Iranian Generals issue death warrant according to letter
Posted by editor on 22 September 2009 at 3:47 pm UTC
In an article published Sept. 10, we provide minor details (based on a letter received by the Beirut-based newspaper Almoharrer Alarabi) regarding a death warrant issued by two Iranian generals to a junior Iranian military “information” officer directing the junior officer to “eliminate” Hamid Ghoriafi, the London-based senior correspondent for the Kuwaiti newspaper, Alseyassah (Al-Siyassa).
We initially withheld the names of the alleged perpetrators at the request of Ghoriafi (and others), who is now speaking openly about who wants him targeted and why.
As we reported, the letter stated the Iranian military issued the warrant because, “Ghoriafi has a good relationship with Israeli intelligence through Lebanon’s MP Marwan Hamadéh [a Lebanese Druze]. Hamadéh supplies Ghoriafi with information regarding the International tribunal, so Ghoriafi can sell it to Alseyassah.”
According to an English translation of the letter, “An order to eliminate Ghoriafi was issued to Iranian ‘military information officer’ Lt. Samir Oubeid by Iranian Generals Ahmad Frouzanda and Jafari Sahra Rodi.”
We’ve since spoken with Ghoriafi, who says the letter was presented by a trusted (though unnamed) source of “many years” to Almoharrer Alarabi – a newspaper which Ghoriafi has written for – and the letter provides details about Oubeid, specifically the Iranian lieutenant’s purportedly strong ties to both Hizballah and the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad.
The letter states that Oubeid holds Iranian and European citizenship papers, and that Oubeid has appeared on Al Jazeera TV and other pro-Jihad media, praising Hizballah and denouncing the pro-democracy movement in Lebanon.
Ghoriafi, an outspoken critic of Hizballah and the terrorist group’s Iranian and Syrian backers, was targeted several years ago by a letter-bomb. The assassination attempt failed to kill Ghoriafi, but wounded a colleague. “No newspaper in Lebanon can publish what I’m writing,” Ghoriafi says.
An American counterterrorism analyst confirms, “The letter has been obtained by Lebanese security officials.”
See Sept. 10 article here.
— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.
Hizballah – “the most capable and disciplined terrorist organization in the world”
Posted by editor on 21 September 2009 at 2:45 pm UTC
[Originally published at Family Security Matters]
FOX News is reporting what we’ve been saying for at least two years – and which terrorist sympathizers and their paid cronies have tried to keep from public awareness –that is, Hizballah may well be the most dangerous terrorist organization on the planet, posing even a greater threat to the U.S. than Al Qaeda.
According to the FOX segment, Friday, “Hizballah reportedly has operatives in the United States. Two years ago, a Hizballah agent was arrested after infiltrating the FBI and CIA.”
True. Though few Americans are actually aware of this, thanks to a heavily financed counter-media, propaganda, and disinformation campaign aimed at soft-soaping the Lebanon-based, Iranian-Syrian-supported terrorist organization as simply a Lebanese political party with guns; and – as a part of that campaign – discrediting or destroying anyone who might aggressively take Hizballah to task.
Former U.S. Homeland Security chief Michael Chertoff said, “We know there are people who have raised money for Hizballah, and committed crimes to generate profits for Hizballah. What I can’t tell you is how many of those people would lay down the moneymaking and actually carry out an attack.”
Nevertheless, we know Hizballah is in the U.S., and their substantial presence – and freedom-of-movement – throughout Latin America is increasing “almost exponentially,” so-say some of our sources.
Chertoff has said, Hizballah “makes al Qaeda look like a minor league team.”
And Friday’s segment included a clip from a recent terrorist briefing by New York City’s deputy police commissioner (also NYPD intelligence chief) David Cohen, who warned those in the briefing that Hizballah “is probably the most capable and disciplined terrorist organization in the world.”
Global terrorism expert Dr. Walid Phares said, “A success of the uprising inside Iran – against the regime – may compel the regime, actually, to deflect attention from events inside Iran, and order strikes inside the United States. And have Hizballah cells deliver that strike.”
The FOX segment also mentioned Hizballah’s annual income of $ one-billion Iranian petrodollars, for its service as an Iranian foreign legion. Again, we – including Dr. Phares and a very small minority of analysts with very deep sources of accurate information – have been reporting this estimated $ billion for at least two years: As was predicted Gen. Michel Sleiman’s ascension to the Lebanese presidency (long before he was even considered). As was predicted 48-hours prior that Hizballah was going to launch a widespread military offensive against the legitimate government of Lebanon in May 2008. I could go on and on.
As one Middle East analyst mused in an email Friday, “Why the administration is not educating the public about Hizballah – and why the media does not dedicate as much time to explaining the Hizballah threat as it does Al Qaeda – is beyond comprehension.”
See FOX segment here.
— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.
Trans Atlantic Legislators gather to discuss Jihadist Terrorism
Posted by editor on 17 September 2009 at 9:23 pm UTC
BY WALID PHARES
Next week, an important summit will be held by a number of legislators from the European Parliament, the U.S. Congress and the Canadian Parliament to discuss “Al Qaeda’s and other Jihadi forces’ campaigns worldwide against democracies.” The closed meeting, to take place in the U.S., is sponsored by the newly formed “Transatlantic Group on Counter Terrorism (TAG),” launched in Washington and Brussels last year.
TAG was launched in the winter of 2008 by Members of the European Parliament, led by MEP Jaime Mayor Oreja, vice chairman for Policy of the EPP Group at the European Parliament (present majority party) and members from both parties of the U.S. Congress, led by Representative Sue Myrick, co-chair of the Anti-Terrorism Caucus in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The goal of TAG is to create a working relationship between legislators from Europe and the United States (North America) to address terrorism and the threat it poses to democracies.
The founding leaders of TAG, members of U.S. Congress and the European Parliament (UK, Spain, Czech Republic, Finland, Sweden) in 2008:
The first TAG summit was held April 30, 2008, in Washington, DC, where participants signed a joint declaration of principles. The Third summit of TAG will take place in Brussels. The Second summit to be held in Washington is comprised of meetings between U.S. members and senators and members of the European parliament as well as one member of the Canadian Parliament to discuss issues surrounding Jihadi terrorism and radical Islamists.
These meetings are important steps in forming a strong counterterrorism trans-Atlantic partnership. It will allow legislators on both sides of the Atlantic to share insights and best practices, as well as talk about how democracies can address terror threats, not only as individual countries, but as an international community.
The European delegation will include MEPs from France, Spain, Netherlands, Hungary, Germany, Italy, Austria, Bulgaria, Portugal, Romania, Sweden and the United Kingdom. The North American delegation will include a Canadian MP and members of the U.S. Congress.
The subjects to be addressed, are divided in three categories:
1) Terrorism and International Relations: Ideological Radicalization, the so-called “Islamophobia,” and the role of international organizations in mitigating extremism.
2) International Jihadist Threats: Discussion of the terror strategies and counter strategies in several areas such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, Iraq, Iran, Lebanon and Somalia. European and North American legislators will address and analyze these various issues in their respective realms.
3) “Trans Atlantic Threats” Discussion on new strategies being employed by terrorists and radical Islamists, and the counterterror strategies to combat them, inside Europe, Canada and the United States. European and American legislators will address and analyze these various issues in their respective realms.
A press conference will take place on the Hill to issue the resolutions. For more information contact: transatlanticgroup@gmail.com
Updates and material will be posted after the meeting
*******
Dr Walid Phares is a Co-Secretary General of the Trans Atlantic Legislative Group on Counter Terrorism
The Declaration of Principles of the Trans Atlantic Group Leadership as issued in 2008
Iranians target international journalist according to letter
Posted by editor on 10 September 2009 at 1:32 pm UTC
A letter received this week by the Beirut-based newspaper Almoharrer Alarabi – a copy of which we have obtained – details a death warrant issued by two Iranian generals to a junior Iranian military “information” officer directing the junior officer to “eliminate” Hamid Ghoriafi, the London-based senior correspondent for the Kuwaiti newspaper, Alseyassah (Al-Siyassa). Ghoriafi also writes for Almoharrer Alarabi.
The junior officer – who purportedly has strong ties to both Hizballah and the Syrian regime of Bashar Assad – holds Iranian and European citizenship papers.
We are presently withholding the names and other information of those involved, and we have learned that the letter has been made available to Lebanese security forces.
According to an English translation of the letter, the warrant was issued because, “Ghoriafi has a good relationship with Israeli intelligence through Lebanon’s MP Marwan Hamadéh [a Lebanese Druze]. Hamadéh supplies Ghoriafi with information regarding the International tribunal, so Ghoriafi can sell it to Alseyassah.”
If true, this would not be the first time the Iranian-Syrian-Hizballah axis has threatened, attempted to kill, or killed journalists in Lebanon. In the wake of the assassination of former Lebanese prime minister Rafik Hariri in 2005, journalists Samir Kassir and Gebran Tueni were killed by car bombs. And TV anchorwoman May Chidiac was severly wounded in a similar terrorist attack.
According to one source close to Ghoriafi, “he was targeted in 1984 by a Syrian Intelligence unit operating in Cyprus” in a marginally reported assassination attempt in which his driver was killed. And of course, an assassination attempt – believed to be the work of Syria – was made against Alseyassah’s editor-in-chief Ahmad al-Jarallah on Dec. 11, 2003.
“The next day, three more letter-bombs, all sent from Lebanon, were intercepted by the Kuwaiti authorities,” according to the United Nations’ Reporters Without Borders Annual Report in 2004. “Their targets were journalists Nasser al-Utaybi (of Alseyassah) and Abdallah Muhammad al-Shaykh (Al-Qabas) and Kuwaiti Writers Association secretary-general Abdallah al-Khalaf (Al-Watan).”
Any attempt made against the life of Ghoriafi – a British citizen living in London, whom we quoted on Aug. 28 – would immediately result in “names being named” according to a Lebanese source. Another, an American counterterrorism analyst, says, “The letter has already been circulated and obtained by Lebanese justice officials, so any such attack will force action by the international criminal tribunal against the Iranians and Hizballah.”
Details forthcoming.
— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.
Posted by editor on 5 September 2009 at 3:47 pm UTC
By W. Thomas Smith Jr.
[Lt. Michael E. Thornton, U.S. Navy SEALs]
Whoever believes, “All men are created equal,” never stood face-to-face with Michael E. Thornton.
Of course, I’m being facetious: All men are indeed created equal in the eyes of God and the law. But I do stand by what I’ve been saying for years: That is, retired Navy SEAL and Medal of Honor recipient Mike Thornton could walk into any fraternity house in the country and instantly be the biggest, baddest man in the house. No exaggeration, and the guy is 60-years-old.
As I wrote last year, I’ve known Mike for about 15 years (now 16). I met him even before that (though he doesn’t remember the meeting) when I was a young Marine lance corporal in the mid-1980’s and Mike was a war-seasoned Navy SEAL officer wearing – above his myriad decorations – the loftiest American military award for valor, the Medal of Honor.
In the years since, I’ve written about Mike, spoken with him on national security issues, broken bread with him, and more recently discussed with him the forthcoming Medal of Honor Society’s 2010 convention to be held in Charleston, S.C. (the state from which Mike and I both hail).
This week, Mike – who now lives in Texas – was back home in S.C. where we met today in Columbia at a local Starbuck’s to discuss the convention and other things.
Mike walks-in wearing shorts, flip-flops, a garnet (Gamecock colored) golf shirt, a gold Medal of Honor ring, a wristband made of African deer horn, and a pair of Oakley sunglasses.
To say the guy is fit – though he says he’s not – is an understatement. Mike says his knees are bad, and he plans to get down to his fighting weight of 218 lbs. But at 258 lbs. he’s all chest, back, and shoulders; which may be the reason he continues to be able to knock out 100 push-ups, 100 sit-ups, and 20 pull-ups everyday. He also swims a lot (all SEALs do). And he used to be able to bench-press 400 lbs., though he never regularly trained with weights.
When it comes to energy, he has no equal. With Mike, it’s non-stop. All week, he’s been traveling around the state, not wasting a single hour, wining, dining, lunching, breakfasting, office-meeting, emailing, and phone-chatting with friends, family, reporters, military veterans, and potential convention donors. His schedule is outrageously tight, but he refuses no one.
“Mike’s a piece of work,” mutual friend and attorney Woody Cleveland (syndicated columnist Kathleen Parker’s husband) says. “Don’t we wish we all had that?”
The “that” Woody speaks of is Mike’s combination of physical strength, energy, and tenacity, which are also the things that saved Mike’s life – and the lives of two others (his commanding officer, SEAL Lt. Thomas R. Norris, and a South Vietnamese commando) – nearly 37-years-ago.
On Halloween 1972, Mike was with a joint American-South Vietnamese SEAL Team operating along the Qua Viet River in North Vietnam when the team was discovered and quickly surrounded by an enemy force that outnumbered them at least 10 to one.
Mike was wounded in the ensuing five-hour extremely close firefight.
The good guys tried to escape by fighting their way back to the beach. But when they regrouped near the water’s edge, Mike was informed by another team-member that Norris had been killed.
So Mike did the unthinkable: he raced back toward the enemy through a hailstorm of gunfire and grenades across several-hundred-yards to Norris’s last known position. There he found his commander’s seemingly lifeless form, shot in the head, and two enemy soldiers standing over him.
Mike killed the two soldiers, lifted Norris onto his shoulders, and doubled-back, dodging enemy bullets and grenades as well as incoming friendly Naval gunfire from the offshore USS Newport News.
When he hit the water, Mike tied Norris to his body and started swimming. Rounds were zinging past his head and zipping into the water all around him. When he saw one of the South Vietnamese commandos shot in the hip and unable to swim, Mike grabbed him too. Then – with both men strapped to his body – he swam for more than two hours before the three wounded men were rescued.
For his actions, Mike received the Medal of Honor.
Did he think he was going to die?
“I didn’t have time to think about it,” he said sipping a Starbuck’s dark-roast blend with a shot of espresso. “What I did know is that if I had left Tommy, I would have never been able to live with myself.”
And therein lies two of Mike’s other attributes – humility and a desire to sacrifice himself for his fellow man – two ingredients found in all 95 living recipients of the Medal of Honor, and their deceased 3,351 brothers and one sister (Civil War surgeon Mary Walker, whose Medal was rescinded and reinstated).
In Sept. 2010, America will pay tribute to its Medal of Honor recipients at the Medal of Honor Society’s national convention in Charleston, just down the road from where Mike and I met for coffee. What I find particularly interesting is that many of those planning and raising money for the event are the recipients themselves. And they’re doing it not for themselves, but to make sure the convention is a huge success and that it pays equal tribute to every single American soldier, sailor, airman, Marine, and Coast Guardsman serving today.
So, yes, Mike may be the biggest, baddest man in the house. But like his 94 fellow living-recipients, he’s also the most humble and self-sacrificing.
— Visit W. Thomas Smith Jr. at uswriter.com.
NOTE: The opinions expressed in these articles are solely those of the author, and do not represent the opinions of World Defense Review and its affiliates. WDR accepts no responsibility whatsoever for the accuracy or inaccuracy of the content of this or any other story published on this website. Copyright and all rights for this story (and all other stories by the author) are held by the author.
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