Category Archives: Cyber War

Al Jazeera Trouble, al Qaeda and Anti-Semitism

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The news outlet from the Middle East, al Jazeera which is the primary news source in the region also reaches into the United States with journalists and a television division. But lately they are in real trouble, ethically and financially. What is worse it appears they have al Qaeda on the payroll.

The embattled CEO of Al Jazeera America was pushed aside Wednesday, ending more than a week of public turmoil that included the resignations of three top female executives.
The announcement capped a turbulent week for Ehab Al Shihabi. His company was sued for $15 million, AJAM was cited for alleged sexism and anti-Semitism and al Shihabi was blamed by one departing executive for presiding over a ‘culture of fear’. Full article here.

But it gets worse.

U.S. Government Designated Prominent Al Jazeera Journalist as “Member of Al Qaeda”

The U.S. government labeled a prominent journalist as a member of Al Qaeda and placed him on a watch list of suspected terrorists, according to a top-secret document that details U.S. intelligence efforts to track Al Qaeda couriers by analyzing metadata.

The briefing singles out Ahmad Muaffaq Zaidan, Al Jazeera’s longtime Islamabad bureau chief, as a member of the terrorist group. A Syrian national, Zaidan has focused his reporting throughout his career on the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and has conducted several high-profile interviews with senior Al Qaeda leaders, including Osama bin Laden.

A slide dated June 2012 from a National Security Agency PowerPoint presentation bears his photo, name, and a terror watch list identification number, and labels him a “member of Al-Qa’ida” as well as the Muslim Brotherhood. It also notes that he “works for Al Jazeera.”

The presentation was among the documents provided by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.

In a brief phone interview with The Intercept, Zaidan “absolutely” denied that he is a member of Al Qaeda or the Muslim Brotherhood. In a statement provided through Al Jazeera, Zaidan noted that his career has spanned many years of dangerous work in Afghanistan and Pakistan, and required interviewing key people in the region — a normal part of any journalist’s job. 

“For us to be able to inform the world, we have to be able to freely contact relevant figures in the public discourse, speak with people on the ground, and gather critical information. Any hint of government surveillance that hinders this process is a violation of press freedom and harms the public’s right to know,” he wrote. “To assert that myself, or any journalist, has any affiliation with any group on account of their contact book, phone call logs, or sources is an absurd distortion of the truth and a complete violation of the profession of journalism.” 

A spokesman for Al Jazeera, a global news service funded by the government of Qatar, cited a long list of instances in which its journalists have been targeted by governments on which it reports, and described the labeling and surveillance of Zaidan as “yet another attempt at using questionable techniques to target our journalists, and in doing so, enforce a gross breach of press freedom.”

The document cites Zaidan as an example to demonstrate the powers of SKYNET, a program that analyzes location and communication data (or “metadata”) from bulk call records in order to detect suspicious patterns.

In the Terminator movies, SKYNET is a self-aware military computer system that launches a nuclear war to exterminate the human race, and then systematically kills the survivors.

According to the presentation, the NSA uses its version of SKYNET to identify people that it believes move like couriers used by Al Qaeda’s senior leadership. The program assessed Zaidan as a likely match, which raises troubling questions about the U.S. government’s method of identifying terrorist targets based on metadata.

It appears, however, that Zaidan had already been identified as an Al Qaeda member before he showed up on SKYNET’s radar. That he was already assigned a watch list number would seem to indicate that the government had a prior intelligence file on him. The Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE, is a U.S. government database of over one million names suspected of a connection to terrorism, which is shared across the U.S. intelligence community.

The presentation contains no evidence to explain the designation.

Peter Bergen, CNN’s national security analyst and author of several books on Al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, told The Intercept, “I’ve known [Zaidan] for well over a decade, and he’s a first class journalist.”

“He has the contacts and the access that of course no Western journalist has,” said Bergen. “But by that standard any journalist who spent time with Al Qaeda would be suspect.” Bergen himself interviewed bin Laden in 1997.

The NSA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to answer questions about the basis of Zaidan’s inclusion on the watch list and alleged Al Qaeda affiliation. The NSA also declined to answer a set of detailed questions about SKYNET, and how it uses the information about the people that it identifies.

What is clear from the presentation is that in the NSA’s eyes, Zaidan’s movements and calls mirrored those of known Al Qaeda couriers.

According to another 2012 presentation describing SKYNET, the program looks for terrorist connections based on questions such as “who has traveled from Peshawar to Faisalabad or Lahore (and back) in the past month? Who does the traveler call when he arrives?” and behaviors such as “excessive SIM or handset swapping,” “incoming calls only,” “visits to airports,” and “overnight trips.”

That presentation states that the call data is acquired from major Pakistani telecom providers, though it does not specify the technical means by which the data is obtained.

The June 2012 document poses the question: “Given a handful of courier selectors, can we find others that ‘behave similarly’” by analyzing cell phone metadata? “We are looking for different people using phones in similar ways,” the presentation continues, and measuring “pattern of life, social network, and travel behavior.”

For the experiment, the analysts fed 55 million cell phone records from Pakistan into the system, the document states.

The results identified someone who is “PROB” — which appears to mean probably — Zaidan as the “highest scoring selector” traveling between Peshawar and Lahore.

The following slide appears to show other top hits, noting that 21 of the top 500 were previously tasked for surveillance, indicating that the program is “on the right track” to finding people of interest. A portion of that list visible on the slide includes individuals supposedly affiliated with Al Qaeda and the Taliban, as well as members of Pakistan’s spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence. But sometimes the descriptions are vague. One selector is identified simply as “Sikh Extremist.”

As other documents from Snowden revealed, drone targets are often identified in part based on metadata analysis and cell phone tracking. Former NSA director Michael Hayden famously put it more bluntly in May 2014, when he said, “we kill people based on metadata.”

Metadata also played a key role in locating and killing Osama bin Laden. The CIA used cell phone calling patterns to track an Al Qaeda courier and identify bin Laden’s hiding place in Pakistan.

Yet U.S. drone strikes have killed many hundreds of civilians and unidentified alleged “militants” who may have been marked based on the patterns their cell phones gave up.

People whose work requires contact with extremists and groups that the U.S. government regards as terrorists have long worried that they themselves could look suspicious in metadata analysis.

“Prominent American journalists have interviewed members of blacklisted terrorist groups, including Al Qaeda,” said Jameel Jaffer, deputy legal director of the American Civil Liberties Union. “It would surprise me if journalists in Pakistan hadn’t done the same. Part of the job of journalists and human rights advocates is to talk to people the government doesn’t want them to talk to.”

A History of Targeting Al Jazeera 

The U.S. government’s surveillance of Zaidan is not the first time that it has linked Al Jazeera or its personnel to Al Qaeda.

During the invasion of Afghanistan, in November 2001, the United States bombed the network’s Kabul offices. The Pentagon claimed that it was “a known al-Qaeda facility.”

That was just the beginning. Sami al-Hajj, an Al Jazeera cameraman, was imprisoned by the U.S. government at Guantanamo for six years before being released in 2008 without ever being charged. He has said he was repeatedly interrogated about Al Jazeera. In 2003, Al Jazeera’s financial reporters were barred from the trading floor of the New York Stock Exchange for “security reasons.” Nasdaq soon followed suit.

During the invasion of Iraq, U.S. forces bombed Al Jazeera’s Baghdad offices, killing correspondent Tariq Ayoub. The U.S. insisted it was unintentional, though Al Jazeera had given the Pentagon the coordinates of the building. When American forces laid siege to Fallujah, and Al Jazeera was one of the few news organizations broadcasting from within the city, Bush administration officials accused it of airing propaganda and lies. Al Jazeera’s Fallujah correspondent, Ahmed Mansour, reported that his crew had been targeted with tanks, and the house they had stayed in had been bombed by fighter jets.

So great was the suspicion of Al Jazeera’s ties to terrorism that Dennis Montgomery, a contractor who had previously tried peddling cheat-detector software to Las Vegas casinos, managed to convince the CIA that he could decode secret Al Qaeda messages from Al Jazeera broadcasts. Those “codes” reportedly caused Bush to ground a number of commercial transatlantic flights in December 2003.

But the U.S. government appeared to have somewhat softened its view of the network in the last several years. The Obama administration has criticized Egypt for holding three of Al Jazeera’s journalists on charges of aiding the Muslim Brotherhood. During the height of the 2011 Arab Spring, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised the network’s coverage, saying, “Viewership of Al Jazeera is going up in the United States because it’s real news.”

A Journalist and Al Qaeda

Zaidan first came to international prominence after the 9/11 attacks because of his access to senior Al Qaeda leadership. Zaidan wrote an Arabic-language book on bin Laden, and interviewed him in person multiple times.

“He covered the wedding of bin Laden’s son which was shortly after the [U.S.S.] Cole attack, and I think it was a very useful piece of journalism, because bin Laden declaimed a poem about the Cole which implied him taking responsibility for the attacks, which of course he later did,” said Bergen.

Zaidan also received a number of bin Laden’s taped messages to Americans, which were broadcast on Al Jazeera.

In 2002, he met a mysterious man with a “half-covered face,” who handed him a cassette tape with bin Laden’s voice, Zaidan told Bergen in an interview. In 2004, another bin Laden tape was dropped off at the office gate, Zaidan told the Associated Press. “The guard brought it to me along with other mail. It was in an envelope, I opened it and it was a big scoop,” Zaidan recounted.

Zaidan, right, in a 2011 Al Jazeera documentary he made about bin Laden.

Files collected from bin Laden’s Abbottabad compound after his death — a portion of which were released this year — indicate that Al Qaeda members viewed Zaidan as a journalist they felt comfortable dealing with.

In an August 2010 missive, discussing Zaidan’s plans for a documentary, bin Laden directs his deputies to get “brother Ahmad Zaydan’s” questions and “tell him it would be good if it was on the tenth anniversary of September Eleventh.” Any other input should come in “an indirect way,” bin Laden cautions. “If we want this program to be a success, then we should not get involved in the details of how it is run, except that I don’t want him to interview any of my family,” he wrote.

Zaidan released his documentary on Al Jazeera in December 2011, an oral history of bin Laden’s years in Pakistan and Afghanistan comprised of interviews with a range of people who had known him, including Taliban fighters, government officials, and many journalists.

Bin Laden had also grown paranoid about meetings with Zaidan, although he did not think the U.S. government had managed to kill anyone “from surveying Ahmad Zaydan,” he wrote in May 2010.

He continued, “keep in mind, the possibility, though remote, that the journalists may be involuntarily monitored in a way that we or they do not know about, either on ground or by satellite, especially Ahmad Zaydan of Al Jazeera, and it is possible that a tracking chip could be put into some of their personal effects before coming to the meeting place.”

Zaidan is still Al Jazeera’s Islamabad bureau chief, and has also reported from Syria and Yemen in recent years. Al Jazeera vigorously defended his reporting. “Our commitment to our audiences is to gain access to authentic, raw, unfiltered information from key sources and present it in an honest and responsible way.” They added that, “our journalists continue to be targeted and stigmatized by governments,” even though “Al Jazeera is not the first channel that has met with controversial figures such as bin Laden and others — prominent western media outlets were among the first to do so.”

 

ThreatCon Bravo and Background Information

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Today, the military bases across the homeland have taken an extraordinary measure not seen since 2011, declaring ThreatCon Bravo.

Terrorist Threat Conditions

A Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff-approved program standardizes the military services’ identification of and recommended responses to terrorist threats against U.S. personnel and facilities. This program facilitates interservice coordination and support for antiterrorism activities. Also called THREATCONs. There are four THREATCONs above normal:

THREATCON ALPHA THREATCON BRAVO THREATCON CHARLIE THREATCON DELTA
This condition applies when there is a general threat of possible terrorist activity against personnel and facilities, the nature and extent of which are unpredictable, and circumstances do not justify full implementation of THREATCON BRAVO measures. However, it may be necessary to implement certain measures from higher THREATCONS resulting from intelligence received or as a deterrent. The measures in this THREATCON must be capable of being maintained indefinitely. This condition applies when an increased and more predictable threat of terrorist activity exists. The measures in this THREATCON must be capable of being maintained for weeks without causing undue hardship, affecting operational capability, and aggravating relations with local authorities. This condition applies when an incident occurs or intelligence is received indicating some form of terrorist action against personnel and facilities is imminent. Implementation of measures in this THREATCON for more than a short period probably will create hardship and affect the peacetime activities of the unit and its personnel. This condition applies in the immediate area where a terrorist attack has occurred or when intelligence has been received that terrorist action against a specific location or person is likely. Normally, this THREATCON is declared as a localized condition. See also antiterrorism.

Texas incident fuels concern about lone-wolf terror attacks

DAVID CRARY and ERIC TUCKE, Associated Press
By DAVID CRARY and ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The attempted attack on a provocative cartoon contest in Texas appears to reflect a scenario that has long troubled national security officials: a do-it-yourself terror plot, inspired by the Islamic State extremist group and facilitated through the ease of social media.

Trying to gauge which individuals in the United States pose such threats — and how vigorously they should be monitored — is a daunting challenge for counterterrorism agencies. Some experts caution that a limited number of small-scale attacks are likely to continue.

Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said federal authorities are aware of “thousands” of potential extremists living in the U.S., only a small portion of whom are under active surveillance.

Concerns have been intensifying since the rise of the Islamic State group and were heightened this week after two gunmen were shot dead while trying to attack the event in Garland, Texas, that featured cartoon images of the Prophet Muhammad. One of the men, Elton Simpson of Phoenix, was charged in 2010 after being the focus of a terror investigation; investigators are trying to determine the extent of any terror-related ties involving him or his accomplice, Nadir Soofi.

At the White House, Press Secretary Josh Earnest said intelligence officials would be investigating Islamic State’s claim of responsibility.

“This is consistent with what has previously been described as a lone-wolf attack,” Earnest said. “Essentially you have two individuals that don’t appear to be part of a broader conspiracy, and identifying those individuals and keeping tabs on them is difficult work.”

Terrorism experts say the spread of social media, and savvy use of it by extremist groups, has facilitated a new wave of relatively small-scale plots that are potentially easy to carry out and harder for law enforcement to anticipate.

While plots orchestrated by al-Qaida have historically involved grandiose plans designed to yield mass carnage — including airline bombings or attacks on transportation systems — the Islamic State group has endorsed less ambitious efforts that its leaders say can have the same terrorizing effect.

“If you can get your hands on a weapon, how is the state security apparatus supposed to find you?” said Will McCants, a fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “It’s attractive because it gets just as much attention as a small- to mid-size bomb.”

A public forum like Twitter, with its millions of users, means those who might otherwise have had limited exposure to terrorist ideologies now have ample access to what FBI Director James Comey has described as the “siren song” of the Islamic State. Social media provides a venue for agitators to exhort each other to action, recruit followers for violence and scout locations for potential attacks.

A former Minneapolis man who goes by the name Mujahid Miski on Twitter was among those urging an attack on the event in Garland. A law enforcement official familiar with the investigation confirmed to The Associated Press that Mujahid Miski is Mohamed Abdullahi Hassan, who left the U.S. in 2008 to join al-Shabab in Somalia. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the investigation are not public.

Hassan has been prolific on social media in recent months — urging his Twitter followers to carry out acts of violence in the U.S., including beheadings — commending attacks elsewhere, and using protests of police activity in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland, to try to recruit others.

The phenomenon poses a challenge for investigators as they sift through countless online communications.

“Where is the threshold of saying this is more than just an avid consumer of propaganda?” asked William Braniff, executive director of a terrorism research center at the University of Maryland and a former instructor at the U.S. Military Academy‘s Combating Terrorism Center.

“It’s exceptionally difficult to estimate of the number of people who’ve considered becoming foreign fighters,” he said. “Often you’re not dealing with specific behaviors, but with expressions of belief, which are constitutionally protected.”

U.S. officials say that more than 3,400 people from Western countries — including nearly 180 from the U.S. — have gone to Syria or Iraq, or attempted to do so, to fight on behalf of Islamic State or other extremists groups.

Although there is concern that fighters returning to the U.S. might pose a terrorism threat, some experts say a more immediate danger is posed by individuals in America who are inspired by these extremist groups yet have no direct ties to them.

Such individuals “can be motivated to action, with little to no warning,” National Counterterrorism Center director Nicholas Rasmussen told the House Committee on Homeland Security in February. “Many of these so-called homegrown violent extremists are lone actors, who can potentially operate undetected and plan and execute a simple attack.”

He predicted that the threat posed by these individuals will remain stable, “resulting in fewer than 10 uncoordinated and unsophisticated plots annually from a pool of up to a few hundred individuals.”

The online propaganda can be alluring, even to U.S. residents leading comfortable lives, said Peter Bergen, director of International Security Program at the public policy institute New America.

In testimony Bergen planned to give Thursday before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, he says some Islamic State group recruits are motivated by the same level of idealism as young people who join the Marines or the Peace Corps. In their view, Bergen asserts, the extremist group “is doing something that is of cosmic importance.”

Daniel Benjamin, former coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department and now director of a global issues center at Dartmouth College, said the lone-wolf terrorist phenomenon is not new, but has taken on a new character due to the aggressive military and propaganda activities of the group also known as ISIS.

“What is new is the level of excitement among extremists,” Benjamin said. “The feeling is that ISIS has done what al-Qaida couldn’t — it has held territory, it has damaged armies much larger than it is.”

Benjamin cautions that low-level, lone-wolf attacks may be difficult to stamp out, and said Americans should not let such attacks demoralize them.

Long before this week, the lone-wolf scenario manifested itself when Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, who had been inspired by a radical Yemen-based preacher, killed 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009.

Government officials have acknowledged that surveillance programs, however diligent, aren’t the full answer to thwarting terrorism. Among the preventive strategies is a federal program launched last fall called Countering Violent Extremism, which aims to encourage community engagement to thwart radicalization. It’s been tested in Los Angeles, Boston and Minneapolis-St. Paul.
[3:24:28 PM] The Denise Simon Experience: Bergen, in his prepared testimony for the Senate committee, said relatives of potential Islamic state group recruits might be more willing to inform authorities if the family member faced options other than a long prison term. He suggested some sort of mix of a token prison term, followed by probation and counseling services.

 

 

 

 

Garland Jihadi’s Inspired by ISIS, Cats Included

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I watched this matter unfold myself on social media, then I worked the connections and tracked their posts carefully. Elton Simpson, born in Illinois was radicalized and was on his way to the jihad battleground until the FBI executed a sting operation a little more than a month ago. Elton got scared and concocted the Garland operation which too, the FBI knew about and broadcasted an alert.

The FBI had a rock solid case in 2006 against Simpson, but a liberal judge did not believe their case or investigation. The FBI continues to investigate at jihadis in all 50 states as noted by the director James Comey.

The information about Elton Simpson of Phoenix surfaced hours before the contest in Garland, Texas, which the FBI had already identified as a potential target for violence, Comey said.

The director said the agency then sent an intelligence bulletin to the Garland Police Department, including a picture and other information about Simpson, “even though we didn’t have reason to believe that he was going to attack the event. In fact, we didn’t have reason to believe that he had left Phoenix,” Comey said.

Other parts of the FBI uncovered the following leading up to the Garland attack.

Texas Attackers Communicated With Islamic State (ISIS) Operatives On Twitter

One of the two gunmen involved in the Garland, Texas shooting on May 3, 2015, targeting the “Draw Muhammad” event, telegraphed his intentions on Twitter. In the last message that one of the alleged gunmen posted to his account, he suggests that he was operating in the name of the Islamic State (ISIS). Other Twitter messages posted by known Islamic State members indicate that he was in contact with ISIS operatives. While the ISIS link remains uncertain at this moment, ISIS supporters were quick to praise the attack and honor the perpetrators as martyrs for the cause of jihad.

This screenshot shows the Twitter profile of one of the alleged perpetrators, with the social media handle of “Mutawakil” (“one who places his faith in Allah”). In his last tweet, he claims that both attackers had pledged allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi and uses the hashtag #texasattack just hours prior to the event itself. His Twitter account shows him to be an online supporter of ISIS whose account had been frequently shut down for spreading jihadi content. He was followed by over 1,000 accounts, and tweeted regularly. He uses a picture of the late Yemeni-American preacher and Al-Qaeda operative Anwar Al-Awlaki, killed in an American drone strike, as his profile.

His social media contacts include several known ISIS operatives. One possible direct contact, the Minnesotan Somali-American Mohamed Abdullahi Hussein, known as Mujahid Miski,[1] who is currently fighting with the Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Shabab Al-Mujahideen in Somalia, tweeted immediately following the attack: “I’m gonna miss Mutawakil, he was truly a man of wisdom. I’m gonna miss his greeting every morning on Twitter.” Miski added “I’m gonna miss how he always used to talk speak of the Hoor Al Ayn [virgin of paradise promised to martyrs]. How he always said he wanted to meet her.” In a May 4 tweet, Miski wrote: “Our brother Mutawakil in 2008 wanted to Make #Hijrah to Somalia but a Murtad spied on him. Allah swt was preparing him for something better.”[2]

Mujahid Miski also claimed awareness of what the perpetrator had dreamed about prior to the attack. “Mutawakil saw himself in a dream walking in a road and a woman looking from the sky with a niqab. He was frightened the interpretation of his dream was that the #hoor Al-Ayn [virgins in paradise] were waiting for him eagerly and that he should hasten to meeting them too.” Such dreams are commonly told by jihadi fighters, and are often used to reinforce the operatives’ morale and resolve before they embark on suicide missions.

Also tweeting about Mutawakil and #hoor_al_ayn were Irish ISIS supporter “Abu Khalid” and another Western supporter, “Ibn Rushd AlLubnani.” Abu Khalid wrote: “brother @atawaakul was talking about #hoor_al_ayn for several days, he surely was planning for this. he was a revert [i.e. convert to Islam] (so far as I know).” Ibn Rushd AlLubnani wrote: “Just a few days ago @atawaakul was talking about Hoor al ayn on twitter and the sisters were getting upset with him. Little did they know…”

British ISIS fighter Junaid Hussain, who is known as Abu Hussain Al Britani, tweeted ominously hours before the attack and praised the two perpetrators after it occurred: “The knives have been sharpened; soon we will come to your streets with death and slaughter! #QaribanQariba [soon, soon] … Allahu Akbar! Two of our brothers just opened fire at the Prophet Muhammad art exhibition in Texas! #TexasAttack” He also advocated and threatened further attacks: “Kill Those That Insult The Prophet – #GarlandShooting … They Thought They Was Safe In Texas From The Soldiers of The Islamic State – #garlandshooting #TexasAttack … If there is no check on the freedom of your speech, then let your hearts be open to the freedom of our actions #GarlandShooting #TexasAttack.”

Another American ISIS operative with the alias Abu Khalid Al-Amriki upon learning of the attack on Twitter, praised the attempt and threatened more to come. He tweeted: “This one should hit the front page! Dawlah [ISIS] is in America! Allahu akbar … How much do you love the Prophet? I’m sure the brothers earned their spot next to the messenger of Allah … The drawn Sword on the one that Insults the messenger of Allah. Let this be a wakeup call for all cartoonists. We are coming for you.” On March 29, Abu Khalid had claimed on Twitter that he was in contact with ISIS supporters in the USA and that one of them was prepared to carry out an operation.[3]

ISIS operative Abu Hamza Al-habashi tweeted after the attack: “Allahu Akbar The two Brothers attained shadah[martyrdom] in texas! The disbelievers will never understand our love for death. May Allah accept them.”

Online ISIS supporters immediately reacted to the Texas attack by praising the perpetrators and elevating them to the rank of martyrs in the cause of jihad. For example, ISIS supporter “Australi Witness,” who recently called for targeting Australian cartoonists,[4] tweeted: “May Allah reward the Garland mujahideen with a seat right next to the Prophet in Jannah [heaven].”

The pro-ISIS London-based sheikh Anjem Choudary also reacted to the event on Twitter, by justifying the attack as retribution for the insult to the prophet Muhammad: “Once again we see that people refuse to learn the lesson that insulting the Prophet Muhammad is a deadly pursuit … #garlandshooting the world should know that, for Muslims, the honor of the Messenger Muhammad is dearer to them than their own lives! … #garlandshooting we must learn the lessons from Rushdie, Hirsi Ali, Theo Van Gogh & Chalie Hebdo not to insult the Messenger Muhammad! … #garlandshooting Freedom of speech does not extend to insulting the Messenger Muhammad (saw) & hence provoking the anger of 1/4 of the world.”

“Muslimah 1,” a Dutch ISIS supporter, tweeted a photo of Dutch politician Geert Wilders, who was keynote speaker at the Garland, Texas event, to “Al Ghareeb,” an American ISIS supporter, with the comment “Does Geert Wilders look like he is feeling ‘safe’ at the event??” Al Ghareeb had written: “They spend 10000 on security for this blasphemous event but then say they will not be scared. Lol. Your scared, the brothers made a point.”

Kerry’s Unfolding Iran Plan?

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Get our your decoder ring, some interesting things are in play here and it appears that Kerry is possibly ready for the ultimate Iran betrayal, which has been telegraphed in history and most especially during the P5+1 talks.

In case the talks fail, Kerry could be posturing a move to delete Russia and China from having a vote. Even the Iranian Supreme leader appears to be poised to run away. The Obama team building mission for a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians has failed…no checkmark there. The next try again event is neutralizing Iran’s nuclear program which appears to be taking a nose-dive…no checkmark there either?

(Reuters) – Washington wants to be certain that any nuclear deal between Iran and major powers includes the possibility of restoring U.N. sanctions if Tehran breaks the agreement without risking Russian and Chinese vetoes, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday.

United Nations sanctions and a future mechanism for Iran to buy atomic technology are two core sticking points in talks on a possible nuclear deal on which Tehran and world powers have been struggling to overcome deep divisions in recent days, diplomats said on condition of anonymity.

Negotiators were wrapping up nearly a week of talks in New York on Tuesday, the latest round in 18 months of discussions aimed at clinching a long-term deal by June 30 to curb Iran’s nuclear program in exchange for an end to sanctions. Expert-level negotiations are expected to continue for several days.

The current talks have been taking place on the sidelines of a conference on the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. The negotiations between Iran, the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Russia, China and the European Union will resume in Vienna next week.

The latest discussions revolved around a future Security Council resolution that would endorse a deal and render invalid all previous sanctions resolutions, while keeping U.N. bans on ballistic missiles, an arms embargo and some other restrictions.

U.S. and European negotiators want any easing of U.N. sanctions to be automatically reversible – negotiators call this a “snapback” – if Tehran fails to comply with terms of a deal. Russia and China traditionally dislike such automatic measures.

The “snapback” is one of the most important issues for Western governments who fear that, once any U.N. sanctions on Iran are suspended, it could be hard to restore them because Russia and China would veto any such attempt.

U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power made it clear that Washington did not want Russia’s and China’s recent slew of vetoes on resolutions related to Syria to be repeated with an Iran nuclear agreement.

“We’re going to do so in a manner that doesn’t require Russian and Chinese support or a vote for snapback … because we are in a different world in 2015 than we were when the sanctions architecture was put in place,” Power said in an interview with Charlie Rose on Bloomberg television.

She offered no details.

Power said Washington hoped the conclusion of a nuclear deal with Tehran would lead to a change in Iran’s posture on Syria, where it has supported President Bashar al-Assad in a four-year civil war against rebels seeking to oust him.

PROCUREMENT CHANNEL

Iran’s chief negotiator in New York offered a positive assessment of the latest round of nuclear negotiations.

“The atmosphere of the talks was good and it is possible to reach the final deal by June 30,” Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Iranian state television.

However, Western diplomats said on condition of anonymity that Iran and the six powers, who struck an interim agreement on April 2 in Switzerland, were far from agreement due to divisions on sanctions, monitoring and other issues.

Restoring U.S. and EU sanctions is relatively easy, but that is not the case with U.N. sanctions. While the United States is worried about Russia and China, Moscow, Beijing and Tehran want to be certain that Washington cannot unilaterally force a snapback if the Republicans win the U.S. presidency in 2016.

“We haven’t found a mechanism that works for everyone yet,” one diplomat said.

Another difficult issue is the “procurement channel” – a mechanism for approving Iranian purchases of sensitive atomic technology currently banned under U.N. sanctions. One idea under consideration is a vetting committee that would include Iran and the six powers. Tehran would have a say but not a veto, diplomats said.

Iran says its nuclear program is entirely peaceful and rejects allegations from Western countries and their allies that it wants the capability to produce atomic weapons. It says all sanctions are illegal and works hard to circumvent them.

A confidential report by a U.N. Panel of Experts, obtained by Reuters last week, said Britain had informed it of an active Iranian nuclear procurement network linked to two blacklisted companies.

Iran’s supreme leader threatens nuclear talks walkout

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, vowed on Wednesday that his nation would leave nuclear negotiations if it feels threatened by America’s armed forces.

“Recently U.S. officials threatened to take military action against #Iran,” Khamenei tweeted.

“What does negotiations mean under ghost of a threat?” he asked.

“U.S. need for the #talks – if not more – is not less than #Iran’s,” Khamenei wrote.

“Negotiators should observe red lines & tolerate no burden, humiliation & threat,” he added.

Khamenei said Tehran does not need the economic relief the U.S. is offering in a potential deal over its nuclear arms research.

The pact would lift sanctions on Iran in return for greater restrictions on its nuclear programs.

“Many foreign officials said if sanctions against #Iran were put on other countries, they would’ve been destroyed but they didn’t undermine Iran,” Khamenei tweeted.

The supreme leader also mocked the Obama administration’s struggles with the civil war in Yemen. U.S. efforts in the region, he argued, had not restored stability in the Middle East.

“U.S. has been disgraced,” he said.

“Supporting those who attack #women & #children in Yemen & destroy #Yemen’s infrastructure ruin U.S. image in the region,” Khamenei said of American support for ousted Yemeni President Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi.

Khamenei closed with a parting shot at U.S. race relations. Police action towards minorities, he said, exposed the hypocrisy of American human rights.

“In the world of deception, the most racist govts. become flag-bearers of human rights,” Khamenei posted alongside a video documenting alleged law enforcement abuses in the U.S.

Khamenei’s criticisms come as diplomatic talks between Iran and the West resume over Tehran’s nuclear program. The two sides are wrangling for a final agreement due June 30.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) on Tuesday announced he would move later this week on legislation allowing Congress to review any final Iran deal.

Should it pass, lawmakers could vote on whether they approve of the Obama administration’s potential agreement with Iranian leadership.

Moving Parts Behind the Garland, Texas Attack

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The FBI began investigation Elton Simpson, one of the 2 shooters in Garland, Texas. The other shooter is Nadir Soofi. They were roommates in Phoenix. Nadir Soofi graduated from the University of Utah and the International School of Islamic Studies in Pakistan. He was a Palestinian sympathizer and published anti-police propaganda.

The FBI paid an informant to gather information on Elton Simpson going back to 2006 and used wires to record conversations. The case was proven (trial memorandum here) as Simpson was well connected to al Shabaab and Simpson had purchased a ticket to travel to South Africa and had a visa to do so.

The case against Elton Simpson, nom de guerre, Ibrahim failed to gain any sentencing other than probation from an Arizona judge, Mary H. Murguia. She is a Clinton appointee and has a twin sister who is president of La Raza.

Hold on there is more. Not only is the Obama administration aggressively resettling refugees in America from Syria, Kenya, Iraq but the worst is Somalia. This speaks to real failed foreign policy. In fact Kenya just received $45 million for refugees. If you think there is a problem controlling the insurgency at the Southern border, this Refugee/Asylum problem is much bigger.

So, while the two dead Islamists from Arizona that were shot by a single officer in Garland, they were not refugees but lived with them in an apartment complex in Arizona, one of many across the country that are part of an approved contracted system by Health and Human Services in collaboration with the U.S. State Department. There is likely one in a town where you live.

Here is what you need to know.

The Garland shooters lived at Autumn Ridge Apartments in Phoenix, Arizona. That complex is owned by BH Management which holds properties across the country and works in tandem with HHS. There are several communities in Arizona, which is the same model as in Iowa, Idaho, S. Carolina, Maryland…all heck every state. These locations are all part of the Obama administration.

Contractors

RRP supports and advances successful refugee resettlement through the coordination of public and private resources.  Contractors are required to provide services in ways that respect the cultural and linguistic needs of clients.
Click here for a list of current contractors (47 KB PDF)

Federal Partners

Three federal agencies play key roles in the U.S. Refugee Resettlement Program.

Office of Refugee Resettlement (ORR) is responsible for the domestic program of refugee resettlement services – including cash and medical assistance and a broad range of social services.
ORR State Letters

Information for asylees seeking services supported by ORR is now available on the ORR website.

The U.S. Department of State coordinates resettlement policy, overseas processing, cultural orientation, transportation to the U.S., and the Reception & Placement program for newly arrived refugees.

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security determines which applicants meet the requirements for refugee status and are admissible to the United States under U.S. law

 

A “Refugee” is defined in the Immigration and Nationality Act as: 

“…any person who is outside any country of such person’s nationality or, in the case of a person having no nationality, is outside any country in which such person last habitually resided, and who is unable or unwilling to return to, and is unable or unwilling to avail himself or herself of the protection of, that country because of persecution or a well-founded fear of persecution on account of race, religion, nationality, membership in a particular social group, or political opinion.”  

Asylees, Cuban / Haitian entrants, certain Amerasians, Special Immigrant Visa holders and victims of severe forms of human trafficking are among the other humanitarian immigrants eligible for assistance and services under the Refugee Act. 

Okay, sorry but there is more. You may need a seat belt for this.

Garland, Texas: There’s Some History Here

 

Last night a free speech event in Garland, Texas was attacked. As this is written, two suspects are dead. One security guard was shot and released from the hospital after treatment for a minor wound.

The event, the “Mohammed Art Exhibit and Contest,” was reported here by Breitbart and here by the Dallas Morning News. It was sponsored by Pamela Geller of the American Freedom Defense Initiative and featured keynote speaker Geert Wilders, a Dutch politician and free speech advocate. Both were safe, with Geller finally contacted by Fox News where she was interviewed by anchor Kelly Wright.

The AFDI event was proceeded by another gathering in the same venue — the Curtis Culwell Center — in January. That event? It was titled the “Stand with the Prophet” rally, and was reported here as follows by the Washington Free beacon. Wrote the Free Beacon:

Muslim leaders from across America will gather in Texas this weekend to hold the annual Stand With the Prophet in Honor and Respect conference, a weekend forum that is being billed as a “movement to defend Prophet Muhammad, his person, and his message,” according to event information.

The Saturday event, which seeks to combat “Islamophobes in America” who have turned the Islamic Prophet Muhammad “into an object of hate,” according to organizers, comes just a week after radicalized Islamists in France killed 17 people.

The victims died in events that began with the shooting attack on French newspaper Charlie Hebdo for its satirical cartoons that skewered the prophet.

Organizers of the event place the blame for Islam’s bad reputation on the media and so-called American Islamophobes who have “invested at least $160 million dollars to attack our Prophet and Islam,” according to the conference web page.

Keynote speakers at the event will include Georgetown University professor John Esposito, founding director of the school’s Prince Alwaleed Bin Talal Center for Muslim-Christian Understanding, which has come under fire for, among other things, hosting 9/11 Truthers and a member of Egypt’s Nazi Party.

 

Also scheduled to attend the forum is controversial New York-based Imam Siraj Wahhaj, who was an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the 1993 World Trade Center bombings trial. Wahhaj has called the FBI and CIA the “real terrorists” and expressed a desire for all Americans to become Muslim, according to the New York Post.

The “Stand With the Prophet” event was, in typical American style, protested by the AFDI free speech group, as announced here at the time on the Jihand Watch site of Robert Spencer. The site published a press release from AFDI that said in part of the protest:

NEW YORK, January 13: The human rights advocacy group the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI) today announced that it will be holding a demonstration in defense of the freedom of speech on Saturday, January 17 in Garland, Texas, outside a conference on “Islamophobia” that seeks to stifle opposition to jihad terror and restrict the freedom of speech, working to further the same Islamic law that led to the Charlie Hebdo jihad massacre.

… AFDI President Pamela Geller said in a statement: “Saturday’s Stand With the Prophet event seeks to combat ‘Islamophobes in America’ — in line with Islamic supremacist groups’ longstanding objective of defaming, smearing and marginalizing anyone who opposes the jihad agenda. They say they want to defend Muhammad — which means to silence those who notice that defenders of Muhammad just murdered sixteen people in Paris, and tens of thousands worldwide since 9/11.”

“Our AFDI rally,” Geller added, “will stand for the freedom of speech against all attempts, violent and stealthy, to impose Islamic blasphemy laws on Americans and stifle criticism of Muhammad and Islam. As Muhammad’s followers kill more and more people, we need critics of him more than ever — and free people need to stand up against these underhanded attempts to stifle all criticism of Islam, including honest investigations of how jihadists use Islamic texts and teachings to justify Jew-hatred, violence, supremacism and oppression.”

Sunday night, the AFDI counter-event was held. In the same place. The event was described as follows by Breitbart:

Pamela Geller is planning a “Draw the Prophet” event in Garland, Texas in the same location as a Muslim group held a “Stand with the Prophet” conference in January. The First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest will be hosted by the Curtis Caldwell Center, which is owned and operated by the Garland Independent School District.

And up pulled a vehicle with two gun-wielding men, both now dead at the hands of the Garland police. Police were investigating whether there was a bomb in their vehicle, thus far with none found.

Contacted amid the chaos by Fox News, among other things Geller noted what one would think is the obvious: “A free speech conference is not controversial, shooting people is controversial…” As she also pointed out, that when the image of Jesus Christ on the cross is immersed in a jar of urine and presented as “art” in America — no one seeks to kill the artist.

Exactly.

It is impossible to look at this shooting as anything else than an attempt on Ms. Geller’s life and that of Geert Wilders, the founder of the Dutch Party for Freedom that has won seats in the Dutch parliament. As the attack unfolded, Geller said, audience members stood and sang “The Star-Spangled Banner.”

Question? Is this America anymore? Or is this now to be government by lynch mob? Whether in Baltimore or Garland, Texas?

And what will President Obama say? Will he stand up for the free speech of Americans? Not with some mealy mouthed if-this-than-that attempt at moral relativity — but with flat out, stand-up support for the Constitution and the right of free speech? News reports say the Garland police were prepared in case this kind of thing happened — but the question really should be: Why should police or anyone else have to prepare for a murderous assault on a free speech event?

The “Stand With the Prophet” rally participants had a right to hold their rally — just as the people of Baltimore had a right to peacefully protest the death of Freddie Gray. But no one has the right to burn and loot private property, much less to attack a peaceful event with the intent of killing the participants — in this case targeting Pam Geller and Geert Wilders.

When reached last night by Fox Pam Gellers said something else: “This is our most basic right…. [Now] this is a war… it’s here. It’s not Paris, it’s not Copenhagen — it’s Texas.”

And so it is. The question now is whether the American people — and the President of the United States — will sit by quietly and not speak out. The Islamists don’t get to judge.

*** Free Speech Matters: