RUTHFULLY YOURS

I am disgusted by constantly seeing pictures of the San Bernardino murderers continually splashed across newspapers and on the internet. They represent the worst of humankind and deserve no visual recognition. They are the dregs of mankind and deserving of nothing but our revulsion and determination to stop their kind from promoting the murderous rampage seen everywhere in the world.

They stand in stark contrast to a woman who would be 53 years old today had she not been gunned down by the same perverted and murderous motives as the jihadist terrorists. Her name is Neerja Bhanot and here is her picture.

Neerja Bhanot

Bhanot was the senior flight purser on Pan Am Flight 73 flying from Mumbai to the United States when it was hijacked by armed men on September 5, 1986 at the Karachi airport in Pakistan. There were 361 passengers and 19 crew members. Because of her quick thinking, Bhanot alerted the cockpit crew who escaped from an overhead hatch in the cockpit so that the aircraft could not be forcibly flown. The three-member American pilot, co-pilot, and flight engineer were following protocol procedures.

The Palestinian hijackers were part of the terrorist Abu Nidal Organization that was backed by Libya. Conflicting reports indicate that the terrorists “were planning to use the hijacked plane to pick up Palestinian prisoners in both Cyprus and Israel. However, in 2006, surviving hostage Michael Thexton published a book in which he claimed he had heard the hijackers intended to crash the plane into a target in Israel (in the manner of 9/11).

NAIROBI, Kenya—The scope of U.S. airstrikes that destroyed an al-Shabaab training camp underscores Washington’s mounting concerns over the resilience of a jihadist group increasingly attacking the Somali government and neighboring states.

The Pentagon said the warplanes and drones used in Saturday’s airstrike killed more than 150 al-Shabaab fighters gathered at a training base ahead of a planned attack against U.S. and African Union forces inside Somalia. It was a surprisingly large-scale attack for the U.S. military in Somalia, which has previously focused on targeted strikes against specific leaders of the Islamist group—most commonly with unmanned drones.

SEOUL—North Korea said it has successfully made nuclear warheads for ballistic missiles, a claim which, if true, would represent a clear threat to the U.S.

Military officials and analysts outside North Korea have debated for years the isolated nation’s ability to make nuclear explosives small enough to mount on missiles. The opacity of its nuclear program makes it difficult to determine progress in its stated objective.

In a report from Pyongyang’s state news agency on Wednesday, North Korea said leader Kim Jong Un was briefed by scientists about advances in nuclear missile technology.

“The nuclear warheads have been standardized to be fit for ballistic missiles by miniaturizing them, he noted, adding this can be called true nuclear deterrent,” the Korean Central News Agency paraphrased Mr. Kim as saying.

The report also said the warheads were able to generate a thermonuclear reaction, making a more powerful form of explosion if a hydrogen-based weapon is used. North Korea said its latest nuclear bomb on Jan. 6 was a hydrogen-based explosive, although outside experts said the relatively small size of the explosion made it unlikely that it was caused by a typical hydrogen bomb.

Photos released by North Korea’s state media showed Mr. Kim talking with officials while standing close to a large metal sphere. Melissa Hanham, a senior research associate at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies in California, said it was possible the device was a nuclear explosive, either a stand-alone fusion bomb or a trigger for a more powerful thermonuclear device. CONTINUE AT SITE

DUBAI—Iran test fired two types of medium-range ballistic missiles on Wednesday, extending a barrage of tests this week following vows by officials to press ahead with its missile program despite U.S. pressure to curtail it.

The Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps fired off “Qadr-H” and “Qadr-F” missiles from mountainous sites in northern Iran, according to the semi-official Tasnim News Agency. The missiles traveled 870 miles to the country’s sparsely populated southeastern coast, it said.

The tests followed the previous day’s tests of several ballistic missiles from silos in central Iran, the country’s first since the U.S. Treasury Department sanctioned 11 Iranian entities in January over alleged links to the missile program.

A senior U.S. official said on Tuesday that while the tests were “inconsistent” with a United Nations Security Council Resolution calling on Iran not to pursue missiles capable of delivering nuclear warheads, they didn’t constitute a violation of last year’s historic nuclear deal.

The U.S. sees Iranian missiles as a threat to Israel, its key Middle Eastern ally, and to Arab allies in the Persian Gulf. There are also substantial U.S. military assets in the region, including a large naval base in Bahrain.

Mohammad Ali Jafari, the commander of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, said on Tuesday that most of Iran’s arsenal of missiles was capable of reaching Israel, according to Tasnim. Iranian enemies in the region “should be in panic about the roar of the IRGC missiles,” he said. CONTINUE AT SITE