RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/14517/iran-new-terrorist-network

US, British, French and other Western bases in the region are the most likely targets for future terrorist attacks, and a number of Western governments are understood to have responded by ordering their military and diplomatic missions in the region to upgrade security arrangements.

The discovery of the African network follows recent revelations of Iran’s attempts to expand its terror network in Europe, as well as other parts of the globe including Latin America and the Middle East.

The Iranian cells are said to be active in a number of African countries including Sudan, Chad, Ghana, Niger, Gambia and the Central African Republic.

Last month, The Jerusalem Post, quoting from an intelligence report from the German state of Hesse, claimed that Iran was one of the main state actors involved in espionage in Germany. It said Iran was involved in the illicit procurement of technology for weapons of mass destruction.

As Iran intensifies its efforts to establish a global terror network, new evidence has emerged that highlights the regime’s attempts to establish a terrorist infrastructure in Africa.

Western security officials claim the Iranian initiative in Africa has been launched in response to the Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the controversial nuclear deal signed between Tehran and the world’s leading powers in 2015.

The objective of the African-based terror network, Western security officials say, is to establish a group of so-called “sleeper cells” that can be activated to attack Western targets if tensions between Iran and the West result in a serious escalation in hostilities. US, British, French and other Western bases in the region are the most likely targets for future terrorist attacks, and a number of Western governments are understood to have responded by ordering their military and diplomatic missions in the region to upgrade security arrangements.

The discovery of the African network follows recent revelations of Iran’s attempts to expand its terror network in Europe, as well as other parts of the globe including Latin America and the Middle East.

Intelligence officials say the new terror network has been established on the orders of Qassem Suleimani, the head of the Quds Force, the elite section of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps that has responsibility for overseas operations.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/274243/slavery-report-nigeria-american-anti-slavery-group

Among the most disturbing aspects of the long-running civil war in Nigeria has been slavery. Conflicts between the Muslim majority and the 40% Christian minority have led to the growth of terrorist violence in which the taking of Christian slaves has become a source of compensation for Islamic fighters.

The recent rise of jihad organizations like ISIS affiliate Boko Haram has been the main source of contemporary slave raids. The most infamous incident of a slave raid was Boko Haram’s abduction of 276 Christian schoolgirls in the town of Chibok on April 14, 2014 which inspired Michelle Obama’s “#BringBackOurGirls” hashtag. Most slaves are young girls, kidnapped and kept as the concubines of the Islamic soldiers.

Though the U.S. State Department’s 2018 human rights report on Nigeria mentions that the number of slaves captured and owned by Boko Haram terrorists today could be in the thousands, the full number is as of now “unknown.”

The human rights organization Open Doors USA has also ranked Nigeria as no. 12 on its list of the countries most guilty of persecuting and massacring Christians.

History and Background

Nigeria has been a major center of black slavery for centuries. The Portuguese and Spanish plied the coast hunting for slaves and making deals with both black and Arab slave raiders as early as 1471. But with the spread of Islam centuries earlier, slavery spread as well, as Islamized blacks enslaved non-Muslim blacks. While Europeans likely encouraged the growth of slavery through increasing overseas demand, decades after all white nations banned the trans-Atlantic slave trade, slavery persisted on an enormous scale within the Muslim caliphates. By the nineteenth century, it is estimated that in the northern Nigerian province of Kano alone — the most prosperous within the powerful Sokoto caliphate — as much as half of the total population were slaves.