ISIS’ plans to conquer Europe via Libya have been revealed in letters seen by an anti-terrorism group. Owing to its perfect location on the continental doorstep, the terrorists plan to ferry fighters from North Africa across the Mediterranean.
The plans, analyzed by anti-terrorism British think tank Quilliam, outline a strategy to illegally ferry fighters across the sea from Libya into southern Europe, into ports such as Italy’s southernmost island of Lampedusa, less than 300 miles (483km) away.
The plans Libim reveals revolve around posing as illegal immigrants, to then start an all-out attack on southern Europe by seeding chaos and bloodshed. The terrorists reportedly hope to flood Libya with other fighters from Syria and Iraq, with a whole army at the ready to invade.
"We will conquer Rome, by Allah's permission,” he says in a Sunday video depicting the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christian guest workers, the video that led to Egypt organizing a bombing campaign on militant positions in Libya. He also describes the country as having “immense potential” for the terrorist group, while making references to the spoils of war left after the ouster of Colonel Muammar Gaddafi in 2011 – tons of weapons, ammunition and oil.
Libim continues to explain how illegal immigration across into Italy is “huge in number” and that “if this was even partially exploited and developed strategically, pandemonium could be wrought in the southern European states and it is even possible that there could be a closure of shipping lines and targeting of Crusader ships and tankers.”
Security bells are ringing, especially in Italy, which saw 2,164 illegal migrants rescued in the space of 24 hours over the weekend. It could now be faced with many that are terrorists, according to Egyptian Ambassador to London Nasser Kamel. "Those boat people who go for immigration purposes and try to cross the Mediterranean ... in the next few weeks, if we do not act together, they will be boats full of terrorists also."
The Obama administration said Wednesday it is withholding from Israel some sensitive details of its nuclear negotiations with Iran because it is worried that Israeli government officials have leaked information to try to scuttle the talks — and will continue to do so.
In extraordinary admissions that reflect increasingly strained ties between the US and Israel, the White House and State Department said they were not sharing everything from the negotiations with the Israelis and complained that Israeli officials had misrepresented what they had been told in the past.
Netanyahu has angered the White House by his open opposition to a deal he believes threatens Israel’s existence, and by accepting a Republican invitation to address Congress about Iran in early March without consulting the White House, a breach of diplomatic protocol.
“The United States is not going to be in a position of negotiating this agreement in public, particularly when we see that there is a continued practice of cherry-picking specific pieces of information and using them out of context to distort the negotiating position of the United States,” Earnest said, when asked whether the US was limiting the amount of information it shared with Israel about the talks.
“So, there is an obligation when you’re participating in these kinds of negotiations to ensure that those consultations and that those negotiations are carried out in good faith. And that means giving negotiators the room and the space to negotiate,” he said.
State Department spokeswoman Jen Psaki went further, confirming that one of the steps the administration takes to ensure that “classified negotiating details stay behind closed doors” is to withhold them from Israel. She also directly blamed Israel for mischaracterizing the talks.
“I think it’s safe to say that not everything you’re hearing from the Israeli government is an accurate reflection of the details of the talks,” she said. “There’s a selective sharing of information.”
Those officials, speaking on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly, said the administration believes Netanyahu, who is facing a March 17 election at home, has made a political decision to try to destroy the negotiations rather than merely insist on a good deal.
This, they said, had led to politically motivated leaks from Israeli officials and made it impossible to continue to share all details of the talks, particularly as Netanyahu has not backed down on his vow to argue against a nuclear deal when he speaks to Congress.
Netanyahu has insisted that Iran, whose top officials have sworn to obliterate Israel, should not be allowed to enrich any uranium. The U.S. and its partners say that stance is untenable because Iran would never accept it.
As the talks have progressed, Netanyahu’s opposition to an agreement has increased over what he believes to be extreme concessions made to Iran that would leave it as a threshold nuclear weapons power and a direct threat to Israel’s existence.
A senior UN official warned Wednesday that the lack of available funds for the reconstruction of Gaza and the fragile ceasefire between Israel and Hamas militants could lead to a renewal of hostilities in the coastal enclave.
During a Security Council briefing on the Middle East, Jeffery Feltman, the UN Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs, also expressed “alarm” at reports of Hamas efforts to re-arm. He called the terror group’s test-firing of rockets, and its attempts to smuggle in materials for potential weapons use, “dangerous developments.”
Back in 2013, The NSA was first exposed for secretly 'monitoring' the SWIFT payments flows. This appears to have been among the last straws for Russia (and others) as far as both NSA spying and dollar domination.
Last year, following threats to remove Russia from SWIFT by the UK, (which SWIFT rapidly distanced its 'independent-self' from), Russia (and China) announced plans to create its own de-dollarized version. In November, Russia detailed the SWIFT-alternative's launch date around May 2015, and just last month, Medvedev warned of "unlimited reaction" if Russia was cut off from the SWIFT payments system.
So the news this week that Russia has launched its own 'SWIFT'-alternative, linking 91 credit institutions initially, suggests de-dollarization is considerably further along than many expected (especially as Russia dumps US Treasuries at a record pace).
Almost 91 domestic credit institutions have been incorporated into the new Russian financial system, the analogous of SWIFT, an international banking network.
The new service, will allow Russian banks to communicate seamlessly through the Central Bank of Russia.
It should be noted that Russia's Central Bank initiated the development of the country's own messaging system in response to repeated threats voiced by Moscow's Western partners to disconnect Russia from SWIFT.
Not a week seems to go by without an anti-Semitic attack in the United States – either verbal or violent – against Jews.
“Unfortunately anti-Semitism has become fashionable again,” Rabbi Joseph Potasnik, executive vice president for the New York Board of Rabbis, told The Times of Israel. “It’s not a big deal to hate the Jews. The first group that gets attacked is the Jews.”
The New York rabbi couples these recent domestic examples of anti-Semitism to what’s going on in the rest of the world. The terror attack this week outside a synagogue in Denmark in which a 22-year-old lone shooter killed volunteer guard Dan Uzan is the latest in a string of violent European incidents.
The United States is not immune to the scourge.
“The world is witnessing an alarming rise in acts of anti-Semitism, and we must all do what we can to respond to this growing threat,” said Eric S. Goldstein, CEO of the UJA-Federation of New York. “History has shown us the ramifications of silence.”
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