Iran Preparing a Worldwide Terror Network

Iran Preparing a Worldwide Terror Network by Yaakov Lappin Special to IPT News July 2, 2019 https://www.investigativeproject.org/7970/iran-preparing-a-worldwide-terror-network

An Iranian network of terrorist cells is spread out around the world, ready for activation at any time as tensions in the Persian Gulf remain high. Threats by the Islamic Republic to escalate its standoff with the United States mean that the chances of an Iranian proxy terrorist activation are rising.

Biting American sanctions are causing unprecedented damage to the Iranian economy. In response, the radical Shi'ite regime has already provided the world with a sample of its ability to order attacks that destabilize the Middle East.

Iranian-backed Houthis in Yemen recently launched explosive drones and cruise missiles, targeting Saudi Arabian oil installations and airports. An Iranian-backed Shi'ite militia in Iraq, Katai'b Hizballah, is suspected of firing rockets at U.S. interests, and the Islamic Republican Guards Corps (IRGC) launched mine attacks on civilian oil tankers in the Strait of Hormuz and the Gulf of Oman.

These incidents represent a small sampling of Iran's capabilities. The Iranians have built up a wide-reaching network of radical surrogates which extends beyond the Middle East. Members of this network range from hierarchical terror armies like Hizballah, armed with massive arsenals of projectiles, to sleeper terrorist cells active in Europe, North America, and Latin America.

Israel, a frontline state that defends itself against Iran and its proxy network, has taken a lead role in identifying, monitoring, and preventing attacks, as well as alerting Western intelligence agencies to threats.

Mossad Director Yossi Cohen provided a glimpse into this shadow war in remarks delivered Monday at the Herzliya Conference. The IRGC and the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence are responsible for overseas terror operations, he said.

While the Ministry of Intelligence is responsible for setting up murder squads targeting Iranian opposition figures abroad, the IRGC, together with Hizballah, seeks to hit Israeli targets, as well as soft Jewish targets.

This would explain the discovery and recent announcement of a Hizballah bomb factory in London. It appears highly likely that the bombs were intended for Hizballah cells intent on attacking Israeli targets in Britain.

In addition, Iran's Ministry of Intelligence activated a European terror network in June last year, sending it on a bombing mission against an Iranian opposition event that featured former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani. The cell reportedly had half a ton of explosives. In recent years, Iranian opposition figures were murdered in Turkey and Holland, while another assassination plot in Denmark and Sweden was thwarted.

"An Iranian diplomat in Vienna headed" the France bomb plot, Cohen said. "He is now under arrest, and other [members of the cell] are under arrest in Belgium."

Cohen also said that Iran's overseas operations unit, the Quds Force, recruited 300 fighters in Iraq and Syria and brought them to Africa to create a terror network capable of striking Western targets across the African continent.

Iranian agents gathered "intelligence on the Iranian opposition, and on Israeli targets in Azerbaijan, the U.S., Denmark – and this is only the top of the iceberg," Cohen cautioned. "The Mossad and the Israeli intelligence community are deeply involved in the effort to thwart these threats before the deaths of innocents occurs. We are working shoulder to shoulder with other countries to prevent more deaths."

Part of Iran's plans, he said, involved preparing attacks on American overseas assets.

Iran could also order its network to attack European and Israeli targets at any time, Cohen warned, noting that Tehran accuses Israel of being behind the Trump administration's economic pressure campaign. "One of the easiest ways to do it [strike] is through attacks on Israeli targets in Europe, and around the world," Cohen said.

Iran has done this before. In 2012, for example, it ordered a wave of attacks on Israeli targets in Bulgaria, Cyprus, India, and Kenya in retaliation for a sabotage campaign of its nuclear program that it attributed to Israel. This included a suicide bombing attack on a bus of Israeli tourists in Burgas, which murdered six people.

Past incidents have seen Hizballah operatives scope out Israeli targets in countries as far away as Peru.

More recently, German domestic security forces noted that Hizballah kept a permanent presence of more than 1,000 operatives on German soil.

These networks have also penetrated North America, according to a series of recent reports.

Canadian media revealed last month that a Hizballah operative collected detailed information on Toronto's Pearson airport in 2017. Canada's Air Transport Security Authority had reproduced an article about a Hizballah sleeper cell agent named Ali Kourani, who was a member of Hizballah's Unit 910, an overseas attack unit.

Based in the U.S., Kourani reportedly visited Pearson airport seven times before being arrested. He also "scouted New York's JFK airport and U.S government facilities. He passed the results of his surveillance activities to his Hizballah handler in Lebanon on digital storage devices," the report said, as part attack planning surveillance operations.

In May, an American court convicted Kourani of eight counts related to his work as a Hizballah "deep-cover operative. He is scheduled for sentencing on Sept. 27," Canada's Global News reported.

"Kourani's chilling mission was to help procure weapons and gather intelligence about potential targets in the U.S. for Hezbollah terrorist attacks," a U.S. Department of Justice press release said.

Kourani reportedly married a Lebanese-Canadian woman to evade the intelligence radar. He also befriended a Canadian airport employee, and talked him into agreeing to carry a bag on-board an aircraft.

Unit 910 was even more active in Canada than in the United States, Kourani told the FBI. It would likely try to smuggle explosives into the U.S. from Canada.

Meanwhile, in the Middle East, the Mossad director revealed that Iran had transferred $100 million to Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ) in the Gaza Strip.

Intelligence agencies around the world will need to be on high alert for Iran's active and lethal international terrorism network.

Yaakov Lappin is a military and strategic affairs correspondent. He also conducts research and analysis for defense think tanks, and is the Israel correspondent for IHS Jane's Defense Weekly. His book, The Virtual Caliphate, explores the online jihadist presence.

And here's Iran's chief facilitator checking out the laters terror plans with an insider.

On June 18th, over 7300 voters in Coral Springs, Florida went to the polls in a Special Election to cast their votes for the individual they wanted as their new City Commissioner. The former Commissioner, Dan Daley, left the seat vacant, after he won his own Special Election, for Florida State House. Out of the six candidates in the Commission race, one, Khurrum Wahid, raised far more money than any of the others. But for many voters, Wahid, a terror-linked lawyer, represented a danger to society, and therefore, he was soundly rejected.

Khurrum Basir Wahid, a South Florida attorney, has made a name for himself by representing high-profile terrorists, including the most violent of al-Qaeda operatives. And while Wahid has every right to act as legal counsel to such miscreants, when viewing the rest of his terror-related and disturbing activity, it would be a grave error not to view Wahid as a threat as well.

One of Wahid’s former clients is Hafiz Khan, a Miami imam who received a 25-year prison sentence, in August 2013, for his role in shipping $50 thousand to the Pakistani Taliban for the specific goal of murdering American troops overseas. Khan was not the only individual charged in the crime. His son, Izhar, spent 20 months in a Miami federal detention center for his alleged participation in the terror financing scheme.

As stated by the US Justice Department, “Izhar is a Pakistani Taliban sympathizer who worked with [his father Hafiz] and others to collect and deliver money for the Pakistani Taliban… Izhar… provided and attempted to provide material support and resources… knowing and intending that they be used in preparation for and in carrying out… a conspiracy to murder, kidnap, and maim persons in a foreign country.”

While using his law firm to actively raise money for Izhar and his father, Wahid went out of his way to label Izhar a “rising star.” Also, according to the Miami New Times, Wahid said of Izhar that he was a “sweet kid who did his father’s bidding.” In this same New Times piece, it is reported that Wahid, himself, was placed on the federal terrorist watch list, in 2011.

Besides his work as an attorney, Wahid is the National Co-Chairman of Emgage Action (formerly Emerge USA), an Islamist group he founded in 2006 that attempts to pass its extremist agenda off as political advocacy. The group is part of the South Florida Muslim Federation, a consortium of South Florida’s radical Islamic organizations and terror-related mosques. Emgage tends to attract leaders of the Democratic Party, who see Emgage as an opportunity to pander for Muslim votes and close their eyes to the extreme nature of the group.

Under Wahid’s authority sits Ammar Ahmed, the South Florida Director of Emgage. In February 2010, following a debate he participated in at a school, Ahmed wrote on Facebook, “I hate white people” and joked that he “should have threatened to blow up the school.”

Prior to creating Emgage, Wahid served as a legal advisor for the national office of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) and a director of CAIR’s Florida chapter. According to the US government, CAIR has both financial and foundational ties to Hamas. Various CAIR representatives have served prison time and/or have been deported from the US for terrorist-related activity. In November 2014, CAIR was designated a terrorist organization by the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government.

The mosque Wahid attends is the Islamic Foundation of South Florida (IFSF). Wahid is also the Registered Agent for IFSF’s corporation. Up until recently, the Youth Group leader for IFSF was Abdur Rahman al-Ghani, an individual who says on his Facebook page that Jews are “demonic” and Islam “will over-take the World.” In June 2013, IFSF hosted a Ramadan Prep Youth Night featuring Izhar Khan, and in April 2014, IFSF hosted a talk by Mazen Mokhtar, a former administrator for the al-Qaeda recruitment site, qoqaz.net (Jihad in Chechnya), and who has called Hamas acts “heroic” and suicide bombings “an effective method of attacking the enemy.”

It is through Wahid’s engagement in politics, via his Emgage organization, that Wahid probably believed that he had a shot to win the vacant Commission seat. However, any voter looking into Wahid’s extremist and terror-tied background would surely have questions about Wahid’s true intentions in running for such an office – in running for any office.

What is indeed concerning, though, is that just short of 1400 Coral Springs voters thought highly enough of Wahid to give him their votes, putting him squarely in third place. That was well behind the 2553 votes the winner, Sean Cerra, received, but it was 1400 votes nonetheless. Either those voters were ignorant of Wahid’s sordid history or they disturbingly chose to ignore it. Beyond Wahid and his fellow Islamists, any vote for him would be aiding and abetting extremist activity. A vote for Wahid was and is a vote for terror.

Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.

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SOURCE----Lawyer for Terrorists, Islamist Candidate
Khurrum Wahid Comes in Third at Florida Elections
Frontpage Mag ^ | 06/24/2019 | Joe Kauffman / FR Posted by SeekAndFind

How Obama Secretly Gave Iran Access To Billions Of Dollars — And Enabled Terrorism
IBD ^ | February 8, 2018 | Editor / FR Posted on 2/9/2019 by yoe

Iran: One of the linchpins of former President Obama's nuclear deal with Iran was that it would be accompanied by a near-ban on Iran having any access to the U.S. banking system. A new congressional report says that, too, was a lie.

[snip] Obama sent a clear message to Congress: If you don't block ( this nuclear deal), we will bar Iran's access to our financial system. The deal was clear, unequivocal. [snip]It was also a lie. Obama lied, and so did others in his administration.

That's the conclusion of a report by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. It alleges Obama officials pushed the U.S. Treasury to let Iran convert the equivalent of $5.7 billion of funds held in Oman's Bank of Muscat from rials into dollars and subsequently into euros.

[snip]Apart from the lie, which is bad enough for an administration that claimed repeatedly to be "scandal-free," this money did not have innocuous uses. Far from it. (Excerpt) Read more at investors.com ...

Trump fired him, now it turns out Secy of State Tillerson was pursuing Obama-era policies at the State Dept,
deliberately sabotaging President Trump on Iran policy, relations with Israel, the Paris Accords and other issues.
Several prominent Obama officials who have knowledge of the Iran deal are still at the Trump State Dept.
<><> Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, in charge of Iran and the Persian Gulf region on the policy planning staff,
<><> a former John Kerry apprentice, Michael Ratney, occupies the Israeli-Palestinian portfolio,
<><> trusted Obama aide, Yael Lempert, served under Tillerson on the same platform.

REFERENCE--- Obama's $1.3B giveaway to Iran was paid in cash Jan 22 and Feb 5 from a little-known fund administered by the US Treasury.The so-called Judgment Fund is made up of tax dollars Congress has permanently approved in the event it's needed....

SOURCE: fiscaltreasury.gov. -----The Judgment Fund was established to pay court judgments and Justice Department compromise settlements of actual or imminent lawsuits against the government. It is administered by the Judgment Fund Section, which is a part of the United States Department of the Treasury, Bureau of the Fiscal Service. The Judgment Fund Internet Claims System (JFICS) is the application used to process all Judgment Fund claims.

The Judgment Fund is a permanent, indefinite appropriation available to pay judicially and administratively ordered monetary awards against the United States. The Judgment Fund is also available to pay amounts owed under compromise agreements negotiated by the U.S. Department of Justice in settlement of claims arising under actual or imminent litigation, if a judgment on the merits would be payable from the Judgment Fund. The statutory authority for the Judgment Fund is 31 U.S.C. 1304.

If funds for paying an award are otherwise provided for in the appropriations of the defendant agency, the Judgment Fund may not pay an award. A federal agency may request that payment of an award be made on its behalf from the Judgment Fund only in those instances where funds are not legally available to pay the award from the agency's own appropriations.

Amounts paid vary significantly from year-to-year. Federal agencies are not required to reimburse the Judgment Fund except when cases are filed under the Contract Disputes Act (CDA) or the No FEAR Act (Notification and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and Retaliation Act).

We can be contacted at judgment.fund@fiscal.treasury.gov or 202-874-6664.

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Then-President Barack Obama is briefed by Sahar Nowrouzzadeh, Director for Iran, NSC,
before taping a WH message to the Iranian people in the Blue Room of the White House, March 18, 2016.
(Official White House Photo by Lawrence Jackson)

Fired Secy of State Rex Tillerson Secretly Meets With Democrats'
House Foreign Affairs Committee to Backstab Trump
MSN News ^ | 5/21/2019 | Erin Banco / FR Posted by detective

Trump fired him but his ex-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson was spotted entering a congressional office building on Tuesday morning for what a committee aide told The Daily Beast was a meeting with the leaders of the House Foreign Affairs committee and relevant staff about his time working in the Trump administration.

Tillerson’s appearance took place as virtually every other Trumpworld luminary has been stonewalling congressional oversight efforts. At the same time that the former Secretary of State was speaking before lawmakers, former White House counsel Don McGahn was ignoring a subpoena to testify in front of the House Judiciary Committee.

Tillerson’s arrival at the Capitol was handled with extreme secrecy. No media advisories or press releases were sent out announcing his appearance. And he took a little noticed route into the building in order to avoid being seen by members of the media.

Tillerson had a notoriously prickly relationship with the president. But he was present during critical moments of the administration, including Trump’s 2017 private meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Hamburg, Germany. (Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...

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