Terrifying: London Attacker Speaks To Camera After Beheading: ‘You People Will Never Be Safe’

Obama, Clinton, Rice 'All Told Me About The Reason This Happened Was the Video’

From: CNS News

The mother of diplomat Sean Smith, who was killed in the Benghazi terrorist attack on Sept. 11, 2012, said that at her son’s memorial service President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and Ambassador Susan Rice told her that the attack occurred because of an anti-Muslim video, although evidence now shows the White House was told by the CIA “that Islamic extremists with ties to al Qaeda participated in the attack” and that the agency never mentioned a “video.”

It is also now known that White House and State Department officials edited the talking points provided by the CIA to remove any references to the al Qaeda-affiliated group Ansar al-Sharia and earlier warnings from the agency about terrorist threats against the Benghazi compound. The talking points, in their various versions, never mentioned the anti-Muslim video touted by the president, Clinton and Rice.

Sean Smith, killed in the Benghazi terrorist attack, was 34 years old and worked for the U.S. Foreign Service as an Information Management Officer. He was married and had two children.  The memorial service for Smith and the other three Americans killed occurred on Sept. 14 at Andrews Air Force Base in Maryland. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and President Obama spoke at the service.

Sean Smith’s mother, Pat Smith, was interviewed on The O’Reilly Factor on May 9 about congressional hearings into the attack and new testimony by whistleblowers about what happened on Sept. 11, 2012.

Part of the exchange between host Bill O’Reilly and Pat Smith about events at the memorial service  is presented below:

Bill O’Reilly: “Did Hillary Clinton say anything to you? Did President Obama, did they say anything to you on that day?”

Pat Smith: “Oh yes, they all told me about the reason that this happened was the video. Every one of them told me that.”

O’Reilly: “They actually told you it was the video? Both Secretary of State Clinton and the president told you it was the videotape?"

Pat Smith: “Yes, they actually did, and Susan Rice also.”

O’Reilly: “Face to face?”

Pat Smith: “Nose to nose. I was with – they were hugging me."

O’Reilly: “And that was 3 days after the attack, correct? The 14th?"

Pat Smith: “Well, whenever it was – it was at the ceremony [at Andrews Air Force base].”

O’Reilly: “September 14, three days after the attack.”

While the talking points used by the Obama administration do not mention a video, Secretary Clinton did issue a statement on Sept. 11, while the attack was still ongoing in Benghazi, stating that, “Some have sought to justify this vicious behavior as a response to inflammatory material posted on the Internet. The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others.”

When CNSNews.com asked the State Department who gave Clinton that information, while the Benghazi attack was still unfolding, spokesman Patrick Ventrell would not answer.

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Reporter Lara Logan brings ominous news from Middle East

From: Chicago Sun-Times

This was no ordinary rubber chicken affair. That was my reaction to the extraordinary keynoter at Tuesday’s Better Government Association annual luncheon.

Lara Logan, a correspondent for CBS’ “60 Minutes,” delivered a provocative speech to about 1,100 influentials from government, politics, media, and the legal and corporate arenas. Such downtown gatherings are a regular on Chicago’s networking circuit. (I am a member of the BGA’s Civic Leadership Committee, and the Chicago Sun-Times was a sponsor).

Her ominous and frightening message was gleaned from years of covering our wars in the Middle East. She arrived in Chicago on the heels of her Sept. 30 report, “The Longest War.” It examined the Afghanistan conflict and exposed the perils that still confront America, 11 years after 9/11.

Eleven years later, “they” still hate us, now more than ever, Logan told the crowd. The Taliban and al-Qaida have not been vanquished, she added. They’re coming back.

“I chose this subject because, one, I can’t stand, that there is a major lie being propagated . . .” Logan declared in her native South African accent.

The lie is that America’s military might has tamed the Taliban.

“There is this narrative coming out of Washington for the last two years,” Logan said. It is driven in part by “Taliban apologists,” who claim “they are just the poor moderate, gentler, kinder Taliban,” she added sarcastically. “It’s such nonsense!”

Logan stepped way out of the “objective,” journalistic role. The audience was riveted as she told of plowing through reams of documents, and interviewing John Allen, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan; Afghan President Hamid Karzai, and a Taliban commander trained by al-Qaida. The Taliban and al-Qaida are teaming up and recruiting new terrorists to do us deadly harm, she reports.

She made a passionate case that our government is downplaying the strength of our enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan, as a rationale of getting us out of the longest war. We have been lulled into believing that the perils are in the past: “You’re not listening to what the people who are fighting you say about this fight. In your arrogance, you think you write the script.” 

Our enemies are writing the story, she suggests, and there’s no happy ending for us. 

As a journalist, I was queasy. Reporters should tell the story, not be the story. As an American, I was frightened. 

Logan even called for retribution for the recent terrorist killings of Christopher Stevens, the U.S. ambassador to Libya, and three other officials. The event is a harbinger of our vulnerability, she said. Logan hopes that America will “exact revenge and let the world know that the United States will not be attacked on its own soil. That its ambassadors will not be murdered, and that the United States will not stand by and do nothing about it.”

In the “good old days,” reporters did not advocate, crusade or call for revenge. 

In these “new” days in a post-9/11 world, perhaps we need more reporters who are willing to break the rules.

Christian Students Executed by Boko Haram in Nigeria

From: Christian Post

While there is speculation as to the motive of the massacre, sources close to the human rights watchdog Open Doors USA confirm that the massacre was performed by Boko Haram.

Emily Fuentes, the communications and public relations coordinator for Open Doors who recently visited Nigeria and spoke to Christian leaders about Boko Haram, told The Christian Post that believers around the world can agree that prayer is the "only thing that will change the people of Boko Haram."

"There are people who are turning to Christ who used to be in the Boko Haram, and God is changing their hearts," Fuentes told CP.

"A lot of Christians believe that God will change these peoples' hearts," she added.

The killings reportedly occurred in the late night hours on Oct. 1, when masked gunmen went door-to-door in the off-campus housing section of Federal Polytechnic College in Mubi, a city in the remote Adamawa State in northeastern Nigeria.

Open Doors USA sources confirmed that the gunmen separated the Christian students from the Muslim students, addressed each victim by name, questioned them, and then proceeded to shoot them or slit their throat.

"Open Doors is calling on Christians in the West to bear this horrific burden with our brothers and sisters in Mubi and Adamawa state," Open Doors USA spokesman Jerry Dykstra said in a press release emailed to The Christian Post.

"Nigeria is becoming a killing field," he added.

Fuentes told CP that according to a local Nigerian police chief, Monday night's killing were performed by Boko Haram as an act of reprisal after 156 Boko Haram members were arrested in Mubi in late September.

Fuentes told CP over the phone interview that the goal of the terror group, which has reportedly overtaken 13 of Nigeria's northern states, is to make the country a completely Islamic nation and rid it of all western influence.

"In these [Nigerian] states to be a Christian is of grave danger," Fuentes said, adding that killing Christians is "Boko Haram's way of wiping out western influence."

Fuentes confirmed that in Mobi, where Monday's massacre took place, there has been some form of violent attack on Christians nearly every day since Nov. 2011.

Fuentes shared the testimonials involving a change of heart by two Boko Haram members. In one testimonial, a former Boko Haram member found the Gospel of Jesus Christ and converted. He now serves as a witness to other Boko Haram members, and although he receives threats to his life daily, he has managed to stay alive.

Other Boko Haram members, according to Fuentes, have not converted to Christianity but have seen the "goodness of the Christian religion" and now warn Christians before there is an attack.

In light of Monday's attack, Open Doors USA requested that all Christians pray for the families of the deceased students, who have been "thrown into mourning" and are reportedly in "indescribably pain right now."

"Please pray for the parents, families and friends of the innocent victim of this slaughter. Pray that they will receive the comfort only our Lord can give. Pray that justice will prevail. Pray that Christians will not retaliate," Open Doors said.

Boko Haram has yet to openly claim responsibility for Monday night's massacre.

Egypt: Sinai's Coptic Christians flee homes, town after militant threats

From: Herald Extra.com

Coptic Christian families have fled their homes in a town in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula, fearing for their lives after receiving death threats from suspected Islamic militants, a local priest said Thursday.

Father Youssef Sobhi said that Islamic militants dropped leaflets on the doorsteps of shops owned by Copts in the city of Rafah near the border with Gaza and Israel, ordering them to leave town within 48 hours and making an implicit warning of violence if they failed to do so. Two days later, masked militants on a motorcycle opened fire on one of the shops before speeding off, Sobhi said. No one was hurt in the shooting.

When Christians met Tuesday with the province's top government official, who was recently appointed by Egypt's new Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi, the governor promised to facilitate the Copts' move to the nearby city of el-Arish but did not offer to protect the community to ensure that it stayed in Rafah, according to the priest.

"I was shocked at the governor's response," Sobhi said. "This is simply displacement by the government's consent."

An Egyptian intelligence official confirmed that a number of Coptic families had fled Rafah because of a militant threat. Another security official denied the reports and said that no Christians were forced to leave. Both officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they are not authorized to brief the media.

It was not exactly clear how many Christians have left the town, but Sobhi said that the number of Copts in Rafah had dwindled from 14 families to two since the uprising that pushed longtime autocrat Hosni Mubarak from power in February 2011.

A first wave left Rafah after the only church in the town, The Holy Family Church, was looted, torched and destroyed in several militant attacks over the past year. The church is built on the site where Christians believe the Holy Family first stopped to rest after crossing into Egypt.

Sobhi was in the first group of Christians to flee, although he returns frequently to Rafah check on his parish.
Mamdouh Nasef, the Coptic shop owner who recently came under attack, said that his Muslim neighbors are urging him to stay and pledging to protect him.

"They can't guard me 24 hours a day, and I fear for my children," Nasef said by telephone. "My children were born here and Muslims here are like my brothers."

Nasef is still in Rafah, but plans to return to his hometown in southern Egypt.

There have been incidents of sectarian violence in Egypt in the past. In July, in the village of Dahshour south of Cairo a Muslim mob torched Christian homes and shops and damaged the local church, forcing many Coptic families to flee the village. The violence was sparked when a personal dispute swelled into violence and a Muslim man died.

In Sinai, the threats against the Christians, who are estimated at around 10 percent of Egypt's population of 85 million, are a symptom of the broader lawlessness that has hit the peninsula since the popular uprising ousted Mubarak. Since then, security has deteriorated across Egypt, particularly in Sinai where heavily armed Islamic groups have exploited the security vacuum to wage attacks on police stations and call for the establishment of an Islamic state.

Militants from Rafah, along with those from the neighboring Gaza Strip who cross into Sinai through an elaborate network of underground tunnels, have also waged cross border attacks into Israel. In one of their most recent strikes, masked militants killed 16 Egyptian soldiers near the border in early August.

Under Mubarak, Christians complained of discrimination from the government, which did little to prevent attacks on the community by hardline Muslims. Many Christians fled to the United States and other Western countries, and tensions have risen since Mubarak's police state has given way to a state of lawlessness.

With the election of the country's first Islamist president, Mohammed Morsi of the Muslim Brotherhood, many Christians have grown increasingly concerned about their place in Egypt.

Those worries only deepened after Egyptian Coptic Christians in the United States posted a 14-minute clip entitled "Innocence of Muslims," which denigrates Islam and the Prophet Muhammad, portraying him as a womanizer, a fraud and a child molester. The film has sparked angry protests across the Muslim world as well as attacks on U.S. embassies, including one in Libya that killed the U.S. ambassador and three other Americans. The wave of protests began in Cairo, where demonstrators breached the walls of the U.S. Embassy.

Also Thursday, an Egyptian court has upheld a six-year jail sentence for a Coptic Christian school teacher convicted of insulting Islam and the country's Islamist president in postings on Facebook.

Egypt's MENA state news agency says a court in the southern province of Sohag agreed with a lower court ruling that found Michelle Bishoy, also known as Bishoy el-Behiri, guilty of blasphemy after posting pictures that were deemed offensive to Islam's Prophet Muhammad. The court also upheld Bishoy's conviction on charges of insulting Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi.

Thursday's ruling can be appealed.

The case is the second this month in which a Coptic Christian has been detained for posting material considered anti-Islamic on social networking sites.

President Obama Declares The Future Must Not Belong to Practicing Christian

From: Red State

In his speech to the United Nations General Assembly today the President of the United States declared that the future does not belong to practicing Christians. Already, the media and the left are in full denial, probably based on their general lack of understanding of theology. This would have been a gaffe had Mitt Romney said it. But with Barack Obama, he’s just speaking bold truths. His bold truth declares that the future does not belong to practicing Christians.

Pay careful attention to what he says.

The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam. Yet to be credible, those who condemn that slander must also condemn the hate we see when the image of Jesus Christ is desecrated, churches are destroyed, or the Holocaust is denied.

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Charles Krauthammer: Tell Egypt to Go To Hell

24 Baffling Hours In Turkey

The Gatestone Institute has an interesting little article about a terrorist attack in Turkey. Well worth a look, especially as Turkey is increasingly becoming the most important player in the Middle East and may yet complicate our relationship with Israel.

The New War Against America

The Claremont Institute has a fine post about our changing world and our place in it, outlining strategic imperatives. In a nutshell it deals with a new axis intent upon diminishing our place in the world. Well worth a read.

Weekly Standard: Sweden Pressured Suicide Bomber's Release From Gitmo

From: The Weekly Standard

With a black baseball cap pulled tight over a mop of stringy long hair and a patchy, close-cropped beard, Mehdi-Muhammed Ghezali looked more like a Metallica roadie than a disciple of Ayman al-Zawahiri. He addressed the scrum of reporters in a clipped, heavily accented Swedish and accused the American government of wrongly detaining him for three years and "physically and mentally" torturing him. A book about his experiences was in the works; a documentary crew, cobbling together a film about American human rights abuses, had requested an audience; and his legal team was plotting a lawsuit against Donald Rumsfeld.

It was 2004, and Ghezali was a free man.

In late 2001, Ghezali, a Swedish national, had been detained during the battle at Tora Bora, Afghanistan, handed over to the American military, and sent to the detention facility at Guantánamo Bay. According to his lawyers, he was simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Although he spoke none of the local languages, Ghezali told his captors, in the midst of the Taliban's retreat into the mountainous hinterlands of Afghanistan, he had crossed that country's border with Pakistan to study Islam.

After an intense lobbying effort by Swedish prime minister Göran Persson--and a vague promise that the country's intelligence services would keep a watchful eye on him--Ghezali was delivered to Sweden (on the government's private Gulfstream jet). The Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter noted that Ghezali had achieved "rock star status" upon returning to his homeland, a native victim of America's rapacious imperialism. And after two-plus years in isolation, the emotionally fragile former prisoner would be happy to discover "that a majority of Swedes were glad that he was home."

Gatestone Institute: Who Will Speak for the Ahmadi Muslims?

From: Gatestone Institute

Such slaughter, however, does not occur in a vacuum. It is the direct result of a pervasive state-sponsored, indoctrinated hate – with a nation using all the force of both its exchequer and communications infrastructure to incite violence. The United Nations has been totally oblivious to the plight of the Ahmadis: it has failed to pass even a single resolution at the Security Council, General Assembly or Human Rights Council.

Rejected by many in the Islamic world as heretics and routinely persecuted because their more moderate beliefs do not accord with mainstream Islamic interpretations of the Quran, the Ahmadiyya Muslim community is arguably one of the most persecuted Muslim communities in the world. However, beyond some faint pleas for better treatment from the U.S. State Department and human rights groups, the Ahmadi Muslims plight has largely gone unnoticed.

The Ahmadi Muslims trace their roots to the late nineteenth century, when the movement was founded in 1889 by Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, in the Punjabi village of Qadian, now modern day India.

They share many of the basic tenets of Islam, however differ in some significant respects.

State Dep’t Official Defends Decision Not to Designate Boko Haram a Terrorist Organization

From: CNSNews.com

Testifying on Capitol Hill this week, the State Department’s top official for Africa defended the decision not to designate Boko Haram as a “foreign terrorist organization” (FTO) – but then used the term “terrorist organization” in reference to the Nigerian Islamist group.

A Nigerian Christian leader criticized the move, saying failure to designate Boko Haram as an FTO emboldened the group and signaled that its targeting of Christians was acceptable.

The administration on June 21 listed three Boko Haram leaders as “specially designated global terrorists” (SDGTs) but stopped short to designating the group as an FTO under U.S. law, a step some Republican lawmakers have long been urging.

Individuals and entities listed as SDGTs have any assets they may hold in the U.S. frozen, and Americans are prohibited from engaging in transactions with them.

Appearing before the House Foreign Affairs subcommittee on Africa, Global Health and Human Rights on Tuesday, Johnnie Carson, assistant secretary of state in the Bureau of African Affairs, spoke about the decision.

“Before we prescribe actions, it is important that we understand what Boko Haram is and what it is not,” he said in his prepared remarks. “The truth is that our understanding is limited at best.

“Boko Haram is composed of at least two organizations, a larger organization focused primarily on discrediting the Nigerian government, and a smaller more dangerous group that is increasingly sophisticated and increasingly lethal.”

Questioned by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), chairman of the subcommittee, Carson said most followers of Boko Haram were only interested in discrediting the government – both under the current Christian president and his Muslim predecessor – for its “failure to provide services to people.”

Then Carson called the group a “terrorist organization.”

“Boko Haram’s emergence as a terrorist organization in Nigeria predates the current government, and irrespective whether there is a Christian leader or a Muslim leader in the country, as long as the social, economic problems exist in the North to the extent that they do, there will be a reaction which may in fact – as this one does – take on political consequences,” he said.