Activists urge ban on ‘hate preacher’
editor’s note–to listen to an interview done with Jones where he admits that Islam is not the problem and that it is Jews rather than Muslims responsible for the decline of Western Civilization, click here
The news of the far-right English Defense League (EDL) inviting an anti-Islam US pastor to Britain for a lecture has sparked angry calls for a ban on the visit.
The pastor, Terry Jones, was earlier condemned internationally for threatening to burn Islam’s holy book of Qu’ran on the anniversary of 9/11 attacks.
According to a statement on Jones’s website, the EDL has invited him to take part in a rally scheduled for February 5 in Luton, Bedfordshire to support what it claimed to be the “continued fight against the Islamification of England and Europe.”
The move has drawn angry reaction from the anti-extremist group Hope not Hate which has condemned the invitation of Jones, “the preacher of hate,” saying he “is not welcome in the UK.”
“Pastor Jones should not be allowed to set foot in the United Kingdom. Only extremists will benefit from his visit and, as we know, extremism breeds hatred and hatred breeds violence,” said Hope not Hate’s director Nick Lowles .
“Pastor Terry Jones’s presence in Luton will be incendiary and highly dangerous. He will attract and encourage thousands of EDL supporters to take to the streets, and cause concern and fear among Muslims across the country,” he added.
He said the invitation is a proof of “how the EDL exists only to sow the seeds of intimidation and division” stressing his group is launching a petition demanding a ban on Jones’s visit to the UK.
The far-right EDL, which was formed in March 2009 from the football casual subculture and hooligans, has, since its foundation, become infamous for its record of violence.
Violence has been a feature of EDL’s demonstrations with their Bradford rally leading to serious clashes with the police and a nearby Unite Against Fascism rally.
The extremist group has also made provocative anti-Islamic chanting an indispensable part of its rallies.
This comes as earlier, Fiyaz Mughal, founder and director of Faith Matters, which commissioned a report on the EDL and the challenge it poses to the British social life, warned that the far-right group “can be considered a threat to the UK social life”.
“The EDL’s main aim is to increase tensions, raise hate and divide communities. Their attempts to portray themselves as a legitimate and open movement cannot disguise their violent, anti-Muslim agenda. This hate can easily mutate against another community,” Fiyaz said.
Jailed Afghan Drug Lord Was Informer on U.S. Payroll
(AP) When Hajji Juma Khan was arrested and transported to New York to face charges under a new American narco-terrorism law in 2008, federal prosecutors described him as perhaps the biggest and most dangerous drug lord in Afghanistan, a shadowy figure who had helped keep the Taliban in business with a steady stream of money and weapons.
Confiscated opium is destroyed. Opium and heroin production soared after the fall of the Taliban.
But what the government did not say was that Mr. Juma Khan was also a longtime American informer, who provided information about the Taliban, Afghan corruption and other drug traffickers. Central Intelligence Agency officers and Drug Enforcement Administration agents relied on him as a valued source for years, even as he was building one of Afghanistan’s biggest drug operations after the United States-led invasion of the country, according to current and former American officials. Along the way, he was also paid a large amount of cash by the United States.
At the height of his power, Mr. Juma Khan was secretly flown to Washington for a series of clandestine meetings with C.I.A. and D.E.A. officials in 2006. Even then, the United States was receiving reports that he was on his way to becoming Afghanistan’s most important narcotics trafficker by taking over the drug operations of his rivals and paying off Taliban leaders and corrupt politicians in President Hamid Karzai’s government.
In a series of videotaped meetings in Washington hotels, Mr. Juma Khan offered tantalizing leads to the C.I.A. and D.E.A., in return for what he hoped would be protected status as an American asset, according to American officials. And then, before he left the United States, he took a side trip to New York to see the sights and do some shopping, according to two people briefed on the case.
The relationship between the United States government and Mr. Juma Khan is another illustration of how the war on drugs and the war on terrorism have sometimes collided, particularly in Afghanistan, where drug dealing, the insurgency and the government often overlap.
To be sure, American intelligence has worked closely with figures other than Mr. Juma Khan suspected of drug trade ties, including Ahmed Wali Karzai, the president’s half brother, and Hajji Bashir Noorzai, who was arrested in 2005. Mr. Karzai has denied being involved in the drug trade.
A Shifting Policy
Afghan drug lords have often been useful sources of information about the Taliban. But relying on them has also put the United States in the position of looking the other way as these informers ply their trade in a country that by many accounts has become a narco-state.
The case of Mr. Juma Khan also shows how counternarcotics policy has repeatedly shifted during the nine-year American occupation of Afghanistan, getting caught between the conflicting priorities of counterterrorism and nation building, so much so that Mr. Juma Khan was never sure which way to jump, according to officials who spoke on the condition that they not be identified.
When asked about Mr. Juma Khan’s relationship with the C.I.A., a spokesman for the spy agency said that the “C.I.A. does not, as a rule, comment on matters pending before U.S. courts.” A D.E.A. spokesman also declined to comment on his agency’s relationship with Mr. Juma Khan.
His New York lawyer, Steven Zissou, denied that Mr. Juma Khan had ever supported the Taliban or worked for the C.I.A.
“There have been many things said about Hajji Juma Khan,” Mr. Zissou said, “and most of what has been said, including that he worked for the C.I.A., is false. What is true is that H. J. K. has never been an enemy of the United States and has never supported the Taliban or any other group that threatens Americans.”
A spokeswoman for the United States Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of New York, which is handling Mr. Juma Khan’s prosecution, declined to comment.
However, defending the relationship, one American official said, “You’re not going to get intelligence in a war zone from Ward Cleaver or Florence Nightingale.”
At first, Mr. Juma Khan, an illiterate trafficker in his mid-50s from Afghanistan’s remote Nimroz Province, in the border region where southwestern Afghanistan meets both Iran and Pakistan, was a big winner from the American-led invasion. He had been a provincial drug smuggler in southwestern Afghanistan in the 1990s, when the Taliban governed the country. But it was not until after the Taliban’s ouster that he rose to national prominence, taking advantage of a record surge in opium production in Afghanistan after the invasion.
Briefly detained by American forces after the 2001 fall of the Taliban, he was quickly released, even though American officials knew at the time that he was involved in narcotics trafficking, according to several current and former American officials. During the first few years of its occupation of Afghanistan, the United States was focused entirely on capturing or killing leaders of Al Qaeda, and it ignored drug trafficking, because American military commanders believed that policing drugs got in the way of their core counterterrorism mission.
Opium and heroin production soared, and the narcotics trade came to account for nearly half of the Afghan economy.
Concerns, but No Action
By 2004, Mr. Juma Khan had gained control over routes from southern Afghanistan to Pakistan’s Makran Coast, where heroin is loaded onto freighters for the trip to the Middle East, as well as overland routes through western Afghanistan to Iran and Turkey. To keep his routes open and the drugs flowing, he lavished bribes on all the warring factions, from the Taliban to the Pakistani intelligence service to the Karzai government, according to current and former American officials.
The scale of his drug organization grew to stunning levels, according to the federal indictment against him. It was in both the wholesale and the retail drug businesses, providing raw materials for other drug organizations while also processing finished drugs on its own.
Bush administration officials first began to talk about him publicly in 2004, when Robert B. Charles, then the assistant secretary of state for international narcotics and law enforcement, told Time magazine that Mr. Juma Khan was a drug lord “obviously very tightly tied to the Taliban.”
Such high-level concern did not lead to any action against Mr. Juma Khan. But Mr. Noorzai, one of his rivals, was lured to New York and arrested in 2005, which allowed Mr. Juma Khan to expand his empire.
In a 2006 confidential report to the drug agency reviewed by The New York Times, an Afghan informer stated that Mr. Juma Khan was working with Ahmed Wali Karzai, the political boss of southern Afghanistan, to take control of the drug trafficking operations left behind by Mr. Noorzai. Some current and former American counternarcotics officials say they believe that Mr. Karzai provided security and protection for Mr. Juma Khan’s operations.
Mr. Karzai denied any involvement with the drug trade and said that he had never met Mr. Juma Khan. “I have never even seen his face,” he said through a spokesman. He denied having any business or security arrangement with him. “Ask them for proof instead of lies,” he added.
Mr. Juma Khan’s reported efforts to take over from Mr. Noorzai came just as he went to Washington to meet with the C.I.A. and the drug agency, former American officials say. By then, Mr. Juma Khan had been working as an informer for both agencies for several years, officials said. He had met repeatedly with C.I.A. officers in Afghanistan beginning in 2001 or 2002, and had also developed a relationship with the drug agency’s country attaché in Kabul, former American officials say.
He had been paid large amounts of cash by the United States, according to people with knowledge of the case. Along with other tribal leaders in his region, he was given a share of as much as $2 million in payments to help oppose the Taliban. The payments are said to have been made by either the C.I.A. or the United States military.
The 2006 Washington meetings were an opportunity for both sides to determine, in face-to-face talks, whether they could take their relationship to a new level of even longer-term cooperation.
“I think this was an opportunity to drill down and see what he would be able to provide,” one former American official said. “I think it was kind of like saying, ‘O.K., what have you got?’ ”
Business, Not Ideology
While the C.I.A. wanted information about the Taliban, the drug agency had its own agenda for the Washington meetings — information about other Afghan traffickers Mr. Juma Khan worked with, as well as contacts on the supply lines through Turkey and Europe.
One reason the Americans could justify bringing Mr. Juma Khan to Washington was that they claimed to have no solid evidence that he was smuggling drugs into the United States, and there were no criminal charges pending against him in this country.
It is not clear how much intelligence Mr. Juma Khan provided on other drug traffickers or on the Taliban leadership. But the relationship between the C.I.A. and the D.E.A. and Mr. Juma Khan continued for some time after the Washington sessions, officials say.
In fact, when the drug agency contacted him again in October 2008 to invite him to another meeting, he went willingly, believing that the Americans wanted to continue the discussions they had with him in Washington. He even paid his own way to Jakarta, Indonesia, to meet with the agency, current and former officials said.
But this time, instead of enjoying fancy hotels and friendly talks, Mr. Juma Khan was arrested and flown to New York, and this time he was not allowed to go shopping.
It is unclear why the government decided to go after Mr. Juma Khan. Some officials suggest that he never came through with breakthrough intelligence. Others say that he became so big that he was hard to ignore, and that the United States shifted its priorities to make pursuing drug dealers a higher priority.
The Justice Department has used a 2006 narco-terrorism law against Mr. Juma Khan, one that makes it easier for American prosecutors to go after foreign drug traffickers who are not smuggling directly into the United States if the government can show they have ties to terrorist organizations.
The federal indictment shows that the drug agency eventually got a cooperating informer who could provide evidence that Mr. Juma Khan was making payoffs to the Taliban to keep his drug operation going, something intelligence operatives had known for years.
The federal indictment against Mr. Juma Khan said the payments were “in exchange for protection for the organization’s drug trafficking operations.” The alleged payoffs were what linked him to the Taliban and permitted the government to make its case.
But even some current and former American counternarcotics officials are skeptical of the government’s claims that Mr. Juma Khan was a strong supporter of the Taliban.
“He was not ideological,” one former official said. “He made payments to them. He made payments to government officials. It was part of the business.”
Now, plea negotiations are quietly under way. A plea bargain might keep many of the details of his relationship to the United States out of the public record.
Pakistani Ambassador hosted fundraiser for neocon think-tank
The Pakistani ambassador to the U.S. hosted a fundraiser at his residence for a neoconservative D.C. think-tank, which solicited donations of $5,000 for invitations to the event. But the think-tank, the Foundation for Defense of Democracies(FDD), didn’t bother to tell the Pakistani embassy that the event was a fundraiser or that it was sandwiched in the middle of a two-and-a-half day conference on “Countering the Iranian Threat” put on by the group.
“We didn’t know at all that they have done this fundraising,” Imran Gardezi, a spokesperson for the Pakistani embassy, told the Middle East Channel. “And neither did they share with us that they would be doing this conference. Very frankly, we didn’t know about this conference.”
Though the dinner appeared in the paper and online conference programs, FDD president Cliff May insisted that the two were unrelated: “The dinner was separate from the conference but it coincided with the conference. Why? Because many friends of FDD were in town for the conference,” he wrote in an e-mail to the Middle East Channel. May conceded that his staff may have failed to notify the Pakistani embassy that the group was in the middle of hosting the conference.
At the “Washington Forum, “as the conference was called, fellows and scholars from FDD advocated for escalating measures against the Islamic Republic of Iran, ranging from “ratcheting up” sanctions and pressure to U.S. support for regime change and even military strikes against Iran. “Pakistan and Iran are brotherly countries and neighboring countries, brotherly Muslim countries,” said Gardezi, citing cooperation between the two countries on a pipeline project. “Anything against Iran is unthinkable for us.”
The location of the fundraiser — billed on the program as only “dinner at the residence of one of Washington’s noteworthy Ambassadors” — was a closely guarded secret on the first full day of the event. FDD’s communications director, Judy Mayka, told the Middle East Channel on Wednesday night before the dinner that even she didn’t know where it would be held.
As the conference’s second full day drew to a close, May confirmed that the dinner had been at the Pakistani ambassador’s residence and said that between forty and fifty people were at the dinner. The press attache for the Pakistani embassy put the number between sixty and sixty-five people. Both May and the press attache confirmed that Pakistani Ambassador Husain Haqqani delivered brief remarks at his S Street home in Washington.
But Gardezi, the embassy spokesperson, emphasized that Iran was not an issue during the dinner or Haqqani’s informal greeting. “He made no remarks about iran and there was no mention of Iran,” Gardezi said. “Anything prompting against Iran is, for Pakistan, unthinkable.”
May disputed that the event was a fundraiser, telling the Middle East Channel that “friends and supporters” were invited, and that there was no “quid-pro-quo” relationship between a $5,000 donation and an invitation. “I invited FDD donors at or above the $5,000 level to the event,” May wrote in a follow-up interview by e-mail. “Others friends of FDD were invited — at my discretion. Several FDD staff members were invited as well.”
But the online conference schedule, which didn’t name the ambassador in question, left little room for equivocation:
7:00 pm
Dinner at the residence of one
of Washington’s noteworthy Ambassadors
(Closed to Media)
(Minimum $5,000 gift required. Contribute here, or for more information on becoming a donor, please contact [e-mail of FDD staffer removed])
The paper version of the schedule handed out to conference participants only said: “Dinner at the residence of one of Washington’s ambassadors — Will leave from the Ritz-Carlton Hotel. See staff for more details.”
The Pakistani press attache, Nadeem Hotiana, said the dinner “was in honor of (FDD), but the participants were donors.” He added that no donations were collected on the premises.
May described Haqqani as an “old personal friend,” a relationship corroborated by Shuja Nawaz, the director of the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center. “I think the ambassador had a personal relationshp with this group for quite some time,” Nawaz said, “but I don’t know if this would reflect official policy. It could well be that this is an unofficial action on his part.”
Indeed, while Iran and Pakistan more or less waged a proxy war in Afghanistan in the 1990s — when Iran supported the Northern Alliance until the Pakistani-supported Taliban took power nationally — the countries enjoy good relations. “I would characterize their relations as cordial — not warm at all times, but for the most part cooperative on issues like building a pipeline through Pakistan,” said Alireza Nader of the RAND Corporation.
Nawaz of the Atlantic council said the issues between the countries revolve around Jundullah, a Baluchi rebel group on the border that says it fights for Iran’s Sunni minority that Iran alleges seeks refuge in Pakistan, and Iran’s collaboration with Pakistan’s archrival India to build a road from Afghanistan to a port town in Iran that bypasses Pakistan.
“But they’ve always maintained good relations on the surface,” said Columbia University professor and Iran expert Gary Sick. “They try to maintain good, business like relations. Each side will allow a certain amount of trouble from the other because they know they need each other.”
Which makes it curious that a group hosting a conference very much focused on isolating Iran and pushing escalating measures against the Islamic Republic would take refuge in an embassy of a country — Pakistan — so opposed to such policies. Perhaps that’s why both May and Gardezi, the embassy spokesperson, tried to explain away the events. May said the funding links on the conference program — listed under the dinner, with a minimum to attend — was merely a “reminder” for donors to give more, “routine among think tanks.”
For his part, Gardezi chalked up the mix-up to chance: “We Pakistanis and we Muslims are very courteous people,” he said, explaining why so few questions were asked. “It was just a coincidence that this happened like this because the Ambassador has his personal friends.”
Some friends.
Ali Gharib is a New York- and Washington-based journalist on U.S.-Iran relations. His work appears at LobeLog.com and you can follow him on twitter @LobeLog.
Stockholm Blast Has All The Hallmarks of a Mossad Hit
www.revoltoftheplebs.com
Reuters reports:
Two blasts rocked the centre of Stockholm Saturday night in what Sweden’s foreign minister called “a terrorist attack,” killing one person and wounding two. The blasts Saturday took place after Swedish news agency TT said it received a threatening letter about Sweden’s military presence in Afghanistan and a years-old case of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad.
Asked if a man found dead at the site of the second blast blew himself up in some way, police spokesman Kjell Lindgren said: “It is possible.”
Read Entire Article
Editor’s Note: This latest false flag event in Stockholm has all the hallmarks of a MOSSAD hit! Note that in recent months, mass demonstrations have been held in Stockholm against Israeli atrocities, particularly the Freedom Flotilla murder on the high seas.
Take a look at these headlines:
Thousands Rally for Freedom Flotilla in Stockholm
http://salahuddeen.net/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2305:thousands-rally-for-freedom-flotilla-in-stockholm&catid=42:latest-news&Itemid=37
Anti-Israel Protest staged at Sweden Tennis match
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE5261R220090307
Massive anti-Israel protests across Scandinavia
http://www.swedishwire.com/politics/4786-massive-anti-israel-protests-across-scandinavia
Anti-Israel protests against Nobel prize award
http://www.ejpress.org/article/4556
And let’s not ignore this Propaganda:
Jews leave Swedish city after sharp rise in anti-Semitic hate crimes
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/sweden/7278532/Jews-leave-Swedish-city-after-sharp-rise-in-anti-Semitic-hate-crimes.html
Former Dutch EU commissioner says “recognizable” Jews are no longer safe in Netherlands due to Muslim anti-Semitism.
http://www.jpost.com/JewishWorld/JewishNews/Article.aspx?id=198382
Andy Ram: Sweden protest was first time I felt anti-Israel hate
http://www.haaretz.com/news/andy-ram-sweden-protest-was-first-time-i-felt-anti-israel-hate-1.271627
Sweden Funded Anti-Israel Allegations
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/news/news.aspx/133042
In any crime, those who have motive are the most likely suspects. It is evident that Israel is far more likely to gain from this event. The purpose is to neutralize anti-Israel sentiment and turn the wrath of the Northern European people against the Islamic community.
Isn’t it convenient that the lone bombing suspect died in the explosion?
Israel attacked for arrests of hundreds of children
Jonathan Cook
Israeli riot police arrest a Palestinian youth last month as scuffling erupts following the demolition of a Palestinian house by Jerusalem municipality workers in the Silwan district.
JERUSALEM // Israeli police have been criticised over their treatment of hundreds of Palestinian children, some as young as seven, arrested and interrogated on suspicion of stone-throwing in East Jerusalem.
In the past year, criminal investigations have been opened against more than 1,200 Palestinian minors in Jerusalem suspected of hurling rocks at Israeli soldiers or Jewish settlers, according to police statistics gathered by the Association of Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI). That was nearly twice the number of children arrested last year in the much larger Palestinian territory of the West Bank.
Most of the arrests have occurred in the Silwan district, close to Jerusalem’s Old City, where 350 extremist Jewish settlers have set up heavily guarded illegal enclaves among 50,000 Palestinian residents.
Late last month, in a sign of growing anger at the arrests, a large crowd in Silwan was reported to have prevented police from arresting Adam Rishek, a seven-year-old boy accused of stone-throwing. His parents later filed a complaint claiming he had been beaten by the officers.
Tensions between residents and settlers have been rising steadily since the Jerusalem municipality unveiled a plan in February to demolish dozens of Palestinian homes in the Bustan neighbourhood to expand a Bible-themed archeological park run by Elad, a settler organisation.
The plan was on hold after US pressure on Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister.
Fakhri Abu Diab, a local community leader, warned that the regular clashes between Silwan’s youths and the settlers, termed a “stone intifada” by some, could trigger a full-blown Palestinian uprising.
“Our children are being sacrificed for the sake of the settlers’ goal to take over our community,” he said.
In the purge on stone-throwing, the police were riding roughshod over children’s legal rights and leaving many minors with profound emotional traumas, concluded ACRI in a recent report, titled Unsafe Space.
Testimonies collected by the rights groups revealed a pattern of children being arrested in late-night raids, handcuffed and interrogated for hours without either a parent or lawyer being present, which was a violation of their rights under Israeli criminal law. In many cases, the children have reported physical violence or threats.
Last month, 60 Israeli childcare and legal experts, including Yehudit Karp, a former deputy attorney general, wrote to Mr Netanyahu condemning the police behaviour.
“Particularly troubling,” they wrote, “are testimonies of children under the age of 12, the minimal age set by the law for criminal liability, who were taken in for questioning, and who were not spared rough and abusive interrogation.” Unlike in the West Bank, which is governed by military law, children in East Jerusalem suspected of stone-throwing are supposed to be dealt with according to Israeli criminal law.
Israel annexed East Jerusalem following the Six-Day War of 1967, in violation of international law, and its 250,000 Palestinian inhabitants are treated as permanent Israeli residents. Minors, defined as anyone under 18, should be questioned by specially trained officers and only during daylight hours. The children must be able to consult with a lawyer and a parent should be present.
Ronit Sela, a spokeswoman for ACRI, said her organisation had been “shocked” at the large number of children arrested in East Jerusalem in recent months, often by units of undercover policemen.
“We have heard many testimonies from children who describe terrifying experiences of violence during both their arrest and their later interrogation,” she said.
Muslim, 10, lives in the Bustan neighbourhood and in a house that Israeli authorities have ordered demolished. His case was included in the ACRI report, and in an interview with The National he said he had been arrested four times this year, even though he was under the age of criminal responsibility. On the last occasion, in October, he was grabbed from the street by three plain-clothes policemen who jumped out a van.
“One of the men grabbed me from behind and started choking me. The second grabbed my shirt and tore it from the back, and the third twisted my hands behind my back and tied them with plastic cords. ‘Who threw stones?’ one of them asked me. ‘I don’t know,’ I said. He started hitting me on the head and I shouted in pain.”
Muslim, who spoke on condition that only his first name be used, was taken into custody and released six hours later. A local doctor reported that the boy had bleeding wounds to his knees and swelling on several parts of his body.
Muslim’s father, who has two sons in prison, said the boy was waking with nightmares and could no longer concentrate on his school studies. “He has been devastated by this,” he said.
Last month, police announced that house arrests would be used against children more regularly and financial penalties of up to US$1,400 (Dh5,100) would be imposed on parents.
B’Tselem, an Israeli human rights group, reported the case of AS, a 12-year-old child taken for interrogation following an arrest at 3am.
“I sat on my knees facing the wall. Every time I moved, a man in civilian clothes hit me with his hand on my neck … The man asked me to prostrate myself on the floor and ask his forgiveness, but I refused and told him that I do not bow to anyone but Allah. All the while, I felt intense pain in my feet and legs. I felt intense fear and I started shaking.”
“It is hard to believe that the security forces would have acted similarly against Jewish minors,” B’Tselem said in a statement.
Micky Rosenfeld, a police spokesman, denied that the police had violated the children’s rights, adding: “It is the responsibility of parents to stop this criminal behaviour by their children.”
The 60 experts who wrote to Mr Netanyahu warned the children’s abuse led to “post-traumatic stress disorders, such as nightmares, insomnia, bed-wetting, and constant fear of policemen and soldiers”. They also said that children under extended house arrest were being denied the right to schooling.
US: Ready to hit Iran with new sanctions
Source tells Washington Post world powers condemn recent assassination of top Iranian nuclear scientist; tell Saeed Jalili ‘heart of mistrust is Iran’s nuclear program’
“We and our allies are determined to maintain and even increase pressure,” Samore told a conference on “Countering the Iranian Threat” hosted by the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
“We need to send the message to Iran that sanctions will only increase if Iran avoids serious negotiations and will not be lifted until our concerns are fully addressed,” he added.
His comments came three days after a last round of inconclusive talks among top officials from the United States, the European Union, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and Iran.
The group agreed to meet again next year, but Iran’s president has said his country will not bow to pressure, and the talks will fail unless sanctions are lifted.
Iran currently is under four sets of UN Security Council sanctions and subject to additional penalties imposed separately by the United States, European countries and others. The most recent round of Security Council sanctions were adopted in June.
Samore said Iran could come out from under sanctions, but only by cooperating.
“Iran can gain much by fulfilling its international obligations or it can continue to pay an increasing price by continuing its pursuit of nuclear weapons,” he said. “The choice is ultimately Iran’s, but we must force Iran to make that choice.”
Israeli tank fire kills two Gazans
Two Palestinians have been killed by an Israeli tank shell fired into the Gaza Strip, as the relentless onslaught on civilians of the territory continues unabated.
Reports said the two men died near the border fence, east of the al-Bureij refugee camp, late on Saturday when Israeli tanks shelled the area in the central Gaza Strip.
Earlier, Israeli troops shot and wounded three Palestinians, one of them a teenager, in the northern Gaza Strip.
The Palestinians were reportedly collecting gravel to use in construction work when they came under fire.
Nine Palestinians have been killed and 71 have been injured by Israeli soldiers while collecting construction material near the Gaza border in the year 2010.
In the crippling siege imposed by Israel for over three years, Gazans are barred from importing building materials they need for the reconstruction of their homes, offices, and infrastructure devastated during Israel’s war against the coastal enclave.
The December 2008-January 2009 war claimed the lives of over 1,400 Palestinians — most of them women and children.
‘Mossad, CIA, MI6 behind Tehran attacks’
Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohhamad NajjarIran’s interior minister has accused the intelligence agencies of Israel, the United States, and Britain of involvement in the recent terrorist attacks on two Iranian nuclear scientists.
The arrested agents confessed that they received equipment and training from the Mossad, the CIA, and MI6, Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar said in Tehran on Saturday.
He also promised that the country’s security forces would track down the ringleaders of the attacks.
Najjar also said that the Interior Ministry has been ordered to take special measures to provide protection for the elite and scientists, adding that the investigations would continue until the main perpetrators of the terrorist attacks are caught.
“After the attacks, an emergency meeting was held in the Interior Ministry with representatives from security and intelligence organizations, and President [Mahmoud] Ahmadinejad ordered the ministry to safeguard the lives of the country’s scientists,” he stated.
President Ahmadinejad also issued special instructions in this regard, Najjar noted, without elaborating.
On November 29, terrorists detonated bombs attached to the vehicles of Dr. Majid Shahriari and Professor Fereydoun Abbasi, two professors of Shahid Beheshti University in Tehran, in separate locations.
Shahriari was killed immediately. Abbasi and his wife sustained minor injuries and were released from hospital shortly afterwards.
On Friday, Iran’s ambassador to the United Nations, Mohammad Khazaei, criticized the UN for its inaction over the incident.
Khazaei wrote a letter to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, General Assembly President Joseph Deiss, and UN Security Council President Susan Rice, condemning the “inhumane and criminal” terrorist attacks on the two Iranian nuclear scientists.
Earlier in December, Deputy Judiciary Chief Seyyed Ebrahim Raeisi said that evidence on the ground points to the involvement of Israeli intelligence agents in the attacks.
Raeisi also said that some elements linked to Israel operating inside the country had carried out “intelligence and identification operations” for Israel that paved the way for the murder of the Iranian academic.
Israel pleased Clinton rejects idea of imposed solution
