Mosul, Iraq Offensive Chemical Weapons Report

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 DailyMail

Islamic State executes scores, stockpiles chemicals – U.N.

MOSUL: Islamic State fighters have executed scores more people around Mosul this week and are reportedly stockpiling ammonia and sulphur in civilian areas, possibly for use as chemical weapons, U.N. human rights spokeswoman Ravina Shamdasani said on Friday.

A mass grave with over 100 bodies found in the town of Hammam al-Alil was one of several Islamic State killing grounds, Shamdasani said, citing information gleaned from sources on the ground including a man who played dead during a mass execution.

Public executions were being carried out for “treason and collaboration” with Iraqi forces trying to recapture the city, or for the use of banned mobile phones or desertion.

People with explosive belts, possibly teenagers or young boys, were being deployed in the alleys of Old Mosul, while abducted women were being “distributed” to fighters or told they would be used to accompany Islamic State convoys, she said.


ISIS Killed over 70 Mosul Civilians as Iraqi Forces Advancing

Troops of Iraq’s elite Counter-Terrorism Service (CTS) resumed their offensive against ISIS on the streets of Mosul on Friday after several days of relative quiet as the United Nations said ISIS militants have executed scores more people around the city this week.

The battle to retake Mosul, the ISIS terrorist last major stronghold in Iraq, is now in its fourth week, while Iraqi troops have pushed into the east of the city.

“Our forces have begun the attack on Arbajiyah. The clashes are ongoing,” Staff Lieutenant Colonel Muntadhar Salem said, referring to an area in the east of the city.

According to United Nation ISIS (ISIL, IS and Daesh) shot dead 40 civilians on Tuesday in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul after accusing them of treason, the United Nations says.

Their bodies were then hung from electricity poles in several districts, the office of the UN Human Rights Commissioner said, citing sources.

A man was also reportedly shot dead in public in central Mosul for ignoring an ISIS ban on using mobile phones.

The killings of the civilians appeared to have been carried out on the orders of self-appointed “courts”, according to the UN report.

The UN says 20 civilians were also shot dead on Wednesday evening at the Ghabat military base in northern Mosul, supposedly for leaking information.

The UN also expressed concern at ISIS deployment of teenagers and young boys. Children are apparently seen in an ISIS video issued on Wednesday shooting dead four people for spying.

ISIS also announced on 6 November that it had beheaded seven militants for deserting the battlefield in the Kokjali district of eastern Mosul, the UN says.

Among the sources cited for the UN’s information was a man who played dead during a mass killing by ISIS terrorists.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Raad al-Hussein called for the government to “act quickly to restore effective law enforcement in areas retaken from ISIL (ISIS) to ensure that captured fighters and their perceived supporters are dealt with according to the law”.

Troops have reportedly been consolidating gains made in the eastern outskirts of Mosul, which they entered nine days ago amid fierce fighting.

Above Footage shows Peshmerga forces continue to clear the recently recaptured town of Bashiqa of improvised explosive devices left by Islamic State militants.

****What next for Islamic State? Incubating areas of sanctuary and they are.

In part from Rand: First, insurgent groups that lose territory generally need to find sanctuaries that allow them to rest, resupply their depleted forces, and plan future operations. In some cases, these safe havens are outside the country. In Afghanistan, the Taliban’s leadership and many of its fighters fled to neighboring Pakistan after their defeat in 2001 at the hands of U.S. and Afghan forces. Over the next several years, the Taliban used its safe havens in Pakistan to restart the war in Afghanistan, where it remains a significant threat to the Afghan state today. Similarly, Fidel Castro and his surly band of communist rebels suffered a debilitating defeat in July 1953 against the Cuban government in the city of Santiago de Cuba. But Castro eventually reorganized in Mexico, plotted his next steps in relative security, and eventually overthrew the government of Fulgencio Batista in 1959.

Sometimes adequate sanctuaries are available inside the country. In Somalia, al-Shabab lost virtually all of the territory it once controlled following military operations by the African Union Mission in Somalia, Somali government, allied clan militias, and U.S. forces from 2011 to 2015. But al-Shabab found a sanctuary in the Jubba River valley in southern Somalia among allied clans, and it has since waged a violent terrorist campaign in Somalia and neighboring countries like Kenya.

Islamic State leaders already appear to appreciate the importance of sanctuaries. Where the Islamic State has already lost territory in Iraq, such as in Ramadi and Fallujah, its fighters have melted away into the dense agricultural and desert areas around urban centers. Operating out of these jazirah (“isolated”) areas, the Islamic State could replicate the model it perfected a decade ago under the name “al Qaeda in Iraq” by sustaining itself through low-level criminal activity, storing weapons caches for extended operations, and executing a grueling murder and intimidation campaign. Islamic State fighters can also leverage the territory the group currently controls in Syria, which extends north of Raqqa and southeast along the Euphrates River to the Syrian-Iraqi border. This sanctuary was essential for the Islamic State’s resurgence in 2014.

Insurgent groups that face more powerful adversaries generally adopt a guerrilla strategy.

Second, insurgent groups that face more powerful adversaries generally adopt a guerrilla strategy rather than attempting to wage a conventional campaign and fight their enemies in pitched battles. A guerrilla strategy involves the use of military and political resources to mobilize a local population, conduct hit-and-run attacks rather than face the enemy directly on the battlefield, and undermine the government’s will to fight. Guerrilla warfare is attractive to groups that are significantly weaker than government security forces, which is why a guerrilla campaign is sometimes likened to a “war of the flea.”

For T.E. Lawrence, the British officer and advisor to Arab insurgents against the Ottoman Empire, guerrilla campaigns were the sine qua non of insurgent warfare, and mobility and hit-and-run attacks were their essential tactic. He wrote in The Evolution of a Revolt: “Granted mobility, security (in the form of denying targets to the enemy), time, and doctrine (the idea to convert every subject to friendliness), victory will rest with the insurgents, for the algebraical factors are in the end decisive.”

Most successful insurgent groups have utilized guerrilla strategies. In Guinea-Bissau, Amilcar Cabral and his African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde (PAIGC) adopted a successful guerrilla campaign to win independence from Portugal. The PAIGC spent more than a decade conducting hit-and-run attacks against Portuguese forces until Guinea-Bissau became independent from Portugal in 1974. In South Africa, African National Congress (ANC) leaders began preparations in 1963 for Operation Mayibuye, which involved organizing and implementing a guerrilla strategy against the government. It was orchestrated by the ANC’s military wing, Umkhonto we Sizwe, and contributed to the end of the apartheid government in South Africa by 1994.

Today, the Islamic State faces a powerful coalition of adversaries that includes seasoned Kurdish Peshmerga, Iraqi security forces, Sunni Arab militias, Shiite militias, and U.S. and other coalition military power. If the Islamic State has any hope of surviving the loss of Mosul, its leaders will likely shift to a classic guerrilla campaign that includes ambushes, raids, sabotage, targeted assassinations, and suicide attacks. The Islamic State waged a successful conventional campaign in 2014 when its fighters from Syria surged across the border into Iraq’s Anbar province in large columns of mechanized and even armored vehicles, joining operatives that had already been active in Fallujah and Ramadi. Clashes often took the form of set battles, trench warfare, and town sieges. But the Islamic State no longer faces such parity, making guerrilla warfare its only viable option. More here.

Mourning at the WH, the FBI and Keith Ellison

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The ‘peaceful and smooth’ transition is not all that by a long stretch beneath the first layer.

Image result for trump obama press conference    

The Obama team refuses to look outward and understand the reasons for the mood and anger across America. Being in a bubble, filled with liberal hot air and ‘yes’ people all of like mind distorted their view and denial became an incurable disease. The same goes for the whole Hillary camp….

Then Harry Reid who is soon to be put to the political pasture wanted to be sure he gets his last words in.

Harry Reid calls Trump ‘sexual predator’ who fueled his campaign with hate

Then there is the point person as the face of the Democrat National Convention, the whole party…who could it be? Well, almost the worst of the worst, Keith Ellison and he is getting huge support from all corners of the progressives in both Houses. Anyone taken another look at Minneapolis lately?

Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), who is expected to be the incoming Senate minority leader, has thrown his support behind Rep. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.) to be the next chairman of the Democratic National Committee.

The backing provides a major boost to the expected candidacy of Ellison, who has the support of several liberal lawmakers, including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and an array of progressive advocacy groups. More here from WaPo. This would be a stellar time again to declare the Muslim Brotherhood a terror organization if Ellison is elevated to the chairman slot….sheesh

***

Obama’s West Wing ponders the apocalypse

Panic has taken hold all over the White House after Donald Trump’s upset victory.

Politico: President Barack Obama and aides are keeping smiles on their faces, but a sense of doom has descended on the White House.

Not two days ago, Obama was campaigning against the existential threat that a President Donald Trump posed to America and the world, mocking the idea of giving the nuclear codes to a man who had to have his Twitter account taken away from him over weekend.

That man is getting the nuclear codes, along with all the rest of the presidency: a pen that can in a moment wipe out the Iran nuclear deal that Obama argued was the only way to hold off mushroom clouds in the Middle East; a Congress eager to join him in destroying the Obamacare law that the president says has saved lives and will save more; a military; a bully pulpit where now every word he says is policy; an affirmation that he should be the model that children aspire to; an empowerment of forces of white nationalism and disrespect that Obama called dark and hateful and warned would be only more empowered if Trump won.

But the freakout has been kept in check — in public, at least. Obama stood calmly on Wednesday afternoon promising a smooth transition, coolly urging supporters and disappointed voters to nurse their wounds and get back into the arena.

The world order has been shaken. Everything that everyone thought they knew about politics is wrong.

Wednesday, White House press secretary Josh Earnest diplomatically touched on those ideas, while insisting that inviting into the Oval Office a man he repeatedly called “unfit” for the job does not carry an air of insincerity. Earnest would not directly answer whether Obama is now worried about turning over the nuclear codes, or whether the president believes the world now faces a heightened chance of nuclear war.

“I’m not going to speculate on what sort of actions President-elect Trump may choose to prioritize or pursue,” Earnest said when asked about nuclear war.
His only answer when asked whether Obama is worried about turning over the nuclear codes: “The election’s over, and it’s been decided,” reasserting that the president’s disagreements with the president-elect are “rather profound.”

Earnest then several times referenced the importance of the U.S. alliance with South Korea: North Korea is growing ever more aggressive in its nuclearization, and Trump has previously expressed ambivalence about American involvement.

Asked about the existential threat to American democracy that Obama had said a President Trump represents, Earnest replied, “The president made a forceful argument, and he stands by that argument. But the time for making that argument has passed. The American people have rendered their judgment.”

An hour earlier, in the Rose Garden, Obama recalled that he told America on Tuesday — when he, like most others, thought Hillary Clinton would win — that after the election, “the sun would come up in the morning — and that was one prognostication that turned out to be true.”

The sun came up. But that doesn’t change how terrified Obama and Clinton, like many others, are about where America and the world will be in four years. The furthest Obama could bring himself to go was to say he had “hope” that Trump would be invested in unity, respect for American institutions, the nation’s way of life and the rule of law.

Obama, watching the returns come in from the White House residence until late into the night, was stunned and disappointed, Earnest said.

In public, and in talking with small groups of staffers, Obama was upbeat.

“This was a long and hard-fought campaign. A lot of our fellow Americans are exultant today, and a lot of Americans are less so, but that’s the nature of campaigns. That’s the nature of democracy,” Obama said. “It’s not always inspiring. But to the young people who got into politics for the first time and may be disappointed by the results, I just want you to know, you have to stay encouraged. Don’t get cynical. Don’t ever think you can’t make a difference.”

The White House staffers who massed in the Rose Garden to hear some kind of comfort or explanation wept and hugged, the shock running through their bodies.

They applauded loudly for two minutes after Obama and Vice President Joe Biden walked back into the Oval Office, ignoring shouted questions that included “Is Obamacare over?” and “Are you scared?”

But everything he and they worked for seems set to be ripped out by the roots. Four years is a very long time, especially with Republican majorities in the House and Senate that might grow only larger with the 2018 midterms.

“We owe him an open mind and a chance to succeed,” Clinton said in her own concession speech.

Earnest pushed back on the suggestion that the Obama legacy is toast. Trump would face difficult real-world consequences in following through on some of his campaign promises, he argued, between potentially ballooning the deficit and spiking health care costs. Meanwhile, House Speaker Paul Ryan and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell both said Wednesday that they’re going to move to repeal Obamacare quickly, and that would be only the start.

But Earnest admitted that he’d had to practice just saying the words “President-elect Trump.”

It’s a neck-breaking whiplash from the valedictory trip that Obama took through New Hampshire, Michigan and Pennsylvania (all states he won twice, and two of which were part of the collapse that took the presidency from Clinton).

White House chief of staff Denis McDonough, meanwhile, walked through the Rose Garden after Obama finished speaking. Asked whether he’d take questions, he smiled tightly and said, “No.”

Earnest shared the message he said he’s been telling his own staff.

“People say adversity builds character,” Earnest said. “I’m not sure that’s true. I think adversity reveals character.”

*****

Clinton Aide Blame FBI director, media for devastating loss

TheHill: Top aides to Hillary Clinton are blaming FBI Director James Comey and the media for the Democrat’s devastating loss in the presidential election.

Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta, communications director Jennifer Palmieri and other Clinton aides sought to provide explanations during a private conference call Thursday with supporters of the Democratic nominee for a loss that to many came out of nowhere.
They were pressed on the call for answers and insight from supporters stung by the surprise loss.

At one point on the call, Podesta noted that Comey is the guy “who we think may have cost us the election,” according to one Clinton surrogate who relayed details about the call to The Hill.

Another unidentified aide also seemed to blame Comey.

“We saw turnout down and didn’t do nearly as well as we thought. Something happened and it happened in a pretty steady way late in the race,” the aide said, according to the surrogate.

The surrogate said the clear message from the call was that Comey had contributed to the declining turnout.

“That last week, it was just one too many things,” Palmieri added later, referring to the post-Comey final week of the campaign.

Comey on Oct. 28 shocked Washington and Democrats by telling Congress that the FBI had discovered new emails related to its investigation of Clinton’s use of a private email server as secretary of State. The FBI had decided against making criminal charges against Clinton over the summer for her handling of classified information on that server.

Polls between Clinton and Republican Donald Trump had already tightened with the Comey news broke, and the race appeared to get closer over the next week.

On Nov. 6, Comey said the FBI had not found any information in the new emails that would change its original decision that Clinton should not be charged.

Aides also blamed the media for the loss.

“The media always covered her as the person who would be president and therefore tried to eviscerate her before the election, but covered Trump who was someone who was entertaining and sort of gave him a pass,” Podesta said. “We need to reflect and analyze that and put our voices forward.”

Trump during the campaign frequently criticized the media for being too hard on him.

Podesta, whose hacked emails were released by WikiLeaks over the campaign’s final stretch, said top Clinton aides will argue that the press created a “false moral equivalency” in its coverage of Clinton and Trump.

The campaign chairman blamed the press for “the dominance of the way they covered the email” controversy, saying it overlooked “the conflicts of Trump’s businesses, the Russian contacts we are now learning to be true, the failure of the press following the 3-page leak to the New York Times to really dig into the income tax question.”

The Times in October published an explosive story that suggested Trump may not have paid income taxes for more than a decade. Trump had also been criticized for possible business dealings in Russia.

“We need to be mindful of the fact that they’re going to continue, they won’t quit, they’re going to continue to throw mud,” he said of the press, adding that Clinton supporters need to “defend her and her legacy and the kind of person she is.”

Surrogates on the call who asked questions included donor J.B. Pritzker, Ready for Hillary co-founder Allida Black and strategist Maria Cardona. Black cried at one point during the call.

Palmieri also acknowledged the campaign is still looking for answers.

“Thirty-six hours after the most devastating loss in the history of American politics, we’re looking at a white board right now with lots of ideas,” Palmieri said. “We’re sort of figuring out what we need to do this week, and what we need Democrats to do in the next two months ahead of the inaugural.

“I don’t have a real answer except to say we have ideas about what works needs to be done and hope there are people in a position to do that. We’re trying to figure it out.”

Trump’s Transition Team to the White House

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Update: 11/11/16:

Politico: President-elect Donald Trump has shaken up his transition team just days after winning the White House, replacing New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie with Vice President-elect Mike Pence at the helm of the effort that will shape his administration when it begins in January, according to a source close to Trump.

While Christie has long been a high-profile surrogate and member of Trump’s inner circle, his viability as part of the team was thrown into question when two of his close allies were convicted on charges of fraud and conspiracy elated to the Bridgegate scandal.

The source said Christie “will still be around”- hardly a ringing endorsement – and that Sen. Jeff Session’s chief of staff, Rick Dearborn, will help run the transition effort, especially the day-to-day operations.

2017 PRESIDENTIAL TRANSITION CHECKLIST

Donald Trump’s transition team has added a number of policy and personnel experts over the past week and will likely continue adding many more in the weeks to come. Transition teams usually have more volunteers than paid staff members and number in the hundreds by Election Day.

Until then, both transition teams will focus on developing a policy agenda, identifying hires to fill a staff of about 4,000 in the executive branch and fundraising. So far, Trump’s transition team has added a number of experienced policy experts, former advisers and officials, and lobbyists, as well as a mix of both conservative and establishment Republicans to its roster. Trump’s transition team, as of Oct 1, 2016.

Transition teams focus on three big tasks.

  1. Fundraising: Of course, transition teams are in part funded by Congress. However, they still need to raise funds to cover all expenses. The Partnership for Public Service estimates that Clinton and Trump will each need to raise $4 million to $5 million to pay for pre-election and post-election expenses.
  2. Government Appointments: A new administration has the responsibility to fill roughly 4,000 politically appointed positions within the executive branch (about one-quarter of which will require Senate confirmation). Members of each transition team will vigorously vet and screen candidates to create shortlists of candidates for these positions.

Policy Preparation: Both candidates must produce a clear policy agenda that can be put into action on Day 1 in office. This process requires the transition teams to go through intensive research and deliver an actionable policy strategy. For the complete report by Politico, go here.

trans-team-1 trans-team-2 trans-team-3 trans-team-5 trans-team-6

 

Sid Blumenthal was POC for Libya, Muslim Brotherhood

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 Leader of LIFG, Belhadj

Base of Operation:Mountain territory near Benghazi and al-Akhdar aside the Libyan northeast coasts. The Libyan Islamic Fighting Group began formation from return Libyan Afghans from the war against the soviets ending in 1989; however, was not officially established as a group until the year of 1995. Between then and the present, the group has gone through several mischievous movements of acting out against the government. Per the United Nations under the direction of the U.S. State Department during the Bush administration:

LIFG is believed to have several hundred members or supporters, mostly in the Middle East and Europe. Since the late 1990s, many LIFG members have fled from Libya to various Asian, Arabian Gulf, African, and European countries, particularly the United Kingdom. It is likely that LIFG has maintained a presence in eastern Libya and has facilitated the transfer of foreign fighters to Iraq.

Related listed individuals and entities:

Al-Itihaad al-Islamiya / AIAI (QDe.002), listed on 6 October 2001

Al-Qaida (QDe.004), listed on 6 October 2001

Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (QDe.089), listed on 10 October 2002

The Tunisian Combatant Group (QDe.090), listed on 10 October 2002

Aiman Muhammed Rabi al-Zawahiri (QDi.006), listed on 25 January 2001

Zayn al-Abidin Muhammad Hussein (QDi.010), listed on 25 January 2001

Hassan Dahir Aweys (QDi.042), listed on 9 November 2001

Ibrahim Ali Abu Bakr Tantoush (QDi.057), listed on 11 January 2002

Merai Zoghbai (QDi.223), listed on 2 August 2006

Aly Soliman Massoud Abdul Sayed (QDi.229), listed on 8 June 2007

Salem Nor Eldin Amohamed al-Dabski (QDi.231), listed on 8 June 2007

Adil Muhammad Mahmud Abd Al-Khaliq (QDi.255), listed on 10 October 2008

Hillary Clinton Knew She Was Helping Islamists Move Into Power In Libya

Howley/DC: Hillary Clinton received intelligence that her effort to bring down Libyan president Muammar Gaddafi was leading to the rise of al-Qaeda militants and the Muslim Brotherhood in the country, according to emails released by WikiLeaks.

More than a year before the Benghazi attack, Clinton learned that al-Qaeda terrorists were infiltrating the post-Gadaffi transitional government. Clinton also acknowledged that the Muslim Brotherhood wielded the “real power” in the rebel movement that Clinton was supporting — and that their Brotherhood allies in Egypt were waiting in the wings to move into Libya’s oil sector.

Clinton received a “CONFIDENTIAL” memo from Sidney Blumenthal on March 27, 2011. The subject of the email was “Re: Lots of new intel; Libyan army possibly on verge of collapse.”

Blumenthal explained that “radical/terrorist” groups were “infiltrating the NLC,” or National Libyan Council, a rebel quasi-government that earned French recognition as Libya’s governing body that very same month. Clinton was warned that al-Qaeda could become major players in the region.

Blumenthal wrote:

“This situation has become increasingly frustrating for French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who, according to knowledgeable individuals, is pressing to have France emerge from this crisis as the principal foreign ally of any new government that takes power. Sarkozy is also concerned about continuing reports that radical/terrorist groups such as the Libyan Fighting Groups and Al Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) are infiltrating the NLC and its military command. Accordingly, he asked sociologist who has long established ties to Israel, Syria, and other B6 nations in the Middle East, to use his contacts to determine the level of influence AQIM and other. terrorist groups have inside of the NLC. Sarkozy also asked for reports setting out a clear picture of the role of the Muslim Brotherhood in the rebel leadership…

…(Source Comment: Senior European security officials caution that AQIM is watching developments in Libya, and elements of that organization have been in touch with tribes in the southeastern part of the country. These officials are concerned that in a post-Qaddafi Libya, France and other western European countries must move quickly to ensure that the new government does not allow AQIM and others to set up small, semi- autonomous local entities—or “Caliphates”—in the oil and gas producing regions of southeastern Libya.)”

On May 30, 2011, Hillary aide Jake Sullivan sent the secretary of state a full list of known “Libya emissaries.” By then, the National Libyan Council had given way to the Transitional National Council (TNC), but the “real power” still lay with the Muslim Brotherhood.

Sullivan’s intelligence memo noted:

“The Qadhafi regime has also met with the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood leadership in Egypt. According to Qadhafi chief of staff Fouad Zlitni, the Muslim Brotherhood asserts that TNC may be the political leadership of the opposition, but the real power lies with the Libyan Brotherhood and they are apparently willing to bide their time. The Qadhafi regime also offered to send senior tribal leaders to Benghazi to negotiate with the TNC, but the TNC rejected the proposal.”

Clinton forwarded that email to an aide, acknowledging that she had received it and assessed its contents.

Sidney Blumenthal wrote to Clinton again on July 3, 2012, two months before Benghazi, to talk about the upcoming election. The election, Blumenthal noted, was how the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt was hoping to use the new Brotherhood party in Libya to get into the Libyan oil game.

Blumenthal wrote:

“Source Comment: In the opinion of a knowledgeable individual, the division of the 200 seats in the GNC lies at the heart of this matter, with 120 seats allotted for the Tripolitania, 60 for Barqa, and 18 for the Fezzan area. At present, the Libyan Muslim Brotherhood (LMB) and its political arm, the Justice and Construction Party (JCP), are attempting to mount a national campaign, receiving discreet advice and technical support from the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood (EMB). With this assistance, Jalil is convinced that the JCP is the party that operates most effectively throughout the country. Jalil has established ties to the EMB, from whom he has learned that JCP leader Mohamad Sowan and his associates are working with the leadership of the EMB.) 4.According to his sources, Jalil believes that he can work with Sowan and the LMB/JCP; however, he is concerned that Mohammed Morsi, the newly elected EMB President of Egypt, and EMB Supreme Guide Mohammed Badie are focused on developing Egyptian influence in Libya. Jalil has been informed privately that these EMB leaders want to establish a strong position in Libya, particularly in the oil services sector as part of their effort to improve Egypt’s economic situation.

Over in Egypt, Clinton helped spur the uprising that led to the Muslim Brotherhood briefly taking power in that country around the same time. And a young Clinton Foundation employee, Gehad El-Haddad, was already working in Cairo to help the Muslim Brotherhood gain power.

El-Haddad was arrested in 2013, following the brief and disastrous reign of Muslim Brotherhood leader Mohammed Morsi, for inciting violence. He was reportedly one of Morsi’s top advisers. El-Haddad was sentenced to life in prison in 2015.

 

 

Contractors: ” Hillary Broke all the Rules”

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Primer: JWICS =

The Joint Worldwide Intelligence Communications System, is a Top Secret/SCI network run by the United States’ Defense Intelligence Agency and used across the Department of Defense, Department of State, Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice to transmit especially sensitive classified information.

FNC/EXCLUSIVE: Two State Department contractors, with decades of experience protecting the United States’ most sensitive secrets, are speaking out for the first time about Hillary Clinton’s tenure as secretary of state and how the rules for government security clearance holders did not seem to apply to Clinton and her team.

“The State Department was her oyster and it was great for the [Clinton] foundation and great for the Clintons to be able to have such a great position,” Dave Whitnah told Fox News.

Whitnah said he worked within the State Department’s Office of Security Technology which is responsible for cameras and alarms and sweeping for bugs. Whitnah said everyone understood the secretary of state is the primary target of foreign intelligence services.

“The number one person would be the secretary of state and their communications,” Whitnah explained. “You can think of the Iran negotiations, nuclear negotiation, negotiations with Russia, talks with Russia. You know, anything to do with foreign policy.”

Whitnah emphasized that tens of millions of dollars were spent on technical security for Clinton that apparently was disregarded as her team traveled around the world on official U.S. government business.

“It was unfathomable that [her BlackBerry] would be used for anything other than just unclassified communication,” Whitnah said. Clinton’s devices were not certified as secure by the State Department. As for her use of a non-secure BlackBerry, Whitnah stressed that email can be intercepted and, “Even if turned off, it’s still a listening device so that’s why you take out the batteries.”

As Clinton was sworn in as secretary in January 2009, government contractor Amel Smith said he was also working at the department and: “State Department rules are clear. I helped write those rules.”

Smith says his 30 years of experience includes serving in the U.S. Army’s 82nd Airborne, before becoming a counter-intelligence and counter-espionage investigator at State tracking down breaches of classified materials. He reviewed some of the FBI witness interviews from the Clinton email investigation with Fox News, and questioned those who claimed not to have the proper training in handling sensitive information.

“I hear things like, well, I forgot, um, I don’t know that I was trained, I don’t know this. You know — every single person that had access to that information when it was sent is in violation,” Smith emphasized.

The FBI witness interviews also show secure facilities for classified information — known as SCIFs — were specially built for Clinton in her in Washington, D.C., and Chappaqua, N.Y., homes. Doors that were supposed to be locked were left open.

“If you’ve got an uncleared person in there, it’s automatically a compromise,” Smith said.

Another FBI interview summary said there were personally owned desktop computers in the secure facilities at Clinton’s homes, yet she told the FBI that she did not have a computer of any kind in these facilities.

“If somebody said they’re there, then they probably were there, and you know, the reason you would deny it was because you probably didn’t have approval,” Smith said.

Having unapproved computers in a SCIF would automatically call for a security investigation.

Asked for his reaction to Clinton’s claim that nothing she sent or received was marked classified, Whitnah called that assertion a “misrepresentation.” Fox News was first to report in June that at least one of the emails contained a classified information portion marking for “c” which is confidential. FBI Director James Comey later said in July when he recommended against criminal charges that a handful of Clinton emails contained classified markings.

But more than 2,100 emails with classified information, and at least 22 at the “top secret” level, passed through Clinton’s unsecured private server. Asked how it happened, Smith said, “Personally, there had to have been somebody moving classified information from C-LAN, C-LAN again is Secret, Confidential only, and JWICS. JWICS is where all top secret information is.”

After new emails were found in the Anthony Weiner sexting case belonging to his estranged wife Clinton aide Huma Abedin, the FBI reopened the Clinton email investigation. On Sunday, Comey said the emails did not change his recommendation against criminal charges because his investigators did not find intent to move classified materials outside secure government channels

“Whether it’s the private email server, whether it’s this private laptop. If there’s classified — one document on there — that’s classified, it’s a violation. Somebody violated [the] law,” Smith said. “Throw all the politics out the window, what we’re talking about is the defense of this nation.”

Asked about Smith and Whitnah, who filed a complaint against the State Department, a department spokesman said they were not direct hires — adding that the head of diplomatic security told the FBI that Clinton was “very responsive to security issues.”

****

And her State Department approved that security team in Benghazi

Benghazi guards turned on US diplomats in 2012 attack, sources say

stevenspic1Expand / Contract

Stevens, shown in rear wearing black, with several of the guards sources say turned on him. (Special to Fox News)

FNC: An obscure private firm hired by the State Department over internal objections to protect U.S. diplomats in Benghazi just months before the American ambassador and three others were killed was staffed with hastily recruited locals with terror ties who helped carry out the attack, multiple sources told Fox News.

The explosive charge against Wales-based Blue Mountain Group comes from several sources, including an independent security specialist who has implemented training programs at U.S. Consulates around the world, including in Benghazi, where he trained a local militia that preceded Blue Mountain. The source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said Blue Mountain used local newspaper ads to assemble a team of 20 guards, many of whom had terror ties, after securing a $9.2 million annual contract.

“The guards who were hired were locals who were part of the Ansar al-Sharia and Al Qaeda groups operating in Benghazi,” said the source, whose assignment in Benghazi had ended in November 2011. “Whoever approved contracts at the State Department hired Blue Mountain Group and then allowed Blue Mountain Group to hire local Libyans who were not vetted.”

TIMELINE OF CLINTON’S BENGHAZI STATEMENTS

Many were members of the Libyan government-financed February 17th Martyrs Brigade, an Islamist militia that had previously guarded Americans before being replaced by Blue Mountain.

John “Tig” Tiegen, one of the CIA contractors that responded to the Sept. 11, 2012 attack and co-author of “13 Hours: The Inside Account of What Really Happened in Benghazi,” confirmed to Fox News that the local Libyans who attacked the consulate that night included guards working for Blue Mountain.

“Many of the local Libyans who attacked the consulate on the night of Sept. 11, 2012, were the actual  guards that the State Department under Hillary Clinton hired to protect the Consulate in Benghazi,” Tiegen told Fox News. “The guards were unvetted and were locals with basically no background at all in providing security. Most of them never had held a job in security in the past.

“Blue Mountain Libya, at the time of being awarded the contract by our State Department, had no employees so they quickly had to find people to work, regardless of their backgrounds,” he said.

One former guard who witnessed the attack, Weeam Mohamed, confirmed in an email sent to the Citizens Commission on Benghazi and obtained by Fox News, that at least four of the guards hired by Blue Mountain took part in the attack after opening doors to allow their confederates in.

“In the U.S. Mission, there were four people [who] belonged to the battalion February 17,” Mohamed wrote to the Commission, an independent body formed with Accuracy in Media to investigate the attack and the administration’s handling of it.

“Always armed. And they are free to move anywhere inside a building mission.

“And therefore, they had a chance to do an attack on the mission’s headquarters. They have all the details about the place. At the same time they have given the United States a painful blow,” Mohamed wrote.

Blue Mountain officials did not return multiple requests for comment. The State Department acknowledged in internal emails obtained by FoxNews.com the local recruits fell short of their duty, but discounted the claim any took an active role in the attack that resulted in the deaths of Ambassador Christopher Stevens, Foreign Service Information Officer Sean Smith and CIA contractors and former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.

“While the Accountability Review Board report and other reports were critical of our local guards’ performance, we are not aware of any evidence that they participated in the attacks themselves,” said State Department spokesman John Kirby.

Blue Mountain was hired in February 2012, following an uprising that ended Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s 42-year rule and plunged Libya into violent chaos. Congressional testimony in the wake of the attack on a consular office in Benghazi revealed that Stevens and his staff had made hundreds of requests for security upgrades but had been ignored by officials in Washington.

“We kept asking for additional support, including a 50-caliber mounted machine gun, but the State Department would not give it to us, because they said it would upset the locals,” the source told Fox News. “Instead, the State Department hired a company that doesn’t have employees, which then hired terrorists.”

Clare Lopez, a member of Citizens’ Commission on Benghazi, said the Clinton State Department bears blame for the security situation.

“Think about it: Hillary Clinton’s State Department actually hired the very people who, along with their jihadist allies in Benghazi, attacked us and killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens and Sean Smith as well as CIA contractors Glen Doherty and Ty Woods,” Lopez said.

According to government records obtained by the Washington-based Judicial Watch, the State Department was in a “rush” to hire Blue Mountain UK, and its affiliate, Blue Mountain Libya, which together formed The Blue Mountain Group to secure the Benghazi contract.

“I understand there was a tremendous rush to get the original contract awarded, and the Service level agreement was most likely overlooked in the rush,” wrote State Department contracting officer Jan Visintainer, in a June 6, 2012, email. Emails obtained from [missing word] after the attack showed Visintainer urged Blue Mountain officials not to talk to the media.

Blue Mountain UK was formed in 2008 by David Nigel Thomas, a former Special Air Service official. Charles Tiefer, a commissioner at the Commission on Wartime Contracting, told Reuters the company was not well known.

“Blue Mountain was virtually unknown to the circles that studied private security contractors working for the United States, before the events in Benghazi,” Tiefer said.

Despite the size of the operation, and having no staff or track record with the State Department, Blue Mountain Group landed the $767,767-per-month contract to protect the Benghazi consular office, beginning on Feb. 17, 2012.

The company solicited applications in local newspapers and on websites, and very little, if any, screening of guards was done, the security specialist told Fox News. The lack of vetting led to several potentially dangerous hires beginning in March of 2012, he said.

“One of those guards hired by Blue Mountain was the younger brother of the leader of Al Qaeda of Benghazi,” he said.

In an email obtained by Judicial Watch, Jairo Saravia of the Regional Security office for the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli, told his superiors in Washington that Blue Mountain had held and lost security contracts in Tripoli, with the Corinthian Hotel and Palm City complex.

“The latest information is Blue Mountain is not licensed by the GOL (Government of Libya) to provide security services in Libya,” Saravia wrote. “I would advise not to use their services to provide security for any of our annexes and/or offices due to the sensitivity this issue has with the current GOL.”

Prior to Blue Mountain, security for Americans in Benghazi had been provided by the February 17th Martyrs Brigade under a direct agreement with the State Department. Despite its Islamist orientation, the militia included dozens of locals who had been carefully cultivated and trained by the U.S., according to the source. The majority of the February 17 Militia guards were fired without warning when Blue Mountain was hired, leading some members to turn against the Americans, he said. The State Department kept on at least three February 17 employees for patrol.

Eric Nordstrom, the regional security officer in Libya who has vast, first-hand knowledge of some 600 security requests denied to the U.S. diplomatic mission in Libya, testified on May 8, 2013, before the Congressional Committee On Oversight & Government Reform that he was aware that employees with both February 17 Martyrs Brigade and Blue Mountain had ties to Islamist terrorists.

“I had met with some of my agents and then also with some annex personnel. We discussed that,” Nordstrom told lawmakers.

Nordstrom testified that the “ferocity and intensity” of the 13-hour, four-phase attack, on the 11th anniversary of 9/11, was nothing that they had seen in Libya, or that he had seen in his time in the Diplomatic Security Service, with as many as 60 attackers in the consulate.

“I am stunned that the State Department was relying on [locals] with extremist ties to protect American diplomats,” U.S. Rep. Blake Farenthold, R-Texas, told Fox News. “That doesn’t make any sense. How does that happen?”

Fox News was able to verify through a former Libyan guard the identities of several February 17 employees hired despite terrorist ties, who he said participated in the attack. While their identities have been provided to federal authorizes, none have been prosecuted.