MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

By AL ARABIYA – “A senior member of Egypt’s former militant Islamist group al-Gamaa al-Islamiya has warned that liberal politicians and intellectuals who oppose President Mohammed Mursi’s latest constitutional declaration could face a campaign of targeted assassinations starting from December.

Nageh Ibrahim, the ideologue of the Gamaa al-Islamiya, which took up arms against ousted president Hosni Mubarak’s regime in the 1980s, told Al Arabiya that his expectation ‘was based on an analysis of the political situation not on information.’

He said recent escalation of violence in different parts of the country, including successive attacks on security forces in Sinai, attacks on Muslim Brotherhood offices and on mosques, point to a possible bloody reaction against liberals.

Ibrahim first made his statement in an interview with the London-based Asharq al-Awsat, saying targeted assassinations against prominent liberals would be a ‘natural reaction’ to violence and mistrust, and political polarization in Egypt.

And while he supported President Mursi’s latest decrees to consolidate his powers by making his decisions irrevocable by the judiciary, Ibrahim called for the president to include more civil and liberal figures in his government and take their demands into consideration when making decisions.

‘Had the president included representatives of the civil powers in the new government, he would not have had so many enemies,’ Ibrahim said.

‘This has to be done before Egypt becomes divided, not only politically but possibly geographically as well.’

He warned that if Mursi backtracks on his decisions, the country would plunge further into turmoil.” Read more.

If the Euphrates River is dried up prior to Armageddon, closing a dam or two would be a pretty quick way to do it …

Revelation 16:12-16, “Then the sixth angel poured out his bowl on the great river Euphrates, and its water was dried up, so that the way of the kings from the east might be prepared… to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty… to the place called in Hebrew, Armageddon.”

By BASSEM MROUE, Orlando Sentinel – “BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian rebels on Monday captured a hydroelectric dam on the Euphrates River in the country’s north after days of heavy clashes, carting off boxes of ammunition from defeated regime forces in the latest in a string of recent strategic advances for opposition fighters, activists said.

Also Monday, activists said rebels and pro-government Kurdish gunmen struck a truce to end days of fighting in the town of Ras al-Ayn near the border with Turkey that opposition forces entered earlier this month.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said rebel fighters overran regime defenses and captured the Tishrin Dam, near the town of Manbij, before dawn Monday. Observatory director Rami Abdul-Rahman said the dam supplies several areas of Syria with electricity.

‘This is a major blow to the regime,’ said Abdul-Rahman by telephone, describing the dam as ‘strategic location’ on the Euphrates, which flows from Turkey through Syria and into Iraq.

The rebels have scored a series of hard-fought strategic advances recently, perhaps even seizing the momentum in their relentless battle of topple President Bashar Assad’s regime. On Sunday, they captured a regime helicopter base outside Damascus before pulling back for fear of government airstrikes.

Amateur videos posted online showed gunmen inside the dam’s operations room as an employee sat in front of five screens speaking by telephone about the level of water behind the dam. Another video showed gunman in front of dozens of green wooden boxes apparently full of munitions.

A gunman opened one of the boxes showing that it contained hand grenades. ‘The Free Syrian Army has fully liberated the Tishrin Dam,’ one of the rebels could be heard saying.

The activist videos appeared genuine and corresponded to other AP reporting about the events depicted. Syria restricts the access of reporters.” Read more.

All for peaceful purposes, no doubt …

By BENJAMIN WEINTHAL – “Anti-Israel demonstrators gathered on Friday in the heart of Vienna, protesting Israel’s Operation Pillar of Defense and chanting slogans calling for the murder of Jews and bashing the Jewish state.

Israel’s eight-day military operation to stop Hamas rocket fire from entering the country prompted two fiercely anti-Israel protests in the Austrian capital.

Samuel Laster, an Israeli journalist who lives in Vienna, told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday that he heard a contingent of 15 to 20 Austrian Islamists chanting in Arabic, ‘Death to the Jews.’

Laster first reported on the call to eliminate Jews on his website die juedische (‘the Jewish’).

Speaking from Vienna by phone, he told the Post that a ‘mix of Austrian leftist radical extremists and Islamists’ appeared at the protest. He estimated that at least 400 anti-Israel protesters, including Salafists, Muslim Brotherhood members and Palestinians, took part in the demonstration.

The demonstrators marched to the federal chancellor’s office.

The anti-Israel activists yelled ‘Freedom for Palestine’ and ‘Down with Israel,’ and a group of Austrian Muslims blasted repeatedly in Arabic ‘Death to the Jews.’ Laster said the Austrian authorities, including the domestic intelligence agency (Verfassungschutz), must increase their efforts to combat ‘Islamic extremism.’ He criticized the lax approach of Austrian police officials who waved off the anti-Jewish rhetoric as merely a protest against Israel.

Dr. Shimon Samuels, the Simon Wiesenthal Center’s director for international relations, wrote the Post by email on Sunday, ‘the Verfassungschutz, whether in Germany or Austria, has to make the analytical leap in treating the Trotskyite/jihadist movements as they did regarding Nazi and Communist espionage or terrorism.'” Read more.

Flashback: Austria: ‘Caliphate Conference’ Seeks to Islamize America and Europe, Make It An International Crime to Criticize Islam – “A Muslim fundamentalist group is organizing a conference focused on turning Austria and other European countries into Islamic states… The conference is being organized by Hizb ut-Tahrir [Party of Liberation], a pan-Islamic extremist group that seeks to establish a global Islamic state, or caliphate, ruled by Islamic Sharia law. Hizb ut-Tahrir — which is banned in many countries, including Germany, but is free to operate in Austria — is virulently opposed to Western capitalism and democracy and seeks to extend the future caliphate to Europe and the United States.” Read more.

Flashback: Austrian Muslim’s Message for Europe: Whether You Like It Or Not, ‘We are Coming’ – “A second-generation Muslim immigrant in Austria has authored a provocative new book in which he argues that Europe’s future is Turkish, whether Europeans like it or not. The book’s short, sharp and confrontational title says it all: ‘We are Coming.’ The thesis is: ‘Regardless of whether or not you [Europeans] like us [Turks], whether or not you integrate us, whether or not you want us in the European Union, our influence in Europe is growing. We are more numerous.” Read more.

All that laughing has turned into high-fives. And all those high-fives may soon turn into something else …

By Reza Kahlili – “In his first news conference after re-election, President Obama said there was still time for a diplomatic solution on Iran’s nuclear program and that Iran could enjoy ‘peaceful nuclear power’ if it meets international obligations.

Diplomacy has failed and international sanctions, though having some effect, have not persuaded the radicals ruling Iran to stop their illicit nuclear program. The economic screws must be tightened.

Iranian leaders did not hide their satisfaction in Mr. Obama’s re-election and the prospect of more negotiations, which, in their view, will buy them more time to develop nuclear weapons.

Professor Pirooz Mojtahedzade, who teaches political geography at Tehran University, said in a recent interview, ‘Perhaps one reason for Obama’s success in his re-election campaign was his opposition to the warmongering Prime Minister [Benjamin Netanyahu] of Israel, which officially eliminated the effect of the Zionist lobby in presidential elections, and the result of this is that the Israel lobby will not have much effect on U.S. politics in the next four years.

‘I have no doubt that the U.S. desires negotiations. We must remember the promises by Obama in his first four years to change U.S. politics internally and externally to address international matters peacefully, including Iran’s nuclear energy program through negotiations and peaceful means,’ Mr. Mojtahedzade said.

His thoughts were echoed in several other analyses in Iranian media. One said America is in no way looking for a confrontation with Iran and, in fact, has such a confrontation as its red line. Therefore, it’s only natural that the Islamic republic is aware of this limited U.S. strategy and will benefit from it, the analysis argued.

Proof of that claim, the analysis said, is the recent incident in which Read more…

Al-Aqsa TV, 11/21/2012:

We are the [Al-Qassam] Brigades
Brigades – we kidnap soldiers
Brigades, we kill Jews
Brigades, we watch the borders
Brigades, we are not afraid of death
Brigades, gear up your weapon
Gear up, gear up
Destroy the usurper’s dens and set fire to the oppressors
Through training and preparations, you roar, oh lion of Qassam
It’s in your hands to get [our] country back
And then we will raise the banner of Islam.

Zechariah 12:2-3a, 9, “Behold, I will make Jerusalem a cup of drunkenness to all the surrounding peoples, when they lay siege against Judah and Jerusalem. And it shall happen in that day that I will make Jerusalem a very heavy stone for all peoples; all who would heave it away will surely be cut in pieces … It shall be in that day [that] I will seek to destroy all the nations that come against Jerusalem.”

By Tobias Buck – “When they finally emerged from their houses after eight days of Israeli bombardment, the people of Gaza seemed to have only one desire: to satisfy their craving for sugar.

Sweet shops and pastry makers were over-run with customers on Thursday morning, the day after an Egyptian-brokered ceasefire entered into effect.

‘People rushed to the shop as soon as it opened,’ said Abu Wassim, the owner of Alqadi Famous Sweets in Jabalya. His store sold four times more baklava, knaffeh and other sugary delights than on normal days. ‘In your country, when you celebrate a victory, you open a bottle of alcohol,’ he said. ‘Here, we go and buy sweets.’

In Gaza, they have been treating the end of the latest bloody clash between Israel and Hamas as a Palestinian victory. Of that they have no doubt.

On Wednesday night, thousands celebrated spontaneously in the streets, minutes after the ceasefire announcement. On Thursday, declared a national holiday by the Gaza authorities, there were victory parades and rallies. On Friday, the midday prayers were dominated by declarations of victory, with some preachers drawing a line between the latest conflict and the Prophet Mohammed’s victory over the infidels.

The sense of triumph and elation came despite the loss of 162 Palestinian lives, the wounding of more than 1,000 and the destruction of hundreds of buildings.

In conventional terms, Hamas’s military achievements were negligible: As in the past, Gaza-based militants fired barrages of rockets and missiles at Israel, but only few reached their intended targets. Six Israelis were killed by Palestinian fire – a relatively low figure given the intensity of the missile fire from Gaza.

Yet Hamas leaders and ordinary Gazans alike insist that this conflict felt very different from Israel’s military onslaught four years ago.

Not only did Israel this time stop short of a ground invasion, but the rocket squads of Gaza managed to fire missiles at Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, the commercial and political centres of Israel. None of the missiles did any damage. What mattered, however, was the sight of Israelis running for the bomb shelters…

As he shuffled away, a Hamas sheikh began his eulogy of Mohammed Jamal. He praised his martyrdom, saying the dead man and his family would be guaranteed a place in heaven. And the latest clash with Hamas’s enemy had been a great victory, he said, ‘the first nail in the coffin of Israel’.” Read more.

If true, this move by Russia appears to have been made after the “cease fire” took effect. Why now? …

Al Arabiya – “Russian warships anchored off the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea to prepare the evacuation of Russians in the area, should the conflict in Gaza escalate, The Voice of Russia quoted a Russian Navy Command source on Friday.

‘The detachment of combat ships of the Black Sea Fleet, including the Guards missile cruiser Moskva, the patrol ship Smetliviy, large landing ships Novocherkassk and Saratov, the sea tug MB-304 and the big sea tanker Ivan Bubnov, got the order to remain in the designated area of the Eastern part of the Mediterranean Sea for a possible evacuation of Russian citizens from the area of the Gaza strip in case of escalation of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict’, the spokesperson said.

He added that ship crew members will continue routine combat training, maintenance of equipment and weapons along with other military services.

Meanwhile, Israeli troops fired on Gazans surging toward Israel’s border fence Friday, killing one person but leaving intact the fragile two-day-old cease-fire between Hamas and the Jewish state.

The truce, which calls for an end to Gaza rocket fire on Israel and Israeli airstrikes on Gaza, came after eight days of cross-border fighting, the bloodiest between Israel and Hamas in four years.” Read more.

Poll: Palestinians Itching For Another Fight With Israel, Don’t Want Long-Term Gaza Ceasefire – “According to a survey conducted by the Palpress Arabic-language website, the Palestinians are itching for another fight with Israel, less than a day after the Jewish state agreed to prematurely halt its campaign to eliminate the Gaza missile threat… it appears groups like Hamas will only use the days and months of calm ahead to prepare for the next round of violence. And they will apparently have majority support among the public for doing so.” Read more.

Turkish PM Accuses Israel Of ‘Ethnic Cleansing’ In Gaza, ‘Sooner Or Later Israel Will Answer For The Innocent Blood It Has Shed’ – “… Erdogan accused Israel of ‘ethnic cleansing’ in Gaza, saying the Jewish state’s air raids could not be considered self-defense. ‘Israel is committing ethnic cleansing by ignoring peace in this region and violating international law,’ Erdogan said, according to AFP. ‘It is occupying the Palestinian territory step by step.’ He further claimed that Israeli air raids against Gaza could not be deemed self-defense, accusing Western countries of aiding what he called a ‘terrorist state’ by condoning its violence in the Middle East. ‘Sooner or later, Israel will answer for the innocent blood it has shed so far,’ he said.” Read more.

MEMRI – “On November 16, 2012, the ‘Global Jihad’ website (aljahad.com/vb) posted a fatwa by the Saudi mujahid sheikh Nasser bin Hamad Al-Fahd mandating jihad against the Jews. Al-Fahd has been incarcerated in Saudi Arabia since 2003 for praising the Riyadh bombings in May of that year. In 2004, the Saudi media reported that he had recanted his jihadi ideology, but subsequently he published a communiqué stating that he had been forced to do this and that he did not regret anything he had done before his arrest.[i]

In response to the question whether it is permissible to kill Jews and harm their interests everywhere, even outside Palestine, and whether this counts as jihad, the sheikh replied that the Jews are the leaders of the infidels and the greatest enemies of Islam and the Muslims in the present age. Therefore, jihad against Jews everywhere is ‘one of the most important duties and greatest virtues,’ and any guarantees of protection granted them by tyrannical and infidel governments are meaningless, especially when the Jews are attacking Muslims as they please. Al-Fahd stressed that, when jihad against Jews outside of Palestine is more harmful than beneficial, Islam does not permit it; however, the only ones who can determine whether this is the case are the mujahideen, not ‘those who shirk jihad.’

The following are excerpts from the question and fatwa:

Question: ‘What is the ruling regarding the struggle against the Jews and the fight against them outside the borders…'” Source – JTTM

Flashback: Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia Calls for ‘Destruction of All Churches in Region’ – “According to several Arabic news sources, last Monday, Sheikh Abdul Aziz bin Abdullah, the Grand Mufti of Saudi Arabia, declared that it is ‘necessary to destroy all the churches of the region.’ The Grand Mufti made his assertion in response to a question posed by a delegation from Kuwait, regarding the position of a Kuwaiti parliament member who recently called for the ‘removal’ of churches (he later ‘clarified’ by saying he merely meant that no churches should be built in Kuwait). The Kuwaiti delegation wanted to confirm Sharia’s position on churches. Accordingly, the Grand Mufti ‘stressed that Kuwait was a part of the Arabian Peninsula, and therefore it is necessary to destroy all churches in it.’” Read more.

The fall of Damascus is not a matter of if, but when …

By DAVID ENDERS, The Miami Herald – “MAYADIN, Syria — After a siege that lasted nearly a month, Syrian government soldiers abandoned an artillery base in the town of Mayadin Thursday morning, handing anti-government rebels in southeastern Deir al Zour province a key victory that will allow them to move next to the airport near the provincial capital, one of the last positions the Syrian military controls in the province.

‘Then we are going to Damascus!’ rebels shouted on Thursday afternoon as they hoisted a black flag above the captured base, which had been a livestock feed plant before the Syrian military took it over.

The battle for control of Deir al Zour is one of the least watched in Syria, with no foreign reporters visiting this oil-producing region in months. But the struggle here is an important one, with the rebels hoping to use their advance to cut off the government’s access to its oil fields.

How quickly the rebels can eject the military entirely from the province is uncertain, however. The Syrian military still controls the roads leading into the provincial capital, also known as Deir al Zour, though the rebels are in the process of effectively surrounding the military there.