(Washington Post) Western officials and experts fear that a pair of Israeli airstrikes on Syrian military targets in recent days increased the risk of attacks on Israeli tourists and other civilian targets in the coming weeks as Damascus and its allies try to retaliate.
On Tuesday, Syrian officials repeated warnings that “Israel will suffer” for destroying a cache of advanced Iranian-built missiles apparently intended for Hezbollah, the Lebanese militant group closely allied with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
(Human Events) In January, an American Christian was sentenced to an eight-year prison sentence on charges of “endangering national security” in Iran. A 32-year-old married father of two from Boise, Idaho, Pastor Saeed Abedini traveled to his country of origin last year to visit family and help build an orphanage, only to be arrested and sent to Tehran’s brutal Evin prison.
According to Fox News, Abedini, a Muslim convert to Christianity—also known as an apostate deserving of death under Islamic Sharia law—is “facing physical and psychological torture at the hands of captors demanding he renounce his beliefs.” Indeed, the authorities’ words are “Deny your faith in Jesus Christ and return to Islam or else you will not be released from prison. We will make sure you are kept here even after your 8 year sentence is finished.”
(CNSNews) BAGHDAD (AP) — Five car bombs struck in predominantly Shiite cities and districts in central and southern Iraq on Monday, killing 36 people and wounding dozens in the latest wave of violence roiling the country, Iraqi officials said.
No one immediately claimed responsibility for Monday’s blasts but coordinated bombings in civilian areas are a favorite strategy used by al-Qaida in Iraq.
(FoxNews.com) The White House said Friday that more evidence is necessary to confirm the Syrian government used chemical weapons against its people, but if that proves to be true, it would be a “game changer.”
President Obama addressed the issue in the Oval Office, where he was meeting with Jordan’s King Abdullah II, though he didn’t commit to any action yet in Syria.
“I have been very clear publicly, but also privately, that for the Syrian government to utilize chemical weapons on its people crosses a line that will change my calculus on how the United States approaches these issues. This is not an on or off switch. This is an ongoing challenge that all of us have to be concerned about,” he said.
(Newsbusters.org) Ultra-liberal MSNBC host Alex Wagner may have hit a new low on the Wednesday edition of her program, Now. Discussing the response to the Boston bombing, Wagner absurdly hinted that Fox News’s Bill O’Reilly and Charles Krauthammer’s attacks on Barack Obama are “a precursor” to saying that “the president [is] actually secretly a Muslim.”
The segment began with Wagner raising the question of how to increase surveillance “in a meaningful way that doesn’t seem discriminatory.” Howard Wolfson, a Democrat who serves as the counselor to Mayor Michael Bloomberg (I-NY), summed up her question as such, but unfortunately, this was the last rational comment made during the segment: (More… click)
