Labour set to recapture London after bitter mayoral campaign

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By Elizabeth Piper and Nadeem Shad

LONDON (Reuters) - Labour candidate Sadiq Khan was set on Thursday to become the first Muslim to be elected mayor of London, loosening the ruling Conservatives' hold on Britain's financial center after a campaign marred by charges of anti-Semitism and extremism.

His expected victory may be a lone bright spot for Labour on a day of local elections in England, Scotland and Wales. Opinion polls suggested the main opposition party would lose seats in some traditional strongholds, testing the authority of its new left-wing leader, Jeremy Corbyn.

In bright sunshine, Britons trickled in to voting stations to cast their ballots in elections which some campaigners fear could fail to attract many voters, as the contests have been overshadowed by next month's referendum on whether Britain should leave the European Union.

The fight to run London - the top prize in the local elections - has pitted Labour's Khan, 45, the son of an immigrant bus driver, against Conservative Zac Goldsmith, 41, the elite-educated son of a billionaire financier.

The winner will replace Conservative Boris Johnson, who has run the city of 8.6 million people for the past eight years and is seen as a leading contender to succeed David Cameron as party leader and prime minister.

Khan has a big lead in the opinion polls, despite accusations by Goldsmith that he has shared platforms with radical Muslim speakers and given "oxygen" to extremists.

"Yes Goldsmith's argument on the radio made me distrust him ... I am absolutely amazed how he tried to smear by innuendo," said self-employed voter Ian Whisson, describing the Conservative candidate's campaign as "disgusting and slimy".

Goldmith denies the charge, saying he has raised legitimate questions over his opponent's judgment.

The campaign, condemned by Labour for using what it calls Donald Trump-style tactics to divide Londoners along faith lines, has swept aside usual concerns in the capital over high transport costs and a lack of affordable housing.

HEATED CAMPAIGN

On the eve of the vote, Prime Minister Cameron and Labour leader Corbyn went head-to-head over Khan and Goldsmith's campaigns in a heated parliamentary debate.

Cameron accused Khan of sharing "a platform with an extremist who called for Jews to drown in the ocean", while Corbyn accused the Conservatives of "smearing" Khan.

Khan says he has fought extremism all his life and that he regrets sharing a stage with speakers who held "abhorrent" views.

But the former human rights lawyer has also had to distance himself from Corbyn after a row over anti-Semitism.

The Labour leader ordered an inquiry into charges of anti-Semitism after suspending Ken Livingstone, a political ally and a former London mayor, for saying Adolf Hitler had supported Zionism.

Khan was quick to condemn the comments. Although people out in the capital said the row had done little to change their view of the Labour candidate for mayor, others said they had become disenchanted with the party itself.

"Yes it has affected my view of Labour, it's very disappointing," said Sylvie Edge, a 60-year-old photographer, as she cast her ballot in Shoreditch in central London.

Corbyn risks losing dozens of seats in some of Labour's traditional strongholds in his first major electoral test since being elected party leader in September on a wave of enthusiasm for change and an end to 'establishment politics'.

After Corbyn expressed confidence that Labour would gain seats, his spokesman qualified his remarks on Thursday, saying he rather wanted to say: "We're not in the business of losing seats and we'll be fighting to win as many as possible tomorrow."

(Additional reporting by William James, writing by Elizabeth Piper, editing by Mark Trevelyan)

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WATCH: French Cops Run From Migrants Screaming: ‘We Are Muslim, We Want To Go To UK!’

by DONNA RACHEL EDMUNDS26 Jan 20161066

Video footage (above) reveals the moment migrants and anarchists marching through the centre of Calais on Saturday broke through police lines and stormed the city’s port which connects France to the United Kingdom.

The French government is adamant that current security provisions in the area are adequate and effective, yet the video shows riot police backing away from a crowd of migrants chanting “UK, UK”, before turning and running. One migrant angrily screams at the camera: “We are people. We are Muslim! We want to go to UK!”

The migrants were then able to break through security fencing; 50 made it all the way onto the UK-bound ferry Spirit of Britain.

It is not clear from the video how many migrants broke through the police line andmarched into the port, but it is apparent that initial reports of 150 were an underestimate. Later reports suggested that anywhere between 500 and 1000 migrants made it within port boundaries, although only 50 succeeded in boarding the UK bound ferry Pride of Britain.

However, the new video, which was filmed from within the migrant crowd, sheds new light on how the migrants were able to access the port in the first place. It shows a line of around 20 riot police blocking access to Rue de la Mer, which leads to the port. A large contingent of migrants and anarchists walk up to the police line chanting “UK, UK”.

At first police try to move them on, telling them to “go left”, which the migrants refuse to do. Instead, following a speech by man holding a loudhailer, the police simply back away before turning and running, allowing the migrants to stream past them. A few police try to recreate the line further down the street, only for their commander to order them to fall back.

The migrants, some carrying the red flag of the New Anticapitalist Party of France, race towards the port, again chanting “UK, UK” and cut through the fences. Only after a few hundred have streamed through do the police attempt to halt them by firing tear gas canisters at the opening in the fence line.

The video was compiled by Taranis News, a French magazine which launched in 2014 and which appears to be supportive of the no borders/pro-mass migration movement. Much of the footage featured in their videos is shot from within the migrant groups, suggesting that activists are passing them footage for dissemination. They were also the first to break the video showing a homeowner forced to defend his property against a breakaway group of migrantsusing just an airsoft rifle.

Meanwhile Calais Migrant Solidarity, one of the main socialist groups accused of stirring up trouble within The Jungle has backed away from taking credit for Saturday’s riots, instead insisting that it was the migrants themselves who masterminded the port break in. Any attempts to blame Westerners, they said, amounted to “racism” perpetrated by the “right wing.”

“The main organisations who called for and organised the demonstration were the CISPM (International Coalition of People Without Papers and Migrants) and the ATMF (Association of French Maghrebian Workers) but the call was supported by a vast array of different solidarity groups. Coaches to the demonstration came from all across France, Germany, Belgium, The Netherlands and also a large contingent from the UK,” they explained in a blog on their website.

“The idea that ‘refugees’ could autonomusly [sic] and easily board a boat in the Calais habour [sic] is incomprehensible for the British press,” they continue. “This rhetoric and discourse is deeply racist.

“This was an action autonomously organised by people living in the jungle, people without papers, and refugees, these people were supported by activists from countries across the world.

“To claim anything different is to deny the reality of the situation, that the people of the Jungle are willing to disrupt, occupy, and fight the institutions that keep them from their freedom!”

The French government is facing numerous calls to deploy the army to Calais to restore order to the area. The town’s mayor, Natacha Bouchart said at a press conference that she accepted the need for humanitarian assistance, but not “this anarchic situation.”

The French Interior Bernard Cazeneuve has so far demurred, however, saying only that the French government had “total determination” to maintain law and order.

Follow Donna Rachel Edmunds on Twitter: Follow @Donna_R_E or e-mail to: dedmunds@breitbart.com

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Jihadists Massacre 60 in Car Bomb Attack, Take Over Somali Military Base

Reuters

by THOMAS D. WILLIAMS, PH.D.15 Jan 201628

In an early morning ambush, Islamic terrorists of the radical al-Shabaab group attacked an African Union military base in southern Somalia Friday, breaching the walls by exploding a car bomband overrunning the base.

According to the officials of the Somali army, the blast demolished the entrance to the military base in in the town of El-Ade, Somalia, slaughtering dozens of Kenyan soldiers and allowing heavily armed jihadist militants to storm the base.

The African Union base is operated by Kenyan peacekeeping forces and is located about 340 miles west of Mogadishu, near the Somali border with Kenya.

The latest official statement issued by al-Shabaab military operations spokesman Sheikh Abdiasis Abu Musab claims that 61 Kenyan soldiers have been killed, and that the base and the nearby town of Ceel Cado are now in the hands of the Islamists.

“Our fighters went in and after a heavy exchange of gunfire we took over the base,” Musab said, and residents have reported sporadic gunfire inside the military compound.

The jihadists also claim to have seized large number of weapons and vehicles at the military base.

The troops of the African Union number around 22 thousand soldiers in total from various African nations. This is not the first time the peacekeeping force has found itself the target of the Islamist terrorists.

Born as an offshoot from the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), the al-Shabaab group, which in Arabic means “youth,” has been seeking to overthrow the Western-backed Somalian government and impose a strict form of Islamic sharia law.

The group has been responsible for a number of deadly attacks in Kenya, such as the raid on Garissa University in April of last year that killed 148 mostly Christian students, presumably in opposition to the country’s participation in an African Union peacekeeping force in Somalia.

Since February 2012 al-Shabaab has been affiliated with al-Qaeda, though it has been insistently courted by the Islamic State. In October, a portion of its fighters pledgedallegiance to the Islamic State, resulting in tensions within the group.

Ousted from control of the Somali capital of Mogadishu in mid-2011, the terrorist group took over vast rural areas of Somalia from which it launches guerrilla warfare and suicide bombings, both in Somalia and in Kenya.

Follow Thomas D. Williams on Twitter @tdwilliamsrome

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EXCLUSIVE – Hamas Paying Off Islamic State to Smuggle Weapons into Gaza 

Abid Katib/Getty Images

by AARON KLEIN AND ALI WAKED15 Jan 20164

TEL AVIV – Hamas has warned Israel against provoking another violent conflict, saying the movement is ready to fight.

Top Hamas official Ismail Haniyeh declared earlier this week that the movement’s military wing will “stun the whole world with its power of resistance.”

“We’re building our strength above and below the ground, beyond the enemy lines, in the air, sea, and land, and not just to defend Gaza because, despite the siege, the Strip is liberated,” Haniyeh said during a ceremony marking 20 years since the elimination of the movement’s explosives expert, “the engineer” Yahye Ayash, by Israel.

“We’re doing it for the sake of the whole of Palestine. Al Qassam Brigades, who stunned the entire world in the last war, will do it again whenever they face the enemy.”

Although Hamas regularly threatens Israel, several sources in the movement toldBreitbart Jerusalem that Haniyeh’s speech reflects the group’s increased confidence following successful tests of new missiles and rockets that have recently been smuggled into the Strip or developed in the Hamas-controlled territory.

Hamas’ efforts to rebuild its military power have been boosted thanks to Hamas’ cooperation with Welayat Sinai, the local branch of the Islamic State.

Breitbart Jerusalem previously reportedthat Shadi al-Menai, one of the leaders of Wilayat Sinai, visited Gaza in a bid to mediate between Hamas and local Salafi groups after clashes erupted, resulting in the arrests of dozens of jihadists by Hamas forces.

Now, a leading Salafi source reveals that Menai mediated a deal whereby Hamas would give the Gaza Salafi opposition groups more leeway in exchange for Wilayat Sinai’s help in bypassing the Egyptian army’s restrictions on smuggling rocket parts into Gaza

The resumption of arms smuggling, combined with renewed Iranian financial support, have greatly beefed up the training of Hamas’ military wing. 

Abu Khaled, head of the media office of the Al Qassam Brigades, told Breitbart Jerusalemthat he declined to comment on matters of national security.

This is not the first report of Hamas-IS cooperation in arms smuggling.

A Middle East think tank charged last month that there is information Hamas has been paying off the Islamic State’s Sinai branch to smuggle weapons into Gaza. “Over the past two years, IS Sinai helped Hamas move weapons from Iran and Libya through the peninsula, taking a generous cut from each shipment,” stated a report by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Despite the rapprochement between Hamas and IS-Sinai, tensions between the ruling faction and Gazan Salafi opposition groups are rampant.

The Army of Islam, a Salafi group that aspires to become IS’s sole representative in Palestine, recently released an acerbic videoin which it blames Hamas for straying from Sharia law and cooperating with anti-Islamic players, including Shi’ite Iran.

Last month, Breitbart Jerusalem reportedHamas in the Gaza Strip has been hard at work attempting to manufacture rockets capable of reaching Tel Aviv. It has also shared its rocket-making capabilities with other terrorist organizations in the coastal enclave, according to security sources familiar with the matter.

Many Gaza residents say that the number of explosions heard across the Strip has greatly increased.

The Israeli army confirmed to Breitbart Jerusalem that Hamas has been engaged in more rocket test launches into the sea.

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