For many people Salman Rushdie is perhaps the most well-known free speech defender in the current generation. He certainly is one of the bravest people who originally spoke out against Islamic extremism with his 1988 book Satanic Verses.

Iranian leader Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a fatwa calling for Rushdie’s death over what he claimed were blasphemous references to Islam. A $3 million bounty was placed on his head for anyone who kills him. The fatwa was never rescinded, and Rushdie spent well over a decade hiding under protective custody.

In recent years Rushdie has been a visible advocate for free speech and has given multiple speeches on issues around the need for freedom of expression. During a speech yesterday he was attacked and stabbed multiple times.

[New York] – Author Salman Rushdie is likely to lose one of his eyes and is currently on a ventilator after he was attacked on stage at a literary event in upstate New York on Friday, a report said.

“The news is not good,” the 75-year-old writer’s agent, Andrew Wylie, told The New York Times. “Salman will likely lose one eye; the nerves in his arm were severed; and his liver was stabbed and damaged,” said Wylie.

Rushdie, who is still unable to speak, was attacked by a lone man while speaking at an event at the Chautauqua Institution in Chautauqua, NY, about 55 miles south of Buffalo.

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Everything about the supposed killing of al-Qaeda leader Ayman Al Zawahiri is suspect, weird and fishy.

♦First, Al Zawahiri has been reported as killed or dead at least a half dozen times in the last 10 years; including by natural causes.  ♦Second, Ayman Zawahiri was very old. Western citations put his age at 71 (born 1951), however, that is suspect (sounds like his younger brother’s age).  ♦Third, the location of his reported killing in Kabul is odd.  Zawahiri was known to avoid large populations, and even with the U.S. withdrawal from Afghanistan the tribal conflicts with factions of the Taliban would have been an issue.

♦Fourth, somehow the Taliban waited until after the U.S. intelligence community leaked the strike to the media before they issued a statement condemning the drone attack.  Since when does al-Qaeda wait 48+ hours to denounce hostile action in their territory?   Coordinating and timed joint press releases between the White House and ‘Taliban‘ to western media outlets is seriously sketchy.

♦Fifth, absolutely no official outline from the Pentagon or White House on this “successful counterterrorism strike“?  Despite a primetime presidential address, the White House has no announcement, no official statement, nothing, on their website.  Additionally, Biden leads off saying the attack was on Saturday, the Taliban waited 48-hours to denounce a U.S. drone strike?  Think about it.  Doesn’t add up.  More sketchy.

♦Sixth, and seemingly just an oddball addendum, Fox News breaks the story using Jennifer Griffin as lead reporter.  As I noted several days ago, Griffin had been missing from Fox News since she went bonzo in March attacking Tucker Carlson over his cynicism of the official State Dept and Pentagon narrative in Ukraine.

May, June, July, nothing from pentagon deep state promoter Jenn Griffin at all.  Then, suddenly, on the same day Griffin resurfaces, after months of nothing, there’s a major terrorism strike in Afghanistan, killing Zawahiri and she’s leading the coverage?…. With Brett Baier cheerleading?  C’mon man.  Sketchy, all of it.

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This is weird.  Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was always hiding in the same Afghanistan-Pakistan area where Osama Bin Laden was hiding out, was very old ten years ago in 2012 when he established the Libyan branch of al-Qaeda.  [SEE CTH Archives] This guy is ancient by now.

Ayman al-Zawahiri was #2 to Bin Laden and elevated to #1 after his death.  Ayman has a younger brother named Mohammed al-Zawahiri who was the Muslim Brotherhood organizer of the uprising in Egypt, and very likely the person who helped coordinate the 9/11/2012 protest on the U.S. Embassy in Cairo that happened on the same day as the attack in Benghazi.

According to media reporting, the CIA is claiming to have killed Ayman al-Zawahiri last weekend and Joe Biden is going to give a congratulatory speech about it tonight at 7:30pm ET.   Something about this is odd, he was killed in Kabul, Afghanistan?  Ayman al-Zawahiri was seriously old if he was still actually alive.

WASHINGTON DC – The United States killed Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahri in a drone strike over the weekend, two people briefed on the operation told POLITICO.

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Mark Twain was reported to have said, “History may not always repeat, but it rhymes.”  With the Obama foreign policy team back together again in the White House, we are watching Twain’s truism play out in real time.

Yesterday, the Biden administration specifically designated Qatar as a major non-NATO ally {LINK}.

The purpose of this designation is brutally obvious. The United States is putting Qatar back into the business of brokering arms sales from the U.S. government into Ukraine.  Following the geopolitical intervention models previously used in Egypt, Libya and Syria by President Obama and Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden and Antony Blinken are now repeating the process toward Ukraine.

In many ways this should not be a surprise.  Qatar is the financial hub and support network for the Muslim Brotherhood.  Qatar is also the arms broker for covert military operations when the U.S. does not want visible fingerprints.

By making this designation now, the Biden administration is setting up the groundwork for a long-term proxy war between the U.S/NATO and Russia in Ukraine.

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According to the White House, 50 special forces operators attacked the leadership compound of Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi, the ISIS replacement head for Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi who was killed in 2019.  According to the White House occupant, after a lengthy engagement with U.S. forces, al-Qurayshi killed himself the same way al-Baghdadi did, by exploding a bomb.  There were no U.S. casualties.

(Via ABC) First responders reported that 13 people had been killed, including six children and four women. White House press secretary Jen Psaki said U.S. officials believe al-Qurayshi’s explosive killed himself, his wife, and three children. She added that U.S. officials were conducting an assessment to determine whether American action resulted in any civilian deaths. (more)

The White House background briefing on the strike IS HERE.  The remarks by Joe Biden ARE HERE.

Sending 50 special operators for one building engagement is a little heavy; however, obviously the White House was petrified that something would go wrong, and the last thing Ron Klain wants would be another boondoggle to add to the pile of disasters this administration has created.

That said, rather than debate the mission, I would draw attention to the location and bigger picture.  Northern Syria is part of the Muslim Brotherhood territory under the influence of Turkish President Recep Erdogan.  ISIS, al-Qaeda, al-Nusra, and all extremist Islamic factions therein are all just various shades of authentic Islam as promoted by The Muslim Brotherhood.

Turkey is a member of NATO.  Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi and all of the various offshoots of ISIS could not operate in Northern Syria without the assistance of Turkey.  But we are not allowed to talk about that.  Notice how none of the media ask the White House or Pentagon if we discussed the attack with Turkey in advance?

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Malik Faisal Akram, who was known as Faisal Akram, had a well known Islamic extremist history to British and American intelligence. Akram ranted, prior to his travel to the U.S, that he wished he had died in the 9/11 terror attacks. He was a regular visitor to Pakistan, and reportedly a member of the Tablighi Jamaat group set up to ‘purify’ Islam. To say the U.S. intelligence system knew Faisal Akram would be an understatement.  The FBI knowledge of Akram has now been confirmed by The Daily Mail.

Today, the White House was asked how it was possible for him to get a visa and travel into the United States.  White House spokesperson Jen Psaki, says they have no idea, but they’re looking into it.  They’ve put their best men on the review.  For more details, ask the Dept. of Homeland Security. WATCH:

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I’ve Already Given My Opinion – HERE

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I have intentionally not written about the terrorist attack in Colleyville, Texas, because my initial review saw significant parallels to the first ISIS attack on U.S. soil which took place in 2015 at Garland Texas, carried out by Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi.

In the Garland attack the FBI organized, facilitated and coordinated the attack. The FBI even drove the terrorists to the attack venue and then left once the shooting began. Yes, you read that correctly, the first ISIS attack on U.S. soil was organized by the FBI. {Go Deep} CTH dug deep on the 2015 Garland attack, so it wasn’t too difficult to spot the similarities between Garland 2015 and Colleyville 2022.

♦ Colleyville, Texas – Malik Faisal Akram, who was known as Faisal Akram, had a well known Islamic extremist history to British and American intelligence. Akram ranted, prior to his travel to the U.S, that he wished he had died in the 9/11 terror attacks. He was a regular visitor to Pakistan, and reportedly a member of the Tablighi Jamaat group set up to ‘purify’ Islam. To say the U.S. intelligence system knew Faisal Akram would be an understatement.  The FBI knowledge of Akram has now been confirmed by The Daily Mail.

So, the questions become: (1) how did Faisal Akram gain a visa to enter the United States? (2) Who did he visit?  (3) Who gave him the weapon?  (4) Who facilitated his travel and targeting operations; and lastly, (5) who financed and assisted him in his attack?

Unfortunately, the most obvious answer is just like the 2015 Garland example, the FBI was his enabler.

Akram entered the synagogue around 11am Saturday morning as a service was live streamed online. Akram shouted anti-Semitic rants at the Jewish members, took them hostage and then demanded the release of convicted terrorist Aafia Siddiqu, whom he referred to as his ‘sister’. The location in Colleyville seems significant, because ‘Lady al-Qaeda’ is being held in a federal prison about 20 miles from Colleyville, at FMC Carswell in Fort Worth.

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A Georgia jury has found all three suspects in the shooting of Ahmaud Arbery guilty of murder. Travis McMichael, Gregory McMichael and William Bryan were all found guilty of murder.  Arbery was a black male victim and all three suspects -who claimed to be attempting to make a citizens arrest were white males.

Accusations of racism have propagated the framework of the case and the jury heard evidence that racism was a factor.  As with the Rittenhouse verdict, this verdict in Georgia was accurate to the details of the case.

GEORGIA – […] The jury found Travis McMichael, who fatally shot Arbery on Feb. 23, 2020, in a Brunswick, Ga., neighborhood, guilty of all nine counts brought against him, including malice murder.

His father Gregory McMichael, who was with him at the time of the shooting, was found guilty of four counts of felony murder, two counts of aggravated assault, one count of false imprisonment and one count of criminal attempt to commit a felony. 

William “Roddie” Bryan, who recorded the incident, was found guilty of three counts of felony murder, one count of aggravated assault, one count of false imprisonment and one count of criminal attempt to commit a felony. (read more)

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It is appropriate, given the severity and urgency of the issues we face, that we not mince words.  Qatar is the formal Middle East government that supports political Islam through the organization known as the Muslim Brotherhood, aka “the brotherhood.”

The Muslim Brotherhood is the fabric covering the umbrella of political Islam.  The umbrella ribs are the different factions of Islam reflecting varying degrees of extremism or authenticity.   As a result, all of the various factions of Islamic extremism, al-Nusra, al-Qaeda, ISIS, Taliban, ISIS-k etc., are given legitimacy through the political front of The Muslim Brotherood which faces the aggregate west.

The nation state of Qatar is the primary financing agent for The Brotherhood, and all nations who engage with Qatar on a geopolitical level are essentially engaging with The Brotherhood.  Conversely, if a nation state wants to engage with any of the various Islamic groups -each containing various levels of authenticity (ie. extremism)- they can do so through Qatar which acts as an official government intermediary on behalf of The Muslim Brotherhood.

EXAMPLES: •When President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi expelled the radical leaders of The Brotherhood from Egypt, they went to Qatar.  •When President Donald Trump asked the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) to confront radical Islamic extremism, the Arab nations confronted Qatar.  •When Qatar was forced to expel the five most radical leaders of The Brotherhood they went to Turkey.  [Turkish President Recep Erdogan is aligned in common principle with The Brotherhood.]  •When the U.S. released captured Islamic extremists from Gitmo (al-Qaeda in Afghanistan), they were transferred to Qatar.  •When the the Taliban took back control over Afghanistan, the al-Qaeda leaders from Qatar went back to Afghanistan.

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Secretary of State Antony Blinken is testifying before the House Foreign Affairs Committee on the handling of the U.S. military withdrawal from Afghanistan.  Secretary Blinken will be defending the interests of the White House and Pentagon while riding the dragon of a rogue agency, The State Department, he ultimately does not control.

The House, under the control of Democrats, is aligned with defending Joe Biden more than the Senate.  The Senate is more attached to the interests of the underlying institution of the Fourth Branch of Government, the State Dept, CIA and Intelligence apparatus.  The House is therefore more friendly to the political interests of Blinken and Biden.  Pro-interventionist Republicans on the committee, led by Mike McCaul, will be trying to protect the Pentagon while holding Biden accountable.

Testimony and obfuscation is scheduled for 2:00pm ET and will last for a while.  Livestream Links Below:

10 Tampa Livestream – Alternate Livestream 1 – Alternate Livestream 2 (Reuters)

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