RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://pjmedia.com/homeland-security/fbi-helps-italian-authorities-thwart-isis-terror-bombing-plot-targeting-vatican/

Italian police authorities today acknowledged the role of the FBI in helping stop an ISIS plot to attack the Vatican and other Christian places of worship after the arrest of a Somali national affiliated with ISIS last week.

Last Thursday, 20-year-old Mohsin Ibrahim Omar, also known as Anas Khalil, was arrested in the Aegean Sea port city of Bari. The operation involved multiple Italian and international law enforcement agencies, including the FBI:

According to the Italian daily Repubblica, in at least one of Omar’s intercepted communications he referenced putting bombs in churches throughout Italy and specifically indicated St. Peter’s Basilica in the Vatican — the largest church in Rome and the seat of the Roman Catholic papacy.

“The 25th is Christmas…the churches are full. Let’s put bombs in all the churches in Italy,” he reportedly told an associate.

Pictures of the Vatican were discovered on his phone.

Omar, a member of the Islamic State affiliate in Somalia, was in direct contact with an operational cell and was under constant surveillance. Italian police moved to arrest Omar because he said he had been planning to leave the country immediately, and in his communications he indicated active plans to target upcoming Christmas festivities and churches, specifically places where Christians gathered.

Omar praised last Tuesday’s terror attack in Strasbourg, France, that killed five people at the city’s historic Christmas market that dates back to 1570.

“The one who kills Christians and the enemies of Allah is our brother…” Omar reportedly said in reference to the Strasbourg attack.

He also praised martyrdom, saying, “When one is killed in the way of Allah, the glory is with him, and he is not dead.”

In recent years, Bari has become a transit hub for international terror groups.

In July 2017, a 38-year-old Chechen man who was part of the “Emirate of the Caucuses” was arrested in Bari as he was supervising the transit of Chechen ISIS fighters transiting to Europe. The man was found to have connections to terror cells in Belgium. CONTINUE AT SITE

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13421/iran-plan-b

Is a Plan B possible? No one knows for sure.

What is certain, however, is that the possibility should be discussed. This is what we propose to do in this session with a paper aimed at opening the discussion on how to nudge, help or even force Iran out of the schizophrenic trap that its current ruling elite, or history if you prefer, have set for it — a way out that points to Iran absorbing its revolutionary experience to re-become a nation-state with the needs, aspirations, hopes, fears, and patterns of behavior of nation-states.

For four decades Iran has been in world headlines, not always for the best of reasons. Many countries have had problems with Iran in its current version as the Islamic Republic. In turn, the Islamic Republic has not been able to find the place it covets in a global system that it rejects as a creation of the “Infidel”.

Those having problems with the Islamic Republic have contemplated, planned and, in some cases, even tried quite a few Plan A options to deal with the Islamic Republic. These range from efforts to persuade the current leadership in Tehran to change aspects of its behavior to economic warfare, “crippling” sanctions, and, on occasions, even military action.

All those plans failed to produce the desired result because they were based on the assumption that the Islamic Republic is a classical nation-state and likely to respond as such.

However, in its revolutionary emanation, Iran has experienced what could only be called an historic schizophrenia in which its identity as a revolutionary cause is in conflict with that of its identity as a nation-state.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/13434/turkey-brain-drain

Scores of academics (more than 265) who signed the “peace call” are being prosecuted on charges of terrorism.

“Most better [academics] tend to leave the country,” said one university professor in Ankara on condition of anonymity, himself in correspondence with two US universities for a teaching position.

“Children who do not read the Quran are with Satan and Satanic people.” — Professor Ali Erbaş, Turkey’s top cleric, head of the Turkish government’s powerful Directorate of Religious Affairs (Diyanet).

This author once described a Turkish university as “just a group of buildings gathered around a library and a mosque,” to paraphrase a quote from Shelby Foote. Today, universities in Turkey are increasingly becoming seats of Islamic learning, zeal and government bootlicking.

Life, for many scholars, is gloomy. Since the attempted coup in July 2016, nearly 6,000 academics have been dismissed from public universities under emergency decrees, including 378 who had signed a January 2016 Academics for Peace petition condemning the government’s security operations in the Kurdish southeast. Another 38 academics from public universities and 48 from private universities have been dismissed by their universities and were told by university officials that the reason was signing the petition. Scores of academics (more than 265) who signed the “peace call” are being prosecuted on charges of terrorism.

https://pjmedia.com/trending/chaos-on-french-highways-as-yellow-vest-protesters-torch-toll-booths/

A major highway connecting Marseille and Toulon was closed overnight as a key toll booth was occupied and burned by yellow vest protesters.

All told, about 40 toll booths across the country were occupied or set on fire by protesters against the government of President Emmanuel Macron.

Reuters:

Some 20 people were arrested on Tuesday following the blazes, while four others remain in custody following fires on Saturday.

“Motorists should take utmost care as they approach toll gates and motorway access ramps due to the presence of numerous pedestrians,” Vinci said in a statement.

Several people have died in roadside accidents at yellow vest roadblocks in recent weeks, mostly at the many roundabouts blocked by groups of demonstrators.

Toll booths haven’t been the only target of the protesters on the nation’s highways.

Protesters angry about high fuel costs and new speed limits have also damaged or torched hundreds of traffic radars.

Radars-auto.com estimated that by the middle of last week some 1,600 – about half of all French traffic radars – had been damaged. More than 250 have been entirely destroyed, it said.

The French state will also lose several tens of millions of euros in revenues, it said, adding that in 2017 the radars had yielded on average 84 million euros ($96 million) per month.

The interior ministry declined comment on the number of radars damaged, but said that minor damage cost on average 500 euros per radar to repair, with major damage costing up to 200,000 euros.

Fines for damaging radars can run as high as 75,000 euros.

“Even wrapping a radar in plastic or a yellow vest… without destroying it is an offense,” a ministry official said.

Vinci estimates the damages since the start of the protests will cost it “several tens of millions” of euros, not including lost revenue, as the protesters have allowed thousands of motorists onto the highways for free. CONTINUE AT SITE