May 21, 2012

Source: Guardian

Lawyers for three protesters arrested on terrorist-related charges ahead of the Nato summit have accused police of entrapping them and encouraging an alleged bomb-making effort.

The three were arrested on Wednesday night when members of the Chicago police department battered their way into an apartment in the Bridgeport area of the city.

According to court documents released on Saturday, the three men considered targeting Barack Obama’s re-election headquarters and the home of Chicago mayor Rahm Emanuel.

The Chicago police department said the men, described as self-proclaimed anarchists and members of the “Black Bloc” movement that has disrupted international gatherings in the past, were arrested on Wednesday and charged on Friday with conspiracy to commit terrorism, providing material support for terrorism and possession of an explosive incendiary device.

The three men charged were listed as Brian Church, 22, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Jared Chase, 27, of Keene, New Hampshire, and Brent Betterly, 24, from Massachusetts.

Read More…

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May 19, 2012

By Kevin Gosztola
FireDogLake

Three Occupy activists raided on May 16 and disappeared for a period of time by Chicago police were brought before a bond judge this afternoon and officially charged with material support for terrorism, conspiracy to commit terrorism and possession of explosives or explosive or incendiary devices.

The State’s Attorney Anita Alvarez asked for bail to be set at $5 million for the three men who had come from out-of-state to protest the NATO summit. The judge set the bail at $1.5 million. Each of the charges are felony charges.

The case marks the first time that state prosecutors have used the Illinois Terrorism law to prosecute individuals.

The prosecutor accused Brian Church, 22, of Fort Lauderdale, Florida, Jared Chase, 27, of Keene, New Hampshire, and Brent Betterly, 24, who lives in Massachusetts, of planning to “destroy police cars and attack four Chicago Police district stations with destructive devices, in an effort to undermine the police response to the conspirators’ other planned actions for the NATO Summit.”

The prosecutor claimed defendants possessed and/or constructed “improvised explosive-incendiary devices” (IEDs) and “various types of dangerous weapons including a mortar gun, swords, a hunting bow, throwing stars, and knives with brass-knuckle handles.”

Alvarez alleged the activists were “self-proclaimed anarchists and members of the ‘Black Bloc’ group, who traveled together from Florida to the Chicago area” and were prepared to commit “terrorist acts of violence and destruction directed against different targets in protest to the NATO summit.

She claimed the three men had proposed targets that included “the Campaign Headquarters of President Obama, the home of Mayor Rahm Emanuel and certain downtown financial institutions.”

The details presented by Alvarez were all part of a “public safety investigation” that began in early May and was conducted with assistance from the FBI and Secret Service.

The details consisted of allegations and claims about the three activists that had not been shared with National Lawyers Guild (NLG) attorneys representing the arrestees until the bond hearing.

Michael Deutsch of the NLG and People’s Law Office in Chicago was in court to represent Church. He said the NLG questions the charges against these men from top to bottom. He said the three men had told NLG attorneys “had no intent to commit any criminal violent act.”

In fact, Church had been going to Broward Community College to become an emergency medical technician (EMT).

In Illinois, a person has to post 10% of the bail to get out of jail.

“Obviously these people do not have the resources to post bail,” Deutsch said. “For the near future, they will be in until we can get a real bail hearing, which explains these outrageous claims that the State’s Attorney read.” He added the NLG believes the charges are “fabricated charges” and they are “based on police informants and provocateurs which is a common pattern that we have seen against people who are protesting.”

During the bond hearing, Deutsch called the accusations against Church “propaganda.” The State’s Attorney claimed Church “wanted to recruit four groups of co-conspirators (16 people) to conduct the raids, and that reconnaissance had already been conducted at CPD Headquarters located at 3510 South Michigan Avenue for the purpose of a planned attack.”

The prosecutor claimed to have Church on the record saying the “city doesn’t know what it is in for during the NATO summit. And things will never be the same.”

They claimed the activists had gone to a BP station at 31st & Halsted to get gasoline for Molotov cocktails and that they had Church on record saying, “Have you ever seen a cop on fire?”

“All of these things are surprises to us,” Deutsch explained. “All the charges were in the newspaper this morning but other than that all the specifics” were presented to the arrestee’s attorneys during the hearing for the first time. The attorneys had yet to see a search warrant for the apartment that was raided.

Deutsch called the investigation, targeting and raid of these activists “worse than entrapment.” According to the NLG, two police informants infiltrated the group. The NLGE believes “they’re the ones who provoked this and they’re the ones,” who committed the “illegal activity” and had the “illegal materials.”

Additionally, they said the informants didn’t provide the materials and convince the activists to engage in some plot.

The activists did not take the bait. The informants simply left the materials in the apartment ahead of the raid so the materials would be there for police to find.

Read Entire Article

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May 16, 2012

Source: Rolling Stone

This past October, at an Occupy encampment in Cleveland, Ohio, “suspicious males with walkie-talkies around their necks” and “scarves or towels around their heads” were heard grumbling at the protesters’ unwillingness to act violently. At meetings a few months later, one of them, a 26-year-old with a black Mohawk known as “Cyco,” explained to his anarchist colleagues how “you can make plastic explosives with bleach,” and the group of five men fantasized about what they might blow up. Cyco suggested a small bridge. One of the others thought they’d have a better chance of not hurting people if they blew up a cargo ship. A third, however, argued for a big bridge – “Gotta slow the traffic that’s going to make them money” – and won. He then led them to a connection who sold them C-4 explosives for $450. Then, the night before the May Day Occupy protests, they allegedly put the plan into motion – and just as the would-be terrorists fiddled with the detonator they hoped would blow to smithereens a scenic bridge in Ohio’s Cuyahoga Valley National Park traversed by 13,610 vehicles every day, the FBI swooped in to arrest them.

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May 8, 2012

Source: Reason

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April 8, 2012

By Tony Cartalucci
BlacklistedNews.com

Series of mainstream admissions of US & Israeli state-sponsored terrorism.

Ynetnews reported in their article, “US operated deep in Iran, trained assassins,” that, “the New Yorker reported over the weekend that the US trained members of the Iranian opposition group Mujahideen-e-Khalq. According to previous reports, Israel has been cooperating with the group, which allegedly carried out hits on Iranian nuclear scientists.” Ynetnews also reported that US officials doubt Iran is or will be developing nuclear weapons, as has been claimed to justify years of sanctions, covert subversion, terrorism, and unprovoked attacks by the West against Iran.

Image: Rudy Giuliani consorting with MEK’s political wing leader Maryam Rajavi in Paris, France. Giuliani is best known for his role playing a strong supporter for the “War on Terror” and his incessant fear mongering verses “Islamic extremists.” In real life, he coddles listed terrorist organizations in direct violation of US law and even lobbies for them.

It appears that not only Israel, but the US in tandem with Mossad have been training, arming, financing, harboring, and directing the US State Department-listed foreign terror organization (#29) Mujahideen-e-Khalq (MEK) since as early as 2005 where MEK terrorists were brought to Las Vegas, Nevada to train. The April 2012 New Yorker article, “Our Men in Iran?” by Seymour Hersh, elaborates in detail how the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC) trained a listed terrorist organization on US soil before sending them back to Iran with weapons and money to carry out “anti-regime terrorist activities.” MEK is suspected to be behind a rash of assassinations targeting Iranian scientists, as well as handling patsies in a string of international bombings US and Israeli officials attempted to pin on Iran.

And while MEK’s representatives, including a growing lobby in Washington D.C. consisting of some of the most disingenuous supporters of the “War on Terror,” including Rudy Giuliani, former US Marine Commandant General James Jones, Tom Ridge, and Lee Hamilton, claim MEK has renounced “terror,” the entire purpose of training them, funding them, and getting them removed from the US State Department “Foreign Terrorist Organization” list is to allow them to carry out a wider campaign of violence against the Iranian people with even greater US support. In essence – to support terror on an unprecedented scale.

This is stated in US policy think-tank Brookings Institution’s “Which Path to Persia?” report published in 2009 which stated (emphasis added):

“Perhaps the most prominent (and certainly the most controversial) opposition group that has attracted attention as a potential U.S. proxy is the NCRI (National Council of Resistance of Iran), the political movement established by the MEK (Mujahedin-e Khalq). Critics believe the group to be undemocratic and unpopular, and indeed anti-American.

In contrast, the group’s champions contend that the movement’s long-standing opposition to the Iranian regime and record of successful attacks on and intelligence-gathering operations against the regime make it worthy of U.S. support. They also argue that the group is no longer anti-American and question the merit of earlier accusations. Raymond Tanter, one of the group’s supporters in the United States, contends that the MEK and the NCRI are allies for regime change in Tehranand also act as a useful proxy for gathering intelligence. The MEK’s greatest intelligence coup was the provision of intelligence in 2002 that led to the discovery of a secret site in Iran for enriching uranium.

Despite its defenders’ claims, the MEK remains on the U.S. government list of foreign terrorist organizations. In the 1970s, the group killed three U.S. officers and three civilian contractors in Iran. During the 1979-1980 hostage crisis, the group praised the decision to take America hostages and Elaine Sciolino reported that while group leaders publicly condemned the 9/11 attacks, within the group celebrations were widespread.
Undeniably, the group has conducted terrorist attacks—often excused by the MEK’s advocates because they are directed against the Iranian government. For example, in 1981, the group bombed the headquarters of the Islamic Republic Party, which was then the clerical leadership’s main political organization, killing an estimated 70 senior officials. More recently, the group has claimed credit for over a dozen mortar attacks, assassinations, and other assaults on Iranian civilian and military targets between 1998 and 2001. At the very least, to work more closely with the group (at least in an overt manner), Washington would need to remove it from the list of foreign terrorist organizations.”

- page 117-118of “Which Path to Persia?” Brookings Institution, 2009

Clearly the United States, its policy makers, and “elected representatives” are well aware that MEK was, and still is a terrorist organization, targeting not only military and political targets in Iran, but civilian targets as well. The indefensible excuse being used now, is that MEK’s terrorist activities are only being directed at the people of Iran, not the West, therefore it is somehow justifiable.

MEK has carried out decades of brutal terrorist attacks, assassinations, and espionage against the Iranian government and its people, as well as targeting Americans including the attempted kidnapping of US Ambassador Douglas MacArthur II, the attempted assassination of USAF Brigadier General Harold Price, the successful assassination of Lieutenant Colonel Louis Lee Hawkins, the double assassinations of Colonel Paul Shaffer and Lieutenant Colonel Jack Turner, and the successful ambush and killing of American Rockwell International employees William Cottrell, Donald Smith, and Robert Krongard.

Admissions to the deaths of the Rockwell International employees can be found within a report written by former US State Department and Department of Defense official Lincoln Bloomfield Jr. on behalf of the lobbying firm Akin Gump in an attempt to dismiss concerns over MEK’s violent past and how it connects to its current campaign of armed terror – a true testament to the depths of depravity from which Washington and London lobbyists operate.

MEK today is described by Council on Foreign Relations Senior Fellow Ray Takeyh (who was attempting to defend MEK) as a “cult-like organization” with “totalitarian tendencies.” While Takeyh fails to expand on what he meant by “cult-like” and “totalitarian,” an interview with US State Department-run Radio Free Europe-Radio Liberty reported that a MEK Camp Ashraf escapee claimed the terrorist organization bans marriage, using radios, the Internet, and holds many members against their will with the threat of death if ever they are caught attempting to escape.

With a similar story being uncovered behind Al Qaeda’s Libyan Islamic Fighting Group (LIFG) which has been for decades backed, armed, trained, and directed by the CIA and MI6 under varying banners up to and including NATO’s recent 2011 Libyan intervention – a pattern of using “terrorists” as both a convenient casus belli and as an effective proxy military force is becoming apparent. With LIFG commander Abdul Hakim Belhaj turning up in Syria carrying out a NATO-backed campaign to topple President Bashar al-Assad, it appears terrorist mercenaries in the employ of the West are at work there as well. Tales of “pro-democracy” “freedom fighters” are spun for anyone ignorant enough to believe them, while in reality the violence there is nothing more than the symptoms of neo-imperial machinations.

The War on Terror is a Fraud

The “War on Terror” is a fraud. For 10 years the West, and in particular America’s armed forces have been lied to, misled, and bled dry literally while the American tax payers have been bled dry financially. Americans have resigned their personal freedoms to the “Patriot Act” and the increasingly perverse and invasive Transportation Security Administration (TSA). The corporate-financier think-tanks, like the Brookings Institution, who conspire to train, arm, and fund terrorist organizations we supposedly sent thousands of our sons to die fighting, and who’s “omnipresent danger” we have surrendered our liberties to help combat, do so not for the greater good of the American people, but for the greater good of the corporate-financier sponsors that fund their work.

Image: Some of the corporate sponsors behind the Brookings Institution, who have openly conspired to fund, train, and arm terrorist organizations to carry out regime change in Iran. America is bled to death literally and financially to fight wars of conquest justified by claiming armies of omnipresent terrorists threaten the West’s way of life, when this very army of terrorists is a creation of the corporate-financier oligarchs in Wall Street and London in the first place. (click image to enlarge)

For it is the corporate-financier oligarchs who have made trillions fighting this unending war, who have had barriers such as individual liberty and state sovereignty torn down in their quest for more wealth and power, and who have overturned nation after nation only then to be rolled into their growing Wall Street-London collective. This is modern global empire – its moral imperative one entirely contrived to hide a glaring reality so outrageous even when it is admitted amongst the mainstream press, the general public has no idea, apparently, what to make of it. It would be suggested, however, that the public identify these corporations, boycott them completely, and replace them with a new, local paradigm with a moral imperative derived from their own personal convictions – not ideology sold to them on the corporate-sponsored evening news.

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February 14, 2012

Source: Wire Reports

On Monday a bomb was detonated in New Delhi, India killing four people. The bomb was allegedly designed to kill members of the Israeli embassy and the Israeli Prime Minister quickly accused Iran for laying out the attacks. A second bombing attempt was foiled in Georgia and was said to target an Israeli diplomat. Although Israel claims these attacks are in retaliation to the deaths of Iranian nuclear scientists, Iran has come forth and said they are not behind the attacks of terror and went as far to say Israel did it to themselves. Stephen Lendman, writer and host on Progressive Radio News Hour, joins us to take a closer look at the bombings.

And Israel blames Iran for Bangkok blasts

The man blew both his legs off when he tried to escape police by throwing a grenade at pursuing officers, but it bounced off a tree and he was caught by the full force of the blast.

Read More From The Telegraph…

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US and allies ‘considering plans’ for military aid to Syrian rebels

February 9, 2012

Source: Herald Sun

THE US and its allies were considering giving military aid to the Syrian opposition battling the regime of President Bashar al Assad in an 11-month uprising that activists say has killed more than 6,000 people.

The Pentagon had drawn up contingency plans which could include supplying the Free Syrian Army (FSA) with weapons and establishing a humanitarian corridor to deliver aid to civilians, The Times reported today, citing a US official.

While US officials said they were “scoping out” military options, any plans at the moment were purely “academic.”

Several nations have already been aiding the rebels, with Saudi Arabia providing financial assistance and Qatar supplying them with 3000 satellite phones. Qatar was also giving the FSA night-vision equipment and anti-tank missiles.

The FSA’s logistical coordinator Sheikh Zuheir Abassi told The Times the rebels wanted the West to provide no-fly zones and a haven from which they could safely operate.

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February 8, 2012

By Michael Snyder
BlacklistedNews.com

Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States, 1970 to 2008“, and it was produced by the “National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism” for the Department of Homeland Security.  As you will see detailed later on in this article, the most shocking part of this report is when it discusses the “ideological motivations” of potential terrorists.  The report shamelessly attempts to portray red-blooded Americans that love liberty and that love their country as the enemy.  Once upon a time, deeply patriotic Americans were considered to be the backbone of America, but today they are considered to be potential terrorists.

Do you love America?  Are you against a one world economy and a one world government?  Do you deeply love individual liberty?  Do you believe in conspiracy theories?  If you answered any of those questions affirmatively, then you are a potential terrorist according to a brand new Department of Homeland Security report that was just released in January 2012. The report is entitled “

And this report is yet another example of how the definition of “terrorism” has changed.  A decade ago, the entire focus of the “war on terror” was on radical Muslims and we were told that we had to send our boys and girls to the other side of the world to defeat them.

Well, in this new report there is barely any mention of Islam at all.  Instead, the report identifies patriots, conspiracy theorists, evangelical Christians, anti-abortion activists, survivalists and those that are against globalism as the real threats.

The focus of the “war on terror” has fundamentally shifted.  The “enemy” is now those that love freedom and those that love America.

According to the new DHS report, the following are some of the beliefs and ideologies of American terrorists….

-”fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation)”

-”anti-global”

-”suspicious of centralized federal authority”

-”reverent of individual liberty”

-”believe in conspiracy theories”

-”a belief that one’s personal and/or national “way of life” is under attack”

-”a belief in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism”

-”impose strict religious tenets or laws on society (fundamentalists)”

-”insert religion into the political sphere”

-”those who seek to politicize religion”

-”supported political movements for autonomy”

-”anti-abortion”

-”anti-Catholic”

-”anti-nuclear”

All of the above are direct quotes from the report.

Do any of those beliefs apply to you?

Does your own government now believe that you are a potential terrorist?

There seems to be a concerted effort to demonize certain groups of people in this country.  In the past, those that loved America, those that loved God, and those that loved freedom were considered to be role models.  Now they are considered to be dangers.

The funny thing is that according to the report, terrorism in the United States has actually been declining over the past several decades.  On page 13 of the new DHS report, you will find a chart that shows that the number of “terrorist attacks” in the United States has decreased steadily since 1970.

And on page 18 of the report, we find that “extreme left-wing” groups such as radical communists were responsible for 5 times more terror attacks in the U.S. between 1970 and 2008 than all “extreme right-wing” groups and religious groups combined.

The truth is that the vast majority of Americans that are patriotic, religious or that believe in conspiracy theories are very peaceful and only want the best for this country.

But the mainstream media is making it seem like there is an epidemic of “anti-government extremists” that needs to be dealt with.

For example, the following comes from a recent USA Today article entitled “FBI: More locals seek help with anti-government extremists“….

The FBI is being inundated with calls from local government officials asking for assistance in dealing with anti-government extremists, officials said.

And as I wrote about the other day, the FBI has broadened the definition of “suspicious activity” so much that literally anyone could fall under it.

In 2012, the following activities are considered to be “suspicious” by the FBI….

-shielding your computer screen from others

-paying with cash

-acting “nervous”

-using multiple cell phones

-requesting a specific room at a hotel

-traveling with a large amount of luggage

-refusing maid service at a hotel

-staying in your room for too long

-changing your appearance

In fact, if you see any of these things you are supposed to contact the feds right away.

Was the federal government ever this paranoid during the days of McCarthyism?

If America is going to have any kind of a future, we are going to need people who deeply love liberty and who deeply love this country.

Unfortunately, there are many in the federal government that hate the beliefs that this nation was founded upon.

Our founding fathers were fiercely nationalistic, suspicious of centralized authority and were reverent of individual liberty.  So according to the Department of Homeland Security, they would very clearly fit the definition of potential terrorists.

How did America ever get so far off track?

If nobody challenges this kind of propaganda, we will go down the dark road of totalitarianism that so many other societies have gone down in the past.

It is a good thing to love your country.

It is a good thing to love individual liberty.

It is a good thing to question the government.

Unfortunately, what the federal government wants today is blind faith and blind obedience.  If the federal government tells us that patriotism, religion and nationalism are bad, we are just supposed to go along with it.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, the ideal American would be someone that embraces centralized authority, someone that is “universal and international in orientation”, someone that believes in the idea of a one world government, someone that is anti-religion, someone that is pro-genocide, someone that believes that nobody should ever question leadership, and someone that has disdain for individual liberty.

Where could we ever find someone like that?

Wait, I’ve got it!

Cobra Commander, the ideal American for the 21st century….

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February 1, 2012

Source: Reuters

The Taliban, backed by Pakistan, are set to retake control of Afghanistan after Nato-led forces withdraw from the country, according to reports citing a classifed assessment by US forces.

The Times described the report as secret and “highly classified”, saying it was put together last month by the US military at Bagram air base in Afghanistan for top Nato officers. The BBC also carried a report on the leaked document.

“Many Afghans are already bracing themselves for an eventual return of the Taliban,” the report was quoted as saying. “Once Isaf (Nato-led forces) is no longer a factor, Taliban consider their victory inevitable.”

The document stated that Pakistan’s security agency was helping the Taliban in directing attacks against foreign forces – a charge long denied by Islamabad.

Full article here

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January 16, 2012

Source: CNet

Internal Homeland Security documents describing specifications for border-crossing scanners, which emit gamma or X-ray radiation to probe vehicles and their occupants, are raising new health and privacy concerns, CNET has learned.

Even though a public outcry has prompted Homeland Security to move away from adding X-ray machines to airports–it purchased 300 body scanners last year that used alternative technology instead–it appears to be embracing them at U.S.-Mexico land border crossings as an efficient way to detect drugs, currency, and explosives.

The Z Portal scanner in use at the San Ysidro, Calif. border crossing uses high energy X-ray radiation to probe the interior of vehicles. Homeland Security says it’s safe for humans, but some biophysicists disagree.

The Z Portal scanner in use at the San Ysidro, Calif., border crossing uses high energy X-ray radiation to probe the interior of vehicles. Homeland Security says it’s safe for humans, but some biophysicists disagree.

A 63-page set of specifications (PDF), heavily redacted, obtained by the Electronic Privacy Information Center through the Freedom of Information Act, says the scanners must “be based on X-Ray or gamma technology,” which use potentially dangerous ionizing radiation at high energies, and “shall be capable of scanning cars, SUVs, motorcycles and busses.”

Read More…

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January 14th, 2012

Via: AFP:

Agents with Israel’s Mossad agency posed as American CIA agents in operations to recruit members of the Pakistani militant group Jundallah, a report in Foreign Policy magazine said Friday.

Using American dollars and US passports, the agents passed themselves off as members of the Central Intelligence Agency in the operations, notably in London, according to memos from 2007 and 2008, said the report.

Jundallah (Soldiers of God) says it is fighting for the interests of the southeastern province’s large ethnic Baluch community, whose members, unlike most Iranians, mainly follow the Sunni branch of Islam.

The Baluch straddle the border with neighboring Pakistan and Afghanistan and Jundallah militants have taken advantage of the unrest in the region to find safe haven in the border region.

In July it claimed responsibility for attacking the Grand Mosque in the provincial capital Zahedan, reportedly targeting members of Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards Corps, killing 28 people.

“It’s amazing what the Israelis thought they could get away with,” a US intelligence officer told Foreign Policy.

“Their recruitment activities were nearly in the open. They apparently didn’t give a damn what we thought,” said the official.

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January 14th, 2012

Via: AFP:

Production of opium and the illicit crop’s value soared in Afghanistan last year, the United Nations said in a report released Thursday.

According to the UN’s Office on Drugs and Crime, farmer income derived from Afghanistan’s opium crop in 2011 was $1.4 billion (1.09 billion euros), representing nine percent of GDP.

“Opium is therefore a significant part of the Afghan economy and provides considerable funding to the insurgency and fuels corruption,” Yury Fedotov, executive director of the UN office, said in a statement.

Afghanistan grows about 90 percent of the world’s opium. The UN said poppy-crop cultivation covered more than 131,000 hectares in 2011, up seven per cent from the previous year.

The overall opium crop increased by 61 per cent, from 3,600 metric tons in 2010 to 5,800 metric tons in 2011.

The value of the opium yield rose 133 percent from 2010, when plant diseases killed much of the Afghan crop.

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November 16, 2011

Source: TownHall.com

The Arizona Daily Star’s Tim Stellar is reporting the federal case file against illegal Mexican bandits accused of killing Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry, has disappeared.

The case against the alleged killers of Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry has disappeared from federal court records, apparently sealed by a federal judge.

In May, federal prosecutors won an indictment against Manuel Osorio-Arellanes and others, and they announced it with a press release. Only Osorio-Arellanes’ name was visible in the indictment, but there were blacked-out words where other defendants’ names go.

Osorio-Arellanes was charged with second-degree murder and was not considered the likely shooter. He had been wounded during the gunfight that left Terry dead.

But in the ensuing months, the case disappeared from court records.

Why? Nobody is saying.

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In public Sunday, President Obama was at a summit unsuccessfully leaning on Russia and China to back diplomatic efforts to curb Iran’s nuke program.

In private Sunday, there was more evidence of an efficient and brutal covert operation that continues to degrade Iran’s military capabilities.

Iranian officials revealed that one of the 17 men killed in a huge explosion at a munitions depot was a key Revolutionary Guard commander who headed Iran’s missile program. And the IRNA state news agency reported that scientists had discovered a new computer virus in their systems, a more sophisticated version of the Stuxnet worm deployed last year to foul up Iran’s centrifuges.

Iran said the army base explosion was an accident and the new Duqu virus was contained. But Israeli newspapers and some U.S. experts said it appeared to be more from an ongoing secret operation by the CIA and Israel’s Mossad to eliminate Iran’s nuclear threat.

The covert campaign encompasses a series of assassinations of Iranian nuclear scientists since 2007 and a similar explosion at another Iranian missile base two years ago both widely attributed to the Mossad.

“May there be more like it,” was all Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak said when Army Radio asked about the new blast.

There was a third mysterious event: The son of a top Iranian hard-liner was found dead — a seeming suicide — in a Dubai hotel on Sunday. His father called it “suspicious” and linked to the base explosion, without elaborating.

Israel was accused of deploying the 11 agents who killed a top Hamas terrorist in a Dubai hotel last year.

Tension has risen in recent weeks between Iran and the United States as a key United Nations report said Iran was close to being able to build a nuclear weapon.

At the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation conference in Hawaii, Obama tried to get Russia and China to back a bid to tighten sanctions on Iran, meeting individually with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Afterward, Hu didn’t even mention Iran, and Medvedev said only that he had spoken with Obama about Iran.

Obama came under withering fire from the GOP presidential candidates at a debate Saturday, when the front-runners agreed he had been too weak on Iran and vowed to go to war to stop Iran’s nuclear ambitions if needed.

Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) slammed Obama for not being “smart” on Iran.

Gingrich said he would launch “maximum covert operations” against Iran, “including taking out their scientists. . . . All of it covertly, all of it deniable.”

White House deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes told reporters that pressure on Iran had put its leadership in disarray, and “the Iranian economy has ground to a halt.”

hkennedy@nydailynews.com

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Smoke rises from an explosion at a Revolutionary Guard ammunition depot outside Tehran, which, according to Iranian officials, killed at least 15 people on
Read more: http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,2099376,00.html#ixzz1dfE4eF4f

Editor’s Note: This is reminiscent of the Israel attack on the Syria reactor. Syria didn’t want to lose face just like Iran today. The Iranian regime tries to force its citizens view the world through their funhouse mirrors. That ridiculous propaganda they released to the news media over the weekend would make a real propagandist like Willy Munzenberg roll in his grave. 

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 Ma’ariv, 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 said Iran has 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.”(See why ties are threatened between the U.S. and Iran.)

The explosion killed at least 17 people, including Maj. Gen. Hassan Moqqadam, described by Iranian state media as a pioneer in Iranian missile development and the Revolutionary Guard commander in charge of “ensuring self-sufficiency” in armaments, a challenging task in light of international sanctions.

Coming the weekend after the release of the unusually critical IAEA report, which laid out page upon page of evidence that Iran is moving toward a nuclear weapon, the blast naturally sharpened concern over Israel’s threat to launch airstrikes on Iran’s nuclear facilities. Half the stories on the Tehran Times website Sunday referenced the possibility of a military strike, most warning of dire repercussions.

But the incident also argued, maybe even augured, against an outright strike. If Israel — perhaps in concert with Washington and other allies — can continue to inflict damage to the Iranian nuclear effort through covert actions, the need diminishes for overt, incendiary moves like air strikes. The Stuxnet computer worm bolloxed Iran’s centrifuges for months, wreaking havoc on the crucial process of uranium enrichment.

And in Sunday’s editions, the Hebrew press coyly listed whatYedioth 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.(See photos of the semi-official view of Iran.)

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 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.” Which 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.”

With reporting by Aaron J. Klein/Tel Aviv

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