But John Kerry, Iran Does Support al Qaeda

Posted on July 13, 2016July 13, 2016 by Denise Simon

Primer:

The State Department confirmed that Iran continues to work with Al-Qaeda elements, despite
their expressed hostility towards one another. It stated: “Iran remained unwilling to bring to
justice senior Al-Qaeda (AQ) members it continued to detain, and refused to publicly identify
those senior members in its custody.
Iran allowed AQ facilitators Muhsin al-Fadhli and Adel Radi Saq al-Wahabi al-Harbi to operate a
core facilitation pipeline through Iran, enabling AQ to move funds and fighters to South Asia and
also to Syria.

Al-Fadhli is a veteran AQ operative who has been active for years. Al-Fadhli began working with the Iran-based AQ facilitation network in 2009 and was later arrested by Iranian authorities. He was released in 2011 and assumed leadership of the Iran-based AQ facilitation network.” Clarion Project

Top Intel Official: Al Qaeda Worked on WMD in Iran

New evidence of the bin Laden-Iran connection.

WeeklyStandard: Al Qaeda operatives based in Iran worked on and biological weapons, according to a letter written to Osama bin Laden that is described in a new book by a top former U.S. intelligence official.

The letter was captured by a U.S. military sensitive site exploitation team during the raid on bin Laden’s Abbottabad headquarters in May 2011. It is described in Field of Fight, out Tuesday from Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, the former head of the Defense Intelligence Agency, and Michael Ledeen of the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

“One letter to bin Laden reveals that al Qaeda was working on chemical and biological weapons in Iran,” Flynn writes.

Flynn’s claim, if true, significantly advances what we know about al Qaeda’s activity in Iran. The book was cleared by the intelligence community’s classification review process. And U.S. intelligence sources familiar with the bin Laden documents tell us the disclosure on al Qaeda’s WMD work is accurate.

Flynn notes that only a small subset of bin Laden’s files have been released to the public. The “Defense Intelligence Agency’s numerous summaries and analyses of the files remain classified,” too, Flynn writes. “But even the public peek gives us considerable insight into the capabilities of this very dangerous global organization.”

It’s not just al Qaeda.

“There’s a lot of information on Iran in the files and computer discs captured at the Pakistan hideout of Osama bin Laden,” Flynn writes in the introduction. The authors note that the relationship between Iran and al Qaeda “has always been strained” and “[s]ometimes bin Laden himself would erupt angrily at the Iranians.” Previously released documents and other evidence show that al Qaeda kidnapped an Iranian diplomat in order to force a hostage exchange and bin Laden was very concerned about the Iranians’ ability to track his family members.

And yet the book makes clear that Flynn believes there is much more to the al Qaeda-Iran relationship than the public has been told. And that’s not an accident. Obama administration “censors have been busy,” Flynn writes, blocking the release of the bin Laden documents to the public and, in some cases, to analysts inside the U.S. intelligence community. “Some of it—a tiny fraction—has been declassified and released, but the bulk of it is still under official seal. Those of us who have read bin Laden’s material know how important it is…”

Not surprisingly, Obama administration officials bristle at Flynn’s characterization of their lack of transparency and lack of urgency on jihadists and their state sponsors. “Mike Flynn, in true Kremlin form, has been peddling these baseless conspiracy theories for years. Anyone who thinks Iran was or is in bed with al Qaeda doesn’t know much about either,” an Obama administration official told THE WEEKLY STANDARD.

It’s an odd line of attack, given the fact that the Obama administration has repeatedly accused Iran of directly aiding al Qaeda. The Treasury and State Departments publicly accused the Iranian regime of allowing al Qaeda to operate inside Iran in: July 2011, December 2011, February 2012,July 2012, October 2012, May 2013, January 2014, February 2014, April 2014, and August 2014. In addition, in congressional testimony in February 2012, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper described the relationship as a “marriage of convenience.”

Asked about the administration’s own repeated statements pointing to the Iranian regime’s deal with al Qaeda, the administration official who dismissed Flynn’s claim as a “baseless conspiracy” theory declined to comment further.

The Flynn/Ledeen claim about al Qaeda’s WMD work in Iran comes with an interesting wrinkle. The authors preface their disclosure of al Qaeda’s work on “chemical and biological weapons in Iran” by suggesting that the revelation was included in documents already public.

But the only document released to date that seems to touch on the subject is a March 28, 2007, letter to an al Qaeda operative known as “Hafiz Sultan.” The letter, which discussed the possibility of Iran-based al Qaeda operatives using chlorine gas on Kurdish leaders and includes a likely reference to Atiyah ‘Abd-al-Rahman, was released by the administration via the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point in May 2012. President Obama’s Treasury Department has claimed that Rahman was appointed by Osama bin Laden “to serve as al Qaeda’s emissary in Iran, a position which allowed him to travel in and out of Iran with the permission of Iranian officials.” It is not, however, addressed to bin Laden and it does not include a reference to biological weapons.

And while the U.S. Treasury and State Department have repeatedly sanctioned al Qaeda’s operatives inside Iran and offered rewards for information on their activities, as noted, statements from Treasury and the State Department do not mention al Qaeda’s “chemical and biological weapons” work inside Iran.

The takeaway: It does not appear that the al Qaeda document referenced by Flynn has been released by the U.S. government.

Flynn and others who have seen the documents say there are more explosive revelations in the bin Laden files kept from the public. Those already released give us a hint. One document, released in 2015, is a letter presumably written by Osama bin Laden to the “Honorable brother Karim.” The recipient of the October 18, 2007, missive, “Karim,” was likely an al Qaeda veteran known Abu Ayyub al Masri, who led al Qaeda in the Iraq (AQI) at the time.

Bin Laden chastised the AQI leader for threatening to attack Iran. The al Qaeda master offered a number of reasons why this didn’t make sense. “You did not consult with us on that serious issue that affects the general welfare of all of us,” bin Laden wrote. “We expected you would consult with us for these important matters, for as you are aware, Iran is our main artery for funds, personnel, and communication, as well as the matter of hostages.”

That language from bin Laden sounds a lot like the language the Obama administration used in July 2011, when a statement from the U.S. Treasury noted that the network in Iran “serves as the core pipeline through which Al Qaeda moves money, facilitators and operatives from across the Middle East to South Asia.”

David Cohen, who was then a top Treasury official and is now the number two official at the CIA, told us back then: “There is an agreement between the Iranian government and al Qaeda to allow this network to operate. There’s no dispute in the intelligence community on this.”

Why, then, is the Obama administration attempting to dismiss the cooperative relationship between Iran and al Qaeda as a “baseless conspiracy?” Good question.

And it’s one that releasing the rest of the documents could help answer.

Note: Flynn’s co-author Michael Ledeen is a colleague of Thomas Joscelyn at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

****

Most recently, in September, the Obama administration launched missile strikes against al Qaeda’s so-called Khorasan Group in Syria. The administration pointed to indicating that this cadre of “core” al Qaeda operatives was planning mass killings in the West, and possibly even in the United States. Two of the terrorists who lead the Khorasan Group formerly headed al Qaeda’s operations in Iran. Tellingly, Iran allowed this pair to continue their fight against the West, even as they have battled Iran’s chief allies in Syria.

Obama’s Treasury Department first publicly recognized the relationship between the Iranian regime and al Qaeda on July 28, 2011. Treasury added six al Qaeda operatives to the U.S. government’s list of designated terrorists. The principal terrorist among them is known as Yasin al-Suri, “a prominent Iran-based al Qaeda facilitator” who operates “under an agreement between al Qaeda and the Iranian government.” Treasury described al Qaeda’s presence in Iran as a “core pipeline” and “a critical transit point for funding to support al Qaeda’s activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan.” Treasury made it clear that other high-level al Qaeda members were actively involved in shuttling cash and recruits across Iran.

Grid Hacking Tool Found, Have a Generator Yet?

Posted on July 12, 2016July 12, 2016 by Denise Simon

Researchers Found a Hacking Tool that Targets Energy Grids on the Dark Web

Motherboard: A sophisticated piece of government-made malware, designed to do reconnaissance on energy grid’s system ahead of an eventual cyberattack on critical infrastructure, was found on a dark web hacking forum.

Cybersecurity researchers usually catch samples of malicious software like spyware or viruses when a victim who’s using their software such as an antivirus, gets infected. But at times, they find those samples somewhere else. Such was the case for Furtim, a newly discovered malware, caught recently by researchers from the security firm SentinelOne.

SentinelOne’s researchers believe the malware was created by a team of hackers working for a government, likely from eastern Europe, according to a report published on Tuesday.

Hacking forums, of course, are home to a lot of malicious data and software. But they are usually not places where sophisticated government-made hacking tools get exchanged.

Udi Shamir, chief security officer at SentinelOne, said that it’s normal to find reused code and malware on forums because “nobody tries to reinvent the wheel again and again and again.” But in this case, “it was very surprising to see such a sophisticated sample” appear in hacking forums, he told Motherboard in a phone interview.

“This was not the work of a kid. […] It was cyberespionage at its best.”

Shamir said that the malware, dubbed Furtim, was “clearly not” made by cybercriminals to make some money but for a government spying operations.

Furtim is a “dropper tool,” a platform that infects a machine and then serves as a first step to launch further attacks. It was designed to target specifically European energy companies using Windows, was released in May, and is still active, according to SentinelOne.

Another interesting characteristic is that Furtim actively tries to avoid dozens of common antivirus products, as well as sandboxes and virtual machines, in an attempt to evade detection and stay hidden as long as possible. The goal is “to remove any antivirus software that is installed on the system and drop its final payload,” SentintelOne’s report reads.

Security experts believe that critical infrastructure, such as the energy grid, is highly vulnerable to cyberattacks, and believe a future conflict might start with taking down the power using malware. While it might sound far-fetched, at the end of last year, hackers believed to be working for the Russian government caused a blackout in parts of Ukraine after gaining access to the power grid using malware.

It’s unclear who’s behind this cyberespionage operation, but Shamir said it’s likely a government from Eastern Europe, with a lot of resources and skills. The malware’s developers were very familiar with Windows; they knew it “to the bone,” according to him.

“This was not the work of a kid,” he said. “It was cyberespionage at its best.”

****

The dropper’s principle mission is to avoid detection; it will not execute if it senses it’s being run in a virtualized environment such as a sandbox, and it also can bypass antivirus protection running on compromised machines.

The sample also includes a pair of privilege escalation exploits for patched Windows vulnerabilities (CVE-2014-4113 and CVE-2015-1701), as well as a bypass for Windows User Account Control (UAC), which limits user privileges.

“It escalates privileges after all these checks and registers a hidden binary that it drops onto the hard drive that runs early in the boot process,” SentinelOne senior security researcher Joseph Landry said. “It will go through and systematically remove any AV on the machine that it targets. Then it drops another payload to the Windows directory and runs it during login time.” More from ThreatPost

Venezuela, Chaos in our Hemisphere, Inflation Skyrockets

Posted on July 12, 2016July 12, 2016 by Denise Simon

Venezuelans flee to Mexico to escape economic crisis

Kimberly-Clark: Venezuela seizes and re-opens US-owned factory

BBC: The government of Venezuela has said it has seized a factory owned by the US firm Kimberly-Clark.

The firm had said it was halting operations in Venezuela as it was unable to obtain raw materials.

But the labour minister said on Monday that the factory closure was illegal and it had re-opened “in the hands of the workers”.

Kimberly-Clark, which makes hygiene products including tissues and nappies, said it had acted appropriately.

Over the weekend it became the latest multinational to close or scale back operations in the country, citing strict currency controls, a lack of raw materials and soaring inflation.

Reuters: No to the closure” read graffiti on the firm’s gates over the weekend

General Mills, Procter & Gamble and other corporations have reduced operations in Venezuela as the country is gripped by economic crisis and widespread shortages of basic household goods.

What has gone wrong in Venezuela?

Labour Minister Oswaldo Vera, from the ruling Socialist Party (PSUV), visited the factory in Maracay and said it was illegal.

Almost 1,000 workers had asked him to re-start production, he said.

Mr Vera said: “Kimberly-Clark will continue producing, now in the hands of the workers.

“We’ve just turned on the first engine.”

The Texas-based company said in a statement: “If the Venezuelan government takes control of Kimberly-Clark facilities and operations, it will be responsible for the well-being of the workers and the physical asset, equipment and machinery in the facilities going forward.”

In just 12 hours, more than 35K Venezuelans cross Colombian border to buy food, medicine

FoxNewsLatino – Cucuta – In just 12 hours, more than 35,000 Venezuelans crossed the border into Colombia on Sunday to buy food and medicines in the city of Cucuta, when the Venezuelan government agreed to opened border crossings for one day only.

People began crossing the Simon Bolivar international bridge at 5:00 a.m. to purchase products that are scarce in Venezuela.

“We’re from here in San Antonio (and), honestly, we don’t have any food to give our children, so I don’t think it’s fair that the border is still closed,” a Venezuelan woman told EFE in Cucuta.

The woman, who preferred to not give her name, crossed the international bridge with her husband and children ages 5 and 2.

The border crossings between Tachira state and Norte de Santander province were closed on Aug. 19, 2015, by Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro, who said he took the measure to fight smuggling and prevent members of paramilitary groups from entering Venezuela.

Maduro later ordered all crossings along the 1,378-mile border closed.

Tachira Gov. Jose Gregorio Vielma Mora said Saturday that the border would be opened on Maduro’s orders.

After the announcement, hundreds of Venezuelans began lining up to cross the Simon Bolivar international bridge.

“A second entry by Venezuelans into Colombia was planned by the Venezuelan right, with the pretext of buying food and medicines,” Vielma Mora said.

The governor was apparently referring to an incident last Tuesday, when about 500 Venezuelans from the city of Ureña crossed the closed Francisco de Paula Santander international bridge and went into Cucuta to buy food.

Norte de Santander Gov. William Villamizar, for his part, said in a Twitter post after visiting the border crossings that the humanitarian corridor “has benefited 25,000 people” who were able to buy “food and medicines.”

Villamizar spoke with some of the people streaming across the border and posed for photos with a family carrying a poster that read, “Colombia, gracias por su solidaridad con Venezuela” (Colombia, Thanks for Your Solidarity with Venezuela).

“This is super nice on Colombia’s part, very good,” Rosalba Jaimes, a San Antonio resident, told EFE.

Betty Rojas, a Venezuelan already heading home, said she and others planned to cross whenever the border was open.

“We bought rice, pasta, sugar, toilet paper, butter, everything we could bring back. We had enough for lots of stuff,” Rojas told EFE, adding that she wanted to tell the Colombian government “thank you.”

Cucuta police chief Col. Jaime Barrera said officers would “guarantee security in Cucuta’s business districts for the thousands of people coming from Venezuela.

Officers have been posted at the border crossings and at businesses across the border city, the provincial police chief said.

Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos and Foreign Minister Maria Angela Holguin visited Cucuta on Wednesday.

The president said he would try to negotiate with Maduro in an effort to reopen the border crossings.

Venezuela: Decree Grants New Powers To President, Defense Minister

Stratfor: Venezuelan President Nicolas Maduro issued a presidential decree July 11 granting new, sweeping powers to himself and Defense Minister Vladimir Padrino Lopez, Sumarium reported. Maduro said the decree establishes a new program that concentrates economic and political power at the very top of government, which will enable the country to correct its economic woes and get production back on track. Moreover, all government institutions and ministries in the country will now fall under the direct control of the president and the defense minister. The president said that he will provide more information about the decree, which effectively makes Padrino Lopez a second head of state in Venezuela, within the coming days.

Light the White House in Blue for Law Enforcement? Nah

Posted on July 12, 2016July 12, 2016 by Denise Simon

Does anyone remember directly after the Supreme Court decision on legalizing same sex marriage? Does anyone remember the White House lighted in rainbow colors in celebration for all the world to see?

The White House on Friday night is splashed with rainbow-colored lights to celebrate a Supreme Court ruling that legalized same-sex marriage around the country.

The light display capped a day of jubilation over the decision at the executive mansion. President Obama hailed the ruling Friday morning, saying in the Rose Garden justice has arrived “like a thunderbolt” for gay and lesbian couples.

“Today, we can say in no uncertain terms that we have made our union a little more perfect,” Obama said.

Before that, the president tweeted using the hashtag “#LoveWins.” White House account changed its logo to an image of the White House seal covered in rainbow colors, bearing a resemblance to the actual building’s appearance Friday evening. The Hill

Obama said the police acted stupidly when they arrested Professor Henry Gates at this own home. Obama’s position on the matter was the cop was racist and at the time, the shamed White House ‘green czar’, Van Jones also responded that Obama was forced to sit with a racist cop. It all started with the ‘beer summit’, Barack Obama and his entire administration has been in a battle against everything that law enforcement across the country stands for and does.

So….what is the White House ignoring today with regard to the Dallas terror attack where 12 people were shot, killing 5 police officers? Well the White House refuses to shine blue lights in solidarity with law enforcement. Shameful.

The Federal Law Enforcement Officers Association (F.L.E.O.A.) Foundation announced its request that President Obama honor the ultimate sacrifice of our fallen Dallas police heroes by illuminating the White House in blue. The request occurred on Friday. It has not happened.

Police Magazine reports that FLEOA Foundation President Jon Adler issued the following statement:

“While we appreciate the President’s proclamation to have our flag flown at half-mast in honor of our fallen Dallas police heroes, I respectfully request that he demonstrate his full respect for their ultimate sacrifice by illuminating the White House in blue. Actions speak louder than scripted words, and the honorable act of displaying law enforcement’s ‘Thin Blue Line’ at the White House would demonstrate the President’s sincere commitment to our fallen heroes and their families. More from LawOfficer

In real pain from 3rd degree burns from an accident, Texas Governor Greg Abbott stopped treatment to return to Dallas in the wake of the terror attack. He was on vacation in Jackson Hole, Wyoming and upon returned order the Governor’s mansion to be lighted in blue as a heartfelt gesture of unity with law enforcement.

Then there is a petition on the White House website to declare Black Lives Matter a terror organization and rightly so.

A White House petition to formally recognize the Black Lives Matter movement as a terrorist organization garnered it’s one-hundred-thousandth signature Monday afternoon, the minimum-threshold for earning a response from the administration.

“Terrorism is defined as the use of violence and intimidation in pursuit of political aims,” writes the petitions author. “This definition is the same definition used to declare ISIS and other groups, as terrorist organizations.” LawOfficer

Click here to sign the petition and demonstrate unity with law enforcement, our only defense across the homeland.

Facebook Faces $1 Billion Lawsuit, Aids Terror

Posted on July 12, 2016July 12, 2016 by Denise Simon

Privacy is one thing, but offering encrypted platforms with no oversight for terror communications is quite another. Since at least 2014, Islamic State, al Qaeda and al Nusra have all used Facebook and other social media platforms where Twitter has been especially uncooperative with security and investigation officials fighting against terrorist exploitation. Is it really a 1st Amendment protection when communications are generated by declared enemy combatants? Then there is the New Black Panthers and Black Lives Matters. The debate continues.

Due mostly to Edward Snowden revealing abilities of the United States to capture intelligence of terror networks, global terrorists have successfully sought other platforms.

Some popular social media platforms are seeing a drop in use by terror groups, yet there are countless others replacing them including apps like Telegram and WhatsApp. Islamic State has a robust program on these apps for their sex trade.

Facebook began rolling out a new end-to-end encryption feature on Friday called “secret conversations” with the goal of making users feel more comfortable chatting about sensitive subjects in the app.

“We’ve heard from you that there are times when you want additional safeguards — perhaps when discussing private information like an illness or a health issue with trusted friends and family, or sending financial information to an accountant,” the company said in a release announcing the new feature.

With the new feature, Facebook Messenger’s 900 million users can choose to encrypt specific conversations so that the messages can only be read on one specific device. Facebook is also giving users the option to determine how long each message can be read for. More from CNN

Families of Victims of Hamas Terror Sue Facebook for $1 Billion

PJMedia: Facebook is being hit with a $1 billion lawsuit after allegedly allowing the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas use its platform to plot attacks in Israel and the West Bank that killed and wounded Americans. According to Bloomberg News: “Plaintiffs include the families of Yaakov Naftali Fraenkel, a 16-year-old abducted and murdered in June 2014 after hitching a ride in the West Bank, and 3-year-old Chaya Braun, whose stroller was struck intentionally by a Palestinian driver in October 2014 at a train station in Jerusalem.”

“Facebook has knowingly provided material support and resources to Hamas in the form of Facebook’s online social network platform and communication services,” making it liable for the violence against the five Americans, according to the lawsuit sent to Bloomberg by the office of the Israeli lawyer on the case, Nitsana Darshan-Leitner.“Simply put, Hamas uses Facebook as a tool for engaging in terrorism,” it said.

Hamas is considered a terrorist organization by the U.S., European Union and Israel. The suit said the group used Facebook to share operational and tactical information with members and followers, posting notices of upcoming demonstrations, road closures, Israeli military actions and instructions to operatives to carry out the attacks.

Mushir al-Masri, a senior Hamas leader, said by phone that “suing Facebook clearly shows the American policy of fighting freedom of the press and expression” and is evidence of U.S. prejudice against the group and “its just cause.”

It’s not at all clear that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg — an influential Obama ally — would disagree with al-Masri. It’s not clear that the president would either.

While Hamas has been designated a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. Department of State since 1997 President Obama and his national security team seem to have a far more favorable view of them. Rather than reject the Hamas and the Palestinian Authority unity government that was formed in 2014, the Obama administration continued to fund it to the tune of $500 million a year.

This alarmed American lawmakers so much, 88 senators from across party lines sent a message of “grave concern” to the White House, warning that the new PA unity effort might jeopardize direct negotiations with Israel. “Any assistance should only be provided when we have confidence that this new government is in full compliance with the restrictions contained in current law,” the letter read. More here.