Exposed: Saudi Arabia’s secret nuke stash

WND

Riyadh ‘confident’ it has an atomic option

By Aaron Klein

JERUSALEM – Pakistan’s nuclear weapons project was partially financed by Saudi Arabia, with the two countries sharing nuclear technology, a senior Egyptian security official told WND.

“The Saudis are confident they have a nuclear option via Pakistan,” said the security official. “The Pakistani nukes are also Saudi nukes.”

The official said an agreement between the two countries was secretly inked seven years ago, although at the time such a pact was strongly denied by both Saudi and Pakistani officials.

Pakistan in the late 1990s became the seventh country to successfully develop and test nuclear weapons. The Pakistani arsenal is estimated at between 35 and 95 warheads, according to the U.S. Navy Center for Contemporary Conflict.

Analysts have been keeping a close eye on the rise of Islamic militants in provinces close to Pakistan’s nuclear facilities.

Saudi-Pakistan cooperation has been extensive for decades. The two are both leading Islamic countries with close military alliances. As early as 1969, the Pakistan Air Force flew the aircraft of the Royal Saudi Air Force to help fend off an invasion from South Yemen. In the 1970s and 1980s, about 15,000 Pakistani soldiers were stationed in Saudi Arabia to protect the country’s oil fields.

According to recent media reports, Saudi Arabia negotiated the purchase of Pakistani ballistic missiles that are capable of carrying nuclear warheads.

Fox News promotes terror-tied, FBI-shunned group

WND

Bankrolled by same wealthy Saudi prince, CAIR now regular guest on cable leader

Long a reliably patriotic media source in the war on terror, Fox News may now be among news outlets who have fallen under the spell of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ propaganda machine.

“We own the media,” CAIR National Communications Director Ibrahim Hooper privately brags, according to a source currently working inside the aggressive Islamist lobby group.

Fox News host Bill O’Reilly last week invited the TV-savvy Hooper on his show to debate passenger profiling, the second guest appearance by the CAIR spokesman in a month. At the end of the segment, O’Reilly thanked Hooper and called him a “stand-up guy,” sending shockwaves through the conservative blogosphere.

CAIR is no ordinary guest. The government has blacklisted it as an unindicted terrorist co-conspirator, and the group remains under criminal suspicion by the FBI, which has cut off outreach ties to it.

Congress and the IRS also are investigating CAIR, which has had no fewer than 15 executives and board members convicted or implicated in terror probes, including its founding chairman.

In addition, CAIR’s very existence as a legitimate corporation has been challenged in a lawsuit in federal court.

Get “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America,” autographed, from WND’s Superstore.

Given CAIR’s proven ties to terrorism – which O’Reilly failed to mention – why would Fox offer the group’s top executives a virtually uncritical forum on prime-time cable TV? Saudi Arabian money may be a factor.

It turns out that the same billionaire Saudi prince who owns a major stake in Fox’s parent company also bankrolls Washington-based CAIR. And sensitive State Department records reveal Hooper – despite his repeated public denials – has personally solicited cash from the prince and other members of the ruling Saudi royal family during recent trips to the kingdom.

The common financial bond between Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal and Fox, and between bin Talal and CAIR, raises questions not only about Fox News’s independence, but about the truthfulness of CAIR’s top spokesman.

Hooper repeatedly has denied that CAIR receives foreign support, insisting it’s a “grass-roots” nonprofit organization. In CAIR press releases, Hooper has stated unequivocally: “We do not support directly or indirectly or receive support from any overseas group or government.”

However, smoking-gun video footage obtained during a recent six-month covert investigation of CAIR puts the lie to Hooper’s claims.

In a private conversation with undercover researcher Chris Gaubatz, who was posing at the time as a CAIR intern, Hooper boasted that he personally can “bring (in) a half million of overseas money” a year, adding: “If some guy’s got a lot of extra money in Jeddah (Saudi Arabia), I don’t mind taking it.” Hooper made the remarks Aug. 30, 2008, during the Islamic Society of North America’s 2008 annual convention in Columbus, Ohio.

A State Department cable citing Hooper by name, moreover, directly contradicts Hooper’s denials about foreign support, according to the blockbuster book “Muslim Mafia: Inside the Secret Underworld That’s Conspiring to Islamize America,” which exposes the secret inner workings of CAIR, among other radical Muslim Brotherhood front groups in America. (The book is based, in part, on voluminous documentary and videotaped evidence gathered by Gaubatz during his internship.)

The sensitive but unclassified communiqué was written by U.S. Embassy staff in Saudi Arabia, who in June 2006 reported the following after meeting with a CAIR delegation: “One admitted reason for the group’s current visit to the KSA (Kingdom of Saudi Arabia) was to solicit $50 million in governmental and non-governmental contributions.”

“(Saudi) King Abdullah knows CAIR very well,” the cable added.

Among other things, CAIR said the money would be used to “counter negative stereotypes about Muslims in the U.S.” media, a phenomenon described by CAIR as “Islamophobia.”

The core delegation, according to the cable, consisted of Hooper, CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad and then-CAIR Chairman Parvez Ahmed. Besides Riyadh, the trio also visited Mecca and Jeddah.

Just three months after the trip, Hooper denied soliciting Saudi government funds.

“To my knowledge, we don’t take money from the government of Saudi Arabia,” he said in a September 2006 appearance on MSNBC’s Tucker Carlson show.

At a meeting held that year at the Saudi headquarters of the kingdom-run World Assembly of Muslim Youth – whose U.S. branch was formerly run by Osama bin Laden’s nephew – CAIR announced the launch of a massive PR campaign and warned potential donors that the U.S. was trying to curtail the political activity of Muslims.

Awad, with Hooper at his side, said CAIR needed a well-funded endowment to change American opinion. He proposed spending $10 million annually for five years on the media campaign.

“We are planning to meet Prince Al-Waleed bin Talal for his financial support to our project,” Awad told the Arab press. “He has been generous in the past.”

Indeed, the Saudi prince donated at least $500,000 to CAIR after 9/11. He also presented a $10 million relief check to then-New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani – or at least he tried. Giuliani rejected the gift after bin Talal blamed America’s “pro-Israel” policies in the Middle East for the attacks.

Prince Bin Talal’s voting stake

Bin Talal, a member of the Saudi ruling family, owns a 5.5 percent voting stake in Fox News’ parent News Corp., run by media tycoon Rupert Murdoch. The prince has said he is willing to increase his share in Fox’s parent to fend off hostile takeover bids by rivals. Murdoch, in turn, has invested in bin Talal’s Saudi-based enterprises.

It is not immediately clear if bin Talal has influenced Fox’s decision to book CAIR. But there is strong evidence that bin Talal has directly influenced Fox News content in the past.

As WND reported, during violent street protests involving Muslim immigrants in France in 2005, the Saudi prince persuaded Murdoch to change a screen banner that identified the unrest as “Muslim riots.”

“I picked up the phone and called Murdoch (and told him) these are not Muslim riots, these are riots out of poverty,” bin Talal said. “Within 30 minutes, the title was changed from ‘Muslim riots’ to ‘civil riots.’ “

Fox News has acknowledged it changed the banner after receiving complaints from unnamed Muslims abroad. It has not denied bin Talal’s influence in its internal operations.

Bin Talal isn’t the only member of the ruling Saudi elite bankrolling CAIR.

Bank wire records published exclusively in “Muslim Mafia” show another Saudi royal family member has pumped six-figure sums into CAIR coffers. In 2007, for example, Saudi Prince Abdullah bin Mosa’ad transferred $112,000 directly into CAIR’s bank account at Citibank.

The Saudi bank transfers further undermine the official line peddled by Hooper, who has a reputation for dissembling.

Longtime CAIR critic Andrew Whitehead, for one, calls him “CAIR’s liar-for-hire,” and argues he cannot be trusted as a media spokesman. CAIR sued Whitehead for defamation and lost.

“The record shows CAIR habitually engages in deception,” said terror expert Steven Emerson, executive director of the “Investigative Project on Terrorism” and author of “Jihad Inc.”

In 2003, for example, CAIR accused WND of “demonizing Muslims” for citing a Bay Area newspaper’s report that CAIR’s then-chairman, Omar Ahmad, told a gathering of Muslims that Islam was in America to dominate and that the Quran would one day rule over America. In a phone interview, Hooper insisted to WND that CAIR had sought a retraction from the newspaper. But Hooper was forced to backtrack when confronted with the fact that the editors and reporter had just declared they never spoke with CAIR and, furthermore, stood by the story.

Despite CAIR’s dubious reputation, Fox has recently given Hooper and other top CAIR leaders an unchallenged platform to persuade the American public to back off passenger profiling and other measures to counter an ominous upswing in terrorism.

Since the Fort Hood terrorist attack by a Muslim Army officer, CAIR’s leaders have been invited on Fox at least four times, even though there are several other Muslim groups considered genuinely moderate who could speak for the Muslim community, such as the American Islamic Forum for Democracy.

“The issue,” Emerson said, “is whether CAIR is an honest and reliable broker for American Muslims.”

Hooper was invited on “The O’Reilly Factor” twice to shoot down profiling following the attempted airline attack by a Muslim would-be suicide bomber who concealed explosives in his underwear. In both appearances, Hooper – looking less fundamentalist without his trademark kufi skull cap – was given a full segment unopposed and unanswered by other guests.

In the wake of the Fort Hood attack, CAIR chief Awad was invited on Fox, and in an interview with Fox News anchor Martha MacCallum, Awad denied Islam had anything to do with the deadly massacre – even though it was known at the time that the shooter was Muslim and had yelled “Allahu Akbar!” before opening fire. Awad also got a full segment unopposed.

Free spin on Fox

Most recently, CAIR’s chief lobbyist Corey Saylor appeared on Fox New during an interview with anchor Bill Hemmer. Fox did not balance Saylor with an opposing guest to challenge the CAIR spokesman during his full segment, in which he contended young Muslim men are no more “security threats” than 85-year-old grandmothers.

Washington recently added Saudi Arabia – CAIR’s patron – to a list of 14 mostly Muslim nations whose travelers will undergo extra airport security screening. Saylor slammed the new Obama administration policy as “across-the-board profiling” and complained “Muslims will pay the price for this one.”

At no time during any of the four appearances by CAIR leaders did Fox bring up the fact that the FBI has cut off ties to CAIR or that the Justice Department has blacklisted the group as an unindicted terrorist co-conspirator – information critical to the public’s understanding of CAIR’s possible bias in delinking terrorism from Islam and arguing against Islamic terrorist profiling.

Curiously, even O’Reilly of “no-spin zone” fame failed to so much as hint at the many controversies surrounding CAIR in his introduction of Hooper.

O’Reilly also let Hooper get away with a glaring falsehood during his most recent appearance.

Hooper maintained CAIR does not share al-Qaida’s “talking point” that America and the West are “at war with Islam.” Yet after the Iraq war, CAIR’s chairman declared: “The United States is at war with Islam itself.”

Detractors say the misleading statement is yet another example of CAIR’s deceptive tactics, which should give the media pause before booking CAIR representatives as the official voice of Muslim Americans.

Investigative journalist Paul Sperry, co-author of “Muslim Mafia,” says giving CAIR’s leaders a media platform is “like giving Hamas and the terrorist enemy a platform.”

He notes that while CAIR may bill itself as a “civil-rights advocacy group,” the FBI says that far from being a benign nonprofit, it’s an American front group for Hamas terrorists and the radical Muslim Brotherhood – the parent of both Hamas and al-Qaida. The bureau last year cut off formal ties to CAIR’s national office in Washington and all 30 of its branch offices across the country.

CAIR at the time blamed its ban on the “right-wing” Bush administration and confidently predicted that a Democrat administration would restore relations. Yet fully a year into the Obama administration, CAIR remains frozen out of any formal outreach with the FBI.

“Even the Muslim-friendly Obama has not helped CAIR,” Sperry pointed out.

At the same time, the Justice Department has blacklisted CAIR as an unindicted terrorist co-conspirator in the largest terror finance case in U.S. history, against the Texas-based Holy Land Foundation. The trial ended in convictions on all 108 counts.

Prosecutors have also connected CAIR directly to the Muslim Brotherhood, a worldwide jihadist movement that seeks to institutionalize Saudi-style Shariah law in America and the West through immigration, coercion and political infiltration.

“From its founding by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists,” assistant U.S. Attorney Gordon Kromberg stated in a court filing.

Sperry says “that makes CAIR mouthpiece Hooper an advocate for the Muslim Brotherhood and terrorists, and a fiercely effective one at that.”

He adds that the Saudis and CAIR’s other Arab patrons pay him well for it – more than $95,000 a year in total compensation, IRS records show.

Who is ‘Dougie’ Hooper?

He also commands a six-figure annual budget for conducting opposition research against CAIR’s enemies – which internal documents revealed in “Muslim Mafia” include, ironically, Fox’s O’Reilly and other “right-wing” media personalities.

A Canadian immigrant, the 53-year-old Hooper was known as “Dougie” before he converted to Islam. His birth name is Cary Douglas Hooper, according to government records.

He became a member of the Cairo Foreign Press Association while working for periodicals in the Egyptian capital, the global headquarters of the radical Muslim Brotherhood. Hooper also worked for local TV stations in Minnesota, where he once let it slip out that he favored Islamic rule in America.

“I wouldn’t want to create the impression that I wouldn’t like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future,” Hooper said in a 1993 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune. “But I’m not going to do anything violent to promote that. I’m going to do it through education.”

“This is Hooper’s real agenda,” Sperry said, “make no mistake.”

In an October interview with CNN, Hooper denied charges of Middle Eastern influence-peddling: “We have no ties of any kind to any foreign group in any form.”

However, CAIR is on record promising to do the bidding of its Arab backers.

In 2006, shortly after a company owned by the United Arab Emirates lost a controversial bid to take over control of several major U.S. ports, Awad, Hooper and other CAIR officials traveled to the UAE to meet with its rulers.

It was agreed that the UAE would set up an endowment in the U.S. run by CAIR to fund an “education” program to change negative perceptions about Islam that the UAE believes contributed to the public outcry that derailed its multibillion-dollar ports deal.

The endowment caught the attention of the U.S. government, which issued another sensitive State Department cable regarding the unusual deal.

It noted UAE Minister of Finance Sheik Hamdan bin Rashid Al-Maktoum endorsed a proposal to build a $24 million property in the U.S. to serve as an endowment for CAIR to launch its $50 million image-building campaign through 2011.

“The endowment will serve as a source of income,” Awad told the Arab press at the time, “and will further allow us to reinvigorate our media campaign projecting Islam and its principles of tolerance.”

CAIR is working out details of its endowment with the Dubai-based Al-Maktoum Foundation, founded and controlled by Sheikh Mohammed Bin Rashid Al-Maktoum, the ruler of Dubai. The anti-Israeli charity has held telethons to support families of Palestinian suicide bombers and other so-called “martyrs.” Not surprisingly, the Arab press reported CAIR “values highly the stances of Al-Maktoum Charity Foundation.”

After 9/11, the Al-Maktoum Foundation took a nearly $1 million stake in CAIR’s headquarters property, just three blocks from the U.S. Capitol, as first reported by Sperry in his 2005 book, “Infiltration: How Muslim Spies and Subversives Have Penetrated Washington.”

‘Selling its services’

The United Arab Emirates fears if its image is not repaired, its business interests will continue on a downward slide in America. CAIR’s leaders, who promised to act as a bulwark against any further backlash, described the planned $50 million endowment as more of a business contract than charity.

“Do not think about your contributions (to CAIR) as donations. Think about it from the perspective of rate of return,” former CAIR chairman Ahmed told finance ministers in Dubai, according to the Arab press.

“The investment of $50 million will give you billions of dollars in return for 50 years” if a sufficiently Arab-friendly environment can be created in America to allow sheiks to buy up key U.S. assets, he said.

CAIR critic Daniel Pipes, president of the Middle East Forum, says the group is “selling its services to the Saudi and UAE governments by doing their ideological and financial bidding.”

Yet CAIR is not registered as a foreign agent, as required by the Justice Department. And it has never disclosed its foreign funding or relationships with countries tied to 9/11 and potentially still hostile to U.S. interests.

According to the U.S. Embassy cable, CAIR has other wealthy Emirate benefactors as well, including: the Bin Hamoodah Group, a $500 million-a-year trading company; and wealthy stock trader Talal Khoori, a UAE national of Iranian origin who is said to have donated $1 million to CAIR.

It’s plain that, notwithstanding Hooper’s denials, CAIR’s major funding comes from foreign sources largely in the Persian Gulf, including Saudi Arabia and the UAE – two nations that formally recognized and supported the Taliban rule in Afghanistan – and not from grass-roots domestic supporters as Hooper and CAIR publicly claim.

In fact, membership dues now account for a tiny 1 percent of CAIR’s total revenue, according to IRS records cited in “Muslim Mafia.” As CAIR’s domestic grass-roots support has dried up, it has stepped up its overseas fundraising efforts. Tax records show its travel budget for fundraising purposes has doubled since 2004.

Awad makes frequent pilgrimages to the Gulf to personally solicit funds. And he’s often joined by Hooper, who over the years has obtained several passports and is described by government officials as a “heavy traveler,” according to “Muslim Mafia.”

CAIR’s board recently proposed hiring an “international events manager” to help coordinate all the fundraising and other foreign activities. It has even created a special committee on “international affairs” headed by Awad to help tailor its pro-Arab message to American policymakers.

The amount of the UAE’s pledge toward the $50 million CAIR endowment is undisclosed. But it’s hardly the only Arab government funding it.

According to CAIR board meeting notes, revealed in “Muslim Mafia,” a Washington PR firm used by the Emirates – Hill and Knowlton – has put together a “business plan” to help CAIR raise money from other Gulf states.

“The UAE ambassador is willing to gather all ambassadors of the Gulf Cooperating Council to listen to a presentation,” Awad reported to the board. “In return, hopefully they will write to their respective people to ask for support.”

The six-member Gulf Cooperating Council was set up by the Saudis as a regional common market that includes Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and the UAE.

Investing in CAIR means having a reliable lobby for Arab interests in Washington, critics say.

“CAIR’s leaders have clearly stated their intention to use Arab funds to promote Arab interests in America, even though CAIR is not a registered foreign agent or even lobbyist,” Sperry said, adding that the interests of Saudi Arabia and the UAE – two nations tied to 9/11 – are more often than not at odds with those of America.

“Is O’Reilly aware of this?” Sperry asks, “And if he is, why does he withhold this critical information from his viewers when he books CAIR spinmeisters on his show?”

After the FBI in 2008 severed ties to CAIR, citing court evidence that its leaders were participating in an “ongoing” conspiracy to support terrorists, Democrat Sen. Chuck Schumer of New York requested that the FBI’s anti-CAIR ban be made “government-wide policy.”

“I would second that, and add an anti-CAIR ban in the media,” Sperry said. “Of all people, Fox should know better than to give the enemy voice. There are other legitimately moderate Muslim voices out there who can better speak for the broader Muslim community, and they aren’t hard to find. Why Fox keeps going back to CAIR really makes one wonder about the influence Saudi money is having at Fox.”

Osama bin Laden’s family in Iran: new strain on Saudi-Iran ties

CSMONITOR

Six children and one wife of Osama Bin Laden have reportedly been living in Iran since fleeing Afghanistan shortly before 9/11. His 17-year-old daughter recently escaped to the embassy of Saudi Arabia, Iran’s traditional rival.

By Scott Peterson

Istanbul, Turkey

Seven members of Osama bin Laden’s immediate family have been under house arrest in Iran and living in a high security compound outside Tehran since 2001, news outlets reported on Wednesday.

The group includes six children of the Al Qaeda leader and one of his wives, all of whom reportedly fled Afghanistan and walked to the Iran border just prior to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in New York and Washington, according to The Times in London.

One 17-year-old daughter, Iman, escaped from from the Tehran compound and has been holed up in the Saudi Arabia Embassy for 25 days, according to the Saudi-owned newspaper Asharq al-Awsat.

The asylum request – and public revelations about the continuing Bin Laden family presence in Iran – are sure to complicate relations between the two traditional rivals for power in the Middle East: Shiite Iran and Sunni Saudi Arabia.

During his first term, President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad went on a charm offensive to woo Saudi and other Arab leaders. But Iran’s rising influence and that of its “Axis of Resistance” – with Hezbullah, Hamas, and Syria – raised concern in Riyadh and other Arab capitals.

The disputed June election was final proof for many in the Arab world that Iran’s regional power was on the wane again. For Saudi Arabia, evidence of that came just last week when it was able to precipitate an unlikely meeting between Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, an Iran ally, and Lebanon’s pro-West Prime Minister Saad Hariri – who for five years has accused Syria of killing his father.

US turned down Iranian offer for Al Qaeda operatives

One of Bin Laden’s oldest sons, Saad, was known for years to be among some 35 Al Qaeda operatives that fled to Iran after the US toppling of the Taliban government and expulsion of Al Qaeda from Afghanistan in late 2001.

The government of President Mohammad Khatami (1997-2005) eventually offered to indirectly exchange those Al Qaeda figures with the US, if Washington would rein in, or hand over, leaders of the anti-Iran Mujahideen-e Khalq. Known as the MEK or MKO, the anti-Iran group considered a terrorist group by the US State Department was based in Iraq under Saddam Hussein’s wing. But the members there fell under the jurisdiction of American forces after a US-led coalition toppled the Hussein regime in 2003.

Iran’s offer was rejected, according to reports at the time, because the Pentagon wanted to keep hold of the MEK as a possible force to be used against Iran in any Washington-orchestrated bid for regime change.

Bin Ladens’ presence off the radar

Still, it was never made public that so many Bin Laden family members were in Iran. The Washington Post reported in October 2003 that Saad bin Laden had “emerged in recent months as part of the upper echelon of the Al Qaeda network … that is managing the terrorist organization from Iran,” quoting US, European and Arab officials.

The story held that Saad bin Laden was “protected by an elite, radical Iranian security force loyal to the nation’s clerics and beyond the control of the central government” – the Qods Force of the Revolutionary Guard.

Reports emerged earlier this year that Iran had quietly released Saad bin Laden in late 2008, and let him go to Afghanistan.Then it was reported in July that he had been killed in a US drone strike in Pakistan.

But the presence of so many Bin Laden relatives in Iran was a surprise. The Times of London has reported that 11 Bin Laden grandchildren also lived on the compound.

“Until a month ago, we did not know where the siblings were,” Omar bin Laden, the fourth son who lives in Qatar, told Asharq al-Awsat. “The Iranian government did not know what to do with this large group of people whom nobody else wanted, so they just kept them safe…. For that we owe them much gratitude.”

Saudi Arabia to send troops to Iraq?

WND

Alarms raised over Iran‘s increasing agitation of Shiites

Editor’s Note: The following report is excerpted from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium online newsletter published by the founder of WND. Subscriptions are $99 a year or, for monthly trials, just $9.95 per month for credit card users, and provide instant access for the complete reports.

A key Saudi Arabia leader is organizing a pushback against Iran’s plans to agitate Shiite Muslims across Iraq and other Middle Eastern nations, an effort that may even involve introducing Saudi Arabian troops into Iraq to protect the Sunni Arab minority there, according to a report from Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin.

Saudi Prince Nayef Bin Abdul Aziz has become the point man in the efforts to defuse Iran’s planning.

Nayef, who is deputy prime minister to Saudi King Abdullah Bin-Abd-al-Aziz Al Saud, is working on strategies to thwart Iran’s efforts to agitate Shiite Muslims across the region.

He also has been the Saudi Interior Minister since 1975 and is responsible for maintaining order within the Saudi kingdom. For that reason he is particularly concerned over Iran’s recent efforts to agitate the Shiite minority inside the kingdom.

That worry has been aggravated by an ongoing insurgency in neighboring Yemen, where government forces are battling Shiite radicals in a confrontation that could spill over into Saudi Arabia.

Because Iran has begun to excite the growing Shiite populations in the Arab countries, Saudi Arabia has decided to put the tough interior minister in charge of coming up with a plan to counter Iran’s growing influence.

Keep in touch with the most important breaking news stories about critical developments around the globe with Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, the premium, online intelligence news source edited and published by the founder of WND.

Ironically, it was Nayef who in April 2001 went to Tehran to renew diplomatic relations between the two countries. He also has met with Iranian officials over time to discuss such issues as counter-terrorism, drug-trafficking, money laundering and illegal immigration.

But Nayef recently has been vocal in his criticism of Iran for its financial and military support of Hezbollah, a Shiite faction, and Hamas, of Sunni extraction, even though Hamas has backers in Saudi Arabia and reportedly gets support from it, too.

Recent revelations that a Hezbollah cell was in Egypt to attack tourists there prompted major criticism from Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt toward Iran. All three countries are predominantly Sunni and have been very vocal against Iran’s recent resurgence.

Nayef’s increased role in toughening the Saudi stance against Iran also has come about as a result of Iran’s nuclear development program. The Saudis are quite concerned that Iran will use the program to develop a nuclear bomb.

For the complete report and full immediate access to Joseph Farah’s G2 Bulletin, subscribe now.

Saudi prof: Sentence TV station owners to death

WND

Argues broadcasters spreading ‘deadly poison’

At least American media owners have nothing more to worry about than the governmental concept of a “Fairness Doctrine” being imposed that could censor their content, subject them to high taxes and limit their actions.

A professor of Islamic law in Saudi Arabia says owners of television stations there should be tried under Islamic law and then executed for spreading “poison” in society.

The comments were documented by the Middle East Media Research Institute, which has posted an online video of the interview. (It requires registration to view)

The report said the condemnation comes from Saudi University Professor Yousuf Al-Ahmad. He was interviewed on Daleel TV on Aug. 8.

The interviewer raised the issue of a previous Islamic fatwa against owners of several Arab television stations over their programming decisions.

“I believe that one of our problems is that we continue to bury our heads in the sand, and talk about ‘Lebanese’ TV channels, as if we are being honest. Take LBC, for example. We all know who owns it. We should say to [the owner] Al-Walid bin Talal: Beware. The same is true of MBC TV, Al-Arabiya TV, the ART and Rotana channels – all these [Saudi] channels serve to destroy Islam and the Muslims,” the transcript reported al-Ahmad stated.

“Regarding these base channels that I have mentioned, and others like them – I have no doubt whatsoever that their danger to the Islamic nation is no less than that of the Zionist Jews, or of the Crusader Americans in Iraq and elsewhere,” he continued.

“In my view, the deadly poison that they are spreading has reached the bone marrow,” he continued. “The people who spread corruption in the land – whether highway robbers, drug dealers, or the owners of these TV channels, who are even more dangerous… These channels broadcast corruption and nudity. They are all people who spread corruption in the land, and they should be tried in an Islamic court of law and sentenced to death. This [fatwa] is clearly in accordance with Islamic law. There’s no doubt about it.”

The professor said it’s only right that people should be afraid of Islam.

“Islam is lenient, but the infidel West trembles in fear of it. Allah has ordered us to prepare: ‘Prepare for them what force and steeds of war you can, to cast fear in the hearts of Allah’s enemies and of your own.’ Our human nature may tell us that stoning is unacceptable, but this is a punishment decreed by Allah. If Allah decrees death – this is how it should be. If the Islamic scholars ruled that the punishment for drug dealers is death, this is how it should be.

“I believe that [the TV channel owners] are more dangerous than all of these. Forget about whether or not they should be killed – we demand that they face trial in an Islamic court of law,” he said.

In the United States, there have been several moves toward re-imposing a “Fairness Doctrine” plan on media and the Internet. That was a requirement until the 1980s that broadcasters carry both “sides” of various political arguments.

It was dropped under President Reagan and since then the size and impact of talk radio has exploded. Now administration officials have talked about new regulations that would force broadcasters to submit to various “diversity” requirements, such as minority representation or minority ownership, huge tax burdens and other regulations.

Arabs pressure Obama to endorse strike on Iran

WND

White House believes talks will stopTehran interests from going nuclear

By Aaron Klein

President Obama (White House photo)

JERUSALEM – For the first time since coming into office, President Obama is under serious pressure to study the possibility of an Israeli military strike against Iran, a top Egyptian intelligence official told WND.

The Egyptian official said the pressure does not only come from Israel but also from Arab countries such as Saudi Arabia that are at odds with Iran and its Shiite theocracy.

The official said Prince Saud Al-Faisal, the Saudi foreign minister, has been involved in an intense, behind-the-scenes lobbying effort urging the U.S. and other Western countries to do everything necessary to ensure Iran does not obtain nuclear weapons. Such weapons would threaten Saudi Arabia’s position of influence in the Middle East.

The Egyptian official said his country believes it is not likely Obama will grant Israel permission to attack Iran.

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He spoke about other Arab countries’ efforts to oppose an Iranian nuclear umbrella but did not comment on Egypt’s own position on the matter.

Egypt recently granted Israel permission to conduct naval exercises off Egyptian coastal waters; those military drills were clearly aimed at Iran.

Also, recent reports in the Arab media, denied by Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu‘s office, claimed Saudi Arabia granted Israel overflight permission for any aerial raid on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

Until now, the Obama administration has sent mixed signals about green lighting Israeli military action against Iran while stressing it supports diplomacy with an Iranian leadership that has spurred the possibility of talks.

Last month, Vice President Joe Biden said during a CNN interview the U.S. would not stand in the way if Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu believes Israeli military action is needed to eliminate the Iranian nuclear threat.

But multiple other administration officials warned against an Israeli attack. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in April such a strike would have dangerous consequences and asserted Tehran’s acquisition of a bomb can be prevented only if “Iranians themselves decide it’s too costly.” His views have since been echoed by other Obama officials such as White House national security advisor Jim Jones.

Gates visited Israel several weeks ago reportedly to dissuade Jerusalem from any action until Obama’s diplomacy is given a chance.

Obama has set a rough deadline of this fall for an answer from Iran about whether the country will talk. That deadline was postponed from a previous rough deadline of June.

Gates has said if Iran doesn’t come to the bargaining table soon, the next step could be harsher international sanctions.

Israeli officials, however, stress sanctions are a long-term solution and that Iran is quickly acquiring the ingredients necessary to assemble a nuclear bomb. Estimates in Jerusalem average between six about 12 months before Iran might have the ability to begin assembling a nuclear warhead.

Israelis are worried Iran might use Obama’s proposed talks as a smokescreen to continue secretly developing nuclear weapons technology.

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64% of Israelis want Temple rebuilt

WND

Even half of secular Jews say time is right

Temple Mount in Jerusalem

Nearly two-thirds of Israelis say the time is right to rebuild the Jerusalem Temple, according to a Ynet-Gesher survey.

Even half of non-religious Jews favor rebuilding the Holy Temple – an idea politically unthinkable in Israel just 10 or 20 years ago.

The poll was release on the saddest day on the Jewish calendar – the fasting day of Tisha B’Av, or the 9th day of the Hebrew month of Av. It commemorates a series of tragedies that befell the Jewish people all on the same day, most significantly the destruction of the First and Second Temples in Jerusalem, which occurred about 656 years apart on the same day. Jewish tradition calls for the reading of Lamentations.

Israel already done for? Read Aaron Klein’s “The Late Great State of Israel”

Aside from the destruction of the Jewish Temples, a remarkably large number of massive calamities befell the Jewish people on Tisha B’Av. Jewish rebellion leader Bar Kokhba’s famous revolt against Rome failed in A.D. 136. Following the Roman siege of Jerusalem, the razing of Jerusalem occurred the next year. The first crusade pogrom against Jews in Palestine began on that date in A.D. 1096.

The Jews were expelled from Britain on Tisha B’Av in 1290 and were expelled from Spain that same day in 1492. The Warsaw Ghetto uprising was crushed by the Nazis on that day in May 1943, resulting in the slaughter of about 50,000 Jews.

Nationalists in Israel also mourn the removal of Jews from the Gaza Strip in 2005, which began the day after Tisha B’av.

The book of Lamentations, written in poetic verse, mourns the desolations brought on Jerusalem and the Holy Land by the Chaldeans.

The rebuilding of the Temple is an extremely controversial idea in Israel because currently Jewish access to the Temple Mount is restricted by the Muslim Waqf, which was granted administrative authority over the Jews’ holiest sites, which are occupied by Muslim shrines.

Some Jewish leaders believe access to Jews should be restricted until the Third Temple is built.

Israel recaptured the Temple Mount during the 1967 Six Day War. Currently under Israeli control, Jews and Christians are barred from praying on the Mount.

The Temple Mount was opened to the general public until September 2000, when the Palestinians started their intifada by throwing stones at Jewish worshippers after then-candidate for prime minister Ariel Sharon visited the area.

Following the onset of violence, the new Sharon government closed the Mount to non-Muslims, using checkpoints to control all pedestrian traffic for fear of further clashes with the Palestinians.

The Temple Mount was reopened to non-Muslims in August 2003. It remains open, but only Sundays through Thursdays, 7:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., and not on any Christian, Jewish or Muslim holidays or other days considered “sensitive” by the Waqf.

During “open” days, Jews and Christian are allowed to ascend the Mount, usually through organized tours and only if they conform first to a strict set of guidelines, which includes demands that they not pray or bring any “holy objects” to the site. Visitors are banned from entering any of the mosques without direct Waqf permission. Rules are enforced by Waqf agents, who watch tours closely and alert nearby Israeli police to any breaking of their guidelines.

During Tendler’s visit to the mount, he can be heard in the video complaining about the Israeli rules.

“I’m little bit annoyed at the instructions that we get,” he quipped, “as if we were aliens and have to be told how to behave on [the Temple Mount].”

King Solomon built the First Temple in the 10th century B.C. The Babylonians destroyed it in 586 B.C. The Jews built the Second Temple in 515 B.C. after Jerusalem was freed from Babylonian captivity. The Romans destroyed the Second Temple in A.D. 70.

The First Temple stood for about 400 years, the second for almost 600. Both Temples served as the center of religious worship for the whole Jewish nation. All Jewish holidays centered on worship at the Temple – the central location for the offering of sacrifices and the main gathering place for the Jewish people.

According to the Talmud, God created the world from the foundation stone of the Temple Mount.

The site is believed to be the biblical Mount Moriah, where Abraham fulfilled God’s test of faith by demonstrating his willingness to sacrifice his son Isaac.

Jewish tradition also holds that Mashiach – literally “the anointed one,” the Jewish Messiah – will come and rebuild the third and final temple on the Mount in Jerusalem and bring redemption to the entire world.

The Western Wall, called the Kotel in Hebrew, is the one part of the Temple Mount that survived the Roman destruction of the Second Temple and stands to this day in Jerusalem.

The Temple Mount has remained a focal point for Jewish services for thousands of years. Prayers for a return to Jerusalem and the rebuilding of the Jewish Temple have been uttered three times daily by religious Jews since the destruction of the Second Temple. Throughout all the centuries of Jewish exile from their land, thorough documentation shows the Jews never gave up their hope of returning to Jerusalem and reestablishing their Temple. To this day Jews worldwide pray facing the Western Wall, while Muslims turn their backs away from the Temple Mount and pray toward Mecca.

Muslims constructed the al-Aqsa Mosque around A.D. 709 to serve as a place of worship near a famous shrine, the gleaming Dome of the Rock, built by an Islamic caliph, or supreme ruler.

About 100 years ago, Muslims began to associate al‐-Aqsa in Jerusalem with the place Muhammad ascended to heaven. Islamic tradition states Muhammad took a journey in a single night from “a sacred mosque” – believed to be in Mecca in southern Saudi Arabia – to “the farthest mosque,” and from a rock there ascended to heaven to receive revelations from Allah that became part of the Quran.

While Palestinians and many Muslim countries claim exclusivity over the Mount, and while their leaders strenuously deny the Jewish historic connection to the site, things weren’t always this way. In fact, historically, Muslims never claimed the al-Aqsa Mosque as their “third holiest site” and always recognized the existence of the Jewish Temples.

According to an Israeli attorney, Shmuel Berkovits, Islamic tradition mostly disregarded Jerusalem. He points out in his book “How Dreadful is this Place!” that Muhammad was said to loathe Jerusalem and what it stood for to the other monotheistic faiths.

Muhammad also made a point of eliminating pagan sites of worship and sanctifying only one place – the Kaaba in Mecca – to signify the unity of Allah. As late as the 14th century, Islamic scholar Taqi al-Din Ibn Taymiyya, whose writings later influenced the strict Wahhabi movement in Arabia, ruled that sacred Islamic sites exist only on the Arabian Peninsula, and that “in Jerusalem, there is not a place one calls sacred, and the same holds true for the tombs of Hebron.”

Not until the late 19th century – when Jews started immigrating to Palestine – did Muslim scholars claim that Muhammad tied his horse to the Western Wall and associate Muhammad’s purported night journey with the Temple Mount.

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Israeli Missile-Defense Test Aborted

FOX NEWS

JERUSALEM -

Tests of a missile-defense system meant to shieldIsrael from Iranian attack were aborted over the past week on three occasions because of various malfunctions, Israeli defense officials said Thursday.

In the latest case, an upgraded version of the Arrow II – a system being developed by state-run Israel Aerospace Industries Ltd. and Chicago-based Boeing Co. – was tested off the coast of California on Wednesday, they said.

But communication glitches between the missile and the radar led U.S. defense officials to abort the test before an intercepting missile could be fired, they said.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to disclose details of the tests, which were carried out in the U.S. because that would allow for greater distances than would be possible in Israel, Defense Ministry spokesman Shlomo Dror said.

The Arrow is part of a multilayered missile defense system Israel is working on to protect it from all forms of attack, ranging from short-range rocket fire from Lebanon and the Gaza Strip to longer-range threats from Iran.

Dror said tests of the same Arrow system in Israel earlier this year were “very successful.” He said malfunctions of systems still in their experimental stage were to be expected and said other tests were called off on Friday and Monday.

The defense officials said the improved Arrow II was meant to intercept a dummy Iranian Shihab missile, which is capable of carrying a nuclear warhead. But U.S. officials blocked the launch of an intercepting missile because of the communications glitch, the Israelis said.

Iran’s Shihab-3 has a range of up to 1,250 miles (2,000 kilometers), putting Israel well within striking distance.

Isaac Ben-Israel, a retired general and weapons expert, said the interceptor wasn’t fired because it is too expensive to use in a test that isn’t expected to go according to plan. He said such glitches are common when developing new systems and he did not consider it a significant setback.

“I expect that within a short period of time, after they determine exactly what happened, they will repeat this experiment and then we will know if it works or not,” Ben-Israel said.

Israel sees Iran as its biggest threat, because of its nuclear program and development of medium-rangeballistic missiles. Those fears have been compounded by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad‘s persistent anti-Israeli rhetoric.

Israel, like many in the international community, rejects Iran’s claims that its nuclear program is only to produce energy.

An operational version of Arrow II is partially deployed, and the U.S. and Israel are in the preliminary stages of developing an upgraded Arrow III.

The homegrown “Iron Dome” system is designed to bring down short-range rockets of the kind Palestinian and Lebanese militants use. Last week, Israeli officials reported a successful live test of the system.

The Arrow project was spurred largely by the failure of the U.S. military‘s Patriot missiles to intercept Iraqi Scud rockets that struck Israel in the 1991 Gulf War.

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Netanyahu tight-lipped about imminent Iran attack

WND

Israeli warships cross Red Sea in apparent signal to Tehran

By Aaron Klein

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu

JERUSALEM – Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s office refused to respond to a report today purporting to quote an Israeli defense official stating the recent deployment of warships across the Red Sea should be seen as serious preparation for an attack on Iran.

“It is not our policy to comment on such reports,” Mark Regev, Netanyahu’s spokesman, told WND.

Earlier this week, two Israel Navy gunboats openly sailed through the Suez Canal into the Red Sea with permission from Egypt.

“This is preparation that should be taken seriously. Israel is investing time in preparing itself for the complexity of an attack on Iran. These maneuvers are a message to Iran that Israel will follow up on its threats,” the Times of London today quoted what it said was an Israeli defense official as saying.

The warship movements follow the passage last month of an Israeli Dolphin-class submarine through the canal, later returning the same way.

According to Israeli defense officials speaking to WND, the Dolphin was carrying out test drills. The officials said the submarine passed through the canal with permission from Egypt, even though the Egyptian government denied any permission was granted.

The Times today quoted an Israeli diplomat explaining the Jewish state has been bolstering its ties with certain Arab nations that are also threatened by Iran. The diplomat cited a “shared mutual distrust of Iran” between Israel and Egypt.

In a report denied by Netanyahu’s office, the Times of London two weeks ago claimed Saudi Arabia would turn a blind eye to Israeli warplanes flying over the kingdom in any raid on Iran’s nuclear sites.

The Times said Mossad director Meir Dagan had held secret talks with Saudi officials to discuss the possibility.

“The Saudis have tacitly agreed to the Israeli air force flying through their airspace on a mission which is supposed to be in the common interests of Israel and Saudi Arabia,” the newspaper quoted a diplomatic source as saying.

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Israel to test Arrow system off US coast

WORTHY NEWS

Israel and the US will hold a joint test of the Arrow missile over the Pacific Ocean in what will be the first trial of the system with a target with a range of more than 1,000 kilometers, further than the test sites over the Mediterranean could allow.

According to a US defense official quoted by Reuters, the test, which will take place sometime in the coming days off of the coast of central California, will be the third trial of the Arrow conducted by Israel in the United States. He said the Federal Aviation Administration had warned aircraft to stay clear of the area.

Israel is “limited to the range of the missile they can test in the eastern Mediterranean. There’s a safety issue,” US Army Lieutenant General Patrick O’Reilly, the director of the Pentagon’s Missile Defense Agency, was quoted by Reuters as saying. “That’s the primary purpose of them coming to the United States to use our test range.”

O’Rielly added that the test would also afford “the opportunity to have the Patriot system, the THAAD system and the Aegis system all interacting with the Arrow system so that we’re demonstrating full interoperability as we execute this test.”

The unnamed US official also said that although the test would be carried out under American auspices and would make use of the “sensor assets” of US missile systems, it was still mainly Israel’s test.

In April, the Israel Air Force conducted its 17th test of the newly upgraded Arrow 2 missile. Officials said it was capable of intercepting an Iranian nuclear missile.

April’s test was the first time a modified version of the Arrow 2 was launched and operated in conjunction with a new and more advanced model of the Green Pine radar system.

The high-powered American X-Band radar, deployed in the Negev Desert in late 2008 as a farewell gift from then-US president George W. Bush, also participated in the test and tracked the incoming target.

The test was conducted jointly by the IAF and the US Missile Defense Agency. Israel Aerospace Industries is developing the Arrow in cooperation with Boeing.

In May, The Jerusalem Post reported that the US will provide the full funding for the development and production of the next-generation Arrow 3 anti-missile system.

The Arrow 3 will be a longer-range version of the Arrow defense system currently in IDF operation. It will be capable of intercepting incoming enemy missiles at higher altitudes and farther away from Israel.

Yaakov Katz contributed to this report

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