Officials say worshippers were targeted as they left church in Peshawar

A suicide bomb attack on a historic church in north-western Pakistan has killed at least 60 people and wounded more than 120, officials said, in one of the worst assaults on the country's Christian minority in years.

The bombing underlines the threat posed by Islamic extremists as the government seeks a peace deal with domestic Taliban militants.

It occurred as worshippers were coming out of the church service in Peshawar city to get a free meal of rice offered on the front lawn, said a top government administrator, Sahibzada Anees.

"There were blasts and there was hell for all of us," said Nazir John, who was at the church with at least 400 other worshippers. "When I got my senses back, I found nothing but smoke, dust, blood and screaming people. I saw severed body parts and blood all around."

At least 59 people were killed and 175 others wounded, including foreigners, after Al-Qaeda-linked gunmen stormed an upscale mall in the Kenyan capital of Nairobi, according to a government minister.

The minister also says 10 to 15 gunmen are still inside the shopping mall, where the hostage standoff has entered its second day.

AP journalists reported from the scene that gunfire was heard in the mall Sunday morning. They added that following the shooting two wounded Kenyan security forces were carried from the mall.

The operation to recover all the hostages and secure control of Nairobi's Westgate mall is still continuing, according to Kenyan security officials.

Kenya's National Disaster Operation Centre stated that gunmen are still holding an uncertain number of shoppers and staff hostage inside the mall.

"Operations are continuing...We will free all those inside and stop this, of course we cannot give details of the operations except to say that everything that can be done is being done," a security officer said, as quoted by AFP.

President Uhuru Kenyatta said the attack sought to intimidate and divide the nation, but stated that the "terrorists" will be defeated, according to Reuters. The president added that he lost "very close family members" in the mall shooting, Reuters reported.

"The despicable perpetrators of this cowardly act hoped to intimidate, divide and cause despondency amongst Kenyans," Kenyatta said in a televised address to the nation. "We have overcome terrorist attacks before. We will defeat them again."

The US intelligence community has been put to shame by the dedication and determination of a lone Christian nun. Her modest study of the videos of the Syrian chemical attack shows they were productions involving staged bodies.

Those who take the time to read the report by Mother Agnes and the International Support Team for Mussalaha in Syria (ISTEAMS) will realize that it disgraces the entire US intelligence community for endorsing video footage that is clearly dubious and not credible upon careful study by even a layperson.
No one denies that chemical weapons were used. The US federal government and the mainstream media in the US and countries allied to it have been playing a dirty game of equating the a) rejection of accusations that the Syrian government used chemical weapons with b) an outright denial that chemical weapons were used. The two are deliberately being mixed together to confuse the general public. The question is who used the chemical weapons?

Islamic Republic Falls Foul in African Cradle of America's 'War on Terror'

An alleged spectacular Iranian bomb plot uncovered in Kenya this week has all the hallmarks of a Western intelligence "false flag" operation - with the aim of tightening international oil sanctions even further on Iran.

Two men alleged to be Iranian nationals and members of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps appeared in court in Kenya's capital, Nairobi, earlier this week on terrorism charges. Media reports on 2 July said the men are accused of planning to blow up American, British, Saudi and Israeli targets in Kenya, including the British High Commission office, a chain of hotels and a synagogue.

Members of the Israeli Mossad spy agency and the FBI are reportedly helping investigate whether terrorism was behind a massive fire at a Kenyan airport earlier this month.

The August 7 fire at Nairobi's Jomo Kenyatta International Airport shut down operations at the major gateway to East Africa and gutted the arrivals hall.

US President Barack Obama pledged support to Kenya after the fire, and according to Kenya's Citizen News, members of the FBI and the Mossad were probing the cause of the blaze.

A Kenyan official told the Associated Press that terror was ruled out by investigators.

Michael Kamau, the cabinet secretary for transport and infrastructure, said Kenyan officials were receiving assistance from international agencies "because we intend to carry out a full investigation on what happened yesterday." One of the officials who spoke to AP confirmed that members of the FBI were assisting.

A secret luxury hideaway used by a 7/7 bomber's fugitive widow to evade capture has been revealed by investigators in Kenya.

While security agencies step up their hunt for Samantha Lewthwaite, who is wanted in connection with a suspected terrorist plot, it appears the widow of suicide killer Jermaine Lindsay has been living in the lap of luxury.

These photos show the sprawling five-bedroom villa, situated just minutes from the sandy white beaches of Mombasa, were it is suspected Ms Lewthwaite has been living and aiding a terror cell plotting to blow up hotels and shopping centres across the East African city.

And it is believed police might even have discovered Ms Lewthwaite, 28, at the villa during a raid on the property but let her go when she provided a South African passport under the name of Natalie Faye Webb.

When they returned a few days later they discovered a smashed laptop and ammunition and have now confirmed the fugitive was staying at the villa.

Samantha Lewthwaite, the widow of one of the July 7 bombers, Jermaine Lindsay, is thought to be on the run accused of links with a terrorist cell planning bomb attacks in Kenya.

Police in Kenya have issued an arrest warrant for a woman using the name Natalie Faye Webb, and carrying a forged South African passport.

Helped by officers from Scotland Yard who flew out to offer advice, they have published her picture to alert the public.

But investigators say the woman has three separate identities and one is that of Samantha Lewthwaite, who was married to
Jermaine Lindsay, one of the 7/7 bombers.

Lindsay killed 26 people when he blew himself up on the Piccadilly Line between King's Cross and Russell Square in July 2005.

Lewthwaite, from Aylesbury, Bucks, who converted to Islam at the age of 15 and married Lindsay in 2002, is said to be travelling with her three children.

British security analysts fear that the militant Islamic Somali group Al-Shabaab, which has admitted to carrying out acts of terrorism, may attack the London Olympic Games. The military and its secret services count on the media to "set the agenda" (Chatham House)¹ and to "shape perceptions" (Ministry of Defence).² It is not surprising, then, that the government's terrorism claims are repeated uncritically by the media, which specialise in "white propaganda" (an official term for establishment messages).³

In reality, Al-Shabaab was infiltrated by old MI6 assets long ago, and its foreign forces are recruited and trained by MI5 agents (see below). If there is an attack on the Olympic Games carried out by Al-Shabaab, it will almost certainly be a false-flag designed to propel a war-weary public into supporting yet more bloodshed in the Pentagon's quest for Full Spectrum Dominance.⁴ With one million Somalis dependent on Red Cross food aid (and not by accident), a British-led invasion could lead to mass starvation.

Shell and BP have long-standing oil contracts in Somalia, which the country's socialist Islamic Courts Union jeopardised by permitting Chinese and Russian prospecting.⁵ A Chatham House study sponsored by BP recommended that because "Voters will not actively call for a more effective foreign policy," the unelected Tory-Liberal government "should define its international mission as managing risks on behalf of British citizens."⁶

"Shame makes the world go around"

- Morrissey

Afghanistan. Iraq. Pakistan. Libya ... Who will be next in the Anglo-American quest for Full Spectrum Dominance? Jonathan Evans, the head of Britain's intelligence agency MI5, alleged that "Somalia has become the next destination after Pakistan for terrorist training due to the presence of al-Shabaab, an extremist group with links to al-Qa'ida."¹ "This region could become the next big conflict for the [Ministry of Defence]," officials were quoted as saying in November 2011.²

The fact that the British press can make statements such as "Until now, the Shebab [sic] ... has thrived through the very fact that the rest of the world has left Somalia to its own devices", should reduce readers to an aching belly-laugh. The fact that such statements can appear without utter ridicule is an example of how well indoctrinated most Britons are. Since special forces began funding, arming, and training the Ethiopian-based Transitional Federal Government (TFG) back in 2004, Britain has been the cause of much of Somalia's grief, which dates back to the days of Empire.³

Somalia is in such a precarious humanitarian situation, thanks largely to UK foreign policies initiated under the New Labour Government, that any military action will exacerbate the suffering of millions of people, and may well lead to hundreds of thousands of deaths. A month after the plan of attack was announced in the British press, the Red Cross reported that it "has distributed beans, rice and oil to over 917,000 people in southern and central Somalia," meaning that at least one million people are dependent on food aid delivered by NGOs. Any bombing could drive out the NGOs.⁴ This fact, vastly more important than any alleged terror threat, was not reported.

I got a lot of letters from folks this week about an online column for Forbes written by a self-proclaimed Ayn Rand devotee named Harry Binswanger (if that's a nom de plume, it's not bad, although I might have gone for "Harry Kingbanger" or "Harry Wandwanker").

The piece had the entertainingly provocative title, "Give Back? Yes, It's Time for the 99% to Give Back to the 1%" and contained a number of innovatively slavish proposals to aid the beleaguered and misunderstood rich, including a not-kidding-at-all plan to exempt anyone who makes over a million dollars from income taxes.

This article is so ridiculous that normally it would be beneath commentary, but there's a passage in there I just couldn't let go:

Imagine the effect on our culture, particularly on the young, if the kind of fame and adulation bathing Lady Gaga attached to the more notable achievements of say, Warren Buffett. Or if the moral praise showered on Mother Teresa went to someone like Lloyd Blankfein, who, in guiding Goldman Sachs toward billions in profits, has done infinitely more for mankind.

(Since profit is the market value of the product minus the market value of factors used, profit represents the value created.)

Instead, we live in a culture where Goldman Sachs is smeared as "a great vampire squid wrapped around the face of humanity. . ."

What a world we live in, where Mother Teresa wins more moral praise than Lloyd Blankfein! Who can bear living in a society where such a thing is possible? Quel horreur!

It reads like an Onion piece, just hilarious stuff. I mean, Jesus, even Lloyd Blankfein himself didn't go so far as to take the "God's work" thing 100% seriously, and here's this jackass saying, without irony, that the Goldman CEO literally out-God-slaps Mother Teresa.