Tuesday, January 31, 2017

The history of how Obama and the Democrats created the Syrian genocide and refugee situation.

January 31, 2017
President Obama’s Genocide

By Ben Voth

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was released from Iraqi prison custody in 2009, shortly after President Obama came to power largely
upon a political promise to end U.S. military involvement in Iraq. Baghdadi was captured in February 2004 by U.S. forces and had been involved in extensive radical activities including kidnappings of many individuals and ransom activities. Under Saddam he had been involved in radical Islamic sects, earning him extra attention from the Baathist government before U.S. forces arrived. Since the premature departure of American forces led by President Obama, Baghdadi rose quickly to power among Islamic supremacists. By 2010, he was acknowledged as the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq. By 2014, his genocidal fantasy with the new moniker of ISIS was already killing 1,000 Iraqis a month in car bombings and various supremacist terrorist acts designed to kill the innocent while attracting more fanatical followers to the idealized task of re-creating the Islamic Caliphate.
ISIS spread across Iraq and Syria and seized U.S. military supplies as it institutionalized savage genocidal policies across the region. Everything from the sale of oil to human organs helped fund this genocidaire’s radical nihilism that was designed to swallow up the entire world if enough allegiance could be gained. Spectacular ‘deaths as text’ filled the internet with videos of people being burned alive, drowned, crucified, thrown off buildings, and an endless quest for more shocking and vivid betrayals of human dignity. ISIS managed to kill 1,200 people outside of its locus of control in Syria and Iraq. Though President Bush predicted in his State of the Union message of 2007 that a premature exit from Iraq would lead to precisely this scenario, the Obama administration continually maintained that one of its most important successes was withdrawing U.S. forces from Iraq. More than 30,000 people were killed by ISIS -- mostly Muslims but many Christians and Yazidis as well. Christians and Yazidis were begrudgingly recognized as specific genocide targets in 2016 by the U.S. State Department, but the Obama administration did not prioritize their escape to places such as the United States. The refusal to protect the Yazidis was in some sense ideological payback for the fierce support Kurdish groups gave to the U.S. invasion of Iraq since 2002 to the present. In fact, President Obama mocked such religious preferences for the Christians and Yazidis as “Un-American” in 2015:
“When I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which a person who’s fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted, when some of those folks themselves come from families who benefited from protection when they were fleeing political persecution -- that’s shameful, That’s not American. That’s not who we are. We don’t have religious tests to our compassion.”
Of course, that is precisely the kind of standard that was necessary to protect Jews from Nazi Germany and it was the standard of military action in Bosnia for NATO to protect Muslims in the mid-1990s over the objections of the United Nations. Moreover, Obama’s misinterpretation of humanitarian asylum norms gives preference to perpetrators of genocide who control public discourse. Obama’s words help prevent Christians, who make up ten percent of Syria’s population, from escaping the genocidal hell on earth created by ISIS. Samantha Power, who some say wrote the book on America and genocide, did not undo that policy argued by President Obama in her role as UN Ambassador. She did have time to recently ask the Russian government if they had any “shame” in their efforts to stop ISIS.
There were three times as many deaths in Syria since 2012 as there were in Iraq from 2003 to 2009. Yet, there were no massive marches in the U.S. and Europe against this violence as there were during the Iraq war. The anti-war movement has never been against war. It is against the United States military and the Israeli military. There have been nearly 70,000 deaths in Iraq since 2009 and the abrupt U.S. military withdrawal. These death tolls were largely ignored by the media in an effort to bolster the false perception that the Iraq withdrawal was a success. These deaths lay squarely upon the Obama administration and an intellectual
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culture that bolsters the idea that American assertiveness in the world is the root of all evil. Terrorism is a rational response to the reality that America hates Muslims. That pathology is believed among some in the U.S. and among the supremacists in Iraq and Syria. The parsing of terrorism data to create domestic ‘lightning is more likely to kill you than terrorism’ is direct jingoistic dehumanization of victims living outside the United States and part of a larger intellectual pathology of suggesting that America is an evil hegemon bent on harming innocent Muslims.
Baghdadi is a genocidaire who envisions killing every person on the planet who disagrees with his Islamic supremacist vision. He never should have been released from the Iraqi prison in 2009 so he could create ISIS. His rhetoric and actions combined with the callous inaction and deception of the Obama administration created conditions of genocide in Iraq and Syria. Obama’s chief expert on genocide Samantha Power, who mocked the U.S. government in her 2002 book, must now gaze upon hundreds of thousands of lives lost in genocidal activities during her leadership. The thesis that American military withdrawal from Iraq would defuse the motives for terrorism has proven terribly false. The current effort to demonize the new immigration orders for Syria that would reprioritize entry and allow genocide victims to escape this age of genocide is diabolical and we ought not be silent.

Ben Voth is an associate professor of Corporate Communication and Public Affairs and Director of Debate at Southern Methodist University. He is the author of The Rhetoric of Genocide: Death as a Text and co-author with Robert Denton of Social Fragmentation and the Decline of American Democracy

Clinton-Allied Education Firm Hid IRS Probe Prior To IPO Launch

Posted By Richard Pollock On 10:23 PM 01/30/2017 

Laureate Education, Inc. — which on Wednesday will launch its IPO on NASDAQ — failed to tell investors in federal filings that IRS officials are reviewing congressional charges it had a “pay to play” relationship with Bill and Hillary Clinton, The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group has learned.
Laureate’s relationship with the Clintons began in 2010, when it paid the former president $16.5 million as its “honorary chancellor” for five years. Baltimore-based Laureate — led by chairman and CEO Douglas Becker — also donated up to an additional $5 million to the Clinton Foundation.
And during former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s tenure, the Department of State’s U.S. Agency for International Development awarded $55 million to the International Youth Foundation (IYF), which is linked to Laureate and is chaired by Becker.
Laureate operates 71 educational institutions in 25 countries with a heavy presence in Latin America.
The issue came to a head in a July 15, 2016, letter to IRS Commissioner John Koskinen by 64 Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives, saying such relationships create “an appearance that millions of dollars in taxpayer money was channeled to IYF by Secretary Clinton’s State Department as a kickback for her husband’s generous contract as an honorary Laureate chancellor.”
Koskinen informed the congressmen on July 22, 2016, that he referred the matter to the federal tax agency’s Exempt Operations Program, which regulates charities.
While Laureate did disclose the $16.5 million payment to Bill Clinton in its S-1 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), company officials said nothing about either the IRS referral or congressional concerns. The SEC requires firms planning IPOs to disclose all potential “risk factors” to investors.
Laureate is the biggest for-profit educational system in the country. As a candidate, Hillary Clinton scorned for-profit universities and the Obama administration forced several for-profit educational companies out of business.
Obama said for-profit schools exploited low-income students who were left with heavy debt and near-useless degrees — yet both Clintons energetically supported Laureate.
Companies have broad discretion on disclosing liabilities, but Laura Anthony, founding partner of Legal and Compliance, Inc., a corporate securities and business transaction firm, told TheDCNF that failure to disclose problems can expose a company to future legal and market risks.
“If there is an omission of a risk factor, then there is exposure to the company and its agents,” Anthony said. “I can’t foresee what impact, if any, it’s going to have on stock price, which is driven by emotion as much as by anything else.”
But Anthony explained, “this information would have a detrimental impact on the company and the stock price … If that was my client, I would tell them it should be disclosed.”
Under the Securities Act of 1933, if there is a material misrepresentation or an omission of facts in an S-1, injured investors can sue a company and even the underwriters.
“An S-1 is a document allows an issuer to reduce its own risks by making the fullest possible disclosures about a particular adverse development going forward,” Wall Street analyst Charles Ortel told TheDCNF. “So, it’s in the interest of the issuer to disclose as much as possible of any potential risk.”
Ortel said Laureate’s relationship with the Clintons “reeks of the potential for ‘pay to play,’ and corruption and influence peddling. How do you defend paying Bill Clinton $16.5 million for part-time work?”
The Laureate IPO underwriters include Morgan Stanley, Credit Suisse, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, Barclays, JP Morgan and BMO Capital Markets, according to its S-1. Laureate’s principal owners — who obtained the firm in 2007 through a leveraged buyout led by KKR — include such figures as billionaire liberal activist George Soros and Microsoft’s Paul Allen.
Steven A. Cohen, another member of the original investor group, reached a settlement with the SEC for insider trading in January 2016, which bars him from managing money for outside investors until 2018.
“Governance is an issue because basically the company is dominated by the LBO firms,” Kathleen Smith told TheDCNF. Smith is a manager of IPO Exchange Traded Funds at the Greenwich, Conn.-based Renaissance Capital.
“On its 10-person board, the LBO investors have 7 seats. And most importantly of all, these insiders are going to have 98 percent voting control. This is not a friendly setup,” Smith said.
Laureate is also “still highly leveraged,” she added.
KKR and similar firms assumed $1.7 billion in debt when it privately purchased Laureate in 2007. That debt will not be eliminated by the $500 million that Laureate officials hope to raise in Wednesday’s IPO.
Laureate has suffered massive losses in recent years, reporting $85 million in losses in 2013, $162 million in 2014 and $315 million in 2015, according to its S-1.
The company also reported material weaknesses related to inadequate controls over key financial reports, and that it is facing a corruption investigation in Turkey.
[dcquiz] Laureate has enlisted the help of other high-profile political figures. It added former World Bank president Robert Zoellick as an independent director to its board in 2013. Also in 2013, the International Finance Corporation, a World Bank subsidiary, invested $150 million in Laureate, increasing to $200 million, according to the  S-1.
Laureate also recruited former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo, the last Mexican head of state from the Institutional Revolutionary Party, which governed the country as a monopoly party for 71 years.
TheDCNF contacted both Laureate Education and the IRS.  Neither responded to our request for comment.

Islamic anti Jew hatred spewed in San Jose (The Shia Association of the Bay Area)



Investigative journalist infiltrates anti-Semitic organization in California

Lee Kaplan is an undercover investigative journalist who has been published and on radio and television internationally.  Kaplan joins Doc Thompson to talk about his latest investigative report on The Shia Association of Bay Area. He explains that after a comment on Martin Luther King Jr. Day, the Catholic Bishop Patrick Joseph McGrath visited and declared “solidarity” with The Shia Association of the Bay Area (a.k.a. SABA Islamic Center), a staunchly pro-Iranian regime, anti-Semitic organization based in San Jose, California.
To see more from Doc, visit his channel on TheBlaze and listen live to “The Morning Blaze with Doc Thompson” weekdays 6–9am ET, only on TheBlaze Radio Network.

Truly unhinged: British medical group warns against calling pregnant patients ‘mothers’ — it might offend trans men

British medical group warns against calling pregnant patients ‘mothers’ — it might offend trans men

 
British medical group warns against calling pregnant patients ‘mothers’ — it might offend trans men
Getty Images 

The British Medical Association is urging staff and representatives not to refer to pregnant patients as “expectant mothers” because it may offend transgender and intersex men.
The suggestion was published in an internal BMA pamphlet titled “A Guide to Effective Communication: Inclusive Language in the Workplace,” according to the Evening Standard.
“A large majority of people that have been pregnant or have given birth identify as women,” the guide reads. “We can include intersex men and trans men who may get pregnant by saying ‘pregnant people’ instead of ‘expectant mothers.'”
Trans men are those who were born biologically female — with female anatomy — but have chosen to identify as men.
The guide goes on to suggest that “gender inequality” arises from “traditional ideas about the roles of women and men.”
The pamphlet, according to Fox News, also advises against using the term “Christian name,” because not every family is religious, suggests the term “family name” instead of “last name,” and encourages avoiding masculine terms such as “manpower” and “mankind.”
Philip Davies, a Conservative member of Parliament, called the policy “completely ridiculous.”
“If you can’t call a pregnant woman an expectant mother, then what is the world coming to?” he said.
All of this follows news of Britain’s first pregnant woman who has transitioned to a man. Hayden Cross, 20, was born a female but legally identifies as a man and was undergoing hormone treatments. However, after becoming pregnant, Hayden put the treatments on hold.
The guide also asks representatives to use the phrase “the elderly” rather than “older people,” “accessible lifts” rather than “disabled lifts” and to call those who are biologically male or female “assigned male or female.”
The BMA said the goal of the leaflet was to promote equal rights, but the association insists it is not a guide for doctors.
“This is a guide for BMA staff and representatives aimed at promoting an inclusive workplace at the BMA,” a spokesperson said. “It is not workplace guidance for doctors which is clear from the fact it does not refer to patients.”
While the BMA does not regulate or certify doctors in the U.K., as the General Medical Council does, it is a trade union offering protections for British medical doctors.

Margret Sanger/Hitlerian eugenics on the rise again.Abortion up to the moment of birth in the name of utopianism

Disabled lawmaker fights abortion law: ‘People with congenital disabilities are facing extinction’

 
Disabled lawmaker fights abortion law: ‘People with congenital disabilities are facing extinction’
Image source: YouTube 

A disabled member of Britain’s House of Lords is fighting to change a British law that permits babies diagnosed with a disability to be aborted up to the moment of birth. 
Abortion is legal in the United Kingdom up to 24 weeks of pregnancy. However, the law does not place a time limit on abortion for pregnancies with a fetal disability diagnosis. Abortions are also permitted at any stage in pregnancy if the mother’s life is in jeopardy. 
Lord Kevin Shinkwin, a Conservative peer who has brittle bone diseasesaid during remarks in the House of Lords last week that the current law discriminates against the disabled. He has introduced a bill that would close the loophole for disabled babies. 
“I readily admit that maths was never my favorite subject at school — but even I can see from the trends in abortion on grounds of disability that the writing is on the wall for people like me,” Shinkwin told his colleagues. “People with congenital disabilities are facing extinction.” 
“If we were animals, perhaps we might qualify for protection as an endangered species,” he added. “But we are only human beings with disabilities, so we don’t qualify.”
Shinkwin said that Britain’s Paralympians recently “represented their country in Rio with pride.”
“The essential qualification for competing at Rio? Their disability. Their country applauded their success, the same country whose law regards that essential qualification for going to Rio—disability—as a reason why they should die. How, my lords, is that fair, is that right, is that logical? It is none of those things.”
“How could I not have faith in our common humanity?” he continued. “How could I not have faith in the truth that there is more that unites than divides us? And how could I not believe that your Lordships’ House will be true to itself and continue its noble fight for disability equality by passing this Bill?”
In previous remarks about his bill last October, Shinkwin cited the UK’s Department of Health published statistics on abortion in 2015. Shinkwin said there were 230 abortions past 24 weeks due to disability in 2015, which he said is “a 56 percent increase in the number of terminations on grounds of disability after 24 weeks over the last 5 years between 2010 and 2015.” 
Shinkwin added that “689 abortions were because of a diagnosis of Down Syndrome alone in 2015.”
He said there were another 11 abortions performed due to “cleft lip or palate, an easily surgically rectifiable condition in 2015.” 
“By rights, my Lords, I shouldn’t be here. I should be dead,” Shinkwin said, before blasting “the eugenics screening program of our Department of Health.”

Monsters of child abuse and bureaucratic incompetence

Mom’s boyfriend indicted for tragic death of Zymere Perkins


A Manhattan grand jury has indicted a Harlem man for the broomstick-beating death of his girlfriend’s 6-year-old son, court papers show.
The exact charges against Rysheim Smith, 42, haven’t been released.
A malnourished Zymere Perkins died last Sept. 26 in the care of his mother, Geraldine Perkins, 26, and Smith. The child’s mom was previously indicted on one count of manslaughter for her son’s death, court records show.
The boy was found with finger marks around his neck, broken ribs and other injuries all over his body, the criminal complaint states.
Zymere PerkinsFacebook
Zymere died of child-abuse syndrome, according to the city’s Medical Examiner’s Office.
The agency investigated five separate abuse complaints since 2010, three of which came directly from Zymere, but ACS failed to protect the tot, according to a report from the state’s child-welfare agency.
Smith is due in Manhattan Criminal Court on Tuesday.

Foreign born terrorists


Here’s A Short List Of Foreign-Born Terrorists Reporters Can’t Believe Exist

The executive order by the Trump administration on immigration led to an urgent desire to proclaim there is no terrorism threat from immigrants. False.
Kyle Shideler
By 
When arguing with the Left about matters of national security and terrorism, one becomes accustomed to their habitual moving of goal posts and artificial construction of sample sizes that deliberately exclude relevant cases.
The most notorious example, of course, is the beloved “since 9/11…” canard, such as the oft-repeated although false claim that since 9/11 right-wing terrorists have killed more Americans than Islamic terrorists.
The recent executive order by the Trump administration on immigration led to an urgent desire to proclaim that there is no terrorism threat from immigrants. The most egregious example: A tweet from The New York Times’ White House correspondent Maggie Haberman, who is also a CNN analyst. She posed the question, “Other than San Bernardino shootings, has there been a terrorist attack involving a non-US-born attacker since 9/11?”
Of course, there is no sensible reason for excluding San Bernardino shooter Tasheen Malik, who was born in Pakistan, from a list of terror attacks. The attack killed 14 and took place only last year.
But even within the confines of such a ludicrously constructed sample, the question surprised more up-to-speed denizens of Twitter, who quickly bombarded Haberman with lists of successful and unsuccessful attacks carried out by non-U.S.-born individuals, including some of the most notorious recent terror attacks.

Yes, Foreign-Born Immigrants Have Committed Terrorism

Among such individuals: the Tsarnaev brothers of the Boston Marathon bombing, who were both born abroad. Tamerlan was born in Kyrgyzstan in 1986, and Dzhokhar was reportedly born in Dagestan.
The 2015 Chattanooga Recruiting Center shooter, Mohammad Youssuf Abdulazeez, was born in Kuwait and lived in Jordanbefore migrating to the United States at the age of six. He killed five people.
Ohio State University attacker Abdul Razak Artan, who ran over several fellow students with a car before attacking them with a butcher knife, was a refugee born in Somalia who had only been in the United States for two years.
Ahmad Khan Rahimi, born in Afghanistan, detonated a bomb near a 5K run event, then another in downtown Manhattan in October of last year.
Dahir Adan, a Somali born in Kenya who immigrated to the United States as a child, launched a mass stabbing attack at a St. Cloud Minnesota mall in 2016. And these are only a few recent examples.

Let’s Just Define Away Counterexamples

While it might be amusing to imagine that a mainstream media figure of some note is totally oblivious to any of the details of recent terror attacks, it’s almost beside the point. Had Haberman known better, perhaps she’d have simply constructed a question that did meet what appears to be her preformed opinion that foreign-born individuals are nearly incapable of representing a threat.
That was the position CNN took in its piece on the Trump administration’s executive order. The piece moved the goal posts yet again, insisting that no refugee had carried out a fatal terror attack in the United States. That’s surely cold comfort to the families of those killed by Waad Ramadan Alwan and Mohanad Shareef Hammadi, two Iraqi refugees settled in Bowling Green, Kentucky.
After their fingerprints were discovered on Iraqi IEDs, the two Iraqi refugees were caught in an FBI counterterrorism investigation, where Alwan bragged about using a sniper rifle to kill American troops abroad. The two plotted to kill returning U.S. troops as well. An IED constructed by Alwan is believed to have killed four Pennsylvania National Guardsmen in 2005.
That case resulted in a six-month freeze on Iraqi refugee resettlement in 2011 as U.S. authorities attempted to clamp down on serious screening problems. But, according to CNN’s twisted logic, these Iraqi refugees were never a threat. Ironically, the more attacks American law enforcement successfully prevent or mitigate, the less of a threat there is, according to the CNN model.
If one were truly interested in whether there is a terror threat from individuals born abroad, one would examine the totality of activity, not a narrowly constructed definition aimed to minimize it. That’s what senators Ted Cruz and Jeff Sessions did last June when they examined 580 individuals successfully prosecuted on terrorism offenses from September 2001 until 2014. According to the senators, 380 were foreign-born and at least 40 were refugees. While not all of those cases involved successful or attempted terror attacks, all involved cases that were terrorism-related.
Haberman’s offhand tweet is a snapshot of the willingness of the mainstream media to engage in reflective self-censoring, a kind of doublethink, where reporters seem to remain proudly unaware of key evidence that would contradict their pre-established conclusions. Unfortunately for The New York Times correspondent, not everyone on social media was inclined to play along.

Monday, January 30, 2017

The Left hates money in politics unless it supports their stance. The Hillary supporters are unhappy

Amazon CEO reaching out to lawmakers for ‘legislative options’ against Trump’s immigration policy


According to The Hill, Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon.com and owner of the Washington Post, recently sent a company wide email out that denounced President Donald Trump’s decision on his executive order on the temporary ban on immigrants from Muslim majority nations, and saying that the company is going to approach policy makers to affect change.
“This executive order is one we do not support,” Bezos wrote, adding that Amazon was reaching out to lawmakers to pursue legislative options. “Our public policy team in D.C. has reached out to senior administration officials to make our opposition clear.”
Amazon vice president of human resources Beth Galetti also wrote an email to employees that read along a similar vein.
“As we’ve grown the company, we’ve worked hard to attract talented people from all over the world, and we believe this is one of the things that makes Amazon great — a diverse workforce helps us build better products for customers,” Galetti’s letter read.
Bezos was one of the many tech-company CEO’s that met with then President-elect Trump in order to discuss how the incoming administration could better work with the companies. Bezos in particular had a very negative opinion on Trump before the elections were over, stating that he was willing to shoot Trump into space on one of his Blue Origin rockets..

Wealth redistribution

De Blasio makes another push for ‘mansion tax’


Mayor de Blasio on Monday called for introducing a so-called “Mansion Tax” that would hit all residential property sales of $2 million or higher with an extra 2.5 percent tax.
Testifying on state funding for the city’s fiscal 2018 budget in Albany, Hizzoner said the revenue from such a tax — which would require approval from state lawmakers — would go toward creating rent subsidies for as many as 25,000 low-income seniors. 
He said such new models for creating affordable housing were necessary at a time when federal funding for these initiatives is uncertain. 
“The people who would be affected can certainly afford this additional tax,” the mayor told lawmakers.
City Hall officials said the additional 2.5 percent rate would only apply to the part of the sale price that’s over the $2 million mark. 
Such a tax would raise around $336 million in fiscal 2018, according to estimates from the Office of Management and Budget.
The proposal will almost certainly be opposed By Republicans who control the state Senate.
A similar measure sought by the mayor in 2015 was rejected.

The web of lies you get when liberals run anything


Violence is spiking in NYC schools – even if the city denies it

New state data show the 2015-16 year was the worst on record when it comes to serious violence in city schools — even as Mayor de Blasio says his data show it was the safest. Which do you believe?
The State Education Department on Monday posted its latest Violent and Disruptive Incident Report, or VADIR. In the key category of serious incidents, it shows a rise of nearly 6 percent, up from 15,934 incidents in 2014-15 to 16,851 in 2015-16.
Within that category: Forcible sex offenses rose 90 percent; assault with serious physical injury, 48 percent.
The city Department of Education says the state system is outdated and misleading. That’s supposed to explain why city data include more than 10,000 fewer violent incidents last year.
To be fair, SED is revamping its VADIR system for the 2017-18 school year. But that’s under orders from the state Board of Regents, which is now controlled by de Blasio’s ideological allies.
Note that Team de Blasio has embarked on a series of reforms to revamp the discipline code and reduce suspensions, bringing criticism even from the United Federation of Teachers.
Critics warn that the new VADIR system drops key information. If it were already in place, for example, no one would see that forcible rape in the schools rose 50 percent faster than other sex offenses last year.
By state numbers, overall school violence is up 30 percent since 2013. And the victims are disproportionately black and Hispanic.
But don’t worry: If the state “reformers” get their way, you soon won’t see these shocking numbers.

De Blasio reconsiders helping feds with illegal immigrants

De Blasio reconsiders helping feds with illegal immigrants

Mayor de Blasio on Monday said for the first time that he is open to expanding the list of 170 offenses that trigger city cooperation with the feds to transfer undocumented immigrants who have committed crimes.
The mayor agreed to the change in response to criticism from Assembly member Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island) that a number of significant crimes — including forcible touching and welfare fraud — were excluded from the list.
“Why would you protect individuals who are here illegally committing these crimes instead of putting your citizenry first?” Malliotakis asked the mayor during his testimony on the state budget.

Hafiz Saeed: Pakistan detains 26/11 Mumbai attacks suspect...Islamic imperialism is a worldwide problem!

Hafiz Saeed: Pakistan detains 26/11 Mumbai attacks suspect


  • 5 hours ago
  •  
  • From the section Asia
Hafiz Saeed speaks to the press after being detained by police in Lahore, early on January 31, 2017.Image copyrightAFP/GETTY IMAGES
Image captionHafiz Saeed speaks to the press after being detained by police in Lahore
Pakistani officials have ordered the detention of a firebrand cleric linked to the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks which killed 166 people.
Hafiz Saeed - who led the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) militant group and has a $10m (£5.8m) US bounty on his head - is under house arrest in Lahore.
He has repeatedly denied involvement in the Mumbai attacks.
But Delhi and Washington both believe he masterminded the shooting and bombing massacre. 
A spokesman for Mr Saeed claimed the Pakistani government had been pressured by the US to act against him. 
Mr Saeed heads Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), a Pakistani charity group which India and the US say is a front for the LeT. It is listed as a terror outfit by the United Nations, and was put on a Pakistani terror watch list in 2015.
Four JuD members have also been placed in "preventative detention", according to an order by the interior ministry.

Tensions over Mumbai massacre

The Islamist leader's free movement in Pakistan has been a source of tension between Islamabad and Delhi for years, but it is unclear why the authorities decided to move against him now. 
He was put under house arrest in 2008 after the bloodshed in Mumbai, but released about six months later. Pakistan maintained there was not enough evidence to put him on trial or hand him over to India.
The Mumbai carnage played out on live television as commandos battled the heavily armed attackers, who arrived by sea on the evening of 26 November, 2008.
Flames and smoke gush out of the historic historic Taj Mahal Hotel in Mumbai on November 27, 2008Image copyrightAFP
Image captionLashkar-e-Taiba is blamed for the 2008 attacks in Mumbai but has not admitted involvement
The 10 gunmen killed commuters, tourists, and some of India's wealthy elite in a rampage that included attacks on two luxury hotels, a Jewish centre, and a train station.
It took the authorities three days to regain full control of the city.
Delhi believes there is evidence that "official agencies" in Pakistan were involved in plotting the attack - a charge Islamabad denies.

'US pressure'

Despite the bounty against him, Mr Saeed has led a high-profile public life in Pakistan, regularly delivering fierce anti-India speeches.
In a 2014 interview with the BBC, Mr Saeed said the US was only targeting his organisation to win India's help in Afghanistan.
Media captionHafiz Saeed tells the BBC that Washington is unfairly targeting him
News of the cleric's detention surfaced hours after Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar hinted at an imminent crackdown.
He told reporters in Islamabad that Pakistan is "under obligation to take some action" as JuD is blacklisted internationally and has been under observation for years.
"The situation will be clear on this by tomorrow," he said on Monday.
A senior Pakistani defence ministry official told Reuters that Islamabad had not heard anything from President Trump's administration, but had been feeling US pressure over the terror suspect.
"Trump is taking hard decisions against Muslim countries, there is open talk of actions against Pakistan also. So yes, this was a consideration," said the official.