April was the deadliest month for Iraq in nearly five years, with more than 700 people killed in violence, the United Nations said on Thursday.

“The month of April was the deadliest since June 2008. A total of 712 people were killed and another 1,633 were wounded in acts of terrorism and acts of violence,” a statement from the UN mission in Iraq said.

More: April Deadliest Month for Iraq Since June 2008

For anyone who’s interested, here are some actual facts on domestic terrorism in the U.S. Obviously, the recent attack on the Boston Marathon isn’t included as the dataset only covers 2001-2012:

The New America Foundation and Syracuse University’s Maxwell School have examined cases of homegrown jihadist and non-jihadist terrorism in the United States since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Key Observations:

• At least 380 people were indicted on terrorism-related charges in the United States between September 11, 2001 and December 31 2012.
• 207 of those people are identified as "jihadist" terrorists, and they subscribe broadly to the ideology of Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda.
• 174 of those people are "non-jihadist" terrorists, who subscribe to violent, radical interpretations of one of the following ideologies: rightwing, leftwing, animal rights activism, environmental activism, or anarchism.
• 51 rightwing extremists and five anarchists were able to acquire explosives or bomb-making components. Five of the rightwing extremists obtained those weapons through government sting operations. Click here for the data.
• 23 jihadist extremists were able to acquire explosives or bomb-making components, 12 of whom obtained those weapons through government sting operations. Click here for the data.
• The pool of non-jihadists is overwhelmingly made up of rightwing extremists: 80 percent, followed by animal and environmental activists at 15 percent.
• At least 29 people have been killed by non-jihadist extremists since 9/11, while 17 people have been killed by jihadists.
• Just 5 percent of jihadists indicted since 9/11 had carried out some kind of violent attack, while just under 50 percent of non-jihadists committed a violent crime before they were charged.
• Just 16 percent of jihadists were able to acquire weapons before they were indicted, while 38 percent of right or leftwing terrorists possessed weapons (often in large quantities) at the time of arrest.

More at the New America Foundation…

Also See:
Post-9/11 Jihadist Terrorism Cases Involving U.S. Citizens and Residents: An Overview - Introduction to the report on Jihadist cases with links to other sections
Right- and Left-Wing Terrorism Since 9/11 Non-jihadist cases only
Homegrown Terrorism Cases, 2001-2011 - Sortable table with filters
Tips and Cooperation by Muslim Communities and Families - Cases reported by Muslims (21% - Note: I believe this covers only incidents through 2011, however it’s not 100% clear, so I could be mistaken)
I’m Telling Your Imam - If you want to stop Islamic terrorism, Muslims are your best friends. Slate 25 April 2013

Related:
A Response to Rep. Peter King’s Claims About American Muslims - Contains numerous links to external reports & articles as well as other LGF Pages

Emerson from Whirled Nut Daily still hounding the innocent Saudi witness.

Alex Jones isn’t the only one coming up with crazy conspiracy theories about the Boston Marathon bombings. The Worldnutdaily and other right wingers have a new one: Obama is deporting that Saudi student for “national security reasons” as part of a coverup. Tea Party Nation leader Judson Phillips, who is nuttier than a jar of Jif, repeats this nonsense:

Immediately after the blast, reports surfaced that a Saudi national was in the hospital. Various reports said he was detained, not free to leave or in custody. Abdul Rahman Ali Alharbi is the Saudi national. His apartment was searched. The first reports said it was done with a search warrant. Now reports are coming out that the search was a consent search. Reports then came out saying Alharbi was only a witness and not a suspect or person of interest.

Steve Emerson of the Investigative Project on Terrorism is now reporting that next Tuesday, Alharbi will be deported for “national security reasons.”

On Tuesday, Secretary of State John Kerry met with the Saudi Foreign Minister, Saud Al Faisal in a meeting that had been scheduled for some time but was abruptly closed to the media for “scheduling reasons.”

More: The Right Has a Shiny New Boston Conspiracy Theory » Dispatches From the Culture Wars

This an excellent opinion piece IMO, even though its brutal honesty made me wince. The author, James Varney, is confronting his darkest fears about the possible identity of the perpetrators of the Boston bombings head-on, not to mention questioning the morality of hoping for the outcome he would feel most comfortable with. That’s not something you see people do very often, at least not publicly.

What made me wince was not so much that he would prefer that the perpetrators be foreign jihadists, but that he seems to be viewing things in a binary “us vs them” fashion. I think more people than care to admit probably feel the same way he does.

How will he process things if it turns out to be one or more American Muslims, especially if they’re American born or raised? Would they be part of his “us” or are part of “them”? And what about all the peaceful, patriotic, law-abiding American Muslims? Would we be part of his “us”, or would we be lumped in with “them” as we were by so many after 9/11 (and still are by more than a few)?

The uncertainty compounds our fears too, Mr. Varney, just in a different way.

After 9/11 we had an enemy who, if not quickly cornered and killed, was at least quickly identified. There is a unity of purpose, a shared understanding of the threat in such situations that makes what happened not so much easier to bear as easier to confront. […]

Am I the only one hoping it’s jihadists? Is it even right to have such a hope in the face of something so awful? Is it morally suspect to take a deep breath, thank God fewer people were killed than Interstate 12 crashes claim on many weekends, and pray the low body count signals our mortal global enemies have lost some of the unholy talent they displayed in New York, Madrid and London? […]

In Oklahoma City in the days after the bombing there was a palpable disquiet. The city’s downtown was eerily silent but for the chakka-chakka-chakka of heavy-duty excavation equipment, and people wrestled with the news reports about Tim McVeigh and our homicidal parasites. No one knew what to make of what had occurred, but the fact the perpetrators were Americans was somehow unfathomable. […]

I wasn’t in New York City on 9/11 where the gloom was proportionately much larger. That’s a difference of scale, although, at root, it’s the same. There was also on that day, in Manhattan and everywhere else, a realization that a war was at hand; that such cataclysmic terrorism on home soil was the culmination of a chain that included African embassy bombings, Navy ship bombings and even an earlier, much less harrowing World Trade Center bombing.

In other words, there was a connection. There was a ripple that went through every American that someone else was attacking us. It was a Pearl Harbor-type moment. […]

More at NOLA.com…

As the details about the bombings in Boston unfold, it’d be easy to be scared. It’d be easy to feel powerless and demand that our elected leaders do something — anything — to keep us safe.

It’d be easy, but it’d be wrong. We need to be angry and empathize with the victims without being scared. Our fears would play right into the perpetrators’ hands — and magnify the power of their victory for whichever goals whatever group behind this, still to be uncovered, has. We don’t have to be scared, and we’re not powerless. We actually have all the power here, and there’s one thing we can do to render terrorism ineffective: Refuse to be terrorized.

It’s hard to do, because terrorism is designed precisely to scare people — far out of proportion to its actual danger. A huge amount of research on fear and the brain teaches us that we exaggerate threats that are rare, spectacular, immediate, random — in this case involving an innocent child — senseless, horrific and graphic. Terrorism pushes all of our fear buttons, really hard, and we overreact.

More: The Boston Marathon Bombing: Keep Calm and Carry on - Bruce Schneier - the Atlantic

Details are still sketchy in the murders of District Attorney Mike McLelland and his wife in Texas and in the slaying of Colorado prisons director Tom Clements, but investigations seem to be leading to white supremacist prison gangs in both cases. The 211 Crew in Colorado and the Aryan Brotherhood of Texas appear to be connected to the latest spate of murders directed against law enforcement officers and prosecutors. White supremacists appear to have declared open season on police officers, judges and attorneys associated with the justice system. White supremacist violence directed at government officials and law enforcement agents has become a source of increasing concern for the FBI and for independent organizations that monitor hate groups, as white supremacists continue to commit murders and other violent crimes against racial and ethnic minorities, immigrants and interracial couples. Over the last four years, white supremacists have been responsible for a number of attacks on American citizens and law enforcement officers. Although the total number of white supremacists remains small, they are an increasing threat to police officers and judges as well as a threat to racial, ethnic and religious minorities in many of our communities.

More: Hunting Cops, Immigrants and Couples: The New Wave of White Supremacist Violence - Tulsa FBI

April 2, 2013: There are some common patterns among Islamic terrorists. They tend to be the least educated (often illiterate), least employable and the least intelligent members of their community (either in the old country or within immigrant communities in the West). While university educated terrorists get a lot of media attention, most ideologically motivated terrorists are poor and illiterate. These deficiencies provide a great motivator to do something desperate in the off chance it might improve your lot. Thus most of the violence in the world occurs in countries with low literacy rates.

Strategy Page

As shown in an earlier post on LGF, that is also how Pat likes ‘em.

Little Green Footballs

President Obama stated recently that Iran could develop a nuclear bomb in over a year. As negotiations over Tehran’s nuclear program continue to drag on with little sign of a breakthrough, the odds increase that an armed conflict will eventually break out. The chances are significant that the United States would either start or be sucked into this war. What would the consequences be? What are the alternatives? Our new book War with Iran: Political, Military, and Economic Consequences can serve as a guide to these questions.

The United States would make destroying Iran’s major nuclear facilities its primary aim, and it would likely be successful within hours of a conflict breaking out. Iran’s known nuclear sites are heavily defended or buried in the earth, but the U.S. arsenal contains aircraft that can penetrate the defenses and munitions that can penetrate the bunkers. Iran probably has other, smaller nuclear sites that are not known. If these are not identified and destroyed, they can serve as the building-blocks of a reconstructed nuclear program—or even enable an attempt at a rapid breakout. Still, there is little doubt that the United States could deal Iran’s nuclear program a massive setback.

This will not be the only front of a war, however. Iran’s leaders have threatened the West with retaliation too frequently and too publicly to simply ignore an attack. Iran has agents and allies that may commit acts of terrorism. Lebanese Hezbollah’s deadly bombing of a bus full of Israeli tourists in Burgas, Bulgaria and the discovery of a similar plot in Cyprus are examples of this capability. And assassination plots against Israeli diplomats in India, Georgia, Thailand and Kenya, as well as the Saudi ambassador in Washington, show Iranian willingness to commit acts of terrorism as part of its strategy.

Iran also has many small military speedboats, midget submarines and antiship missiles. It may use these to attack American vessels near its shores or to disrupt the flow of oil through the Strait of Hormuz. An oil blockade, if successful and sustained, would send shockwaves through the global economy, as roughly a fifth of the world’s internationally traded oil passes through the strait.

More: Commentary: The High Cost of War With Iran

Sure looks like it. They just got busted together in Egypt.

‘Egypt seizes weaponry, arrests terrorists in Sinai’

Sinai security forces arrested 25 Hamas and Al-Qaida suspects attempting to cross from the northern peninsula to the Nile Delta in the South, according to Egyptian media sources.

According to the reports, the army and police force revealed a weapons cache containing explosives, anti-aircraft and anti-tank missiles in El-Arish. The suspects were allegedly found in possession of weapons, ammunition and satellite communications equipment, according to sources. The terrorists were also found in possession of maps of strategic installations in the Sinai.

I wonder what they were up to?