Monday, May 04, 2015
Israel's surprising Hamas-Abbas dilemma
A correct reading of the political map indicates that the only option for ending the Hamas reign in Gaza is to let it collapse. Politically, Hamas is besieged and isolated. Egypt considers it a terrorist organization and has been blocking the Rafah crossing between the Strip and the Sinai, which is a vital lifeline for Gaza and its impoverished residents. Hamas is attempting to forge ties and obtain aid from other Arab countries, but the only country willing to do so is Qatar, and it is unclear how much longer that support will last. Turkey helps out a bit, but Hamas attempts to get assistance from Saudi Arabia and Iran have not been very successful. Ideologically, Hamas, as a wing of the Muslim Brotherhood, is considered an enemy of both Tehran and Riyadh.Khaled Abu Toameh: Palestinians Need Reforms, Not Elections
Hamas does not have the money to pay its 40,000 employees. This month, between 50 and 65 percent of their salaries were cut, with the minimum set at NIS1,000 (about $250). Hamas chiefs are accusing Ramallah of preventing the payment of salaries, and UN envoy Mladenov is continuing his efforts to guarantee payment for the civilian government clerks in Gaza, most of them employees of the education and health systems hired by Hamas in recent years. How long can Hamas hold on? Hard to say. What is clear for the time being is that Hamas is not angling for another war, not yet. Given the region’s instability, that, too, is a lot.
In an interview with Israel's Channel 2 TV station, Carter, possibly wishing to believe anything he was told, declared that Hamas leader Khaled Mashaal was a strong proponent of the peace process. Carter went on to claim that Mashaal has accepted the two-state solution and was in favor of the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, which recognizes Israel's right to exist in return for a full withdrawal to the pre-1967 lines.John Bolton: How to Stop Iran? Start Talking About North Korea
Carter's defense of Hamas comes even as Hamas and its leaders continue to talk about their plans and wishes to destroy Israel. It also coincides with Hamas's ongoing and intensive preparations for another war with Israel as they dig new tunnels and rebuild others that were destroyed in the Gaza Strip by Israel in the war less than a year ago .
Free and democratic elections are the last thing the Palestinians need now. Such elections would only pave the way for a Hamas takeover of the Palestinian Authority and plunge the region into chaos and violence. As long as Abbas's Fatah faction is not seen as a better alternative to Hamas, it would be too risky to ask Palestinians to head to the ballot boxes. Instead of pressuring the Palestinians to hold new elections, world leaders should be demanding accountability and transparency from the PA.
They should also be urging the Palestinian Authority to pave the way for the emergence of new leaders and get rid of all the corrupt old-guard representatives who have been in power for decades. Finally, the international community should be urging the PA to stop its campaign to delegitimize and isolate Israel, which drives more Palestinians into the open arms of Hamas and other radical groups, who assume that if the Israelis are as terrible as they are told, they might as well join the group dedicated to killing them rather than to discussing peace.
Besides being one of the planet’s poorest, most isolated, most repressed countries, the North has been under comprehensive American sanctions since the Korean War and extensive UN sanctions since 2006, when it resumed ballistic-missile launches and first tested a nuclear device.
None of this prevented Pyongyang from progressing to the threatening levels China now assesses.
This alone should warn us that the less-comprehensive, less well-enforced sanctions against Iran could never compel it to renounce its 30-year quest for deliverable nuclear weapons. If North Korea, perennially on the brink of starvation, can become a nuclear power, Iran can easily match its fellow rogue state.
China’s new estimates should thereby compel a critical re-evaluation of the talks among Iran and the Security Council’s permanent members (and Germany).
A deal blocking Iran from proceeding quickly to nuclear weapons, whatever its specific terms, rests on two critical assumptions:
First, the United States and others must have essentially full knowledge about the current status of Iran’s nuclear and ballistic-missile programs.
Without such a “baseline” assessment, we cannot possibly judge the likely efficacy of a counter-proliferation agreement. If you don’t know where you start, you can hardly judge the sufficiency of the measures agreed to.
Second, following the baseline assessment, Iran must either be fully transparent about its nuclear and missile programs, or a combination of international inspectors and our intelligence agencies must be able to provide the facts necessary to detect and respond to Iranian violations.
Neither of these fundamental preconditions exists in the April 2 “framework.” This defect alone should be central to the debate if a “final” deal is ever reached.
AP Reporter to State Dept: If Iran ‘Routinely Screws’ Other Western Countries, Why is Nuke Deal Any Different
In a testy exchange on Friday between Associated Press reporter Matt Lee and the State Department’s Acting Deputy Spokesman, Jeff Rathke, Lee questioned whether the Iranian regime can be trusted to adhere to the nuclear deal with world powers now under discussion in New York.Website with Ties to Iran’s Leadership Publishes Anti-Semitic Blood Libel
If the Iranians “routinely…screw other countries in this hemisphere on agreements,” Lee asked, why does the State Department view the nuclear deal differently.
Lee said his question was prompted by recent remarks made by Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roberta Jacobson, in which she said that, “the involvement of Iran in the Western Hemisphere is never benign.”
She said that Iran’s efforts to infiltrate the Western Hemisphere had been blunted not only by pressure from sanctions, but because many countries in the West had become distrustful of the Iranians because they have constantly failed to live up to the agreements they have negotiated with those countries.
An article published in the influential Persian-language Iranian website Alef claimed that Jews are “human history’s most bloodthirsty people.” The article provided “evidence” based on “historical events” drawn from some of the most infamous blood libels in Europe, which were previously used to justify the mass killings of Jews. Alef is owned by Ahmad Tavakkoli, a member of Iran’s parliament and a cousin to Mohammad Javad Larijani, the secretary of Iran’s Human Rights Council; Sadeq Larijani, the Chief Justice of Iran; and Ali Larijani, the powerful speaker of Iran’s parliament.State Dept Won’t Say Whether Obama Admin Has Asked Iran to Release Seized Cargo Ship
The article pushes the classic lie that Jews require human blood for the baking of matzahs for Passover, and acquire it by sacrificing the children of their enemies. More generally, the article repeats the libel that throughout history, Jews murdered Christian children during the celebration of their various holidays. It also claims that those performing ritual Jewish circumcision suck the blood of Jewish infants and cause them harm.
In his analysis of the article, Mehdi Khalaji, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, explained how anti-Semitism has become an influential ideology of revolutionary Iran.
The State Department refused to say whether it has demanded that Iran release a Marshall Islands cargo vessel commandeered by the Islamic Republic.Iran Claims New Oil Export Record of 7 Million Barrels in Single Day
“We continue to monitor the situation. We are in touch with the Marshall Islands,” said Jeff Rathke, a spokesman for the State Department, after being asked whether the United States has made any effort to retrieve the ship.
When asked again, Rathke said that he had nothing else to read out.
On Tuesday, Iranian ships forced the Maersk Tigris, a Marshall Islands cargo ship, further into Iranian waters by firing a warning shot across its bow. The cargo vessel was traveling through the Strait of Hormuz when it was confronted at 5:05 a.m. Eastern time.
The Embassy of the Marshall Islands in Washington, D.C., claimed that the United States is obligated by treaty to defend the Marshall Islands.
“The United States has the full security responsibility over the islands and for the defense of the islands, this is what our treaty says,” said Junior Aini, the chargé d’affaires for the embassy.
The Pentagon has denied that a U.S. military response was obligated by treaty.
Despite the continuation of economic sanctions against Iran, the country is claiming that it hit a new oil export record of 7 million barrels in one day, semi-official state news agency Mehr reported, citing Seyed Pirouz Mousavi, the CEO of Iranian Oil Terminals Company.Daniel Tragerman was killed by mortar fired from UN facility – ex-IDF chief
Mousavi noted that, “over the past few weeks, eight ports at Kharg oil terminal were simultaneously engaged, and after ten years the export of seven million barrels of oil in a day was made possible.”
The main reason for the dramatic increase, claims Iran, is a rise in its oil exports to Japan and India, despite exports to China slightly dropping.
The mortar round that killed four-year-old Daniel Tragerman on the second to last day of the war in and around Gaza last summer was fired from a United Nations installation, Lt. Gen. (res) Benny Gantz, the commander of the army during the 50-day war, said on Monday.Attempted stabbing attack at Jerusalem light rail station, no injuries
“I will share with you my painful experience of visiting 75 [bereaved] families in the last four months of my service… I went to visit each and every family [bereaved by the Gaza war]. No media. Just them and me,” Gantz said, speaking in English at an Israel Law Center conference on the need to change the laws of war.
“I went and visited the civilians that were killed. That includes the family of Daniel Tragerman, four years old, that I was in the same kibbutz when they shot those mortars from a UN installation in Gaza.”
Gantz had happened to be visiting Kibbutz Nahal Oz — a community perched roughly one mile from the Gaza Strip — on August 22, 2014, when a mortar shell fired from Gaza landed outside the Tragerman family’s home, killing Daniel. The mortar shell landed outside and sent shrapnel smashing into the home. Daniel and his family had only a three-second warning between the sounding of the alarm and the impact of the mortar round that killed him.
A 35-year-old Palestinian terrorist was shot by private security guards near a French Hill light rail stop after attempting to stab several pedestrians late Monday morning.Two UN men wounded by Syrian fire on Golan Heights
There were no injuries in the incident that occurred at the Givat Hamivtar station near the capital's French Hill neighborhood.
According to police spokesman Micky Rosenfeld, the attack took place shortly before noon.
"The suspect tried to stab a number of people and was shot by private security guards nearby," said Rosenfeld.
"No one was injured and the terrorist was taken to Hadassah Hospital in serious condition."
The suspect's identity and background remain unclear.
Two UN peacekeepers were wounded on Monday when mortar rounds fired from Syria hit their base in the Israeli part of the Golan Heights, an army spokesman said.Tensions high along Israel-Syria border but nobody wants war
“Mortar shells hit the Golan in Ein Zivan and in the Zivanit UNDOF base. Two UN peacekeeping soldiers were evacuated to Israel for medical care,” IDF spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Peter Lerner wrote on his official Twitter account.
Israel public radio said the two were lightly wounded.
The army said the fire was not deliberately aimed at the Israeli side of the plateau, but was stray fire from the ongoing conflict in Syria.
Tensions have flared along Israel’s northern border for the second time this year, following a suspected Israeli Air Force attack on weapon deliveries to Hezbollah. Days later, when Hezbollah gunmen tried to plant an explosive device on the Israeli border, an Israeli air strike killed the four men.Rocket Materials Smuggled to Gaza Nabbed at Border
Most Middle East analysts say that neither Israel nor Hezbollah wants a war.
“An escalation with Israel is the last thing that Hezbollah wants,” Mario Abou Zeid, from the Carnegie Middle East Center, based in Beirut told The Media Line. “It would mean being caught between two fronts.”
He said Hezbollah fighters have invested heavily in the Syrian conflict on behalf of Syrian President Bashar Assad, and hundreds have been killed. Abou Zeid said the Shi’ite militia were demanding that official security forces take on more roles in domestic Lebanese security – tasks that previously Hezbollah had overseen. That, he said, is proof that the fighters feel they are stretched too thin.
A gag order was lifted on Monday morning revealing that smuggling attempts on illegal goods such as parts needed in constructing rockets that originated from Egypt have been blocked at the Nitzana border crossing in the past two months.Another Blood Libel from "Peace-seeking" Palestinians at the UN
The latest smuggling incident that was caught occurred two weeks ago, when inspectors located and seized 1,200 tubes of polyurethane hidden in a shipment of silicone.
Polyurethane has been forbidden from entry to Gaza given that it is used by terrorist organizations to produce rocket propulsion materials.
The latest incident is just the most recent in a string of attempts since the start of March, when two similar incidents occurred.
A shipment of paint cans arrived at the Nitzana crossing in early March, with inspectors discovering that a portion of the cans had a forbidden hardening material HARDNER professionally concealed within them. The material can be used to create rocket propellants.
A nearly identical attempt to smuggle HARDNER into Gaza via paint cans was also foiled in mid-February.
The UN held yet another Israel-bashing meeting, this time of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People on May 1, 2015, at UN headquarters in New York.Hamas Thanks Morocco for Disinviting Peres
And Palestinian UN representative Riyad Mansour made yet another of his blood libels. In his words: "Israeli occupying forces engage in a pattern of killing and maiming children... Israel, the occupying power, deliberately targets schools and hospitals."
Palestinian use of children as human shields, hospitals as terrorist command centers, and schools as weapons depots, somehow was omitted from his remarks.
The Hamas terrorist organization is delighted by the decision of the Moroccan government, which cancelled the invitation of former Prime Minister Shimon Peres to the Clinton Global Initiative conference to be held in Marrakesh from Tuesday to Thursday.Report: Explosion Rocks Hamas Security Headquarters
Mohammed Faraj al-Ghul, an MP and Hamas faction chairman at the Palestinian Legislative Council (PLC), welcomed the "courageous" uninvitation, calling for a continued struggle against normalization with "the Israeli occupation."
Speaking to Abdullah Boano, a leader in Morocco's ruling Justice and Development Party which is associated with the Muslim Brotherhood that Hamas is a Gaza-based offshoot of, al-Ghul called the cancellation a sign of the support for "Palestine" among Arab and Islamist leaders.
Boano said last Friday, "our government is innocent of all accusations regarding the invitation of this Zionist, Shimon Peres, to Morocco."
"There are attempts to make it look like the government invited this Zionist to Morocco," he added, blaming his political opposition of "seeking to undermine the government’s popularity."
Residents of Gaza report that an explosion occurred on Monday at the Hamas general security headquarters.Salafist group in Gaza accuses Hamas of abuse, torture
According to the reports, which were cited by Yedioth Aharonoth, the blast was the work of Salafists who are demanding the release of several Salafist prisoners being held by Hamas.
The Salafist group Salafist Trend on Saturday accused Hamas of torturing the jailed Salafists, and of monitoring and cracking down on other members of the group, threatening Hamas that they must release the prisoners or face consequences.
"Once again we ask the wise people of Gaza to stop the ongoing Hamas criminality and abusive detention of our brothers before it's too late," read the Salafist statement.
According to the report Monday, a group of activists published an announcement before the blast, stating "we give Hamas 72 hours to release all the prisoners." It remains unclear if the group of activists referred to in the report is the same Salafist Trend group.
A group calling itself The Salafist Trend is accusing Hamas of torturing its supporters in prisons, monitoring its activities in cities and tracking its movements across refugee camps throughout Gaza, according to Palestinian media.Hamas 'Nakba' Rally at Terror Base on Israeli Border
Palestinian news agency Ma'an cited a press release issued by the group Saturday warning the terrorist organization of the consequences of continuing there activity against The Salafist Trend.
"Once again we ask the wise people of Gaza to stop the ongoing Hamas criminality and abusive detention of our brothers before it's too late," the statement read.
The Salafist group also claimed it possessed "details about what is going on inside the detention cells of the interior security service, including names of the criminal interrogators who torture and insult our people."
The "refugee" department of the Hamas terrorist movement will on Tuesday at 5 p.m. hold a massive rally marking 67 years to the "Nakba" - the "catastrophe" of the establishment of modern Israel, and the inability of the Arab countries to destroy the fledgling renascent Jewish state.
The massive rally is to be held at the "Palestine" terrorist training site located in Beit Lahiya adjacent to the border between Gaza and Israel in the northern part of Gaza.
Abdallah Hasuna, director of the "refugee" department which is tasked with handling descendants of the Arab residents of Israel who left during the 1948 War of Independence, noted this would be the first time a massive event was held at a base associated with Hamas's "military wing," the Al-Qassam Brigades.
Hasuna said by holding the mass rally at the terrorist base there was a message emphasizing the path of the "struggle of the Palestinian people."
Palestinian Preacher Issam Amira: We Should Launch a Decisive Storm to Topple Arab Regimes
In a sermon delivered in Jerusalem, Palestinian preacher Sheik Issam Amira said: "It is a duty incumbent upon us to lead a pure, loyal, honest, and serious Islamic decisive storm, which will blow away their false entities, topple their oppressive thrones, and finish off their tyrannical rule." The sermon was posted on the Internet on April 3, 2015.
Sinai Tribes Allying with Egyptian Army Against ISIS
Bedouin tribes in the Sinai Peninsula have recently begun to shed their long-maintained neutrality to partner with the Egyptian military in its fight against the Sinai branch of ISIS and other terror organizations.Report: Muslim Brotherhood plotted to kill Morsi in order to spark revolution
In the past, Sinai residents have found themselves in a deadly dilemma. If they helped the government, they risked retaliation from terrorists. But refusing such to cooperate with the government could lead to charges of supporting terrorism.
Now, it seems, this dilemma has been resolved. Tribal groups in northern Sinai have clashed directly with terrorist organizations operating in their region. This began after the terror organizations killed some tribesmen and imposed restrictions on their traditions.
Egyptian authorities have uncovered a Muslim Brotherhood plot to assassinate the imprisoned former Egyptian president Mohamed Morsi in order to spark an Islamist revolution in the country which would overthrow the current regime, Jordanian daily Alarab Alyawm quoted an Egyptian security source as saying Sunday.69 Egypt Islamists get life terms for torching church
Morsi, a Muslim Brotherhood member himself, was ousted by the Egyptian army in 2013 following mass protests against his rule. Morsi and 12 other Muslim Brotherhood members were convicted last month of violence, kidnapping and torture over the deaths of protesters in 2012. Morsi was sentenced to 20 years in jail.
The Muslim Brotherhood has been marginalized in Egypt since Morsi's ouster and the subsequent rise to power of former army chief Abdel Fattah al-Sisi. According to the Egyptian security source quoted in Alarab Alyawm, the plan called for Morsi to be "sacrificed" in the assassination in order to rally Brotherhood supporters to revolt and retake power in Egypt.
Possible methods the Brotherhood considered employing in order to kill the imprisoned Morsi included shooting down the helicopter that led him to court discussions or poisoning his food, according to the report.
Egypt jailed 69 Islamists for life Wednesday for torching a church near Cairo in August 2013 during a crackdown on supporters of ousted president Mohammed Morsi, a judicial official said.Assad Not Finished Yet
The Coptic church was set on fire and a police station was attacked when violence erupted in the town of Kerdasa on August 14 that year, after hundreds of Morsi supporters died in a crackdown on two protest camps in the capital the same day.
The court also sentenced two minors to 10 years in jail in the same case.
Hundreds of Morsi supporters have been given death sentences or life in jail after often speedy mass trials which the United Nations has called “unprecedented in recent history.”
A number of reports have been published in recent days suggesting the tide of the war in Syria may finally have turned decisively against the Assad regime.Assad hanging on, suspicion surrounds report he told Alawites to flee capital
The reports cite a series of successes the Syrian rebels have achieved in recent weeks, and suggest the dictator and his allies will have difficulty reversing these setbacks. So is the game really finally up for the bloodstained regime of the Assads? A close examination of the evidence suggests that President Bashar Assad's eulogizers have once again spoken too soon.
To understand why, let's first of all look at the nature of the undoubted successes the various rebel coalitions have achieved.
Syrian President Bashar Assad's regime appears to be holding on amid contradictory Saudi reports over whether it told elite Alawite families to abandon Damascus.A report in the Saudi newspaper Okaz on Sunday quoted Lebanese Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas denying an article in the same paper a day earlier quoting unnamed sources claiming that Syrian intelligence told the elite Alawite families to leave the capital within 48 hours for its coastal stronghold of Latakia.Analysts See Increasing Signs that Assad is Losing Control of Syria
"Reports of President Assad giving his top Alawites orders to flee Damascus are undoubtedly wishful thinking and activist fancy," Joshua Landis, a Syria expert and the director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
"The regime lost an important provincial capital that was surrounded by opposition militias," said Landis adding. "Morale has been damaged, but the regime is neither giving up the ghost nor preparing to abandon Damascus for some coastal Alawite enclave."
The new campaign in northern Syria is intended to create a new balance on the ground that will weaken the Syrian regime and force it to sit down at the negotiating table. Some commentators say that the strategic goal of this campaign is the destruction of the Iranian “bridge” that links Baghdad to Beirut through Syria.Are Assad's military forces on the verge of collapse?
Robert Ford, the former American ambassador to Syria, wrote in an analysis for the Middle East Institute that despite Assad’s continued assistance from Iran and Russia, the latest developments in Syria point to the beginning of the end of his regime. Ford pointed to internal divisions within the inner circle of the regime, and mentions reports of the deaths (or disappearances) of former senior security personnel such as Rostam Ghazaleh, Rafiq Shehadeh, and Hafiz Makhluf, Assad’s cousin. All of them have disappeared in the past six months. Ford observed that no such dissension at the top of the regime was apparent during the first three and a half years of the rebellion.
The Syrian regime has indicated a growing desire to attend negotiations hosted by Russia, unlike its refusal to do so in Geneva last year. The step down from his previously defiant position shows Assad is not as strong as he once was.
This shortage of homegrown fighters in Assad’s campaign against rebel forces has led the regime to prohibit military-age males from exiting the country and to force discharged soldiers back into service. This has fomented discontent and further eroded support among Assad’s base.Why Iran Spends $35 Billion a Year to Prop Up Assad
In another troubling sign for the state, fissures have erupted within the regime, highlighting how dysfunctional mechanisms within the government have become. The government recently dismissed the heads of two of its four main intelligence agencies after they quarreled over the role of foreign fighters, according the Times. One subsequently died; the other’s guards reportedly beat him to death.
Years of civil war have destroyed the economy, leaving the regime nearly destitute. At the beginning of the war, Syria held $30 billion in foreign exchange reserves. Four years later, that has dwindled to a mere $1b.
The Syrian pound has taken a huge hit, decreasing in value steadily as foreign capital continues to flee. This has increased discontent within the military, as personnel continue to receive the same salaries, but in an increasingly worthless currency.
Experts and Syrian officials revealed why exactly Iran, which is financially saddled by international sanctions, continues to spend fortunes and deploy thousands of troops to prop up Syrian President Bashar al-Assad's regime, even as the fight turns against him.Monitor: ISIS has murdered over 2,000 off the battlefield in Syria
A detailed report in Christian Science Monitor revealed that the UN's Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura disclosed to a private meeting in Washington DC recently that Iran funnels no less than $35 billion annually to its Syrian ally, according to a source who was present at the meeting.
Despite the massive aid, Assad this past month has suffered major losses, putting him on the brink of losing the bloody civil war that has stretched over four years and cost over 220,000 lives, and leading Syria's Defense Minister General Fahd al-Freij to head for a visit to Iran on Tuesday.
Explaining why Iran is willing to invest such massive resources even while staggering under sanctions, Hezbollah expert and director at the Washington-based Middle East Institute Randa Slim told the paper how Iran's larger regional aspirations fuel the move.
"Iran has always considered Syria its gateway to the Arab region. I don’t think that assessment has changed," said Slim.
Ultra-radical Islamic State insurgents have killed at least 2,154 people off the battlefield in Syria since the end of June when the group declared a caliphate in the territory it controls, a Syrian human rights monitor said on Tuesday.Reports: ISIS Militants Mass-Murder 300 Yazidi Hostages
The killings of mostly Syrians included deaths by beheading, stoning or gunshots in non-combat situations, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, urging the United Nations Security Council to act.
"We continue in our calls to the UN Security Council for urgent action to stop the ongoing murder against the sons of the Syrian people despite the deafness of members to the screams of pain of the Syrian people," it said in a statement.
Islamic State, which also holds tracts of land in neighboring Iraq, is an offshoot of al-Qaida and has set up its own courts in towns and villages to administer what it describes as Islamic law before carrying out the killings.
Hundreds of captive Yazidis have been shot and killed by Islamic State jihadis near Mosul, Iraq, according to sources from Yazidi and Iraqi officials, and local news outlets.Islamic State Leader Reportedly Suffers Spinal Injuries From US Airstrike
The Yazidi Progress Party announced Saturday that 300 Yazidi hostages were killed late Friday in Tal Afar, which is situated roughly 35 miles west of Mosul.
Osama al-Nujafi, Iraq’s Vice-President, said that the reports coming in of the mass slaughter are “horrific and barbaric,” the BBC reports.
Kurdish outlet Shafaq News also reported on the killings, describing the news as a “heinous crime.”
The leader of the Islamic State terror group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, reportedly suffered severe spinal injuries as a result of a U.S. airstrike in mid-March.Allegations of corruption, bribery weigh on Ahmadinejad as jailed ex-deputy speaks out
Three sources confirmed to The Guardian that al-Baghdadi, who has proclaimed himself as caliph, has remained incapacitated since the airstrike and has been unable to leader the terrorist organization that has conquered large swaths of Syria and Iraq. A female radiologist and male surgeon have been treating al-Baghdadi, the sources indicated.
Born in Samarra, Iraq, in 1971, al-Baghdadi joined the Iraqi insurgency shortly after the U.S. invasion in 2003, and in 2010 he took over the organization that would eventually be called Islamic State.
Senior Islamic State official Abu Alaa al-Afri is now leading the terror group.
In late January, a former deputy of conservative ex-president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who has been jailed for embezzlement raised explosive allegations which have now spurred speculation Ahmadinejad himself could face charges.
They were made in a private letter that was published by the Iranian Labor News Agency, giving a rare insight into splits at the top at a time when the former president, a fierce critic of the West, was showing signs of preparing a political comeback.
Ahmadinejad has denied the allegations, which linked him to the case, and his supporters say they are politically motivated.
Senior officials have since expressed concern public splits within Iran's factionalised elite might undermine negotiations with major world powers on its disputed nuclear program.
In a speech in late March for example, Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei urged any critics of the government leading the negotiations, led by Ahmadinejad's successor, centrist Hassan Rouhani, not to use insults.
Ahmadinejad's former vice president Mohammed Reza Rahimi became the most senior official to be convicted of graft since the 1979 Islamic Revolution when he was sentenced to five years in jail and fined 38.5 billion rials (about $1.3 million).
