Category Archives: al Qaida al Nusra Boko Haram

German Intelligence 100+ Tips, Merkel Ignored, Obama?

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German spy agency got 100 tip-offs about ISIS fighters among refugees: report

Reuters: Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (BfV) has received more than 100 tip-offs that there are Islamic State fighters among the refugees currently staying in Germany, Berliner Zeitung newspaper cited the agency’s chief as saying.

The newspaper said on Friday, without citing its sources, that BfV chief Hans-Georg Maassen had recently mentioned this number at a discussion in the Interior Ministry with politicians who focus on domestic policy issues.

But Maassen also said that among those tip-offs there were some cases of untruthful defamation, the newspaper said.

The domestic intelligence agency was not immediately available to comment when contacted by Reuters.

Islamic State militants have slipped into Europe disguised as refugees, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (BfV) said on Friday, a day after security forces thwarted a potential IS attack in Berlin.

Hans-Georg Maassen said the terrorist attacks in Paris last November had shown that Islamic State was deliberately planting terrorists among the refugees flowing into Europe.

“Then we have repeatedly seen that terrorists … have slipped in camouflaged or disguised as refugees. This is a fact that the security agencies are facing,” Maassen told ZDF television.

“We are trying to recognize and identify whether there are still more IS fighters or terrorists from IS that have slipped in,” he added.

The Berliner Zeitung newspaper cited Maassen on Friday as saying that the BfV had received more than 100 tip-offs that there were Islamic State fighters among the refugees currently staying in Germany.

German fears about an attack have risen since the Paris killings. On Thursday, German forces arrested two men suspected of links to Islamic State militants preparing an attack in the German capital.

Authorities also canceled a friendly international soccer match in Hanover last year and closed stations in Munich at New Year due to security concerns.

Maassen, however, warned against alarm.

“We are in a serious situation and there is a high risk that there could be an attack. But the security agencies, the intelligence services and the police authorities are very alert and our goal is to minimize the risk as best we can,” he said.

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IN 2015: German intelligence ‘concerned’ Islamists recruiting refugees

Berlin (AFP) – German intelligence warned Tuesday that the number of Islamic extremists in the country had increased sharply in recent months and expressed serious concern that they were recruiting among refugees.

The Office for the Protection of the Constitution (BfV), Germany’s domestic security watchdog, said the number of radical Salafists had surged to 7,900 in September from 7,500 in June, and that many were trying to lure asylum-seekers into their ranks.

“We are very concerned that Islamists in Germany are trying, under the cover of humanitarian assistance, to exploit the situation of the refugees for their own ends and to proselytise and recruit among asylum-seekers,” BfV president Hans-Georg Maassen said in a statement.

Germany expects to receive up to one million asylum-seekers this year, five times more than last year. Syrians, who are fleeing their war-ravaged country, form the largest group.

Maassen said that a total of 740 radical Muslims had left Germany to join jihadists in Syria and Iraq, 20 percent of them female. Around one-third of those who went to the region have returned to Germany, while about 120 of them have been killed.

He said the BfV was keeping close watch on such activities given their “significant radicalisation potential” in the migrant community.

“We are keeping a particularly close eye on unaccompanied minors among the refugees, who could be easy targets for Islamists,” he said.

Maassen stressed that his office had no evidence that jihadist groups were using the large influx of refugees to infiltrate Germany.

 

Germany says it expects to receive up to one million …

Germany says it expects to receive up to one million asylum-seekers in 2015 (AFP Photo/Axel Schmidt)

And he said the BfV was also concerned that far-right groups were seizing on the issue of Germany’s openness to refugees for propaganda purposes, saying it contained “significant potential for escalation”.

Maassen warned that the risk of clashes with left-wing counter-demonstrators also “should not be discounted”.

– Dawn raids-

German police carried out dawn raids in Berlin Tuesday targeting individuals suspected of inciting people to go and fight for the Islamic State group in Syria.

The raids began at 6:30 am (0430 GMT) and targeted, among others, a 51-year-old Moroccan suspected of recruiting for the jihadists, police said in a statement.

A 19-year-old Macedonian thought to be currently in Syria is also suspected of involvement in the recruitment drive, it said.

“We are looking for evidence to see whether these allegations are true,” a police spokesman said. No arrests were made.

One raid was conducted at an association linked to a mosque in Berlin’s central Tempelhof district, the spokesman said. Seven homes were also searched.

“We have no indications that anything was being planned in Germany,” he said when asked about indications of any plot to attack targets here.

But people who go to fight in Syria “gain experience of violence there and one day or another can return to Berlin”, he said.

He added that there was no link to an incident last Thursday in which an Iraqi man with a jihadist background stabbed a German policewoman before officers shot him dead in Berlin.

Germany has been spared a major Islamist attack, unlike many of its European neighbours, but the country has been called a potential target in IS propaganda.

In August, two German-speaking jihadists claiming to belong to IS threatened Germany with attacks in an execution video broadcast online.

Saudi Arabia Diving into Islamic State War?

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Carter: Saudis to Contribute More in Counter-ISIL Fight

WASHINGTON, February 5, 2016 —The Saudi Arabian government has indicated its willingness to do more with the coalition in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, Defense Secretary Ash Carter said yesterday at Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.

Speaking with reporters after addressing airmen at the Air Force installation, Carter said he looks forward to discussing contributions to the accelerated anti-ISIL fight with the Saudis and 25 other nations next week in Brussels.

“The United States has very much indicated our desire to accelerate the campaign to defeat ISIL, [and] we’ll do that better, and it’ll be easier to sustain the defeat … if other countries that are part of the coalition accelerate their efforts at the same time,” Carter said.

Positive Contribution

Saudi Arabia also has said it’s willing to take the lead in marshaling some Muslim-majority countries, he added, noting that the local population in Syria and Iraq will sustain the defeat of ISIL.

“The Saudis indicated that they and other countries would be best positioned to help make those arrangements,” the secretary said. “I think that’s a very positive contribution as well.”

On other contributions, Carter said the Dutch also have said they are willing to join in the counter-ISIL campaign in Syria, as they have done in Iraq.

“So you see others stepping up,” he added, “and the reason I’m going to Brussels next week is to bring the full weight of the coalition behind accelerating the defeat of ISIL.”

Budgetary Priority

To the airmen in Nevada, Carter previewed the Air Force portion of the fiscal year 2017 DoD budget proposal, noting that the Pentagon is adding another $1 billion over the next five years for the kind of training available at Nellis, home of the Air Force Warfare Center.

“Nellis is incredibly important to the Air Force, now and in the future, [and] they can expect increased investments in the quality of the range, in the intensity of the training, the number of exercises conducted here, the variety of aircraft that will be coming here and will need to be maintained here,” Carter said.

“This is a critical place,” he added. “It’s going to stay a critical place, and it’s going to get budgetary priority. The key is readiness — that’s the key to the Air Force today and tomorrow.”

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Saudi Arabia vs Iran: The view from Turkey, stuck in the middle

ISTANBUL – Turkey should avoid picking sides in the current diplomatic crisis between Saudi Arabia and Iran, according to experts.

“I hope that Turkey doesn’t feel that it needs to rush in and take sides in this issue. It’s not in the interests of the region that everyone lines up on one side or the other,” said Stephen Kinzer, a visiting fellow at the Watson Institute for International Studies and a former bureau chief for the New York Times in Istanbul.

Sunni-majority Saudi Arabia terminated diplomatic ties with its longtime rival Iran, which has a Shi’a majority, on Sunday following an attack by protestors on its embassy in Tehran. The protestors, who the Saudi foreign minister said were supported by the Iranian government, were angry at Saudi Arabia’s execution of prominent Shi’a cleric and critic of the Kingdom Nimr Al-Nimr on Saturday.

“This certainly heralds a more acute period of confrontation between the two,” said Sinan Ülgen, former Turkish diplomat and chairman of The Centre for Economics and Foreign Policy Studies in Istanbul.

Turkey, majority-Sunni, has relations with Saudi Arabia and Iran, and has called for restraint from both sides. Ankara criticized Saudi Arabia for “political death penalties” without specifically mentioning Nimr, and said Iran must protect all diplomatic missions in its country, calling the attacks on the Saudi embassy “unacceptable.”

Ülgen told The Media Line that since the American invasion of Iraq in 2003 and the ensuing instability, “we have seen a rise in sectarian tension between Tehran and Riyadh.”

However, both Ülgen and Kinzer say that dismissing the conflict purely as religious sectarianism is overly simplistic.

“Sectarianism is being used as a façade, behind which Saudi Arabia and Iran are jousting for power in the Middle East,” Kinzer told The Media Line. “Basically these are the only remaining powers in the [region]. You’d like to think the Middle East is big enough for both of them, but it doesn’t seem that way.”

Terror Ties Vetting Prison Chaplains

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Federal Prisons Using Groups With Terror Ties To Vet Islamic Chaplains

DailyCaller: As Fox News and other news organizations have reported, America’s federal prisons are a “breeding ground” for potential Islamic terrorists — and have been so for years. Despite this disturbing trend, the Obama administration has enlisted Islamic organizations with known terror ties to review and endorse chaplains to work in federal prisons.

In response to an inquiry from Republican Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, the Federal Bureau of Prisons provided a list of Islamic Chaplaincy Endorsers, which Grassley has since posted online. Included on the list is the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which has long-standing ties with the Muslim Brotherhood and was named by the Justice Department as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terror financing case.

In an open letter to the director of the Bureau of Prisons Thomas Kane, Grassley pointed out that “A 2009 federal district court ruling concluded that ample evidence exists showing the Islamic Society of North America’s ties to Hamas, which is designated by the State Department as a terrorist organization.”

Writing about ISNA, Grassley noted: “It appears, therefore, that the BOP is relying on an organization with associations to terrorist organizations and one that the DOJ named as an unindicted co-conspirator in a terrorist financing case to confirm credentials of those attempting to provide religious services to federal inmates. If accurate, this information is deeply troubling.”

And ISNA isn’t even the only organization with radical ties on the list of chaplaincy endorsers. The Islamic Education Center, located in Walnut, Calif., also has ties to terror organizations through its founder, Dr. Ahmad H. Sakr.

In addition to founding the Islamic Education Center, Sakr — originally from Lebanon — was a founding member of both ISNA and the World Council of Mosques, the latter of which has “a long history of providing financial support to terrorist groups,” according to the Anti-Defamation League. Sakr, who passed away just a few months ago, is listed as the contact person on the BOP’s list of chaplaincy endorsers.

“It is imperative that the BOP take every measure possible to ensure the safety of its personnel within federal prisons and take all reasonable measures to ensure that Islamic extremism is stopped at the gates of each prison,” Grassley noted in his letter to Director Kane. “Currently, it is not clear whether the BOP is doing so.”

As a result of the apparent shortcomings, Grassley is asking the Bureau of Prisons to provide further information about “the process by which someone becomes a religious endorsing organization,” in addition to an explanation for why the BOP chose ISNA as a chaplaincy endorser.
Grassley is also seeking the number of currently employed religious contractors from the 2014-15 year with still incomplete background checks.

According to a 2013 article from the Huffington Post, anywhere between 35,000-40,000 inmates convert to Islam every year, presumably with the assistance of the chaplains provided by the prisons. In a 2014 op-ed in The Daily Caller, author Joy Brighton argued that the nation’s prisons have been churning out thousands of radicalized inmates every year. Brighton’s calls were echoed in a Fox News article just last month that cited experts on the subject who called federal prisons a “breeding ground” for potential terrorists.

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In 2003 for the Inspector General:  On March 10, 2003, Senator Charles Schumer wrote a letter to the OIG requesting that we examine the BOP’s process for selecting Muslim chaplains based on concerns that the BOP relies solely on two Islamic groups to endorse its Muslim chaplains, the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Graduate School of Islamic and Social Sciences (GSISS). Schumer noted that the ISNA and the GSISS allegedly are connected to terrorism and promote Wahhabism, which some consider an exclusionary and extreme form of Islam. In addition to Senator Schumer, Senators Jon Kyl and Dianne Feinstein expressed similar concerns and asked the OIG to examine these issues as they relate to the BOP.

In response to these requests, we reviewed the recruitment, endorsement, selection, and supervision of Muslim chaplains and other Muslim religious services providers who work with BOP inmates. We also examined the roles the ISNA, the GSISS, and other organizations have in the endorsement of chaplain candidates.

During this review, the OIG interviewed the BOP’s ten Muslim chaplains, the BOP detailee to the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) National Joint Terrorism Task Force (NJTTF), and officials at BOP Headquarters who are responsible for religious services providers, including the Chief of the Chaplaincy Services Branch and the Senior Deputy Assistant Director (SDAD) of the Correctional Programs Division. We also interviewed FBI counterterrorism officials and representatives of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom at the U.S. Department of State (Commission). Full report here.

From GatesStone: The number of Muslim prisoners in Britain has doubled in the last decade to nearly 12,000. Many of these prisoners, the media reports, are at “significant risk” of radicalization. The solution, authorities claim, lies with the Islamic prison chaplains. Or are they, in fact, part of the problem? Where do these chaplains come from? What sort of Islam are they espousing?

On May 12, the BBC broadcast its own investigation into the radicalization of prison inmates. The documentary featured interviews with former inmates such as Michael Coe, who “went into prison as a gangster and left as Mikaeel Ibrahim, a convert to Islam.” Coe attributes his conversion to his friendship in jail with al-Qaeda terrorist Dhiren Barot, jailed for life by a British court in 2004 for plotting to blow up limousines by packing them with gas canisters. Full article here.

For more facts on the matter: Why Extremist Chaplains Have Access to U.S. Prisons

 

Christian Patrols vs. Islamists in England

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Britain First, Fighting Back, what is real on the streets on London and the suburbs. Courtesy of BritainFirst.org.

In towns like Ulster, Dewbury, Rotherham and Luton it is Chritians versus Islam where Britain First is taking a stand to reclaim their country. England is full of ‘no-go’ zones where  the corrupt government has relinquished sovereignty to a violent culture and ideology.

Jayda Fransen, Deputy Leader of Britain First podcast:

 

 

Homs. Syria: Today

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Context: New York City in 2014 had an estimated population of 8.49 million. Today in Syria, 11 million people have fled the country. Starvation is everywhere.

Iran and Russia have been long time friends with Bashir al Assad and both rogue countries continue to prop up Assad.

Every world leader is responsible for this and to blame. 5 years of Bashir al Assad, years of Islamic State, years of al Nusra. Russia continues to bomb those fighting against the Assad regime with wild abandon. This is 2016, how can a modern day holocaust be so real. No one can fully estimate the death tolls, 200,000 or 500,000?

 

 

 

What are the prospects for anyone to ever return? How can this be rebuilt?

Homs: Homs did not emerge into the historical record until the 1st century BCE at the time of the Seleucids. It later became the capital of a kingdom ruled by the Emesani dynasty who gave the city its name. Originally a center of worship for the sun god El-Gabal, it later gained importance in Christianity under the Byzantines. Homs was conquered by the Muslims in the 7th century and made capital of a district that bore its current name. Throughout the Islamic era, Muslim dynasties contending for control of Syria sought after Homs due to the city’s strategic position in the area. Homs began to decline under the Ottomans and only in the 19th century did the city regain its economic importance when its cotton industry boomed. During French Mandate rule, the city became a center of insurrection and, after independence in 1946, a center of Baathist resistance to the first Syrian governments.

Large parts of Syria are reduced almost entirely to rubble after five years of civil war.

As attitudes and policies towards refugees harden across Europe, a video has emerged that exposes the utter devastation Syrians are fleeing from.

Revealing in detail the consequences of the country’s five-year civil war, the drone footage shows the piles of rubble ruined buildings that Homs – previously Syria’s third largest city – has been reduced to.

While the video reflects the utter desolation in a city that was once home to more than 650,000 people, peace talks aimed at ending hostilities remain frustratingly unproductive.
The video that shows the Syrian peace talks cannot come soon enough
Arguments over who should or should not attend the negotiations overshadowed the continuous damage wrought in a war that has seen over 11 million Syrians flee, more than half the country’s entire population.

The video was shot by Alexander Pushin, a cameraman for Russian state television.

While his drone footage from Syria has been described as propaganda designed to promote Russia’s military involvement in the country, the startling scale of devastation it exposes is beyond question.
Even as news emerged of nine people who died attempting to reach the relative safe haven of Europe, anti-refugee sentiment appears to be growing across the continent.

Denmark recently introduced legislation that permits the seizing of refugees’ valuables, which drew comparisons to the treatment of Jews by Nazi Germany.
Sweden is rejecting applications from 80,000 people who sought asylum in the Scandinavian country last year, while Finland also intends to expel 20,000 of the 32,000 applications received in 2015.

Angela Merkel announced recently that Syrian refugees would be expected to return to the Middle East once the conflict is over, while British Prime Minister David Cameron dismissed those living in the squalor of Calais’ “Jungle” as “a bunch of migrants”.

Starting in 2011, the ongoing conflict in Syria pitches Bashar al Assad’s regime – aided by Russia – against a multitude of different and competing factions, including Islamist group Isis and associated militias.

The language of a continent that once appeared to welcome refugees no longer appears so accommodating, despite the evidently dire situation in Homs, Damascus and other Syrian cities reduced to ruins over the last five years.