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Turkey’s Erdogan Sends ‘Best Wishes’ to Iran After Israel Strike, Continues Fierce Criticism of Jewish State

Turkey’s President Tayyip Erdogan speaks during a press conference with Greek Prime Minister Kyriakos Mitsotakis (not seen) at the Presidential Palace in Ankara, Turkey, May 13, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Umit Bektas

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan gave his “best wishes” to Iran and accused Israel of trying to provoke a regional war in the Middle East in response to the Jewish state’s airstrikes against Iranian military targets over the weekend.

Erdogan’s comments continued his hostile posture toward Israel over the past year, during which Turkish-Israeli relations have nosedived amid Israel’s ongoing military operations against two Iran-backed Islamist terrorist groups: Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

On Saturday, over 100 Israeli aircraft targeted missile production sites and air defenses inside Iran, significantly crippling Iran’s ballistic missile capabilities and production capacity. The sophisticated operation was in response to Iran firing more than 180 ballistic missiles at Israel earlier in the month, as well as ongoing attacks from its terror proxies in the region, according to Israeli officials.

Responding to the strikes, Erdogan expressed solidarity with Iran and portrayed Israel as the aggressor.

“I extend my best wishes to our neighbor Iran and the Iranian government, which were the target of Israeli aggression last night,” Erdogan said at an event in the southern city of Hatay, according to Turkish media.

The Turkish president also claimed without evidence that Israel was seeking to set a “trap” to start a regional war.

“The Zionist Israeli government is attempting to ignite a regional conflict. It is crucial not to fall into the trap set by Israel and its supporters,” he said. “With this mindset, Israel will achieve nothing. We expect their wrath from Allah.”

Meanwhile, Turkey’s Foreign Ministry released a statement condemning Israel’s military strikes and similarly accusing the Jewish state of bringing the region toward a broader conflict. The ministry went on to falsely accuse Israel of “committing genocide in Gaza,” preparing to annex the West Bank, and attacking civilians in Lebanon.

“Ending the terrorism created by Israel in the region has become a historic duty in terms of establishing international security and peace,” the statement read, calling on the international community to take steps to avoid further escalation.

The ministry and Erdogan’s comments came two months after Turkey’s Ambassador to Iran Hicabi Kırlangıç lambasted Israel in an interview as “one of the most ruthless enemies” and condemned Western countries for supporting Jerusalem. He also said that Iran’s plan to attack Israel in retaliation for the killing over the summer of Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran should be harsh enough to force the Jewish state to “fall to its knees.”

Haniyeh was killed in an explosion in Iran’s capital city on July 31. Iran, the chief international sponsor of Hamas, accused Israel of carrying out the assassination and vowed revenge. The Israeli government has neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for Haniyeh’s death.

Iran, which initially launched an unprecedented direct attack against Israel in April, also said it would retaliate following Israeli airstrikes in recent weeks that killed the top leaders of its Hezbollah allies in Lebanon, including longtime Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah.

On Oct. 1, Iran acted on its threats, firing nearly 200 ballistic missiles at Israel. The only fatality from the barrage was Sameh Asli, 37, a Palestinian from Jabalia in Gaza. He was killed by missile shrapnel in the West Bank village of Nu’eima, near Jericho, during the attack.

Following Israel’s retaliatory strikes this past weekend, Iranian officials attempted to downplay the severity of the strikes. However, an Israeli weapons systems and intelligence expert told The Algemeiner on Sunday that the Islamist regime’s ballistic missile program will need at least a year to recover from the strikes.

Amid escalating tensions between Israel and Iran and its proxies, Turkey has been one of the fiercest critics of Israel — and defenders of Hamas — since the outbreak of the Gaza war last October.

Last month Erdogan said that the United Nations General Assembly should recommend the use of force, in line with a resolution it passed in 1950, if the UN Security Council fails to stop Israel’s military operations in Gaza and Lebanon.

In August, Erdogan declared Aug. 2 a day of national mourning over the killing of Haniyeh.

The announcement came days after Erdogan made an explicit threat to invade Israel, leading Israeli Foreign Minister Israel Katz to call on NATO to expel Turkey, which has the alliance’s second largest military.

Turkey has reportedly blocked cooperation between NATO and Israel since last October because of the war in Hamas-ruled Gaza and said the alliance should not engage with Israel as a partner until the conflict ends.

Erdogan’s comments were the latest in a recent wave of hostile moves targeting the Jewish state.

Earlier this year, for example, Turkey’s foreign ministry compared Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to Nazi leader Adolf Hitler.

In May, the Turkish trade ministry said it had ceased all exports and imports to and from Israel. The announcement came after Turkey imposed trade restrictions on Israeli exports over Israel’s ongoing war against Hamas in Gaza following the terrorist group’s Oct. 7 invasion of and massacre across the southern region of the Jewish state.

That followed Erdogan in March threatening to “send Netanyahu to Allah to take care of him, make him miserable, and curse him.” He previously accused Israel of operating “Nazi” concentration camps and compared Netanyahu with Hitler.

Weeks earlier, Erdogan said that Netanyahu was a “butcher” who would be tried as a “war criminal” over Israel’s defensive military operations in Gaza. He has also called Israel a “terror state.”

Turkey hosts senior Hamas officials and, together with Iran and Qatar, has provided a large portion of the Palestinian terrorist group’s budget.

Several Western and Arab states designate Hamas, an offshoot of the Islamist Muslim Brotherhood, as a terrorist group.

However, Erdogan has defended Hamas terrorists as “resistance fighters” against what he described as an Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.

Israel withdrew all its troops and civilian settlers from Gaza in 2005.

Turkish-Israeli diplomatic relations have nosedived since the Hamas atrocities of last Oct. 7, when the terrorist group that rules Gaza murdered 1,200 people in southern Israel and kidnapped over 250 hostages, launching the ongoing war in the Palestinian enclave.

The post Turkey’s Erdogan Sends ‘Best Wishes’ to Iran After Israel Strike, Continues Fierce Criticism of Jewish State first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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Alleged NYC terror plotter moved to Montreal detention pending extradition hearing

Muhammad Shahzeb Khan, the 20-year-old Pakistani national who was arrested by the RCMP in Quebec on Sept. 4 about 20 kilometres from the U.S. border while allegedly en route to conduct an attack on Jews in New York City, has been moved to a prison in Montreal.

Khan is alleged to have devised a plot for the large-scale murder of Jews on the anniversary of the Oct. 7 terrorist attacks in Israel and on Yom Kippur, in support of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) terrorist group. According to U.S. Justice Department documents, Khan communicated to undercover agents that “if we succeed with our plan this would be the largest attack on U.S. soil since 9/11.”

Khan, also known as Shazeb Jadoon, was arrested and detained in Rimouski, 550 km east of Montreal, until his Dec. 19 transfer. The Mississauga, Ont., resident speaks no French, and his lawyer said he could not work with his client while he was held there, where he could not help him understand government documents, and the suspect could not communicate with French-speaking prison guards.

He appeared briefly at the Montreal courthouse Friday morning and will return to Superior Court on Jan. 17, when a date will be set for an extradition hearing. Ottawa agreed to a U.S. extradition request for Khan to stand trial in the Southern District of New York on charges of attempting to provide material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization. If convicted, he faces up to 20 years in prison.

Khan arrived in Canada in June 2023 on a student visa, Immigration Minister Marc Miller confirmed a week after the arrest, which was pursuant to section 495 of Canada’s Criminal Code: attempting to leave Canada to commit an offence for a terrorist group, participating in the activities of a terrorist group, and conspiracy to commit an offence by violating United States immigration law.

He was then re-arrested on a provisional warrant under the Extradition Act as Canadian authorities were uncertain whether they could detain him based on existing evidence.

“The news of threats to the Jewish community is alarming,” read an RCMP statement. “We will not tolerate any form of threats, harassment or violence targeting Jewish communities. The RCMP continues to work in collaboration with our domestic and international partners to detect, investigate and disrupt criminal acts that are targeting Jewish communities.

“With the strong partnership between Canada and the U.S. we can reassure the public that as his actions escalated, at no point in time was Khan an immediate threat prior to his arrest.”

According to the U.S. Justice Department complaint drawn up by an FBI counterterrorism agent, Khan planned to use automatic and semi-automatic weapons to carry out a mass shooting at Chabad locations. Authorities say he began posting on social media and communicating with others around November 2023 on an encrypted messaging application about his support for ISIS, when he allegedly distributed ISIS propaganda videos and literature.

He then began communicating with two undercover law enforcement officers, the complaint reads. “During those conversations, Khan confirmed that he and a U.S.-based ISIS supporter had been planning to carry out an attack in a particular U.S. city. Among other things, Khan said that he had been actively attempting to create ‘a real offline cell’ of ISIS supporters to carry out a ‘coordinated assault’ using AR-style rifles to “target Israeli Jewish chabads… scattered all around” the city.

According to the document, Khan envisioned teams launching three attacks simultaneously “on diff[erent] locations maximizing casualty count” and repeatedly instructed undercover agents to obtain assault rifles, ammunition and “some good hunting [knives] so we can slit their throats,” identifying specific locations where attacks would take place.

He also instructed them to acquire burner cell phones and allegedly provided details about how he would cross into the United States. During conversations with the agents, he allegedly emphasized that Oct. 7 and 11 were the best days for targeting Jews “because ‘Oct 7 they will surely have some protests and Oct 11 is yom kippur’.”

The complaint alleges that, just a few weeks after the Hamas attack in Israel, he was posting support for jihad and images of weapons. The FBI also says Khan boasted that New York is perfect to target Jews because it has the “largest Jewish population In america” and, therefore, “even if we dont attack a event [sic], we could rack up easily a lot of jews.” Khan then allegedly proclaimed, “We are going to nyc to slaughter them,” and sent a photograph of the area he envisioned for the attack.

Khan attempted to reach the U.S-Canada border using three separate cars before being apprehended in Ormstown, after officers from different police forces followed him from the Toronto area.

U.S. Attorney General Merrick Garland thanked Canadian law enforcement for their assistance, adding “Jewish communities—like all communities in this country—should not have to fear that they will be targeted by a hate-fueled terrorist attack.”

The post Alleged NYC terror plotter moved to Montreal detention pending extradition hearing appeared first on The Canadian Jewish News.

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Israel for First Time Claims Responsibility for Killing of Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran

Iranians attend the funeral procession of assassinated Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran, Iran, Aug. 1, 2024. Photo: Majid Asgaripour/WANA (West Asia News Agency) via REUTERS

Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz on Monday acknowledged for the first time that Israel killed Hamas chief Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran in July.

“These days, when the Houthi terrorist organization is firing missiles at Israel, I want to convey a clear message to them at the beginning of my remarks: We have defeated Hamas, we have defeated Hezbollah, we have blinded Iran’s defense systems and damaged the production systems, we have toppled the Assad regime in Syria, we have dealt a severe blow to the axis of evil, and we will also deal a severe blow to the Houthi terrorist organization in Yemen, which remains the last to stand,” Katz said during an event honoring defense ministry personnel.

Israel will “damage their strategic infrastructure, and we will behead their leaders. Just as we did to Haniyeh, [Hamas leader Yahya] Sinwar, and [Hezbollah leader Hassan] Nasrallah in Tehran, Gaza, and Lebanon [respectively] — we will do it in Hodeidah and Sana’a,” Katz continued. “Whoever raises a hand against Israel will have their hand cut off, and the long arm of the IDF [Israel Defense Forces] will strike them and settle the score.”

Hamas, Hezbollah, and the Houthis are all internationally designated terrorist organizations backed by Iran. Katz’s comments came after the Houthi rebels in Yemen fired a ballistic missile at Tel Aviv over the weekend. The Houthis have also been attacking commercial shipping in the Red Sea for more than a year, saying they are acting in solidarity with the Palestinians in Gaza and will prevent all ships from heading to Israeli ports.

Haniyeh, the exiled political chief of Hamas, was killed in an explosion in Iran’s capital city on July 31. Iran had accused Israel of carrying out the assassination and vowed revenge; however, for months the Israeli government had neither confirmed nor denied responsibility for Haniyeh’s death.

Haniyeh was based in Qatar and had been the face of Hamas’s during the Israel-Hamas war, which the Palestinian terroris group launched with its invasion of and massacre across southern Israel last Oct. 7.

Following Haniyeh’s death, Sinwar was named the terrorist group’s overall leader after being its top official in Gaza. Sinwar, who masterminded the Oct. 7 attacks on Israel, was killed by Israeli forces in Gaza in October.

The post Israel for First Time Claims Responsibility for Killing of Hamas Leader Ismail Haniyeh in Tehran first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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‘Should Scare Every American’: Top Trump Adviser Mike Waltz Explains Dangers of Iran Getting Nuclear Weapons

US Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL) speaks on Day 1 of the Republican National Convention (RNC) at the Fiserv Forum in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US, July 15, 2024. Photo: REUTERS/Mike Segar

US Rep. Mike Waltz (R-FL), who was recently tapped to serve as the White House national security adviser for the incoming Trump administration, outlined in a new interview why Iran’s nuclear program could pose a major threat to the United States and must be stopped.

During an interview with Daily Wire co-founder and conservative podcast host Ben Shapiro, Waltz said that his constituents often do not understand how Iran’s nuclear ambitions impact American interests. The lawmaker explained that Iran obtaining nuclear weapons could kick-start an arms race and geopolitical firestorm in the Middle East, potentially forcing the US to become more involved in the region militarily.

“No. 1,  if Iran gets a nuke, the Saudis are going to want a nuke, the Turks are going to want a nuke, and the Middle East exploding, not literally but figuratively, in a nuclear arms race should scare every American,” Waltz said. 

Though Waltz conceded that nuclear proliferation in the Middle East would not necessarily result in “World War III,” he asserted that it would be “catastrophic for the world.”

The lawmaker added that a nuclear-armed Iran would endanger Israel, which he described as America’s “critical ally, morally and historically and geopolitically,” and that the US should take threats by Iranian leadership to eliminate Israel seriously. 

“We should believe [Iran’s so-called ‘supreme leader,’ Ayatollah Ali Khamenei] who intends to wipe Israel off the face of the earth if they have nukes,” Waltz said.

Waltz also praised Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for “exposing Iran’s air defenses so that they literally are naked right now and on their back foot.” He appeared to be referring to Israel’s precision airstrikes on Iranian military and air defense sites in October which devastated the regime’s air-defense system and ballistic missile program. The strikes were in response to Iran’s ballistic missile barrage against Israel weeks earlier.

Waltz went on to say that the incoming Trump administration plans on “hitting” Iran’s finances throughout the Middle East and stopping the flow of money “out of Tehran into Beirut and into [Iran’s] proxies in Syria.”

Iran has supported several terrorist proxies throughout the Middle East, including Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon — both of which have been devastated by Israeli military operations in recent months. The Iranian regime also backed the recently ousted Assad regime in Syria, where Israel launched limited operations to ensure security at its northeastern amid uncertainty about Syria’s future.

“I hope that all of this has Hamas so isolated. They really thought the cavalry was coming from the north with Hezbollah. Now, that has been shown not to be true; Hamas has every exit blocked except one, and that is to release our hostages if you want to live,” Waltz said. 

Harsh US sanctions levied on Iran under the Trump administration from 2017-2021 crippled the Iranian economy and led its foreign exchange reserves to plummet. US President-elect Donald Trump and his Republican supporters in the US Congress have criticized the Biden administration for renewing billions of dollars in US sanctions waivers, which had the effect of unlocking frozen funds and allowing the country to access previously inaccessible hard currency.

US intelligence agencies have for years labeled Iran as the world’s foremost state sponsor of terrorism, noting it devotes significant sums of money and weapons each year to supporting proxies across the Middle East such as Hamas and Hezbollah.

The post ‘Should Scare Every American’: Top Trump Adviser Mike Waltz Explains Dangers of Iran Getting Nuclear Weapons first appeared on Algemeiner.com.

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