Palestinian shot after throwing acid at settler family

JERUSALEM (AFP) -- A Palestinian threw acid at a family of Israelis picking up a hitchhiker in the West Bank Friday before being shot and wounded, residents and the army said.
An Israeli army spokeswoman said that a vehicle carrying a family of five picked up a hitchhiker near the tunnel checkpoint between Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

"A vehicle carrying a family with four girls stopped to pick up a hitchhiker" near a checkpoint outside Bethlehem and close to the Gush Etzion settlement area, an army statement said.

A Palestinian man standing next to the hitchhiker threw acid at both him and the family when the car stopped, it said.

Initially the army said the attacker was a hitchhiker but later revised its statement.

Israeli news site Ynet said three young children aged 8-10 suffered light burn wounds and a 40-year-old man suffered burns to his face and eyes.

Another Israeli civilian shot the suspect in the leg as he fled, the Israeli spokeswoman added.

The suspect was identified as Jamal Abd al-Majid Ghayatha, 45, from the village of Nahalin.

Palestinian residents said he was mentally unstable and had received treatment at a mental health clinic in Bethlehem. He had been arrested before, they added.

He was taken to Hadassa hospital for treatment.

Failure of nuclear talks would be 'West's fault', Iranian regime official declares

The head of the Iranian regime’s Human Rights Council has said if the nuclear talks fail, it will be the fault of the West.

Mohammad Javad Larijani said that world powers are grasping at ‘every opportunity’ to put pressure on Iran in their negotiations with the regime.

He said at a conference on Tuesday on the effects of sanctions on regime’s economy: "If the negotiations fail, we assume that the conduct of the other side has brought such failure about.

"We are not optimistic about the extension of talks, and believe that the other side seeks every opportunity to mount pressure on Iran, which now has taken the form of low crude oil prices, targeting Iran’s oil incomes.

"We see the lower oil prices as a contrived plan by those who are responsible for failure of nuclear talks."

But on Wednesday, the last day of the third round of talks with the American delegation in Geneva, Deputy FM and senior negotiator of the Iranian regime, Seyed Abbas Araghchi, described the talks as 'detailed and extensive'.

He said: "The talks are proceeding in a good and respectful atmosphere, but it is still too soon to make a judgement about what the final outcome will be."

Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif also said the talks were being conducted in a good atmosphere.

But a senior IRGC commander said world powers are trying to undermine Iran’s influence. The Deputy Chief of Staff of the Iranian Armed Forces Brigadier General Massoud Jazayeri added: "We should not keep our hopes high on the outcomes of these talks."

ISIS beheads 150 women, some of them pregnant, for refusing to marry militants

Even as the world tries to come to terms with the dastardly terrorist attack in Pakistan's Peshawar and the 'lone wolf' attack in Sydney, reports are emerging of more violence by the Islamic State. This time they have reportedly beheaded women in Iraq for not marrying militants.

The Independent quotes Iraq's Ministry of Human Rights saying in a statement, "At least 150 females, including pregnant women, were executed in Fallujah by a militant named Abu Anas Al-Libi after they refused to accept jihad marriage."

Representational image. Reuters

This comes close on the heels of the incident when the extremists shot dead at least 50 men, women and children in the Iraq.

Not just people of Iraq, Islamic State has waged war against westerners as was seen in the several beheading videos published by the terrorist group in the last few months.

They executed Peter Kassig, a US aid worker kidnapped in Syria, on 16 November 2014 as a warning to the United States. The same video showed the gruesome simultaneous beheadings of at least 18 men described as Syrian military personnel.

Islamic State-linked Jund al-Khilifa, or "Soldiers of the Caliphate," claimed to have beheaded French tourist Herve Gourdel who was abducted in Algeria. The beheading was shown in a video posted online after Paris rejected an Islamic State demand to halt air strikes in Iraq.

Before that it was David Haines, a British aid worker, freelance reporter Steven Sotloff and US freelance photojournalist James Foley.

Known for its ruthless tactics and suicide bombers, ISIS has already controlled the Iraqi city of Fallujah for eleven months, and is also arguably the most capable force fighting President Bashar al-Assad inside Syria.

Its takeover of Mosul in June had prompted the United States to voice deep concern about the "extremely serious" situation and warn the jihadist Sunni group poses "a threat to the entire region".

Note from blogger : Regarding Iran and the paramilitary Basij Force

The Basij, full name Sâzmân-e Basij-e Mostaz'afin (Persian: سازمان بسیج مستضعفین‎, "The Organization for Mobilization of the Oppressed" is a paramilitary volunteer militia established in 1979 by order of the Islamic Revolution's leader Ayatollah Khomeini. The original organization comprised the civilian volunteers whom the Ayatollah Khomeini urged to fight in the Iran–Iraq war. The force consists of young Iranians who have volunteered, often in exchange for official benefits. Currently Basij serve as an auxiliary force engaged in activities such as internal security as well as law enforcement auxiliary, the providing of social service, organizing of public religious     ceremonies, and policing of morals and the suppression of dissident gatherings. Basij is the name of the force; a basiji is an individual member.

The Basij are set up as subordinate to, receiving their orders from, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards and the current Supreme Leader Ayatollah Khamenei to whom they are known for their loyalty. They have also been described as "a loosely allied group of organizations" including "many groups controlled by local clerics.They have a local organization in almost every city in Iran.

Acid attacks and stabbings continue in Iran

NCRI - The spate of acid attacks on young women and the stabbing of youths by regime-backed thugs is continuing across Iran.

Men riding on motorcycles stabbed a female and a male youth in the back in two separate incidents in Tehran on Monday, December 15.

Two motorcycle riders wearing face masks threw acid in the face of a young woman in Tehran in another horrific attack on the same day.

More than a dozen women and girls have been the victims of acid attacks in the central city of Isfahan in recent weeks, and five university students have been stabbed in
in the southern city of Jahrom.

The students identified one attacker as paramilitary Basij Force member Mohamad Beheshtifar, who was caught on a security camera close to where he attacked one victim.

Beheshtifar is the son of IRGC Colonel Jalil Beheshtifar, who heads the Basij force in Ghotbabad district, in Jahrom County, south of the city of Jahrom.

He said he was motivated to attack after one cleric said the 'killing of a Bad-Hejab (improperly veiled women) is permissible' in order to 'prevent vice'.

Earlier this month the regime’s parliament approved a bill officially putting the members of the Basij paramilitary force in charge of enforcing the dress code in Iran and harassing and repressing women and youths in public under the pretext of 'Promotion of Virtue and the Prevention of Vice'.

The law institutionalized the work of members of the Basij paramilitaries that patrol streets to enforce the dress code, interrogate couples about their relationships, and other behavior prescribed under the clerical regime’s misogynist laws

Australia- Iranian man " former spy " got boot from Iranian Government ?

NCRI - The Iranian Resistance strongly condemns the criminal hostage-taking of innocent civilians in Sidney, Australia, and expresses its solidarity with the victims’ families.

The hostage-taker, mullah Haron Monis, when arrived many years ago in Australia from Iran, had declared that he had been an advisor to the Iranian regime’s Minister of Intelligence.The cleric who used the name Manteghi Boroujerdi in Iran, had also declared he knew many secrets of the regime and had transferred much information out of Iran.

On Tuesday, December 16, the Financial Review of Australia reminded that back in 2001, in an “interview with ABC, Monis said he was an Iranian spy who was turned on by his own government… Asked why he fled Iran in 1996, Monis said he had formerly worked with Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence and Security… ‘The Iranian regime wants to make me silent, because I have some secret information about the (Iranian) government and about their terrorist operations,’ he said at that time.”

On 5 February 2001, in a call-in message to Radio Israel Farsi service, Boroujerdi (Monis) had said: “It is time to disclose the information.”

On 8 April 2001, he made a disclosure through the same radio saying that he had discussed the blowing up of Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia with the Iranian regime’s Chief of General Command Headquarters of Armed Forces Major General Firuzabadi.

The explosion of Khobar Tower was carried out on 25 June 1996 by the terrorist Qods Force and was commanded by Ahmad Vahidi who was Defense Minister in the second term of government of Ahmadinejad.

As is the routine with the Iranian regime, in a ridiculous attempt to cover up, state-run Tasnim News Agency, affiliated with the terrorist Qods Force, brazenly claimed in an absurd lie on December 16 that the hostage-taker mullah had been among those “expelled from one of the country’s universities who later became a supporter of PMOI.”

Meanwhile, the spokesperson for the Iranian regime Foreign Ministry claimed: “The background and the mental and psychological condition of this individual who sought refuge in Australia two decades ago had been repeatedly discussed with the Australian authorities and his condition was perfectly clear to that country’s officials” (Iranian state TV – December 16, 2014)

Fars News Agency, affiliated with the revolutionary guards, intentionally blamed the Iranian refugees for this criminal hostage-taking act and described the hostage-taker as a hustler that “was not handed over to Iran under the pretext of being a political refugee”.

Secretariat of the National Council of Resistance of Iran
December 16, 2014

Iraqi Air Force Airstrikes On ISIL