MidnightWatcher – Prophecy in Motion

Associated Press – “US security officials are on the lookout for upgraded underwear bombs containing a new type of explosive, it has been disclosed.

The revelation follows analysis of a bomb intercepted by a CIA operation in Yemen.

John Pistole, the US transportation security administrator, told an audience at a security forum in Aspen, Colorado that the device smuggled out by a double agent earlier this year was an upgrade from the underwear bomb carried by Nigerian Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab on to a Detroit-bound airliner at Christmas 2009.

‘We found in the underwear plot, part 2 … that a different type of explosive had been used than the previous one,’ Pistole said.

‘So we have gone back and recalibrated all the equipment and we have been working with our canine to detect this different type of explosive.’

The CIA intercepted the new device earlier this year, thwarting an ambitious plot by al-Qaida’s affiliate in Yemen to destroy a US-bound airliner a year after the killing of Osama bin Laden.

The new model also had a more sophisticated trigger mechanism, an apparent attempt to fix the defect that burned the bomber but failed to ignite the bomb in the 2009 attack.” Source – The Guardian.

1 Thessalonians 5:6, “Therefore let us not sleep, as others do, but let us watch and be sober.”

“Western democracies need to wake up to the threat of Islamic extremism, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said.

He said that even after 9/11, he underestimated the power of the extremists, and he thinks their power has grown since then.

Radical Muslims seek ‘supremacy not coexistence’, Mr Blair said, and he fears that ‘The West is asleep on this issue’, even though it is the biggest challenge…

He thinks there is a need to tackle the underlying motives of extremist Muslims, not just their violent methods.

The former Prime Minister made the remarks in an interview with the Daily Telegraph’s Charles Moore.

Tony Blair said the anti-religion movement stirred up by people like Richard Dawkins is not the answer…

He said that extreme atheists ‘require religious fundamentalists’ to make their argument for them, and ‘We must push back against aggressive secularism’.

A Bill to tackle the problem of Sharia courts operating in this country has been introduced to the House of Lords by Baroness Cox.

It would give Muslim women more protection from discrimination, and stop a parallel legal system taking root.” Source – The Christian Institute.

Flashback: ‘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: Radical Islam: A Global Problem World Leaders Must Confront – “Radical Islam is a growing problem throughout the world. In Europe, it’s a burgeoning issue that politicians have been unwilling to address properly because of the influence of Muslims there, but it’s a critical problem in the United States, too — especially in our nation’s prisons. The mood in the U.S. is so anti-anti-Islam that politicians run for cover whenever Islam is raised as an issue. Not so with Representative Peter King (R-New York). He endured death threats and ridicule from liberals because he held hearings in the House of Representatives to investigate the Islamist threat we face as a nation.” Read more.

Flashback: ‘A Serious Intellectual Failing’: Obama Embraces Islam – “The Obama administration is doing its utmost to promote the fortunes of the Islamist parties in Egypt. A State Department official declared that with the rise of these radical groups after the Arab Spring, ‘people who once might have gone into al Qaeda see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism.’ They see this as a victory. The problem is, so do the terrorists… from the terrorists’ point of view, it didn’t matter whether an Islamist victory came through violence or not. The means were unimportant except as they related to the end state: the imposition of hard-line Shariah-based laws and policies.” Read more.

By Raymond Ibrahim – “During a televised interview earlier this week, Dr. Safwat Hegazy, a popular preacher in Egypt, known for his desire to unify the Arab world into a ‘United Arab States’—with Jerusalem for a capital—dropped the Western language and made clear what it is the Muslim Brotherhood ultimately seeks: a caliphate and world domination, which even the Supreme Guide of the Brotherhood maintains is the group’s mission.

In the interview, which Coptic Solidarity has translated with subtitles (click here), Hegazy simply declares: ‘If you read the literature of the Muslim Brotherhood, you will find in the literature of the Brotherhood, that which they can never abandon: The Islamic Caliphate and mastership of the world. Yes, we will be masters of the world, one of these days’ (emphasis his).” Source – Jihad Watch.

Flashback: Muslim Brotherhood Calls for a ‘United Arab States’ with Jerusalem as its Capital – “In this recent video, the Muslim Brotherhood’s Dr. Safwat Hegazy, a popular preacher, talks about how he yearns to see Arab nations become ‘like the United States’—for them to unify into the ‘United Arab States.’ While that may sound like an admirable (or at least neutral) goal, bear in mind what he is alluding to: the resurrection of a caliphate—which by nature exists to expand, including through jihad.” Read more.

Flashback: Muslim Brotherhood Elder: ‘The Whole World Belongs to Us … the Caliphate Will Return’ – “We are the children of Islam, the children of prophecy, the children of ‘there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the prophet of Allah.’ I say unto you Gouraud, we will return and we will kill anyone who has polluted the al-Aqsa Mosque. I say unto you that we will return, as the day of Qurayza from long ago. I say unto you that we will return, as the day of Khaybar from long ago. I say unto you that we will return. Jerusalem belongs to us. Al-Aqsa belongs to us. Jerusalem belongs to us, and the whole world belongs to us. Every land upon which Islam has set foot will return to us. The caliphate will return to us, on the platform of prophecy.” Read more.

By Paul Alster, FoxNews.com – “HAIFA, Israel – As Syria’s regime teeters on the brink of collapse, Israeli soldiers and civilians alike are preparing for possible military action to make sure Bashar al-Assad’s chemical weapons don’t fall into the hands of terrorist groups.

Sources close to the Israel Defense Force told FoxNews.com soldiers have been put on standby and are ready to move, while civilian demand for gas masks has jumped 66 percent over the last few weeks from 2,200 to 3,700 per day. The fears center around the prospect of Hezbollah getting Syrian chemical weapons as the Assad regime shows imminent signs of collapse.

‘Israel…will not hold back and will respond decisively if this happens,’ Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman said.

Hezbollah, (the Islamic militant group based in south Lebanon, supported by both Syria and Iran), who has long called for the destruction of Israel, is the prime candidate to take possession of the armaments. Speculation is mounting about when and how Israel will deal with the prospect of chemical weapons being spirited away during the chaos of Assad’s likely fall.

‘It appears the IDF may seek to eliminate Syria’s ability to transport the weapons to proxy forces but not to eliminate the actual weapons themselves by striking at storage facilities,’ Idan Kweller, political correspondent for Israel Army Radio, told FoxNews.com. ‘Israel’s main interest is to ensure the weapons are not passed on to the likes of Hezbollah in south Lebanon.'” Read more.

Flashback: Nasrallah: Hezbollah Already Has ‘Many Surprises’ That Will Change the Face of the Region in a Future War – “The next war with Israel will start in Tel Aviv, not on the northern border, Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah warned on Friday, the Lebanese Al-Akhbar newspaper reported. ‘If Israel decided to wage a war against Lebanon, we will not only break the Israeli soldiers’ bones, we will smash them,’ Nasrallah was quoted as saying during a meeting with Hezbollah members. ‘The war would be waged without any red lines, and [Hezbollah] would in return commit to the new equations,’ Nasrallah said. ‘[Hezbollah] has many surprises that will change the face of the region,’ he added.” Read more.

By Gil Ronen, INN – “Channel 2’s veteran Middle East analyst Ehud Yaari, who is back from a trip to the U.S., said Friday night that an Israeli attack on Iran can be expected in October.

‘I will give you an impression,’ he told anchorman Danny Kushmaro on Channel 2 TV’s Ulpan Shishi, ‘and this is just an impression, but it is a strong impression, after conversations with the people one needs to talk with about this matter.’

‘My impression is that the Americans are convinced that there is very high chance that Israel will decide to attack in Iran before the elections in the U.S.,’ Yaari stated.

‘The date that they are talking about – they say that the prime minister will have to make a decision around October. They are getting ready for a possibility like that in the sense that they have to decide what they will do if there is one response or another by Iran, in the follow-up stage.’

‘But when you talk to them, they talk about [an Israeli strike] almost as a given – as a clear, unassailable fact.'” Source – INN.

Retired Egyptian General Believes Egypt Will Join Iran and Syria If They Are Attacked – ‘General Ahmad Mansouri (Ret): “What happened in the past will not happen again. President Mohammed Morsi said at Tahrir Square and elsewhere: ‘We heed the call of Islam! We heed the call of Arabism!’ The joint Arab defense agreement will be activated, Allah willing.'” Watch video.

By Brian Bennett, Washington Bureau – “WASHINGTON — The militant organization that was once the scourge of the U.S. military campaign in Iraq and probably is responsible for more than 100 deaths in the country over the last few days has set its sights on launching attacks in the United States, intelligence officials said.

Al Qaeda in Iraq released a message this week that threatened to strike at the ‘heart’ of the United States, and several associates of the group have been arrested in the U.S. and Canada in the last two years, said American officials, a sign that the organization has tried to establish a network in North America.

The arrests highlight ‘the potential threat posed to the United States’ from Al Qaeda in Iraq, said Matthew Olsen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, during a hearing Wednesday before the House Homeland Security Committee examining the current threat from terrorism to the United States…

Al Qaeda in Iraq was pummeled more than five years ago by a coalition of Sunni Arab tribal leaders in western Iraq and U.S. forces, but experts who study Al Qaeda say that the organization in Iraq has begun to rebuild, energized in the last year by the violent uprising next door in Syria and an influx of cash from wealthy benefactors in the Persian Gulf. U.S. forces withdrew from Iraq in December.

On Sunday, the day before the latest wave of attacks in Iraq killed at least 110 people, the militant group released an audio recording to mark the beginning of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. The message announced a new campaign of violence against the Iraqi government, praised Syria’s uprising and made a call for new recruits to join the group. It also spoke directly to Americans.

‘You will soon witness how attacks will resound in the heart of your land, because our war with you has now started,’ said a man that identified himself as Abu Bakr Baghdadi, the pseudonym used by the head of Al Qaeda in Iraq.” Read more.

Flashback: Obama Admin: The War On Terror Is ‘Over’ – “… a senior State Department official has announced, ‘The war on terror is over.’ ‘Now that we have killed most of al Qaida … people have come to see legitimate means of expression, people who once might have gone into al Qaida see an opportunity for a legitimate Islamism.’ The article itself describes the Obama administration’s new vision of foreign policy, which admits no enemies. Everyone, in this view, is a friend. Islamism, says the Obama administration, is just fine, so long as it does not openly support terrorism. This, of course, is utter foolishness. Islamism is a religious ideological movement that brooks no real alternatives – so while the State Department proclaims ‘a legitimate Islamism,’ it fails to acknowledge that Islamism, ‘legitimate’ or not, is deeply intolerant of any other modes of expression. Not only that, but Islamism works hand-in-glove with terror groups around the world.” Read more.

Reuters – “DUBAI – Dubai’s chief of police has warned of an ‘international plot’ to overthrow the governments of Gulf Arab countries, saying the region needs to be prepared to counter any threat from Islamist dissidents as well as Syria and Iran.

The comments by Dahi Khalfan, one of the most outspoken security officials in the United Arab Emirates, follow the detention in the UAE since April of at least 20 dissidents, according to relatives of the detainees and activists.

‘There’s an international plot against Gulf states in particular and Arab countries in general…This is preplanned to take over our fortunes,’ Khalfan told reporters at a gathering late on Wednesday marking the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.

‘The bigger our sovereign wealth funds and the more money we put in the banks of Western countries, the bigger the plot to take over our countries…The brothers and their governments in Damascus and North Africa have to know that the Gulf is a red line, not only for Iran but also for the Brothers as well.’

Most of the detainees since April are Islamists, targeted by an official clampdown amid concern they may be emboldened by the rise of the Muslim Brotherhood in other Arab countries such as Egypt.” Read more.

Flashback: Muslim Brotherhood Elder: ‘Jerusalem Belongs to Us, and the Whole World Belongs to Us … the Caliphate Will Return’ – “We are the children of Islam, the children of prophecy, the children of ‘there is no god but Allah and Muhammad is the prophet of Allah.’ … we will kill anyone who has polluted the al-Aqsa Mosque… we will return, as the day of Qurayza from long ago… we will return, as the day of Khaybar from long ago… Jerusalem belongs to us. Al-Aqsa belongs to us… and the whole world belongs to us. Every land upon which Islam has set foot will return to us. The caliphate will return to us, on the platform of prophecy.” Read more.