MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

Attacking an embassy and killing a US Ambassador is an act of war. Here is an update on this story …

Update: Initial reports of the ambassador being paraded may not have been accurate. Read more …

Update: Then again, maybe it was accurate after all, in fact, even worse …

By Hadeel Al Shalchi, Reuters – “The U.S. ambassador to Libya and three embassy staff were killed as they rushed away from a consulate building in Benghazi, stormed by al Qaeda-linked gunmen blaming America for a film that they said insulted the Prophet Mohammad.

Gunmen had attacked and set fire to the U.S. consulate in the eastern city of Benghazi, the cradle of last year’s uprising against Muammar Gaddafi’s 42-year rule, late on Tuesday evening as another assault was mounted on the U.S. embassy in Cairo.

The California-born ambassador, Christopher Stevens, was trying to leave the consulate building for a safer location as part of an evacuation when gunmen launched an intense attack, apparently forcing security personnel to withdraw.

‘The American ambassador and three staff members were killed when gunmen fired rockets in their direction,’ a Libyan official in Benghazi told Reuters. Airport sources said the bodies were due to be flown from Benghazi to Tripoli.

The attack was believed to have been carried out by Ansar al-Sharia, an al Qaeda-style Sunni Islamist group that has been active in Benghazi, a Libyan security official said. Witnesses said the mob also included tribesmen, militia and other gunmen.

The attack raised questions about the future U.S. diplomatic presence in Libya, relations between Washington and Tripoli, the unstable security situation in post-Gaddafi Libya and whether more protests might take place in the Muslim world.

The film portrayed Mohammad as a fool, a philanderer and a religious fake.” Read more.

Officials Say Embassy Attack in Libya Was Coordinated – “Intelligence experts and U.S. government officials are starting to view the attack in Libya that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and three others in Benghazi as a coordinated attack. Several sources have said they believe it was a planned operation and have pointed out several developments that seem to support the possibility.” Read more.

Flashback: Libya Heading Towards the Dominant Political Force in the Country: Islamism – “Amid all the debate as to what lies in store for Libya, it is becoming increasingly apparent that Islamism will be the dominant political force in the country. Indeed, this trend should already have been clear in the treatment of David Gerbi, a Libyan Jew residing in Italy who returned to his ancestral homeland in the summer to fight alongside the rebels against Gaddafi. Yet when he tried to rebuild and reopen the abandoned and desolate synagogue in Tripoli, he faced death threats, intimidation and protests, such that he was eventually deported.” Read more.

Flashback: US Intelligence Report Says Libyan Jihadists Planning to Subvert Post-Gadhafi Gov’t and Create an Islamist State – “Jihadists among the Libyan rebels revealed plans last week on the Internet to subvert the post-Moammar Gadhafi government and create an Islamist state, according to U.S. intelligence agencies. U.S. officials said spy agencies are stepping up surveillance of Islamist-oriented elements among Libyan rebels. A government report circulated Tuesday said extremists were observed ‘strategizing’ on Internet forums about how to set up an Islamist state in Libya after the regime of Col. Gadhafi is defeated.” Read more.

AFP – “A tiny Christian village in northern Lebanon, perched on a hill overlooking Syria, Minjez is a bucolic and peaceful place by day but terrorized at night by shelling from across the border.

‘We can’t sleep a wink,’ laments Marcele Shahine, a 37-year-old mother of four. ‘The other night a rocket hit a house, but happily no one was there.’

‘What have we got to do with what’s going on in Syria? Why are they bombing us and we paying the price,’ she adds, calling for the government to do something to help the village and its 200 residents.

The answer is not difficult to find: it is very likely that anti-regime gunmen are slipping through the lush fields running down the hill from Minjez and across the Nahr al-Kabir River that serves as the border here.

The regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad announces on an almost daily basis that its forces have foiled attempts by ‘terrorists,’ its term for rebels, to infiltrate the country…

Numerous border villages in the north have been targeted by shelling in recent months, notably in the Wadi Khaled region, which has been the destination of many Syrians fleeing the killing and destruction at home.

The neighboring region of Akkar is another target, and Issam al-Marouni, a seventy-something Christian, walks down a tiny street between the old stone houses in the village of Debbabiyeh.

Marouni said he has never abandoned his village, even during the 1975-1990 civil war, and that he never will.

‘But since the uprising began in Syria, I have seen entire families leave. Our villages are becoming the transit point for armed men going to fight the Syrian regime.’

Marouni’s Syrian wife is from the village of Ghazir, just across the border, and they used to visit her family there.

‘That has all changed now.’

And change is a word that causes these Christians to tremble, just as it does their fellow believers on the other side of the border…

Voicing a fear of Christians on both sides of the border, Marouni says they ‘could pay the price of the war in Syria, all the more because there is talk of [Islamist] extremists’ emerging among the ranks of the rebels.

And as Shahine puts it, ‘we are a minority, and with changes in regimes, we have to watch out for our survival.'” Read more.

Their feelings were hurt, so according to Islam they had absolutely no choice other than to attack and kill any infidels they could find …

Sky News – “A US official has been killed and another wounded in Libya as an armed mob protesting over a film they said offended Islam attacked the US consulate in Benghazi.

Libya’s deputy interior minister Wanis al Sharef said: ‘One American official was killed and another injured in the hand. The other staff members were evacuated and are safe and sound.’ He could not say if the dead man was a diplomat.

In the Egyptian capital, Cairo, protesters climbed the walls of the US embassy, tore down the American flag and burned it.

The protests were sparked by outrage over a video being promoted by an extreme anti-Muslim Egyptian Christian campaigner in the US, which the demonstrators say insults the Prophet Mohammed.

The US condemned the attack in Benghazi, amid reports that the mission had been set on fire and targeted with rocket-propelled grenades.

‘We can confirm that our office in Benghazi, Libya, has been attacked by a group of militants,’ State Department spokeswoman Victoria Nuland said.

‘We condemn in strongest terms this attack,’ she added in a statement issued before reports of the death, which came on the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.” Read more.

Flashback: Al-Qaeda Plants Its Flag in Benghazi, Libya – ‘Whomever Speaks Ill of This Flag, We Will Cut Off His Tongue’ – “Earlier this week, I went to the Benghazi courthouse and confirmed the rumors: an al Qaeda flag was clearly visible; its Arabic script declaring that ‘there is no God but Allah’ and a full moon underneath. When I tried to take pictures, a Salafi-looking guard, wearing a green camouflage outfit, rushed towards me and demanded to know what I was doing. My response was straightforward: I was taking a picture of the flag. He gave me an intimidating look and hissed, ‘Whomever speaks ill of this flag, we will cut off his tongue. I recommend that you don’t publish these. You will bring trouble to yourself.’” Read more.

By Bill Gertz – “U.S. intelligence agencies recently monitored a secret meeting between Egypt’s intelligence chief and a senior Iranian spy that is raising new fears the Muslim Brotherhood government in Cairo could begin covertly supporting global terrorism.

According to U.S. officials, the head of the Egyptian General Intelligence Service, Maj. Gen. Murad Muwafi, met in early August with a senior official of Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS).

Disclosure of the Egyptian-Iranian intelligence meeting comes as the Obama administration is planning to provide $1 billion in aid to bail out Egypt’s new Islamist government. The administration is said to be seeking closer ties to the new regime in Cairo, following the ouster in February 2011 of long-time ally Hosni Mubarak.

Many members of the pro-democratic, anti-Muslim Brotherhood opposition in Egypt believe the Obama administration has made a covert pact to support the Morsi regime.

Meanwhile in Cairo, Islamic protesters on Tuesday stormed the U.S. Embassy and pulled down the American flag to protest what they said was a U.S. film production the protesters claimed insulted Islam.

U.S. intelligence gathering targeting Egypt has been stepped up over the past year as the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood, an Islamist party, came to power in June. The group’s credo includes the phrase, ‘Allah is our objective; the Quran is our law, the Prophet is our leader; jihad is our way; and death for the sake of Allah is the highest of our aspirations.’

Since the revolution that led to the ouster of the pro-U.S. regime of Hosni Mubarak, a large number of radical Islamists have been released from prison and have gone back to preaching anti-Western and anti-Israel jihad, or holy war.

The meeting between Muwafi and the Iranian, identified by officials only with his last name, Gerami, set off security concerns because the Iranian spy service is a key player in Tehran’s international support for terrorism, as well as anti-U.S. and anti-Israel operations.” Read more.

Flashback: Senior Muslim Brotherhood Member Praises Shiite Leaders Of Iran (Video) – “This is a great stride towards Islamic unity in light of the events unfolding in the world. These are changes under Islam and in line with unity in the Islamic world and also aimed at ending the global arrogance led by the U.S…  the Islamic Republic of Iran … truly serves as a model of resistance against the West’s domination and serves as a model for the Muslim world … the number one figure in the Muslim world is indeed the leader of Iran … I am proud of President Ahmadinejad … I hope Iran is the model in all aspects, including justice, unity among Shi’a and Sunni, human rights, and respect for humanity.”

By Avi Issacharoff, Haaretz – “In an unusual move, a U.A.E. security official explicitly threatened Iran with military action if the Islamic Republic attacks targets in the Arab Emirates through clandestine terror squads.

Speaking on Sunday to the al-Arabiya network, the chief of Dubai’s police force Dhahi Khalfan Tamim said that the U.A.E. had solid information indicating that Iranian teams have infiltrate into the emirates, saying that ‘the Gulf won’t sit still in the face of Iranian threats.

Adding that he had conveyed the same message to Iranian leaders, Khalfan Tamim said that if Iran ‘operated squads to damage security, well, we well eventually operate squads in its territory, since we won’t allow anyone to harm us while we sit idly by.’

The U.A.E. security official’s comments represent unprecedentedly aggressive remarks in the history of bilateral relations between the emirates and Iran, coming amid increased tensions between Tehran and Dubai over the control of a group of islands in the Persian Gulf.

Further on in his interview to al-Arabiya, Khalfan Tamim make another unusual remark for a Sunni official concerning the ongoing unrest in Syria, saying that he feared that the Muslim Brotherhood will take over the country, and adding that the group’s leaders were sitting in hotels in Turkey waiting to replace Syrian President Bashar Assad’s regime.” Read more.

The World’s Most Dangerous Terrorist After Bin Laden Is Openly Developing Nuclear Weapons In Iran – “Now that Osama bin Laden is at the bottom of the ocean, a new man has emerged as the world’s most dangerous terrorist: Qassem Suleimani. Although unfamiliar to most in the West, he is responsible for killing many thousands in cold blood – and masterminding the murder of more Americans than any other person on earth. Suleimani heads the Quds Force of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard – the nerve centre of its global terrorist network. Working with Hizbollah in Lebanon, he has plotted, attempted and executed mass murder in dozens of countries. The centrifuges spinning in Iran are dangerously close to providing these ruthless global terrorists with a nuclear arsenal and protective umbrella.” Read more.