Hamas commander Saleh Arouri goes Poof! - why didn't the US demand his extradition?
Some of you may recall that for the last two years or so, Turkey has been
sheltering Saleh Arouri, a Hamas terror leader who was responsible for, among other things, the
kidnapping and murder of three Jewish teenagers in June 2014.
Now, it seems that Arouri has disappeared from Turkey - apparently
under pressure from the United States.
“[Saleh] al-Arouri is not in Turkey at the moment,” sources from the
Turkish Foreign Ministry told Hürriyet Daily News. The same sources,
nonetheless, declined to elaborate on whether al-Arouri had ever resided
in Turkey, as Israeli officials have claimed, and whether he was
recently deported, as news reports have suggested.
The
explanation by Turkish officials following months-long silence on the
issue came only days after Israeli Channel 10 reported last week Turkey
had bowed to pressure by the United States and ordered al-Arouri, who Israel has accused of organizing terrorist attacks in the West Bank, to leave the country.
Channel
10 suggested the Turkish government agreed to al-Arouri’s ouster
because it was one of the prerequisites for Turkey’s entry into the
Western coalition against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
(ISIL).
The explanation by senior Foreign Ministry sources came
on the same day when Khaled Mashaal, the head of Hamas’ political
bureau, was scheduled to arrive in Turkey for a meeting with President
Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, amid the flurry of regional contacts made by
Hamas, which have intensified since the recent nuclear deal between Iran and Western powers.
I believe that Naftali Frenkel HY"D (May God Avenge his blood) was a US citizen, and I have to wonder why the United States did not demand Arouri's extradition to face charges in the US. I'm sure Frenkel's family is wondering the same thing.
Here's hoping the Mossad finds Arouri soon and deals with him the way Israel knows how to deal with terrorists.
Labels: Hamas, Khaled Meshaal, kidnapping, murder, Palestinian terrorism, Palestinian terrorists, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Saleh al-Arouri, Turkey
General Security Service stops mass terror attack at Teddy Stadium
Israel's Shin Bet General Security Service has broken up a large 'Palestinian' terror cell that was planning a mass terror attack at
Jerusalem's Teddy Stadium. The terror cell was commanded from - where else? - Turkey.
The Shin Bet announcement confirmed a Times of Israel report last week that said Israel had arrested dozens of members
of a Hamas terror network operating throughout the West Bank. The
network, Palestinian officials said, was funded and directed by Hamas
officials in Turkey who have set up a de facto command center in the
Muslim country.
More than 30 Hamas operatives were arrested
during the month of September, the Shin Bet said Thursday. The majority
were recruited while studying in Jordan and trained in either Syria or
the Gaza Strip, which they entered via tunnels from Sinai.
The Shin Bet said the ring was preparing to
kidnap Israelis in Israel and abroad, enter Israeli villages, detonate
car bombs, perpetrate roadside attacks, and execute a terror attack in
Teddy Stadium, where the Israeli soccer team Beitar Jerusalem plays its
home games.
The Shin Bet asserted that the plan was
evidence of an “indefatigable” desire on Hamas’s part to rehabilitate
its terror infrastructure in the West Bank and to tug Israel into a
sharp military response, which might indirectly lead to the toppling of
PA President Mahmoud Abbas’s regime, which is “one of Hamas’ goals.”
...
As with the previous network, the man behind the terrorist grouping was
Saleh al-Arouri, a Hamas leader who was deported from the West Bank to
Turkey in 2010, the sources said.
Anyone want to argue that deporting terrorists on their release prevents them from carrying out terror attacks? It seems to me that we shouldn't be releasing them at all whether or not they're going to be deported.
Labels: Hamas, Palestinian terrorism, Saleh al-Arouri, terrorists for Gilad trade
Arouri not the only Hamas terrorist who is active in Turkey
Just last night, we were shown video of Saleh al-Arouri admitting that Hamas - through him - was
behind the kidnapping and murder of three Israeli teenagers in June. Arouri, who has been in Turkey since at least
September 2013, is also likely behind the
Hamas plot to overthrow the 'Palestinian Authority,' which was uncovered last week.
But Arouri is not the only active Hamas terrorist in Turkey. Turkey has become a veritable
safe haven for Hamas terrorists.
In
2011, Israel released
10 Hamas operatives to Turkey as part of the prisoner
exchange that saw Hamas release kidnapped Israel Defense Forces (IDF)
soldier Gilad Shalit. Since then, Hamas men have come and gone. But one thing
is clear: The Hamas members who remain in Turkey are active. They attend local
universities, join Turkish organizations, and play a role in its politics, and also
appear to travel freely into and out of the country.
Take Mahmoud Attoun. In the early morning of Dec. 13, 1992, Attoun and a group
of other Hamas terrorists abducted IDF Sgt. Maj. Nissim Toledano, a 29-year-old father of two
young children, on his walk home from work in the Israeli town of Lod. After his
arrest on June 3, 1993, Attoun, then 23, was
sentenced
to a life term in Israeli prison. He was released in 2011.
Today, Attoun is a rising star within Hamas. He frequently advocates for Hamas
around the region, traveling
to Tunisia this April to speak
with students at the University of Sfax about the Palestinian militant organization.
He appeared on a special program in 2012 on al-Quds TV honoring the
freed Hamas prisoners, where he openly acknowledged his presence in Turkey. Attoun
is also actively involved with the Hikmet Bilim Dostluk ve Yardimlasma Dernegi
(HIKMET), a Turkish
NGO associated with the Muslim Brotherhood, and has spoken
at one of their events.
There is also Taysir Suleiman. The Hamas
operative was convicted of kidnapping and murdering an Israeli soldier in 1993,
and sentenced
to life in prison in Israel's high-security Nafha Prison in the Negev Desert. In
2011, he was also shipped abroad in the Shalit deal; today, he openly notes on
his Facebook
profile that he lives in Istanbul, and he appeared alongside Hamas political
bureau leader Khaled Meshaal in a video dated March 2012
in the city. That same summer, he traveled to Southeast Asia and Tunisia,
where he presented
slide shows to students about the al-Qassam Brigades. In October 2013, Suleiman
was featured in an
hour-long special on the al-Quds TV station
celebrating his release from Israeli prison.
Along with Arouri, Suleiman,
and Attoun, there appear to be at least nine other Hamas figures
living in Turkey, based on open-source information. None of them were identified
by the Israelis in the alleged plot to overthrow Abbas in the West Bank.
However, given that the plot was allegedly
hatched out of Turkey, the presence of Arouri and the other Hamas figures prompt some troubling questions about Erdogan's pro-Hamas
policies.
Read the whole thing. And keep in mind that Erdogan is President Hussein Obama's best friend forever.... What could go wrong?
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Hamas, NATO, Palestinian terrorism, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Saleh al-Arouri, Turkey
Full al-Arouri speech acknowledging Hamas responsibility for kidnapping and murder with subtitles
This is the first full translation I have found of the entire video of Turkish-based Hamas leader Saleh al-Arouri acknowledging Hamas' responsibility for kidnapping and murdering Gilad Shaar, Eyal Yifrach and Naftali Frenkel HY"D (May God Avenge their blood).
Let's go to the videotape.
Labels: Hamas, kidnapping, murder, Palestinian terrorism, Saleh al-Arouri
State Department, NATO have yet to raise Hamas safe house with Turkey
The Israel Project has more details about
Monday's announcement that 93 Hamas members have been arrested by the Shin Bet General Security Service for
plotting a coup against the 'Palestinian Authority.'
Officials from Israel’s Shin Bet security agency revealed Monday
morning that they had uprooted a Hamas plot – involving terror cells
spread across at least 46 different Palestinian communities, and
masterminded by a top Hamas operative housed in Turkey – to trigger a
wave of violence that would destabilize the region, derail
Israeli-Palestinian security cooperation, and pull off a military coup
that would see the US-backed Fatah faction supplanted in the West
Bank by Hamas. A senior Shin Bet source who spoke to reporters described
the plot’s scope and infrastructure, which appear to have been almost
half a decade in the making, as among “the biggest we’ve seen… since
Hamas’s formation in 1987.” Other sources revealed that Israel had
already seized $600,000, dozens of firearms plus stockpiles of
ammunition, and seven rocket launchers to be used in generating the
violence. At the center of the plot is Saleh al-Arouri, a long-time
Hamas figure who resides in Turkey. Arouri had long ago been identified as having “sole control” over efforts to rebuild Hamas’s West Bank terror infrastructure, and U.S. officials had reportedly expressed
concerns at the “highest levels” that the Turks were allowing him to
operate from their soil. Jonathan Schanzer, vice president for research
at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, noted last September
that Ankara’s behavior might qualify Turkey as a state sponsor of
terrorism. The recent abduction and murder of three Israeli teenagers by
Hamas terrorists – part of a violent escalation in the West Bank that
ran in parallel to the rocket and tunnel escalation out of the Gaza
Strip - was quickly linked to Arouri. The Daily Beast eventually published
an extended backgrounder suggesting that the Hamas figure would have
been overseeing that and other similar gambits. Journalists on
Monday had already begun to press the State Department on its stance
toward Turkey in light of the developments. State Department Deputy
Spokesperson Marie Harf was asked about the controversy at the top of
the daily press conference, and promised to check on Foggy Bottom’s
response. The Washington Free Beacon quoted Schanzer
late Monday worrying that “NATO and the State Department have yet to
raise this issue with Turkey” and that “it is not appropriate for a U.S.
ally or a NATO ally to be providing Hamas operatives with safe haven.”
No, it isn't. But when this is your relationship with the Turkish dictator...
... what are the chances that you'll actually do something to make him stop harboring terrorists?
Labels: Hamas, kidnapping, murder, Palestinian terrorism, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Saleh al-Arouri, Turkish anti-Semitism, Turkish obsession with Israel
