04/21 Links Pt1: PA seeks "right" to kill Israelis; Hamas Claims Responsibility Jerusalem Bus Bombing ~ EoZ

From Ian:

PMW: PA seeks international recognition for "right" to kill Israelis

The Palestinian Authority has claimed for years that they have a right under international law, confirmed by a UN resolution, to kill Israeli civilians in all places and at all times. Accordingly, those Palestinians who have killed Israelis are said to have done something positive and heroic. Palestinian murderers of Israeli civilians are presented as heroes and role models.
Now the PA is taking its ideology to the international forum and seeking recognition for these fundamental principles of PA ideology. They are asking that Palestinians have an internationally protected right to murder Israeli civilians, that will also be recognized as a positive act that should be awarded.
As a means to attain this recognition, the PA is asking the international community to award an imprisoned Palestinian terrorist with the Nobel Peace Prize. As the leader of the Tanzim, Fatah's terror wing, Marwan Barghouti orchestrated many terror attacks in which Israelis were murdered. He was convicted in an Israeli court and is serving 5 life sentences for murder.
According to the head of the PLO Commission of Prisoners' Affairs, Issa Karake:
"The candidacy [of Barghouti] is essentially a call to recognize the legitimacy of the prisoners' struggle... and also a response to the claims and Israeli terms that do not recognize the legitimacy of their struggle, and treat them as 'terrorists and criminals'..." [Donia Al-Watan (independent Palestinian news agency), April 14, 2016]
The PA's request of the world to "recognize the legitimacy of the prisoners' struggle" is the PA euphemism for "recognizing the legitimacy" of Palestinian killing of Israelis.
Barghouti was convicted of five murders - for the killings of the five people below. The PA wants the international community to "recognize the legitimacy" of their murders, by awarding him the Nobel Peace Prize:

Hamas Branch in West Bank Claims Responsibility for Jerusalem Bus Bombing

The West Bank branch of Hamas claimed responsibility on 20 April for a suicide attack on a passenger bus on Jerusalem’s Moshe Baram Street three days earlier on 18 April, which had injured 21 people and marked the first large-scale attack on public transport since a 17 April 2006 suicide attack in Tel Aviv. The claim came after Hamas initially released a statement praising the attack – something it does regularly following small-scale attacks – but which came short of taking credit for it.
The modus operandi of the attack and Hamas’ claim mark a potential escalation in the group’s attempts to begin staging more concerted attacks in Israel, amid a rise in the number of small-scale stabbing attacks – primarily carried out by Palestinian perpetrators undirected by Hamas – since June 2015.

Bus bomber threatened Jews ahead of attack: 'Your day will come'

A day after a man wounded in Monday’s bus bombing in Jerusalem died from his injuries, new details have emerged regarding the alleged terrorist.
Immediately following the attack, which left at least 16 people wounded, Israeli police suspected that the most severely wounded passenger on the bus was the bomber responsible for the attack. The explosive device had been placed on the bus floor between his feet, suggesting that he was in fact the bomber, and that the device had exploded prematurely.
On Wednesday the Hamas terror organization claimed responsibility for the attack, telling Al-Jazeera that the alleged bomber was a member of the group.
New details emerged on Thursday regarding the suspected bomber, who has been identified as Abd al-Hamid Abu Srour, a 19-year-old from the Bethlehem area.
Israeli police have yet to confirm the identity of the young man, who was carrying no identification on the day of the attack.

Khaled Abu Toameh: Hundreds of Palestinians march in support of Jerusalem bus bombing suspect

A mass demonstration took place on Wednesday as hundreds marched to the yard near the house of the family of the Palestinian teenager suspected of carrying out Monday's Jerusalem bus bombing in a show of support for the young martyr.
Abdel Hamid Abu Srour, 19, a resident of the Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem who is suspected of detonating an explosive on a bus in southern Jerusalem that left 20 others injured, died on Wednesday following multiple surgeries.
Abu Srour was named after his grandfather who was killed in an Israeli bombardment on the headquarters of The Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine, a party that operated in Lebanon in the days of the Israeli incursion to south Lebanon in the 1980's.
A review of Abu Srour's social media profiles revealed that the Palestinian teenager was a great fan of The Palestinian Islamist movement, Hamas. He shared multiple banners in support of the movement and wrote comments revealing his admiration for Yahya Ayyash, former chief bomb maker for Hamas, who was assassinated by by Israel in January 1996.

Palestinian father denies Hamas claims son was behind Jerusalem bus bomb

The father of the Palestinian who died in a Jerusalem bus bombing denied on Thursday that his son was affiliated with the Hamas Islamist group.
Mohammad Abu Srour is the father of Abdel-Hamid Abu Srour.
A pro-Hamas website identified the younger Abu Srour as the Palestinian militant from the West Bank who died from his wounds following a bomb which exploded on an Israeli commuter bus in Jerusalem on Monday.
The pro-Hamas Palestinian Information Center said Abu Srour was from the Aida refugee camp near Bethlehem and said he was a member of the Kassam brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas militant Islamist group.
His father denies this.

Israel nabs Hamas men from Bethlehem said linked to Jerusalem bus blast

Following days of unnerving police silence, exacerbated by rampant media speculation amid a court-imposed gag order, the Shin Bet on Thursday finally confirmed the identity of the Palestinian terrorist who detonated a bomb on Egged bus No. 12 in Jerusalem on Monday.
The confirmation comes less than 24 hours after Hamas claimed responsibility, and lauded its operative, Abdel Hamid Abu Srour, 19, of Beit Jala near Bethlehem, for carrying out the attempted mass murder that wounded 20 men, women and children.
Srour died Wednesday night at the capital’s Shaare Zedek Medical Center following multiple surgeries after his legs were blown off in the explosion, which seriously wounded seven other passengers on Moshe Baram Street, a major thoroughfare in the southern portion of the city.
The explosion caused an inferno that engulfed a second empty Egged bus and car. Six fire trucks were needed to extinguish the blaze, which reduced all three vehicles to charred metal.

Israel nabs suspect in 2015 Hebron stabbing attack

Israeli security forces on Thursday arrested a Palestinian suspected of stabbing and seriously injuring an Israeli in a West Bank terror attack last October.
The unnamed suspect had been on the loose for nearly six months after stabbing Meir Pavlovsky, 30, in Kiryat Arba and fleeing the scene.
Police at the time said the suspect had fled into nearby Hebron.
Pavlovsky, originally from Ukraine, was stabbed in the stomach and back and was evacuated to Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem in serious condition. He underwent several surgeries to stabilize his condition.
Three weeks after the stabbing, Pavlovsky got engaged to his girlfriend, according to media reports.

IsraellyCool: All Palestinians Are Against Terrorism

Terrorism has no justification. It isn’t about the occupation. It isn’t about economics. It is not fighting for freedom or rights. It is, pure and simple, an act intended to harm, kill, or cause terror. Abbas condemns terrorism – but does he define blowing up the US army barracks in Lebanon as terrorism? What about the attack on Israeli athletes in Munich? Was that terrorism? They were civilians…and yet Mahmoud Abbas helped plan and finance that attack.
There is no great breakthrough. The left can stop dancing in joy; Joe Biden can stop kissing Obama and send John Kerry back to cause trouble somewhere else. Nothing has changed with Abbas’ latest proclamation against terror. The problem has never been getting the Palestinians to condemn terrorism. Rather, our greatest challenge may well be much simpler – getting them to admit that what they practice on a regular basis is nothing more and nothing less than the purest form of terrorism
It was terrorism in 1972 when Abbas and his cohorts attacked and murdered eleven Israeli athletes in cold blood and it is terrorism today that has cost the lives of dozens of Israelis in hundreds of attacks over the last few months – attacks that have consistently been praised and supported by Mahmoud Abbas.
No human being alive today is pro-domestic violence…pro-terrorism…pro-murder…pro-rape. The problem is always in getting the attacker to admit – it IS domestic violence, it IS terrorism, it IS murder, or it IS rape.
When Mahmoud Abbas stands before the world and admits that he has been (and is) one of the chief supporters of terrorism, then and only then, can the world really begin to celebrate and hope that there’s even a chance for peace.

PM: IDF to keep operating in West Bank areas under full PA control

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Wednesday that the IDF would continue to operate in Area A of the West Bank, which is officially under full Palestinian Authority security and civilian control.
The majority of Palestinians live in Area A, mostly within city centers, which has been under complete PA administration as per the 1993 Oslo Accords.
Netanyahu said Wednesday after discussing the issue with the security cabinet that the IDF would maintain the right to operate in Area A according to “operational needs.”
“There is no other deal with the Palestinians,” the statement said.
Israel and the PA have been negotiating in recent months a change in the status quo for Area A. The IDF began to operate there during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002 — a massive Israeli military campaign to quash terrorism during the Second Intifada — and has continued to do so since.

Weapons workshop, arms cache found in East Jerusalem, Hebron

Israeli forces uncovered a weapons workshop and an arms cache in Jerusalem and the West Bank during overnight raids, officials said Thursday morning.
In the Abu Dis neighborhood of East Jerusalem, police said they found a workshop with machines to produce pipe bombs and other “weaponry.” In one mill, raw materials to produce explosives and ammunition was found.
Both machines would destroyed by the military, police said. They did not detail if any arrests were made.
In the West Bank city of Hebron, an Israeli soldier found a Carl Gustav-style submachine gun with a bullet magazine, ammunition, a Molotov cocktail, pipe bombs, tear gas grenades and a stock of commando knives.
Eight people were arrested across the West Bank during the raids, including three in Hebron, which was a hotbed of anti-Israel attacks during a six month wave of violence that began in October.

Khaled Abu Toameh: PA continues to advance UNSC resolution against Israel

The Palestinian Authority on Wednesday denied that it has postponed its effort to seek a UN Security Council resolution calling for an end to construction in the settlements.
The PA said that it was going ahead with its plan to obtain the resolution, but did not say when it would do so.
The PA Foreign Ministry said that the Palestinians were containing their consultations with Arab and “friendly” countries, as well as regional parties, about the proposed resolution.
The ministry denied a report in an Israeli media outlet that claimed that the Palestinians have decided to suspend their bid at the Security Council.
The ministry said that although the Palestinians were taking into consideration the views of various countries that are supportive of the Palestinian cause, the PA is totally convinced that heading to the Security Council is an important step.

France announces May 30 Israel-PA peace talks

France on Thursday announced that it has selected May 30 to hold an international meeting attempting to force Israel and the Palestinian Authority (PA) into peace talks, reports AFP.
Paris will be hosting a meeting of ministers from 20 countries on May 30 to try and bring the peace process back to life, according to Foreign Minister Jean-Marc Ayrault.
Ayrault spoke to four newspapers including Haaretz and the pan-Arab daily Al Quds Al-Arabi, although he specified Israel and the PA would not be invited to the meeting in Paris.
The French minister said the meeting's goal was to prepare an international summit in the second half of 2016, which would include Israeli and PA leaders.
"The two sides are further apart than ever," Ayrault said.
But in a call to divide Israel's capital, he added: "There is no other solution to the conflict than establishing two states, one Israeli and the other Palestinian, living side by side in peace and safety with Jerusalem as a shared capital."

Israel will never leave Golan, Netanyahu tells Putin

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Thursday informed Russian President Vladimir Putin of his “red lines” regarding the security of Israel’s northern borders, and stressed that the Jewish state was determined to maintain its control of the Golan Heights.
“I have come to Russia to step up coordination on security matters, to prevent mistakes, misunderstandings,” Netanyahu said during the two leaders’ meeting in Moscow. “We are not going back to the days when rockets were fired at our communities and our children from the top of the Golan… and so, with an agreement or without, the Golan Heights will remain part of [Israel’s] sovereign territory.”
The prime minister also stressed that Israel would do “everything” in its power to block Lebanese terrorist group Hezbollah from obtaining advanced weapons, and was working to assure that no new “terror front” appeared on the Golan Heights.

Arab League chief calls for special court to try Israel

Arab League chief Nabil al-Arabi called Thursday for a special criminal court to be set up for Israel, at a meeting to condemn an announcement that it will never cede the Golan Heights to Syria.
Delegates to the 22-member Arab bloc based in Cairo are expected to pass a resolution denouncing Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's pledge Sunday that the Golan would remain Israeli "forever".
Israel liberated the Golan during the 1967 Middle East war with Syria, Egypt and Jordan, and annexed it in 1981, in a move never recognized by the international community.
The Golan Heights is strategically important for Israel, overlooking vast swathes of northern Israeli communities. Until its capture in 1967, Arab armies regularly used it to shell Israeli civilians in the plains below. The renewed Jewish presence in the Golan after the Six Day War came centuries after conquering Arab armies wiped out the ancient Jewish population in 636 CE.
Israel was acting like "a country that is above the law and accountability", Arabi told delegates at the start of the meeting.

Hezbollah condemns 'Israel's scheme to divide Syria' following PM's vow to keep Golan

The Lebanese terror organization Hezbollah fiercely denounced Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's pledge to hold to onto the Golan forever, saying that the vow is evidence of Israel's "expansionist character."
"This move affirms the Zionist aggression against our nation and its people," the group stated on Monday, referring to Netanyahu's declaration about the Golan Heights.
"It shows that the only way to face the enemy is by resistance, using all possible means to struggle, first and foremost through popular uprising as we have seen today when the Golan's inhabitants resisted the Zionist meeting in the area," Hezbollah added.
According to the terror organization, Netanyahu's pledge demonstrates that the "Zionist movement constantly acts to intervene in Syria's affairs and strives to divide Syria and cut the occupied Golan from it through cooperation with terror elements or on its own."

Amid fear of Hezbollah attack, IDF walls off section of Lebanon border

Fearing plots by Hezbollah to send gunmen into Israel to attack soldiers and civilians, Israel is gradually walling off further parts of its northern border with Lebanon.
Israel’s Channel 2 news on Wednesday showed sections of concrete wall being installed near to Kibbutz Misgav Am, a border community in the Upper Galilee.
It noted that a project to bolster the border area had been underway for some time.
In 2012, a seven-meter (23-foot) high wall separating Israel from Lebanon near the border town of Metulla was completed. The 1,200-meter-long (3,937-foot) wall is outfitted with sophisticated cameras and sensory equipment aimed at preventing infiltration. The 2006 Second Lebanon War began with a cross-border attack by Hezbollah.
Wednesday’s footage was broadcast two days after the Israel Defense Forces began a surprise military exercise in northern Israel.

High Court interim order: No cutting off West Bank, e. Jerusalem electricity due to debt

The High Court of Justice on Wednesday issued an interim order to the Israel Electric Corporation to continue providing power to Palestinian towns and cities in the West Bank and to certain areas in east Jerusalem pending further notice.
The decision followed recent reductions in power by IEC to those areas in a battle over debts it is owed by the Palestinian Authority and by the Jerusalem District Electricity Company.
The Jerusalem District Electricity Company filed the petition on behalf of the areas where power had been reduced.
The IEC said in a statement to The Jerusalem Post that it respects the High Court’s decision while still demanding that Jerusalem District Electricity Company pay off its ever-ballooning NIS 1.4 billion debt to them. The JDEC oversees the provision of power for Jericho, Bethlehem, Ramallah and parts of east Jerusalem.

Jordanian MPs urge government to recall ambassador to Israel

A group of Jordanian MPs signed Tuesday a petition demanding that the government return the ambassador to Tel Aviv, in protest of Israel's ''boorish policy against Palestinians."
The petition, addressed to Jordanian Speaker of Parliament, Atef Tarawneh, was signed by 14 members of parliament.
"We would like to praise the government's decision to recall our ambassador to Tehran due to Iran's expansionist policy manifested in its interference in Arab states' affairs," the Jordanian MKs opened their letter.
On Monday, Jordan announced it was recalling its ambassador to Tehran for consultation, citing "meddling by Iran in Arab countries" as the reason.
"We underscore that the decision to recall the ambassador derives from Jordan's policy of supporting the Arab nation and its people," they said.

Top IDF general: Israel, Egypt have ‘unprecedented’ intel cooperation

Israel is seeing “unprecedented” intelligence cooperation with Egypt and Jordan, as the fight against the Islamic State group nudges them to work together more closely, the IDF’s deputy chief of staff said Wednesday.
“There is a strong feeling in the region… that we have to put aside past animosities and concentrate on mutual interests and working together” to deal with the jihadist threat, Major General Yair Golan said at a news conference for foreign reporters.
He spoke of an “unprecedented level of cooperation,” mainly regarding intelligence.
“But that’s between defense establishments, and I wouldn’t describe that as some sort of reconciliation between the people,” Golan said. “But it is a good starting point, and I’m quite optimistic concerning that.”

Diplomacy: An intra-Arab relationship that’s good for Israel

The significance of the Saudi-Egyptian move, he said, has to do primarily with strengthening this final camp.
Lerman, who today is a faculty member at the Shalem Academic Center in Jerusalem and a fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies at Bar-Ilan University, said the transfer of the islands from Egypt to Saudi Arabia “is clearly part of a larger bargain to bind the two countries together. From our perspective, anything that helps Egyptian stability is good.”
This move helps Egyptian stability because in exchange the Egyptian economy will get a cash infusion of billions of dollars, he said. In addition, this will likely draw Egypt closer to Saudi Arabia’s position on Iran, which is much closer to Israel’s position on the matter.
The anger in Egypt that accompanied the announcement of the new demarcation of the maritime boundary, anger that emerged in the social media, was largely orchestrated by the Muslim Brotherhood, Lerman said, adding that this group suddenly positioned itself as the “guardians of Egyptian territorial integrity.” He noted that what angered the Brotherhood was less the transfer of the islands and more the economic intervention and security cooperation between Egypt and Saudi Arabia that the deal represents.
The Brotherhood sees Egyptian-Saudi cooperation as harming its own rapidly fading designs for regional hegemony. And in this case, what is bad for the Muslim Brotherhood is very good for Israel.

Back to the Tiran Straits and a bridge too far

A revolution in this authoritarian kingdom could happen. Right now, Israel’s only access to the Red sea and beyond is passing into the hands of a country with which it has no diplomatic relations. This is a major new strategic challenge. It will also require adapting the military annex to the peace treaty, which has already been breached when Israel agreed to let Egypt move troops and heavy equipment into Sinai.
The junction between these two countries could be achieved via a modern highway through Israel, which is less costly to build and far cheaper to maintain. One cannot escape the conclusion that, by building a bridge at enormous cost, the two countries have come to terms with the thought that there is no hope for peace or normalization between Israel and Arab countries in the foreseeable future.
Egypt and Saudi Arabia have formally declared that the transfer of the islands to Saudi sovereignty is part of a final agreement on the determination of the maritime borders between them following years of negotiations. Under the Egyptian constitution, the agreement must be ratified by the parliament.
The publication of the agreement led to angry protests and demonstrations in Egypt. Public figures and members of parliament claimed that the two islands were and had been Egyptian forever. The government, they said, had bowed to Saudi money at the detriment of the honor of Egypt and its constitution.
President Sisi is doing his best to explain that there is no abandonment of sovereignty, that the islands do belong to Saudi Arabia and that Egypt took control of them in 1950 at the Saudis’ request.

The Assad Files

Capturing the top-secret documents that tie the Syrian regime to mass torture and killings.
This week, a new round of negotiations between the Syrian government and the opposition is set to begin in Geneva, where U.N. officials will shuttle between delegations that still refuse to meet in person. In advance of the negotiations, Barakat, the former mole in Damascus, told me that the opposition delegation asked him for copies of the documents he stole from Assad’s government; the delegation failed, however, to arrange a pickup.
In the past few months, as the Syrian Army has regained territory it had lost to rebel forces, it has come to seem increasingly unlikely that Assad will step down. His foreign minister, Walid al-Muallem, recently announced, “We will not talk with anyone who wants to discuss the Presidency.” Wiley and the CIJA staff avoid comment on regime change. He told me, “We don’t get too caught up in the policy agony” of the efforts to end the Syrian war. “We’re simply confident—and I don’t think it’s hubris—that our work will see the light of day, in court, in relatively short order.”
In the Netherlands, Hamada attends physical-therapy sessions to rehabilitate his scarred limbs. He studies Dutch and organizes anti-Assad protests in public squares, though attendance is sparse. He wonders about his nephews, his brother, his brother-in-law, and many missing friends. “Where are they?” he cried. “Are they alive? Are they dead?” His sister in Syria asks the military police for death certificates, to no avail. Every day is “misery,” Hamada said. “It’s misery. It’s misery. It’s death. It’s a life of death.”

How Investigators are Building the Case to Prosecute Assad for War Crimes

If Bashar al-Assad and senior members of the Syrian leadership are ever captured and brought to the International Criminal Court (ICC) and charged with war crimes, the evidence being gathered by an obscure investigative agency could be crucial to establishing their guilt.
In the newest issue of The New Yorker, Ben Taub documented the efforts of the Commission for International Justice and Accountability (CIJA) to establish the culpability of high-ranking Syrian officials.
CIJA was founded by Bill Wiley, a Canadian who had been retained by the ICC to be its first war crimes investigator in Rwanda and the Congo. But Wiley became disillusioned with the ICC’s ineffectiveness, and went to Iraq in 2005 as a United Nations human rights monitor.
After leaving Iraq, Wiley opened a consultancy whose goal was to prevent war crimes in troubled parts of the world by teaching security forces how to operate within the bounds of international law. He was recruited in November 2011 to teach Syrian activists how to collect evidence to establish culpability for war crimes. He had to teach the activists that there was more to establishing guilt than simply recording attacks on video.

White House Concerned Russia Moving Military Equipment Into Syria

The United States said on Thursday it was concerned about reports that Russia is moving more military equipment into Syria to bolster President Bashar al-Assad with a truce in tatters and peace talks in meltdown.
Fighting raged across Syria after the truce, brokered by Washington and Moscow to allow talks to take place, ended and both sides geared up for more war. Russian intervention late last year swayed the conflict in Assad’s favor.
“We’ve been concerned about reports of Russia moving materiel into Syria,” Ben Rhodes, deputy national security adviser to President Barack Obama, said at a news briefing in Riyadh, where Obama was at a summit with Gulf Arab leaders.
“We think it would be negative for Russia to move additional military equipment or personnel into Syria. We believe that our efforts are best focused on supporting the diplomatic process,” Rhodes added.
U.N. special envoy Staffan de Mistura will on Friday assess whether Geneva talks can continue with the main opposition negotiator refusing to participate and combatants accusing each other of breaking the six-week-old ceasefire.
The opposition this week urged more military support for rebels after declaring a truce was over.

MEMRI: Egyptian Intellectual: The Arab Silence On The Syria Crisis Is A Mark Of Shame

In his February 1, 2016 column in the Saudi London-based daily Al-Sharq Al-Awsat, Egyptian intellectual Mamoun Fandy harshly criticized the Arab countries for failing to take responsibility for resolving the Syria crisis and for instead waiting for salvation from the West.
Fandy wrote that the Arab silence in light of the crisis, which he said "lies between Hitler's Nazism" and the atrocities in Bosnia and Rwanda, is a mark of shame for them, and that they must learn from the European mobilization to resolve a similar crisis – the one in Yugoslavia. He also accused UN officials of seeking to prolong global crises, not solve them, and criticized Syrian society as well for not resolving the crisis.

Daniel Pipes: ISIS is Collapsing

I predict that the ISIS state in Syria and Iraq will collapse as fast as it arose. Indeed, I will go out on a limb and say I expect it to be gone by the end of 2016.
That the Islamic State (also known as ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh) will be gone is predictable because all totalitarian states eventually disappear due to three main developments: cadres become disillusioned, subject populations suffer, and external enemies increase in number. All these problems afflicted, for example, the fascist states of World War II as well as the Soviet bloc.
ISIS will collapse quickly because it suffers from an extreme form of these problems.
Disillusioned cadres: The heaven-on-earth ISIS promises its adepts turns out to be closer to hell, prompting many recruits to flee and many more to want to. Growing numbers of ISIS fighters lack loyalty to the group, toiling only for the money or out of fear. The reasons can be as mundane as bad food and as elevated as bad theology, but grievous disappointment is the common theme coming from the ranks of ISIS members. Radical ideologues evolve into penitents; drug-addled fighters end up as near-vegetables.

NATO security chiefs warn of ISIS plan for nuclear attack on Europe

Islamic State terrorists are plotting to carry out biological and nuclear attacks on Europe, warned NATO security experts on Wednesday, according to reports by the Telegraph.
NATO security chiefs told participants of the Security and Counter Terror Conference in London that there is a 'justified concern' that Islamic State militants are actively working to obtain nuclear, radiological and biological materials.
According to the experts, ISIS operatives are also developing new ways to avoid security measures to carry out bombings. These methods include planting bombs in human bodies and hacking self-driving cars, reported the Telegraph.
“We know terrorists are trying to acquire these substances,” said NATO's Deputy Assistant Secretary General for Emerging Security Challenges Dr. Jamie Shea.
It is also feared that ISIS has obtained a stock pile of Iraqi short range missiles.

MEMRI: Against Backdrop Of Obama's Visit To Riyadh: Saudi, Gulf Press Furious At Allegations Of Saudi Involvement In September 11 Attacks

A bill proposed by several U.S. Congress members, which, if approved, would hold Saudi Arabia and top Saudi officials liable in U.S. courts for involvement in the 9/11 terror attacks, has generated anger in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. According to a report published in The New York Times on April 15, 2016, Saudi Foreign Minister Adel Al-Jubeir threatened, during a March visit to the U.S., that his country would sell off 750 billion dollars in U.S. Treasury securities and other assets to avoid their being frozen by U.S. courts. Such a measure on the part of the Saudi government might bear severe consequences for the U.S. economy.[1]
In response to the bill proposal, the Saudi daily 'Okaz published an article claiming that an Iranian lobby was operating within the U.S. Congress in an effort to implicate Saudi Arabia in the 9/11 attacks. Additional articles in the Saudi and Bahraini press criticized the bill and the efforts to link Saudi Arabia to 9/11 and to hold it responsible for the terror attacks.[2]
According to the articles, these allegations lack any factual basis and are likely intended to harm relations between Saudi Arabia and the U.S., thus serving the terrorists' interests. The authors claimed that Saudi Arabia is the main party harmed by Al-Qaeda, in part because of the country's relations with the U.S., and stated that Saudi Arabia leads the fight against terrorism in general and against Al-Qaeda in particular. American policy was described as "schizophrenic" because the U.S. is accusing Saudi Arabia of supporting terrorism, but at the same time, forming an alliance with it to confront terrorism. It was also claimed that the U.S. had supported the mujahideen in Afghanistan, just as Saudi Arabia had, and that the fact that these mujahideen had joined Al-Qaeda stemmed from mistakes perpetrated by the U.S. The U.S., it was claimed, is therefore more responsible than Saudi Arabia for the deeds perpetrated by Al-Qaeda.
Some writers claimed that the bill reflects a change in the position of the U.S. administration toward Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states and stated that a rift in the relations between the countries was possible.

Defiant Saudis Wage Anti-U.S. War On Social Media During Obama Visit

Many on Saudi social media have aligned with the country’s leadership in an attempt to fend off American attempts to implicate the Kingdom in the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
This comes as President Obama visited the kingdom on Wednesday and Thursday in a bid to ease tensions in the U.S.-Saudi alliance, including on issues related to Iran and the conflicts in Syria and Yemen.
CNN reported that Obama “really cleared the air” with Saudi King Salman during a meeting on Wednesday, citing U.S. administration officials.
Continued CNN:
Yet even as White House officials stressed that the leaders made progress, a prominent member of the Saudi royal family told CNN “a recalibration” of the U.S.-Saudi relationship was needed amid regional upheaval, dropping oil prices and ongoing strains between the two longtime allies.
That attitude was reflected on Twitter, where the popular hashtag #Jubeir_threatens_Obama celebrates Foreign Minister Adel Jubeir’s recent declaration that Saudi Arabia would sell the American bonds it possesses if Congress passed a bill that places the blame for the deadliest terror attack in US history on them.

Qatari Educational Software on Islamic Conquests in Europe

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