Members of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas’s militia, classified by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization, have been brandishing weapons publicly in recent days despite a disarmament agreement with Israel, this column has learned.
Dozens of members of the Al Aksa Martyrs Brigades, the declared military wing of Abbas’s Fatah party, have been seen wielding weapons in the region of Nablus, or biblical Shechem, in the northern West Bank. The city serves as the main Brigades stronghold.
The Brigades are responsible for scores of suicide bombings and deadly shootings targeting Israeli civilians. The group took credit, many times jointly with the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad organization, for nearly every suicide bombing in Israel in 2005, 2006 and 2007.
According to informed Israeli security sources, messages were passed to the PA by the Israel Defense Forces and Israel’s Shabak security services that the armed Brigades members must lay down their weapons or face arrest.
Israeli security officials fear the newfound militancy of the Brigades – evidenced by their publicly brandishing weapons – may be a strategic decision on the part of the PA to orient itself in a more extremist direction following Barack Obama’s championing of unrest that toppled pro-Western regimes in Egypt and Tunisia.
Indeed, last week, a senior PA official told this reporter his group was considering taking a more militant public stance to distance itself from the Obama administration.
Extremist Cleric Says Only Hope
For Obama Is Conversion
President Obama must embrace Islam as a way of life or face the consequences of a trial under the Shariah Islamic court system, declared British extremist cleric Anjem Choudary.
Choudary, founder and former chief of two Islamic groups disbanded by the British authorities under anti-terror legislation, is planning a Washington protest in Washington in which he says he will call on American Muslims to revolt against the country and implement Shariah law.
Speaking in an interview on this reporter’s investigative program on WABC Radio, Choudary claimed Obama was waging a war against Islam.
“[Obama] has promised all Muslims to be released from Guantanamo Bay. They are still languishing there even though he knows they are completely innocent,” Choudary claimed.
“On top of that, he’s increased the number of U.S. forces in Afghanistan, so he is a warmonger just as his predecessor was. And thirdly and more importantly,” Choudary said, “the Muslims don’t want democracy and freedom. Democracy and freedom are anathema to Islam and the Shariah.”
Choudary claimed the president was committing “crimes” against Muslims in Iraq and in Afghanistan.
He warned Obama: “I do believe that the only way for him to save himself in this life and in the hereafter is to embrace Islam. Islam will eradicate all his sins; he will be like the day his mother gave birth to him. Otherwise, when we do implement the Shariah, obviously he will face the consequences of a trial under the Shariah court.”
Why Has Khaddafi Received Better
Treatment From Obama Than Mubarak?
As pressure mounts on the White House to intervene to stop Moammar Khaddafi’s bloody crackdown in Libya, many commentators have been wondering why Barack Obama took a full nine days to call for Khaddafi to step down.
This is as opposed to the U.S. president so fervently supporting the removal from office of U.S. ally Hosni Mubarak of Egypt.
Khaddafi has been tied to Rev. Jeremiah Wright, Obama’s spiritual adviser for more than 23 years.
The Libyan dictator also has financed and strongly supported the Nation of Islam and its leader, Louis Farrakhan. Obama has ties to Farrakhan and his controversial group.
Jeremiah Wright, former pastor of Obama’s longtime Chicago church, went with Farrakhan to visit Khaddafi in 1984.
Farrakhan, a close friend and associate of Wright, has been financed by Khaddafi, including with a $5 million interest-free loan in 1985.
Later that year, Khaddafi spoke by satellite to a Farrakhan convention in Chicago, and reportedly told Farrakhan supporters he was prepared to provide weapons to a black army in the U.S. to destroy “white America.”
In October 1995, Khaddafi reportedly called Farrakhan with congratulations on the success of the Million Man March. Khaddafi was said to have assured Farrakhan that together “we will unite our capabilities and efforts to achieve this.”
According to reports in 1996 from Libya’s news agency, JANA, Farrakhan and Khaddafi agreed to work together to mobilize “oppressed blacks, Arabs, Muslims and Red Indians” to help reshape U.S. foreign policy.
Khaddafi said that until his alliance with the Nation of Islam, “our confrontation with America was like a fight against a fortress from outside.”
He asserted his alliance with Farrakhan provides him with “a breach to enter into this fortress and confront it.”
Farrakhan went to Libya for multiple other events. He was the recipient in 1996 of the Khaddafi Human Rights Award, which came with a $250,000 prize. Farrakhan accepted the prize despite U.S. sanctions on Libya.
Meanwhile, Rev. Willie Barrow, who was a member of the Obama campaign’s official Faith Outreach Team , is a close friend of Farrakhan’s and a staunch Nation of Islam supporter. Farrakhan stated in a 2002 interview he met with Barrow to devise his Nation of Islam platforms.
Marxist activist Cornel West, an adviser to Farrakhan, also had been an adviser to Obama’s 2008 campaign and is a close Obama associate and personal friend.
During the period of Obama’s attendance at Wright’s Trinity United Church, the parish was openly allied with Farrakhan and the Nation of Islam. Wright gave Farrakhan his 2007 Empowerment Award. Farrakhan delivered multiple guest lectures at the church.
Wright has been involved in Farrakhan initiatives and labeled him “one of the most important voices in the 20th and 21st century.”
Obama has appeared at least three times on the cover of Trumpet magazine, founded by Wright. The magazine, to which Obama last year granted a lengthy, exclusive interview, regularly hails Farrakhan.
Aaron Klein is Jerusalem bureau chief and senior reporter for Internet giant WorldNetDaily.com. He is also host of an investigative radio program on New York’s 770-WABC Radio, the largest talk radio station in the U.S., every Sunday between 2-4 p.m.
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