Paris rocked by explosions and shootouts leaving more than 140 dead

By Griff Witte and William Branigin

Washington Post

November 13 at 8:35 PM

France declared a state of emergency and sealed its borders Friday evening after a series of apparently coordinated terrorist attacks struck at sites across Paris, leaving at least 140 people dead and scenes of horror and carnage outside a soccer stadium, at cafés and inside a concert hall.

At the Bataclan theater alone, at least 118 people were reported massacred by gunmen armed with assault rifles and explosives.

The attacks on half a dozen targets spawned panic and chaos in a city where residents and tourists had only minutes earlier been enjoying a cool and quiet November evening.

At the concert hall, gunfire and explosions rang out as security forces moved in on hostage takers who had stormed a performance by an American rock band.

Police said the attackers threw explosives at the hostages, in addition to opening fire on them. About 100 people were rescued when security forces stormed the building, French media reported. One official described the scene inside as “carnage.”

French television showed people evacuating the venue, walking out with their hands up. News media said the operation to secure the Bataclan theater was over and that three gunmen have been killed.

The president’s office said 1,500 French troops were deployed on the streets of Paris to back up police.

France’s BFMTV television network reported that an unknown number of attackers in Friday’s violence were still at large.

France’s deputy mayor, Patrick Klugman, said at least 118 people were killed at the concert hall alone. The final death toll was not immediately know but was expected to be considerably higher. The mayor’s office later put the toll at 140.

As the security forces began their assault on the gunmen at the theater, a Guardian journalist on the scene tweeted that medical staff were running toward it, carrying dozens of empty stretchers.

Outside a popular café, witnesses reported seeing piles of bodies in the street, the café windows having been raked with gunfire. Terrified fans stormed the soccer field after suicide bombers detonated explosives outside the stadium north of Paris.

The attacks were the worst in France in modern memory, and once again traumatized a country still reeling from three days of terror in January, when Islamist militants killed 12 people at the offices of the satirical publication Charlie Hebdo, left four hostages dead at a kosher supermarket and fatally shot a police officer.

The explosions near the soccer stadium forced authorities to evacuate President Francois Hollande, who was among thousands watching a friendly match between France and Germany.

Hollande later went on national television to announce a state of emergency, including travel restrictions and the closing of French borders. He said security forces were continuing to battle terrorists in at least one location.

“We know who these terrorists are,” he said, without elaborating. “These terrorists want to make us afraid and seize us with fear. . . . This is a nation that defends itself.”

Police said at least 15 people were killed in the Bataclan theater, where a hostage-taking was underway, and 11 were slain at a Paris restaurant in the 10th Arrondissement, the Associated Press said in an initial report. An American rock band was performing at the time of the attack.

Witnesses said three or four men clad in black used assault rifles to mow down audience members at the concert hall.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attacks, which were nevertheless celebrated on social media linked to the Islamic State extremist group, a ruthless al-Qaeda offshoot also known as ISIS and ISIL.

Within minutes of the first reports on the violence, Islamic State supporters created hashtags hailing “Paris in flames” and declaring that “ISIS is attacking Paris,” the Vocativ Web site reported.

“O crusaders we are coming to you with bombs and rifles,” a top propagandist from an unofficial Islamic State media wing tweeted in Arabic. He ended the tweet: “Wait for us.”

In Washington, the White House said President Obama “was briefed on the situation in Paris by Lisa Monaco, assistant to the president for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism.”

A somber Obama subsequently appeared in the White House briefing room to offer condolences and U.S. help “to bring these terrorists to justice.”

He said it was not just an assault on France but “an attack on all of humanity and the universal values we share.” Obama added, “Those that think they can terrorize the people of France and the values they stand for are wrong.”

“We are going to do whatever it takes to work with the French people and with nations around the world to bring these terrorists to justice and to go after any terrorist networks that go after our people,” Obama said. He pledged whatever help he could provide to the French government and praised it as an “extraordinary counterterrorism partner.”

Obama, who is scheduled to leave Saturday for the Group of 20 summit in Turkey, said he spoke prior to the attacks with Hollande and plans to talk with him again in the coming days. “

“This is a heartbreaking situation, and obviously those of us in the United States know what it’s like,” he said. “We’ve gone through these kinds of episodes ourselves.”

“All of Paris needs our prayers tonight,” House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) tweeted.

The Washington Post’s Ryan Weber, currently in Paris, reported that some of Paris’s main Metro stations were closed down on Friday night, including the one at the Gare du Nord, one of the city’s principal train stations.

Although Paris residents were urged to stay indoors, hundreds streamed down the Boulevard Magenta waving French flags, trying to reach the Stade de France stadium to show solidarity with the victims.

Mary Lou Dorio, the mother of Julian Dorio, the drummer for Eagles of Death Metal band, told The Post that her son and other band members managed to escape the Bataclan concert hall when the attack there began. However, the fate of several crew members remains unknown, she said.

“It was awful,” the mother said. She added that her son was at a local police station, where he was able to call his wife.

“It was a bloodbath,” said Julien Pearce, a French radio reporter, in an interview with CNN. He said he was at the concert and saw three or four young men dressed in black open fire on the crowd with assault rifles, firing at random as people screamed.

“They didn’t shout anything; they didn’t say anything,” he said of the assailants. “They were just shooting [at] people.” He said he saw at least 20 bodies. “Some were dead. Others were very badly wounded,” he said. Roughly 1,000 people were attending the concert in the relatively small venue, he said.

Pearce said panicked concertgoers scrambled over the bodies of the fallen as they tried to escape. He said he managed to hide in a small room off the stage, then ran for an exit when the shooting briefly stopped as the gunmen reloaded. He said he picked up a young girl who had been shot twice in the leg and carried her into the street on his back, then put her in a taxi to be taken to a hospital. “I don’t know if she made it,” he said, noting that she was bleeding profusely. “She was collapsing.”

Pearce said friends later told him that they heard the gunmen speaking in French to each other.

A State Department official traveling with Secretary of State John F. Kerry in Vienna said he was “closely monitoring events in Paris, and our embassy there is working to account for any U.S. citizens involved.”

Hillary Rodham Clinton said in a Tweet: “The reports from Paris are harrowing. Praying for the city and families of the victims.”

Witnesses said at least three explosions were heard near the soccer stadium, two of them during the first half of the France-Germany match. Fans were barred from leaving the stadium after the match but were allowed to gather on the pitch.

“At first I had no idea what was happening; I thought it was fireworks,” a woman who gave her name as Sophie said on France 24 radio, describing the scene at La Belle Equipe restaurant, which was among several places that came under attack. “Reality came to me and all I could do was get to safety. I didn’t have the time to count bodies, but there were many. There was an American celebrating her birthday.” Sophie did not specify what happened to the American.

“The terrace was full of people; it was a very crowded bar,” she said. “I looked to my left and right. There were people crawling. . . . It was carnage from all sides.”

The French Foreign Ministry said airports would remain open and that flights and train service would continue, Reuters news agency reported.

American Airlines said Friday it was nevertheless delaying flights to Paris in response to the attacks there.

United Continental said its three scheduled flights would still depart for Paris on Friday evening from hubs in Chicago, Newark and Washington, D.C., as planned.

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 14 November 2015, 10:08 am and is filed under
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Why has Husni disappeared from the  radar after two months as Cabinet spokesman for 1MDB, destroying his credibility and integrity which he had painstakingly built up for over two decades?

Yesterday,  1MDB  was the top issue at Bank Negara’s third-quarter economic briefing where Bank Negara Governor Tan Sri Zeti Akhtar Aziz was asked whether the central bank had made any mistake in the investigation on 1MDB’s investment abroad.

When Zeti replied with an emphatic “No”, it must have deepened the question on everybody’s mind why in his first wide-ranging press interview,  where the new Attorney-General Tan Sri Mohamed Apandi Ali talked on a wide variety of subjects including why the sedition charge against Tinju Ali was dropped and the unfettered exercise of his discretionary powers as Public Prosecutor,  he failed to explain the reasons why he rejected Bank Negara’s recommendations for prosecution against 1MDB for violation of financial laws.

This morning, there was an overwhelming crowd at the briefing for UMNO divisional leaders at the Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC) where 1MDB CEO Arul Kanda Kandasamy proved to  be a greater crowd-puller on the subject of 1MDB than UMNO heavyweights scheduled to speak for the day, like Minister for International Trade and Industry, Datuk Seri Mustapha Mohamad on the Transpacific Partnership Agreement and  the Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Husni Mohamad Hanazlah on the 2016 Budget.

In fact, the crowd-puller today should have been Husni as at the Cabinet meeting in the last week of May, Husni was appointed the Cabinet spokesman for 1MDB, but he disappeared from the public scene as Cabinet spokeman on the 1MDB after two months.

As far as I know, the Cabinet never rescinded its decision on May 29 to appoint Husni as Cabinet spokesman for 1MDB.  Why then did Husni disappear from the radar on 1MDB after being Cabinet spokesman for 1MDB only two months?

I have no doubt that Husni must have been very relieved that he does not have to answer  any  more question about  the RM50 billion 1MDB scandal, pushing them to Arul, for in his two months as Cabinet spokesman on 1MDB, he had never issued more misleading statements, half lies and downright falsehoods about the 1MDB and it is no exaggeration to say that in his two months as Cabinet spokesman for 1MDB, Husni virtually destroyed his reputation for credibility and integrity which he has painstakingly built up for over two decades.

Now Arul is the public face and virtually sole spokesman for 1MDB, with plenipotentiary powers akin to a Cabinet Minister, which is why his is a greater crowd-puller than UMNO Cabinet Ministers this morning.

But can Arul explain why he had time for UMNO and MCA but no time for Parliament, and whether he would have acted in such an overbearing manner if he did not have the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak as his sole backer and patron?

Arul  is guilty of  utter contempt for Parliament when he has the time to brief UMNO and MCA chieftains on the RM50 billion 1MDB scandal but no time for Parliament until Dec. 1 when he will appear before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

At the “Solidarity with Lim Kit Siang and Mana RM2.6 billion?” ceramah at Bandar Sungai Long  in Selangor last Sunday, I said there were five thing I would do if I am Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, namely, summoning to appear before the PAC the present and former Attorney-Generals, Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali and Tan Sri Gani Patail; get to the bottom of two questions which are on the minds of most Malaysians regardless of race, religion, region or politics, namely where the RM2.6 billion “donation” deposited into Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s personal banking accounts came from and where they went to; and fifthly, to ensure that PAC tables its report on investigations into the RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM50 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals latest by November 30, so that MPs from both sides of the House could debate the PAC report latest by the last day of the current meeting of Parliament on Dec. 3.

But there is a sixth item  I would do if I am Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, which is in fact more important than the five items I had mentioned.

This is to call up Prime Minister Najib to appear before the PAC to give testimony about the twin mega scandals.

I remember vividly that one of the first things  Husni did when he was appointed the Cabinet spokesman on 1MDB, which proved to be a short stint of only two months, was to have a television interview on TV1 on “1MDB: Di mana wangnya”, where  he fully admitted that Najib, as the Prime Minister, was the final approving authority for 1MDB deals, investment and transactions and that Najib’s written approval was needed for any financial deal undertaken by the 1Malaysian Development Bhd (1MDB).

This was not entirely correct, as 1MDP appeared to be  the first case where the Prime Minister’s “written authority” was needed for any financial deal undertaken by a government company as Clause 117 of the 1MDB Memorandum and Articles of Association specifically required  the Prime Minister’s “written consent” before any deal or restructuring by 1MDB is concluded.

There is only one person in the country who knows the ins-and-outs of the RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM50 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals in the past six years, as Arul is only the latest “operative” to join the “revolving-door” teams of operatives who had been employed to take orders to run the 1MDB in the past six years.

As a result, any investigations into the twin mega-scandals without calling Najib to testify would be an utter waste of time.

If the PAC is serious about wanting to get to the bottom of the 1MDB and RM2.6 billion “donation” scandals, the most important witness is Najib himself and not the “revolving-door” teams of chief operatives, board of directors or even the auditors.

For this reason, if I am PAC Chairman, my first priority would be to summon Najib to testify before the PAC.

Would the new PAC Chairman, Datuk Hasan Arifin dare to even think of summoning Najib to appear before the PAC?

                This entry was posted on Saturday, 14 November 2015, 2:15 pm and is filed under
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Congrats to Parti Amanah Negara for having 35,000 members in two-and-a-half months when DAP in our first 15 years have not reached this figure of membership

Firstly, let me congratulate Parti Amanah Negara for its launch in Johor, as part of the determined  collective bid by Pakatan Harapan to make Johor the front-line state for political change in Malaysia  in the run-up to the 14th General Election.

Parti Amanah Negara has made impressive political headway in less than three months of its launch,  gaining some  35,000 members and Parti Amanah Negara Secretary-General Sdr. Anuar Tahir told me just now that he expects the party  membership to reach 60,000 by the end of the year in about six weeks time.

This is a most impressive political progress  for Parti Amanah Negara in such a short period of four months as DAP did not reach the membership of  35,000  in our first 15 years of political struggle, although we had contested in three general elections in 1969, 1974 and 1978 – winning 13 Parliamentary and 31 State Assembly seats in our first general election outing in 1969, when we secured 11.9 per cent of the popular vote.

Parti Amanah Negara is meeting a great political need in Malaysia, offering a political Islam which is open, tolerant, progressive and inclusive, which fully accepts the fundamental features of the Malaysian Constitution and is wholeheartedly committed to work with all Malaysians, regardless of race, religion or region, to build a forward-looking, successful plural Malaysia where all Malaysians can hold their heads high as Malaysians and the country  a showcase to the world not only in unity and harmony of a multi-racial, multi-religious and multi-cultural nation but a just, democratic, progressive and prosperous one as well.

Monday, 16th November, will be the first test of the unity, solidarity and purposiveness of Pakatan Harapan comprising DAP, PKR and AMANAH, as there is going to be vote in Parliament on the second reading of 2016 Budget presented by the Prime Minister cum Finance Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak.

Pakatan Harapan have 72 Members of Parliament but there will only be 71 votes as I am suspended from Parliament for six months for questioning the way Najib’s RM2.6 billion “donation” scandal was  being handled by those in power.

As PAS has declared that its MPs will not support any vote to reject the 2016 Budget, is it likely that there will be some 40 UMNO/BN MPs  who will cross the floor to support Pakatan Harapan’s call for the rejection of the 2016 Budget during the  vote on the second reading of the budget bill in Parliament on Monday?

I do not see this happening, not because there are no UMNO/BN MPs who are dissatisfied with Najib’s 2016 Budget, in particular at Najib’s failure to give full and satisfactory accounting for the RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM50 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals, but because the political conditions are not ripe for these UMNO/BN MPs to identity themselves as they are likely to be subject to immediate disciplinary action for their act of independence and defiance.

Things might be different if there is assurance that there is a group of some 40 UMNO/BN MPs who could act “in one go” to vote against the 2016 Budget leading to Najib’s immediate resignation as Prime Minister or if the voting in Parliament tomorrow is by secret ballot.

Nobody really believes that the Parliament Speaker, who is responsible for suspending me from Parliament for six months, would agree to any secret ballot for the voting by MPs whether to approve or reject the 2016 Budget.

Although the Pakatan Harapan’s effort to reject the 2016 Budget may not succeed, it is still necessary and important to put on record the voice and feelings of the overwhelmingmajority of Malaysians who reject Najib’s 2016 Budget because of its failure to grapple with the worst government  crisis of confidence in the nation’s history, in particular with regard to the RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM50 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals which had even caused the Malay Rulers to issue an extraordinary statement of concern on Oct. 6.

Johor is shaping up to be the most important state for Pakatan Harapan for it will be a test-case of transforming UMNO/Barisan Nasiona’s “fortress” state into a state won by the Pakatan Harapan in the 2018 General Election.

The three parties in Pakatan Harapan are united in our mission to make Malaysia  a  just, prosperous and successful nation where Malaysians live in unity, goodwill, harmony and understanding with a competent and efficient government based on the principles of accountability and good governance.

For more than three months, some half a million people in Johor Baru had been suffering from water shortage and rationing – which is unthinkable for two reasons: Firstly, if any country should be faced with water shortage problems, it should be Singapore and not Johor.

Secondly, clean water supply is one of the basic essentials of any human society and no government is entitled to continue in office when it fails to provide for such basic amenities to its people.

The water shortage and rationing problem in Johor Baru has gone on for too long, and I call on the Johor State Government to immediately liaise with the  Federal Government in Putrajaya as well as the Singapore government to work out a solution to the water crisis in Johor Baru to end the sufferings and agonies of half a million people in Johor Baru.

(Speech at the launch of Johor Parti Amanah Negara in Johor Baru on Saturday, 14th November 2015 at 10 pm)

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 15 November 2015, 8:35 am and is filed under
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Islamic State has increasingly hit soft targets outside of ‘caliphate’ borders

By Erin Cunningham

Washington Post

November 14 2015

CAIRO – The coordinated attacks on diners and concertgoers across Paris on Friday appear to mark the Islamic State’s first major operation outside the Middle East, and to confirm the group’s adoption of global terror tactics to boost its profile and strike back at its enemies.

The group claimed credit for Friday’s attacks, which killed 129 people. President Francoise Hollande called the violence “an act of war” organized by Islamic State.

Until recently, the extremist movement was focused almost entirely on seizing territory on which to build its so-called caliphate, including in Iraq and Syria, where violent civil wars have left destabilizing security vacuums.

Its military gains won the extremists recruits from around the globe. Islamic State affiliates now control most of the Libyan coastal town of Sirte, in another region where state collapse has led to political chaos, and operate with relative freedom in the northern part of Egypt’s restive Sinai Peninsula.

In both areas, the militants carried out attacks but also attempted to establish some sort of rule, including the imposition of an extreme version of sharia law and the provision of basic services, similar to what it does in cities in Iraq and Syria.

But earlier this year, Islamic State loyalists began attacking soft targets outside of the borders of the “caliphate” — in Tunisia, Yemen, Kuwait and Saudi Arabia.

The targets included a museum, a beach resort and worshipers at Shiite mosques. In Cairo, an Islamic State cell claimed a car bomb attack on an Italian consulate.

On Oct. 31, the group’s affiliate in Sinai asserted responsibility for the downing of a Russian airliner. The jihadists’ role in the crash has not been confirmed by investigators, but a number of European airlines halted flights to and from the Sharm el-Sheikh airport where the passenger jet had departed.

In the wake of the crash, international law professor and security expert at Cornell University, Jens David Ohlin said the Islamic State is “combining the bloodiest aspects of statehood and terrorism into one dangerous mess.”

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 15 November 2015, 5:46 am and is filed under
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Paris terror attacks were plotted by a small extremist cell in Brussels, investigators suspect

Richard A. Serrano, Henry Chu and Joe Mozingo

Los Angeles Times

November 14, 2015

Friday night’s terror attacks in Paris apparently began with a small extremist cell in Brussels, where French authorities believe the attacks were planned and the operation financed, according to two U.S. law enforcement officials who have been advised about the ongoing French probe.

The sources, speaking confidentially because the investigation is just underway, also emphasized that the attackers probably had a substantial understanding of the history and culture of France — Paris in particular — and said it was “highly possible” some had lived in the capital.

That, the sources said, was evident in how they seamlessly moved about the vast metropolis and set up coordinated attacks at six targets across the city — from a stadium to a theater to a restaurant.

French prosecutor Francois Molins said three teams of terrorists, carrying AK-47 assault rifles and wearing explosive vests with identical detonators, appeared to have coordinated the attacks that killed 129 people and injured 352 across a swath of central Paris.

Nineteen people were gunned down at a sidewalk cafe, and more were killed in at least five more attacks in a vibrant area not far from the Place de la Bastille.

When terrorists struck the Bataclan concert hall, survivors described a horrifying shooting gallery. With little cover, concert-goers scrambled for exits or laid low to escape up to 10 minutes of withering fire from automatic weapons.

A journalist who works for the French newspaper Le Monde captured a portion of the grisly scene on video.

The reporter, Daniel Psenny, who lives behind the theater, had a vantage point above one of the emergency exits.

The nearly three-minute video shows terrified concert-goers running out of the theater as gunshots ring out. They can be seen running around at least one body lying on the ground just outside the exit, and several people drag apparently injured victims down the alley away from the venue.

One injured person hopped down the alley, which was stained with blood. Multiple people appeared to be hanging onto the side of the building in an apparent attempt to escape the upper floors.

Psenny told his newspaper that he opened the door to his apartment building to allow victims in, and was shot in the arm.

A young man named Louis was in the audience at the Bataclan with his mother when the gunfire erupted.

“These guys arrived, and they started shooting from near the entrance,” he told France Info radio shortly after the attack.

Louis’ sobbing grew more intense as he continued: “They were shooting straight into the crowd, screaming `Allah Akbar.’”

“I heard them reloading. The concert stopped. Everybody was lying on the ground. They kept shooting people. It was hell.”

Louis, who was speaking by mobile phone from a car as he and his mother were leaving the scene, apologized for crying. The France Info anchor told him it was OK under the circumstances and asked him to keep speaking.

“I got my mother. We were lying on the ground. Someone said, ‘They’re gone.’ We got out through an emergency exit. The gunshots kept going as we were leaving. We were stepping over bodies. It was a nightmare.”

“We avoided getting shot,” he said. “There were people everywhere on the ground.”

Molins said 89 people died at the Bataclan. He said the attackers mentioned Syria and Iraq as they fired. When police entered the building, two of the terrorists detonated their suicide vests and one was shot to death by authorities, he said.

“We are determined to find out who were the attackers, who were the accomplices,” he said. “How they were financed.”

One of the terrorists who took hostages was a 29-year-old man who has been arrested eight times for “acts against the common good,” but had not been linked to terrorists, Molins said.

A second Frenchman was stopped and questioned at the Belgian border. He had rented a black Volkswagen Polo driven by a man believed to be one of the gunmen who attacked concertgoers at the Bataclan, the prosecutor said.

Authorities were still looking for a black Seat car believed to have been used during the attacks on several sidewalk cafes, he said.

One of the victims was a 23-year-old design student at Cal State Long Beach.

Nohemi Gonzalez, of El Monte, was part of an international exchange program at the Strate School of Design, according to a statement translated from French and posted on social media by the school’s dean, Dominique Sciamma.

Gonzalez was a “kind, thoughtful, generous and talented student, dear to all who knew her,” Michael LaForte, a lecturer at Cal State Long Beach’s department of design, wrote on Facebook. “We grieve for her today and give our hearts to her grieving family and boyfriend.”

LaForte said three other Cal State Long Beach students were in Paris with Gonzalez and are safe.

At least one other American was injured in the attacks. Helen Jane Wilson told the Associated Press she was shot in the leg and was heading into surgery at L’hopital Saint-Antoine.

Wilson said she lived in New Orleans before moving to Paris, where she runs Rock en Bol, a catering company. According to her Facebook page, Wilson is originally from Los Angeles.

Authorities across Europe moved swiftly Saturday to identify possible accomplices to the seven attackers, with Belgian authorities announcing they had made several arrests.

A spokeswoman for Belgian Justice Minister Koen Geens told reporters that authorities had arrested “several suspects,” though it was not clear what connection, if any, they had to the attacks.

Geens said the arrests came after a rental car with Belgian license plates was seen close to the Bataclan, the magazine De Standaard reported.

U.S. law enforcement officials confirmed that several vehicles, particularly black sedans, have been identified in connection with the case, and that at least one traced back to Brussels. One was found laden with high-powered weapons, they said; another had been rented.

The sources confirmed that one of the terrorists appeared to be a Syrian, based on his fingerprints and a Syrian passport found near his body. Several others, the sources said, are believed to have come from Iraq.

Each of the terrorists who blew themselves up was wearing “vests or belts” heavy with detonators and metal fragments, such as “nails and ball-bearings,” the sources said. All of the suicide bombs appeared to have been built in a similar fashion and with identical components. Other terrorists were armed primarily with high-powered Russian-made Kalashnikov AK-47 rifles, they said.

“The French police were aware of at least one of them,” said one of the sources, “and had been following him at times but did not think he was operational.” By that, the source meant that the local authorities did not believe him to be a potential terrorist.

“The others we don’t think were on French police radar,” the source said.

U.S. authorities believe that the suicide blasts during a soccer game at the packed Stade de France, the national stadium just north of Paris, were meant to “send a statement” because the two teams participating — France and Germany — are Christian countries and because French President Francois Hollande was attending the match.

“But the killing of hostages at the theater was a slaughter,” said one of the U.S. sources. “It was about a high kill number.”

The Islamic State extremist group appeared to claim responsibility Saturday for the attacks, saying in a statement that “youth who divorced from the world and went to their enemy” had targeted “the hearts of the Crusaders” and unleashed “horror in the middle of their land.”

It said the attacks were in retaliation for French airstrikes on Islamic State-controlled territory in the Middle East, and that France would remain at the “top of the list” of its targets.

French officials, including Hollande, have publicly blamed the attacks on Islamic State.

But the U.S. sources said the multiple sites and soft, crowded targets in the attacks are indicative of Al Qaeda rather than Islamic State, but stressed that authorities still are trying to pin down which organization was behind the attacks.

“Who planned this? Who paid for this? That’s what we want,” said one source. “And there is a relationship to Brussels. One of the vehicles came from there.”

The sources also said an arrest last month in Germany may be linked to the Paris attacks. The suspect had a vehicle stocked with explosive devices and other weaponry and may have had a role in the early planning for the attacks, they said.

If Islamic State is behind the attacks, the U.S. officials said, they demonstrate a new widening of that terror group. “They’re moving into the West and transferring guns and people. And this kind of an attack is sobering in its sophistication. One person, OK. But a larger group with simultaneous suicide bombs is a whole new level,” one source said.

French authorities identified one of the dead terrorists as a Frenchman, about 30 years old, who had previously been tracked by authorities in connection with his Islamic radical activities, France Info radio reported.

Hollande has declared a state of emergency and a three-day period of mourning after the worst terrorist attacks in France since World War II.

“Faced with terror, France must be strong, it must be great, and the state authorities must be firm. We will be,” he declared in a televised address to the nation Friday.

Public demonstrations in Paris have been banned until Thursday, and French schools, which normally are in session on Saturday mornings, were closed until Monday.

In Vienna, where delegates from across the Middle East and Europe were meeting to discuss a resolution to the long-running war in Syria, U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry and Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said the Paris attacks strengthened their commitment to fight extremism.

“What they do is stiffen our resolve — all of us — to fight back, to hold people accountable, and to stand up for rule of law,” Kerry said.

He described the attacks as “a kind of medieval and modern fascism, at the same time, which has no regard for life, which seeks to destroy and create chaos and disorder and fear.”

Lavrov said he fully agreed with Kerry.

“We have to strongly reiterate there will be no tolerance vis-a-vis terrorists,” he said, adding that there will be “no justification for us not doing much more to defeat” violent Islamist groups such as Islamic State and the Nusra front.

Defying both the attackers’ attempt to sow fear and officials’ appeal to stay home, some Parisians were out on the streets Saturday, trying to recapture a bit of the rhythm of ordinary life, though in subdued and somber fashion. Others lined up to donate blood at hospitals, which were overwhelmed by the number of injured who streamed through their doors late Friday night.

Eagles of Death Metal, band playing during Paris attacks, cancels remainder of tour

Eagles of Death Metal, band playing during Paris attacks, cancels remainder of tour

Many shops and other businesses — including Disneyland Paris, one of the city’s top attractions — remained closed Saturday.

Residents who ventured outside Saturday were joined by 1,500 French troops deployed to reinforce soldiers already stationed in Paris following its last terrorist attack, the slaying of 17 people in January at the headquarters of satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and at a kosher supermarket.

The identities of the alleged attackers were either not known or were not being released. Police said all seven assailants were dead.

If the attackers turn out to be French-born, fears of more “homegrown” terrorism — already fanned by the Charlie Hebdo massacre, whose plotters were French — will likely increase.

France’s Muslim community braced for a potential backlash. After the Charlie Hebdo attacks, the country saw a spike in acts of anti-Muslim aggression, such as vandalism of mosques. France is home to the highest proportion of Muslims — 7.5% — of any country in Western Europe.

Many Parisians posted appeals and photos on social media asking for news of friends or loved ones whom they had not heard from since the attacks. One man said on Twitter that a government hotline set up to inquire about missing persons was so overloaded that calls could not get through.

Well-wishers left flowers at the various attack sites, several of which were blocked off by police.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 15 November 2015, 6:17 am and is filed under
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Parliament should speak in one voice tomorrow on behalf of 30 million Malaysians  to condemn  the senseless mass massacre by IS suicide bombers in Paris on Friday night

The Malaysian Parliament should set a world example and speak in one voice tomorrow on behalf of 30 million Malaysians to condemn the senseless massacre in a series of co-ordinated attacks by Islamic State (IS) suicide bombers and gunmen in Paris  that left at least 129 people dead and 352 injured.

As Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak is already in Turkey for the Group of 20 (G20) Summit, Deputy Prime Minister Datuk Seri Zahid Hamidi should move an emergency motion tomorrow immediately after Question Time, and he can be assured of full support by Pakatan Harapan Members of Parliament.

I do not of course speak on behalf of the PAS Members of Parliament.

However, I think on this issue of the condemnation of the Paris massacre, Members of Parliament, regardless of party, race, religion, gender, age or region, should unite to unanimously adopt an emergency motion  in Parliament not only to condemn the killing of innocent lives in Paris on Friday night but also to urge on Parliaments and legislatures in all nations of the world to similarly condemn such dastardly and uncivilized savagery as unmitigated crimes against humanity which cannot be mitigated by any ground or reason.

Not only should all ASEAN Parliaments condemn the Paris massacre, it should be a specific agenda for the ASEAN Summit in a week’s time.

It would be ideal if the Malaysian Parliament  can kickstart a world-wide condemnation by Parliaments of the world as the voice of humanity against such dastardly crimes against humanity by Islamic State (IS) suicide bombers.

Terrorism and violent extremism should not only be a subject for all international summits of heads of government, it should be a standing agenda in all ASEAN summits, particularly with  reports that a Malaysian trio is planning to form an “official” cell of Islamic State in Southeast Asia by uniting two established terrorist groups in the region, Abu Sayyaf and Jemaah Islamiah.

The Malaysian trio, who are on the wanted list, are former Universiti Malaya lecturer Dr Mahmud Ahmad, sundry shop owner Mohd Najib Husen and former Selayang Municipal Council employee Muhammad Joraimee Awang Raimee who were reportedly the individuals spearheading the unification plan.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 15 November 2015, 3:53 pm and is filed under
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Terror in Paris

Editorial Board

New York Times

Nov 14, 2015

On Saturday morning, after an evening of incomprehensible barbarism against a free and civilized society by armed terrorists, President François Hollande of France declared the attacks an act of war. More than 125 people were slaughtered in multiple venues in Paris — in a concert hall, at several restaurants, near a sports stadium, on the street. Mr. Hollande declared a nationwide state of emergency, imposed checks at all of France’s borders, and called in the army to protect the city.

The Islamic State terrorist group has claimed responsibility, and vowed that this was “only the beginning of the storm” to punish France for its airstrikes against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

This attack, Mr. Hollande said, was “against France, against the values that we defend everywhere in the world, against what we are: a free country that means something to the entire planet.” He vowed that France would respond, using “all the necessary means, and on all terrains, inside and outside, in coordination with our allies, who are, themselves, targeted by this terrorist threat.”

The targets — the Stade de France sports stadium where Mr. Hollande and thousands of other fans were watching a soccer match between the national teams of France and Germany, popular restaurants in the hip neighborhoods around the Canal Saint Martin and the Bastille, and the Bataclan music venue packed with concertgoers there to hear the American band Eagles of Death Metal — seemed selected because they were places where people freely gathered to enjoy the public pleasures the Islamic State hates: sports, music, wine and food shared by men and women together.

It is less than a year since Paris was shaken by the attacks in January on the Charlie Hebdo magazine staff and a kosher supermarket. Those attacks prompted national soul-searching about France’s secular values and sweeping antiterror legislation to allow authorities to better track would-be assailants.

The attacks in January, after which millions of people marched in solidarity with the victims, were tightly targeted. Friday’s carnage was of a different, more sweeping order. It was designed to strike terror into every person going about ordinary activities, to make the French feel that they are not safe, anywhere.

The eight gunmen, armed with assault weapons, grenades and suicide belts packed with explosives, are dead. But, as Parisians awake to a grim morning after, many questions remain unanswered, including whether any accomplices are at large, who coordinated the attacks, and whether counterterrorism efforts could have foiled the plot. There is also the question of how long the state of emergency — which gives authorities sweeping powers and suspends some democratic rights — will last. Clearly, the state of emergency should be ended as soon as possible.

The coldblooded depravity with which the terrorists gunned down people seated at restaurant tables and picked off hostages in the Bataclan concert hall where more than 80 were killed was horrifying. But Parisians have remained defiant and united. Last night, as the carnage unfolded, Parisians took to social media, using the hashtag #porteouverte, or “open door,” to offer sanctuary in their homes to people fleeing the mayhem. By morning, hundreds of Paris residents were lining up to donate blood and looking for other ways to help.

This attack will harden the resolve of the French against the savagery of the Islamic State, as it must the world’s.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 15 November 2015, 6:50 am and is filed under
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Three Teams of Coordinated Attackers Carried Out Assault on Paris, Officials Say; Hollande Blames ISIS

By ADAM NOSSITER, AURELIEN BREEDEN and KATRIN BENNHOLD

New York Times

NOV. 14, 2015

Three teams of Islamic State attackers acting in unison carried out the terrorist assault in Paris on Friday night, officials said Saturday, including one gunman who may have traveled to Europe on a Syrian passport along with the flow of migrants.

“It is an act of war that was committed by a terrorist army, a jihadist army, Daesh, against France,” President François Hollande told the nation from the Élysée Palace, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “It is an act of war that was prepared, organized and planned from abroad, with complicity from the inside, which the investigation will help establish.”

As the death toll rose to 129 victims — with 352 others injured, 99 of them critically — a basic timeline of the attacks came into view.

The Paris prosecutor, François Molins, said the attackers were all armed with heavy weaponry and suicide vests. Their assault began at 9:20 p.m. Friday, when one terrorist detonated a suicide bomb outside the gates of the soccer stadium on the northern outskirts of Paris. It ended at 12:20 a.m. Saturday when the authorities stormed a concert hall, the Bataclan. One attacker was killed; two others detonated suicide vests. Inside the hall, 89 people, who had been listening to a rock band, had been shot to death.

The gunman with the Syrian passport — which Greek officials said had been registered at the Aegean island of Leros on Oct. 3 — was 25, and died at the stadium. Another gunman, who died at the concert hall, was 29 and a native of Courcouronnes, about 20 miles south of Paris. He had a criminal record and was known to be associated with extremist Islamic ideology, Mr. Molins said.

The hunt for possible accomplices of the terrorists gained steam on Saturday. Officials in Belgium announced three arrests, one of them linked to a rental car found in Paris. In Germany, the police were exploring whether a man they arrested last week with weapons in his car and his GPS navigator set for Paris was linked to the attacks. But it remained unclear how a plot of such sophistication and lethality could have escaped the notice of intelligence agencies, both in France and abroad.

Mr. Hollande declared three days of national mourning, and said that military troops would patrol the capital. France remained under a nationwide state of emergency.

Mr. Hollande vowed to “be unforgiving with the barbarians from Daesh,” adding that France would act within the law but with “all the necessary means, and on all terrains, inside and outside, in coordination with our allies, who are, themselves, targeted by this terrorist threat.”

The attacks, and the possibility that the Islamic State was to blame, promised to further traumatize France and other European countries already fearful of violent jihadists radicalized by the conflicts in Syria and elsewhere.

The possibility that one of the attackers was a migrant or had posed as one is sure to further complicate the already vexing problem for Europe of how to handle the unceasing flow of people from Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. It could also lend weight to the xenophobic arguments of right-wing populists like Marine Le Pen, the leader of the National Front party, who on Saturday held a news conference to declare that “France and the French are no longer safe.”

Mr. Hollande actively stepped up French participation in the military air campaign in Syria at the end of September. Just last week, France attacked oil operations under the Islamic State’s control in Syria. On Oct. 8, it conducted a targeted strike against militants in Raqqa, Syria, apparently targeting Salim Benghalem, a Frenchman fighting for the Islamic State.

The attacks, and the threat of the Islamic State, are likely to dominate a summit meeting of leaders of the Group of 20 nations that starts on Sunday in Turkey. President Obama will attend; Mr. Hollande is staying in Paris and sending representatives.

Paris, stricken by shock and grief, remained in a state of lockdown, with public transportation hobbled and public institutions — schools, museums, libraries, pools, food markets — closed. Charles de Gaulle Airport remained open, but with significant delays because of tighter passport and baggage checks.

The archbishop of Paris, Cardinal André Vingt-Trois, said he would celebrate a Mass at the Cathedral of Notre-Dame on Sunday for the victims, their families and France. “Our country has once again known pain and mourning and must stand up to the barbarism propagated by fanatical groups,” he said.

At the Hôpital Européen Georges-Pompidou in western Paris, about 40 people were in surgery as of the early afternoon. Julien Ribes, 33, was at the hospital to search for his friend, who was at the concert hall. “I’m in total shock,” he said.

At the Town Hall for the 11th Arrondissement in Paris, Delphine de Peretti, 35, said she learned early Saturday afternoon that her sister Aurélie, who was at the Bataclan, had been killed. The family had been frantically trying to reach Aurélie all night.

“They told us my sister was dead, but they did not let us see her,” she said. “They said they still have to do some medical analysis. I am like a robot. I don’t know what to do next. I have not watched the news or slept since last night.”

The death toll far surpassed that of a massacre by Islamist extremists at the satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo and related attacks around the French capital in January. It was the deadliest terrorist attack in Europe since the 2004 train bombings in Madrid, which killed 191 people. And it prompted Mr. Hollande to pronounce France’s first state of emergency since 2005, when riots rocked downtrodden urban areas across the country.

Parisians were left struggling to make sense of their new reality. Parents whose children slept through the ordeal were facing the delicate task of trying to explain what had happened, and why so many planned activities had been canceled and public spaces were closed.

On the Champ de Mars, at the base of the Eiffel Tower and along the pedestrian promenade that hugs the Left Bank of the Seine, joggers and cyclists tried to carry on with their Saturday routines.

Pausing from her morning run near the Musée d’Orsay, Marie-Caroline de Richemont, 32, said she was still trying to process the events, but without succumbing to fear. “This is not Iraq or Afghanistan,” she said. “We are not at war here. We need to stay confident and hopeful.”

He normally avoids fishing in Paris, he said, preferring quieter sections of the Seine near his home in Poissy, a northwest suburb. But after the violence, he said he felt drawn to come into the city out of a sense of solidarity.

Although his wife asked him to stay home, “something in me felt like it was important to be here, to say ‘still alive,’ ” Mr. Bourgeois said.

“I feel sickened, angry,” he said. Coming so soon after the attacks in January, he said, “It is starting to be too much.”

On the Champs-Élysées, rows of Christmas market stalls stood shuttered. Several vendors stood idly, awaiting word about whether they would be allowed to open for business, while clutches of heavily armed police officers patrolled the largely empty sidewalks of one of Europe’s most famed avenues.

At Charles de Gaulle Airport, it took two and a half hours for some passengers arriving Saturday morning to reach passport control. Some passengers who had arrived on overnight flights learned what had happened only when they switched on their devices; many read the news in a state of stunned silence.

Pope Francis joined a chorus of world leaders — including the heads of government of Belgium, Burundi, Canada, India, Malaysia, Mexico, Russia, Spain and the United States — who have condemned the attacks.

“There is no justification for such things, neither religious nor human, this is not human,” Francis said in a telephone call to TV2000, the television station of the Italian Episcopal Conference. “It is difficult to understand such things, done by human beings,” he added, clearly moved. Francis said he was close to and was praying for the families of the victims, for France “and for all those who suffer.”

Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany gave an emotional address on Saturday pledging solidarity with the French government and people, and calling on Europeans to stand together in defiance of an attack on the liberties the continent represents.

“We, your German friends, we are so close with you,” said Ms. Merkel, dressed in black. “We are crying with you. Together with you, we will fight against those who have carried out such an unfathomable act against you.”

“Those who we mourn were murdered in front of cafes, in restaurants, in a concert hall or on the open street. They wanted to live the life of free people in a city that celebrates life,” she said, her voice breaking. “And they met with murderers who hate this life of freedom.”

Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius, meeting on Saturday in Vienna with Secretary of State John Kerry and other top diplomats to discuss the crisis in Syria, said the attacks highlighted the urgency of the talks. “It is more necessary than ever in the current circumstance to coordinate the international fight against terrorism,” he said.

In the United States, there was no sign of a direct threat to American cities, but the F.B.I. was reviewing cases involving the Islamic State as a precaution. The F.B.I. is already heavily focused on the threat from Americans inspired by the militant group. The government had so many people under surveillance in those cases that, this spring, officials pulled agents off other cases to help monitor them.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 15 November 2015, 5:32 am and is filed under
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To Save Paris, Defeat ISIS

Roger Cohen

New York Times

Nov. 14, 2015

MILAN — The Paris slaughter claimed by the Islamic State constitutes, as President François Hollande of France declared, an “act of war.” As such, it demands of all NATO states a collective response under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty. This says that, “An armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all.”

Alliance leaders are already debating what that response should be. Hollande has spoken to President Obama. Other NATO countries, including Germany and Canada, have expressed solidarity. Indignation and outrage, while justified, are not enough.

The only adequate measure, after the killing of at least 129 people in Paris, is military, and the only objective commensurate with the ongoing threat is the crushing of ISIS and the elimination of its stronghold in Syria and Iraq. The barbaric terrorists exalting on social media at the blood they have spilled cannot be allowed any longer to control territory on which they are able to organize, finance, direct and plan their savagery.

Hollande left no doubt that that the attacks were “prepared, organized and planned from abroad, with complicity from the inside.” ISIS, or one of its affiliates, has also claimed responsibility for the recent downing of a Russian passenger jet, with the loss of 224 lives. The United States and Britain believe these claims are credible.

It was wrong to dismiss ISIS as a regional threat. Its threat is global. Enough is enough. A certain quality of evil cannot be allowed physical terrain on which to breed. Pope Francis declared the Paris attacks “not human.” In a sense he is right. But history teaches that human beings are capable of fathomless evil. Unmet, it grows.

To defeat ISIS in Syria and Iraq will require NATO forces on the ground. After the protracted and inconclusive Western interventions in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is reasonable to ask if this would not be folly. It is also reasonable to demand – and many will – whether military action will only have the effect of winning more recruits for ISIS as more lives and treasure are squandered. Terrorism, the old nostrum has it, can never be completely defeated.

Such arguments are seductive but must be resisted. An air war against ISIS will not get the job done; the Paris attacks occurred well into an unpersuasive bombing campaign. Major powers, including Russia and China, have vigorously condemned the Paris attacks. They should not stand in the way of a United Nations resolution authorizing military action to defeat and eliminate ISIS in Syria and Iraq. Regional powers, especially Saudi Arabia, have an interest in defeating the monster they helped create whose imagined Caliphate would destroy them.

ISIS is slick and effective. It has a well-run propaganda machine and an ideology compelling to disaffected Muslim youth persuaded of Western perfidy. The combination of medievalist literalism and technological prowess has produced a fanatical army of bordeless appeal. But ISIS is far from insuperable in military terms. Western intelligence is now elaborate. The almost certain killing in an air strike Thursday of Mohammed Emwazi (known as Jihadi John), the Islamic State’s most wanted executioner, demonstrated this.

It is not enough to say, as the Obama Administration has up to now, that ISIS will be defeated. These words lack meaning without a corresponding plan. There is time pressure because time is being used precisely to plan new atrocities.

With each one, the possibility of a spiral of religious and sectarian violence in strained European societies increases. Hatred of Muslims seems to be on the rise. The Bataclan, the club targeted in the Paris attacks, has, as the French magazine Le Point pointed out, been a frequent meeting-place for Jewish organizations.

The killings occurred as hundreds of thousands of desperate Muslim refugees from Syria are streaming into Europe. This is not the time to turn on them, but to help them, even if extreme vigilance is needed. They, too, in their vast majority, are fleeing ISIS, as well as the indiscriminate violence of President Bashar al-Assad. Nonintervention in Syria has proved a policy fraught with bloodshed and danger, now seeping into Europe.

The battle will be long. Islam is in a state of fervid crisis, riven by the regional battle of Sunni and Shia interests (read Saudi Arabia and Iran), afflicted by a metastasizing ideology of anti-Western hatred and Wahhabi fundamentalism, seeking a reasonable accommodation with modernity. The scourge within it can probably only be defeated from within, by the hundreds of millions of Muslims who are people of peace and are as appalled as any sentient being at the Paris slaughter. Their voices need to be raised in unambiguous and sustained unison.

Crushing ISIS in Syria and Iraq will not eliminate the jihadi terrorist threat. But the perfect cannot be the enemy of the good. Passivity is a recipe for certain failure. It is time, in the name of humanity, to act with conviction and power against the scourge of the Islamic State. Disunity and distraction undermined past military efforts to defeat the jihadis. Unity is now attainable and with it victory.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 15 November 2015, 6:37 am and is filed under
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What We Know About the Paris Attackers

By Chas Danner

New York Times

14 November 2015

It’s now pretty clear that ISIS-linked terrorists were behind the brutal attacks which killed 129 people and injured another 352 last night in Paris, and now details about the individual attackers and their possible accomplices are beginning to emerge.

As of midday Saturday, eight men are known to have executed the attacks, and those eight were all killed, seven by detonating their explosive suicide vests, and one after being shot by police. According to Paris prosecutor Francois Molins, the attacks were conducted by three coordinated teams of assailants: one at the Stade de France, one traveling in a black Seat car which fired on multiple locations, and the third team traveling in a black Volkswagen Polo. One of the cars was registered to a French citizen who was stopped at the Belgian border with two other people.

The Los Angeles Times reports that, according to U.S. law enforcement officials, French authorities now believe that the attack was planned and financed within a small terrorist cell in Brussels, likely incorporating several participants who had experience living in Paris, based on the sophistication of Friday’s attack. Indeed, this afternoon in Brussels, Belgian police raided a neighborhood where they believe three of the Paris attackers may have lived, making several arrests. Le Monde is also saying that a witness in Paris reported some of the assailants were traveling in a car with Belgian plates (and a car like that was subsequently found near Le Bataclan).

The Paris attacks began around 9:20 p.m. when one of three terrorists blew himself up at the Stade de France in Saint-Denis. The first two suicide bombings happened outside the stadium, and the third by a nearby McDonalds. One civilian was killed in these bombings. The Wall Street Journal is reporting that one of the three attackers had a ticket for France-Germany soccer match that was underway, and detonated his suicide belt after being turned away at one of the stadium’s entrances. Police suspect his aim was to blow himself up in the stadium so as to cause a deadly stampede among the crowd. In other news regarding the stadium attackers, an Egyptian and a Syrian passport were reportedly found by the remains of two of the suicide bombers there.

Another three men perpetrated the siege of Le Bataclan concert hall, resulting in the systematic slaughter of at least 89 people who were attending a sold-out rock concert — the deadliest attack of the night. Little is yet known about those men, except that one was apparently identified by authorities as a 30-year-old French national who was known to have ties to jihadist groups, and another had a Syrian passport. According to a Greek official, the Syrian passport belonged to 25-year-old man who had been registered as a refugee in Greece, though due to the value of Syrian passports in the refugee community, that does not necessarily mean that the passport’s original holder and the attacker are the same person.The only other information about the Bataclan attackers so far is that witnesses said they seemed very young, were wearing tight black clothing, carried Kalachnikov rifles, and reportedly shouted “allah u akbar” and mentioned Syria and Iraq during the attack. When police commandos finally raided the concert hall, two of the attackers were killed when they detonated their suicide vests, and the third was shot and killed by police.

One of the other attackers, about whom nothing is yet known, detonated his suicide bomb inside the Voltaire restaurant in Paris’ 11th district, seriously injuring a civilian. It does not seem that any information has been released about the eighth attacker killed Friday night, except that he blew himself up at some other site in Paris.

According to a Paris prosecutor, all of the attackers wore explosives that were made from from triacetone triperoxide (TATP), a favorite explosive material among terrorists that is easy to make and difficult to detect. It was also the type of explosive used by failed shoe bomber Richard Reid in 2001.

In addition, German authorities reportedly believe that a 51-year-old Montenegrin man who was arrested in Germany on November 5 may be somehow linked to the Paris attacks. He was found in possession of firearms and a car full of explosives, and his car’s GPS navigator was reportedly set to take him to Paris.

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Zahid should make a Ministerial statement  in Parliament on Monday on his role in vouching for the integrity of  Paul Phua, international gambling kingpin when in US custody last year

The ghost of his unilateral and unauthorised letter to the FBI vouching for the character and integrity of Paul Phua,  the international gambling kingpin when in United States custody  last year,  has come back to haunt the Home Minister, Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi, who has since been elevated to be Deputy Prime Minister.

This follows the publication yesterday of the 18-page report by the international sports news agency, ESPN, from a year of interviews with investigators and Phua’s associates across eight countries and sifting through thousands of pages of court documents.

The ESPN report traced the humble beginnings of the “Reputedly the world’s biggest bookmaker, Sarawakian Paul Phua Wei Seng” from “a numbers runner in Borneo” and his graduation from a “ small time player to jet-setting high-stakes roller whose links to high-ranking officials in many countries and a fabulous legal team allowed him to slip the trap” laid by the US authorities and  walked free form a Las Vegas court in June this year.

According to the ESPN’s investigative report, Phua made his name in the shadows of a 1997 football match-fixing incident that came to be known as the Floodlights Affair.

The report said that though never proven, his associates in the sports betting business credited him as the moneybags behind the shutdown of stadium lights at a crucial point in two lucrative English Premier League matches ― West Ham vs. Crystal Palace and Arsenal vs. Wimbledon ― the first confirmed incidence of Asian-backed match-fixing on British territory.

Flush with even more cash, Phua used it to develop the technology that laid the foundation for his multi-billion US dollar Internet-dependent IBCBet sportsbook empire that stretched across Asia to casino cities in Australia, Europe and the US and wherever there were players willing to place a bet on any sporting event.

IBCBet’s operations were first based in Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam but the US$600 million (RM2.6 billion) a year enterprise eventually registered in the Philippines, one of the few Asian countries that allowed online sportsbooks.

After Phua was arrested in the United States last year, the ESPN report said Phua had “many aces up his sleeve and called on those connections he had built over the years to hire a stellar legal team to defend and vouch for him” – and of these “officials in high places” named in the ESPN report is Datuk Seri Ahmad Zahid Hamidi.

This issue of Zahid, acting unilaterally and without knowledge or authority of the Police, the Foreign Ministry, the Cabinet or the Prime Minister, writing an infamous letter to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) vouching for the character of an alleged international gambling kingpin has come full circle, as it has  again become an issue  as a result of the ESPN report demanding proper accountability to Parliament and nation.

The whole Phua-Zahid episode has become very murky with conflicting accounts and explanations by different Ministers, with no one taking full responsibility for any final version.

The country was told at one time that  the Cabinet meeting of 14th January this year heard a report by Zahid on his infamous letter to FBI, with different accounts by different Ministers as to what actually transpired – one that the Cabinet had “accepted” Zahid’s explanation and another that the Cabinet did not “accept” Zahid’s explanation, but merely heard it.

Later, another Minister came out with a third version of the Cabinet stand on Zahid’s infamous letter to the FBI – that the Cabinet  was satisfied “in principle” with Zahid’s explanation.

Which was which?

At one stage, Zahid announced that he had  a “stack of letters and agreements” his predecessors as Home Minister had signed with the United States which were  like his infamous letter to the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) vouching for the character of an alleged international gambling kingpin.

This was immediately denied by his two predecessors Datuk Seri Hishammuddin Hussein and Tan Sri Syed Hamid Albar  who  publicly denied that they had ever sent any such support letter unilaterally to the FBI.

Although Zahid insisted that his predecessor Home Ministers had written to the FBI like him, an eerie silence descended on the scene and no further revelation was forthcoming, and nobody knew whether it was Zahid or his predecessors who had lied!

Zahid had made a most astonishing claim about the “stack of letters and agreements” signed by his predecessors, and Parliament has a right to know which Home Minister had lied to Malaysians.

What also remained a mystery is Zahid, in his letter vouching for the character and integrity of Pual Phua, had said that the Malaysian government had enlisted Phua’s help in “national security projects”.

What were  these “national security projects” involving an international gambling kingpin, which even the current Inspector-General of Police and previous Home Ministers did not know about?

With the ESPN investigative report re-opening the issue of Paul Phua and Zahid’s extraordinary ties with him, national interests warrant Zahid making a ministerial statement in Parliament on Monday to give the nation a final full accounting.

                This entry was posted on Sunday, 15 November 2015, 11:35 am and is filed under
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1MDB May Have Violated US Election Laws

Asia Sentinel

November 16, 2015

Some of the money shoveled into US consultancy may have ended up in US political campaigns

Records compiled by the Sarawak Report, the UK-based news site run by Clare Rewcastle Brown, indicate that the state-backed 1Malaysia Development Bhd. investment fund may have violated US Federal Election Law by channeling money to a well-connected US lobbying firm, which subsequently poured money into the 2014 electoral campaigns of at least seven Democrats.

The vehicle was DuSable Capital Management, incorporated in Delaware, which features some of the US’s weakest corporate registration laws, on May 9, 2013. DuSable was the brainchild of Frank White Jr., the National vice-chairman of President Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign and co-chair for the president’s 2013 Inauguration Committee, and Shomik Dutta, a former hedge fund executive and fellow political campaigner. In effect, White was formerly the president’s chief fundraiser after having sold his own IT support company to go into political campaigning.

DuSable registered as a foreign agent for the government of Malaysia five months later, on Sept. 9 with its sole registered client 1MDB and the government of Malaysia.

In its registration as a foreign agent, DuSable declared multiple roles in both consulting for the 1MDB solar project, raising investment for a related development partnership and lobbying to obtain US government “non-financial support” for these ventures.

However, there was no discernible need for 1MDB to seek approval or support from the US for the project.  It would also appear that the US$506,000 paid to DuSable by 1MDB was the sole source of DuSable’s funds.

On Sept. 29, 10 days later, DuSable made contributions of US$5,200 to the Senate campaigns of Mark Begich and Michelle Nunn. On July 1, 2014, DuSable contributed US$25,000 to the gubernatorial campaign of Terry McAuliffe. Other US$500 contributions went to the Senate campaigns of Don Beyer, Kevin Strouse and Rho Khanna. Dick Durbin, the Democratic Senate Whip, received another US$5,200.

Surreptitious contributions to US political candidates from overseas is no laughing matter.  In 2001, Indonesia’s James Tjahaha Riady, the head of the Lippo Group, was fined a record US$8.6 million on a felony charge of conspiring to defraud the United States by unlawfully reimbursing campaign donors with foreign corporate funds in violation of federal election law. In addition, LippoBank California, a California state-chartered bank affiliated with Lippo Group, pleaded guilty to 86 misdemeanor counts charging its agents, Riady and John Huang, with making illegal foreign campaign contributions from 1988 through 1994.

On Oct. 1, 2014, Frank White and Pras Michel, a two-time Grammy-winning American rapper, best known as one of the founding members of the critically acclaimed hip hop group the Fugees, incorporated the Yurus Private Equity Fund as a subsidiary of DuSable, announcing a US$505 million commitment from two anonymous investors. At least one of them is believed to be Aabar Investments, headquartered in Abu Dhabi, an investment fund for the United Arab Emirates.

On April 11, 2014, Yurus formed a “master joint venture agreement with 1MDB to launch a subsidiary solar project in the northern state of Kedah.

Just six months later, on Oct. 2, a month after Brown published an article connecting White to the President, the joint venture was hurriedly terminated with a payment to Yurus of US$69 million for a 49 percent share. DuSable deregistered as a foreign agent for the Malaysian government on the same day.

Prime Minister Najib Razak has since denied any involvement with DuSable in a joint venture despite the public documents filed with the US Justice Department.

The question is what DuSable got for its money, especially after the US$69 million payment to DuSable to wind up Yurus. The solar project in Kedah remains unrealized.

There is speculation, however, that given Frank White’s relationship with President Obama,  White’s real task was to persuade Obama to take Najib golfing with him in December last year at the Clipper Golf Course on the US Marine base in Hawaii.

“For some reason, which we don’t know, 1MDB wanted the Yurus Fund, managed by Frank White, to make a US$70 million profit in Malaysia,” an anonymous source told Sarawak Report.

Malaysians might think there could be better uses for a fund using borrowed public money in the name of development, which ended up some US$12 billion in the red.

The records available show that Yurus registered the entire US$69 million it received from 1MDB as additional profit, implying it had not invested any of its original US$505 million in the venture.

“Fund managers say this appears to confirm that the entire joint venture investment was yet again a merely paper exercise by 1MDB, which Sarawak Report has already exposed for earlier channeling US$1.83 billion into a non-existent venture with the company PetroSaudi,” Rewcastle Brown wrote. “Most of that ‘investment’ ended up in the bank accounts of 1MDB advisor Jho Low.”

Many of these irregularities have also been linked to 1MDB, whose unpaid debts Aabar is currently committed to covering until June of 2016.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 16 November 2015, 10:28 pm and is filed under
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Abdelhamid Abaaoud named as alleged mastermind of Paris terror attacks

Jon Henley in Paris

Guardian

16 November 2015

French intelligence officials have named the alleged mastermind of a deadly string of suicide bombings and shootings in Paris as the Belgian extremist Abdelhamid Abaaoud, after French police made more than 20 arrests and seized arms and ammunition in a series of anti-terror raids across the country.

A major raid was also underway in Brussels aimed at arresting Salah Abdeslam, one of the three French brothers living in Belgium alleged to have been involved in the attacks.

As details emerged of an elaborate international terror operation run from Syria and carried out by a sleeper cell based in Belgium, officials told French media Abaaoud, seen as one of Islamic State’s most active operatives, was “investigators’ best bet” as the main organiser of the attacks, which killed at least 129 people on Friday.

Originally from the Brussels suburb of Molenbeek-Saint-Jean, home to several other members of the militant Islamist cell that carried out the attacks on the Stade de France, the packed Bataclan concert hall and a string of crowded bars and restaurants, Abaaoud is suspected of involvement in a narrowly averted attack on a Thalys high-speed Amsterdam-Brussels train in August.

He is also said to have carried out several armed robberies with one of the three French brothers alleged to have been involved in Friday’s attacks. A French jihadi arrested after returning from Syria this summer reportedly told police Abaaoud had told him to attack a concert hall.

The development came as the French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said police had searched 168 addresses in dawn raids across France, taking 23 people into custody and placing 104 more under house arrest.

“It’s just a start, these operations are going to continue,” Cazeneuve said. “The response of the Republic will be huge and total. He who targets the Republic will find the Republic will catch him, will be implacable.”

Prosecutors also named two more of the seven suicide bombers. One, among the three who blew themselves up at the Bataclan, where 89 people died, was identified as Samy Amimour, 28, a French national who was the subject of an international arrest warrant.

Another, who detonated his explosive vest outside the Stade de France stadium, was carrying a Syrian passport in the name of Ahmad Almohammad, aged 25, from Idlib. His fingerprints matched those of someone who entered Europe through the Greek island of Leros in October, prosecutors said.

As a shocked nation returned to work after the bloodiest attack on French soil since the second world war, President François Hollande joined a crowd of students from the Sorbonne university in Paris for a minute’s sombre silence at midday, observed by thousands at similar gatherings around the country.

More than 350 people were injured in the attacks, Europe’s deadliest since the 2004 Madrid train bombings, with 39 still critical, officials said. Large crowds gathered in central Paris, including at the Place de la République, close to where several of the shootings took place. Many schools and companies around the country also held a minute’s silence, while MPs sang the French national anthem, La Marseillaise.

Hollande, who called the attacks “an act of war” that must be countered “mercilessly”, is due to make a historic address at Versailles to the combined houses of the French parliament later on Monday.

The raids were mostly described as “preventative” anti-terroroperations under the nationwide state of emergency declared in France since the attacks. In Lyon, police seized a “war arsenal” of weapons including a rocket launcher, pistols and a Kalashnikov.

Further raids took place in Toulouse, Grenoble, Jeumont – near the border with Belgium – Strasbourg, Marseille and the Lille suburb of Roubaix, as well as in the north-east Paris suburb of Bobigny – the only operation “directly linked” to Friday’s attacks, police said.

The prime minister, Manuel Valls, said there was a real risk of more terror attacks to come. “We know that operations were being prepared, and are still being prepared, not only against France but other European countries too,” Valls said. “France will live with the threat of new attacks for a long time to come.”

The raids followed France’s biggest airstrike on Syria to date on Sunday night, targeting Isis’s de facto capital, Raqqa, after the group’s claim of responsibility for the Paris carnage.

Twelve planes including 10 fighter jets were launched from the United Arab Emirates and Jordan and 20 bombs dropped on a command centre, a recruitment centre for jihadis, a munitions depot, and a training camp for fighters, the defence ministry said. Reports from inside Raqqa suggest the targets were known Isis strongholds, including an army base to the north of the city under Isis control since 2014.

Cazeneuve said the strikes were a direct retaliation for the Paris attacks, which he said were organised from within Syria, with a cell in Belgium. “We are facing a new reality, one of acts of war organised by barbarians from inside Syria,” Cazeneuve said.

At a G20 summit in Turkey, France’s foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, said the country had the “legitimacy” to take action against Isis, adding that France had to be “present and active” following the attacks.

A senior Turkish official said authorities had twice flagged one of the suicide bombers – the 29-year-old French national Omar Ismaïl Mostefai – to their French counterparts, but only received an information request after the Paris attacks. The officials said Mostefai was first named as a possible “terror suspect” in October 2014.

It emerged on Sunday that Iraqi intelligence had warned French intelligence agencies the day before the Paris onslaught of imminent “bombings or assassinations or hostage-taking in the coming days”.

French security officials said such warnings were frequent, but Iraqi intelligence operatives said they had warned France of specific details, including that the attackers were trained for this operation and had been sent from Raqqa to France, where they were to meet a sleeper cell to help carry out the plan.

The raid aimed at arresting Salah Abdeslam in Brussels came as part of a cross-border manhunt for the 26-year-old. Claims earlier on Monday that he had already been arrested were swiftly denied.

Salah Abdeslam rented a Belgian-registered VW Polo that was parked outside the Bataclan concert hall. Along with two others, he was pulled up for a routine check near the French-Belgian border early on Saturday morning, hours after the attacks. But the men were released because none of their names were on wanted list.

One of his brothers, identified as Brahim Abdeslam, 31, blew himself up outside the Bataclan. The third Abdeslam brother, Mohamed, was arrested in Belgium and later released without charge, alongside five other detained people.

In all, 24 people were allegedly involved: 19 attackers and five others in charge of logistics and planning, the uncorroborated Iraqi report claimed.

The Washington Post named another suicide bomber as Bilal Hadfi, whose nationality was not known but who was thought to have fought in Syria. Seven of Mostefai’s relatives, including his father and brother, were questioned by French police.

France urged its European partners to move swiftly to improve intelligence sharing, fight arms trafficking and terror financing, and strengthen border security as a result of the attacks.

“Clearly, decisions must be taken,” the senior official in charge of European affairs, Harlem Désir, said ahead of talks with European Union foreign ministers. “France was attacked, but all of Europe was hit. We were hit together, and we will respond together.”

                This entry was posted on Monday, 16 November 2015, 10:10 pm and is filed under
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Anwar can be treated overseas – if the authorities agree!

by P Ramakrishnan

Aliran

15th Nov 2015

Is it a fact that Datuk Seri Anwar Ibrahim cannot receive medical treatment abroad?

Is it a fact that the law does not allow prison inmates to do so?

Utusan Malaysia has reported quoting Supri Hashim, the Prisons Department deputy director in charge of prison policy, as having stated “that Section 37 (1) of the Prisons Act 1995 clearly stated that a prisoner could only be treated in government hospitals, and not private hospitals, let alone overseas.” (Malaysian Insider, 10 November 2015)

But Section 37(1) does not seem to support his contention. At best, it is only his opinion and it is a matter of his interpretation of Section 37 (1). That is all – and nothing more!

What does Section 37 (1) of the Prisons Act 1995 exactly state?

37. Illness of prisoner:

(1) In case of serious illness of a prisoner confined in a person in which there are inadequate facilities for the treatment of that prisoner, the Officer in Charge, or in his absence, the next senior prison officer on duty, may, on the certificate of a Medical Officer, make an order for the removable of the prisoner to a government hospital.

There is no mention whatsoever of “private hospitals” or “overseas” in this section. It does not specifically state that prisoners cannot be treated at “private hospitals” or “overseas.”

It does not state why prisoners cannot be treated at “private hospitals” or “overseas.” It does not state that the only treatment available to prisoners is the “general hospital” and nowhere else.

This only means, as we understand, that cost is involved when prisoners are referred to “private hospitals” or “overseas” for treatment and that the government is not obliged to pick up this expensive bill.

That is the only reason why “government hospital” is mentioned. That is a fair stand to be adopted by the authorities.

That additional cost involved must be borne by Anwar if he chooses to be treated elsewhere. That cannot be passed on to the taxpayers.

But the worrying fact remains that Anwar and his family and supporters harbour fears and misgivings about his treatment locally, especially when it involves general anesthesia.

They have publically stated, “We don’t trust the system, because the system can deny Datuk Seri Anwar basic treatment like physiotherapy.

“We don’t trust the system to do an operation where Anwar would be under general anaesthesia, and so on.”

The Parliamentary Opposition Leader has taken a strong position in this matter as well. “We don’t trust the system here, because even the Attorney-General can be transferred without his knowledge,” Dr Wan Azizah was quoted saying.

The issue of trust highlighted by the Parliamentary Opposition Leader is a serious one, particularly when it involves the life of a Malaysian, any Malaysian for that matter.

The government must immediately move to address this issue if it believes in the saying that “where trust is thin, suspicion is thick.”

In a trust-deficit situation such as already alleged by the Parliamentary Opposition Leader, should anything untoward occur through an invariably innocent human error, that innocent oversight can take on a life of its own that the government does not need.

The government will be well advised to allow the treatment of Anwar to be performed in a private hospital overseas since this effectively means transferring the risk attendant in the aforesaid situation. The simple expedient is for the appropriate Minister to designate the overseas private hospital chosen by Anwar “as ‘a general hospital’ pursuant to section 37 (1) of the Prisons Act 1995.”

The government need not fear that Anwar would abscond himself when once he is outside the country for treatment. If he wanted to be free, he would have fled the country and sought asylum quite easily.

But he deliberately and freely chose to remain in the country and face the consequences. There is no reason to believe that he would abandon his principles and betray the trust of Malaysians and turn tail and abscond.

As it is, there is no law prohibiting Anwar from receiving treatment overseas. All that is required is a compassionate consideration, in the name of humanity, to allow Anwar to seek treatment of his choice.

Will the government show such humanity in the name of decency?

                This entry was posted on Monday, 16 November 2015, 6:02 am and is filed under
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If Arul can so easily explain away the RM50 billion 1MDB scandal at the UMNO briefing on Saturday, are Cabinet Ministers  so intellectually-challenged that none of them  could explain it to Parliament for the past month?

In the past two days, the UMNO/BN owned or controlled media and their legion of cybertroopers have been carrying glowing reports about what a superb performance the 1MDB CEO Arul Kanda Kandasamy gave  at the briefing for UMNO divisional leaders at the Putra World Trade Centre (PWTC) on Saturday about the  1MDB scandal, and that the participants, which included representatives from NGOs and government agencies, were satisfied with Arul’s explanations which gave “a better picture of the real situation”.

The immediate question that comes to mind is whether the Cabinet of Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak is so intellectually-challenged that none of the Ministers  could explain the intricacies and complexities of the 1MDB scandal to Parliament for the past month, when Arul could so easily explain away the RM50 billion 1MDB scandal at the UMNO briefing to  its divisional leaders and pliable NGOs at PWTC last Saturday – as if Arul is such a superb performer that he is capable of getting birds to eat food from his hands?

Nobody disputes that  Najib’s Ministers are intellectually-challenged – otherwise why did a former Prime Minister and a former Finance Minister agreed in unison that  the present batch of Ministers are  “half-past six” or “deadwood”,  but surely they are not so intellectually challenged that they could not do what Arul did  so easily!

Arul did put up a virtuoso performance last Saturday, but not as a solid management expert explaining how a government company had landed up with over RM50 billion debts (a figure quoted by Tan Sri Muhyiddin Yassin his last speech as Deputy Prime Minister which Arul, Najib and all Ministers have studiously avoided reference  in the past four months), but as a conjurer trying to put up the most convincing illusion tricks like “rabbit disappearing” or “bird flying out of empty hat” in a magician’s repertoire.

For instance, one newspaper headline “1MDB started with minimal debt, Arul says” meant, on closer examination, to merely mean that “On the first day of operations, 1MDB took on a RM5 bil debt, a minimal amount compared to the RM42 bil it incurred on March 31, 2014”. (Again, no reference to Muhyiddin’s figure of over RM50 billion debt incurred by 1MDB by July 2015 in a “1MDB tell-all” briefing!).

Another newspaper headline “’No elements of criminality’ – There were administrative problems that Bank Negara has asked us to rectify says Arul” was another case of the 1MDB CEO guilty of the sin of being economical with the truth, or even more serious, of a terminological inexactitude!

Arul’s claim that Bank Negara’s probe into 1MDB indicated administrative problems rather than elements of criminality flies in the face of the public statement by Bank Negara last month that it had recommended to the Attorney-General to initiate criminal prosecution against 1MDB for breaches under the Exchange Control Act 1953 (ECA), as under the Federal Constitution, the decision to initiate prosecution lies soley with the Attorney-General.

Arul had very little respect for the crowd who squeezed into PWTC for his briefing when he spun  the “tall tale” that 1MDB overpaid for the three power plants from Genting, Tanjong and Jimah power producers to reduce tariffs.

As DAP MP for Kulai, Teo Nie Ching scoffed at Arul’s spin as “laughable”  and  asked, why wasn’t such an explanation given in 2012 when the three power plants were bought.

Was Arul just performing his KPI for what must be his astronomical emoluments as 1MDB CEO to conjure new explanations for the numerous 1MDB transactions in the past six years for which no rational explanation could be given?

But what takes the cake in Arul’s conjurer performance on Saturday was his claim that he was still open to meeting DAP MP for PJ Utara Tony Pua and PKR MP for Pandan Rafizi Ramli to provide an explanation about 1MDB after placing all sorts of obstacles, including roping in the assistance of the Speaker of Parliament, Tan Sri Pandikar Amin Mulia and the Public Accounts Committee Chairman Datuk Husin Arifin,  to obstruct such “No-Holds Barred 1MDB meetings”?

Arul should explain why he had time for UMNO and MCA to give one-sided and misleading briefings about the 1MDB  scandal  but no time for Parliament, and whether he would have acted in such an overbearing manner if he did not have the Prime Minister, Datuk Seri Najib Razak as his sole backer and patron?

Arul is guilty of utter contempt for Parliament when he has the time to brief UMNO and MCA chieftains on the RM50 billion 1MDB scandal but no time for Parliament until Dec. 1 when he will appear before the Public Accounts Committee (PAC).

At the “Solidarity with Lim Kit Siang and Mana RM2.6 billion?” ceramah at Bandar Sungai Long in Selangor last Sunday, I said there were five thing I would do if I am Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, namely, summoning to appear before the PAC the present and former Attorney-Generals, Tan Sri Mohamad Apandi Ali and Tan Sri Gani Patail; get to the bottom of two questions which are on the minds of most Malaysians regardless of race, religion, region or politics, namely where the RM2.6 billion “donation” deposited into Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak’s personal banking accounts came from and where they went to; and fifthly, to ensure that PAC tables its report on investigations into the RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM50 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals latest by November 30, so that MPs from both sides of the House could debate the PAC report latest by the last day of the current meeting of Parliament on Dec. 3.

But there is a sixth item I would do if I am Chairman of the Public Accounts Committee, which is in fact more important than the five items I had mentioned.

This is to call up Prime Minister Najib to appear before the PAC to give testimony about the twin mega scandals.

I remember vividly that one of the first things Second Finance Minister Datuk Seri Ahmad Husni Mohamad Hanazlah did when he was appointed the Cabinet spokesman on 1MDB, which proved to be a short stint of only two months, was to have a television interview on TV1 on “1MDB: Di mana wangnya”, where he fully admitted that Najib, as the Prime Minister, was the final approving authority for 1MDB deals, investment and transactions and that Najib’s written approval was needed for any financial deal undertaken by the 1Malaysian Development Bhd (1MDB).

This was not entirely correct, as 1MDP appeared to be the first case where the Prime Minister’s “written authority” wasneeded for any financial deal undertaken by a government company as Clause 117 of the 1MDB Memorandum and Articles of Association specifically required the Prime Minister’s “written consent” before any deal or restructuring by 1MDB is concluded.

There is only one person in the country who knows the ins-and-outs of the RM2.6 billion “donation” and RM50 billion 1MDB twin mega scandals in the past six years, as Arul is only the latest “operative” to join the “revolving-door” teams of operatives who had been employed to take orders to run the 1MDB in the past six years.

As a result, any investigations into the twin mega-scandals without calling Najib to testify would be an utter waste of time.

If the PAC is serious about wanting to get to the bottom of the 1MDB and RM2.6 billion “donation” scandals, the most important witness is Najib himself and not the “revolving-door” teams of chief operatives, board of directors or even the auditors.

For this reason, if I am PAC Chairman, my first priority would be to summon Najib to testify before the PAC.

Would the new PAC Chairman, Datuk Hasan Arifin dare to even think of summoning Najib to appear before the PAC?

(Speech at the DAP Subang “Solidarity with Lim Kit Siang and Mana RM2.6 billion” dinner held at Subang new village, Selangor on Sunday, November 15, 2015 at 9 pm)

                This entry was posted on Monday, 16 November 2015, 8:41 am and is filed under
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Raqqa activists reveal details of French airstrikes on Syria

Kareem Shaheen in Beirut

Guardian

Monday 16 November 2015

French warplanes have launched 30 airstrikes on more than a dozen Islamic State targets in Raqqa, activists in the Syrian city have said.

The raids were France’s first retaliation to Friday’s coordinated attacks in Paris claimed by Isis, in which at least 129 people were killed.

Residents said the targets bombed in the de facto capital of the militants’ self-proclaimed caliphate included the local Isis political office, the southern entrance to the city and a military camp.

“The French airstrikes were precise and targeted Daesh positions,” said one activist, using an Arabic acronym for Isis. “They hit Isis headquarters and camps that have ammunition warehouses as well as vehicles and [Isis] members.”

Division 17, an army base to the north of the city, had been under Isis control since July 2014.

Isis claimed responsibility for Friday’s attacks in Paris, saying it had targeted France because of its role in the coalition carrying out airstrikes in Syria and describing it as a haven for “crusaders”.

Raqqa activists said Isis members had distributed sweets in the city in the aftermath of the operation, and forced residents to give interviews endorsing the Paris attacks.

The French defence ministry said in a statement that the sites targeted had previously been identified on reconnaissance flights.

The decision to launch retaliatory airstrikes against the group was an act of self-defence, the French foreign minister, Laurent Fabius, has said.

“France has always said that because she has been threatened and attacked by Daesh, it would be normal that she would react in the framework of self-defence. That’s what we did today with the strikes on Raqqa,” he said from the G20 summit in Turkey. “We can’t let Daesh act without reacting.”

The French interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, said the attack on Paris was masterminded by terrorist leaders within Syria, who “commissioned” operatives in Belgium to carry out the assault.

“A group situated in Syria … is organising attacks [with] actors situated in Belgium who are not known to our services, and is inciting them to act on French territory, just like they incite them to act in other European cities,” Cazeneuve said in an interview on France 2 TV.

The French airstrikes were followed on Monday morning by US-led coalition raids that targeted positions around the city, including near Ain Issa, a town 30 miles (48km) from Raqqa that was seized by Kurdish fighters earlier this year.

Russian planes also bombed what activists said was a residential neighbourhood, killing five people. They said no civilians were reported killed in the French strikes.

The French raids were launched simultaneously from the United Arab Emirates and Jordan in coordination with US forces, the French defence ministry said.

France is part of a US-led coalition against Isis, and had taken a more active role than other members of the alliance in targeting the group. The country’s leaders are also staunch opponents of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad.

The retaliatory strikes were discussed between the French defence minister, Jean-Yves Le Drain, and the US defence secretary, Ash Carter, in phone calls on Saturday and Sunday.

                This entry was posted on Monday, 16 November 2015, 10:40 pm and is filed under
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