World View: Egypt's Terror Cells Get Training in Syria and Explosives from Libya

This morning’s key headlines from GenerationalDynamics.com

• Abbas applies to U.N. agencies as ‘State of Palestine’
• Kerry cancels meeting with Abbas and leaves Mideast
• Egypt’s terror cells get training in Syria and explosives from Libya

Abbas applies to U.N. agencies as ‘State of Palestine’

Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday signed applications tojoin 15 international treaties and conventions as the “State ofPalestine.” In November, 2012, the U.N. General Assembly voted by anoverwhelming majority to accept a Palestinian state in the West Bank,Gaza and east Jerusalem, lands Israel occupied in 1967. The intent isto force Israel back to its 1949 borders. It’s thought that Abbas, asleader of Palestine, plans to bring charges to the InternationalCriminal Court accusing Israel of war crimes and crimes againsthumanity. It’s unclear whether Abbas’s dramatic announcement was anegotiating tactic in the Mideast “peace process,” or signaled afundamental shift in strategy. AP

Kerry cancels meeting with Abbas and leaves Mideast

For months, U.S. Secretary of State has been flying from one foreignpolicy debacle after another, and that records seems to have continuedon Monday. Kerry left the Mideast and canceled meeting with Abbasafter he failed to get agreement from both sides to continue theaccording to reports, he offered to set U.S. spy Jonathan Pollardfree.

The Obama administration got these “peace talks” going last year byThese prisoners had been convicted of terrorist acts prior to the 1994Oslo accords. The release of these prisoners has been extremelycontroversial in Israel, with very vocal opposition from the familymembers of the people whom these terrorists had killed. The lastbatch of 26 prisoners were scheduled for release last week onFriday, but Israel has refused to release them, unless Palestinianpresident Mahmoud Abbas agrees to extend the “peace talks” beyondApril 29. Abbas in turn demanded that 1,000 more prisonersbe released, including multiple murderers, and also demanded thatIsrael freeze settlements.

So Kerry made a special trip to the Mideast on Monday, apparentlyto convince Israel’s prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu torelease the prisoners, and to sweeten the deal with the releaseof Jonathan Pollard. This has caused outrage in Washington frompeople who point out that Pollard is a major spy, and if he’sgoing to be traded, he ought to be traded for something big –like a Mideast peace deal. Instead, the offer is to trade himfor almost nothing, just an agreement to keep the “peace talks”going for a few more months.

So we have the desperate Kerry running from his failed Ukraine peacetalks to the Mideast to bribe Netanyahu to release the prisoners, whoare being used as a bribe to get Abbas to continue the peace talks.This is so vomit-worthy, it’s almost beyond belief, except thatnothing is beyond belief these days.

Just to be clear, as we’ve said many times, the “peace talks” are ajoke that never had any chance. Netanyahu will never agree to returnto pre-1967 borders or “right of return,” and Abbas will never agreeto recognize Israel as a Jewish state or to guarantee Israel’ssecurity. According to some reports, the negotiators on the two sidesnever even met with each other, and the only people they spoke to wasKerry.

The “peace talks” were just for show, and now Kerry is trying tosalvage them so he won’t be responsible for yet one more debacle. Solet’s watch and see what the desperate Kerry and the Obamaadministration are going to give up next. NPR and Debka

Egypt’s terror cells get training in Syria and explosives from Libya

We’ve written several times about major terrorist attacks acrossEgypt, with a Sinai terrorist group Ansar Jerusalem (Ansar Bayt alMaqdis or Champions of Jerusalem) claiming credit. Terror attackshave been on the increase since the army coup that ousted presidentMohamed Morsi and his Muslim Brotherhood government on July 3 of lastyear, and Ansar Jerusalem has claimed credit for many of them. ( “17-Feb-14 World View — Egypt’s terrorism escalates with attack on tourist bus”)

On March 19, Egyptian security forces raid a major bomb factory in thevillage of Arab Sharkas, on the outskirts of Cairo. In addition to alarge cache of weapons and explosive belts, five tons of explosiveswere found, enough to destroy the dams that control the flow of theNile river into the Delta. Eight terrorist cell members werearrested.

Interrogation and investigation revealed the following:

• The arms and explosives come from Libya. There are large caches of weapons and explosives that were left behind during the war that defeated Muammar Gaddafi. Extremist Islamist militias in eastern Libya transport the arms to a desert seaport in northern Egypt. Bedouins then smuggle the weapons through the desert eastward to the Delta or Upper Egypt.
• The cell members had fought in Syria, as part of the al-Nasra Front. Some had received six months training in terrorist combat camps in Sinai.

Terrorist groups have access to large quantities of heavy weapons fromLibya. Egyptian security forces have been unable to obtain weapons,since the U.S. and Europe refuse to deliver arms shipments to Egypt.As a result, Egypt may be forced to turn to Russia for arms.

So, the western military intervention into Libya in 2011 wasintended to save a massacre of civilians in Benghazi, but insteadhas made available large quantities of heavy weapons and explosivesbeing used in Egypt and a number of other countries.

And the western military non-intervention in Syria, combined withRussia’s unending shipments of heavy weapons to Syria’s genocidalmonster president Bashar al-Assad for use in exterminating innocentSunni women and children, have turned Syria into a worldwide magnetfor jihadists, who go for military and terrorist training andexperience, to be used when they return to their home countries.Al-Ahram (Cairo) and Magharebia (US Africa Command) and Al Monitor (Washington)

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