Twelfth Bough

i run my own damn think tank

Archive for February, 2010

linking Hezbollah into the TBA

Feb 22

Posted by A. Peasant in Banks, Corruption & Crime, Human Trafficking, Latin America, Lebanon, Mind-fucking, TBA | No Comments

1. Feds link 3 Miami-Dade businessmen to alleged Hezbollah front in Paraguay — Tri-Border Area. Narrative: Lebanon –> Hezbollah –> South American –>Terrorism against The West. Note US Treasury (ie: Goldman Sachs) ban, that will help tie to Iran. Note that the US just makes designations, and that is all that’s required. then the accused can fit into the pre-defined terrorist designated box by doing something as diabolical as “operating retail businesses” in a mall that the US government has unilaterally designated as a funding arm for Hezbollah, an organization with democratically-elected representatives in the Lebanese government. it’s just semantics.

Federal agents have arrested three South Florida businessmen accused of exporting video games and other electronic products to a shopping mall in Paraguay that allegedly served as a front to finance the terrorist group Hezbollah, according to federal authorities.  The Miami-Dade businessmen arrested late Thursday, Khaled T. Safadi, Ulises Talavera and Emilio Gonzalez-Neira, appeared in federal court Friday to face charges related to a Treasury Department ban on doing business with the black-listed militia and political organization based in Lebanon.

…According to an indictment, the three Miami-Dade businessmen are accused of exporting hundreds of thousands of dollars’ worth of PlayStation 2 video games and digital cameras to a shopping center called Galeria Page in Paraguay. The U.S. government has designated the mall as a funding arm of Hezbollah.

Galeria Page, located in Ciudad del Este, serves as a Hezbollah fundraising source in Argentina, Brazil and Paraguay, according to a Treasury Department press statement issued in December 2006. It is considered the central headquarters for Hezbollah members in the region.

Hezbollah members operate retail businesses in Galeria Page to support Hezbollah, according to the press release. Muhammad Yusif Abdallah, a manager of Galeria Page, paid a regular quota to Hezbollah based on profits he received from the mall, the statement says. In the Dec. 6, 2006, release, the Treasury Department’s Office of Foreign Assets Control said the mall was part of a South American network that aided Assad Ahmad Barakat, who has been on the U.S. terrorist blacklist since 2004.

more @ miami dade news

2. more details from naharnet

The shopping center, Galeria Page in Ciudad del Este, Paraguay, was included on the banned list in December 2006 along with owner Mohammed Yosusef Abdallah. Abdallah is described as a senior Hizbullah leader in a region of South America long considered a haven for counterfeiting, smuggling, piracy and other crimes….According to the indictment, the three men ran companies that used the Port of Miami to move goods including Sony Playstation video game consoles, digital cameras and other items that eventually wound up at the Paraguay destination. About $1 million in exports were identified by ICE, the FBI, Treasury officials and other investigators with Miami’s Joint Terrorism Task Force.

The men allegedly used fake invoices, false addresses and phony names to mask the true destination of the goods. The companies involved also were indicted. John Morton, assistant Homeland Security secretary for ICE, said the arrests will disrupt a network involved in “the illicit trade of commodities that support terrorist activities and ultimately threaten the national security of the United States.”(AP)

more @ naharnet


3. is the Tri-Border Area a “haven for counterfeiting, smuggling, piracy and other crimes” such as HUMAN TRAFFICKING? oh yes. indeed. it is also a haven for local, federal and international agencies, including lots of CIA people. Go Figure.

from my post on this area the other day:

A tourist destination, with beautiful hotels. Many tourists come to see the Igauzu falls. But hey, there’s really nothing to worry about because the place is crawling with feds and agency people, including CIA, on account of all the Arab terrorists there, so relax! Who would dare do any illegal trafficking with all these law enforcement people around?

Immigration officer Emilio Osses, who oversees one of the Argentine checkpoints in the area, said that contrary to popular belief, this is not the worst trafficking hotspot on Argentina’s border. He says that this tri-border area is heavily controlled — saturated with officers from at least eight local, federal and international agencies, including lots of CIA agents.
And it’s largely because of the intelligence community that there’s a lot of hype around the tri-border, he said. There is a large and important Arab population here, and it’s believed that the terrorist cells that bombed the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires had support in this area.

“That’s why it has this stigma of terrorism, corruption, and illegal trafficking,” Osses said. “In reality, the tri-border area suffers from propaganda.” But Osses goes on to admit that there’s a lot of room for illegal trafficking here. In the high season, 30,000 people per day cross the triple border — and that’s just at the official checkpoints. Like any border, much more of it is uncontrolled.

Jesus God, Mr. Osses. Do you think there’s a connection between all those agency people and the trafficking?

more @ twelfth bough

fitting the facts around the new policy in Afghanistan: reconciliation with Taliban?

Feb 22

Posted by A. Peasant in Afghanistan, Drug Trafficking, Military, NATO, The West | No Comments

1. Dutch govt falls apart over Afghanistan

THE HAGUE — Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende met Queen Beatrix on Monday to chart the way forward after his government collapsed over the Netherlands’s role in Afghanistan. Balkenende held 90 minutes of talks with the head of state at her working palace in The Hague early Monday, government spokeswoman Fridy van Hapert said.  Thereafter, the queen was to meet the leaders of the two Dutch houses of parliament, political party chiefs and the deputy president of the council of state advisory body.

…NATO had asked the Netherlands to extend its four-year-old mission, mainly in the southern Afghan province of Uruzgan, by a year to August 2011….The queen must now decide whether or not to accept the resignations and call early elections….If the queen accepts the resignations, as widely excepted, parliamentary elections will have to be brought forward. They had been scheduled for March next year.

more @ afp

2. Dutch troops to exit Afghanistan as planned — very small contingent of soldiers. the Dutch play some other role in the drama.

Following the collapse of his cabinet, Dutch Prime Minister Jan Peter Balkenende says he expects his country’s troops to leave Afghanistan as planned….Around 1,600 Dutch troops have been stationed in southern Afghanistan since 2006. According to their mandate they should have returned home in 2008, but their deployment was extended by two years since no other NATO member state offered replacements.

more @ press tv

3. last week: NATO (supposedly) flabbergasted, this will play into the hands of the Taliban. (wink wink?)

This is not the first time Nato is amazed and annoyed by the Dutch political approach to Afghanistan. At a time when practically all Nato members have committed to sending more troops, the Netherlands is trying to abandon its mission in Uruzgan. At a press conference in October, Rasmussen said the Netherlands would play into the hands of the Taliban if it left….But most worried about how to proceed if the Dutch cabinet does take a dive.

more here

4. earlier this month: Taliban will negotiate, but path fraught with risk. if only there were some way to get everyone to the table so we can be one big happy family again…..there must be so much drug money to make there that it outweighs the ongoing war profiteering.

LONDON (Reuters) - Unthinkable a year ago and still officially beyond the pale, the idea of a political role for Taliban leaders in Afghanistan is creeping onto the agenda as war-weary governments seek to bring an end to an unpopular war.

Some say this could open the door for negotiations if the Taliban think they can secure a better settlement through talks than by waiting for U.S.-led troops to leave and then fighting their way to power through a renewed civil war. “The Taliban know they can’t take over the country. They would be presiding over a country with persistent and perennial poverty and civil war. So they would like to negotiate,” said one diplomat involved in discussions about Afghanistan.

…Many analysts say talks would need to involve Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar — condemned in the West for his refusal to hand over al Qaeda leaders after the September 11, 2001 attacks. ..And the price for a settlement could be high as far as the west is concerned — for example the rehabilitation of Mullah Omar as supreme leader of Afghanistan — even if not directly running the government.The Taliban for their part are expected to come under pressure from Pakistan to negotiate to try to end a war which has increasingly spilled over from Afghanistan. …Washington says many Taliban leaders including Mullah Omar are based in Pakistan. And while Pakistan has far less leverage over the Taliban than it had when it nurtured them in the 1990s, it could still make life hard for them if they refused to talk.Rather like the secret talks between then U.S. National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger and the North Vietnamese which tried, and ultimately failed, to secure an honorable exit from Vietnam, any negotiations would be long and easily derailed. They would also be fraught with risk for both the United States and the Taliban. Any hint of compromise could unleash a public backlash in the United States, as well as alienate the Taliban’s own fighters and supporters…. U.S. special envoy Richard Holbrooke said Sunday there had been no direct, secret contacts with the Taliban, but said Washington recognized the importance of reconciliation.

more @ reuters

5. oh ho HO, pakistan capture top Taliban with info provided by Mullah Omar’s second in command

Netting another big catch, Pakistan’s security agencies have captured a top Afghan Taliban leader following information provided by Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, Mullah Omar’s second in command.

Mulvi Kabir, former Taliban governor in Afghanistan’s Nangahar Province, and a key figure in the Taliban regime was recently captured in Pakistan, Fox News reported. The arrest is one of the few big catches after Baradar, who is Taliban’s number two leader. Considered to be among the top 10 most wanted Taliban leaders, Kabir was apprehended in Nawshera district of Pakistan’s Northwest Frontier Province by Pakistani police forces in recent days, the Fox news said.

A senior US military official called it a significant detention, it said, adding that the arrest of Kabir is based on the intelligence gathered from Baradar. Besides Kabir, two other top Taliban leaders have been arrested in recent days. Pakistani agencies arrested Mullah Salam of Afghanistan’s Kunduz province and Mullah Mohammad, who reportedly controlled the Baghlan province recently. The two are considered to be among the most important captures Pakistan has made in relation to the Taliban in Afghanistan since the war began in 2001.

mid-day

6. US supporting Afghan warlord

Kalagush—The United States is helping an Afghan warlord and former enemy to take control of a district bordering Pakistan, military officers and independent experts say. The strategy to back Mullah Sadiq as effective ruler of Kamdesh district in eastern Nuristan province is part of a wider attempt to bring stability to the country so international forces can leave. Sadiq is a former commander of the militant Hizb-e-Islami group, responsible for years of attacks on coalition and Afghan troops, as well as civilians. US support for Sadiq — who has said he wants to ally with President Hamid Karzai’s government against the Taliban — is causing friction between US foreign policy staff in Afghanistan and the military.

Senior officers said Sadiq could swing Nuristani people behind Karzai and provide a prototype breakthrough in the battle against the Taliban insurgency. But US state department officials and independent experts fear Sadiq wants a temporary alliance with US troops to defeat local Taliban factions before taking over the mountainous border province as a personal fiefdom.

Commander Russell McCormack, military head of Nuristan’s Provincial Reconstruction Team (PRT), said the US must work with Sadiq. “He is influential, intelligent and he uses diplomacy and true Islam — rather than the barbaric form that the Taliban professes,” McCormack told AFP at Kalagush, the only US base in Nuristan. …The plan is part of a new counter-insurgency strategy to instil public confidence in Karzai’s government and bring an end to the war.

…With the US withdrawal to begin in July 2011, Karzai last month launched a bid for “reconciliation” with mainstream insurgents. The tactic is also being tested further south in Helmand province where 15,000 US, NATO and Afghan troops are on the offensive in Marjah, a region controlled for years by Taliban and drug traffickers.

more @ pak observer

where is the absolute last place you’d think to look?

Feb 21

Posted by A. Peasant in Children, Corruption & Crime, Organ Trafficking, Sabbateans, Symbolism | No Comments

the “blue star of life”
Designed by Leo R. Schwartz, Chief of the EMS Branch, National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), the “Star of Life” was created after the American National Red Cross complained in 1973 that they objected to the common use of an Omaha orange cross on a square background of reflectorized white which clearly imitated the Red Cross symbol. NHTSA investigated and felt the complaint was justified. (source)

^^^^^^^

Car accidents, organ trafficking, and corruption:

Motor vehicle accidents are one of the principal sources of corpses whose organs can be harvested. The victims are normally young, healthy, and usually die from head injuries, leaving transplantable organs intact. A March 2004 Los Angeles Times op-ed piece referred to the scandal in 1997, wherein the Los Angeles coroner’s office was found to have sold more than 500 pairs of corneas in one year to the Doheny Eye Tissue Transplant Bank. The coroner’s office received up to $335 per pair of corneas, which Doheny resold at $3,400 per pair.

In March 2004, the Director of the Willed Body Program at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) was arrested for the illegal sale of body parts from cadavers that had been donated to UCLA for research. The body parts dealer indicted in the case said he had paid $700,000 for the opportunity to go into UCLA’s freezer and take parts from as many as 800 cadavers. It has been estimated that a single cadaver has a potential market value of $200,000.

^^^^^^^

“Four transplants were scheduled for that day [at an unnamed Manhattan hospital - ed], a nurse on the surgical team told me, not including unscheduled organ recoveries that might lead to transplants in other locations.”
(http://thejewishstar.wordpress.com/2009/09/09/teacher-student-transplant-a-success/)

^^^^^^^

“Under the guise of adoption, children who are allegedly afflicted by grave diseases are taken out of Azerbaijan, ostensibly for treatment…In the course of our investigations, it has come to light that these children are used for organ transplants, but we have no hard evidence,” Azerbaijan National Security Minister Namiq Abbasov, as reported by the BBC in 2004

^^^^^^^

Lakewood NJ Hatzolah ambulance
Lakewood was once known as the resort in the pines for wealthy New Yorkers in the 1800s and early 1900s. The Rockefellers and Goulds built mansions there. The township has a large Orthodox Jewish population and has one of the largest yeshivas in the world, Beth Medrash Govoha.

“If something illegal is going on, this (street) would be the perfect place to hide,” said Finkle, an NJ Transit engineer who owns his home.

In recent decades, the population has become more mixed. Some sections of Lakewood have been plagued by troubles with drugs and gangs.

(source)

^^^^^^^

Gangs? You mean, people who shoot someone for dissing their peeps?

August 23, 2009: http://matzav.com/lakewood-hatzolah-volunteer-gets-ticketed-at-scene-of-accident

Reb Daniel Engelson, veteran Hatzolah member of Lakewood Hatzolah, was ticketed today by a Lakewood Police Officer upon arriving at the scene of an accident in the late afternoon at the corner of Seventh Street and Clifton Avenue where a pedestrian had been hit. The officer, Patrolman John Wilson, was aboard one of the Township’s newly acquired police bikes when he stopped Rabbi Engelson, and ticketed him for not adhering to the officer’s instructions to move his car.

Reb Daniel, an expert paramedic who hails from Flatbush, Brooklyn, had driven up in his own vehicle, with his blue roof-top siren on, when the officer alleged that the Hatzolah volunteer had pulled too far into the intersection.

Matzav.com spoke with a local volunteer paramedic who says that the ticket will be disputed and that the police should have used better judgment in administering a summons to a Hatzolah volunteer responding to a call.

Officer Wilson radioed in the violation and was accompanied shortly thereafter by another officer. Reb Daniel was accompanied by veteran Hatzolah member Avi Braude who also responded to the call.

Despite the strange turn of events, Reb Daniel was calm and collected, acted with utmost respect, and accepted the summons from the officer. Matzav.com is told that an investigation will be conducted into the incident.

Are you getting all that? This officer should have used “better judgement” in administering a ticket to a Hatzolah guy. Meaning: he shouldn’t have dared. What a “strange turn of events,” to be subjected to such insubordination by a city police officer. Reb Daniel displayed such profound restraint in the face of such an outrage.

^^^^^^^

If you want to know what racial superiority looks like, read the comment thread. If you want to see people out of control and detached from reality, experiencing themselves as completely separate from all other people, and superior, and untouchable, and totally resentful having to deal with the “other,” read the comment thread. If you want to see a threatening, menacing, escalating, totally unreasonable gang mentality, read the comment thread.

1. Comment from Shwekey
Time August 23, 2009 at 9:07 PM

A bad day gets worse for Lakewood Police.

4. Comment from Rosh Yeshiva
Time August 23, 2009 at 9:17 PM

ANyone have a number we can call to complain?


5. Comment from krep
Time August 23, 2009 at 9:19 PM

I passed by just as the whole thing happened. the officer made the Hatzolah guy get into his car to move it before even letting him go to the person who was hit to treat him! I couldn’t believe it. whoever was there, said what?! what are you nuts? cause the guy is an inch over the line?

this cop should be fired.


13. Comment from Wow
Time August 23, 2009 at 10:46 PM

Now that you have a badge number,whats next?Call and make death threats.Demand that he be fired.why not just go to court and dispute the ticket.and do things the right way.If it was goy would you really carehow or why he got the ticket.


14. Comment from Normal
Time August 23, 2009 at 11:23 PM

Although we are in Galus, this is an issue of Pikuach Nefashos and it is time that we put our foot down and draw a line in the sand…. We must use our strength not only to get variances and stadiums for the local Tutzach’s… I, for one am not impressed with seeing the police chief wearing his Yarmulkah at every Hachnosas Sefer torah and dancing with the local politician at a Chasunah… Let him be at every Hatzoloh call and teach his officers some decency


15. Comment from Not A Rabbi
Time August 23, 2009 at 11:48 PM

Everybody posting here just better be careful what they say. Think what you want in the confines of your own head…but whatever you type here is for the rest of the world to read and make assumptions about the frum community. Just remember that.
It appears as though the hatzola member handled the situation exactly right: he acted like a mentch and not like this town belongs to him! Being in the right does not validate chilul hashem. Thank you.

16. Comment from Anonymous
Time August 23, 2009 at 11:54 PM

I would not worry about this menck creep whoever he is. My friends always say what goes around comes around. One day a jerk like this will pull over someone and he will provoke a guy who is armed and he will get three bullets in the head and all this will be over.

Don’t worry it’s just a matter of time before he steps on the wrong guy and he will get his own beatings and taste of his own meeicine.


18. Comment from Anonymous
Time August 24, 2009 at 12:10 AM

Please correct the post. Mr. Engelson is an EMT- not a paramedic.
Also regardless of the incident with R’ Burztyn, please do not confuse Officer Menck with Oficer Wilson. Eric Menck is an aggresive cop & is always willing to jump in and assist hatzolah members on a call. He is the type of cop who likes to get down and dirty. I doubt if he would tie himself up worrying how hatzolah members park their cars. Wilson on the other hand stands around wondering why we need so many jews with flashing lights showing up. As far as he’s concerned throw the patient in back of the rig & let’s clear up traffic.


19. Comment from amazing
Time August 24, 2009 at 12:51 AM

the cop should be charchrd and arested
for 2nd degree man killing
and 1st degree endangering a humans life
this police man is pure wicked

24. Comment from brenda
Time August 24, 2009 at 10:47 AM

While the Hatzolah member is a true mentch the way he behaved. It was truly very cruel of  officer williams to withold seconds or minutes of treatment for the accident victim. I think Lakewood should make sure it never happens again

26. Comment from Shomo Heiny
Time August 24, 2009 at 3:21 PM

I was there, the facts being presented are incorrect. The officer was not wrong

^^^^^^^

A month later, September 24, 2009:

4 NJ police officers shot serving an arrest warrant in Lakewood

LAKEWOOD, N.J. - A Lakewood, New Jersey shootout during a raid left a police officer with a bullet wound in his face. Four officers were injured in the early morning incident. Police say the officers were serving a no-knock narcotics and weapons warrant at around 2:25 a.m. when Jamie Gonzalez, 39, opened fire. He was also shot multiple times.
Patrolman John Wilson was shot in the face and Lieutenant Gregory Meyers was shot in the foot.
At a news conference Thursday morning authorities said that Wilson is expected to recover. He was described as communiative and in good spirits. His family was at the hospital with him.
Meyers was still being treated for the foot injury.
…The shooting comes more than two months after Jersey City police Det. Marc DiNardo was shot in the face storming an apartment where two armed robbery suspects were holed up.

…and one month after some anonymous poster predicted that Officer Wilson would meet this sort of fate, because he had the audacity to ask a Hatzolah guy to move his car. But I’m sure that is just a coincidence.

^^^^^^^

Who is Jamie Gonzalez?

LAKEWOOD — They converged on the Lakewood neighborhood in the deep end of night. Police officers, state troopers and federal agents carried with them a “no-knock” warrant and a battering ram, the better to surprise their target, suspected gun trafficker Jamie Gonzalez, a man who was to be considered dangerous.

After today’s shooting, Gov. Jon Corzine condemned what he called “another horrible act of violence” against New Jersey’s law enforcement community. “This senseless action underscores the dangers our police officers face every day in the line of duty as they protect New Jerseyans,” Corzine said. “My thoughts and prayers are with the Lakewood officers and their families at this critical time.”

…Ford released little about the investigation’s origins, saying only that it involved guns and drugs and that it was “big enough to attract the attention” of a joint task force that included Lakewood police, State Police and members of the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives. The .357 Magnum was reported stolen from South Carolina, the prosecutor said.

Police today were continuing a search of the house. A second person inside — a man whom authorities did not identity — was detained but not charged pending the investigation.

The four injured officers all are members of the department’s elite tactical unit. Colleagues described Wilson as a short, muscular and funny officer who loves working as a cop. “He laughs his way through the day,” Mooney said.

^^^^^^^

Who are these gangs you speak of? Oh, it’s the CHINESE.

Poste

logistical prowess: Part V: conclusions

Feb 20

Posted by A. Peasant in Haiti, Identities, Israel, Organ Trafficking, Sabbateans | No Comments

Some questions surround the timeline of ZAKA’s activities.

When did the ZAKA team depart for Mexico to get to the Moshe Saba Masri helicopter crash? The story given in most reports — that the ZAKA team arrived in Mexico from Tel Aviv on the morning of January 11th is, frankly, not possible given the other information reported.

One possibility is that the team left Israel on the afternoon of January 10th. However, the helicopter crashed on the evening of the same day, according to reports. So why would they leave for a crash that hadn’t occurred yet?

Another possibility is that they didn’t leave from Tel Aviv, but from a closer location. But if so, why lie?

Both possibilities imply they had foreknowledge.

Also, who was in the helicopter, and who or what was in the ambulance?

^^^^^^^

Quick and dirty timeline:

1/10/10 – 8pm? – Saba helicopter reportedly crashes in Mexico. Witnesses say it explodes mid-air, although the weather is cited (foggy and rainy). Another highly credible source says Saba didn’t leave NY until 3AM Sunday/Monday morning, putting their departure well after the crash time.

INDISPUTABLE FACT: Time in Israel + 8 hours, therefore it’s 4am in Israel (the next day) at the time of the reported 8pm crash in Mexico.
INDISPUTABLE FACT: Travel time Israel to Mexico is at least 18 hours on commercial flights.

1/11/10, am – ZAKA team reportedly arrives from Israel.

1/11/10, pm – ZAKA team reportedly leaves from Israel after meeting with rabbis and procuring instructions.

Pick One. Explain.


Part I: ZAKA in Mexico and the difference between five and six
Part II: Moshe Saba Masri, Mexican billionaire and Sephardi Jew
Part III: ZAKA and private ambulances
Part IV: ZAKA goes to Haiti

logistical prowess: Part I: ZAKA in Mexico and the difference between five and six

Feb 20

Posted by A. Peasant in Gatekeeping, Haiti, Hasbara, Identities, Israel, Mexico, Organ Trafficking, Sabbateans | No Comments

As I wrote the other day, a ZAKA team rushed to Haiti from Mexico, where they had been working the crash site of Moshe Saba’s (Moises Saba Masri) helicopter. The crash occurred on Sunday night, 1/10/10. News reports said nobody on the ground was hurt. Apparently there’s a deep ravine next to the house or the three story building or the billboard, or whatever the helicopter supposedly hit before bursting into flames while in the air, on on the ground, on the outskirts of Mexico City, in the foothills, in the fog, killing five or maybe six people.

responders at the crash site
it is nighttime

According to this source:
  • The family had arrived at the international airport in Toluca, 35 miles (55 kilometers) west of the capital, on a flight from New York City and was heading home to Mexico City.
  • Moreno said it was unusual for a helicopter to be flying in the area at night, especially since the foothills were covered in fog….”The question is who authorized the flight.”
  • No deaths or injuries were reported on the ground, even though Moreno said the craft sheared off a railing on the roof of a three-story home, then hit two parked cars and a tree before tumbling into a 65-foot-deep (20-meter-deep) creek bed. The wreckage covered a radius of 60 yards (meters) in the pine-clad hills on the city’s western edge.
  • Initial reports indicated another person had been on board, but Moreno confirmed there were only five.
Some reports said the remains were charred.

ZAKA team at the crash site
it is morning
“First photographs of ZAKA volunteers at Mexico helicopter crash site” (source)
ZAKA volunteers arrived from Israel in the morning, local time, and went straight to the crash scene to carry out their sacred work of collecting all human remains for burial. The four-man delegation from Israel is working with other ZAKA volunteers from the US and Mexico.

ZAKA arrived Monday morning, local time, from Israel. Quite the feat, actually, considering that if you left Israel at night and traveled non-stop, it would still take a good 18 hours or so to get to Mexico. Also quite the feat since Israel is eight hours ahead of Mexico, which means it was early morning in Israel when the crash happened, which means they could not have left at night to arrive in the morning. Anyway, I’m not sure why they would send a team from Israel when ZAKA is an international organization with offices in Brooklyn, New York. But I’m sure they have their reasons.

Or, maybe they actually came from the United States. But why lie about coming from Israel? Just to make it extra dramatic? Or, possibly, to cover up some sort of foreknowledge? Sometimes Israeli lies seem almost gratuitous, as though there’s no good reason except that it’s fun, and it doesn’t matter, and anything can be ignored or denied if necessary, and it makes the story sound better.

Zaka Spokesman Moti Bukchin said the rescue organization would send out a delegation Monday afternoon to Mexico via the United States in order to assist in identifying the bodies of the victims. The delegation will be joined by Rabbi Ovadia Yosef’s son, Rabbi David Yosef, as the personal delegate of the Shas leader. (Ynet, Reuters story, dated Monday 1/11/10)

^^^^^^^

About ZAKA (wikipedia):

ZAKA (Identification and Rescue - True Kindness): ZAKA is a non-governmental volunteer agency responsible for rescue, life saving and recovery. Members work alongside law enforcement and emergency personnel when responding to incidents of terrorism, accidents, or disasters. It is a humanitarian agency, mostly made up of Haredi Jews who assume the duty of collecting human remains to provide those remains a proper Jewish burial, known as Chesed Shel Emet, “True Virtue.” ZAKA is an international organization, with offices in Israel and New York, and has dispatched volunteers to disasters throughout the world. The Israeli government recognizes ZAKA as part of the security apparatus, because volunteers are trained by the Israel Police and Magen David Adom.

See this ZAKA newsletter from December 2009 (http://www.zaka.org.il/newzaka/2009/newszaka12ebg.pdf) to read all about ZAKA’s latest feats, including plans to establish a ZAKA International Rescue Unit in Buenos Aires, Argentina. Also see the ZAKA website: (http://www.zaka.us/index.asp).

“This shared fate of the two peoples is reflected in the word Jerusalem, which has the letters USA at its center.” - Yehuda Meshi-Zahav, at the 9/11 Manhattan Tribute to ZAKA and the FDNY

^^^^^^^

According to the story, Saba Masri was killed in a crash along with five other people. That would be six total. As noted above, “Initial reports indicated another person had been on board, but Moreno confirmed there were only five.”

Another story here also says a total of five people died. CNN also says: five people. A few other stories along the way mention six. It varies from source to source.

Experience tells us, however, not to ignore initial reports.
Five people, six people… what’s the difference? The difference is a human being. Does that person exist or not? Or is the person being erased? And if so, why?
What happens when we lose track of people? Criminals get away with murder. Each person has a life, and a story. The people who get erased are the very people whose lives and stories we need to know.
So yes, it matters whether there were five people or six people. It’s what we call A FACT. We reality-based people are really into FACTS.

The ZAKA team went straight to the crash site in the morning, presumably marching into an ongoing investigation led by the local emergency services who had been on the scene since the night before.


An ambulance leaves the scene of a helicopter crash near Mexico City, Mexico, on Sunday night.” (CNN)
(Is that a city ambulance, or a private ambulance?)
Who was in the ambulance? Nobody was hurt on the ground, and ZAKA arrived in the morning to collect body parts, so what was the ambulance doing? Taking bodies to the morgue? That is what we might expect — that the emergency personnel at the crash site all night would have removed the bodies to the morgue. Therefore, by the time ZAKA would arrive the next day, what work would they need to do at the crash site?

Let’s not forget that Israel classifies ZAKA as part of the state security apparatus.

Maybe they show up to collect evidence and pay off local officials to say things like, “there were only five bodies” after initial reports had already mentioned six. ???

Ynet, who also reported six bodies, published this photo, courtesy of ZAKA. In other words, the news agency got the political file photo from the “non-governmental volunteer agency responsible for rescue, life saving, and recovery.” Doesn’t that seem a little odd?

Saba Masri family with Bill Clinton

logistical prowess: Part II: Moshe Saba Masri, Mexican billionare and Sephardi Jew

Feb 20

Posted by A. Peasant in Haiti, Hasbara, Identities, Israel, Organ Trafficking, Religion, Sabbateans | No Comments

Would someone want Saba Masri dead?

Maybe. He had a lot of different business interests, and he definitely locked horns with a few people along the way.
  • Saba Masri, 46, did not participate in his family’s main business, pharmaceuticals distributor Grupo Casa Saba.
  • Instead, he struck out as an investor in diverse areas, including telephones, Internet service and real estate.
  • In 2007 he made an unsuccessful bid for a government-held stake in one of the country’s two main airlines, Aeromexico. [He lost in a fierce bidding war against Citigroup.]
  • Saba Masri was an early investor in TV Azteca, Mexico’s second-largest network, and in the Unefon telephone company, where he sold his stake in 2007.
  • He owned a stake in at least one hotel in the Pacific coast resort of Acapulco.
  • The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission charged him in 2004 with manipulative securities trading, though the charges were later dismissed.
  • Last year, he angered movie fans and preservationists in Mexico City when his development company tore down a landmark movie theater to build an office tower.
Also: “He once entered negotiations to acquire Israel’s Channel 10, but the deal ultimately did not go through.“

His profile brings to mind two other successful media moguls who have recently been assassinated: Jamim Shah and Costis Hadjicostis. All three men exhibited something of an independent streak.

^^^^^^^

Saba Masri was returning from a trip to New York with his family. They had attended a family engagement party.

Highly-credible sources tell YWN that they had just returned from Flatbush, Brooklyn, where his brother had just made an engagement party at their home on Avenue S - in the Syrian Community. They had spend Shabbos in Flatbush, attended the party on Motzei Shabbos, and flew back to Mexico via airplane on Sunday. After landing, they transferred from a plane to chopper. A private jet left NYC for Mexico at approximately 3:30AM on Sunday night/Monday morning with family members, and at least one member of Flatbush Hatzolah [volunteer EMS -ed.] - a highly recognized Askan [Jewish lobbyist -ed.] in the Syrian community.
Hmm. A typo? This says the private jet left on Sunday night/Monday morning, and the crash happened (allegedly) just after 8pm Sunday night, so that doesn’t add up. But leaving that aside for the moment, since it implies that Saba Masri & family could not have been on the helicopter that crashed, since they would have still been in New York at the time…and that’s a little too weird to contemplate at the moment….

According to former Shas leader Rav Aryeh Deri, who described Saba Masri and his wife as humble people, Saba’s father was also supposed to take the helicopter from the airport to the home, but at the last minute, he decided to take his vehicle. He couldn’t remember why he decided to drive. (http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/article.php?p=44677)

According to a HaMevaser report, R’ Yitzchak telephoned Rav Ovadia Shlita after learning of the tragedy, broken and in pain, seeking guidance as what to do regarding his immeasurable loss and how to interpret his miracle, the decision not to travel on the chopper.

Weird. Also, spooky.
There is conflicting information about which family members were traveling with Saba Masri City authorities were not immediately available to confirm the information. According to Reuters, Saba Masri was flying with his family and Alberto Saba and Judith Humberto Casal. However, Notimex quoted Moreno Brizuela as saying the dead in addition to Saba Masri included Alberto Saba Jr. and Judith Adela Saba or Tauchi Casal and the helicopter’s pilot Capt. Armando Fernandez, while the sixth victim has not been identified. Reforma attributed to the security chief a statement that Alberto Saba Raffoul, Saba Masri’s father, was not in the helicopter and had not died.

^^^^^^^

Saba Masri was a Sephardi Jew, not an Ashkenazi Jew. The Ashkenazi Jews run the whole shebang in terms of the power structure. The way I understand it, Sephardi Jews have too close an affiliation to Arabs, and since Jews and Arabs must be diametrically opposed per the Ashkenazi narrative, that doesn’t leave much room for Sephardi Jews. They bend to the narrative to get some crumbs, or else they get nothing.

“The Sephardic religious party [Shas] was established in 1984 to counter a sense of social discrimination among Sephardic (Middle Eastern descent) religious Jews vis-a-vis Ashkenazis (European descent.)”  (source)

“Moshe Saba in conference with Sephardic Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar and Rav Yitzchak David Grossman. He didn’t make a move without rabbinic approval.”
“What was supposed to be a short, ten minute flight from the airport to their estate turned into the final tragic journey for billionaire philanthropist Moshe Saba and his family  — as their helicopter exploded in mid-air. Although much of his life was an enigma, Saba’s inner circle of confidants, including the family of Rav Ovadia Yosef, has begun to reveal little known aspects of the man who was the pillar of Mexico City’s Jewish Community. And although Moshe Saba never spoke to the media, he gave several exclusive interviews to Mishpacha’s Yossi Elituv. As the two of them once soared over the skies of Eretz Yisrael in another helicopter, Saba turned to him prophetically and said, “Each person has his time.”
Without reading these exclusive interviews, we can’t know whether Saba Masri would agree with views like this, expressed over the weekend by a Sephardic Rabbi: (http://www.israenationalnews.com/News/Flash.aspx/180521) [2/20: This article has been scrubbed from the web, since yesterday 2/19/10. - ed.]
Former Chief Rabbi Ovadia Yosef called Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad a modern Haman, equating him with the villain of the biblical Purim story. “Just like in the days of the first Haman, we have had Hamans in all the generations. Today we have a new Haman in Persia who is threatening us with his nuclear weapons. Their swords will strike their own hearts, and their bows will be destroyed,” Rabbi Yosef said.
These views might be genuine, or these views might be expressed to satisfy the Ashkenazi power structure. There’s no way to tell from here. [And as a little note for the curious, Purim will be from February 28-March 1, 2010; and Easter is on 4/4 this year.]

^^^^^^^

Of course, there’s also the matter of the Sephardic and Syrian Jew community caught up in the New Jersey organ trafficking ring last summer…(http://thejewishstar.wordpress.com/2009/07/29/after-arrests-sephardic-community-shudders/)

Last Thursday a decade-long FBI corruption probe in New Jersey and New York was wrapped up with the arrests of 44 men, including several prominent rabbis from the Syrian Jewish strongholds of Deal, N.J. and Brooklyn, N.Y. Most notable of all was Rabbi Saul Kassin, 87, of Cong. Shaare Zion on Ocean Parkway in Brooklyn. He is considered the leading rav of Syrian Jewry….The tight-knit medley of Sephardic Jews in Great Neck, who range from Iranian to Syrian and Afghani, were taking the news personally. …“All Jews, we’re part of the same family,” she said….Rabbi Arnold Marans of Sephardic Temple in Cedarhurst said the Sephardic community here is not “monolothic” and that his shul was European Sephardim and not close to the Syrian Jewish community.

Perhaps from inside Jewry, these divisions seem very sharp. But from the outside? Not so much.

And guess who else claimed to be part of the Sephardic community? Jorge Puello.

logistical prowess: Part III: ZAKA and private ambulances

Feb 20

Posted by A. Peasant in Gatekeeping, Haiti, Hasbara, Identities, Israel, Organ Trafficking | No Comments

In Part I, we learned that ZAKA is a non-governmental volunteer agency also considered part of Israel’s security services. They travel around the world to assist at accident and disaster sites and to collect Jewish remains for burial.

In Part II, we learned from highly credible Jewish sources (who use a lot of Jewish words that non-Jews have to look up), that Saba Masri left the Brooklyn New York Syrian community after a family engagement party, accompanied by his family members and at least one member of Flatbush Hatzolah.

Hatzolah means volunteer EMS.

This unnamed person is also, according to the source, a highly recognized Askan in the Syrian community.

Askan means Jewish lobbyist. (http://www.thekathrynreport.com/2010/01/tragedy-philanthropist-mogul-moises.html)

^^^^^^^

So, come to find out that some Jewish communities have their own ambulance services — Hatzolah! Like ZAKA, except local. Who knew?

This causes some problems, as you might imagine. (http://www.hashkafah.com/index.php?/topic/25286-is-hatzolah-necessary/)

I know many Hatzolah members are dedicated volunteers whose hearts are in the right place when they join this volunteer ambulance service, but really it is an organization that divides the Jewish communities from the rest of the people.

Hatzolah is not really needed, there are EMT’s that turn out of hospitals and FDNY EMT’s/Paramedics. I think the Jewish communities of NYC should really look inward and also then look at their gentile neighbors of this city and really consider how an all Jewish politically connected ambulance service looks to everyone else.

Regular civilians volunteering in this politically connected group getting free parking placards, immunity from summonses and sometimes arrest, and the fact that the overwhelming majority of the calls they go on are to assist Jews only.

…The city would run just fine without Hatzolah and there would not be conspiracy theories floating around about Hatzolah covering up child/spousal abuse or other things.

One response on that thread:

All other ethnic/racial/whatever groups are welcome to open and fund their own ambulance corps if they can’t control their jealousy. Conspirators can go screw themselves. Hatzalah has many local members, and their response time is a fraction of that of FDNY. Plus, their service is a hell of a lot better. All this with no burden on any reluctant taxpayers whose public education system we support. The hell with them.

That’s so nice.

Here is another thread full of righteous indignation when a police officer and a Hatzolah volunteer disagreed over street parking protocol. The general sense one gets is that the Hatzolah volunteers can do no wrong in the eyes of the Jewish communities, and those cops better watch out or some people might make a few phone calls, capice? (http://matzav.com/lakewood-hatzolah-volunteer-gets-ticketed-at-scene-of-accident)

^^^^^^^

But then, around September 2005, someone made corruption allegations against Flatbush Hatzalah, and there was a bit of a kerfuffle when a very official letter signed by four rabbis told people to stop discussing Hatzalah business on the internet because it is “destroying the organization in ways that we cannot elaborate in writing.” (http://tinypic.com/dha06w.jpg%5Dhttp://tinypic.com/dha06w.jpg) (also see: http://chaptzem.blogspot.com/2005/09/threat-letter-from-rabbonim-real-or.html)

And some discussion followed about whether or not this was a hoax, or justified, or what exactly it meant.

From the comments at the last url:

  • I personally called and they confirmed the letter is real.
  • screw the terror letter …thank god we have blogs where people can speak their mind AND TELL THE TRUTH on what is going on in a certain organization….. and by the way if nothing is wrong what are they afraid of ? I wonder.the bottom line is …. free speech is a right in America
  • within the org. there is enough censorship and snitching that to do it any other way would certainly end in our immediate expulsion from the org.
  • they (blog moderators - ed.) are responsible, mature members who also know the massive problems the org. has, and realize this is the only way to deal with it, as all other avenues have thus far (20+ years) have failed.
  • the issues they raise VERY real. and the site doesnt even begin to scratch the surface of the problems and politics within the organization. beyond this,you will have to read between the lines of the site and do some research for yourselves.
Such as…… ????



Then, last summer, the FBI arrested 44 people including some Flatbush rabbis in a giant corruption bust. And then began the organ trafficking discussion…and it all makes a bit more sense now, at least in theory.


“Levy Izhak Rosenbaum, 58, of Brooklyn, N.Y, is taken into the back of the federal courthouse in Newark on corruption charges. He is charged with trafficking in illegal kidneys.”
photo credit: Mitsu Yasukawa/The Star-Ledger

logistical prowess: part IV: ZAKA goes to Haiti

Feb 20

Posted by A. Peasant in Corruption & Crime, Haiti, Hasbara, Identities, Mexico, Organ Trafficking, Sabbateans | No Comments

The Saba Masri helicopter crash occurred on Sunday night, 1/10/10. The ZAKA team arrived at the site on Monday, 1/11/10. The Haiti earthquake happened on Tuesday, 1/12/10.

The ZAKA team was still in Mexico, so they went to Haiti.

Oddly enough, ZAKA had planned to establish an international rescue unit in Mexico that very same week! This report is dated 1/11/10. As we learned earlier, the ZAKA team was supposedly on the crash site the morning of 1/11/10. (http://www.theyeshivaworld.com/article.php?p=44611)

In a tragic and cruel twist of fate, the ZAKA International Rescue Unit delegation which was due to fly to Mexico City later this week to begin training 50 local volunteers in rescue and recovery techniques, left Tel Aviv this afternoon to attend to the scene of the helicopter crash in Mexican Jewish businessman and philanthropist Moises Saba was killed along with his wife, son and daughter-in-law and two others on Sunday night.

First off, what a coincidence that just as they planned to be in Mexico, the exercise “went live” as it were. Similarly, as noted here, a conference on First Emergency Response also took place in Israel the very same week. (1/11-1/14)

Secondly, the team left Tel Aviv in the afternoon of 1/11 to attend the crash site of six people. (See Part I.) Not sure how that departure time squares away with the reported facts, either. The helicopter reportedly crashed shortly after 8pm Sunday the 10th (http://matzav.com/jewish-mogul-moises-saba-killed-in-accident), and the pictures confirm that it happened at night. Since Tel Aviv is eight hours ahead of Mexico, it was around 4am there on the 11th. If the authorities rustled the team out of bed and onto a plane for 5am and they flew for 18 hours nonstop, they could be in Mexico City for the late afternoon of the 11th, even though they claimed to be there on the morning of the 11th. But why would they leave in the afternoon… of the 11th? That actually makes sense under normal circumstances, except it’s not what we’ve been told. Or maybe they left on the 10th, but that would be too early, since the crash hadn’t occurred yet. So, something’s wrong with the story, as it’s been reported.

The idea to establish a ZAKA International Rescue Unit in Mexico, trained by Israeli ZAKA volunteers, was born out of a ZAKA tribute evening which Moises Saba hosted in his home in November 2008, where guest of honor former US President Bill Clinton was the keynote speaker. Saba’s generosity facilitated the establishment and training of the Mexico ZAKA International Rescue Unit.

Wow, so it was Saba’s own idea. Perhaps the picture of him (Part I) with Clinton had been taken at that November 2008 soiree.

“Who could have imagined, not just that the Mexican volunteers would need to learn the course content hands-on, in a real incident, but that it would involve the tragic death of the person who initiated and funded the course,” noted head of the ZAKA International Rescue Unit Mati Goldstein as he prepared to board today’s flight to Mexico.

What can I say? WHO COULD HAVE IMAGINED… that little phrase has to go down in history forever linked to Dear Condi, as she lied her ass off before the 911 Commission, also a bunch of liars, on May 19, 2004.

“This tragic incident only serves to highlight the need for locally-based, ZAKA-trained volunteers who can respond immediately and professionally to emergency situations,” adds ZAKA International Rescue Unit Chief Operating Officer Dovie Maisel who also left for Mexico City today, with two other ZAKA volunteers. Rabbi David Yosef, son of former Chief Rabbi of Israel Rabbi Ovadia Yosef who was close to Moises Saba, accompanied the ZAKA delegation.

I usually refer to that as JUSTIFYING. Many times we see events that JUSTIFY items on somebody’s agenda.

How convenient is that, when something happens to JUSTIFY something you already wanted to do? Very convenient.

Before leaving for Mexico, the ZAKA delegation met with Rabbi Ovadia Yosef, who gave his halachic ruling regarding the ZAKA team’s work in collecting body parts at the crash scene. They then met with Israeli Chief Rabbi Shlomo Amar, who sent with the delegation a letter to his counterpart in Mexico, requesting to delay the funeral of the victims until the ZAKA team has completed its work in collecting all body parts from the scene of the crash.

How did they have time for all these meetings, and prepared letters about the rules and regulations for handling the “body parts,” in the wee hours of the morning, and still get to Mexico in impossible record time?

Moises Saba has supported ZAKA since its inception, including the donation of two ZAKA ambulances. During the tsunami disaster, in which a Mexican was feared dead, Saba funded the ongoing search for his body until positive identification ensured that his wife of one month would know her husband’s fate.

You know, no matter which way you look at this, somebody is lying or we have a lot of lousy journalists around, or both.

^^^^^^^

So when the Haiti earthquake hit on the 12th, the ZAKA team immediately deployed from Mexico to Haiti, allowing them to be the first Israeli team to arrive in the disaster area.

According to the ZAKA newsletter (http://tinyurl.com/yg4qdcd), the team flew into Port-au-Prince on Thursday, 1/14, in a Mexican Air Force Hercules plane, accompanied by Jewish volunteers from the Mexican Kedena organization. They immediately went to the site of an eight-story collapsed building, where they worked for 38 hours with rescue equipment provided by the Mexican military, to pull eight students alive from the rubble.

Having received permission from the rabbis to continue working to save lives, they continued to work through Friday night religious services. Somehow they were unable to communicate with the IOF delegation that had arrived on Friday, but miraculously they managed to get an email to ZAKA headquarters in Jerusalem describing the hellish conditions, as they communed with delegations from Mexico, England and Scotland. Later on, when they sat with Jordanian security guards and people from Qatar and Egypt, “it was strange.”

Despite the harsh conditions, and the trauma of being surrounded by Haitians begging for water, they did manage to survive on energy bars they procured in Mexico, in addition to the kosher food they received from Chabad and the American Army.

But a little later on in the newsletter….

When all the body parts were found, the funerals went ahead following another halachic ruling and the ZAKA volunteers continued their work in clearing the site. It was at this point that the quake in Haiti struck, and, without hesitation, the ZAKA volunteers decided to continue to Haiti, a relatively short distance from Mexico City.

Using the connections of the Saba family and others in Mexico, the ZAKA delegation managed to fly out with the Mexican air force delegation on Wednesday, 13 January, receiving the mandatory seven injections on the flight. The speed of the operation meant that the ZAKA volunteers were the first Israeli delegation on the ground in Haiti, working together with the Mexican team.

Good collaboration there between the Mexican government and Israel. Very nice. Good use of connections. Very tight. Still a little confusing who went where when, however, to collect “body parts.” Did they leave on the 13th or the 14th? Did they go straight to the eight-story building or did they do something else upon arriving in Haiti? We heard so much about the logistical problems and bottlenecks getting equipment and supplies and everything to the people in need. But somehow, surprising us no end, practically inconceivable, the Mexican military and Chabad and the American Army got the necessary supplies to Israel’s ZAKA team — even Kosher food! — in the middle of a horrific disaster zone where people were allegedly killing each other for a drink of water, so that they could “save lives.”

That’s so nice.

click images to enlarge


their arrogance knows no bounds

Feb 19

Posted by A. Peasant in Banks, CIA, Corruption & Crime, Identities, Iran, Israel, Lebanon, Mind-fucking, Mr. Bibi N. & Friends, NWO, Obama/Biden, Psychopaths, Terrorism, UK | No Comments

1. the UK knew in advance that Israel would use stolen UK passports for a hit. israel knew in advance that this little kabuki of the UK slapping israel’s wrist would have to take place and look believable.

The British MI6 intelligence agency was tipped off by Mossad that Israeli agents were going to carry out an ‘overseas operation’ using fake UK passports, the Daily Mail reported Friday morning.

According to the UK newspaper, a British security source quoted a Mossad agent as saying that “the British Government was told very, very briefly before the operation what was going to happen.” The source explained that the tip-off was not a request for permission to use British passports but more a ‘courtesy call’ to inform British security services that ‘a situation’ might blow up. “There was no British involvement and they didn’t know the name of the target. But they were told these people were traveling on UK passports,” he was quoted as telling the Daily Mail.

…The Daily Mail report came several hours after a 20-minute meeting in London between Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor and a senior British diplomat on Thursday, over the fake British passports apparently used in the assassination of Hamas military commander Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai. The report hinted that Israeli intelligence chiefs understood British authorities would have to ’slap them on the wrist’ and reportedly added: “The British government has to be seen to be going through the motions.”


jpost: http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=169139

2. daily mail story:

The Israeli agent rejected suggestions that intelligence-sharing between the two nations might be damaged.

He said Mossad was handling several sources within the UK Muslim community and added: ‘There is no question of jeopardising that information flow.’

The revelation of a ‘tip-off’ came after Israeli ambassador Ron Prosor was ‘invited’ to the Foreign Office and asked to co-operate fully with the inquiry into the forged passports by the Serious Organised Crime Agency.

Some people think that Mossad, MI6 and the CIA are trying to destabilise Dubai.Dubai’s aim is to make money from helping Iran to beat sanctions.

“Now the Americans (or the Israelis – you can take your pick) want to turn Dubai into the Beirut of the Gulf. That was actually a headline last week – in The Jerusalem Post, of course – which painted Dubai as dangerous as it was economically calamitous.” (Robert Fisk: Passport to the truth in Dubai remains secret )

3. meanwhile, in the most brazen display of greed and hubris i think i’ve ever seen, 85 victims of Hizbullah sue Iran’s top banks

In the first such case, 85 American, Israeli and Canadian victims of Hizbullah rocket attacks have filed a lawsuit against Iran’s leading banks.
The suit, Kaplan v. Central Bank of Iran, was filed in federal court in Washington, D.C. and seeks $1 billion in compensatory damages and an unspecified sum of punitive damages.

The plaintiffs, whose family members were killed or who were themselves injured by rockets fired at Israel by Hizbullah between July 12 and August 14, 2006, allege that Iran’s Central Bank and Bank Saderat provided the Shiite group with “over $50 million in financial support in the years prior to the attacks with the specific intent of facilitating Hizbullah terrorist attacks against American and Israeli targets,” the Israel Law Center, which helped bring the suit, said.

The plaintiffs rest their claims in part on an explicit October 25, 2007 finding by the U.S. Treasury that between 2001 and 2006 Bank Saderat transferred funds from the CBI via Bank Saderat, PLC in London to Hizbullah “to support acts of terrorism.”

naharnet

THIS IS STRAIGHT OUT OF THE JAMES WOOLSEY INTERVIEW AT HERZLIYA, AND HILLARY CLINTON’S SUBSEQUENT BABBLING ABOUT THE REVOLUTIONARY GUARD IN IRAN. IT ALL QUICKLY BECAME US POLICY IN ABOUT A WEEK’S TIME.

4. meanwhile, in a brazen insult to the world’s intelligence, the Ethiopian plane crash is officially caused by HUMAN ERROR. they give us the pilot’s last words. no mention of anything else he might have said up to that point. oh and the pilot ‘made a move’ that made him gradually lose control of the plane, and it remained intact until it hit the water.


A preliminary report said “human error” was the cause of the deadly Ethiopian Airlines plane crash into the Mediterranean Sea last month and that the last words the pilot said to his co-pilot: “We’re finished … God have mercy on us.”
Flight 409 bound for Addis Ababa crashed into sea off the coast of Naameh minutes after takeoff from Beirut airport early in the morning of Jan. 25, killing all 90 people on board.

Pending the outcome of the official report, which is to be announced by the Lebanese government sometime next week, the daily As-Safir on Friday uncovered outlines of the preliminary report.

As-Safir said the investigation team probing the plane crash incident retuned to Beirut from Paris on Thursday and handed over the report to Prime Minister Saad Hariri.

The plane’s two black boxes — data flight recorder and cockpit voice recorder – were separately retrieved among the wreckage and flown to France for analysis by BEA, a French agency that specializes in assisting with technical investigations of air crashes.

As-Safir quoted a reliable source at France’s Aviation Accidents Investigation bureau as saying that the cockpit voice recorder has revealed that the last words the pilot said were: “We’re finished … God have mercy on us.”

The pilot was speaking in Amharic, a Semitic language spoken in North Central Ethiopia.

Audio recordings revealed that the pilot asked the co-pilot to follow instructions by Beirut airport control tower, only to find out that his assistance either did not heed to the orders or did the opposite.

This prompted the pilot to take a move which made him gradually lose control of the plane, the voice recorder showed.

The report said the jet remained intact until it hit water.

Cabinet, furthermore, did not take any decision to close the file on the plane crash incident pending an official report from the Lebanese Army about the search for remains of the remaining victims.

naharnet

set the table

Feb 19

Posted by A. Peasant in Identities, Military, Mind-fucking, Pakistan, Philippines, Southeast Asia, Terrorism, The West | No Comments

gadget-crock-pot-programmable-vers

follow the finger to the philippines - 1/18/10

foreshadowing - 1/19/10

abu sayyaf: ready to come out of the crockpot - 1/20/10


1. Abu Sayyaf militant captured, linked to 9 year old kidnapping and murders of westerners. with links to aq and JI, let’s see if he talks about the Karachi Project…

ZAMBOANGA CITY, Philippines (Mindanao Examiner / Feb. 19, 2010) – Philippine authorities arrested a wanted Abu Sayyaf militant accused of kidnapping three US citizens and 17 Filipino tourists at a posh resort nine years ago.

Security officials said Jumadali Arad was arrested late Thursday afternoon while trying to board a passenger ship bound for Zamboanga City.

Arad was among those who raided the Dos Palmas resort in Palawan province near central Philippines in 2001 and kidnapped US missionary couple, Martin and Gracia Burnham, and California man Guillermo Sobero and the Filipinos, and brought them to Basilan province, south of Zamboanga City in the southern Philippines.

Guillermo Sobero was beheaded in 2001 in Basilan while Martin Burnham was shot and killed in 2002 during a US-led military rescue operation in Mindanao. Gracia Burnham was also shot and wounded during the rescue operation.

“The arrest of Arad is part of the military’s continuing operation against terrorism,” said Army First Lieutenant Steffani Cacho, a regional military spokeswoman.

The Abu Sayyaf, which means “bearer of the sword, has been linked to many kidnappings of foreigners and terrorism in the southern Philippines and was linked by authorities to the al-Qaeda terror network of Osama bin Laden and the Indonesian Jemaah Islamiya. (Mindanao Examiner)

source


2. more details: he was going to the southern Philippines, on a mission to buy ammo for abu sayyaf commander Isnilon Hapilon

It said Jumadali Arad was captured at Manila harbour on Thursday as he was about to board a ship bound for the southern Philippines, where the Al-Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group has planted bombs and carried out kidnappings despite US-backed military offensives against the militants.

Arad had been in hiding since 2001, when Abu Sayyaf abducted three American and 17 Filipino tourists from the Dos Palmas resort in south-western Palawan province at the start of a year-long kidnapping spree, said marine commandant Major General Juancho Sabban….

Arad, who allegedly drove a speedboat loaded with the hostages during the kidnappings, was reportedly on a mission to buy ammunition for Abu Sayyaf commander Isnilon Hapilon when he was arrested on Thursday, the military said in a statement.

Hapilon has been indicted in the US on kidnapping and murder charges, and Washington offered a US$5 million (S$7.07 million) reward for his capture. — AP

source

3. a little more: those kidnappings 9 years ago JUSTIFIED the US military presence in Southern Philippines. this says there’s no top commander (no mention of Hapilon) and the group has split into at least five factions

The kidnappings and violence prompted Washington to deploy hundreds of troops to the southern Mindanao region, where they have been training Philippine forces and sharing intelligence. U.S. military personnel are not allowed to engage in combat in the Philippines.

Although the government claims to have crippled the Abu Sayyaf after several offensives, the group still poses a major threat. It held three Red Cross workers and several others hostage last year, attacked troops and blew up bridges. A roadside bomb in September killed two U.S. soldiers.

The militants, however, have remained without a central leader following the killings of its top commanders and have split into at least five factions, police said.

source

4. more: navy operatives captured him on the way to Zamboanga City, and he PROMPTLY CONFESSED during arrest! who needs courts.

Operatives of the Navy and Southern Police District arrested Thursday a suspected member of Abu Sayyaf, a Muslim militant group linked with the al-Qaeda, accused in the kidnappings of three Americans and dozens of Filipinos nine years ago, a Navy spokesman reported Friday.
Lt. Col. Edgard Arevalo said  Jumadali Arad was captured at 5:15 p.m. at the gate of Pier 2 in North Harbor, Tondo, Manila, as he was about to board a ship bound for Zamboanga City in Mindanao.

In his arrest, Arad confessed to the kidnappings and admitted being a member of the Abu Sayyaf.

Arad allegedly drove a speedboat loaded with the hostages that included American missionary Gracia Burnham, who survived the jungle captivity, and husband Martin who was killed in the military rescue in 2002. The third American, Guillermo Sobero, was beheaded by the militants on Basilan Island.

source

Philippines Terror SuspectIn this photo taken yesterday and released by the Philippine Navy, Jumadail Arad, a suspected member of the Abu Sayyaf group, is shown after his arrest. AP (source)

(ahem) This man evaded capture by the US military for NINE YEARS. Sure.

5. more: current militant activity — Chinese hostages and homemade bombs. the search for these hostages has led to soldiers dying.

Two soldiers were killed and one wounded on southern Basilan Island on Friday when they tripped the wire on a homemade bomb during an operation to track down militants, said regional commander Rear Adm. Alex Pama.

They are believed to be holding two Chinese workers snatched from a plywood factory last year, Pama said. A third hostage, a Filipino, was beheaded a month after the November abductions.

source

6. regarding Zamboanga City, where he was headed: see this post from 1/28/10

1/28/10: Philippines: air force general and 8 others killed in Cotabato City, southern Philippines, near Jolo Island. general stationed in Zamboango City, very near to Jolo Island, where Abu Sayyaf allegedly operates from.

COTABATO CITY, Philippines—(UPDATE 4) An Air Force general and eight other people were killed when a military Nomad plane crashed into a residential area here before noon Thursday, authorities said. Mayor Muslimin Sema said the Nomad plane crashed into at least two houses in Barangay Rosary Heights here around 11:35 a.m., killing all eight passengers, including Maj. Gen. Mario Lacson of the 3rd Air Division based in Zamboanga City.

Gumitom said she heard a loud noise before the plane hit her house.

…Maj. Randolph Cabangbang, spokesperson of the Eastern Mindanao Command, said Lacson and his party were on their way to Zamboanga City. “The plane crashed two minutes after takeoff,” Cabangbang said by phone.

Maj. Gen. Carlix Donila, commander of the 5053rd Search and Rescue Squadron based in Davao City, said moments before the crash the “pilot made a call (to the Cotabato airport tower) and he said ‘power loss.’” Sema said based on witnesses’ account, the plane was trying to land again at the airport after takeoff and appeared to be having “some trouble.” “It was flying in a zig-zag mode and crashed.”

more @ enquirer

also see foreshadowing (link up top), which ties Abu Sayyaf and the Philippines to Pakistan, and describes the US military presence in the Southern Philippines, where, supposedly, the are not allowed to engage in fighting against the rebels, but only to help the Philippine military.

  • The US military of building permanent structures in different military camps in the country. She said US forces have established “permanent” and “continuous” presence in Zamboanga, Sulu and Tawi-Tawi in the south.

  • The Philippine military has no access to the camps built by the US soldiers in these areas since they are “fenced off by barbed wires and guarded by US Marines.”

7. meanwhile, 5 Arabic translators arrested over alleged plot to poison the food supply at Fort Jackson military base in South Carolina… blah blah blah PAKISTAN….. blah blah blah MUSLIM….. blah blah blah ARABIC….. blah blah blah FORT HOOD. the army takes these allegations “extremely seriously” even though there is “NO CREDIBLE EVIDENCE to support the allegations.”

FIVE men have been arrested amid a probe into food poisoning at Fort Jackson US military base.

Sources told Fox News the five men were detained in December over allegations that they attempted to poison the food supply at the South Carolina base.

They were all part of the base’s Arabic translation training program, referred to in the army as “Lima 09″. “Each of them uses Arabic as his first language,” one source said. In an earlier report, before the arrests emerged, a military source told Fox News the suspects were Muslims.

CBN News reported that the five arrested men were Islamic and cited a source who said they may have been in contact with five Washington, DC Muslims, who were arrested in December after authorities uncovered their plans to travel to Pakistan to wage jihad against the US.

However, it was unclear whether the men were still in custody.

An ongoing probe into the alleged Fort Jackson plot began two months ago, the Army’s Criminal Investigation Division spokesman Chris Grey told Fox News. The army was taking the allegations “extremely seriously,” Mr Grey said, adding there was “no credible information to support the allegations”.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation told Fox News they were aware of the Fort Jackson investigation, however they said the inquiry would be carried out by the army’s CID. The investigation has surfaced in the wake of a mass shooting at Fort Hood, Texas last November, which killed 12 people and wounded 31 others. It was allegedly undertaken by US Army major Nidal Malik Hasan, an American-born Muslim of Palestinian descent, who was serving as a psychiatrist. He has been charged and a prosecution is ongoing.

source