Hizbollah is Out of Control

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By New Jersey DHS

Hizballah

Hizballah is an Islamic militant group based in Lebanon and allied with Iran. Its primary goal is the destruction of Israel.

  • Since 2013, Hizballah has plotted attacks against Israeli citizens and institutions in Europe, South America, Southeast Asia, the Middle East, and Africa. In January, five Palestinians were arrested on suspicion of joining a Hizballah cell and planning a suicide bombing and shooting in the West Bank. In June 2015, a Hizballah member pled guilty to acquiring nine tons of ammonium nitrate in Cyprus, which was intended for attacks against Israelis.
  • Although Hizballah possesses the capability to attack the United States and Western interests, the group is focused on supporting Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria. Hizballah receives training, weaponry, and about $200 million per year from Iran.
  • In 2013, Hizballah’s involvement in the Syrian conflict shifted from an advisory to a combat role. The group’s commitment is demonstrated by the number of personnel it has dispatched to Syria—Western media estimate 6,000 to 8,000 fighters, or roughly one-quarter of its assessed fighting force.

Threat to New Jersey: Low

The terror threat from Hizballah to New Jersey is low because the group’s resources and efforts are focused on supporting the Assad regime in Syria. Nonetheless, group supporters and sympathizers are active in the New Jersey region, primarily in fundraising. 

  • In February, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA)—to include its Newark office—and international agencies across seven countries uncovered a global Hizballah drug and money-laundering scheme. In October 2015, federal authorities in New York—acting in concert with the Newark DEA office—arrested two Hizballah associates for conspiring to launder narcotics proceeds and international arms trafficking.
  • In July 2013, Moussa Ali Hamdan, a former New Jersey resident, was sentenced in Philadelphia for providing proceeds from counterfeit goods sales to Hizballah.

US Nexus

  • Since 2005, approximately 20 Hizballah-related cases have been prosecuted in the United States. Half of the cases were along the East Coast, including in New York and Pennsylvania. None were in New Jersey.
  • Hizballah has never conducted an attack on US soil, but it has targeted the US military in Lebanon, including the bombing of a US Marine compound in 1983 in Beirut, which killed 241 US personnel.

DEA: Hizballah Drug Trafficking and Money Laundering Arrests

In January, the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), along with its European counterparts, arrested members of Hizballah’s External Security Organization Business Affairs Component in Europe for drug trafficking and money laundering, the proceeds of which transited through Lebanon to support Hizballah operations in Syria. The DEA operation, known as Project Cassandra, involved law enforcement agencies from seven countries and targeted Hizballah’s cocaine trafficking in the United States and Europe.

  • Hizballah developed business relationships with South American drug cartels supplying cocaine to the US and European markets. According to the DEA, Hizballah laundered the drug revenue through the acquisition and sale of high-valued vehicles, sometimes concealing money inside vehicles shipped internationally.
  • In February 2015, European authorities launched an investigation based on DEA leads and discovered a network of couriers collecting and transporting drug proceeds—in the form of euros—from Europe to the Middle East. The revenue was then transferred to Colombian cartels using the hawala disbursement system, a payment network based on trust and the use of family and regional connections.
  • US agencies participating in Project Cassandra include the Newark DEA office, US Customs and Border Protection, the US Treasury’s Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, and the US Treasury Office of Foreign Assets Control. Officials did not specify the number of individuals arrested nor the location of arrests in Europe. The investigation is ongoing.

Exploiting Outbound Cargo Vulnerabilities

Hizballah continues to launder narcotics proceeds through US maritime ports by leveraging the inundated outbound cargo shipment process and concealing contraband in otherwise legal outbound vehicle shipments. Since October 2015, Customs and Border Protection (CBP) in the Port of New York and New Jersey has processed more than 25,000 export vehicle titles per month in accordance with current regulations and performed, on average, more than 500 physical vehicle examinations per month.

  • This year, the Drug Enforcement Administration’s Project Cassandra targeted a Hizballah network selling narcotics in the United States and Europe and laundering the proceeds through the acquisition and sale of high-end vehicles, sometimes concealing money inside vehicles shipped internationally.
  • In 2011, US authorities filed a civil money-laundering suit against three Lebanese financial organizations and two Beirut-based money exchange houses, accusing them of wiring at least $329 million in drug proceeds to 30 used car dealerships in the United States—one located in North Arlington (Bergen County).
  • In 2010, the FBI disrupted two Hizballah-linked schemes—one in Virginia where money was hidden in tires of used vehicles being shipped via maritime vessels to Lebanon, and another in Ohio where authorities arrested a couple for attempting to conceal $200,000 in a vehicle they planned to ship to Lebanon.

The Port of New York and New Jersey has implemented mitigation strategies to stop the movement of contraband through outbound cargo in New Jersey. For example, in 2005, CBP, US Immigration and Customs Enforcement, Homeland Security Investigations, and other federal, state, local, and international law enforcement agencies created the Border Enforcement Security Task Force—more commonly known as BEST—to coordinate information sharing between agencies. In addition, CBP’s Customs Trade Partnership Against Terrorism encourages private-sector companies to provide information about suspicious activity related to cargo shipments.

Interwoven Money Laundering and Smuggling Systems

Hizballah’s profits from narcotics and other criminal activity are transferred via multiple forms of money laundering and illicit enterprises, including hawala money exchanges, the Black Market Peso Exchange (BMPE), and bulk cash smuggling. In March, the Director of the Stein Program on Counterterrorism and Intelligence at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy reported to Congress that despite receiving up to $200 million from Iran each year, Hizballah uses various criminal methods to generate additional revenue and fund its involvement in Syria.

  • Hizballah operatives can transfer cash quickly and without an audit trail by using the hawala remittance system, an informal currency transfer system operating outside or parallel to traditional banking and financial channels.
  • In February, the Drug Enforcement Administration revealed—as part of its Project Cassandra investigation—Hizballah leverages the BMPE, which uses trade-based money laundering to disguise proceeds from illegal activity.
  • Hizballah smuggles large sums of money from the United States, South America, and Europe via couriers and airport employees. The arrest of a ground services coordinator at Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport in 2007 demonstrates Hizballah supporters have bypassed airport security to transport packages of cash—in this case up to $100,000—intended to finance Hizballah operations in Lebanon.

WH Coordinated Propaganda with Think Tanks on Iran Deal

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White House paid and coordinated for pay to play, pay to write, pay to exploit, paid for loyalty, paid for messaging and all paid to lie. By the way, this is against the law.

See a short summary of the Smith Mundt Act here.

There is also NIAC and Trita Parsi.  There is also Laura Rozen, another anti-Semite.

Group that helped sell Iran nuke deal also funded media

WASHINGTON (AP) — A group the White House recently identified as a key surrogate in selling the Iran nuclear deal gave National Public Radio $100,000 last year to help it report on the pact and related issues, according to the group’s annual report. It also funded reporters and partnerships with other news outlets.

The Ploughshares Fund’s mission is to “build a safe, secure world by developing and investing in initiatives to reduce and ultimately eliminate the world’s nuclear stockpiles,” one that dovetails with President Barack Obama’s arms control efforts. But its behind-the-scenes role advocating for the Iran agreement got more attention this month after a candid profile of Ben Rhodes, one of the president’s top foreign policy aides.

In The New York Times Magazine article, Rhodes explained how the administration worked with nongovernmental organizations, proliferation experts and even friendly reporters to build support for the seven-nation accord that curtailed Iran’s nuclear activity and softened international financial penalties on Tehran.

“We created an echo chamber,” said Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, adding that “outside groups like Ploughshares” helped carry out the administration’s message effectively.

The magazine piece revived Republican criticism of the Iran agreement as they suggested it was evidence of a White House spin machine misleading the American people. The administration accused opponents of trying to re-litigate the deal after failing to defeat it in congressional votes last year.

Outside groups of all stripes are increasingly giving money to news organizations for special projects or general news coverage. Most news organizations, including The Associated Press, have strict rules governing whom they can accept money from and how to protect journalistic independence.

Ploughshares’ backing is more unusual, given its prominent role in the rancorous, partisan debate over the Iran deal.

The Ploughshares grant to NPR supported “national security reporting that emphasizes the themes of U.S. nuclear weapons policy and budgets, Iran’s nuclear program, international nuclear security topics and U.S. policy toward nuclear security,” according to Ploughshares’ 2015 annual report, recently published online.

“It is common practice for foundations to fund media coverage of underreported stories,” Ploughshares spokeswoman Jennifer Abrahamson said. Funding “does not influence the editorial content of their coverage in any way, nor would we want it to.”

Ploughshares has funded NPR’s coverage of national security since 2005, the radio network said. Ploughshares reports show at least $700,000 in funding over that time. All grant descriptions since 2010 specifically mention Iran.

“It’s a valued partnership, without any conditions from Ploughshares on our specific reporting, beyond the broad issues of national and nuclear security, nuclear policy, and nonproliferation,” NPR said in an emailed statement. “As with all support received, we have a rigorous editorial firewall process in place to ensure our coverage is independent and is not influenced by funders or special interests.”

Republican lawmakers will have concerns nonetheless, especially as Congress supplies NPR with a small portion of its funding. Just this week, the GOP-controlled House Oversight Committee tried to summon Rhodes to a hearing entitled “White House Narratives on the Iran Nuclear Deal,” but he refused.

Ploughshares’ links to media are “tremendously troubling,” said Rep. Mike Pompeo of Kansas, an Iran-deal critic.

Pompeo told the AP he repeatedly asked NPR to be interviewed last year as a counterweight to a Democratic supporter of the agreement, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, who he said regularly appeared on the station. But NPR refused to put Pompeo on the air, he said. The station said it had no record of Pompeo’s requests, and listed several prominent Republicans who were featured speaking about the deal or economic sanctions on Iran.

Another who appeared on NPR is Joseph Cirincione, Ploughshares’ president. He spoke about the negotiations on air at least twice last year. The station identified Ploughshares as an NPR funder one of those times; the other time, it didn’t.

Ploughshares boasts of helping to secure the deal. While success was “driven by the fearless leadership of the Obama administration and supporters in Congress,” board chairwoman Mary Lloyd Estrin wrote in the annual report, “less known is the absolutely critical role that civil society played in tipping the scales towards this extraordinary policy victory.”

The 33-page document lists the groups that Ploughshares funded last year to advance its nonproliferation agenda.

The Arms Control Association got $282,500; the Brookings Institution, $225,000; and the Atlantic Council, $182,500. They received money for Iran-related analysis, briefings and media outreach, and non-Iran nuclear work.

Other groups, less directly defined by their independent nuclear expertise, also secured grants.

J-Street, the liberal Jewish political action group, received $576,500 to advocate for the deal. More than $281,000 went to the National Iranian American Council.

Princeton University got $70,000 to support former Iranian ambassador and nuclear spokesman Seyed Hossein Mousavian’s “analysis, publications and policymaker engagement on the range of elements involved with the negotiated settlement of Iran’s nuclear program.”

Ploughshares has set its sights on other media organizations, too.

In a “Cultural Strategy Report” on its website, the group outlined a broader objective of “ensuring regular and accurate coverage of nuclear issues in reputable and strategic media outlets” such as The Guardian, Salon, the Huffington Post or Pro Publica.

Previous efforts failed to generate enough coverage, it noted. These included “funding of reporters at The Nation and Mother Jones and a partnership with The Center for Public Integrity to create a national security desk.” It suggested using “web videos, podcasts, photo-based stories” and other “attention-grabbing formats” for “creatively reframing the issue.”

The Center for Public Integrity’s CEO, Peter Bale, confirmed the grant.

“None of the funding received by Ploughshares was for coverage of the Iran deal,” said Bale, whose company received $70,000. “In general, we avoided that subject because the topic did not lend itself to the type of investigative reporting the Center does.”

Caitlin Graf, a spokeswoman at The Nation, said her outlet had no partnership with Ploughshares. She referred queries to The Nation Institute, a nonprofit associated with the magazine that seeks to strengthen the independent press and advance social justice. Taya Kitman, the institute’s director, said Ploughshares’ one-year grant supported reporting on U.S.-Iran policy, but strict editorial control was maintained.

Mother Jones’ media department didn’t respond to several messages seeking comment.

The AP has taken grants from nonpolitical groups and journalism foundations such as the Knight Foundation. As with all grants, “AP retains complete editorial control of the final news product, which must fully meet AP standards for independence and integrity,” Standards Editor Thomas Kent said.

Judge Orders DoJ to Take Ethics Class

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He should have suspended their law licenses.

Hanen also ordered Attorney General Loretta Lynch to present a “comprehensive plan” to the court within 60 days about how to prevent future “unethical conduct.” And he ordered Lynch to notify the court within 60 days about steps she was taking to ensure the Office of Professional Responsibility—the DOJ office that oversees attorney conduct—was effectively policing lawyers within the department. “The court cannot help but hope that the new Attorney General, being a former United States Attorney, would also believe strongly that it is the duty of DOJ attorneys to act honestly in all of their dealings with a court, with opposing counsel and with the American people,” Hanen wrote. More at National Law Journal including the text of the Judge’s order.

Judge orders ethics classes for ‘deceptive’ DOJ attorneys

Examiner: A federal judge has ordered annual ethics classes for Justice Department attorneys as a punishment for being “intentionally deceptive” during litigation over President Obama’s executive immigration orders.

“Such conduct is certainly not worthy of any department whose name includes the word ‘Justice,'” U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen wrote in a withering order released Thursday.

Justice Department attorneys misled the court about when the Department of Homeland Security would begin implementing President Obama’s executive order granting “deferred action” to illegal immigrants whose children are citizens. In doing so, they tricked the 26 states who filed a lawsuit into “foregoing a request for a temporary restraining order,” according to the judge.

The facts of the deception are not in doubt, Hanen emphasized. “[DOJ] has now admitted making statements that clearly did not match the facts,” he said in the May 19 opinion, first noted by the National Law Journal. “It has admitted that the lawyers who made these statements had knowledge of the truth when they made these misstatements … This court would be remiss if it left such unseemly and unprofessional conduct unaddressed.”

As punishment, Justice Department attorneys who wish to appear in any state or federal court within the 26 states that brought the lawsuit have to undergo annual ethics training. “At a minimum, this course (or courses) shall total at least three hours of ethics training per year,” he wrote.

In another case, such “egregious conduct” would lead him to strike the government’s pleadings, but Hanen decided not to take that step because the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case in April.

“The national importance of the outcome of this litigation outweighs the benefits to be gained by implementing the ultimate sanction,” Hanen wrote. “Striking the government’s pleadings would not only be unfair to the litigants, but also unfair, and perhaps even disrespectful, to the Supreme Court as it would deprive that Court of the ability to thrash out the legal issues in this case.”

Hanen cited multiple instances in which Justice Department attorneys claimed that Department of Homeland Security directive announced in November of 2014 would not be implemented until February 18, 2015, even though they knew that DHS had begun implementing a portion of the order that pertained to the original “deferred action for childhood arrivals” policy announced in 2012.

“Apparently, lawyers, somewhere in the halls of the Justice Department whose identities are unknown to this court, decided unilaterally that the conduct of the DHS in granting three-year DACA renewals using the 2014 DHS directive was immaterial and irrelevant to this lawsuit and that the DOJ could therefore just ignore it,” Hanen wrote. “Then, for whatever reason, the Justice Department trial lawyers appearing in this Court chose not to tell the truth about this DHS activity. The first decision was certainly unsupportable, but the subsequent decision to hide it from the Court was unethical.”

Hanen seemed to lament that he couldn’t disbar the attorneys involved, but he barred the out-of-state attorneys from enjoying the right to practice law in Texas.

“The court does not have the power to disbar the counsel in this case, but it does have the power to revoke the pro hac vice status of out-of-state lawyers who act unethically in court,” he wrote. “By a separate sealed order that it is simultaneously issuing, that is being done.”

How Many Times did Russia Buzz the U.S.?

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Navy releases nearly two dozen videos of Russian jets, helicopter buzzing USS Donald Cook

PilotonLine:The Navy has released new video of two Russian jets buzzing the USS Donald Cook in the Baltic Sea last month, as well as video of a Russian helicopter circling the destroyer.

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The Navy released nearly two dozen videos of the incident in response to a Freedom of Information Act request from The Virginian-Pilot. The Navy had previously uploaded four videos to YouTube of two Russian Su-24 jets making close-range, low-altitude passes near the ship on April 11 and 12.

The newly released videos show additional angles and commentary from sailors. At one point, a sailor is heard saying “Oh my God” as the jets pass close by. The Russian jets repeatedly flew next to and over the Donald Cook in what the Navy says was a simulated attack profile and didn’t respond to repeated safety advisories issued in English and Russian.

The Navy criticized the passes by the jets and the KA-27 Helix helicopter. The Russian jets appeared unarmed and the helicopter’s crew was seen photographing the Donald Cook.

“We have deep concerns about the unsafe and unprofessional Russian flight maneuvers,” the Navy said in an April 13 statement about the incident. “These actions have the potential to unnecessarily escalate tensions between countries and could result in a miscalculation or accident that could cause serious injury or death.”

Russia’s Defense Ministry in April said the Navy’s criticism was “not consistent with reality” and that the Russian aircraft had “performed strictly in accordance with the international regulations on the use of airspace.”

The Donald Cook was based in Norfolk until 2014, when it moved to Rota, Spain. A Russian Su-24 Fencer attack aircraft repeatedly flew near the Donald Cook in the Black Sea that year.

The U.S. Navy has released more photographs, taken from aboard USS Donald Cook, an Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer that was buzzed by Russian Su-24M attack aircraft on Apr. 12.

Although quite provocative, the low passes that the Russian Sukhois performed near the ship (within 1,000 feet once coming as close as 30 feet to the destroyer) had little to be worried about: the aircraft depicted in the photographs are unarmed Sukhoi Su-24M bombers, most probably conducting “simulated attacks” on the American warship at sea.

According to the Russian MoD the Fencers skirted the Donald Cook in international waters some 70 km from a Russian Navy base.

Aviationist: For sure, close encounters at sea occur: in April 2014, when a Russian Su-24MR, flew within 1,000 yards of the USS Donald Cook, that was operating in the Black Sea following the crisis in Ukraine: a show of force considered  “provocative and inconsistent with international agreements.”

On Mar. 3, 2015, Russian Su-30s and Su-24s aircraft from Russia’s Black Sea Fleet based in Crimea conducted attack runs on NATO warships operating in the Black Sea “to practice penetrating anti-air systems.”

On Oct. 27, 2015, USS Ronald Regan, sailing in international waters east of the Korean peninsula, had to scramble four Hornets after two Russian Navy Tu-142 Bear aircraft flew within a nautical mile of the U.S. Navy nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.

In 2008, USS Nimitz operating in the Pacific had to launch some Hornets to intercept and escort two Tu-95s approaching the carrier.

So, such close encounters have occurred since the Cold War and they have never really escalated even though there are rumors of U.S. Navy officers facing active jamming activities by some Russian planes in the past.

Nothing special then. At least, until something more happens…

Image credit: U.S. Navy