection to the presence and unrestricted activity of Mossad intelligence agents in Azerbaijan, who are involved in espionage activities against the Islamic Republic.

The Times of London reported Saturday, citing testimony from an anonymous Mossad agent active in Azerbaijan referred to only as Shimon,

“This is ground zero for intelligence work,” Shimon told the Times. “Our presence here is quiet, but substantial. We have increased our presence in the past year, and it gets us very close to Iran. This is a wonderfully porous country.”

            …

Last month Boiling Frogs Post broke the newly brewing story-line in the war propaganda against Iran involving an alleged Iranian terror plot in Azerbaijan, and had a follow up on the emerging ‘alleged’ details in the ‘alleged’ plot claiming Israeli diplomats and religious figures were the intended targets of the alleged Iranian assassination plot. We also provided analysis on the mainstream media spin on these developments here, and emphasized the timing and way-too-familiar false flag quality of the alleged plot:

While the pressure and the venues of attacks on Iran have been growing and escalating- think nuclear arms development accusations, meddling in Iraq accusations, alleged assassination attempt against Saudi Diplomat in the US accusations …, we suddenly get a brand new allegation accusing Iran of plotting a terror act in Azerbaijan. Not only that, the targets of this alleged terror plot happen to be none other than Israel. If that doesn’t give you pause, make it a long pause, followed by firm skepticism, well, your mental faculties may be in need of a serious check-up followed by a thorough tune-up.

We were the first site in the US to break and cover the story last month. We will continue our coverage and keep you posted.

Related articles

February 13, 2012 Posted by | Deception, False Flag Terrorism, Timeless or most popular, War Crimes | , , , | Leave a comment

    Next Entries »