Ambassador, Brussels, White House and Terror

Posted on March 25, 2016March 25, 2016 by Denise Simon

Based on the extensive information below, it can be argued that the France terror operations were plotted by the Libyan faction but highly connected to Iraq or Syrian ISIS command and control. But read on, nothing is a simple as the media publishes. (not really their fault either)

(BRUSSELS) —A former Belgian ambassador to the U.S. and his wife are among the 31 people who died in the Brussels terror attacks.

The Belgian Foreign Ministry confirmed Friday that Andre Adam, a former ambassador to the United States during the Clinton administration, was killed in the attack on the Brussels airport. Adam’s wife was also killed in the attacks.

In addition to his time as ambassador, Adam was also the Belgian ambassador to the United Nations during key moments in recent history including the September 11 attacks and the during the Afghanistan war.

Identifying the victims remains a slow process and Belgian authorities say just nine out of 31 victims have been identified. So far the victims were from six nations. Currently authorities have identified three Dutch citizens, two Americans and citizens from Peru, United Kingdom, China and France among the victims. More here.

Surely, the U.S. Ambassador to Belgium reads the local newspapers. Denise Bauer is an Obama groupie and got a favored gig and likely she has sent critical reports to the U.S. State Department regarding what goes on in Brussels and throughout the country. Reports that go to the State Department also go to several other U.S. intelligence agencies.

According to prosecuting attorney Ann Franssen, there are indications that the organization used hate speeches to fuel violence among their members. The leading members of the group, including Belkacem, could now face a prison sentence of between 15 and 20 years for belonging to a terrorist organization.

Since an attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels at the end of May, the main concern has been that on returning to Belgium, radicalized and battle-hardened youths could also bring terrorism home with them. During the attack, two Israeli tourists, a French woman and a Belgian were killed. The alleged bomber was a French Islamist with who had spent time in Syria. Observers of the trial in Antwerp have said they believe the Belgian government wants to use the trial to dissuade potential copycats.

Islamist hub

According to the anti-terror coordinator of the European Union (EU), Gilles de Kerchove, there are currently some 3,000 Europeans fighting for Islamists in Syria and Iraq. Belgian authorities alone have estimated to have 300 to 400 self-proclaimed “holy warriors.” In terms of the total population of 11 million people, that’s the highest rate in Europe. According to the prosecution, a tenth of these Belgian jihadists alone were enlisted with the organization “Sharia4Belgium.”

Then there is the Shariah4 movement and YouTube:

Choudary’s boundary-pushing stunts have created an outcry in the United Kingdom. He received much publicity in 2009 after he declared that Buckingham Palace should be turned into the seat for the new Caliph.[7] The reaction encouraged Choudary. His subsequent releases targeting the American media market included mock-up photos indicating a jihadist take-over attached to articles on “The White Masjid,” which is an allusion to the White House. The Islamic Demolition of the Statue of Liberty is dramatized by draping a burqa over the monument. Another posting announces the creation of the International Sharia Court of Justice to replace the United Nations in New York City. One photo shows Choudary in front of the White House with a black flag of Islam.

The content of the YouTube channels is strikingly similar. Over images of Muslims suffering at the hands of Western military forces, the sound track broadcasts anasheed (a vocal musical genre favored by jihadists) and texts from the Koran, or a voice-over explaining the righteous path. Anjem Choudary, Omar Bakri Muhammad, and Abu Hamza al-Masri are the most frequently used speakers. Videos featuring Osama Bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki are also popular. Programs addressed specifically to particular national audiences feature local celebrity emirs and activists. Choudary officially endorsed one of the channels, Sharia4Belgium, in March 2010: “We support our brothers in Belgium under the banner of Sharia4Belgium and we are ready, whatever they need to send more people to support them in their activities, in their duty, and fulfilling their responsibility.”[8]

The YouTube channels in the Shariah4 network also cross-post many of the same videos. Some Shariah4 channels are created, with content uploaded, and then rarely updated. The most active channels include Sharia4Belgium (and its successor channels), Shariah4Holland, Shariah4Australia (and its successor channel), Shariah4Poland, Shariah4Pakistan, and Shariah4AlAndalus. The recent uprisings in the Arab world produced a proliferation of new channels with similarly themed content: Shariah4Tunisia, Sharia4Egypt, and Sharia4Yemen.

The Shariah4Tunisia channel, for instance, highlights four videos of demonstrations in which members of al-Muhajiroun call for an Islamic state in Tunisia. Two of the videos show a British Tunisian. The other two videos feature Anjem Choudary. Choudary also makes an appearance in a video titled “Shariah 4 Libya” that was uploaded to YouTube by londondawah, another channel of British jihadists that is loosely affiliated with al-Muhajiroun. The Sharia4Egypt and Sharia4Yemen channels had only one video each. Both videos have anasheed in the background with pictures from the protests and text of the Koran in Arabic and English calling for the establishment of Shariah. Much more detail here.

France, Belgium, Germany and the United Kingdom a ticking time bomb that in some cases has in fact exploded but no one heard the blasts. Why? Given the countless areas of cities and towns throughout Europe, a power keg is noted and not only al Qaeda soldiers leave Europe for battlefield destinations but with Islamic State as well.

Who recruits these people? There are several recruiters and many pay martyr fees. It is no wonder attacks in Paris and in Brussels occur, and more will. Let us go back to 2015 where there are NO intelligence failures but a failure of will due to political correctness and it is owned by leaders of Western nations including the United States under Barack Obama as well as Hillary Clinton and John Kerry’s State Department.

The investigative blogger below has done some remarkable work. This concentrates on Belgium.

A new statistical update on Belgian fighters in Syria and Iraq

The maximum number of Belgians who at one point were active in Syria or Iraq has climbed to 516. This implies that the steady flow from foreign fighters to (mainly) The Islamic State has somewhat slowed down. Since April 2015 that would be an increase of 31 (known) individuals.

This number means that out of Belgium’s Muslim population of about 640.000 individuals, there is roughly one per 1260 who has been involved in Jihad in Syria and Iraq. At this point Belgium is, pro capita, by far the European nation contributing the most to the foreign element in the Syrian war.

Of the 516 mentions in the database we identified 183 by name and surname. Another 94 individuals are only known by their kunya or nom de guerre. And so, it might be possible that the total number mentioned is slightly overestimated. It is indeed possible that some of the anonymous mentions in the database overlap with known individuals. My count however is a lot higher than the official numbers of the Belgian Government:

about 180-190 Belgians in Syria

60 to 70 killed

about 120 returned (official update dd July 26 : 118)

about 10 travelling towards Syria (numbers from late summer 2015)

about 50 tried to leave but were stopped

Since the first terrorism trial in Belgium early 2015, it has been (partly) proven that Sharia4Belgium at least inspired a lot of young Belgians. And it seems to be so indeed; as 79 of them (15,5%) are to be directly linked to Sharia4Belgium. The first Belgians who left joined a variety of groups, often small and independent groups that, in time affiliated with The Islamic State.

At least 112 of the Belgian fighters are indeed members of The Islamic State, yet the overal count of IS-fighters is most likely higher.

Around nine percent of the Belgians (47 to be precisely) are women. 14 of them have a proven affiliation with Sharia4Belgium. At least 19 of them are affilliated with The Islamic State.

Around 6% of the Belgian fighters are converts.

The ages of 202 Belgian fighters varry between 14 and 69; the average age is 25,7.

Origins in Belgium: Of 266 individuals we know where they originated from, as shown in next graph (in alphabetical order):

Group affiliations:

79 individuals can be linked to Sharia4Belgium, the most important group in Belgium contributing to the high number of foreign fighters in Syria and Iraq. 35 of these have a proven affiliation with The Islamic State. 15,5 % of the total ammount of Belgians were at some point affiliated with Sharia4Belgium.

4 are linked to Shaykh Bassam al-Ayashi’s former network Centre Islamique Belge
At least one was a former member of the Groupe Islamique Combattant Marocain (GICM)

We know of at least 5 individuals who are fighting in pro-regime ranks

At least 112 Belgians are fighters / members of The Islamic State (ISIS). Most remarkably at least 19 of them are/were members of the Lybian branch Katibat al-Battar al-Libi (see Katibat al-Battar and the Belgian Fighters in Syria)

Another 17 (most likely much more) are fighting in the ranks of Jabhat an-Nusra

Another 16 are linked to other rebel groups, the majority of them (12) joined Suqur as-Sham

Returned: At least 55 individuals have already returned to Belgium, yet this number might be doubled according to official government sources. (mid July 2015: official number was 120)

Killed:
At least 68 Belgians have been killed thus far in Syria and Iraq. Most of them in combat, at least three of them conducted a suicide operation. One of them Iliass Azaouaj was killed (beheaded) by The Islamic State for betrayal; he was suspected to sustain contacts with Moroccan and Belgian security forces.

A List of Belgians fighters killed in Syria and Iraq (in random order):

Abd ar-Rahman al-Ayashi (aka Abu Hajjar), 38, Idlib, Suqur as-Sham

Abdalgabar Hamdaoui, 34. Jabhat an-Nusra

Abdel Monaïm Lachiri (aka Abu Sara), 33, Aleppo, ISIS

Abu al-Bara’ al-Jaza’iri, Saraqib

Abu Ali al-Baljiki, Idlib

Ahmed Dihaj (aka Abu Atiq), 32, Sharia4Belgium, Jabhat an-Nusra. One of the accused on the Sharia4Belgium trial. Left Belgium in April or May 2013, killed September 2013

Anonymous, Ahmed Stevenberg, Lattakia

Anonymous (Vilvoorde)

Anonymous (Vilvoorde)

Anonymous (Brussels)

Faysal Yamoun (aka Abu Faris al-Maghribi), 30, Antwerp, Sharia4Belgium, Jabhat an-Nusra. Left Belgium on December 7, 2012. Killed February 2014. One of the accused on the Sharia4Belgium trial.

Hamdi Mahmoud Saad, 32, Latakkia

Houssien Elouassaki (aka Abu Fallujah), 22, Vilvoorde, Sharia4Belgium. Killed in Aleppo province September 2013. One of the accused on the Sharia4Belgium trial.

Isma’il Amghroud, 22, Maaseik, killed June 2013

Khalid Bali (aka Abu Hamza), 17, Antwerpen, Deir ez-Zor, Sharia4Belgium, ISIS, killed May 2014.

Mohammed Bali (aka Abu Hudayfa), 24, Antwerp, Sharia4Belgium, ISIS, killed in Hama. One of the accused on the Sharia4Belgium trial.

Noureddine Abouallal (aka Abu Mujahid), 23, Antwerp, Sharia4Belgium, killed in July 2013. One of the accused on the Sharia4Belgium trial.

Raphael Gendron (aka Abdurauf Abu Marwa), 38, Brussels, Suqur as-Sham, Idlib, killed in April 2013

Sean Pidgeon, Left Belgium in November 2012, killed in March 2013.

Tarik Taketloune, Vilvoorde, 19, Sharia4Belgium, brother returned to Belgium and free under conditions, wife still in Syria, killed in May 2013. One of the accused on the Sharia4Belgium trial.

Anonymous, known as Younis Asad Rahman (aka Asad ar-Rahman al-Baljiki), Latakkia, killed in August 2013

Saïd El Morabit (aka Abu Muthanna al-Baljiki), 27, Sharia4Belgium, ISIS, killed in March 2014. One of the accused on the Sharia4Belgium trial.

Abu ‘Umar, ISIS, Brussels

Rustam Gelayev (son of Chechen warlord Ruslan Gelayev), Aleppo, killed in August 2012

Nabil Azahaf (aka Abu Sayyaf), 21, Brussels, Sharia4Belgium, ISIS, killed in May 2014. One of the accused on the Sharia4Belgium trial.

Anonymous, known as Abu Dujana al-Mali, Brussels, ISIS, ar-Raqqa, killed in March 2014

Karim Azzam (aka Abou Azzam), 23, Brussels, killed in April 2014

Anonymous, known as Abu Salma Al-Belgiki, Deir ez-Zor province, killed in August 2013

Anonymous, known as Abu Handalah, killed in Aleppo

Anonymous, killed in clashes with tribal fighters on July 30th 2014 in al-Keshkeyyi, Deir ez-Zor province

Iliass Azaouaj, 23, Brussels, killed by The Islamic State for alledged betrayal. Raqqa, August 2014

Abu Jihad al-Baljiki, further unknown, killed on August 31st in a regime counter-attack defending the Deir ez-Zor military airport.

Abu Mohsen at-Tunisi, further unknown, killed on August 31st in a regime counter-attack defending the Deir ez-Zor military airport.

One of the Bakkouy brothers from Genk. Killed late September 2014.

Abu Yahya al-Beljiki, reported killed on October 15, 2014.

Ilyass Boughalab, killed in March 2014, Shariah4Belgium, ISIS. One of the accused on the Sharia4Belgium trial.

Abū ‘Umar al-Beljīkī, of Saudi origin, killed in Latakia province in the beginning of October 2014, Jabhat an-Nusra

Khalid Hachti Bernan aka Abu Qa’Qa, ISIS memeber from Virton, reported dead in May 2014

Abu Muhammad al-Baljiki, unknown ISIS fighter, killed in Deir ez-Zor mid October 2014

Oufae Sarrar, aka Umm Jarrah, Sharia4Belgium, ISIS, wife of Ilyass Boughalab, killed end 2013. First known Belgian women killed

Abu Sulayman al-Baljiki al-Maghribi, unknown ISIS fighter, killed in Kobanê mid November 2014

Sabri Refla, AKA Abu Turab, 19, Vilvoorde, left on August 12 2013 and killed in December 2013

Yassine El Karouni, AKA Abu Osama, 23, Dutch origin, killed in May 2014

Zakaria El Bouzaidi, Laken (Brussels), friend of Sean Pidegeon, killed in September 2014

Anonymous, AKA Abu Yahya al-Belgiki, killed in October 2014

Anonymous, AKA Abu Adnan al-Belgiki, Algerian origin, originaly affiliated with Jabhat an-Nusra, turned to ISIS late 2013, killed in September 2014

Anonymous, AKA Abu Said al-Belgiki, killed in Dier ez-Zor in December 2014

Soufiane Amghar, AKA Abu Khalid al-Belgiki, one of the killed ISIS members in Verviers on January 15 2015

Kahlid Ben Larbi, AKA Abu Zubayr al-Belgiki, one of the killed ISIS members in Verviers on January 15 2015

Haddad, no more details, from Molenbeek (Brussels), brother of Verviers plot suspect Abdelmounaim Haddad, killed in Syria

Hamza Kharbache, from Molenbeek (Brussels), brother of Younes Kharbache, killed in Aleppo province, February 2014

Younes Kharbache, from Molenbeek (Brussels), brother of Hamza, killed in Damascus province, August 2013

Anonymous, AKA Abu Bakr al-Belgiki (IS), committed a suicide attack in Ramadi, Iraq, March 11, 2015

Mesut Cankarturan, AKA Abu Abdullah al-Belgiki (IS), killed March 25, 2015 in Deir ez-Zor

Anonymous, AKA Abu Taymiyya al-Belgiki (IS)

Anonymous, AKA Abū ‘Abd Allah al-Belgiki (IS), performed a suicide op on the Irāqī-Jordanian border on April 24, 2015

Anonymous, AKA Abu Muslim al-Belgiki (IS), from Antwerpen. Reportedly killed in June 2014.

Anonymous, AKA Abu Waliyya al-Belgiki (IS). Killed in a suicide attack June 22, 2015

Anonymous, Abu Turab al-Belgiki (IS). Reportedly killed in May 2015

Anonymous, Abu Handala al-Belgiki (IS). Reportedly killed in May 2015

Junior Juma, 16. Reportedly killed in late June 2015. See here for details.

Anonymous, Abu Ilyas al-Belgiki (IS). Reportedly killed in ar-Raqqa province on July 18, 2015

Lucas Van Hessche, 19. AKA Abu Ibrahim (IS). Left Belgium on June 11, 2014. Declared KIA on August 12, 2015

Ahmed Daoudi, 31 from Turnhout. AKA Abu Mohsin. Former Sharia4Belgium member. Left Belgium on August 22, 2012. Seems to have been a humanitarian worker. Killed after the chemical attacks in Eastern Ghouta on August 21, 2013. The last time he contacted his family in Belgium was in August 2014. Daoudi was sentenced by absence in the Sharia4Belgium trial to 10 years in prison.

Anonymous, Abu Mariyya al-Belgiki (IS), Indian descent. Early 20’s. Left Belgium late October 2014. Reported killed around August 17, 2015 in Syria during his first battle. See here for details.

Anonymous, Abu Ayman al-Belgiki (IS). Killed in the UK drone strike on August 21, 2015 over Raqqa, targetting British IS-fighter Reyaad Khan (see here for more info on the UK drone strike). Death confirmed by a French speaking foreign fighter on Twitter

Fayssal Oussaih aka Abū Shahīd (IS) originated from Maaseik http://t.co/YqP45mtZRo

Brian De Mulder aka Ibrahim Abu Abderrahmaan aka Abu Qasim al-Brazili (IS) 21 years old. Former Sharia4Belgium member. Allegedly died in Syria on Friday October 23 of previously sustained wounds during a jet-strike. (see: De Standaard, De Morgen, Knack)

Additional posts of his are here and here. Noted in part below:

Katibat al-Battar al-Libi and alleged links with some Belgian fighters we accidently stumbled on solid proof that a lot of Belgian fighters are directly linked to this group.

******

All mentioned were killed fighting in the ranks of Katibat al-Battar sometime in 2014.The pictures of the list, as posted on Twitter mid October 2014 See below:

Names are translated here.

Iran’s Weapons Program in Africa, King Abdullah

Posted on March 25, 2016March 25, 2016 by Denise Simon

An investigation supports King Abdullah’s claims with 9 countries.

EXCLUSIVE: Jordan’s Abdullah claims Iran exporting weapons to Africa

Jordan’s King Abdullah has accused Iran of exporting weapons to Africa and lauded efforts by Saudi Arabia to curtail the influence of the Islamic Republic, Middle East Eye can reveal.The Jordanian king made the accusations in a meeting with US congressional leaders, a source close to the meeting told MEE on the condition of anonymity.In the meeting one unnamed congressman reportedly noted that “Iran is also exporting weapons to Asia and Africa, and there is a need for a strategy to draw the line”.

The King said he “agrees” and said that Jordan had also “noted this in Africa,” without mentioning specific countries.He added that “this is also happening in Afghanistan” warning that if the Islamic State (IS) was degraded in these countries, “Iran will come in to fill the gap,” according to MEE’s source.Jordan has backed Saudi Arabia in its long-running rivalry with Iran that was recently enflamed by the burning and looting of the Saudi embassy in Tehran in January.The Kingdom withdrew its ambassador to Iran and complained of “Iranian interference” in Arab affairs, according to the Jordanian state news agency Petra.The destruction of the embassy had come as an angry response to a decision by Saudi to execute a prominent Shia cleric, Nimr al-Nimr along with 46 other people on 2 January.

In the congressional meeting, Abdullah said that Shia Muslims had been “lumped in” with the executions carried out that day. To purely kill Sunnis would have “looked bad domestically,” he said.He added, however, that it was unfortunate that Nimr had been included among those executed, saying that as a result, the “action took [on a life of] its own and there is a potential that this could become a bigger problem”.Jordanian Foreign Minister Nasser Judeh added that Saudi Arabia had been “very good at clipping the wings of Iran’s foreign activities, including Africa” and noted that the Saudis had “reengaged in Azerbaijan and in Asia so they can stand up against Iran”.He also said that Saudi Arabia had “put up with a lot” from Iran.Last week,

Jordan endorsed a statement by the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) that condemned Iran for the “terrorist” attacks on the Saudi embassy in Tehran and affirmed the sovereignty of three islands contested by the UAE and Iran in the Gulf.The relationship between Iran and Jordan has historically been lukewarm at best, particularly after the 1979 Islamic Revolution overthrew the Shah, a Jordanian ally.

The evidence is there for the world to see including the entire Obama administration going back to as recently as 2010.

In part from TheTower: Iran scrapes for asymmetrical gains within a challenging diplomatic environment, and in spite of its own internally divided conventional diplomacy—repeated itself in Nigeria. In October of 2010, Nigerian authorities scored the largest seizure of an Iranian weapons shipment in African history, when a container ship carrying crates of rocket launchers and heavy mortars was impounded in the port of Lagos. This embarrassment hardly ended Iran’s efforts in the country. In June of 2013, a Hezbollah cell was uncovered in the northern Nigerian city of Kano. And Iran has an asset in Nigeria that’s arguably more valuable than a foothold for its Lebanese proxies: Sheikh Ibrahim Zakzaky, a radical Iranian-trained Shi’ite cleric and a promoter of Iranian state ideology in Sub-Saharan Africa’s most populous country. A must read full summary is here.

It comes down to at least Hezbollah, Iran’s terror proxy.

CSP: The Iranian terror proxy group, Hezbollah, has operated inside Africa for decades. Most notable are the group’s weapons smuggling activities in East and West Africa. Iran exploits the remoteness of Eastern Sudan and parts of Egypt to smuggle weapons into the Gaza Strip for Hamas militants. Iran has also used Hezbollah networks in Eastern Africa to transfer weapons into the hands of Kenyan and Somali militants in attempts to attack Israeli interests in the region. Hezbollah in Africa gives Tehran logistical reach and illicit income that can support overseas operations.i Official members of the Iranian Quds Forces carry out terrorist planning and operations in Africa and have received diplomatic protection from Iranian embassies in Nigeria and Kenya.
In addition to its proxy influence on the ground, Iran maintains a heavy maritime presence in the Red Sea — which is facilitated through its relationships with Sudan and Eritrea. This naval presence expands Iran’s power throughout the East African region and further allows the illicit transport of weapons.

8 Points to Know on Closing Gitmo

Posted on March 25, 2016March 25, 2016 by Denise Simon

8 Key Points on President Obama’s Plan to Close the Terrorist Prison at Guantanamo Bay

Yesterday, the House Foreign Affairs Committee questioned two top administration officials at the Department of State and Department of Defense charged with overseeing the president’s push to empty out the terrorist prison at Guantanamo Bay before he leaves office.

Here are 8 key takeaways from the hearing:

Bringing terrorists held at GITMO to the United States is still against the law.Chairman Royce: Secretary of Defense Carter and Attorney General Lynch have both stated that transfers of Guantanamo detainees to the United States are legally prohibited. Is that your understanding of the law as well?
Mr. Wolosky: It is my understanding of the law that the statute in its current form prohibits transfers to the United States.

It won’t deter ISIS.Rep. Trott: So if we move the detainees to U.S. soil, that’s not going to be used as a recruitment tool by ISIS? They’re going to go silent now that we’ve ‘done right by our allies?’
Mr. Lewis: It still will be a tool.

Instead, it would likely result in more threats to the U.S. homeland.Chairman Royce: If you move them to U.S. soil, in fact that will be a magnet for terrorists—the fact that jihadists are being held in the United States.

In its rush to empty out the terrorist prison, the Obama administration is being less than straightforward with foreign countries.Chairman Royce: The top State Department official overseeing Guantanamo at the time wrote to the President of Uruguay that there was no information about these 6 that they were involved in conducting or facilitating terrorist activities against the United States or its partners or allies. No information? They were known to have been hardened al-Qaeda fighters involved in forging documents, trained as suicide bombers, fighting at Tora Bora, committing mayhem, committing murders in Afghanistan.

Making matters worse, the Obama administration is releasing detainees to countries that don’t have the capability or the intent to keep them from returning to the terrorist battlefield.Chairman Royce: “But the fact is [Ghana] doesn’t have top-notch intelligence or law enforcement services to deal with this kind of problem. The GDP per capita is like $4,000. It’s 175th in the world. The fact is that their leaders have many, many challenges in Ghana facing them every day.
“So I’m going to guess that tracking and monitoring former Guantanamo detainees isn’t a priority, just as it wasn’t in other examples that I’ve…laid out for you, like Uruguay.”

And, in some cases, the Obama admin doesn’t know the key foreign officials charged with mitigating threats posed by these terrorists.Rep. Smith: And if a government has a person walking point on a particular issue, like this one, and it happens to be this Minister of Interior, I think we would want to know whether or not he is a person who can be trusted. Particularly with such people who have committed terrorism, and may recommit.
Mr. Wolosky: Well again, as I’ve said, I have not met him, so I feel uncomfortable offering a personal assessment.

According to the Obama administration’s own figures, more than 30 percent of released detainees have returned to the terrorist battlefield.Chairman Royce: “The overall number is in the neighborhood of 31 percent.
“And if we begin to focus on some of the recent examples of those who did, it is — it is pretty concerning, given Ibrahim al-Qosi — he was one of the high-risk detainees, transferred by this administration. And by 2014, he had joined Al Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula. And now he is in their leadership. And last month, we saw a video urging a takeover in Saudi Arabia.”

Some of these terrorists have returned to killing Americans.Rep. Rohrabacher: How many lives have been lost by those terrorists who went back to their terrorist activities? American lives.
Mr. Lewis: I can talk about that in a classified setting, but…

Rep. Rohrabacher: Oh, classified? So, is it over ten?

Mr. Lewis: Sir, what I can tell you is, unfortunately, there have been Americans that have died because of GITMO detainees.

Stalking Iran and bin Ladin with a Drone

Posted on March 24, 2016March 24, 2016 by Denise Simon

We don’t have an intelligence problem, we don’t have a signit problem, not even a humint problem, we have a lack of will which translates to a lack of strategy and a mission objective. We did get Usama bin Ladin but what was the real gain?

At least for we weary Americans, we can take some confidence that we do have technology.

The Drone that Stalked Bin Laden

AirandSpace: In 2009, after two weeks of being embedded as an independent journalist with a small team of U.S. Marines in Afghanistan, I ended up at Combat Outpost Monti, a 14-acre camp of tents, plywood huts, a few concrete bunkers and makeshift guard towers, and a helicopter landing area, all ringed by collapsible barriers. At the outpost, one of hundreds built in Afghanistan during the 13 years of NATO combat operations, the Marines were training and fighting alongside Afghan National Army soldiers. COP Monti was less than 10 miles from the Pakistan border, near the Federally Administered Tribal Areas.

RQ-170

My time with the team was just about up when they were ordered to move up the Kunar River valley on a large combat operation. I stayed behind with the Afghan soldiers and, before I managed to find a ride out, weathered a mortar and rocket attack from combatants who had undoubtedly planned the attack and stockpiled the weapons for it at a site across the border, in Pakistan. Even if the Marines had still been there, they could not have pursued the attackers. Al-Qaeda, Taliban, and other belligerents have hidden from the U.S. military in Pakistan’s tribal areas, with varying success, since Americans entered Afghanistan in 2001.

“Everybody knows that the Taliban and other groups train, raise money, plan operations, and even recruit in the tribal areas of Pakistan,” says a retired U.S. infantry officer who served two tours in Afghanistan as well as a rotation in Iraq. (All of the sources quoted in this article spoke to me on the condition that I would not name them because they do not have permission to speak on the record.) “The insurgent leadership move men and materials into Afghanistan and attack American and coalition forces and assets.” Then, he says, they scurry back to Pakistan, where U.S. forces can’t follow.

At least, not on the ground.

Since 2004, the United States has followed insurgents into Pakistan, and has spied on and sometimes killed them there. The CIA flies Predator and Reaper unpiloted aerial vehicles over the tribal districts, often with the approval of Pakistani leaders, who have enemies of their own among the militants inhabiting the country’s northwest. Some missions though are conducted without approval from Pakistan’s authorities. For those missions, the CIA needed a different aircraft.

In late 2007, reporters and observers at Afghanistan’s Kandahar Airfield discovered that a new spy had joined the team. Grainy photographs emerged of what appeared to be an unmanned flying wing. Aviation reporter Bill Sweetman (who writes a column for this magazine) nicknamed the aircraft “the Beast of Kandahar,” and the name has stuck, though the airplane doesn’t have the ferocity or power of a beast. It is an unarmed, stealthy observer designed to glide silently over its targets and transmit photos, video, and other intelligence to a worldwide network of users. The Air Force acknowledged it in 2009 and revealed its official name: the Lockheed Martin RQ-170 Sentinel.

The RQ-170 is operated by the U.S. Air Force 432nd Wing, which also operates Predators and Reapers. The 432nd, stationed at Creech Air Force Base, northwest of Las Vegas, declined to speak about the Sentinel, and a spokesperson for Lockheed Martin would state only that it is a “low-observable Unmanned Aerial System” and that its “primary mission is Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance.”

Trying to put together a picture of how the RQ-170 might have been used in the mysterious Afghanistan-Pakistan border region, I spoke to a U.S. military pilot who had flown in the 2003 Iraq war and who had later served in a senior position in an unmanned aerial vehicle unit. “At the start of [Operation Iraqi Freedom], one of our missions was to fly right up against the Iranian border, with our targeting pods slewed to the side to scan for border activity,” the pilot said. “We were right on the border, but we couldn’t cross it. Their radar had us. We were doing ISR work, trying to figure out just what, if any, activity was taking place on and as far inside their border as possible.” One type of activity the U.S. military was trying to follow and disrupt was the Iranian manufacture of devices called EFPs—explosively formed penetrators—and their distribution to enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Historically, insurgencies have required bases of support outside the contested country. “When discussing the RQ-170,” the pilot continued, “you have to understand that both Pakistan and Iran are outside of the ISR grasp of a targeting pod on an aircraft flying on the border, or of satellites. Sheer distance degrades certain aspects of a satellite’s ability to observe.”

The United States needed an intelligence-gathering platform that could avoid detection by Iranian and Pakistani radars. A retired military aviator who held a senior position at Kandahar Airfield during Sentinel operations pointed out that the UAV’s size and shape give it a low radar cross-section—the measure of the amount of energy a target reflects toward the radar that illuminated it. “It’s a large airfoil, roughly 65 to 70 feet in length,” he said. “Being a main wing only, with no fuselage and tail surfaces, drastically reduces both its radar signature and aerodynamic drag.” The Sentinel has the stealthy form of the 172-foot-span B-2 bomber, but is less than half its size.

Because the Sentinel is manufactured by the company that brought us the F-22 stealth fighter and F-35 Joint Strike Fighter (and, before that, the F-117, SR-71, and U-2), we can assume that its skin uses radar-absorbent materials to further diminish radar return. Although its shape and materials keep it invisible to some radars, the aviator explained, others would be able to detect the aircraft but might not be able to track or target it.

At medium altitudes, the Sentinel’s light gray color enables it to blend in with the sky. It must also be quiet enough that it won’t be heard on the ground. An aviator who held a senior position at Kandahar Airfield during the Sentinel’s operation said its sound during takeoff wasn’t loud but distinctive—different from the propeller-driven UAVs and military jets that operated from the airfield.

Kandahar Airfield

An early image of the drone, at Kandahar Airfield before 2010. (Anonymous)

Engine noise or heat can never be eliminated but can be reduced. “[A stealth UAV] would use a high-efficiency turbofan engine, and its exhaust would be spread out as much as possible, masking both heat and noise,” the aviator said. A nozzle that spreads the exhaust eliminates concentrations of heat and helps mix hot exhaust with cooler ambient air.

An earlier, short-lived Lockheed Martin stealth UAV, the RQ-3 DarkStar, used a Williams-Rolls-Royce FJ44-1A turbofan, an engine favored for 1990s-era business jets, whose manufacturers claimed noise reductions. But those reductions were due partly to a change in the jets’ takeoff and landing profiles. Flight profile, according to an expert in unmanned aerial systems, is key to maintaining low observability. He explained that to fly low over a location of interest, an aircraft would most likely be put into a shallow descent, with its engine throttled back, so that it would essentially glide over the target. After one pass, “it will turn and gently increase power, but in a geometry such that nobody at or near the target could hear.” Once back at a higher altitude, the Sentinel would, if necessary, set up for another pass. This description suggests that maintaining continuous observation of a location would require two, possibly three, Sentinels flying overlapping patterns, not a sole craft orbiting.

**********

In December 2011, one or several of the Sentinel’s stealthy protections could have failed: An RQ-170 was taken prisoner in Iran. It had been on a reconnaissance mission and landed within the country, mainly intact, a few hundred miles from its home runway at Kandahar Airfield. The Iranians seized it, put it on display, and broadcast claims that they had spoofed its guidance system. Another possibility is that the UAV lost power or that its guidance system simply malfunctioned, an explanation that several Pentagon officials offered the press in the days after the incident.

“These systems have trip wires,” an aviator explained. “They’re meant to automatically return home, or at least to friendly airspace. But you have to consider: Was there a possibility of an oversight that the Iranians figured out they could exploit?” The guidance system, he noted, likely uses a combination of GPS and inertial navigation. With inertial navigation, highly sensitive accelerometers and gyros determine a craft’s route in three axes. Inertial systems cannot be fooled, though they can drift. GPS signals and guidance systems can be jammed or fooled; receivers can be sent signals making the onboard navigation system believe that the aircraft’s home airport is hundreds of miles from where the airport really is.

In 2008, at a Marine Aviation Weapons and Tactics training exercise outside Yuma, Arizona, a GPS guidance unit was accidentally spoofed, with a near-disastrous result. The unit was attached to a Containerized Delivery System, a pallet with stuff to resupply ground troops—food, ammunition, water—that had been released from a C-130 transport, and was tracking a GPS signal so it would arrive at a certain point on the ground. In the exercise with the C-130 were a number of airplanes and helicopters, many of them using electronic jamming equipment or testing electronic warfare systems. In the signal-rich environment, the CDS, instead of landing at its programmed landing point, was heading straight for the Chevy Suburban that was waiting to return the pallet to base. Seeing the CDS headed for him, the Suburban driver stepped on it, but he wasn’t fast enough; the cargo crashed into the back of the van. The driver was uninjured.

Reporters have surmised that the Sentinel was in Iran to gather information about Iranian progress in developing nuclear weapons. Satellites can detect nuclear detonations, but to passively sniff for isotopic and other signs of uranium enrichment, analysts would need a platform much closer to the ground. Although reporters have also speculated that the Sentinel, to keep from being heard, flies upwards of 50,000 feet, it probably flies much lower—to be closer to its targets of observation. “Most aircraft are inaudible above 8,000 feet,” says a Department of Defense UAV expert. He explains that if a sensor is operated at a high altitude, it needs to be much larger and heavier to obtain the same degree of accuracy as smaller, lighter ones operating at low altitudes.

He also used intelligence from the MC-12 Liberty, another King Air, this one stuffed with a more exotic sensor suite than the Predator or Guardrail has, including a “complete collection, processing, analysis and dissemination system,” according to its U.S. Air Force fact sheet. The Liberty is brought to bear when commanders want to know what’s going on inside a building, whether people are “manufacturing explosives, packaging opium, or something else,” the officer said. The MC-12 “can sniff things out based on their chemical or metallurgical signatures. They’re incredibly accurate.”

But they aren’t stealthy and can fly only in airspace where the enemy has no radar. So is the purpose of the RQ-170 to carry any combination of the instruments deployed on the Predator, Guardrail, and Liberty into places where those three aircraft can’t go? A former unmanned aircraft systems commander answered: “Yes, definitely.”

The expert pointed out the two bumps on the top of the craft: “Not one antenna but two, so it can be serving multiple, distinct tasks, simultaneously, for users all over the world.”

**********

When I left Combat Outpost Monti—on a blue and white Bell B412 helicopter flown not by the U.S. military but by a Canadian contracting company working for the military (with the call sign “Molson Air,” for the Canadian beer)—we flew for roughly 15 minutes, then landed in a field next to a compound outside a small village. I checked my GPS; we were idling about a half-mile from Pakistan. Two U.S. military personnel, wearing camouflage and helmets unfamiliar to me, climbed aboard the helicopter. We then continued the journey to Asadabad.

A model of the RQ-170, which Iran claimed to have reverse-engineered, on display in Tehran (The Office of the Supreme Leader, Iran)

After returning home, I got an inkling of what those guys in unfamiliar camouflage might have been doing there near the Pakistan border and how they may have used the RQ-170. I learned about counter-terrorism units in a program called Omega, which combined special forces with CIA teams for missions into Pakistan to conduct raids on Taliban and other insurgent and terrorist targets. Putting this information together with what my sources had described, I had little doubt that intelligence about those targets was gathered in part by Sentinels.

The joint CIA–special operations forces mission that would best show off the RQ-170’s surveillance capabilities was conducted years later, in support of the SEAL team who, on the night of May 1, 2011, flew into Pakistan on two modified Black Hawk helicopters, entered a compound in Abbottabad, and killed Osama bin Laden. U.S. government officials told Washington Post reporter Greg Miller that stealth drones had flown dozens of missions to monitor the Abbottabad compound.

My own experience in Afghanistan suggests other missions the RQ-170 might have flown. I often heard intelligence officers or patrol commanders request “a pattern of movement” or a “pattern of life” for targets and enemy forces. To provide that information, analysts would draw data from a number of types of surveillance and reconnaissance aircraft. Learning about the capabilities of these aircraft helped me understand the kind of surveillance the Sentinel might perform.

One of the most important reconnaissance aircraft collecting data for the coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan is also one of the least known: the Northrop Grumman RC-12 Guardrail. “The Guardrail is probably the most boring-looking airplane in the Department of Defense, but in my opinion, it brings some of the most important capabilities to ground forces,” said the retired infantry officer. The RC-12 is a Hawker Beechcraft Super King Air sprouting antennas to collect signals intelligence. “Looks like a flying porcupine, with all the antennas dangling off it,” the officer said. He regularly requested the Guardrail’s listening capabilities to identify, locate, and track insurgents and to help develop ground operations. The Guardrail does not process the data it collects; instead, it transmits it via a secure satellite link to locations in the United States or, according to a U.S. Army fact sheet, in Germany or Korea, where the data is processed and the results beamed back to the aircraft, which transmits it to the commanders who requested it. It happens fast. Within a second, the system can identify an individual’s or a group’s precise location. It takes a little longer to record and analyze their transmissions.

“I’ve tasked all sorts of assets, manned and unmanned, to look at ground targets and areas of interest,” said the infantry officer. For imagery intelligence, he said, “we used Predator a lot.”

“The beauty of how intelligence gets disseminated with the systems we have in place is that you just request an intelligence product, and you get it based on classification level and need-to-know,” says the aviator who served in a senior position at Kandahar Airfield. “You don’t ask for a platform, just a product. Much of the time intelligence users won’t know they are seeing something that was sourced from a Sentinel.”

The Sentinel is one platform in a complex intelligence system that collects information from every U.S. military command around the world. Analysts at various centers process 20 terabytes of data, of all intelligence types, every day. “Once each type is processed into a product, then it gets fused together with other intelligence products to give a multidimensional picture,” the aviator says.

“Think of a compound, say in Abbottabad, Pakistan, one with some walls that imagery shows to be 16 feet high. Combine that knowledge with signals collections of those in and around the structure, learn the pattern of life, maybe pick up a tall guy walking around, and maybe do some sniffing for weapons in the compound, soak up computer noise that can be analyzed, and then put that together with some human intelligence gathered on the ground about who that tall guy is.” He laughs. “There you go.”

Operation Hemorrhage

Posted on March 24, 2016March 24, 2016 by Denise Simon

It has been said often, either fight the enemy in a true war theater on the battlefield with real war tactics or fight them at home. Brussels and Paris and in the United States in Boston and San Bernardino to mention a few, the hybrid war gets real expensive. These costs are rarely measured or questioned. We are also not measuring the cost of freedoms are giving up. Add in the cost of the cyber war…..well….going back much earlier than 9-11-01 the costs cannot be calculated.

Operation Hemorrhage: The Terror Plans to Wreck the West’s Economy

The Western economy is a key underlying target in attacks like the one that the Islamic State perpetrated in Brussels.

DailyBeast: Every European who flies frequently knows the airport in Zaventem, has spent time in the ticketing area that was strewn with blood, limbs, broken glass, battered luggage and other wreckage.

It was another attack on aviation that pulled the United States into the conflict sometimes known as the “global war on terror” in the first place. Since then, airports and airplanes have remained a constant target for Islamic militants, with travelers being encumbered by new batches of security measures after each new attack or attempt.

After the ex-con Richard Reid managed to sneak a bomb aboard a transatlantic flight in December 2001, but failed to detonate the explosives, American passengers were forced to start removing their shoes on their way through security. After British authorities foiled a 2006 plot in which terrorists planned to bring liquid explosives hidden in sport drink bottles aboard multiple transatlantic flights, authorities strictly limited the quantity of liquids passengers were allowed to carry. When Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab snuck explosives hidden in his underwear onto a flight on Christmas Day 2009, he ushered in full-body scans and intrusive pat-downs.

Those are the misses. There have been hits, too. In August 2004, two female Chechen suicide bombers, so-called “black widows,” destroyed two domestic Russian flights. In January 2011, a suicide bomber struck Moscow’s Domodedovo airport in an attack that looked almost identical to the one that rocked the airport in Brussels: the bomber struck just outside the security cordon, where the airport is transformed from a “soft” target to a “hard” one. Just months ago, the self-proclaimed Islamic State (ISIS)—the perpetrator of the Brussels attacks—destroyed a Russian passenger jet flying out of Egypt’s Sinai, killing 224 people.

The targeting of airports and airplanes has been so frequent that in lighter times—back when the terrorists seemed so much worse at what they do—some pundits openly mocked their continuing return to airplanes and airports. In one representative discussion from early 2010, a well-known commentator described jihadists as having a “sort of schoolboy fixation” with aviation.

But the reason for this targeting, of course, is neither mysterious nor quixotic, and it’s one the jihadists have explained for themselves. Following the November Paris attacks, ISIS released an infographic boasting that its slaughter on the streets of Paris would force Belgium “to strengthen its security measures … which will cost them tens of millions of dollars.” Moreover, the group claimed, “the intensified security measures and the general state of unease will cost Europe in general and France in specific tends of billions of dollars due to the resulting decrease in tourism, delayed flights, and restrictions on freedom of movement and travel between European countries.”

And that was before the group successfully attacked the Brussels airport, despite those costly new security measures.

Even before 9/11, jihadists saw bleeding the American economy as the surest path to defeating their “far enemy.” When Osama bin Laden declared war against the “Jews and crusaders” in 1996, he emphasized that jihadist strikes should be coupled with an economic boycott by Saudi women. Otherwise, the Muslims would be sending their enemy money, “which is the foundation of wars and armies.”

Indeed, when bin Laden first had the opportunity to publicly explain what the 9/11 attacks had accomplished, in an October 2001 interview with Al Jazeera journalist Taysir Allouni, he emphasized the costs that the attacks imposed on the United States. “According to their own admissions, the share of the losses on the Wall Street market reached 16 percent,” he said. “The gross amount that is traded in that market reaches $4 trillion. So if we multiply 16 percent with $4 trillion to find out the loss that affected the stocks, it reaches $640 billion of losses.” He told Allouni that the economic effect was even greater due to building and construction losses and missed work, so that the damage inflicted was “no less than $1 trillion by the lowest estimate.”

In his October 2004 address to the American people, dramatically delivered just before that year’s elections, bin Laden noted that the 9/11 attacks cost Al Qaeda only a fraction of the damage inflicted upon the United States. “Al Qaeda spent $500,000 on the event,” he said, “while America in the incident and its aftermath lost—according to the lowest estimates—more than $500 billion, meaning that every dollar of Al Qaeda defeated a million dollars.”

Al Qaeda fit the wars the United States had become embroiled in after 9/11 into its economic schema. In that same video, bin Laden explained how his movement sought to suck the United States and its allies into draining wars in the Muslim world. The mujahedin “bled Russia for ten years, until it went bankrupt,” bin Laden said, and they would now do the same to the United States.

Just prior to 2011, there was a brief period when jihadism appeared to be in decline. Al Qaeda in Iraq, the group that later became ISIS, had all but met with defeat at the hands of the United States and local Sunni uprisings. Successful attacks were few and far between.

Valentin Bianchi/AP

Representative of those dark times for jihadists, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula released a special issue of its online magazine Inspire celebrating a terrorist attack that claimed no victims. In October 2010, jihadists were able to sneak bombs hidden in printer cartridges onto two cargo planes. Due to strong intelligence efforts, authorities disabled both bombs before they were set to explode, but the group drew satisfaction from merely getting them aboard the planes.

“Two Nokia phones, $150 each, two HP printers, $300 each, plus shipping, transportation and other miscellaneous expenses add up to a total bill of $4,200. That is all what Operation Hemorrhage cost us,” the lead article in that special issue of Inspire boasted. “On the other hand this supposedly ‘foiled plot’, as some of our enemies would like to call [it], will without a doubt cost America and other Western countries billions of dollars in new security measures.” The magazine warned that future attacks will be “smaller, but more frequent”—an approach that “some may refer to as the strategy of a thousand cuts.”

The radical cleric Anwar Al Awlaki, writing in Inspire, explained the dilemma that he saw gripping Al Qaeda’s foes. “You either spend billions of dollars to inspect each and every package in the world,” he wrote, “or you do nothing and we keep trying again.”

Even in those days when the terrorist threat loomed so much smaller, the point was not a bad one. Security is expensive, and driving up costs is one way jihadists aim to wear down Western economies.

Unfortunately, Al Qaeda’s envisioned world of smaller but more frequent attacks proved unnecessary for the jihadists. Less than two months after the special issue of Inspire appeared that celebrated an at best half-successful attack, the revolutionary events that we then knew as the “Arab Spring” sent shockwaves through the Middle East and North Africa.

This instability would help jihadism reach the current heights to which it has ascended, where the attacks are not only more frequent but larger. Unfortunately, the United States—blinded at the time by the misguided belief that revolutions in the Arab world would devastate the jihadist movement—pursued policies that hastened the region’s instability. The damages wrought by these policies are still not fully appreciated.

The silver lining to the jihadist economic strategy is that they, too, are economically vulnerable. The damage inflicted on ISIS’s “state” by coalition bombings and other pressures forced the group to slice its fighters’ salaries at the beginning of this year. But as Al Qaeda watches its flashier jihadist rival carry out gruesome attacks on Western targets and get bombarded in return, it discerns further proof of the wisdom of its strategy of attrition.

As it watches these two sets of foes exhaust each other, Al Qaeda believes that its comparative patience will pay off. It believes that its own time will come.