Category Archives: al Qaida al Nusra Boko Haram

For DHS, Terror Attacks are Really Just Violent Extremism

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Press Release

Statement By Secretary Johnson On The New NTAS Bulletin

June 15, 2016 — In December 2015, I announced the revision of the Department of Homeland Security’s National Terrorism Advisory System, or “NTAS,” to include an intermediate level NTAS “Bulletin.” We then issued a new NTAS Bulletin at the same time. The duration of the December Bulletin was six months, and expires tomorrow.

June 15, 2016

Statement By Secretary Johnson On The New NTAS Bulletin

National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin

Date Issued:  Wednesday, June 15, 2016
View as PDF:  National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin – June 15, 2016 (pdf, 1 page, 876.65KB)

Summary

In December, we described a new phase in the global threat environment, which has implications on the homeland. This basic assessment has not changed. In this environment, we are particularly concerned about homegrown violent extremists who could strike with little or no notice. The tragic events of Orlando several days ago reinforce this. Accordingly, increased public vigilance and awareness continue to be of utmost importance. This bulletin has a five-month duration and will expire just before the holiday season. We will reassess the threats of terrorism at that time.

Duration

Issued:  June 15, 2016
Expires:  November 15, 2016

Details

  • Since issuing the first Bulletin in December, our concerns that violent extremists could be inspired to conduct attacks inside the U.S. have not diminished.
  • Though we know of no intelligence that is both specific and credible at this time of a plot by terrorist organizations to attack the homeland, the reality is terrorist-inspired individuals have conducted, or attempted to conduct, attacks in the United States.
  • DHS is especially concerned that terrorist-inspired individuals and homegrown violent extremists may be encouraged or inspired to target public events or places.
  • As we saw in the attacks in San Bernardino, Paris, Brussels, and, most recently, Orlando, terrorists will consider a diverse and wide selection of targets for attacks.
  • Terrorist use of the Internet to inspire individuals to violence or join their ranks remains a major source of concern.
  • In the current environment, DHS is also concerned about threats and violence directed at particular communities and individuals across the country, based on perceived religion, ethnicity, nationality or sexual orientation.

U.S. Government Counterterrorism Efforts

  • DHS and the FBI continue to provide guidance to state and local partners on increased security measures.  The public may observe an increased law enforcement and security presence across communities, in public places and at events in the months ahead. This may include additional restrictions and searches on bags, more K-9 teams, and the use of screening technologies.
  • The FBI is investigating potential terrorism-related activities associated with this broad threat throughout the United States.  Federal, state, and local authorities are coordinating numerous law enforcement actions and conducting community outreach to address this evolving threat.

Types of Advisories

Bulletin

Describes current developments or general trends regarding threats of terrorism.

Elevated Alert

Warns of a credible terrorism threat against the United States.

Imminent Alert

Warns of a credible, specific and impending terrorism threat against the United States.

How You Can Help

  • Report suspicious activity to local law enforcement or public safety officials who are best positioned to respond and offer specific details on terroristic indicators.
  • Suspicious activity or information about a threat may also be reported to Fusion Centers and the FBI’s Field Offices – part of the Nationwide Suspicious Activity Reporting Initiative.
  • Learn how to recognize signs of pre-operational planning associated with terrorism or other criminal activity.

Be Prepared

  • Be prepared for increased security and plan ahead to anticipate delays and restricted/prohibited items.
  • In populated places, be responsible for your personal safety. Make a mental note of emergency exits and locations of the nearest security personnel. Keep cell phones in your pockets instead of bags or on tables so you don’t lose them during an incident. Carry emergency contact details and any special needs information with you at all times. For more visit Ready.

Stay Informed

  • The U.S. Government will provide additional information about any emerging threat as additional information is identified. The public is encouraged to listen to local law enforcement and public safety officials.
  • We urge Americans to continue to travel, attend public events, and freely associate with others but remain vigilant and aware of surroundings.
  • The Department of State issues international travel alerts and warnings.

If You See Something, Say Something™. Report suspicious activity to local law enforcement or call 911.

OMG, Guess who is Now Obama’s Newest Advisor?

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White House Appoints Latest Advisor Tied To US Muslim Brotherhood- Zaki Barzinji Is Grandson Of US Muslim Brotherhood Founder

GlobalmbWatch: US media has announced the appointment of Zaki Barzinji, age 27, as the new liaison to the Muslim American community under the White House Office of Public Engagement. According to a Huffington Post report:

May 26, 2016 With Islamophobia rampant in communities across the US, Muslim Americans now have a chief ally at the White House.

Zaki Barzinji, former Deputy Director of Intergovernmental Affairs for Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D-Va.), recently assumed the new role as liaison to the Muslim American community under the Office of Public Engagement, the White House director of specialty media told The Huffington Post this week. In his new post, Barzinji will plan outreach to Muslim Americans, as well as Sikhs, Buddhists, and Hindus, working to ensure that these communities are represented at the federal level.

‘A big part of this role is making sure the national conversation about these communities is not framed through a single lens, but covers the full range of issues that Muslims and other Americans face,’ Barzinji, 27, said in a statement to The Huffington Post.

Zaki Barzinji, 27, recently began as liaison to the Muslim American community under the White House Office of Public Engagement. The Virginia native and former president of Muslim Youth of North America has experience bringing underrepresented groups into the public arena. While working in the governor’s office, Barzinji served as a liaison to the Virginia Asian Advisory Board and prior to that directed outreach to Arab American and Asian American and Pacific Islander communities for McAuliffe’s 2013 campaign.”

 

Read the rest here.

It would appear that in reality, it is not “Muslim Americans” who now have a chief ally at the White House but rather the US Muslim Brotherhood. Among other things, Zaki Barzinji is the grandson of the late Jamal Barzinji,  of one of the most important founders of the US Brotherhood. As we noted in October 2015 in our obituary for Jamal Barzinji, according to a history of the US Muslim Brotherhood (USMB), authored by the GMBDW editor:

Three individuals—Ahmad al-Haj Totonji, Dr. Jamal al-Din Barzinji, and Dr. Hisham Yahya al-Talib—played key roles in the founding and development of MSA [Muslim Student Association]. All were born in the Kurdish, northern part of Iraq, and may have met there or possibly later in Britain, where all three received their undergraduate education in engineering  An FBI memo has identified Barzinji and al-Talib as members of the Muslim Brotherhood prior to establishing a residence in the US. The Washington Post adds that [Barzinji] fled Iraq in 1969 when the Ba’athist regime started executing fellow Islamists. After completion of their studies in Britain, the three came to the United States, ostensibly for graduate study but also to continue organizing Muslim youth activities

As the above report goes on to explain, Dr. Barzinji went on to play key roles in the founding of the Saudi World Assembly of Muslim Youth (WAMY), said by US government agencies and officials to have helped spread Islamic extremism and terrorism around the world, as well as most of the important organizations comprising the US Muslim Brotherhood including the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), and perhaps most famously the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT). In January 2014, the GMBDW reported that elements of the US Muslim Brotherhood had organized a dinner in honor of Dr. Barzinji and the IIIT. In May of this year, we reported that the Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy (CSID) awarded the organization’s “Muslim Democrat of the Year” award posthumously to the late Jamal Barzinji as well as to his colleague, the late Taha Jabir Al-Alwani, another founding figure of the US Muslim Brotherhood and both co-founders of CSID. CSID itself was founded in 1998 in what appears to have been a cooperative effort among the US Muslim Brotherhood, the US State Department and Georgetown University academic Dr. John Esposito with the aim of promoting “Islamic Democracy.”

Zaki Barzinji himself has participated actively with US Muslim Brotherhood organizations including as noted above the Muslim Youth of North America (MYNA) associated with the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and, as the GMBDW reported in 2008, appearing as a MYNA representative alongside important leaders of the US Muslim Brotherhood. Zaki Barzinji joins a long list of individuals tied to the US Muslim Brotherhood who have been invited by the Obama Administration to serve as important advisors including:

  • Mazen Asbahi- On August 1 2008, the GMBDW (then known as the GMBDR) ran a post identifying Chicago lawyer Mazen Asbahi as an adviser to the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT) and NAIT as part of the US Muslim Brotherhood and which was named as an unindicted co-conspirator in the Holy Land Foundation terrorist trial, as was NAIT board member Jamal Said. The post also listed Mr. Asbahi’s connection to the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). The GMBDW ran a second post on the same day that identified Asbahi’s ties to two further US Muslim Brotherhood organizations- the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding and an Illinois LLC called SA Consulting. At this time the GMBDR was private and the post received very little attention until August 6th when the Wall Street Journal published an article revealing that Mr. Asbahi had resigned from the Obama campaign after the Journal had queried him about his USMB ties. The Journal credited the GMBDR for breaking the story.
  • Dahlia Mogahed- On April 12 2009, the GMBDW reported that one of the two Muslim members appointed to the President’s Advisory Council on Faith-Based and Neighborhood Partnerships was Dahlia Mogahed, a protege of John Espositio, perhaps the best known academic supporter of the Muslim Brotherhood and with strong ties to Saudi Arabia. Although the report on the appointment was not exclusive to the GMBDW, we were the only publication to note that Ms. Mogahed is the daughter of Elsayed Mogahed, an Egyptian immigrant who is a former engineering scientist at the University of Wisconsin and director of the Islamic Center of Madison (ICM). The website of the ICM links mainly to US Muslim Brotherhood organizations and Souheil Ghannouchi, the President of the Muslim American Society (MAS), was ICM Imam and President for several years. The MAS is part of the US Muslim Brotherhood and closest to the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood.
  • Huma Abedin– On February 7 2010, the GMBDW reported that that then Secretary of State Hillary Clinton had addressed students at the Dar El-Hekma women’s college in Saudi Arabia, known to have been co-founded and patronized by an individual designated as a terrorist by the US as well as by important Saudi bankers and members of the Bin Laden family. As part of that story, we noted that the Vice Dean of institutional advancement at Dar El-Hekma is Saleha M. Abedin who was one of the founders of the College, as well being the mother of Huma Abedin, a Deputy Chief of Staff to Hillary Clinton. We also reported that Saleha Abedin, along with her late husband Syed Z. Abedin, were founders of the Institute of Muslim Minority Affairs, a London organization that is known to have been close to the Saudi Muslim World League. We subsequently reported that Saleha Abedin was serving as a board member of the International Islamic Council for Dawa and Relief (IICDR), an umbrella group for 86 Islamic organizations, many of which are associated with the global Muslim Brotherhood, Hamas fundraising, or support for Al Qaeda. We also delved into the ties of Huma Abedin’s brother Hasan Abedin who was an officer of the Oxford Center of Islamic Studies,  chaired by Dr. Abdullah Omar Naseef, a Saudi with his own extensive ties to Islamist organizations. A variety of other actors later claimed credit for unearthing the information about Human Abedin’s parents that was first reported by the GMBDW.
  • Rashad Hussain- On February 14 2010, the GMBDW reported on the US Muslim Brotherhood connections of Rashad Hussain, a White House attorney who was President Obama’s newly appointed envoy to the OIC. Those connections including ties to the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), the Muslim Student Association (MSA), and the Association of Muslim Social Scientists (AMSS). The post also revealed that an annual MSA conference, Mr. Hussein appeared along side the daughter of Palestinian Islamic Jihad leader Sami Al-Arian and labeled Al-Arian’s prosecution “politically motivated persecution.” The post further noted that the sentences pertaining to Mr. Hussein statement had been removed from the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs (WRMEA) report on the MSA conference but were still available at the Internet Archive. The story was subsequently “appropriated” by another media outlet who only belatedly and partially credited the GMBDW as the original source of the story.
  • Mohamed Elibiary– On October 30 2010, the GMBDW reported that the Department of Homeland Security had sworn in three new members of the Homeland Security Advisory Council one of whom was Mohamed Elibiary, who we exclusively identified as the President and CEO of the Freedom and Justice Foundation, an organization with ties to the US Muslim Brotherhood and the US Hamas infrastructure. Since that time, Mr. Elibiary has been widely discussed in a variety of venues and described as a “noted Islamist” though he was virtually unknown until the GMBDW highlighted his background.
Despite the above, the GMBDW is on record as rejecting the suggestion, widely popular in certain circles, that the presence in the Obama Administration of so many individuals tied to the US Muslim Brotherhood is proof that the government has been “infiltrated” by the Brotherhood. As we have argued in the past:

More recently, an additional challenge has emerged, namely the use of GMBDW research to spin unsubstantiated and fanciful stories about the same networks we have so carefully tried to document. The most egregious example is the claim, since gone viral, that the Muslim Brotherhood has “infiltrated” the Obama administration. Stories based on this alleged infiltration typically feature rogues galleries of “Muslim Brotherhood operatives” said to be whispering in the ear of the Obama administration and aimed at causing the downfall of the United States. In most cases, the stories include high-profile individuals first identified by the GMBDW as tied to the Global Muslim Brotherhood using criteria we have long since publicly explained.

We refer readers to that post where we debunk the notion of such “infiltration” and provide an alternative explanation for the presence of these individuals in the US government but it is important to repeat our caution at the end that:

….there remains the pertinent issue of what influence, malign or otherwise, these individuals may have had on Obama Administration policy toward the Middle East or in other relevant policy arenas

That said, the newly announced appointment of Zaki Barzinji is particularly interesting to us as we believe it is evidence of a long-standing cooperation between the US Government and the Muslim Brotherhood. This topic however is far beyond the scope of this post and will hopefully be the subject of a future report.

Europe has an Unaccompanied Children Crisis Too

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New World Dis-Order

Unaccompanied child refugees: ‘These children aren’t seen as children’

A network of 30 European NGOs supporting missing and exploited children have come together to tackle the rising problem of missing refugee children

Guardian: Human smugglers increasingly combine smuggling with exploitation and their victims are often children,” says Federica Toscano. “At chaotic border situations, it happens that smugglers deliberately separate refugee children from their parents to exploit them.’’

“We also hear that families at the border between Greece and Macedonia have been forced to ‘pay’ smugglers with one of their children,” continues Toscano. “Smugglers have come to realise they can make much more profit by taking advantage of vulnerable people. And the most vulnerable people are children.”

Toscano is well-placed to know. She works for Missing Children Europe, a network of thirty European NGOs that are active in the field of missing and sexually exploited children. Since its foundation in 2001, MCE has focussed on different groups of missing children (pdf). Half of the cases of children that disappear in Europe are runaways: those who run away from home or institutions after a history of violence or abuse. More than a third are abducted by parents.

Related reading: Invisible refugees: ‘You are the only organisation that has ever visited us’ 

But the most recent category is unaccompanied child refugees. “This group only makes up 2% of cases, which is a low percentage,” says Delphine Moralis, the secretary general of MCE, “but that doesn’t say anything about the magnitude of the problem. These children are seldom reported as missing. That’s why we find it so important to focus on this problem too.’’

Earlier this year Europol stated that at least 10,000 unaccompanied child refugees have gone missing in Europe. A recent EU report warned that these children have become targets for criminal gangs, who exploit them in the sex industry or force them to beg, steal or smuggle drugs.

But MCE believe the true number to be far higher than 10,000. Toscano says that “in Italy alone 5,000 refugee children have gone missing. And Germany reported that in 2015 almost 6,000 of these children have disappeared.’’

The organisation has been aware of the problem for some time. “As far back as 2005 a Belgian study showed that one fourth of unaccompanied children seeking asylum went missing within the first 48 hours upon arrival. So it’s no news to us.”

But for a whole range of reasons, many of these disappearances go unreported. “First of all, there’s no sense of urgency,” explains Toscano. “When a child refugee goes missing, the general assumption is that he or she has a plan, and that the child is resilient. The police and social services don’t feel the same sense of urgency as when the child is from their own country. They are not aware of the risks these children run, that they might fall victim to exploitation. So nothing is really done.’’

The lack of formal procedures when these children disappear is another problem. “Much depends on the goodwill of the single professional involved,” says Toscano. “There is no common system to collect information about missing children in Europe. There are good practices, but they’re very local. So the traffickers just go to another area.’’

MCE was founded fifteen years ago in 2001, when it became clear that European cooperation on this issue was seriously lacking. “I was working for a Belgian NGO at the time when two Belgian girls went missing,” says Moralis. “On the third day of their disappearance a judge called us and said: ‘We have no idea where these children are, they could be anywhere in Europe, we really need your help now.’ There was no other way to tackle the problem but by contacting one by one all the 309 European organisations working in this field. That’s when we realised it was necessary to create a network of contact points for missing children.”

The organisation facilitates training of professionals to respond better to the disappearance of child refugees. It also exerts pressure on European institutions to provide clear rules and legislation to protect these children. This year, MCE has published a handbook (pdf) on good practises to help prevent and respond to unaccompanied children going missing.

“We try to be as practical as possible,” says Toscano. “You can do so much to prevent a child from disappearing. Just a simple example: when a child arrives in a shelter and is given food, he may think he has to pay for it. When he has no money, he will try to escape as soon as possible. Workers should take time to explain everything to the child … Sometimes these children don’t even realise it when they are exploited. Their traffickers tell them all kinds of lies to make them extra vulnerable. They say: watch out for authorities, they will lock you up.’’

They also closely monitor development throughout Europe. Toscano has been collecting information on missing children in Europe through the EU co-funded SUMMIT project (pdf). This included a study into interagency cooperation around unaccompanied migrant children done through surveys and interviews with hotlines for missing children, professionals at refugee reception centres, guardians and law enforcement in the UK, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Belgium and Ireland.

As a result they are hearing from the frontlines. “We know that there are networks of child traffickers that operate in different countries,” says Toscano. “For example, when a refugee child has been exploited in Eritrea and claims asylum in the Netherlands, there will be another criminal gang waiting to exploit him there. Traffickers have excellent lines of communication. When a child has a history of trafficking, the risk that he will be trafficked again is very high.”

According to Moralis, the closing of borders means that lots of refugees are stuck in bad conditions: “This makes them more vulnerable and creates more opportunities for criminals. How is it possible that all this is going on in Europe and nobody seems to know where these children are?”

“Our main aim is to raise awareness that these children are children,” says Toscano. “It’s very simple. You’d think that everyone would be aware of this, but it is certainly not the case. Not for authorities, not for members of the civil society, nor for the general public. These children usually aren’t seen as children, but as people who just come here and use resources that we want to use for something else.’’

Militant Islam, Obama Admin Forbidden Terms

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A distinction needs to be made. Radical extremists are for the force multipliers, those like Anwar al Awlaki. The militants like Mohammed Emwazi are born from the radicals and they are the deadly enforcers of the Islamic doctrine and Sharia.

Don’t blame the FBI for failures, with particular regard to the worst terror attack in American by a gunman, Orlando. Blame the White House. All the Q&A sessions, congressional testimony and press briefings by FBI Director James Comey have had an underlying message, a cry for help, attention and support.

Don’t blame the intelligence community including CENTCOM and the Pentagon for battlefield or rules of engagement failures. That belongs to the entire White House national security team. The Office of National Intelligence has also been affected.

This is not political correctness at all, it is a Barak Obama edict, sensitivity to Islam across our homeland and across the globe. Obama has had a strident mission since he assumed the Oval Office to create a Muslim protective shield. This is beyond dispute.

While not in any chronological order, there are some very key decisions that were made and continue to be made by the Obama administration that affect our national security and this generational war titled the Overseas Contingency Operation.

In April of 2009, Barak Obama delivered ‘The New Beginnings’ speech. In this presentation he spelled out his full agenda in what was to become the long-term mission to elevate Muslims and their organizations at home and globally. The White House objectives have been successful and consequential.

With the new beginning announced, Obama extended his same purpose throughout government agencies, law enforcement and policies as a mandatory doctrine.

‘Just before that Christmas Day attack, in early November 2009, I was ordered by my superiors at the Department of Homeland Security to delete or modify several hundred records of individuals tied to designated Islamist terror groups like Hamas from the important federal database, the Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS). These types of records are the basis for any ability to “connect dots.”  Every day, DHS Customs and Border Protection officers watch entering and exiting many individuals associated with known terrorist affiliations, then look for patterns. Enforcing a political scrubbing of records of Muslims greatly affected our ability to do that. Even worse, going forward, my colleagues and I were prohibited from entering pertinent information into the database.’ Philip Haney, The Hill.

Directly after the 9/11 attack, the Bush administration did reach out to the Muslim communities to determine who was with peace and national security and who perhaps gave clues of a larger and hidden condition that could be festering that would prove clues to more domestic security challenges.

Then came the Holyland Foundation trial in 2007/2008. The material facts and conditions of the domestic threat, people, money, collaboration and global consequence all converged in a courtroom in Texas.

During the Holy Land trial, FBI Agent Lara Burns testified in court that CAIR was a front for HAMAS. One trial exhibit submitted by federal prosecutors – and stipulated to by the defense in the case – explained that these organizations were dedicated to a “civilizational-jihadist process” to destroy America from within and replace the Constitution with sharia (Islamic law):

The Ikhwah [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion [Islam] is made victorious over all other religions. (p. 21)

Federal prosecutors specifically cited this internal Muslim Brotherhood planning document as the strategic goal of these U.S.-based Islamic groups – the very same group advising the Obama Administration. The federal judge in the Holy Foundation case agreed with the case presented by the federal prosecutors had made regarding these organizations, stating in one ruling that “the Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations with CAIR, ISNA and NAIT with HLF…and with HAMAS.” (p. 14-15) More important details here from the CounterjihadReport.

The Department of Justice under Eric Holder was included in the full protection of the terror networks and associated people. Congressman Gohmert of Texas challenged AG Holder to no avail in a chilling exchange.

Here is where the ‘words matter’ material documentation began. The Obama administration took this agenda to new standard.

In 2009, DHS published via the Office of Intelligence and Analysis Assessment a ‘Rightwing Extremism’ document, pinpointing those that may challenge the Obama Muslim doctrine. Additionally, DHS posted The Department of Homeland Security launched a ‘Do’s and Dont’s bulletin.

The entire complexion of the Department of Homeland Security began to change with new personnel and outreach under Secretary Janet Napolitano. The outreach extended to law enforcement agencies of which LAPD demonstrates.

The order to purge documents, training materials and database was made. The proof is here.

Barak Obama was not finished. In 2015, the White House introduced a strategy for CVE, Counter Violent Extremism.

Then comes the foreign policy of Obama. All deference to Iran began before Obama assumed the White House in 2009 and continues today. Secret back channels to Iran using Ambassador Burns began in 2008. Further, there is Iraq and Syria with Islamic State. Documents here on ISIS prove the intelligence and forecasts were known, available and delivered.

This would not be complete without mentioning China, Russia or North Korea where policies are non-existent.

The Paris attack was a slaughter and Obama found it wise to snub the solidarity march with other world leaders.

Obama touted Yemen as one of his successes but the country collapsed. Finally, the Obama policy doctrine crumbled and the cause was fully explained here. Obama wilfully recoiled as he and Hillary did on Benghazi.

It really no longer matters that Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton or John Kerry refuse to use key terms to describe militant Islam, the entire well verse and informed world have defined it for them. What does matter beyond the words are the policies and refusals of missions, strategies and conditions to keep America, her interests and allies safe.

It is no wonder there is no global respect for the Obama administration and there is much less to fear from her.

In summary, Obama owns this terror, owns this jihad and owns the death as well as the genocide. This is his legacy, he owns it as his own scarlet letter.

 

 

POTUS, No Executive Order to Close Gitmo

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Official offers details on Gitmo detainees who kill more Americans

An official who spoke to CNN Thursday put the numbers at fewer than 15 who went on to attack Americans or coalition forces in Afghanistan. The number of Americans killed in these attacks is believed to be in the single digits, according to the U.S. official, who is familiar with the matter.
 
“Because many of these incidents were large-scale firefights in a war zone, we cannot always distinguish whether Americans were killed by the former detainees or by others in the same fight,” the official said. More here.

USN: The White House was unable to come up with a strong legal strategy for executive action in this case, as the White House teams did in the cases of gun control and immigration executive orders, even though Obama serves as commander-in-chief and the office that he occupies traditionally has wider latitude in military matters. Obama sent a closure plan to Congress in February.

 

Report: Obama Administration Is ‘Not Pursuing’ an Executive Order to Close Guantanamo

TheBlaze: The Obama administration is not planning to use an executive order to close the military prison in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, after officials determined that such an order would not be a “viable” strategy, “sources familiar with the deliberations” told Reuters.

According to Reuters, the decision “narrows the already slim chances that President Barack Obama can fulfill his pledge to close the notorious offshore prison before leaving office in January.”

While campaigning for president in 2008, then-Sen. Barack Obama promised to close the controversial facility if elected. Earlier this year, the president announced a plan to close the facility that was met with opposition in Congress.

The source told Reuters that the administration won’t pursue an executive order to close the facility, although the president is eager to close the prison.

“It was just deemed too difficult to get through all of the hurdles that they would need to get through, and the level of support they were likely to receive on it was thought to be too low to generate such controversy, particularly at a sensitive (time) in an election cycle.”

Myles Caggins, a spokesman for the White House National Security Council, told Reuters, “The administration’s goal is to work with Congress to find a solution to close Guantanamo.”

Related reading: Obama Submitted the Plan to Close Gitmo, Rejected

Related from the White House in 2011:

THE WHITE HOUSE Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release March 7, 2011

FACT SHEET: NEW ACTIONS ON GUANTANAMO AND DETAINEE POLICY