National Strategy to Win the War Against Islamist Terror

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Related reading: Foreign Terrorist Organizations, Bureau of Counterterrorism

Chairman McCaul Unveils Counterterrorism Strategy “A National Strategy to Win the War Against Islamist Terror”

Contains 100+ policy ideas and principles for fighting terrorism

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On the heels of Islamist terror attacks in the homeland this past weekend, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) today unveiled his counterterrorism strategy, entitled A National Strategy to Win the War Against Islamist Terror. Chairman McCaul’s nonpartisan strategy contains over 100 policy ideas, recommendations, and principles for fighting terrorism.

The ideas put forward in the McCaul strategy were developed in consultation with an array of national security experts on both sides of the aisle. They are not “Republican” or “Democrat” ideas, but rather common-sense solutions for better protecting Americans.

Chairman McCaul: “As radical Islamist terror continues to sweep the globe, it has become clear that we are not winning the overall fight against it. There are now more terrorist foot soldiers and safe havens than any time in modern history, and our enemies have alarming momentum. They are reaching deep into the heart of the Western world—including our own communities—to spread their hateful ideology and perpetrate violent acts. Just this weekend we saw again that our homeland remains a terrorist target, and they have attacked our allies in places like Paris, Brussels, Nice, and beyond. Yet in recent years our strategy and policies have failed to roll back the threat, let alone contain it. That is why I’ve produced a new, national counterterrorism strategy aimed at reversing the tide of terror and protecting our great nation. The eyes of the world are now upon us, and American leadership is needed to defeat this evil.  My plan is a guidepost—for Congress and the next president—to do what is needed to win this generational struggle.”

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Overview of the Strategy

The McCaul strategy contains 100+ policy ideas and principles for fighting terrorism. Some are new, while others are abandoned policies we need to revive in order to protect America and its interests overseas against the surging terror threat.

The document is built around clear objectives: defend the homeland, defeat terrorists, and deny extremists the opportunity to re-emerge. It presents nine counterterrorism priorities, or “means,” needed to achieve the “ends” described above, including:

  1. Thwart attacks and protect our communities
  2. Stop recruitment and radicalization at home
  3. Keep terrorists out of America
  4. Take the fight to the enemy
  5. Combat terrorist travel and cut off financial resources
  6. Deny jihadists access to weapons of mass destruction
  7. Block terrorists from returning to the battlefield
  8. Prevent the emergence of new networks and safe havens
  9. Win the battle of ideas

This counterterrorism strategy is different than those that came before it. President Bush released a strategy for combating terrorism in 2003, and President Obama released one in 2011. Both are now outdated.

  • This strategy is written to keep pace with an evolving enemy. It proposes ways to fight terrorist propaganda online; counter homegrown radicalization; deal with terrorists’ use of encryption; and help communities better protect against IEDs, active shooter plots, and other changing terror tactics.
  • This strategy aims to bring our homeland security policies into the digital age. It proposes to improve the screening of foreign visitors, immigrants, and refugees using new technologies and better intelligence—including social media—to keep terrorists from infiltrating our country.
  • This strategy focuses on breaking the Islamist terror movement—not just defeating one group. Our nation’s last official counterterrorism strategy focused almost exclusively on al Qaeda, leaving us blind to the rise of ISIS. This plan is designed to go after Islamist terrorists, regardless of location or branding.

The bottom line is this: we cannot accept Islamist terror attacks as “the new normal.” We must defeat the perpetrators. The McCaul strategy makes clear that we are facing a long, generational struggle, but we should wage it with the same resolve we showed in defeating other totalitarian ideologies, including communism and fascism.

The full strategy is available, here.

Russian/Assad Barbarity in Aleppo, Orders from IRGC

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Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, senior advisor to the commander in chief and former commander of the IRGC.

Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, senior advisor to the supreme leader and former commander of the IRGC.

Commander: IRGC supplies intelligence to Russia for airstrikes in Syria

A top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander told Iranian media last week that the Guard and allies supply intelligence to Russia for airstrikes in Syria. Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, who is senior advisor to the supreme leader and was IRGC chief commander from 1997 through 2007, made the remarks in a lengthy television interview on Sept. 22.

“The Russians are responsible for aerial support of ground units, meaning those who are fighting on the ground are the Syrian army, Syrian popular forces, and some advisory forces and/or Hezbollah forces. Russia largely plays the role of supporting these [forces] by air,” Safavi said.

“Many victories like the capture of Aleppo would not have been possible without movement on the ground and only with air support,” Safavi continued. “The Russian air support was of course effective, but the ground forces gave them the intelligence that, for example, [told them] which terrorists were in what area.”

There is a kernel of truth to these statements. The IRGC-led Shiite expeditionary forces, which are comprised of IRGC proxies from Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Pakistan, were instrumental in the encircling of the rebel-held eastern Aleppo city in late July, and the reimposition of the siege in early September after the coalition of Islamists, Salafists, and rebels broke the initial siege in early August. A relentless and intense Russian bombing campaign has been a crucial factor in the successes of the pro-regime coalition. [See LWJ report, Soleimani’s presence in Aleppo underscores strategy of crushing rebels.]

Safavi, however, overplays the role that the Syrian Arab Army and the IRGC-backed Syrian National Defense Forces, a pro-regime militia, have played in the recent battles for Aleppo in order to bury the extent to which Assad relies on foreign patrons as foot soldiers and planners in arguably the most important battle of the civil war yet.

The ground forces in Aleppo have been primarily led by Iranian military officers in coordination Russian and Syrian officers. The deaths of senior IRGC commanders attest to the their involvement.

Safavi says that units under the supervision of IRGC or Hezbollah operatives, which have had a more active presence in Syria in recent years, conduct on-the-ground intelligence collection. The main planning and target selection would be coordinated between the Iranians, Russians, and Syrians. The first two may take the lead.

Based on Safavi’s statements, collection for Russian sorties elsewhere in which Syrian forces have more presence may fall on them, under the direction of Russian officers.

The strategic command headquarters that oversees all operations includes Russians, Iranians, Syrians, and IRGC-backed proxy commanders. There is lingering tensions and mistrust in this alliance, particularly between the Iranians and Russians. For now, at least, they share intelligence towards the common objective of achieving military victory in Aleppo.

Amir Toumaj is a Research Analyst at Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

**** Why is this so important? The White Helmets and the Obama administration continues to ignore Russian barbarity in Syria for the sake of an already peace deal and or truce talks with Russia.

As noted here:

U.S. Was Warned of Attack on Aid Workers in Syria

The Obama administration, desperate to save a shattered Syrian ceasefire, seems to have ignored concrete intelligence of an atrocity to come.

Weiss: Two days prior to devastating aerial attacks, Michael Ratney, the U.S. special envoy to Syria, was told the Assad regime was planning to hit the Aleppo facilities of the Syrian Civil Defense, a volunteer rescue group.

Raed al-Saleh, the head of the organization, which is widely known as the White Helmets, was in Manhattan last week, where he told not only Ratney, but envoys from the Netherlands, Britain, and Canada. He said intercepted communications from military officers in the Assad regime signaled imminent plans to bomb several rescue centers, according to two sources who were in the room when al-Saleh was transmitting this intelligence.

“We just received a message from the spotters, just an hour ago, they detected messages from the regime radio that they will attack [Syrian Civil Defense] centers in northern Aleppo,” one of those sources jotted down during the meeting, quoting al-Saleh. “First with surface to surface to missiles and, if they miss, they will use spies on the ground to adjust coordinates and come back.”  Read more here from The Daily Beast.

Comey’s Testimony, Doesn’t Remember, Doesn’t Know

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Very few of the responses Comey gave in his testimony made any sense especially to former prosecutors unless you see that Comey has no worries about his job as he mentioned in the hearing he still has 7 years left on his government contract. He defended the entire FBI investigation and said he would do nothing different including based on new evidence he would be unlikely to re-open the investigation case. Sigh…

  A side note: When Hillary did meet with the FBI, she had 8 people with her, there were 4 from the FBI and 4 from the Department of Justice.

In fact, David Harsanyi, Senior Editor at The Federalist agrees with me.

This is a terribly sad dad for America relying on the FBI leadership and what is worse a terribly sad day in America for the fact that Hillary and her entire team operates with wild abandon.

So….

Sometimes, when convenient, Cheryl Mills is Hillary’s lawyer while other times just her aide de camp.

Meanwhile…AFTER the Congress served and order to preserve documents and records and issued a subpoena, Mills ordered the IT personnel to destroy the emails. The FBI ignored this condition as did the Department of Justice and issued Mills in fact complete immunity, which is to clarify immunity from obstruction and destruction of documents. The IT person finally did so many months later after the initial phone call with Mills and other lawyers using BleachBit.

Meanwhile, the FBI was able to gain access to a laptop computer that did in fact have emails on it and many of those emails were….YES ….classified. The laptop was not approved by the State Department or any other agency to have classified material.

Another meanwhile, you can watch the hearing today before the House Judiciary Committee where exacting questions were asked of FBI Director Comey and often his responses were: I don’t remember, I don’t know or I don’t see it that way.

The exchange with Congressman Jim Jordan and Congressman Darryl Issa (second round) were especially important.

FNC:

FBI Director James Comey testified Wednesday that former Hillary Clinton chief of staff Cheryl Mills and another top aide had “some” classified material on laptops they turned over to the bureau in its probe of Clinton’s private server use as secretary of state — yet the aides still received immunity.

Comey made the acknowledgment while testifying before the House Judiciary Committee, where Republicans had tough questions about a newly revealed set of immunity deals in the Clinton case.

The director claimed the findings did not constitute a crime but declined to directly answer a question on whether having classified material on a laptop or other private electronic device was against federal regulations.

“You’d have to know the circumstances,” Comey told committee Chairman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va.

The FBI’s two-year investigation into the private server found numerous Clinton server emails contained classified information and she was “extremely careless.”

However, the agency concluded the investigation without recommending criminal prosecution, and the Justice Department closed the case this summer.

“It seems clear that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton committed multiple felonies involving the passing of classified information through her private email server. The FBI, however, declined to refer the case for prosecution on some very questionable bases,” Goodlatte said Wednesday. “We, as Congress and the American people, are troubled how such gross negligence is not punished.”

Mills’ testimony in the FBI investigation and potential testimony before Congress was not covered in the immunity deal.

****

FNC: In her interviews, Hanley told the FBI that during her time at the State Department, she learned “specifically how to handle and transport classified information/paper but could not recall who provided the training.”

Two emails from Hanley were marked classified with a c for “confidential,” the lowest level of classification. Fox News first reported some of the emails contained classified markings despite Clinton’s public claims.

The FBI document said “Hanley received a Top Secret/SCI clearance at DoS.” Despite the training, during one trip to Russia, Hanley was specifically criticized for leaving a classified document in a hotel suite she shared with Clinton during the trip. “Hanley was informed by DS (Department of State) that the briefing book and document should have never been in the suite,” the document said.

She was also involved in the response to the hack by Guccifer, whose real name is Marcel Lehel Lazar.

It was during her second interview with the FBI on June 23 that Hanley finally revealed details of a conference call she had with Abedin and top Clinton Foundation fundraiser Cooper as they scrambled “over concerns related to a reported hack by Sidney Blumenthal’s email account” in the spring of 2013, first reported by The Smoking Gun.

In the latest documents, the FBI redacted another individual’s name who apparently was on that conference call.

Pentagon on drone threat to nuclear sites, then Hillary

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Stripes: MINOT AIR FORCE BASE, North Dakota— Throughout the agricultural fields that dominate North Dakota,150 Minuteman III nuclear intercontinental ballistic missiles are encased in silos in the ground.

Each silo contains one missile, dug into deep holes on private farmlands, three to 10 miles apart. From the air, the silos are hard to detect.

But the positions are in the open, except for an antenna and some fencing, so the sites are often approached by animals or non-threatening drones, said Col. Jason Beers, commander of the 91st Security Forces command at the base.

“There are a lot of [unmanned aerial vehicles] with commercial farming,” he said.

The base hasn’t had a security issue with drones at the silos, though there isn’t a lot they can do if they did, Beers said.

“It’s not restricted airspace,” he said.

The proliferation of drones in the United States and the potential security threat that they pose to the nuclear facilities, nuclear weapons storage areas and military installations has gained the attention of the Pentagon and Congress, a defense official told Stars and Stripes on the condition of anonymity.

“It’s certainly got more attention as it has become more common among our adversaries,” the official said. “Even [the Islamic State group] has played with UAVs.”

The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is developing potential defenses against an intruding drone, as are several private companies. The challenge is many of the methods that could be used to defend against a drone – whether shooting it down or disabling it with a laser or electronic or radio interference – could also harm nearby infrastructure or other aircraft.

But the Pentagon will also need the authority to contain or shoot down drones near the silos. Gaining the authorities and creating policy to defend silos against drones is a concern of Gen. Robin Rand, commander of Air Force Global Strike Command.

At the Air Force’s annual convention last week, Rand told reporters the proliferation of drones has the service working on options to best to protect the missile silos, bombers and weapons storage facilities under his care.

“I will tell you there have been recent examples of extended [UAVs] over some areas that we don’t particularly like them to be on — I’m not comfortable with that,” he said.

But the policy to deal with it has to come from multiple agencies that have jurisdiction, including the Federal Aviation Administration, the Department of Homeland Security, the Department of Defense and others, Rand said.

“It’s not just something where I can tell the guys to go out and take a shotgun and point it up and shoot down something flying over,” he said. “We as a nation need to deal with this potential emerging threat.”

Rep. Mike Rogers, R-Alabama, introduced legislation in this year’s National Defense Authorization Act to require the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy, which is responsible for securing the nation’s nuclear material and weapons and energy programs, to get started on a solution.

“Some of my colleagues and I have been tracking how these systems could pose a threat to national security. [UAV] incursions and unauthorized overflights of critical defense facilities continue to increase — and, unfortunately, the laws and regulations governing these things haven’t kept up,” Rogers said.

The bill passed the House, but is still being negotiated in the Senate.

“We have to face the fact that yes, the possibility exists” that a UAV could be used to attack a U.S. nuclear facility, Rand said. “We need to be able to deal with it.”

****

Then there is Hillary:

Clinton Privately Opposed Major U.S. Nuclear Upgrade

Dem nominee breaks with key Obama defense policy in previously unreleased recording

FreeBeacon: Hillary Clinton privately told supporters this year that she would likely scrap a major upgrade to the United States’ nuclear weapons program, according to leaked audio of her remarks.

At a private event in McLean, Va., in February, Clinton revealed that she would likely cancel plans to upgrade the nation’s cruise missile arsenal. “I certainly would be inclined to do that,” she told a questioner who asked about rolling back the Long Range Stand-Off (LRSO) missile program.

Audio of Clinton’s comments at a gathering of major campaign supporters in February were revealed by hackers who breached the email account of a campaign staffer. One email released by the hackers contained a recording of Clinton’s remarks and a subsequent question-and-answer session.

The LRSO question came from Andy Weber, a former assistant secretary of defense who oversaw the Pentagon’s nuclear weapons programs. He and William Perry, who served as secretary of defense under President Bill Clinton, called for the cancellation of the LRSO program last year.

“Will you cancel this program if President Obama doesn’t in the next 11 months and lead the world in a ban on this particularly destabilizing, dangerous type of nuclear weapon?” Weber asked at around 39:00 in the recording.

Clinton said she would be “inclined” to do so. “The last thing we need are sophisticated cruise missiles that are nuclear armed,” she said.

Her campaign did not respond when asked if her position has changed since then.

Canceling the LRSO program would be a major break from Obama administration policy, which has placed significant emphasis on the missile as a key component of its wide-ranging efforts to modernize the U.S. nuclear arsenal.

About 1,000 LRSO missiles are scheduled to replace the Air Force’s Air-Launched Cruise Missiles (ALCMs) by 2030. The ALCM program has formed a key component of U.S. nuclear deterrence policy since the early 1980s.

The Air Force released long-awaited requests for proposals from defense contractors in July. It estimated that the government will pay $17 billion for a new arsenal of LRSO missiles, though critics have pegged the cost at as much as $30 billion.

Emails released by the State Department in response to Freedom of Information Act requests show that Clinton was briefed on aspects of the LRSO debate while serving as secretary of state.

After a November 2010 meeting between high-level Pentagon officials and former Sen. Jon Kyl (R., Ariz.), then the Senate’s third-ranking Republican, the State Department’s top legislative affairs official informed Clinton and top aides Cheryl Mills and Huma Abedin that the administration was “committed to LRSO.”

Clinton has appeared unfamiliar with details of the Obama administration’s plans for nuclear weapons modernization in statements since then. Clinton avoided a straight answer when asked about those plans at a campaign event in January, but expressed skepticism.

“Do you oppose plans to spend a trillion dollars on an entire new generation of nuclear weapons systems that will enrich the military contractors and set off a new global arms race?” she was asked.

Clinton responded, “Yeah I’ve heard about that. I’m going to look into that. That doesn’t make sense to me.”

Former Air Force launch officer John Noonan disagreed with Clinton’s opposition to the LRSO program and other aspects of the Obama administration’s nuclear modernization efforts. But he is skeptical that Clinton will actually follow through on that opposition.

“There’s been tremendous advancements in Russian and Chinese cruise missiles, coupled with an atrophy in American capability,” noted Noonan, a former Jeb Bush campaign aide critical of both Clinton and Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump.

“The Obama Administration, to their credit, has acknowledged this and have budgeted for the LRSO,” he said. “A President Clinton’s Pentagon will be faced with the same tough reality.”

As for Clinton’s remarks to Weber in February, Noonan guessed that she was “just petting a donor on the head and telling him he’s pretty.”

Another $400 Million, Total is now $5.9 Billion to Syrians

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it was providing an additional $364 million in humanitarian assistance to help Syrians caught up in the country’s civil war, bringing total U.S. humanitarian spending for Syria to about $5.9 billion.

Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration Anne Richard said the funding would help provide food, shelter, safe drinking water, medical care and other support for millions of Syrian refugees and the communities that host them.

Richard told a State Department briefing about three-quarters of the additional funding would help people still inside Syria and the rest would assist Syrians who have fled the country.

She also said the United States had admitted some 85,000 refugees over the past fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. That figure included about 12,500 Syrian refugees, exceeding the administration’s goal of 10,000, she said.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the push for additional humanitarian aid funds came in part because of deteriorating conditions in Aleppo after the collapse of a ceasefire sponsored by the United States and Russia.

The forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have launched a massive push against rebel-held areas of the city, where some 250,000 civilians are believed to be trapped. Intensive bombing has killed hundreds of people, many of whom died in buildings collapsed by bunker-buster bombs.

“Until the past few weeks we felt like we were on a firm path towards a possible diplomatic resolution to this. We still believe that’s possible,” Toner told a briefing.

“That doesn’t mean we’re not mindful … of the tremendous humanitarian suffering that’s going on right now in Aleppo. And that’s why we’re working so hard to ramp up our assistance,” he added.

While saying the United States continued to seek a diplomatic resolution of the problem, he left the door open to other action.

“We’ll continue to weigh all options. Those discussions are ongoing. I don’t want to rule anything out, but right now we’re focused on the diplomatic one,” Toner said.

He noted the United States has warned that failure to achieve a ceasefire could lead to an escalation of the conflict.

“We cannot dictate what other countries … may or may not decide to do in terms of supporting certain groups within Syria,” Toner said. “You may have a further deterioration on either side … and by deterioration I mean more arming and more conflict between them, and intensification of the conflict.”

****

Jeh Johnson said in a Senate hearing that the government focuses on refugees for resettlement that are good for the country. The vetting in comprehensive and some of the standards to be met by applicants are classified. The concentration is on women and children.

From the DHS website:

U.S. Expands Initiatives To Address Central American Migration Challenges

Over the past year, the United States has taken a series of steps to address the ongoing humanitarian challenges in Central America, particularly for the many vulnerable individuals attempting to leave the region and come to the United States, while also promoting safe and orderly migration and border security. As part of this ongoing effort, the United States is announcing the following initiatives to help vulnerable families and individuals from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

World Refugee Day: #RefugeesWelcome

Secretary Johnson smiling at the camera with his arm around 11 year old Turkish refugee JaafarSeveral months ago while I was in Turkey I met a 9-year-old refugee named Jaafar.  I was immediately impressed with this extraordinary little boy who spoke almost perfect English.

Readout of Secretary Johnson’s Trip To Turkey

Secretary Johnson visits a Turkish-government run Syrian refugee camp in Adana, TurkeyToday, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson concluded a three-day trip to Turkey, where he visited a refugee camp, reviewed resettlement processing, spoke to a number of Syrian and Iraqi refugee families, met with government officials in Istanbul and Ankara to discuss a range of homeland security-related issues, and signed two bilateral accords to codify mutual commitment to deepen collaboration.

Readout Of Administration Call With Law Enforcement Officials On Refugee Screening

Senior Administration officials spoke by phone today with state and local law enforcement representatives from across the country to provide information on the U.S.’s stringent refugee admissions policies and security screening measures. Officials on the call included Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas; Department of State Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Simon Henshaw; U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske; and FBI National Security Branch Executive Assistant Director John Giacalone.

Written testimony of USCIS for a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest hearing titled “Oversight of the Administration’s FY 2016 Refugee Resettlement Program: Fiscal and Security Implications”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigrations Services (USCIS) Refugee, Asylum and International Operations Refugee Affairs Division Chief Barbara Strack and USCIS Fraud Detection & National Security Associate Director Matt Emrich address USCIS’s role in refugee resettlement, and the screening measures and safeguards developed by the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.