The 'Palestinians' try to make up for a loss
It's been my busiest month work-wise since November 2008, and it got to the point where my boss said to me sometime on Wednesday that he knew I was working really hard because I had not posted anything to my blog in three days. Yeah, he reads it too....
But on Thursday I have another travel day - heading back to Israel for the Sabbath. It has the distinct advantage of shortening Thursday's fast for me to about seven hours (I'll be heading eastbound). But I have to be up awfully early....
The 'Palestinians' have also had a busy week. On Tuesday, they lost their 'statehood' vote in the United Nations Security Council. It took a lot of pressure from the United States, and a lot of courage by two African nations on the Security Council to make it happen, but the 'Palestinians'
lost again.
"The US had a very
significant role," said a high-ranking official at the Foreign Ministry
in Jerusalem. "Not only were they willing to veto, they also worked
side-by-side with Israeli diplomats in order to prevent support for the
decision within the Security Council. It's not that they just said they
would vote against it. They worked. There were phone calls and messages.
The American diplomatic effort is noteworthy."
Apart from the
critical help from Washington, the results of the Security Council vote
are also a testament of the diplomatic achievements made by the Foreign
Ministry headed by Avigdor Lieberman, who marked Africa as a target for
diplomatic efforts. The African nations proved themselves loyal during
the moment of truth with the support of Rwanda and Nigeria.
Representing the Netanyahu government, Lieberman set out on a trip
that began in September of 2009 in which he visited Ethiopia, Kenya,
Ghana, Nigeria and Uganda. In June 2014, Lieberman returned to Africa
and visited Rwanda, the Ivory Coast, Ghana, Ethiopia, and Kenya.
Visits of by an Israeli diplomat of this stature to Africa have not
been seen since the days of Golda Meir as foreign minister. During her
tenure, Israel had 27 representatives in Africa compared to the 10 that
exist today. The wide-ranging investments Israel has made in African
aid, along with the Israeli business that operate in the continent,
proved to be very worthwhile.
They key nation was without a doubt Nigeria.
The African nation was the ninth country that was supposed to give
the Palestinians the necessary majority in the UN Security Council. In
the end, it became the nation that swayed from Palestinian support to
abstention and by doing so enabled the prevention of the unilateral
Palestinian resolution to pass.
High-ranking officials
within the Foreign Ministry had already come to terms with the fact that
Nigeria would give Palestinian the ninth vote majority and that the US
would then use its veto. But the events played out surprisingly
different.
Read the whole thing. It's a fascinating piece. I'd love to hear more about South Korea - not a surprising vote given our economic ties there. And please don't visit France....
The 'Palestinians' are trying to make up for their loss by
joining the International Criminal Court. That may not have been so smart either.
Earlier this year the PA signed onto 15 international treaties and was immediately in violation of 11 of them. The PA subsequently was, ironically, accepted into convention against corruption. The European Court of Auditors is starting to investigate charges of PA corruption.
Earlier this year a former prosecutor of the ICC, Luis Moreno-Ocampo, warned
the PA that joining the ICC could put the PA in legal jeopardy on
account of its unity government with Hamas, a terrorist organization. An
Israeli NGO, Shurat Hadin, The Israel Law Center, last month petitioned the ICC
to investigate Abbas for war crimes. Though the PA was not, at that
time, a signatory to the Rome Statute, Abbas is a citizen of Jordan,
which is.
The 'Palestinians' seem to have as many moves as OJ Simpson. Here's hoping they end up like him.
Labels: International Criminal Court, Nigeria, Palestinian state RIGHT NOW syndrome, United Nations Security Council
Genocide where?
From
here (Hat Tip:
Debbie R).
Labels: Bashar al-Assad, Gaza, genocide, ISIS, Nigeria
Israeli forces on the ground in Nigeria
Israeli forces are reportedly
on the ground in Nigeria helping to find 276 Christian girls who have been kidnapped and are being forcibly converted to Islam and sold into slavery by the terrorist group Boko Haram.
On Monday, international media was abuzz after the publication of a
video showing many of the captive girls dressed in Muslim garb
(pictured) and reciting passages from the Koran. In the video, Boko
Haram leader Abubakar Shekau says the girls will be held and continued
to be forcibly converted to Islam until jailed members of his group are
freed by the Nigerian government.
The government of Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan rejected the
demand, and turned to the international community for assistance. Israel
was quick to answer the call.
...
Members of a Nigerian delegation currently in Israel told Channel 2
News that their government had accepted the offer of Israeli aid, and
confirmed that Israeli counter-terrorism experts were already en route
to the West African nation.
An Israeli military official who just returned from Nigeria told
popular Internet news site Buzzfeed that “in the wake of this crisis,
Israel increased its assistance and we have been providing support in
any manner possible. We have been involved on this from the beginning.”
It was reported that at present, Israeli forces are helping to gather
intelligence and guide Nigerian forces on how to best tackle the Boko
Haram threat. Some Israeli radio commentators also suggested that
Israeli special forces could be taking part in reconnaissance and combat
operations.
Meanwhile, Barack and Michelle Obama have described the kidnappings as
awful, and have described themselves as
outraged and
heartbroken. Maybe it's time for America to get a real President?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, IDF, Islam, Islamic terrorism, kidnapping, Michelle Obama, Nigeria
Boko Haram, American impotence and the Jews
I am sure that many of you have already seen the picture above, which is pretty much the sum total of American and Western efforts to rescue 276 girls who have been kidnapped to be sold into slavery by Boko Haram, an Islamic terror organization in Nigeria.
So how is that connected with the Jews?
Mark Steyn explains.
Secondly, Charlie seems unaware of what's going on in schools around
the world. In that post about Boko Haram from last year, I also wrote this:
Up north, in the crucible of liberal social democracy, City Hall in Copenhagen held hearings earlier this year about the bullying of Jews in heavily Muslim public schools. Seventeen-year-old Moran Jacob testified:
'In eighth grade, his teacher told him to say that he was Palestinian
and that his mother was Russian. "I had to lie about who I was," he
recalls. But it didn't work. They knew. Eventually, a group of his
classmates ganged up on him and stabbed him in the leg. "You can't go
here anymore," his teacher said. "I have scars," he told the hearing.
"Not on my body, but on my soul . . ."
'"Jews have learned to keep a low profile," Max Mayer, president of
the Danish Zionist Federation, told the hearing. "To not exist in the
city…" And they teach their sons to do the same: wear the skullcap at
school, but take it off when you leave. This, Mayer said, has become
standard practice for Danish Jews: "Don't see us, don't notice us."'
This is liberal, multicultural Europe in the 21st century. As part
of his thanks for raising the subject, young Moran Jacob was
subsequently set upon by "Arabic kids" on Strøget, the main pedestrian
street in Copenhagen, and forced to move away from the neighborhood in
which he's lived all his life. He's now considering leaving Denmark...
Listen to how cowed the school principals sound in the Copenhagen
story and then figure the chances of anyone addressing the issue
honestly. Boko haram, indeed.
To the people who drove that Jewish boy out of his school, arguing
that the Holocaust never happened is not a dazzling virtuoso display of
Oxbridge-level intellectual gymnastics but just business as usual.
...
The California schools superintendent who wanted his Eighth Graders
to turn in essays arguing that the Holocaust didn't happen is called
Mohammad Z Islam. That's why they got the assignment, not because they
wanted to turn themselves into the Oxford Union. As Laura Rosen Cohen
pointed out, there are all kinds of lively topics Mr Cooke might propose
for our schools: Did Mohammed exist? What's the deal with his
nine-year-old bride? But in the real world even mild questioning of
whether Islam is a "religion of peace" is beyond the pale, and across
the Continent the Holocaust is disappearing from school curricula.
That's the problem. There's no point winning an Oxford debate if the other side win everything else.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: anti-Semitism, Holocaust denial, Islam, Islamic terrorism, Mark Steyn, Michelle Obama, Nigeria
Boo. Hoo. Hezbullah terrorists in Nigeria complain about Mossad interrogation
Two Hezbullah terrorists who were arrested in connection with a huge arms cache in Nigeria complained in court on Monday that they were interrogated '
roughly' by agents of Israel's Mossad.
Testifying in a Nigerian court on Monday, Fawaz was quote by AFP as
saying that he had been interrogated by six "crude and nasty" Mossad
agents over 14 days.
"They handcuffed my hands behind my back for
days. I lost count because they did not allow me to sleep for several
days...I was interrogated in Arabic. I asked to be interrogated in
English, but they refused. Most of them are weak in English. They are
not Europeans, but Israelis."
Fawaz, who denied being a member of
Hezbollah in his testimony on Monday, added that the alleged Mossad
agents "asked me about my link with Hezbollah, but they concentrated
more on Lebanon -- whether I knew if there are weapons stored in the
south of Lebanon or the identities of people who have been trained by
Hezbollah."
Thahini, who told the court that he was no longer a
member of Hezbollah, said that he had been denied sleep for five days by
the alleged Mossad interrogators. He said that he knew by their accents
that they were Israelis, according to AFP.
Both suspects denied
any knowledge of the arms cache or a terror plot. AFP reported that the
trial was adjourned until September 30 after both the prosecution and
defense concluded their cases.
No waterboarding? No sticking their heads in bags with the faint smell of vomit? Heck, they got off easy as far as I'm concerned.
UPDATE 1:13 PM
Much, much more
here.
Labels: Hezbullah, Mossad, Nigeria, weapons smuggling
Iran builds a terror network in Africa
I've reported several
times on this blog about
Iran's and
Hezbullah's
operations in
Latin America and in the
Republic of
Sudan (also
here and
here). But Iran has also made inroads all across Africa that have
contributed significantly to its pursuit of nuclear weapons.
Iran’s experiences in Sudan demonstrate how traditional diplomacy is
subordinated to the Islamic Republic’s boarder, asymmetrical goals.
Sudan’s Islamist National Congress Party (NCP)-led government signed a military cooperation agreement with Iran in 2008; according to The Telegraph, the IRGC maintained
a base in Al Fashr, Darfur, as recently as September of 2011. The
Conflict Armaments Research report strongly suggests that Iranian
ammunition was used in at least some of the atrocities committed by
Khartoum-allied militias during the conflict in Darfur, and that Sudan
was a transit point for Iranian ammunition that eventually made its way
to Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, on the other side of Africa.
This relationship is widely resented within Sudan itself. A
significant faction within Sudan’s notoriously divided regime is set
against a continued relationship with Iran, and in November of last
year, foreign minister Ali Karti spoke out
against the docking of Iranian warships in the Red Sea city of Port
Sudan. According to one East Africa-based analyst who works frequently
in Khartoum, the Sudanese government views its alliance with Iran as
purely opportunistic. “It’s a very self-interested relationship,” he
says. “In its propaganda, the NCP will talk about the infidel west, the
Zionists, the communists, the atheists — and they will put the Shia in
that list as well.”
For many Sudanese, the Yarmouk incident only demonstrated the cost of
Sudan’s conscription into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict by its
Iranian allies—a conflict which has nothing to do with Sudan’s own
already-shaky internal affairs. “A lot of Sudanese are very upset, but
not at the actual Israeli strike,” the analyst said. “They’re upset
about the fact that the government is involving themselves in something
that’s a lot bigger than what Sudan can handle.” Amongst some of Sudan’s
leaders, and a significant part of its populace, Iran is an unwelcome
ally. Even a fellow pariah state — truly an ally of last resort—harbors
little real enthusiasm for the Islamic Republic and its policies.
But Iran has gotten exactly what it needs out of Sudan, regardless of
how facile and opportunistic the ties between the two countries really
are. Sudan is a beachhead for the IRGC — a transit point for weaponry
that allows Hezbollah to aid in the Assad regime’s survival, and Hamas
to rain Fajr 5s on the majority of Israel’s civilian population. It
doesn’t matter that Sudanese resent the bombing of their capital city,
or that Sudan is under international sanctions, or that Iran’s
relationship with such a problematic country is liable to deepen
perceptions of the Islamic Republic’s international isolation. All
across the continent, Iran’s expansionist foreign policy is in direct
conflict with its economic and soft power outreach—and Iran has
succeeded is using Africa to advance its interests anyway.
South Africa, for instance, seems at first glance like a signal
Iranian failure. Africa’s largest economy has totally caved to American
and E.U. pressure on Iranian oil purchases, even despite the
traditionally left-leaning foreign policy of the ruling African National
Congress. In early June, the country’s Department of Energy announced
that it had totally cut off its oil trade with Iran, and Trevor Houser
of the Rhodium Group, which tracks the effects of sanctions on Iran’s
oil sales, confirmed by email that “South African customs has not
recorded any oil imports from Iran for several months now.”
Iran’s oil trade with South Africa has evaporated, but the Islamic
Republic scored a crucial consolation prize: a major investment from
South African cell phone giant MTN, along with a raft of favors from the
South African government. According to a civil complaint filed in
District of Columbia federal court, MTN elbowed Turkcell, a Turkish
competitor, out of a 49% stake in an Iranian joint venture called
Irancell by “promising Iran that MTN could deliver South Africa’s vote
at the International Atomic Energy Agency, promising Iran defense
equipment otherwise prohibited by national and international laws, and
the outright bribery of high-level government officials in both Iran and
South Africa.”
The suit alleges that between 2003 and 2005, MTN won its Iranian
license through a series of lucrative kickbacks. These consisted of straightforward bribes
paid to Iranian officials, although the suit presents strong evidence
that South Africa’s pro-Iran votes at the IAEA between 2005 and 2008
were a quid pro quo for the Islamic Republic’s approval of MTN’s
Irancell investment. The complaint boasted over 60 pages of
documentation, including damning internal emails leaked by an employee
at MTN’s Tehran offices. It goes into specific detail about vehicles and
military equipment the South Africans would provide to Iran if MTN were
awarded the Irancell stake, a list which included “Rooivalk helicopters
(based on the U.S. Apache platform), frequency hopping encrypted
military radios, sniper rifles, G5 howitzers, canons…and other defense
articles.” (The weapons were never delivered, and the Turkcell case was
withdrawn in May of 2013–but only because the U.S. Supreme Court ruled a
month earlier that international corporate civil suits could no longer
be tried in U.S. court).
The scandal has resulted in no criminal prosecutions in South Africa.
MTN still owns nearly half of Irancell, an arrangement that nets the
company over $117 million
a year. Irancell’s Iranian owner is a holding company whose investors
include Iran Electronics Industries, a government-connected electronics
and defense company that has been under U.S. sanctions
since September of 2008. Iran and the IRGC are still leveraging their
relationship with South Africa, even after the collapse of the
companies’ oil trade. And according to Mark Dubowitz of the Foundation
for Defense of Democracies, the country is “a very hospitable place for
Iranian sanctions-busting.” In early June, the U.S. Treasury Department added 37 Iranian front companies to its sanctions list. Three were based in South Africa.
This pattern—in which Iran scrapes for asymmetrical gains within a
challenging diplomatic environment, and in spite of its own internally
divided conventional diplomacy—repeated itself in Nigeria. In October of
2010, Nigerian authorities scored the largest seizure of an Iranian
weapons shipment in African history, when a container ship carrying
crates of rocket launchers and heavy mortars was impounded in the port
of Lagos. This embarrassment hardly ended Iran’s efforts in the country.
In June of 2013, a Hezbollah cell was uncovered in
the northern Nigerian city of Kano. And Iran has an asset in Nigeria
that’s arguably more valuable than a foothold for its Lebanese proxies:
Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, a radical Iranian-trained Shi’ite cleric and a
promoter of Iranian state ideology in Sub-Saharan Africa’s most populous
country.
...
But perhaps the most startling Iranian success in Africa has to do
with its pursuit of the ultimate asymmetrical objective: a nuclear
weapons capability. Robert Mugabe’s regime in Zimbabwe inked a
uranium agreement with Iran in 2011, and Ahmadinejad visited Niger, the
world’s fourth-largest uranium producer, late in his second term as the
Islamic Republic’s president. A 2006 Wikileaks cable asserts that
Iran had smuggled Congolese uranium through ports in Tanzania. As for
Tanzania—its government has proven remarkably tolerant of Iranian
tankers operating under Tanzanian registration
in order to evade the oil sanctions regime. Tanzania is a close enough
U.S. ally to warrant a visit from Barack Obama during his July, 2013
trip to Africa. Iran can get what it needs even from African countries
with established, pro-western bona fides—and despite an almost total
absence of real friends in the continent.
As with its nuclear program, Iran has found its way around the
obstructions that diplomacy and statecraft are constantly throwing in
its path. Despite the pinch of international sanctions, and setbacks
like the Stuxnet computer virus, Iran has increased the number of its
operating uranium centrifuges, along with its stockpile of fissile
material. Thanks to diplomatic stalling tactics, like the ones perfected
by Iranian president-elect and former nuclear negotiator Hassan
Rowhani, and its patient, decades-long accumulation of nuclear
components, Iran has steadily progressed towards a nuclear weapons
capability —even in the face of a nearly-global effort at derailing
them.
Read the whole thing.
Labels: African, Ayatollah Khomeni, Hezbullah, Iran, Iranian nuclear threat, Islam, Nigeria, South Africa, Sudan, Tanzania, weapons smuggling
Nigeria busts terror cell plotting attacks against Israelis
Nigerian security forces have
arrested three members of a terror cell that sought to attack Israelis and Americans, and are looking for a fourth member.
Nigerian security forces on Wednesday evening arrested three people
belonging to an Iranian-linked terror cell that was reportedly planning
to launch an attack against Israeli and American targets, Army Radio
reported.
According to the report, the group planned attacks in
the largest Jewish center in Nigeria, Lagos, as well as in American
development agencies.
Army Radio reported Nigerian police is still searching for a fourth suspect.
Hmmm.
Labels: Iran, Islamic terrorism, Nigeria
Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler
Here's Soccer Dad's Middle East Media Sampler for Monday, January 23.
1) If they aren't a terrorist organization, what are they?
The conclusion of a New York Times op-ed, 3 weeks ago by Jean Herskovits, In Nigeria, Boko Haram Is Not the Problem:
The United States should not allow itself to be drawn into this quicksand by focusing on Boko Haram alone. Washington is already seen by many northern Muslims — including a large number of longtime admirers of America — as biased toward a Christian president from the south. The United States must work to avoid a self-fulfilling prophecy that makes us into their enemy. Placing Boko Haram on the foreign terrorist list would cement such views and make more Nigerians fear and distrust America.
This weekend's news Death toll in Nigeria terror onslaught tops 170
(via The Volokh Conspiracy) :
The death toll from terror attacks on Friday in the Nigerian city of Kano has climbed to at least 150 as estimated by the Red Cross, amid conflicting reports on casualty figures. The victims died in bombings and shootings aimed at eight government buildings across the city.
"We have 178 people killed in the two main hospitals. There could be more, because some bodies have not yet come in and others were collected early," the senior doctor in Kano's Murtala Mohammed hospital told Reuters on Sunday, citing records from his own and the other main hospital of Nasarawa.
...
The radical Islamist terror group Boko Haram, believed to have carried out over 500 terror attacks last year, has already claimed responsibility for the violence in Kano. The group, whose name can be translated as “Western education is a sin,” said that the onslaught was a protest against the government’s refusal to release its members from prison.
2) Praise for Israeli paramedic service. Where?!?!
Someone told me about this, but I had forgotten until I saw Elder of Ziyon. Algemeiner Journal has more background:
Throughout this week, the Al Jazeera news network is running a short film about the Jewish Paramedic Service ‘United Hatzolah’. Entitled Jerusalem SOS, the film follows Jewish and Arab volunteer paramedics as they cross the “psychological divides” between their communities of East and West Jerusalem.
Al Jazeera, though a secular news service, has become the mouthpiece for Islamic Fundamentalism in recent years, most noticeably in airing the video messages of Osama Bin Laden, and their usual scathing denigration of Israel. The coverage of this film and the positive light it lends the Jewish state is intriguingly out of character for the Al Jazeera network.
How the film will be received in the Arab world is yet to be seen, but Head of United Hatzolah, Eli Beer, signaled this as a “learning experience for the Al Jazeera network and the Arab world,” noting that they are beginning to understand “all blood is the same.”
3) Zbig does the full Tommy
I sure hope that Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, understands that the standing ovation he got in Congress this year was not for his politics. That ovation was bought and paid for by the Israel lobby.
Thomas Friedman, Newt, Mitt, Bibi and Vladimir - The New York Times, December 13, 2011
A longtime foe of Israel’s partisans in the United States, he says the Obama team “fumbled by getting outmaneuvered by the Israelis.” Then he gets blunter: “Domestic politics interceded: The Israelis have a lot of influence with Congress, and in some cases they are able to buy influence.”
Zbigniew Brzezinski in Zbig: Israelis “bought influence” and outmaneuvered Obama - Salon, January 20, 2012 (via memeorandum)
No doubt, next week Brzezinski will tell Gary Rosenblatt that he meant to say "engineer influence," not "buy influence."
4) The Islamists won, but don't fear all will be well
The Guardian reports Egypt election results show firm win for Islamists (via memeorandum):
The Muslim Brotherhood, which was banned under Mubarak's regime, won the biggest share of parliamentary seats (38%), according to the High Elections Committee. Its Freedom and Justice party (FJP) has named Saad al-Katatni, a leading Brotherhood official who sat in the old parliament as an independent, as speaker of the assembly.
The hardline Islamist Al-Nour party came second with 29% of the seats. The liberal New Wafd and Egyptian Bloc coalition came third and fourth respectively.
The result means that Islamists will wield major influence over a new constitution, which is set to be drafted by a the country's first freely elected parliament.
Ken Roth of Human Right Watch tells us not to worry. (h/t Israel Matzav)
HRW executive director Kenneth Roth said in the group's annual report that the past year's Arab Spring pro-democracy uprisings across the region have shown it is vital for the West to end its policy of backing "an array of Arab autocrats" in exchange for supporting Western interests.
The West should also be more consistent in supporting pro-democracy forces in the Arab world and elsewhere, he said in HRW's 690-page report on human rights abuses worldwide.
"The international community must ... come to terms with political Islam when it represents a majority preference," he said. "Islamist parties are genuinely popular in much of the Arab world, in part because many Arabs have come to see political Islam as the antithesis of autocratic rule."
HRW doesn't applaud all elections in the Arab world, for example it has harsh words for Iraq.
“Iraq is quickly slipping back into authoritarianism,” said Sarah Leah Whitson, Middle East director for the New York-based group. “Despite U.S. government assurances that it helped create a stable democracy (in Iraq), the reality is that it left behind a budding police state.”
Iraqi officials could not be immediately reached for comment.
Protests against Iraq’s U.S.-backed and democratically elected government erupted around the country in February 2011, partly inspired by demonstrations elsewhere in the Arab world.
Clearly things are not proceeding as hoped in Iraq and the criticism is justified. But is there a reason to criticize Iraq but does that justify turning a blind eye to the Islamist victories across the Middle East? Or is this just another rebuke of the war to defeat Saddam?
5) A few more notes about CJR
On Friday I critiqued an article by Neil Lewis at the Columbia Journalism Review about the New York Times' coverage of Israel. Honest Reporting noted that the print edition had an offensive cartoon included. David Bernstein was less critical of the article than I was, but he observes that Lewis neglected to mention that Chris Hedges headed the New York Times Middle East Bureau at the time Deborah Sontag was reporting. Finally, CJR identified Lewis as being a 2010 Shorenstein fellow at Harvard. According to the Center's website Lewis was a fellow in the Spring of 2011. That's a nitpick, but a publication devoted to journalism ought to be able to get easily verifiable details correct.
Labels: Egyptian elections, Hatzolah, Human Rights Watch, Middle East Media Sampler, Muslim Brotherhood, New York Times, Nigeria, Soccer Dad, Zbigniew Brzezinski
A 'misunderstanding'?
Iranian Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki is describing the discovery of 13 cases of weapons from Iran in a Nigerian port as a 'misunderstanding' that his been resolved. If that's true, someone
forgot to tell the Nigerians.
Mottaki did not elaborate on the nature of the misunderstanding or how it was resolved. His statement was the highest-level Iranian comment so far on the case. In late October, Iran's then-ambassador to Nigeria, Hussein Abdullahi, said there was no clear evidence linking his country to the shipment.
There was no immediate reaction from Nigerian officials to Mottaki's claim the case had been resolved. But in a sign that tensions continued between the two countries, Nigeria postponed a soccer match between the two country's national teams scheduled for Wednesday in Teheran.
Musa Amadu, the Nigerian federation's acting secretary general, told The Associated Press on Monday that the match was postponed "due to the non-availability of our key players." But he didn't a deny a connection with the political events, saying "it's for you to speculate."
An international shipping company based in France CMA CGM said it had picked up the containers in which the weapons were hidden in the southern Iranian port of Bandar Abbas. The shipment stopped in Mumbai, India, before heading to Lagos. On Friday, Nigerian Foreign Minister Odein Ajumogobi said Iranian officials confirmed the consignment originated in Iran.
During his visit, Mottaki cleared the way for Nigerian security officials to interview one of two Iranians who Nigeria says organized the shipment, Ajumogobia said. The Nigerians say the two have taken refuge in the Iranian Embassy.
The interception of the weapons had drawn sharp criticism of Iran from Nigeria.
The Nigerians claim that the weapons were destined for Nigerian politicians intending violence if they lose in upcoming elections.
Israel Radio reported at 1:00 am that Iran is now claiming that the weapons were headed for an unnamed African country. Sounds like the Iranians have a little 'splainin' to do.
Labels: Iran, Manouchehr Mottaki, Nigeria, weapons shipment
