MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

Update: Airline says no bomb found …

The Street Journal – “The wave of terror attacks in Nigeria seem took a new turn on Tuesday as reports of a suicide bomb attempt to blow up an Arik Air plane flying from Maiduguri to Abuja jolted Nigerians . A suspected member of the Boko Haram sect who had boarded in Maiduguri, Borno State got up mid-air and told all the passengers to say their last prayers. As he brought out the explosive device, he disclosed that his main targets were the white people in the aircraft.

The explosive device failed to detonate before the plane landed in Abuja. Police bomb experts moved in and the suspected terrorist was arrested when the plane touched down in Abuja. How he passed security checks at the airport with the explosive device remains unknown. Personnel at the local wing of the airport are keeping mum over the issue as no one wants to be quoted.

Nigeria’s Aviation Minister, Princess Stella Oduah denied that there was an attempt to bomb any Arik aircraft. The Minister via her Twitter handle described it as a rumour as she tweeted ‘The alleged Breaking News about a bomb scare on an Arik flight is absolutely false. There is no iota of truth whatsoever in this rumour.’ Five minutes later, she tweeted ‘The flying public should please go about their normal businesses as the airport/airspace is safe. Thank you.’

Arik Air too released a statement denying the attempt. According to Arik Air management, ‘a passenger on board flight W 3 812 from Maiduguri to Abuja caused a scare when he started shouting Allah Akbar shortly before the aircraft landed at the Nnamdi Azikiwe International Airport, Abuja. The frightened passengers on board the flight became suspicious thinking the man was about to do something sinister. All the passengers on board the flight, including the man in question, had all gone through the normal security check at the Maiduguri International Airport and nothing incriminating was found on anyone’.

The airline also assured passengers that they have ‘nothing to fear as the airline’s Aviation Security Department is one of the most sophisticated in the industry.’

Street Journal however gathered that the bomber came in as the last passenger in First Class and he spoke Queen’s English and Hausa fluently. He claimed they were three bombers that were supposed to enter the plane but two could not make it due to security. The bomber wired himself and used bandages to cover up. He gave his age as 27 and he identified three members of the Joint Task Force on board by name.

The attempt on the airline has shown the dynamism of the dreaded Islamist sect. Meanwhile, the Joint Task Force had earlier hinted that the sect has plans to launch attacks on Sallah day.” Source – The Street Journal.

Star Africa – “Somalia’s Islamist Shebab militia have warned Britain it would ‘pay the heftiest price’ for its ‘war against Islam’ and the extradition of radical cleric Abu Hamza to the United States.

In a series of eleven posts written by Shebab’s Press Office on its Twitter page, the radical group threatened to inflict on Britain its worst-ever attack.

‘The nightmare that surreptitiously looms on British shores is bound to eclipse the horrors of 7/7 and 21/7 combined,’ said one message.

The London bombings on July 7, 2005, were a series of co-ordinated suicide attacks on the city’s public transport which killed 52 civilians and the four bombers.

Two weeks later, four attempted bomb attacks disrupted part of the city’s public transport system.

Another message read: ‘Britain will pay the heftiest price for its brazen role in the war against Islam and endless brutality against innocent Muslims.’

The Al-Qaeda linked group also vowed to ‘go to every possible length to attain the freedom of imprisoned Muslim scholars.’

A 17,000-strong African Union force, fighting alongside government forces, has in recent months wrested control of a string of Shebab strongholds including the bastion of Kismayo, a strategic southern port.” Read more.

Flashback: Al-Shabaab Claims Responsibility For Church Attacks, Will Continue To Kill Those Who Do Not Worship Allah – “Somalia militia group Al-Shabaab has claimed responsibility for Sunday’s twin attacks on two churches in Garissa County that left 17 people dead… An Al-Shabaab loyalist Sheikh Hassan Takar said that the militia killed people who did not profess allegiance to Allah. ‘The mujahedeen (holy warriors) punished with their hands those believing and worshipping other than Allah,’ he said. ‘The militants will continue until such practice is eliminated.’ He added” Read more.

By BARRY RUBIN, Jerusalem Post – “One of President Barack Obama’s main themes is to convince Middle East Islamists that America is not their enemy. But the reason this strategy never works is that the radicals know better. The United States is their enemy.

No amount of sympathy, empathy, economic aid, apology or appeasement will change this fact. Nor did such efforts succeed in making either Obama or the United States popular in such circles and the tens of millions of people influenced by them. The only thing surprising about all of this is that so few ‘experts’ and politicians seem to comprehend it.

There are a number of reasons why this is true, though many people mistakenly think they must find just one factor that explains this reality. The causes of this enmity include:

• American policies. True, the United States has supported Israel and also many Arab regimes over the years – including countries like Morocco, Tunisia, post- Gaddafi Libya, Egypt, pre-Hezbollah Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Kuwait, Qatar, Oman, post-Saddam Iraq and the United Arab Emirates. The Islamists are equally unhappy with the US support for the Palestinian Authority.

In short, US support for any non-radical regime makes radicals angry and will always do so.

So what if the United States is nice to radical or Islamist regimes? Will that help? No. The radicals still keep their goals – which include throwing US influence out of the region and overthrowing its allies – no matter what Washington tries to do to please them. In the context of their ideology, they interpret US concessions as signs of weakness which thus invite them to become even more militant and aggressive.

In Libya and Iraq, the governments have been pretty much directly installed by America. Thus, anyone who wants to overthrow those governments has a strong vested interest in hating and attacking Americans. The assassination of the ambassador to Libya wasn’t an accident or the result of a video but the inevitable and logical outcome of the political situation there.

As for Israel, giving that country less help would not change the radical view. Only if the United States had the same policy as Hamas, Hezbollah and the Muslim Brotherhood might it be forgiven. Merely putting more space between the United States and Israel, to paraphrase Obama’s stated intention, won’t do it. Even brokering a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, which isn’t going to happen of course, won’t help.

On the contrary, the radicals – especially Hamas, its Egyptian backers and Iran – would go into a frenzy of denunciation and attempt to destroy the arrangements, the failure of which would then be blamed on America. In the Middle East, peacemakers aren’t blessed, they’re assassinated.” Read more.

As long as Barack Obama is President, Muslim immigrants will continue to flood America  …

By Bryan Fischer, Renew America – “Andy McCarthy and others have strongly suggested that we must suspend the practice of allowing Muslims from Muslim-majority nations around the world to immigrate to the United States. I agree with them.

The reason is very simple: it’s necessary for our national security and indeed may be necessary for our very survival.

A case in point, as Robert Spencer points out in FrontPage magazine: Quazi Mohammad Rexwanul Ahsan Nafis, arrested this week for trying to blow up the Federal Reserve Bank in New York. He was here on a student visa from Bangladesh, which is about 90% Muslim.

This Muslim came to the United States not to study but to kill. His stated purpose: ‘I don’t want something that’s like, small. I just want something big. Something very big … that will shake the whole country, that will make America, not one step ahead, change of policy, and make one step ahead, for the Muslims … that will make us one step closer to run the whole world.’ In his own words, he wanted to ‘destroy America.’ And we invited him in!

Here’s the problem. Nobody who knew him could see this coming. In fact, they were all shocked, shocked I tell you, to learn that he was capable of such evil. Said his father: ‘He is very gentle and devoted to his studies.’

He’s far from the only one. Kifah Jayyousi was charged with ‘conspiring to kidnap, maim and murder’ on behalf of Islam in Bosnia, Kosovo and Chechnya. But the superintendent of Detroit Public Schools said he was ‘a great guy, one of the nicest people I’ve ever met.’

Even Americans who convert to Islam can fool you, which means we have enough problems with jihadism internally that it is foolish in the extreme to import more.” Read more.

Flashback: Mother of Homegrown NY Jihadist: ‘My Son Was a Normal American Guy … Then He Became a Muslim and He Changed’ – “Sosa said her son’s personality began to change after the then-teenager swapped salsa for Islam about five years ago. ‘My son was a normal American guy… Then he became a Muslim and he changed.’ … When he started reading the Koran in 2001, Sosa wasn’t happy because she’s a Catholic, but she noted that ‘in beginning, he wasn’t a fanatic… Over time, he stopped writing and listening to salsa music and spent his days praying, reading and sleeping. She said Pimentel’s fierce embrace of Islam — he converted in 2004, according to police — prompted her to move him back to the city from Schenectady in early 2010. ‘I brought him here because I didn’t like the way he was acting,’ she said… The move did not dampen his fervor.” Read more.

There’s only one reason that I can think of why the overwhelming majority of Egyptians would want nuclear weapons …

By Josh Rogin, Foreign Policy – “A poll of Egyptians conducted last month shows that they have increasingly positive views of Iran, believe that both Iran and Egypt should obtain nuclear weapons, and still trust their own military more than any other institution in Egypt.

The poll of 812 Egyptians, half of them women, was conducted in a series of in-person interviews by the firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner and sponsored by the Israel Project, a pro-Israel advocacy organization with offices in Washington and Jerusalem. According to the poll, Iran is viewed favorably in Egypt, with 65 percent of those surveyed expressing support of the decision to renew Egypt-Iran relations and 61 percent expressing support of the Iranian nuclear project, versus 41 percent in August 2009.

Sixty-two percent of those polled agreed that ‘Iran and its president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, are friends of Egypt,’ though 68 percent held unfavorable views of Shiite Muslims.

Iran’s deputy defense minister said recently that the Iranian regime is seeking more military cooperation with Egypt. ‘We are ready to help Egypt to build nuclear reactors and satellites,’ he said on the occasion or Egyptian President Mohammed Morsy’s meeting with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad last month. Morsy’s office has said the two didn’t discuss military cooperation.

Eighty-seven percent of respondents want Egypt to have its own nuclear bomb.

Israel Project CEO Josh Block told The Cable that the statistics show the effect of Morsy’s outreach to Iran and the danger of regional proliferation of nuclear weapons if Iran is successful in obtaining a nuclear bomb.

‘Very scary to people opposed to proliferation of nuclear weapons, let alone to unstable countries in the world’s most turbulent part of the world, is the 87 percent who want Egypt to build nuclear weapons,’ he said. ‘Morsy’s dangerous embrace of Iran is leading a surprising shift in favor support for Tehran, which has for decades been seen by Egyptians as their top threat, as well as for their work on nuclear weapons.'” Read more.

Flashback: Iranian General on the ‘Arab Spring’: Whether You Like It Or Not, Egypt and Other Nations Are Becoming ‘New Irans’ – “Egypt is becoming the new Iran, ‘whether you accept it or not,’ says a general in the Iranian Revolutionary Guards… ‘A number of major (new) Irans have been born in the region today. Egypt is a (new) Iran, whether you (the US-led West) accept it or not…” Read more.