Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News

Monday, November 14, 2011

Updates on Iran's "mysterious blast"

From Time:

AP photo from video of blast

Israeli newspapers on Sunday were thick with innuendo, the front pages of the three largest dailies dominated by variations on the headline "Mysterious Explosion in Iranian Missile Base." Turn the page, and the mystery is answered with a wink. "Who Is Responsible for Attacks on the Iranian Army?" asks Maariv, and the paper lists without further comment a half-dozen other violent setbacks to Iran's nuclear and military nexus. For Israeli readers, the coy implication is that their own government was behind Saturday's massive blast just outside Tehran. It is an assumption a Western intelligence source insists is correct: the Mossad — the Israeli agency charged with covert operations — did it. "Don't believe the Iranians that it was an accident," the official tells TIME, adding that other sabotage is being planned to impede the Iranian ability to develop and deliver a nuclear weapon. "There are more bullets in the magazine," the official says.

The powerful blast or series of blasts — reports described an initial explosion followed by a much larger one — devastated a missile base in the gritty urban sprawl to the west of the Iranian capital. The base housed Shahab missiles, which, at their longest range, can reach Israel. Last week's report from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) said Iran had experimented with removing the conventional warhead on the Shahab-3 and replacing it with one that would hold a nuclear device. Iran says the explosion was an accident that came while troops were transferring ammunition out of the depot "toward the appropriate site."

[I]n Sunday's editions, the Hebrew press coyly listed what Yedioth Ahronoth called "Iran's Mysterious Mishaps." The tallies ran from the November 2007 explosion at a missile base south of Tehran to the October 2010 blast at a Shahab facility in southwestern Iran, to the assassinations of three Iranian scientists working in the nuclear program — two last year and one in July.

At the very least, the list burnishes the mystique of the Mossad, Israel's overseas spy agency. Whatever the case-by-case reality, the popular notion that, through the Mossad, Israel knows everything and can reach anywhere is one of the most valuable assets available to a state whose entire doctrine of defense can be summed up in the word deterrence. But it doesn't mean Israel is the only country with a foreign intelligence operation inside Iran. The most recent IAEA report included intelligence from 10 governments on details of the Iranian nuclear effort. And in previous interviews, Western security sources have indicated that U.S. and other Western intelligence agencies have partnered with Israel on covert operations inside Iran. Sometimes the partner brings specific expertise or access. In other cases, Iranian agents on the ground who might harbor misgivings about Israel are allowed to believe they are working only with another government altogether.

Saturday's blast was so powerful it was felt 25 miles away in Tehran, and so loud that one nearby resident with combat experience thought he had just heard the detonation of an aerial bomb. "Frankly it did not sound like an arms depot from where I was because when one of those goes off, it is multiple explosions over minutes, even hours depending on the size of the facility," the resident says. "All I heard was one big boom. I was sure from the quality of the noise that anyone in its immediate vicinity was dead. Something definitely happened, but I would not trust the [Revolutionary] Guards to be absolutely forthcoming as to what it was."

The list of Iranian "accidents" over the past few years includes:

November 2007 - Explosion in a missile base south of Tehran. Dozens of technicians are killed.
July 2008 - Explosion in a convoy of trucks carrying missiles probably intended for Hezbollah. 15 deaths.
August 2009 - a passenger plane crashes after takeoff from Tehran. On board were probably explosives and rockets destined for Hezbollah. 168 dead.
October 2010 - Explosion of the Revolutionary Guard base in south-western Iran where Shahab missiles are stored. 18 dead.
June 2011 - aircraft carrying Russian scientists who assisted in building the Bushehr reactor crashes. Dozens killed, including six scientists.
November 2011 - Explosion at the base of the Revolutionary Guards missile. 17 killed.

And from AP:

A Revolutionary Guard commander killed in an explosion at an ammunition depot west of Tehran was a key figure in Iran's missile program, the elite military force said in a statement Sunday.

Gen. Hasan Moghaddam was killed together with 16 other Guard members Saturday at a military site outside Bidganeh village, 25 miles (40 kilometers) southwest of Tehran.

Saeed Qasemi, a Guard commander, said Iran owes its missile program to Moghaddam.

"A major part of (our) progress in the field of missile capability and artillery was due to round-the-clock efforts by martyr Moghaddam," Qasemi told the conservative news website rajanews.com.

Another Guard commander, Gen. Mostafa Izadi, called Moghaddam a "founder of the Guard's surface-to-surface missile systems."

Qasemi said Moghaddam was one of a few Guard commanders favored by Iran's Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

"The exalted leader had a special interest in him," he said.

Mako says that Moghaddam had worked closely with Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, the senior Hamas member assassinated in Dubai nearly two years ago.

Defense Minister Ehud Barak, when asked to comment on the explosion, answered with the Hebrew phrase "כן ירבו" which translates roughly to "May there be many more."

(h/t Yoel)

IAF kills Hamas "policeman"/terrorist

Ma'an reports:

One police officer was killed and four others injured early Monday morning when Israeli warplanes targeted a naval police building in Gaza City.

Medical sources in Gaza identified the victim as Muhammad Kilani. His body was found amid the rubble.

The airstrike came hours after a homemade projectile was fired from Gaza, landing in the Shaar Hanegev area. No injuries were reported.

Was the victim merely a policeman?

Not according to Hamas' Al Qassam Brigades terror group:

Qassam [Brigade member and] Mujahid Martyr Mohammed Zaher Al-Kilani, 23, from Beit Lahiya in the northern Gaza Strip, rose to be a martyr - God willing - the dawn of the day Monday, 14/11/2011, after the Zionist bombing targeted the marine police site... He had a great career as a jihadist and a supervisor, and after hard work and sacrifice and jihad, we consider him a martyr.

Since the current escalation of rocket fire in late October, the IDF has killed about 16 terrorists in Gaza - and not one civilian.

Iran admits it was attacked by Duqu virus

From Reuters:

Iran said on Sunday it had detected the Duqu computer virus that experts say is based on Stuxnet, the so-called "cyber-weapon" discovered last year and believed to be aimed at sabotaging the Islamic Republic's nuclear sites.

The head of Iran's civil defense organization told the official IRNA news agency that computers at all main sites at risk were being checked and that Iran had developed software to combat the virus.

"We are in the initial phase of fighting the Duqu virus," Gholamreza Jalali, was quoted as saying. "The final report which says which organizations the virus has spread to and what its impacts are has not been completed yet.

"All the organizations and centers that could be susceptible to being contaminated are being controlled," he said.

News of Duqu surfaced in October when security software maker Symantec Corp said it had found a mysterious virus that contained code similar to Stuxnet.

Iran's PressTV says:

Iran has developed a software program that can “control” the newly discovered Duqu spyware, the director of Iran's Passive Defense Organization has announced.

“The software, capable of controlling this virus (Duqu), has been provided to organizations and institutions,” IRNA quoted Brigadier General Gholamreza Jalali as saying on Sunday.

The Duqu malware has reportedly infected a number of systems in Iran.

“All of the centers and apparatuses suspected of being infected with the virus are under control,” Jalali said, adding that countering and cleansing processes have been carried out at the infected institutions.

It is unclear what exactly Iran is claiming. Microsoft has been unable to create a patch for the exploit being used by Duqu yet, but it did release a workaround.

Duqu installs a Trojan that steals data from machines, seemingly as a precursor for a much bigger attack. It seems to have a lot of code in common with Stuxnet which is widely believed to have been written by a nation-state to attack Iran's nuclear program.

Board game on Israeli strike on Iran looks fascinating

Michael Peck, an editor for Training and Simulation Journal and Military Times, writes a fascinating review - in Foreign Policy! - of a board game that goes into great detail into the issues involved in a possible Israeli airstrike on Iran.

This weekend, I sat down on my dining room table and prepared to set the Middle East aflame. I was playing Persian Incursion, a board game of a hypothetical Israeli air campaign to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities. Or, at least so far it's hypothetical. On Tuesday, Nov. 8, the International Atomic Energy Agency released a report suggesting that Iran has continued to build up its nuclear weapons program. And with Israel making serious noises about dropping bombs before Iran develops The Bomb, fiction could soon become reality. I set about seeing which side would win.

Persian Incursion is a paper war game, one of those fascinating yet complex beasts that appeals to armchair generals -- it combines the fun of a strategy game like Risk with the intellectual stimulation of reading contemporary nonfiction. The game was co-designed by techno-thriller writer Larry Bond, best known for co-authoring Red Storm Rising with Tom Clancy. But Persian Incursion isn't a novel -- it's a reference library inside a game. The background information included is staggering. Besides the rules book, there is a target folder and a briefing booklet listing the precise dimensions of Iranian nuclear facilities down to the meter, as well as air defenses

As U.S. history has demonstrated for the last 65 years, before you blunder into a war, it's best to figure out exactly how you're going to win. Although Persian Incursion is a war game, destroying or protecting Iran's nuclear sites is only a means to victory -- not victory itself. The real prize is political. If Israel or Iran can knock down the other's morale enough through military or political action, it wins. Part of the goal, then, is to score points on "political tracks," which measure public opinion and morale. But it's not just Israel and Iran that have political tracks; the game simulates the pressure and acquiescence of other countries that have a dog in this fight, including the United States, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf states, Russia, China, Jordan, and the United Nations (representing Europe and the rest of the world). Basically, the more supportive a country is toward Israel or Iran, the more political, intelligence, and military points it will provide to that belligerent. And these points are the currency of Persian Incursion; most every Israeli or Iranian action, from airstrikes to missile launches to terrorist attacks, requires them. Think of it as the Monopoly money you need to build your hotel empire.
To add to the unpredictability, Persian Incursion gives each player a chance before the game to purchase extra goodies. Iran's Colonel Noob buys GPS jammers to frustrate Israeli guided weapons, plus a couple of Chinese HQ-9 surface-to-air missile (SAM) batteries. And knowing that missiles will soon be headed Israel's way, I choose a third Arrow 2 anti-missile battalion, plus extra tanker aircraft for longer bombing sorties. The political tracks begin with Saudi Arabia somewhat supportive of my Israeli attack and with the United States, Turkey, and the United Nations offering lukewarm endorsement. On the other side, Russia is somewhat supportive of Iran, while China is a full-on ally. This situation is tenuous and fraught with danger for both players. If the Saudi political track shifts more toward Israel, Saudi aircraft could join in the fun. ("Oops, sorry Tehran! We were trying to attack the Jews' aircraft, but we accidentally bombed your reactor. Our king is most distraught.") On the other hand, China's support for Iran could mean an emergency airlift of Chinese weapons.

I begin with a special-forces operation that puts spotters on the ground to improve the accuracy of my airstrikes. Iran responds with a "propaganda barrage" and dice roll to see if it can get Saudi support for Israel to decline -- fortunately, for me, the gods decree otherwise. Israel executes its first airstrike. Combat basically involves Israeli aircraft progressing through successive "nodes" of Iranian interceptors and anti-aircraft weapons. I get lucky again: Iranian interceptors, outdated and often short of spare parts, can't hit worth a damn, and Israeli radar-jamming prowess helps neutralize Iranian surface-to-air missiles. Then, one of my F-16s is shot down, which means a hit on Israeli public opinion. But I've heavily damaged the Isfahan uranium conversion facility, and Iranian morale takes a hit.

The first game turn continues as Iran responds with missile strikes on Israeli cities, designed to lower Israeli morale. But one missile blows up on the launch pad, and another is shot down by my Arrow missiles. Of the two remaining missiles, one hit is a dud, but the other inflicts "major damage," which hurts my political track. Colonel Noob's turn is done.

Read the whole thing. Peck notes that some events that happened since the game was originally designed have changed things - Israel's strained relations with Turkey being the most obvious, but the entire Arab Spring a new important factor as well.. Also, puzzlingly, Hezbollah rockets are not mentioned in any scenario.

I don't know whether it includes possibilities of Israel accidentally bombing a civilian area, or Iran using chemical weapons in striking Israel, or (as Iran has threatened) Iran cutting off oil traffic from the Gulf or attacking Europe. There seem to be a huge number of variables.

Altogether, it sounds like a fascinating exercise.

The game costs $65 plus shipping.

I think I should get a free copy for posting this :)

(h/t Michael Peck)

More proof Juan Cole is a liar

Last week I noted that Juan Cole made quite a number of mistakes in his little "fact box" about Gaza - mistakes that he didn't bother correcting even after they were pointed out to him.

One of them was when he says:

Exports from Gaza to the rest of the world allowed by Israel: 0

He sourced this from HRW, which correctly stated that "No goods have left Gaza through Israel since May 12, according to Gisha, an Israeli rights group focused on Gaza." May was when the agricultural season ended. Which means that hundreds of tons of goods were exported before May 12 - a fact that Cole purposefully misrepresents when he says a flat zero.

But perhaps he was trying to imply that Israel would not allow any more goods to be exported from Gaza this year?

Wrong again.

From the IDF Spokesperson:

In light of the agricultural export season due to start at the end of November, and following the finalization of the trade process from Gaza to various European markets, a continuing education program for Palestinian agriculturists took place last Tuesday in the Coordination and Liaison Administration for Gaza.

As part of the conference, a detailed explanation of the export process was given. This process begins from the moment the product is picked and packed in Gaza, after which it is sent out of Gaza via the Kerem Shalom land crossing and sold in the European market, all while maintaining the freshness and high quality of the products. Furthermore, representatives of the Coordinator of the Government Activates in the Territories (COGAT) have announced that starting next month, an initial pilot program of furniture export from Gaza to Europe will commence.

This conference is part of the ongoing daily cooperation between the Coordination and Liaison Administration for Gaza and the Palestinians in the agricultural sector. The conference was attended by representatives of both the Agricultural Ministry of Israel and Gaza, observers on behalf of the Quartet, representatives of Israeli exporters, representative of the European States in the PA and a representative of the Kerem Shalom land crossing. All the attendees mentioned the great importance of the cooperation in this field and expressed their hope it would expand to other fields as well.

Mr. Tim Williams, the Quartet Advisor said: “It is important that we will see exports from Gaza and not just from the network of the Dutch project. We know that the Quartet is working and supporting the advancement of this field and that Israel already okayed the export of furniture and textiles, and I expect that from now on we will begin to see exports of furniture already in the coming weeks as was promised”.

During the past year, Palestinians from the Gaza Strip have exported more than 399 tons of strawberries, 10 million carnations, 6.5 tons of Cherry tomato and 6 tons of red, green and yellow bell peppers to European markets. In the coming year, Palestinians are expected to export 1,000 tons of strawberries, 20 million carnations and 150 tons of red, green and yellow bell peppers. The exports are carried out thanks to the cooperation between COGAT and the Palestinian agricultural coordinator who work together in order to improve the lives of Gaza’s civilian population.

We see that there is a huge project being coordinated among multiple groups in Israel, Gaza and the EU to ensure exports coming out of Gaza can be done safely and effectively, and the numbers have been doubling year after year.

But Juan Cole, celebrated academic who cares nothing for actual facts, sums it all up as "zero."

Arab representing Israel in Miss Earth competition

From YNet/AFP:

As makeup artists and hairdressers circle her, Huda Naccache calmly discusses the media frenzy sparked by her appearance, clad in a skimpy bikini, on the cover of an Israeli Arab magazine.

The long-limbed 22-year-old, who comes from the mixed Israeli and Arab port city of Haifa, doesn't see the cover shoot for Lilac magazine as anything out of the ordinary.

For her, it was simply another part of a campaign in the run up to the Miss Earth competition in Thailand this December, where she will represent Israel.

But the cover shoot was the first time an Arabic magazine here has put a model in a bikini on its cover, and the first time an Israeli Arab model has been featured on a front page in so little clothing.

The image in question featured a defiant-looking Naccache in a black-sequined bikini, an open white shirt draped over her shoulders and her thumbs hooked in the sides of her bikini bottom.

AFP is burying the lede here, because the fact that an Israeli Arab Christian is modeling in bikinis isn't nearly as important as the fact that "apartheid" Israel chose an Arab to be their representative at Miss Earth.

Here's the controversial cover (click to see entire image) and an inside page from the magazine:

More on her Facebook page and a Daily Mail article about this from September.

(h/t Yoel)

Al Jazeera and Al Arabiya called "Zionist" for Syria coverage

From Syria's SANA agency:

The Jordanian Popular Committee for Supporting Syria against the Conspiracy in addition to Jordanian popular figures on Saturday staged a sit-in in front of al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya TV channels' offices in Amman to express condemnation of the misleading campaign perpetrated by those channels against Syria with the aim of serving the U.S.-Zionist plots against the Arab nation.

The gathered participants expressed their rejection of any attempt of foreign interference in any Arab country under any pretexts or names whether varying between international protection of civilians, direct military intervention, the Human Rights Council or the UN Security Council.

The memorandum expressed the Jordanian figures' condemnation of al-Jazeera and al-Arabiya's moving away from the professional performance which is supposed to be unbiased, balanced, honest and subjective.

The memorandum also condemned the escalation and incitement language of the two channels which reached the extent of fabricating and distorting the facts in order to provide a cover for the U.S.-Zionist projects aimed at undermining and dividing the Arab countries under the pretexts of freedom and human rights, like what happened in Iraq and Libya and what is planned for Syria.

This was also reported in - where else? - Iran's PressTV. It adds:

Meanwhile, activists in Qatar had earlier also accused Al-Jazeera of serving Israeli interests in the region.

They posted photos showing the Emir of Qatar, Hamad bin Khalifa Al Thani, and his prime minister shaking hands with Israeli officials, activists also criticized the government for its close ties with Tel Aviv.

This is probably the photo they mean, from when Olmert met Qatar officials in 2008 in Paris:

Son of prominent Iranian found dead in Dubai

From AP:

The son of a prominent Iranian conservative who ran against President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in 2009 has died in a Dubai hotel in an apparent suicide, a Dubai police official and an Iranian website said Sunday.

The police official said the body, with a slit left wrist, was found late Friday by hotel staff in an 18th floor room.

There was no evidence of an attack and the death is being investigated as a suicide, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief media.

Dubai police did not provide further details on the man’s identity, but the Iranian website Tabnak, which is close to conservative Mohsen Rezaei, said that the politician’s son Ahmad Rezaei died in Dubai’s Gloria Hotel. It called the death “suspicious,” but offered no other details.

Prior to his return to Iran in 2005, Ahmad Rezaei had lived in the United States and openly criticized Tehran’s rulers. This put his father, a conservative closely associated with clerical hard-liners, in an awkward political position.

Mohsen Rezaei is secretary of Iran’s powerful Expediency Council, an advisory body to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

His father is one of the people suspected of being behind the attack on the AMIA building in Argentina in 1994, and Israeli sources are quoting Iranian news as saying that they think this was a Mossad hit just like the murder of Mahmoud al Mabhouh last year.

Given that Ahmad was a critic of Tehran's rulers, this seems unlikely - if this was a hit, Iran might be behind it. Maybe even to send a message to Israel that it can also assassinate people in locked hotel rooms in Dubai if it wants to.

(h/t Yoel)

A strange definition of "tikun olam"

Crazed anti-Israel nutcase blogger Richard Silverstein has an exclusive!

The face of the Israeli terror machine may have reared its ugly head again in the world. This time it may have produced yet another massive act of sabotage (Hebrew original) at an IRG missile base west of Teheran. ...

Ynet raises the possibility that it was a deliberate act of sabotage on not just a missile base, but an intelligence facility. Teheran Bureau says the IRG is telling the Iranian media that the incident was not an act of terror, but purely an industrial accident. An Iranian who worked at the base for several months and was interviewed by Iranian media discounted the likelihood of an act of sabotage since security at the base was extremely strict.

However, an Israeli source with extensive senior political and military experience provides an exclusive report that it was the work of the Mossad in collaboration with the MEK.

...[M]y source has never been wrong so far in the reports he’s offered.

Silverstein is so anxious to blame Israel for everything that he was once taken in by an obvious Ha'aretz Purim joke article claiming that advertising messages would be projected onto the Kotel. He is known as a thin-skinned, sloppy, and unreliable blogger.

Nevertheless, YNet is now headlining an article with Silverstein's unsourced allegations!

And from what I hear, Israel's Army Radio mentioned it as well.

Not to mention Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad mouthpiece Palestine Today.

Now, from the beginning of this story, everyone recognized that it was entirely possible that Israel or other Western intelligence agencies were behind this explosion. I'm hardly an expert and I noted that as well.

But one of the features of espionage is plausible deniability.

Last week, on numerous occasions, Iran threatened to send hundreds of missiles to Israeli targets if it was attacked, or even if it was threatened with an attack.

Silverstein names his blog "Tikun Olam" in a bizarre attempt to pretend that somehow his unhinged and hateful postings help "repair the world." (By the way, along with most Jews who know nothing about Judaism, Silverstein's concept of "tikkun olam" is far from what the phrase actually means.)

If Iran becomes convinced that Israel has just attacked its missile facility, it will consider an avalanche of missiles aimed at Israel to be a response, not an attack.

So Silverstein, hiding his hate for Israel behind a misunderstood concept of "repairing the world," has no problem with doing his part to help bring war. And if quoting some random Israeli who makes him feel important by even talking to him is the method to do that, then, no problem. (Every real reporter would require corroboration from a second source before publishing something this incendiary.)

Since Silverstein's entire blogging career has always been more about boosting his immense-but-fragile ego and fueling his intense hate of Israel than anything remotely positive, Silverstein can be counted upon as not giving a damn if he just helped edge the region - and possibly the world - towards war.

That's the "tikun olam" of fools.

(h/t CAMERA)

"We harvest the skulls of the Jews"

From MEMRI:

Following are excerpts from statements made at a rally of the Palestinian Al-Ahrar movement in Gaza, a pro-Hamas group that split from Fatah, which aired on Al-Aqsa TV on November 3, 2011:

Rally organizer: Praise be to you, our Lord. You have made our killing of the Jews an act of worship, through which we come closer to you.

[…]

Allah's prayers upon you, our beloved Prophet [Muhammad]. You have made your teachings into constitutions for us – the light with which we dissipate the darkness of the occupation, and the fire with which we harvest the skulls of the Jews.

[…]

Yes, our beloved brothers, even though the entire world moves closer to Allah through fasting, through hunger, and through tears, we are a people that moves closer to Allah through blood, through body parts, and through martyrs.

[…]

Oh sons of Palestine, oh sons of the Gaza Strip, oh mujahideen – wage Jihad, wreak destruction, blow up and harvest the heads of the Zionists. Words are useless by now. The lie of peace is gone. Only weapons are of any use – the path of [recently killed] Yousuf and Ali, the path of martyrdom and Jihad. Only our wounds talk on our behalf. We speak nothing but the language of struggle, of Jihad, of rockets, of bombs, of cannons and of martyrdom-seekers. This is the language in which we talk and negotiate with the Zionist enemy.

[…]

We say to the Zionists: Like a bad seed, we shall uproot you from our land, so that it can blossom in the light of the everlasting sun of our Jihad, and of our invincible religion. Jerusalem is not yours – get out of it! Haifa is not yours – get out of it! Tel Aviv is not yours – get out of it! Oh Zionists, get out before we expel you. these are the words of the mujahideen.

Al Ahrar was started by disillusioned Fatah members who ended up allying with Hamas, and this speech was shown on Hamas TV.

Gay Saudi diplomat denied asylum in US

From Rasheed's World

ALI Ahmed Asseri, the gay former Saudi diplomat in Los Angeles, has had his political asylum application denied by the Obama administration because of apparent fears that giving refuge to him might upset relations with the kingdom, according to Ali al-Ahmed, a Saudi dissident in Washington, D.C.

“This was a political decision by the Obama administration, who are afraid of upsetting the Saudis,” said Ahmed in a phone interview. “His initial interview with Homeland Security was very positive, but then they came back and grilled him for two days after they found out that he had worked in the public prosecutor’s office in Saudi Arabia. He had been an inspector to make sure that judicial punishments, such as lashings, were carried out within the law—not more, not less. They then accused him of participating in a form of torture,” explained Ahmed.

More than a year ago, I wrote about Asseri applying for political asylum after he claimed that the Saudi Consulate in Los Angeles, where he had worked as first secretary in their legal department, found out he was gay after following him when he went out to socialize at gay bars. He told Michael Isikoff of NBC News that he feared he would be executed if he were forced to return to the kingdom, after the consulate refused to renew his diplomatic passport. The Saudi Embassy in Washington claimed at the time that Asseri’s tour of duty was over in the US, and that the Saudi government had asked him to return home.

Ahmed said that Asseri is planning to appeal the decision, and that this process could extend for several years.

Asseri has been reluctant to speak to the press, and is under medication for severe back pain. Ahmed says that he has encouraged him to do television interviews so as to publicize his plight and gain public sympathy, but that Asseri has so far refused.

It is unclear to which country Asseri would be sent to if the US government finally succeeds in denying him asylum.

The blogger later emailed to Benjamin Weinthal at JPost saying "As far as I know the US government has not yet officially commented on Asseri's denial of asylum, but from comments that I have read after I wrote my post, it seems that political asylum cases are often denied in first instance and then approved later when the applicant appeals."

Hamas not keen on Fatah's Arafat commemorations

There are reports that Hamas gunmen were ripping down signs with Yasser Arafat's picture, and arresting those who were putting them up, in Gaza on Saturday.

Similarly, Hamas factions in Lebanese camps tried to stop Fatah celebrations of Arafat's death anniversary, and boycotted the events that Fatah did put together.

Meanwhile, Hamas leader Mahmoud Zahar said that there has still not been a meeting scheduled between Haams and Fatah leaders, and said that even if the meetings take place no one should be optimistic that a breakthrough will come as a result. He said that Mahmoud Abbas still has not fulfilled the unity agreement from May and that Hamas will refuse any elections until that agreement is implemented. He also said that there is no way that Hamas would allow Salam Fayyad to remain prime minister.

Unity!

Egyptians accusing Israel of 1997 Luxor massacre

From Wikipedia:

The Luxor Massacre refers to the killing of 62 people, mostly tourists, that took place on 17 November 1997, at Deir el-Bahri, an archaeological site and major tourist attraction located across the River Nile from Luxor in Egypt.

In the mid-morning attack, terrorists from the Islamic Group and Jihad Talaat al-Fath ("Holy War of the Vanguard of the Conquest") massacred 62 people at the attraction. The six assailants were armed with automatic firearms and knives, and disguised as members of the security forces. They descended on the Temple of Hatshepsut at around 08:45. With the tourists trapped inside the temple, the killing went on systematically for 45 minutes, during which many bodies, especially of women, were mutilated with machetes. A note praising Islam was found inside one disemboweled body.[4] The dead included a five-year-old British child and four Japanese couples on their honeymoons.[5][6]

The attackers then hijacked a bus, but ran into a checkpoint of armed Egyptian tourist police and military forces. One of the terrorists was wounded in the shootout and the rest fled into the hills where their bodies were found in a cave, apparently having committed suicide together.[7]

Now the leader of Egypt's Islamic-oriented Labor Party, Madgy Ahmed Hussein, is saying that he has discovered some secret information leaked by an unknown Egyptian official that the people behind the massacre were not Islamist. Oh, no. They were, of course, Israelis!

According to Hussein, who is running for president of Egypt, Israel was upset at Egypt's refusal to participate in the 1997 Doha economic conference, which it tied to progress in the Oslo process and somehow thought that its boycotting the conference would hurt Israel. Israel's anger at Egypt was behind the decision to massacre dozens of Egyptian tourists.

The ability to think clearly is an impediment to coming up with these sorts of theories.

He made these claims at a Labor party conference in Luxor Friday night.

Brigadier General killed in major Iran blast

From YNet:

More details emerging following explosion near Tehran: A senior officer in Iran's weapons industry was killed in Saturday's blast outside Tehran, officials in the country said.

The officer, identified as Hassan Tehrani Moqaddam, held a rank parallel to brigadier general in Iran's elite Revolutionary Guards, the Fars news agency said. He reportedly served as a researcher at a Tehran university and headed the "Jihad Self-Reliance" unit, mostly tasked with developing arms and missiles following the embargo imposed on Iran since 1979.

Saturday's blast killed at least 17 people and wounded 16 others, some of them gravely.

A former spokesman for the Mujahedin-e Khalq, or MEK, in Washington, citing reliable sources inside Iran, said Saturday that the explosion hit the Modarres Garrison of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps west of Tehran. Alireza Jafarzadeh said the garrison belongs to the IGRC's missile unit and the blasts "resulted from the explosion of IRGC missiles."

Although Iranian reports did not refer to the possibility that the base was struck from the air, some assessments indicate that the explosion may have been the result of a military operation based on intelligence information.

WaPo adds:

The blast followed a sharp increase in recent years in explosions at industrial sites, key gas pipelines and Revolutionary Guard bases, which some here attribute to sabotage by the United States.

In October 2010, 18 servicemen were killed in an explosion at an ammunition depot on a Guard Corps base near the western city of Khorramabad.

In May, a blast at an oil refinery during a visit by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad killed four people.

Either Iran's military procedures are embarrassingly sloppy, or there has been some very effective sabotage going on.