Tag Archives: Omar al-Bashir

Al Gore Profits from the Stealth Jihad

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Current AlJazeeraBy Frank Gaffney, Jr.

Let’s call it Al Goreera.  That seems a fitting title for the new network that former Vice President Al Gore is launching with the jihadists’ favorite television outlet: Al Jazeera.  The effect will be to create vast new opportunities for our enemies to propagandize the American people, a key ingredient of their “civilization jihad” against our country.
It is hard to overstate the magnitude of this treachery.  Imagine the furor that would have erupted if, during the Cold War, one of the United States’ most prominent former leaders had enriched himself to the tune of $100 million by giving the Soviet Union’s intelligence service, the KGB, a vehicle for engaging in information and political warfare in some 40 million homes across this land.  If anything, the danger posed by Al-Goreera today is even greater since most of us — and especially our elites — are unaware that such warfare is even afoot.
Yet it is.  In the Holy Land Foundation trial — the largest terrorism financing trial in U.S. history — the government introduced into evidence the Muslim Brotherhood’s strategic plan for its operations in America. This 1991 document, entitled “The Explanatory Memorandum on the Strategic Goal of the Group,” established that the Brothers’ mission here is “eliminating and destroying Western civilization from within…by their hands [meaning ours] and the hands of the Believers  so that God’s religion is made victorious over all other religions.”
Toward this end, Islamists like the Muslim Brotherhood employ various subversive techniques.  Among the most important are those aimed at achieving what the military calls “information dominance.”  Al Jazeera is used by jihadists the world over — including its Wahhabi owner, the Emir of Qatar — to promote their narratives of hatred of the infidel West in general, and Israel and the United States in particular.
The Washington Free Beacon recently identified (http://freebeacon.com/7-things-you-need-to-know-about-al-jazeera/) seven illustrative examples of the network’s regular dissemination of praise for terrorists and their sponsors.  These include the likes of the late Yemini-American al Qaeda leader, Anwar al-Awlaki, and Sudan’s genocidal dictator, Omar al-Bashir.  The virulently shariah-promoting, Qatari-based cleric Yousef al-Qaradawi even has a regular show on Al Jazeera’s programming for Muslim consumption.  He uses it to sanction murderous holy war against American soldiers and Israelis, including women and children.
Of course, those promoting the network’s penetration of the United States — among them Mr. Gore, who will get a board seat on the new network to be formally known as Al Jazeera America — tend to pooh-pooh concerns about the Arabic-language mother ship’s service to the jihadi cause.  In any event, these apologists insist that the programming in English is objective and fair, claiming that Colin Powell says it is the only network he watches.  Who knows, given their appalling predilections, it may also be the favorite of President Obama’s newest nominees, Defense Secretary-designate Chuck Hagel and CIA Director-designate John Brennan.
The truth, however, is that over time if not immediately, the dictates of the owner and the editorial board in Doha will ensure that the content of Al Goreera helps obscure, rather than illuminate, the ominous nature of civilization jihad and promotes the shariah doctrine it seeks to insinuate into this country.
Regrettably, the Federal Communications Commission has washed its hands of this transaction claiming, in the words of a spokesman, it “doesn’t have regulatory oversight of transactions relating to ownership of cable networks.”  It’s a safe bet that the deeply Islamist-penetrated Department of Justice (see Part 9 of www.MuslimBrotherhoodinAmerica.com) won’t intervene, either.  In light of the stakes, Congress must inject itself into the matter.
At the very least, Al Jazeera America should be obliged to register as a foreign agent.  That term is defined by the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) as individuals or entities that are wholly owned by a foreign government, that take instruction from the owners or their agents and that attempt to influence public opinion and policy in America.  Al Goreera would certainly fit that description, and Congress should ensure that its broadcasts are identified accordingly.
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Sudan constitution to be “100 percent Islamic”: Bashir

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Sudanese President Omar Hassan al-Bashir addresses supporters after receiving victory greetings at the Defence Ministry, in Khartoum
Credit: Reuters/ Mohamed Nureldin Abdallah

(Reuters) – President Omar Hassan al-Bashir said on Saturday Sudan’s next constitution would be “100 percent Islamic” to set an example for neighbouring countries, some of which have seen religious parties gain power after popular uprisings.

The secession of mostly non-Muslim South Sudan a year ago sparked predictions that Sudan, which hosted former al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in the 1990s, would start implementing Islamic law more strictly.

In a speech to leaders of the mystical Islamic Sufi tradition in Khartoum, Bashir suggested Sudan’s new, post-secession constitution could help guide the region’s political transformation.

“We want to present a constitution that serves as a template to those around us. And our template is clear, a 100 percent Islamic constitution, without communism or secularism or Western (influences),” said Bashir.

“And we tell non-Muslims, nothing will preserve your rights except for Islamic sharia because it is just,” he said.

Bashir, facing small-scale protests calling for him to step down, said a committee made up of “all parties, religious sects and Sufis” would be set up to draft a constitution.

That appeared to be a move to assuage resentment by other opposition parties – many of which are still dominated by Islamist figures – over Bashir’s reluctance to loosen the grip of the ruling National Congress Party.

He did not give a date for the new constitution.

Following the 1989 coup that brought Bashir to power, Sudan introduced laws that took sharia as their main source.

Already, floggings are a common punishment in Sudan for crimes like drinking alcohol and adultery.

Sentences of stoning are rare, although in May a Sudanese woman was sentenced to death by stoning for adultery, sparking condemnation from human rights lawyers. Similar sentences in the past have not been carried out.

Bashir has been in power for the last 23 years and is one of Africa’s longest-serving leaders. He is wanted by the International Criminal Court for war crimes in Darfur, charges the government says are politically motivated and baseless.

Sudan’s opposition parties have called for strikes, sit-ins and demonstrations to topple Bashir’s government, throwing their weight behind recent anti-austerity protests, which have also involved calls for greater freedoms.

However, they have not yet sent their supporters out to the streets. (Reporting by Khalid Abdelaziz; Writing by Yara Bayoumy; Editing by Ralph Gowling)

Sudan: A Battleground Between Iran and Israel

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By Joseph Puder

The UN Security Council warned the Islamic Republic of Sudan (Khartoum) and the new state of South Sudan in May 2012, that sanctions would be imposed on both countries unless their governments stopped the armed conflict they are engaged in and begin negotiating on how to share oil revenues, and come to an arrangement on border demarcation.  Reuters Africa reported on May 2, 2012, that the UNSC resolution demanded that the parties commence talks within two weeks.

South Sudan gained its independence from Khartoum in July 2011 after a long civil war – two previous civil wars lasted from 1955-1972, 1983-2005.  A Comprehensive Peace Agreement was signed in January 2005 between the People’s Liberation Movement of South Sudan (SPLM) and the Khartoum government, which stipulated that democratic governance would be put in place for all of Sudan and that oil revenue would be shared.  Moreover, the Agreement set a timetable for a referendum in Southern Sudan regarding their independence. John Garang de Mabior, Chairman of the SPLM Army stated that the “peace agreement, in effect, prescribed a one-country-two-systems model, whereby the people of southern Sudan would decide after six years whether to remain within the Sudan or to opt for independence.”

The latest conflict, which erupted in April of this year, was a result of SPLM forces having seized the Heglig oil fields, located in the border area between the two states, with most of the fields within Southern Sudan. Khartoum bombed the area, in violation of the UNSC resolution of May 2, 2012, which called for the cessation of hostilities.  In the meantime, Sudan’s Islamist president, Omar al-Bashir, turned to Islamist Iran for help. Al-Bashir, considered a war criminal by the International Court of Justice with ties to the genocide in Darfur, has been charged by the IJC with seven counts of crimes against humanity and war crimes.  The IJC issued a warrant for Al-Bashir’s arrest on March 4, 2009.

Iran’s President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, eager to win over the Sunni-Arab world, has been more than happy to comply and provide Khartoum with arms, ideology, and strengthened economic ties, including oil exploration.   For Tehran, Bashir’s Sudan is a major Shiite Islam success story. Sudan is both an Arab and Sunni-Muslim previously allied with the West (under President Jafaar Numeiri). Omar Bashir transformed Sudan into an Islamic theocracy allied with Iran, and turned it into a base of operations for Tehran in Africa and the Middle East (supplying arms to Hamas in Gaza through Sudan).

During the Iran-Iraq War (1980-1988), Tehran was desperate to gain allies in the Arab world. It supported the coup that brought Omar al-Bashir to power in 1989 and has aided the Islamic government in Khartoum through investment in its oil infrastructure, and mostly by providing arms ever since.  In 1992, Tehran sent more than 2000 members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp (IRGC) to advise and train the Sudanese Popular Defense Force. IRGC forces in Sudan were also used to train Hezbollah terrorists, and set up a training infrastructure for various Islamic terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda.  It was in Sudan that Iran and Al Qaeda opened a dialogue, putting aside their religious differences – Shiite vs. Sunni, respectively – to focus on the larger enemy – the U.S.

The special relationship between the theocracies of Tehran and Khartoum was revealed when Israeli jets struck an arms convoy destined for Hamas in Gaza in 2009.  Since both Iran and Sudan are hindered by sanctions, Hezbollah agents in Sudan move Iranian arms shipped to Port Sudan through Egypt’s Sinai desert, using Bedouins to smuggle the weapons through tunnels to Gaza.  Time Magazine (March 30, 2009) reported that “The bombing raid came after an intelligence tip-off. In early January 2009, at the height of Israel’s assault on Gaza, Israel’s foreign-intelligence agency, Mossad, was told by an informant that Iran was planning a major delivery of 120 tons of arms and explosives to Gaza, including anti-tank rockets and Fajir rockets with a 25-mile (40 km) range and a 99-lb. (45 kg) warhead. With little time to plan the operation, naval vessels and helicopters were rushed to the Red Sea in case Israel had to rescue a downed pilot, and the plan was hurried through. “The Israelis had less than a week to pull this all together…” According to Israel Today magazine (December 26, 2011), Sudan is a major conduit for trafficking of arms into the Gaza Strip.

Sudan and its capital Khartoum is Arab and Muslim, South Sudan and its capital Juba are African and largely Christian.  And while Khartoum’s official language is Arabic, Juba’s is English.  The British rulers sought to bring the southern Sudanese (African and Christian) provinces under Uganda but that failed.  The subsequent struggle between the Arab-Muslim north and the African-Christian south has been ongoing since Sudan’s independence in 1955.

Read more at Front Page

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Arab Sudan Feels the Pain of Oil Embargo (Frontpage)

Sudan: A Year of Bombs and Silence

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By Faith J. H. McDonnell

For twelve months the Nuba Mountain people of Sudan’s South Kordofan State have been under genocidal attack by Sudan’s National Congress Party (NCP) government, the Islamist regime of ICC-indicted war criminal, Omar al-Bashir. The year’s toll on the 50+ indigenous African people groups that comprise the Nuba has been just as the regime desired. Over half a million people are at imminent risk of death from disease, starvation, and thirst, orchestrated deliberately by Bashir. And in the face of this genocide, the Obama Administration has been silent in every significant sense, refusing to take decisive action, uttering meaningless statements of concern, and tainting even those useless expressions by treating as morally equivalent the genocidal regime in Khartoum and those who are fighting against it to defend their people.

On Sunday, June 5, 2011, sources on the ground first reported that war had begun in the Nuba Mountains. A rigged election gave South Kordofan governorship to ICC-indicted war criminal Ahmed Haroun over the popular Sudan People’s Liberation Army (SPLA) war hero, Commander Abdelaziz Adam Al Hilu. Haroun demanded the disarming and expulsion of the SPLA from the region. Sudan Armed Forces (SAF) and militias began deploying troops with heavy weapons, tanks, and a military air base. The Nuba division of the SPLA, now known as the SPLA-North, began to fight back against the SAF. Only in the air did Khartoum have the advantage. “We need quick action from the USA and the international community before another genocide occurs in the Nuba Mountains,” Nuba watchers warned.

Since that time, the SAF has bombed continually Nuba Mountain farm villages, burning homes, schools, and churches. Khartoum’s bombers fly daily over the region and with random cruelty drop barrel bombs stuffed with ball bearings, nails, and other deadly projectiles. The regime’s Islamist militia, the “Popular Defense Force,” Murahaliin of the Arab Baggara tribe, waged the ground war against the civilians while the SPLA-North was occupied in battle with the SAF. The militia staged house by house purges of black, African Nuba, particularly targeting church leaders and members. Khartoum also began waging war against the disputed Blue Nile State in September 2011, sacking the freely and fairly elected governor, Malik Agar, and killing civilians. Over 30,000 Nuba have fled to South Sudanese and Kenyan refugee camps. But the bombers ignore sovereign borders and occasionally attack there as well.

As many as 500,000 Nuba are hiding in mountain caves from Khartoum’s bombers. Thanks to Khartoum’s scorched earth policies, this fiercely independent and self-sufficient people’s crops have been burned and their herds stolen or slaughtered. Now they have no food but leaves and insects and little access to drinking water. Aid that would save their lives is already available, over the border in the Republic of South Sudan, but the NCP regime forbids cross-border aid. And the United States government, the United Nations, and the rest of world are silently compliant with Khartoum’s ban.

Brad Phillips, the founder and president of The Persecution Project Foundation (PPF) that has worked in Sudan since 1997, declares that the only reason the Nuba have not already been exterminated by Khartoum is that the SPLA-North “has clearly taken the fight to the NCP. After 500,000 dead and years of broken promises, marginalization, and persecution, the Nuba people have had enough.” In his Congressional testimony, Phillips criticized the U.S. and other governments for their inaction as people were being slaughtered. If it were not for the SPLA-North resistance, “led by their inspirational leader, Abdelaziz Adam Al Hilu, we would be witnessing another Rwandan-style genocide,” he blazed.

The truth is that the SPLA-North continues to win all of the ground battles against Khartoum’s troops, controlling 90 percent of the countryside. The NCP’s Sudan Armed Forces “are there in the towns, in garrisons . . . dug in like rats inside their trenches,” declared SPLA-North commander, Abdelaziz Adam Al Hilu interviewed by journalist Tristan McConnell for the Global Post. “They are not free to move.” Al Hilu observed that the Sudan Army is very weak and that they seem to have little will to fight. So why, as Nicholas Kristof demanded recently in his New York Times column, has the Obama Administration “consistently tried to restrain the rebel force”? Kristof said that Al Hilu and his troops want to liberate Kadugli, the capital of South Kordofan State from NCP regime control, but that Washington is discouraging them. Al Hilu, he said, “seemed mystified that American officials try to shield a genocidal government whose army is, he thinks, crumbling.”

Al Hilu is thought of as the George Washington of Sudan by many of Sudan’s marginalized people. He says that the SPLA-North is able to fight against the larger and better-equipped Sudan Armed Forces, “Thanks to Bashir [and] SAF! It is Bashir who is supplying us [with equipment abandoned by the army]. They bring everything and leave it for us!” He showed Tristan McConnell the weapons and equipment that the SPLA-North had taken from the Sudan Army: “cars mounted [with machine guns], heaps of ammunition, shells, rockets, different types of guns.” The commander confessed that when they run across a weapon that they have not seen before, they actually look for ex-SAF soldiers to come and train them.Since November 2011 the SPLA-North has been united with the opposition movements of Sudan’s other marginalized people groups in what is called the Sudan Revolutionary Front (SRF). Al Hilu is the Chief of the Joint Military Command of the SRF. Other leaders include former Blue Nile State Governor Malik Agar and a number of the leaders of the Darfurian rebel movements. There is also the hope for participation by the Beja Congress of eastern Sudan and the Nubians from the far north, two ancient, indigenous people groups.

Sudan’s marginalized peoples comprise 87 percent of Sudan’s population but Al Hilu explained to McConnell that the root cause of the conflict in the Nuba Mountains is that “Khartoum doesn’t want to recognize the diversity in the country.” He said that the NCP regime is “going for a monolithic type of state, based on only two parameters, that is Arabism and Islam.” Al Hilu believes in true religious freedom for all and a secular democracy based on the vision of the “New Sudan” of his late friend Dr. John Garang de Mabior. He said that Khartoum has “no place for anybody who is not a Muslim, who is not an Arab.” “Somebody like me, I am a Muslim but I am not an Arab,” he said. “They say I must accept, I must put on a jellaba and turban and dance the way Bashir is doing!”

It would seem to be the opportune time to support Sudanese that desire true democratic transformation of the country. The desperate, starving people of the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile will probably die unless Khartoum’s genocide is stopped. The military success of the SPLA-North and the coordination growing between all of Sudan’s marginalized people groups, including many Arab Sudanese in the north, has created a strong pro-democracy force in the country. The alternative is shamefully to continue to enable the regime of an ICC-indicted war criminal, responsible for the death of millions of his own people. Stating that the international community has a “problem with memory,” Al Hilu marveled that this is the same Bashir “who introduced Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda to the world.”

One week – not one year – after demonstrations started in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, President Obama urged President Hosni Mubarak to step down. There was violence and repression in the Egyptian uprising, but nothing on the level of what is taking place in the Nuba Mountains of Sudan. Yet the brutality and genocide by President Omar al-Bashir have not caused Obama and the international community to demand that he step down.

The Arab uprising in Libya began February 17, 2011. By the 26th the UN Security Council had condemned Gadhafi’s crackdown on the rebels as a violation of international law. By March 17, the UN had created the kind of no-fly zone for which the Nuba people have been pleading for a year. Not long after, the U.S. was using Tomahawk cruise missiles on the Gadhafi regime. Unlike the SPLA-North that took on Khartoum by itself, the so-called Libyan freedom fighters needed the United States and other Western nations to come and fight their battles for them as if non-Muslim nations were their personal Mamluks. The double standard is breathtaking, and particularly now, when Egypt is in the hands of the Muslim Brotherhood and the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces (SCAF), and Libya is controlled by Al Qaeda/Osama Bin Laden affiliates such as Islamist terrorist Abdulhakim Belhadj, who received training in Sudan.

If the U.S. government and the international community are not going to support the SPLA-North and the Sudan Revolutionary Front, at least they should not stand in the way of their own courageous and sacrificial fight for freedom. Al Hilu reveals to the press what Sudan advocates have observed all along, “In this conflict between the Nuba and the center [Khartoum] we are not allowed to fight freely, there is intervention always … Always there is pressure on the South, on the Nuba, on the marginalized people, the poor people … They make us go to the table to talk but there is no action.”

Read more at Front Page

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