MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By Rachel Hirshfeld, INN – “Dozens of protesters demonstrated outside the residence of Israel’s ambassador to Egypt in Cairo on Monday night, demanding that the government cease all diplomatic relations with the Jewish state in light of Sunday’s attack along the border between Israel, Egypt and the Gaza Strip.

While the perpetrators remain unknown, Egypt has blamed Israel for the attack, which killed 17 Egyptian soldiers and injured seven.

‘It’s definitely Israel who is behind it; we demand the termination of any political relations with Israel,’ said Ahmed El-Toni, one of the protesters, who referred to himself as an ‘independent activist,’ Ahram Online reported.

He also criticized Egyptian President Mohamad Morsi for not yet taking action against the assumed culprits.

Last August, thousands of Egyptians protested outside the Israeli embassy in Cairo demanding the dismissal of the Israeli ambassador after five Egyptian soldiers were killed near the border in Sinai.

In September, dozens of protesters raided one of the embassy’s offices in Cairo, throwing documents into the air, while a man climbed to the top of building to remove the Israeli flag, as supporters cheered him on from the ground.

The man was later celebrated as a national hero and referred to as ‘Flag Man.'” Read more.

Flashback: Egypt: Increasing Number Of Egyptians Want To Ditch Peace Treaty With Israel, Model Its Government After Saudi Arabia – “As Egyptians prepare to vote for their first post-Mubarak president next week, the antipathy towards Israel espoused by the frontrunners aligns with the findings of a new survey, in which 61 percent of Egyptian respondents favor abandoning the Egypt-Israel peace treaty, up from 54 percent a year ago.” Read more.

Flashback: Antisemitic Banner Raised at Egyptian Soccer Game: ‘One Nation for New Holocaust’ (Video)

Looks like John Bolton was right. I’ve always suspected that Iran was much further along than most of the pundits admitted publicly, and that they may even already possess one nuclear weapon, if not more. Having said that, the fact that Iran is much further along than previously thought shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. It is, after all, the sort technological ambush that the West should have expected from a nation like Iran, a regime all too often determined to see to it that a proxy remain busy doing much of its dirty work …

By Barak Ravid, Haaretz – “New intelligence information obtained by Israel and four Western countries indicates that Iran has made greater progress on developing nuclear weapons than the West had previously realized, according to Western diplomats and Israeli officials who are closely involved in efforts to prevent Iran from building a nuclear bomb.

A Western diplomat who asked not to be named because he was not authorized to discuss intelligence information said the United States, Britain, France, Germany and Israel agree on that assessment.

According to the source, this assessment began to take shape in February, when Iran refused to allow inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency to visit the base at Parchin, where it is believed Iran is carrying out part of the research and development of its military nuclear program. Visits of IAEA inspectors in Iran, and especially revelations of information the Iranians had been trying to hide, intensified suspicions that Tehran was developing nuclear weapons at a faster pace than it had previously seemed.

Last month Britain’s Daily Telegraph reported that the Iranian Revolutionary Guards has established a new team of 60 nuclear scientists to develop Iran’s military nuclear program at the Lavizan base near Tehran. In 2006, IAEA inspectors visited that base, which belongs to the Guards’ missile development agency.

The Daily Telegraph based its report on information from the Iranian opposition group Mujahideen al-Khalq. Members of the group told the paper that the work of the Iranian scientists in the ‘weapons group’ is at an advanced facility involved warheads and detonators.

An American think tank called the Institute for Science and International Security released a satellite photo of the Parchin base showing, according to Western intelligence, that Iran is developing nuclear weapons there. Taken on July 25 and released on August 1, the picture shows that the Iranians have completed what the American think tank called ‘cleanup’ of the site where the base was.

According to researchers at the institute, the photos they received show that the Iranians have bulldozed a number of structures at the base and leveled the surrounding land, which the institute’s staff suspect was done to erase evidence of nuclear activity at the site.” Read more.

Flashback: Hundreds of North Korean Nuclear and Missile Experts Working in More Than 10 Locations Across Iran – “Hundreds of North Korean nuclear and missile experts have been collaborating with their Iranian counterparts in more than 10 locations across the Islamic state, a diplomatic source said Sunday. The revelation lends credence to long-held suspicions that North Korea was helping Iran with a secret nuclear and missile program… North Korea has long been suspected of being behind nuclear and missile proliferation in Iran, Syria, Myanmar and Pakistan.” Read more.

Flashback: German Media: North Korea May Have Already Tested Nuclear Warheads For Iran (Google Translation) – “The ‘Welt am Sonntag’ reported, citing Western security circles, some intelligence agencies assumed that the government in Pyongyang had conducted at least one of these [nuclear] tests for Iran. This would mean that Tehran [bomb] has been built with North Korean help, and ignited a nuclear warhead… The longtime director of the Policy Planning Staff in the German Defense Ministry, Hans Rühle, writes in the ‘Welt am Sonntag’ that ‘… North Korea has actually conducted a nuclear test in 2010, at least for Iran.’” Read more.

If Barack Hussein Obama is on the side of the Muslim Brotherhood and Al-Qaeda in Syria, then why wouldn’t the UN be? …

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By Joseph Klein, FrontPage Magazine – “A day after Kofi Annan, the Joint Special Envoy for the UN and the League of Arab States for the Syrian Crisis, announced his decision to resign in frustration over the failure of the United Nations Security Council to pass a strong resolution that would enforce compliance with his six-point Syrian peace plan, Arab League members led by Saudi Arabia and Qatar went to the UN General Assembly for a symbolic vote on a resolution strongly condemning the Assad regime. The resolution said nothing about al Qaeda and other Islamist jihadists who are hijacking the armed opposition and committing their own atrocities.

The final draft resolution passed on August 3rd, with 133 in favor, 31 abstaining and 12 against. In order to secure more votes in favor of the resolution, the measure’s Arab League sponsors had to water down its text. They agreed to remove a demand that President Assad resign. They also agreed to water down a call for other nations to impose sanctions on Syria. Without such dilution, the resolution would most likely have failed to gain a supporting majority.

Nevertheless, the final resolution text retained its focus of condemnation on the Syrian regime. It called out the ‘the increasing use by the Syrian authorities of heavy weapons, including indiscriminate shelling from tanks and helicopters, in population centres and the failure to withdraw its troops and the heavy weapons to their barracks…’

After reciting a long litany of ‘widespread and systematic gross violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms by the Syrian authorities and pro-government militias,’ the resolution made only a glancing reference to possible ‘human rights abuses by armed opposition groups.’ While condemning all violence, ‘irrespective of where it comes from,’ the resolution said that it was up to the Read more…

By Alice Fordham, The National – “TUNIS // Tunisian politicians have provoked outrage by debating draft laws that would impose prison sentences for vaguely defined acts of blasphemy and approving wording in the country’s new constitution that says women are ‘complementary’ to men.

The clash between the Islamist-dominated interim government and those who fear that rights and freedoms are being eroded is the latest struggle in the battle to redefine Tunisia’s political and cultural landscape after the 23-year rule of former president Zine El Abidine Ben Ali, who was deposed last year.

‘Bad day at the Commission of Rights and Freedoms,’ read a note posted last week on the Facebook page of Selma Mabrouk, a member of the centrist Ettakatol party and the parliamentary committee tasked with drafting a new constitution. The ruling, she said, ‘seems to break completely with the idea of equality of the sexes’.

The panel approved an article to the new constitution under the principle that a woman is a ‘complement with the man in the family and an associate to the man in the development of the country’, according to Ms Mabrouk’s August 1 Facebook post.

The wording was passed by a 12-8 vote, with 9 of those in favour coming from Ennahda, the moderate Islamist political party. Its passage does not mean that the formulation has become law. The article must must be approved by another parliamentary committee and the entire new constitution put to a public referendum.

Though not the final word, the ruling drew widespread criticism.

Writing on the Nawaat website, which describes itself as an independent, collective blog, Wafa Ben Hassine, a Tunisian-American activist, said: ‘By defining women as ‘complementary’, we rob from the potential of Tunisian women – both within society and within themselves.’

Ennahda prompted further concerns last week when it introduced a draft law that would criminalise offenses against ‘sacred values’.” Read more.

Flashback: Tunisia: Radical Islamists Hold Anti-Semitic March In Central Tunisia, ‘Jews, Jews, The Army Of Mohammed Is Back’ – “Thousands of Salafist Muslims marched on Kairouan in Central Tunisia, as part of the extremist Islamic movement’s annual assembly. The exclusively male attendees, many of whom were dressed in Afghan military uniform or waving Salafist black flags, marched through the city and raised a banner over the minaret of its mosque, the oldest in Africa… Organisers of the Salafist assembly had instructed marchers to remain ‘calm’ and not to talk to reporters. Many participants however defied their request not to chant slogans, reciting ‘We are all the children of Osama (bin Laden)’ and ‘Jews, Jews, the army of Mohammed is back’.” Read more.

ANP/AFP – “A breakaway group of Muslim rebels armed with chainsaws and guns launched simultaneous attacks across 11 towns in the southern Philippines on Monday, leading to clashes with troops.

Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters (BIFF) attacked an army detachment, touching off gunbattles in the southern province of Maguindanao, the army and police said.

At least one soldier was wounded as sporadic fighting raged into daybreak, said provincial police chief Senior Superintendent Marcelo Pintac.

The rebels had cut down electrical relay posts before dawn, plunging several towns into darkness.

The fighting raised fears it could lead to large displacements of villagers, said regional military spokesman Colonel Prudencio Asto, and forced schools to suspend classes for the day.

‘We are on defensive posture now and we will take care of the communities and the people,’ he said, adding that commuters were also advised to avoid passing along highways where fighting could spill over.

The BIFF is headed by Ameril Umbrakato, a Saudi Arabian-educated guerrilla who splintered from the 12,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which had entered into peace talks with Manila.

Umbrakato had boasted of having about 5,000 armed fighters, though military officials believe he only has a few hundred under his command.

Umbrakato is known to be a Muslim hardliner and he has accused his former comrades of betraying the rebellion’s ultimate goal of an independent Islamic state in the troubled south.

The government has said it hopes to sign a peace deal with the MILF by the end of the year, but had asked the MILF leadership to help contain Umbrakato’s forces.

The Muslim insurgency began in the early 1970s and the fighting has killed some 150,000 people as well as plunged large parts of the south into deep poverty.” Source – Radio Netherlands Worldwide.

By YAAKOV KATZ – “Global jihad terrorists infiltrated into Israel on Sunday night after breaking into an Egyptian military base and stealing two armored jeeps.

One of the vehicles exploded as it rammed through the Kerem Shalom Crossing into Israel and another crossed through, after which it was targeted by an Israel Air Force strike. Simultaneously, dozens of mortar shells rained down on nearby communities.

Al Arabiya reported that 15 Egyptian soldiers were killed in the attack on their base and several more were wounded.

The attack began at around 8 PM, likely in retaliation to an Israeli airstrike earlier in the day against a global jihad terror cell which the IDF said was in the final stages of launching an attack against Israel along the Egyptian border. One terrorist was killed in the strike and another was seriously injured.

The IDF ordered residents of communities in the Eshkol Region to remain inside their homes and shut down Road 232, which runs along the border.

Palestinians reported that the IDF was firing tank shells into southern Gaza, likely part of an effort to suppress the mortar fire. In addition, the Israel Air Force struck back at targets in southern Gaza.

IDF Spokesman Brig.-Gen. Yoav Mordechai told reporters that the IDF was still searching the area to rule out the possibility that additional terrorists remained in Israel.” Read more.

Reuters – “A suicide bomber struck at a wake in Yemen’s southern city of Jaar overnight, killing at least 45 people and wounding dozens more, the defense ministry said, in the deadliest attack since the army declared victory over Islamist militants in June.

The bomber appeared to have been targeting the head of a group of tribal fighters that sided with the Yemeni army during an offensive that drove Al Qaeda-linked militants from their strongholds in the southern province of Abyan.

‘This is a cowardly, criminal, terrorist attack,’ said Abyan governor Jamal al-Aqel, adding that an investigation was underway to determine the bomber’s identity.

The attack highlighted the enduring threat of Islamist militancy in Yemen and may alarm the United States and Saudi Arabia, which increasingly view the impoverished state as a front line in their war on Al Qaeda and its affiliates.

Further east in the province of Hadramout, a US drone fired on a vehicle ferrying suspected militants, killing its three passengers, a local official said.

Ansar al-Sharia (Partisans of Islamic Law) seized several towns in Abyan last year, establishing a foothold there while then-President Ali Abdullah Saleh was grappling with mass protests that eventually toppled him.

The United States supported the Yemeni military campaign through which the army regained control of territory it had lost, but residents and analysts say the militants are simply lying low and waiting for a chance to regroup.” Read more.