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November 25th, 2017 Breaking News

Saudi crown prince: Iran’s ayatollah the ‘new Hitler of the Middle East’

by Ben Kew

Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman described Iranian leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei as the “new Hitler of the Middle East” to New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman in an interview published Thursday.

“[Iran’s] supreme leader is the new Hitler of the Middle East,” the prince, commonly referred to by his initials MBS, said in the lengthy interview. “We learned from Europe that appeasement doesn’t work. We don’t want the new Hitler in Iran to repeat what happened in Europe in the Middle East.”

Iran has a long history of sponsoring or promoting terrorism across the Middle East, dating back to the country’s 1979 Islamic Revolution.

MBS’s comments come amid escalating tensions between the two countries after Saudi Arabia says its forces intercepted a missile fired from Yemen targeting one of its major airports, which authorities have described as a “blatant act of military aggression” by Iran, acting through its Yemeni proxies.

Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Bahram Qasemi responded to the “adventurist” crown prince by accusing him of “immature, inconsiderate, and baseless remarks and behavior,” multiple agencies reported.

“No one in the world and in the international arena gives credit to him because of his immature and weak-minded behavior and remarks,” Qasemi said. “I strongly advise him to think and ponder upon the fate of the famous dictators of the region in the past few years now that he is thinking of considering their policies and behavior as a role model.”

During the interview, the Prince also outlined his country’s latest anti-corruption purge, in which around 200 elites –including princes, ministers, and business tycoons—were arrested or fired in recent weeks.

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November 18th, 2017 Breaking News

Thousands of knife attacks ravage Germany following migrant surge

(WND) — The flood of immigrants to Germany has been accompanied by an explosion in knife crimes, reports Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Soeren Kern, a senior fellow at the Gatestone Institute, has created a list of such incidents.

“In recent months, people armed with knives, axes and machetes have brought devastation to all of Germany’s 16 federal states,” he said. “Knives have been used not only to carry out jihadist attacks, but also to commit homicides, robberies, home invasions, sexual assaults, honor killings and many other types of violent crime.”

He said knife-related crimes “have occurred in amusement parks, bicycle trails, hotels, parks, public squares, public transportation, restaurants, schools, supermarkets and train stations.”

The “surge,” he said, “is drawing renewed attention to the deteriorating security situation there since Chancellor Angela Merkel’s 2015 decision to allow win more than a million migrants from Africa, Asia and the Middle East.”

Kern’s review of police blotters and other sources found random and unprovoked attacks on strangers.

In Monchengladbach, for example, an 18-year-old illegal alien from Algeria drew a knife on a 65-year-old man in a wheelchair. In Hamburg, a 23-year-old man was stabbed after he made “accidental eye contact” with an attacker. Both attacks were in October.

Also, a 46-year-old father at an amusement park was stabbed and seriously hurt when he was attacked by a gang of Afghan youths.

Kern’s report said 2017 is “on track to become a record year for stabbings and knife crimes: Police reported more than 3,500 knife-related crimes between January and October 2017, compared to around 4,000 reported crimes during all of 2016 – and only 300 in 2007.”

Overall, during the past 10 years, he said, knife-related crimes in Germany have increased by more than 1,200 percent.

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November 14th, 2017 Breaking News

Islam brainwashing school children with pro-Islam indoctrination

(BARE NAKED ISLAM) — UK Parents who are wisely refusing to send their children on school trips to mosques, where they learn how to pray to Allah, are being labeled “Islamophobes.” Schools have now been given guidance on how to handle the sensitive repugnant subject.

You can bet they won’t be teaching your children about the violent, bigoted, racist, misogynistic, anti-Christian/Jewish history of Islamic supremacism which has slaughtered nearly 300 million people…and continues to do so, even today, wherever there are people who refuse to accept Islam.

Stokes Sentinel Schools are being issued with guidance about RE trips after it emerged some parents are refusing to allow children to visit mosques.

Families have the right to withdraw pupils from visits to places of worship. Some cite costs, while others are concerned about safety or a ‘political agenda’.

Now Staffordshire’s Standing Advisory Council for Religious Education (SACRE) has produced a document to help schools tackle the sensitive topic. It includes a template letter to parents, outlining the value of helping pupils understand different cultures and faiths.

SACRE said requests to withdraw children from these activities was ‘a serious matter’.

The document states: “While objections are raised about visits to a number of places of worship, they are most frequently about visits to mosques, which raises the bigger issue of Islamaphobia and how this can be addressed.”

It adds: “Visits to sacred spaces bring the agreed syllabus to life and underpin the role of RE in helping to prepare and equip pupils for life and citizenship in today’s diverse and plural Britain.”

The advice includes tips on how to prepare schoolchildren for an RE trip so they ‘will be comfortable with any differences they see’. Suggestions range from having a representative of that particular faith visit the school in advance through to offering a virtual tour of a place of worship and having discussions in class.

[CLICK HERE TO SEE THE SHOCKING PHOTOS]

October 21st, 2017 Breaking News

Trump: ‘End of the ISIS caliphate is in sight’

(CNN) — By Miranda Green, CNN

President Donald Trump said Saturday that the United States would soon transition into a “new phase” of involvement in Syria after US-backed forces drove ISIS members from Raqqa, the city they deemed their capital.

“The defeat of ISIS in Raqqah represents a critical breakthrough in our worldwide campaign to defeat ISIS and its wicked ideology,” Trump said in a statement released by the White House. “With the liberation of ISIS’s capital and the vast majority of its territory, the end of the ISIS caliphate is in sight.

“We will soon transition into a new phase in which we will support local security forces, de-escalate violence across Syria, and advance the conditions for lasting peace, so that the terrorists cannot return to threaten our collective security again,” Trump said.

The US and its allies would support diplomatic negotiations to end the violence, to allow Syrian refugees to return to their homes, and to make way for “a political transition that honors the will of the Syrian people,” the President added.

US-backed forces fighting ISIS in Raqqa announced this week that “major military operations” in the city have ended and that the terrorist group has lost control of its self-declared capital.

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October 17th, 2017 Breaking News

UK facing most severe terror threat ever, warns Intelligence chief

(THE GUARDIAN) — By Vikram Dodd

Britain is facing its most severe ever terrorist threat and fresh attacks in the country are inevitable, according to the head of Britain’s normally secretive domestic intelligence service in a rare public speech.

Andrew Parker, the director general of MI5, said the UK had seen “a dramatic upshift in the threat” from Islamist terrorism this year, reflecting attacks that have taken place in Westminster, Manchester and London Bridge.

The spy chief said: “That threat is multi-dimensional, evolving rapidly and operating at a scale and pace we’ve not seen before.”

He added: “It’s at the highest tempo I have seen in my 34-year career. Today there is more terrorist activity, coming at us more quickly, and it can be harder to detect.”

MI5 is under pressure to demonstrate its effectiveness after four Islamist terrorist attacks escaped its detection this year.

Parker’s speech to specialist security journalists on Tuesday was his chance to frame the debate about Britain’s battle against Islamist terrorism at a time when the agency’s staff numbers are already expanding from 4,000 to 5,000.

This month the government will receive reports on whether chances to thwart the atrocities were missed and what lessons could be learned. Ministers and the National Security Council wanted independent oversight of the review, in essence not allowing MI5 or counter-terrorism police to assess themselves.

Parker said MI5 had stopped far more terror plots than those that caused mass casualties this year. He said 20 plots had been thwarted in the last four years.

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October 17th, 2017 Breaking News

Raqqa: Isis completely driven out of Syria ‘capital’ by US-backed forces

(UK INDEPENDENT) — By John Davidson

US-backed militias have completely taken Isis’ de facto capital, Raqqa, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) said on Tuesday, in a major symbolic blow to the jihadist group.

The fall of Raqqa, where Isis staged euphoric parades after its string of lightning victories in 2014, is a potent symbol of the movement’s collapsing fortunes. The city was used as a base for the group to plan attacks abroad.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance of Kurdish and Arab militias backed by a US-led international alliance, has been fighting Isis inside Raqqa since June.

SOHR said 3,250 people were killed in the five-month battle, including 1,130 civilians.

A witness said fighting appeared to be almost at an end with only sporadic bursts of gunfire.

Militia fighters celebrated in the streets, chanted slogans from their vehicles and raised a flag inside Raqqa stadium.

An SDF spokesman said the alliance would capture the last Isis areas in the city within hours.

Save The Children has warned that the humanitarian crisis in northeast Syria is “rapidly escalating”, with 270,000 people who have fled the fighting in “critical need” of aid and camps “bursting at the seams”.

On Saturday a deal was brokered for the last remaining local fighters in Raqqa to leave the city.

SDF spokesman Talal Silo said then that any fighters who were not signed up to the deal would be left behind “to surrender or die”.

The jihadists’ last bases in the city, a stadium and a hospital, were captured earlier on Tuesday, the SDF said.

A local field commander said no Isis fighters remained at the two central points where militants had been best entrenched and where the SDF said fighting on Monday night and early Tuesday was focused.

“We do still know there are still IEDs and booby traps in and amongst the areas that ISIS once held, so the SDF will continue to clear deliberately through areas,” said Colonel Ryan Dillon, a spokesman for the coalition.

In a sign that the four-month battle for Raqqa was in its last stages, Col. Dillon said there had been no coalition air strikes there on Monday.

It is now hemmed in to a tiny bomb-cratered patch of the city around the stadium that was being pounded from the air by a US-led coalition and encircled by SDF fighters.

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October 15th, 2017 Breaking News

Austrian voters concerned about immigration, Islam

(ABC NEWS) — Wrapping up a bruising political campaign season, Austrian political parties were counting down to an election Sunday that could turn the country to the right amid voter concerns over immigration and Islam.

The vote is coming a year ahead of schedule after squabbles led to the breakup last spring of the coalition government of the Social Democrats and the People’s Party. A total of 16 parties are vying for 183 seats in the national parliament and will be chosen by Austria’s 6.4 million eligible voters. But less than a dozen parties have a chance of getting seats.

The People’s Party, which has shifted from centrist to right-wing positions, is leading in the pre-vote polls after an image make-over by its leader, 31-year-old Sebastian Kurz.

Austria’s traditionally right-wing, anti-migrant Freedom Party is expected to come in second and the center-left Social Democrats are thought to be trailing in third place.

Others that may clear the 4 percent hurdle needed to get into parliament seats are the Greens, the liberal NEOS, and Liste Pilz, led by former Greens politician Peter Pilz.

Favoring the People’s and Freedom parties is distrust of migrants and Muslims among many Austrian voters.

The 2015 influx of hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the war in Syria and poverty elsewhere into the EU’s prosperous heartland left Austria with nearly 100,000 new and mostly Muslim migrants. That has fueled fears Austria’s traditional Western and Christian culture is in danger. As a result, voters are receptive to the anti-migrant platforms of both the People’s Party and the Freedom Party.

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October 15th, 2017 Breaking News

In Belgium, arguments about Islam grow louder

(THE ECONOMIST) — Like much else in Belgium, the administration of the country’s second-largest religion is in a rather chaotic state, and things could get worse.

In a kingdom of 11m people, Islam claims the loyalty of about 800,000 souls, of whom the vast majority originate either from Morocco or Turkey. Most of the country’s 300-plus mosques are Turkish or Moroccan in flavor, and imams who serve them usually come from those countries. In Brussels, which is the country’s capital as well as hub of Europe’s main institutions, the Muslim share of the population is about 25%.

Since the terrorist outrages of March 2016, which targeted Brussels airport and the metro system, both the government, the security services and a parliamentary commission have been delving into the country’s Islamic scene to see whether it has any characteristics that make it prone to produce fanatics.

The handling of this problem is complicated by Belgium’s older division between Francophones and the Dutch-speakers of Flanders. Among Flemings on the political right, there is a strong streak of Islamo-scepticism. Many sensitive matters, like the teaching of Islam and the regulation of female headgear, are handled at regional or local level. Flemings sometime accuse French-speakers of being soft on Islam.

Even before last year’s horrors, Belgium had the grim distinction of being the European country that produced the highest number per head of young fanatics who went off to fight in Syria. The heavily immigrant Brussels district of Molenbeek received (and bitterly resents) the nickname of “jihadi central” because it had been a way-station of the perpetrators of terror in France. For the record, it is a pleasanter place to walk the streets than are similar urban areas in England or France.

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September 29th, 2017 Breaking News

China orders Muslim families in Xinjiang to hand over Qurans, prayer mats

(BREITBART) — by Frances Martel

Radio Free Asia (RFA) reported this week that some Uighur Muslims in China’s westernmost province of Xinjiang have accused the police of confiscating their Qurans, claiming the seminal Islamic text contains “extremist content.”

Xinjiang is home to a Uighur Muslim separatist movement and the Chinese government has previously claimed citizens from Xinjiang have left to the Middle East to join the Islamic State. In response, the Communist Party has cracked down significantly on public displays of faith, including publicly fasting during Ramadan or wearing Islamic garb on public transportation.

Radio Free Asia cites Dilxat Raxit, World Uyghur Congress spokesman, as having seen orders from police on the social media platform WeChat ordering families to hand over their Qurans and prayer mats, among other religious paraphernalia.

“All Qurans and related items must be handed into the authorities, and there are notices to this effect being broadcast via WeChat,” Raxit told the outlet. “We received a notification saying that every single ethnic Uyghur must hand in any Islam-related items from their own home, including Qurans, prayers and anything else bearing the symbols of religion … They have to be handed in voluntarily. If they aren’t handed in, and they are found, then there will be harsh punishments.”

RFA adds that sources on the ground have seen instances of confiscations involving non-Uighur Muslims in the region as well, such as Kazakh and Kyrgyz Muslims. “Officials at village, township and county level are confiscating all Qurans and the special mats used for namaaz[prayer],” a Kazakh source told the outlet.

RFA adds that officials in the region began confiscation Qurans this year, citing their “extremist content,” but had only extended the ban to Qurans published more than five years ago, attempting to replace them with government-approved copies.

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September 29th, 2017 Breaking News

Swiss Parliament votes to ban foreign-funded mosques and Arabic preaching

(BREITBART) — by Liam Deacon

Switzerland’s legislature has voted to ban the foreign funding of mosques, including from Saudi Arabia, as well as to force mosques to use local languages instead of Arabic or other foreign tongues.

The Swiss National Council, the parliament’s lower house, voted by a narrow majority to ban the financing of mosques from abroad and for generally increasing the transparency of how mosques are funded.

If the law passes the Senate, individual mosques will need to declare who they are backed by as well as preach in one of Switzerland’s official languages, namely German, French, Italian, or Romansch, Neue Zuercher Zeitung reports.

The vote took place on Tuesday, and according to the Federal Assembly’s website, 94 members of the parliament voted in favor, and 89 voted against.

The new law is said to be inspired by a similar law enacted in Austria in 2015, which was designed to encourage a distinctly “European Islam” and to deter radicalization and foreign influence on the nation’s Muslims.

The legislation is not backed by the federal government, however, which claims it unfairly discriminates against Muslims by placing them under suspicion and fuels extremism.

They also oppose making mosques use local languages, insisting that it is an issue of freedom of language.

Last year, the federal government managed to block a law voted for by the Council, proposing the banning of the full-face Islamic face veil.

However, a ban on Islamic minarets was voted for in a referendum in 2009 and was approved by nearly 58 per cent of the population.

Saudi Arabia is well known for funding the spread of its radical, Wahhabist interpretation of Islam in Europe, including financing the construction of Finsbury Park Mosque in London. The mosque was notorious for its links to hate preacher Abu Hamza, shoe-bomber Richard Reid, and 9/11 conspirator Zacarias Moussaoui before it was reformed and reopened in 2005.

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