Terrorists, Here, There and Here

Posted on January 15, 2016January 15, 2016 by Denise Simon

Houston terror suspect reportedly wanted to blow up Galleria, Sharpstown Mall

ABC: During testimony, we learned he allegedly discussed placing bombs at Houston’s Galleria.

Eyewitness News also obtained photographic evidence used during the bond hearing — photos of what was seized from his apartment and one of Al Hardan allegedly pledging his loyalty to the Islamic State.

A federal investigator testified that Omar Faraj Saeed Al Hardan, 24, wanted to blow up the Galleria and Sharpstown Mall with a remote bomb. According to testimony, Al Hardan would put the bomb in a trash can and detonate it using a cell phone.

They also say he received military training on how to use an AK-47 late last year at a farm just outside of Houston. Agents say the training was conducted with a confidential informant, and the entire event was recorded by federal investigators. More here.

Just this week, Secretary of State John Kerry made this announcement of refugees:

DeptofState: Refugees survive terrible ordeals: torture, upheaval, perilous journeys, and tremendous loss. They are persecuted because of their race, religion, nationality, political opinion, or social group. Today, due to conflict and repression, there are nearly 20 million refugees in the world. For a small number of the most vulnerable of these refugees, the United States strives to provide a new start through refugee resettlement.

It is a tradition that exemplifies American leadership in humanitarian causes around the world, and makes our nation a beacon of hope. That is why Secretary Kerry was pleased to announce today that we will further expand the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program to help vulnerable families and individuals from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras, offering a safe and legal alternative to the dangerous and irregular journey many are currently taking in the hands of human smugglers. Full statement here

The UK has a border issue very much like that of the United States when it comes to terrorist and smugglers.

Mr Hobbs said the defence of the entire UK coastline, which is around 17,000km, is in the hands of just five customs cutters, decreasing numbers of coastguard vessels and a “paltry number” of police marine units, highlighting the scrapping of Essex Police’s units in 2013.

“If we are going to defend our borders against thousands of migrants including possible terrorist threats then we need to have strong coastal borders and airports – it should not be one at the expense of the other,” he added. Full summary here.

Florida Hezbollah Imam Travels to Syria and Back

Did Mohamad al-Halabi visit his terrorist nephew in Damascus?

FrontPage: Mohamad al-Halabi, a.k.a. Mohamad al-Fouani, the imam of the American Islamic Center of Florida, may operate out of Pompano Beach, Florida, however a good part of his life still resides in the Middle East, including his associations with the terrorist organization Hezbollah. In November, al-Halabi left the shores of the United States to travel to his native home of Syria. While there, he visited family, but were they his Hezbollah family?

Recently the American Islamic Center of Florida or AICF moved from Boca Raton, where it had been a part of the community since 2003, to its new location in Pompano Beach. It seems the move has also prompted Mohamad al-Halabi, the Shiite mosque’s imam, to go by another name, that being Mohamad al-Fouani.

For the mosque and the imam it is a new beginning, though it is not enough to shake al-Halabi’s – or al-Fouani’s – radical past, no matter how much he attempts to conceal his identity from law enforcement or others. Full story here.

Lastly but certainly not least, we have normalized relations with Iran and just what does Iran do and what is the future?

Tehran Acknowledge 200 Thousand Armed Youth in Five Countries

In the first official confession of the presence of Iranian Armed youth, the Iranian Revolutionary Guards Commander, Mohammad Ali Jafari, acknowledged training tens of thousands of Shiite youths, whom he called the armed revolutionary generation, for jihad in Syria, Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Yemen.

Jafari said, at the funeral of Hamid Reza Asadullah, a leader in the Revolutionary Guards who was killed in Syria, that the positive outcome of the developments and events in the region is the training of about two hundred thousand armed young troops and the major role these troops are playing in the countries of the region.

Jafari added that he is looking forward to encourage the third generation of the revolution to support the Iranian Guardian Jurist, pointing out the importance of the presence of Iranian youths in battles of Syria, Iraq and Yemen.
The IRGC works outside Iran through the Quds Force, which is led by General Qassem Soleimani. Remarkably, it does not have any military force, yet it prepares and trains all the Revolutionary Guards’ institutions for use when needed.

The IRGC used to include four major forces, which are the Ground Forces, Air Force, Navy, and Missile Force. Recently, and according to an expert who observes Iranian affairs, the IRGG introduced its fifth force, which is the “Electronic, Intelligence and Cultural Deterrence Force”.

The expert told Asharq Al-Awsat that the Guards work in Syria through military advisers who monitor operating rooms. The Guards’ fighters who head towards supporting the Syrian regime had no regulatory decisions; however, they are experienced in battling and have worked in advanced operating rooms.

Who is Still Left at Gitmo, Names Provided

Posted on January 14, 2016January 14, 2016 by Denise Simon

Of 93 detainees left at Gitmo, the Pentagon Press Secretary says 34 approved for transfer and 49 eligible for transfer review. 10 face criminal charges. By the way, the owner of this website, www.founderscode.com offers prayers and condolences to all those families who lost a warrior in the war on terror while capturing these detainees, including those sailors on the USS Cole.

Frankly, the whole mess of Ash Carter and the White House releasing these detainees is a political tragedy. Personally, we should all call for the resignation of Ash Carter.

Who’s still held at Guantánamo

Miami Herald Staff Report

Here is a list of 93 detainees currently held at Guantánamo.

McClatchy Newspapers and the Miami Herald consulted court and other public records as well as sources in tandem with secret U.S. military intelligence summaries provided by WikiLeaks to determine who was still being held there.

Clicking on the name will take you to a U.S. intelligence profile provided to McClatchy Newspapers by Wikileaks, an assessment of each captive drawn up by the prison that their attorneys generally dispute.

In many cases, the summary also includes a photo of the detainee.

In January 2010, a federal, Obama administration task force sorted the detainees into separate categories, whose status we’ve incorporated into this list and are updating with decisions of the 2013 and 2014 Periodic Review Boards.

Of the 93 captives, 34 are approved for transfer in one fashion or another.

Of the 93 captives, 34 are approved for transfer in one fashion or another and 49 others are in a continue-to-detain status but have not been charged with a crime.

The last 10 captives have cases being handled through military commission proceedings — two through plea bargains and one who had been convicted of war crimes that were overturned although he is still held as a convict serving a life sentence.

Note: No intelligence summary was available for two men listed below because they were processed at the prison after the era that the WikiLeaks documents captured. In their place we provide links to the Defense Department news releases announcing their arrival at Guantánamo.

Spellings of names may vary from other documents, reports. So we’ve included the U.S Internment Serial Number, or ISN, along with a form of each captive’s name.

ISN27 Uthman Abdul Rahim Mohammed Uthman, Yemeni. He won his habeas corpus lawsuit on Feb. 24, 2010 but lost after the U.S. government appealed to the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia Circuit, which overturned the release order on March 29, 2011. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee, a forever prisoner.

ISN28 Moath al Alwi, Yemeni. A federal judge upheld his indefinite detention on Dec. 30, 2008, denying his habeas corpus petition. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee, a forever prisoner. A national security parole panel, called a Periodic Review Board, upheld that status on Oct. 26, 2015.

ISN29 Mohammed al-Ansi, Yemeni. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee, a forever prisoner.

ISN30 Ahmed al-Hikimi, Yemeni. In January 2010, a federal task force approved him for conditional return to his homeland, a third country or transfer to the United States if the prison camps in Cuba are closed. It said he was eligible for conditional release, if the security situation in Yemen improves — or a viable third-country settlement or rehabilitation program is found.

ISN31 Mahmud al-Mujahid, Yemeni, arrived the day the prison opened, Jan. 11, 2002. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee. But a national security parole panel, called a Periodic Review Board, lifted the “forever prisoner” designation and declared him approved for transfer, with security arrangements, Jan. 9, 2014.

ISN33 Mohammed al-Adahi, Yemeni. He won his habeas corpus lawsuit on Aug. 17, 2009 but lost when the government appealed the decision and the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned the decision on July 13, 2010, and lost again at the federal court Aug. 7, 2014. In January 2010, a federal task force approved him for conditional return to his homeland, a third country or transfer to the United States if the prison camps in Cuba are closed. It said he was eligible for conditional release, if the security situation in Yemen improves — or a viable third-country settlement or rehabilitation program is found.

ISN37 Abdel Malik Abdel Wahab al Rahabi, Yemeni, arrived the day the prison opened, Jan. 11, 2002, as a suspected Osama bin Laden bodyguard. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee. A national security parole panel, called a Periodic Review Board, upheld that status on March 5, 2014 but a subsequent review cleared him for release on Dec. 5, 2014, if conditions permit. The board recommended that, if he is resettled in a third country, he be joined by his wife and daughter, who was born after his capture.

ISN38 Ridah Bin Saleh al Yazidi, Tunisian, arrived the day the prison opened, Jan. 11, 2002. An Obama administration task force in January 2010 designated him as cleared for release.

ISN39 Ali Hamza al Bahlul, Yemeni, arrived the day the prison opened, Jan. 11, 2002. A military commission convicted him of war crimes on Nov. 3, 2008 and sentenced him to life at Guantánamo for working as Osama bin Laden’s media secretary in Afghanistan. His Pentagon appellate attorneys systematically got that conviction overturned, although the military would say after the decision whether he remained segregated as a convict at Guantánamo’s Camp 5 Convict’s Corridor.

ISN40 Abdelqadir al-Mudhaffari, Yemeni. In January 2010, a federal task force approved him for conditional return to his homeland, a third country or transfer to the United States if the prison camps in Cuba are closed. It said he was eligible for conditional release, if the security situation in Yemen improves — or a viable third-country settlement or rehabilitation program is found.

ISN41 Majid Abdu Ahmed, Yemeni. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee, a forever prisoner.

ISN44 Mohammed Ghanem, Yemeni, arrived the day the prison opened, Jan. 11, 2002. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee, a forever prisoner.

ISN63 Mohammed al-Qahtani, Saudi. He was subjected to such cruel “enhanced interrogation techniques” at Guantánamo that a senior Pentagon official, Susan Crawford, told The Washington Post’s Bob Woodward that she concluded he was tortured in U.S. custody, and in May 2008 dropped charges against him alleging he was a co-conspirator in the Sept. 11 plot. He’s been at the Guantánamo prison since February 2002, according to leaked military documents. In January 2010, a federal task force recommended he be considered for trial.

ISN91 Abdel al-Saleh, Yemeni. In January 2010, a federal task force approved him for conditional return to his homeland, a third country or transfer to the United States if the prison camps in Cuba are closed. It said he was eligible for conditional release, if the security situation in Yemen improves — or a viable third-country settlement or rehabilitation program is found.

ISN115 Abdul Rahman Salih Nasir, Yemeni. In January 2010, a federal task force approved him for conditional return to his homeland, a third country or transfer to the United States if the prison camps in Cuba are closed. It said he was eligible for conditional release, if the security situation in Yemen improves — or a viable third-country settlement or rehabilitation program is found.

ISN128 Ghaleb Nasser Bihani, Yemeni. A federal judge upheld his indefinite detention on Jan. 28, 2008, denying his habeas corpus petition, and a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld that decision on Jan. 5, 2010. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee. But a national security parole panel, called a Periodic Review Board, lifted the “forever prisoner” designation and declared him approved for transfer, with security arrangements, on May 28, 2014.

ISN131 Salem bin Kanad, Yemeni who considers himself a Saudi. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee. A national security parole panel, called a Periodic Review Board, upheld that status on May 21, 2014.

ISN153 Fayiz Ahmad Yahia Suleiman, Yemeni. An Obama administration task force in January 2010 designated him as cleared for release.

ISN167 Ali Yahya Mahdi Abdo, Yemeni. In January 2010, a federal task force approved him for conditional return to his homeland, a third country or transfer to the United States if the prison camps in Cuba are closed. It said he was eligible for conditional release, if the security situation in Yemen improves — or a viable third-country settlement or rehabilitation program is found.

ISN178 Tariq Ba Odah, Yemeni. In January 2010, a federal task force approved him for conditional return to his homeland, a third country or transfer to the United States if the prison camps in Cuba are closed. It said he was eligible for conditional release, if the security situation in Yemen improves — or a viable third-country settlement or rehabilitation program is found.

ISN189 Falen Gherebi, also called Rafdat Muhammad Faqi Aljj-Saqqaf, a Libyan. An Obama administration task force in January 2010 designated him as cleared for release.

ISN223 Abd al-Rahman Abdu Abu Ghayth Sulayman, Yemeni. A federal judge upheld his indefinite detention on July 20, 2010, denying his habeas corpus petition. In January 2010, a federal task force approved him for conditional return to his homeland, a third country or transfer to the United States if the prison camps in Cuba are closed. It said he was eligible for conditional release, if the security situation in Yemen improves — or a viable third-country settlement or rehabilitation program is found.

ISN235 Saeed Ahmed Mohammed Abdullah Serem Jarabh, Yemeni. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee. But a national security parole panel, called a Periodic Review Board, lifted the “forever prisoner” designation and declared him approved for transfer, with security arrangements, March 5, 2015.

ISN240 Abdullah Yahia Yusif al Shibli, Saudi-born Yemeni. In January 2010, a federal task force approved him for conditional return to his homeland, a third country or transfer to the United States if the prison camps in Cuba are closed. It said he was eligible for conditional release, if the security situation in Yemen improves — or a viable third-country settlement or rehabilitation program is found.

ISN242 Khalid Ahmad Qasim, Yemeni. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee.

ISN244 Abdul Latif Nasir, Moroccan. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee.

ISN249 Muhammad Abdullah Muhammad al-Hamiri, Yemeni. An Obama administration task force in January 2010 designated him as cleared for release.

ISN257 Umar Bin Hamza Abdulayev, Tajik. Cleared for release through both Bush and Obama administration review processes, his lawyer notified the federal court that he fears for his life if repatriated. If a third country can’t be found to resettle him safely, he says, he’d rather spend his life in U.S. detention.

ISN309 Muieen Adeen al-Sattar, born in the United Arab Emirates. An Obama administration task force in January 2010 designated him as cleared for release.

ISN321 Ahmed Yaslam Saijid Kuman, Yemeni. In January 2010, a federal task force approved him for conditional return to his homeland, a third country or transfer to the United States if the prison camps in Cuba are closed. It said he was eligible for conditional release, if the security situation in Yemen improves — or a viable third-country settlement or rehabilitation program is found.

ISN324 Mashoor al Sabri, Yemeni. A federal judge upheld his indefinite detention Feb. 3, 2011, denying his habeas corpus petition. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee. But a national security parole panel, called a Periodic Review Board , lifted the “forever prisoner” designation and declared him approved for transfer, with security arrangements, April 17, 2015.

ISN434 Mustafa Abdul Qowi Abdul al-Shamiri, Yemeni. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee.

ISN440 Mohammed Ali Fowza, Yemeni. In January 2010, a federal task force approved him for conditional return to his homeland, a third country or transfer to the United States if the prison camps in Cuba are closed. It said he was eligible for conditional release, if the security situation in Yemen improves — or a viable third-country settlement or rehabilitation program is found.

ISN441 Mansoor Abdul Rahman al Dayfi, Yemeni. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee. But a national security parole panel, called a Periodic Review Board, lifted the “forever prisoner” designation and declared him approved for resettlement, with security arrangements, on Oct. 28, 2015.

ISN461 Abd Al-Rahman Mohammed Al-Taty, Yemeni. In January 2010, a federal task force approved him for conditional return to his homeland, a third country or transfer to the United States if the prison camps in Cuba are closed. It said he was eligible for conditional release, if the security situation in Yemen improves — or a viable third-country settlement or rehabilitation program is found.

ISN498 Muhammad Ahmad Said Haydar, Yemeni. In January 2010, a federal task force approved him for conditional return to his homeland, a third country or transfer to the United States if the prison camps in Cuba are closed. It said he was eligible for conditional release, if the security situation in Yemen improves — or a viable third-country settlement or rehabilitation program is found.

ISN508 Salman Yahya Hassan Muhammad Rabeii, Yemeni. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee.

ISN509 Muhammad Nasir Yahya Khusruf, Yemeni. In January 2010, a federal task force approved him for conditional return to his homeland, a third country or transfer to the United States if the prison camps in Cuba are closed. It said he was eligible for conditional release, if the security situation in Yemen improves — or a viable third-country settlement or rehabilitation program is found.

ISN522 Yassim Qasim Muhammad Ismail Qasim, Yemeni. A federal judge upheld his indefinite detention April 8, 2010, denying his habeas corpus petition, and a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld that decision on April 8, 2011. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee.

ISN535 Tariq Mahmud Ahmad el Sawah, Egyptian. In 2008, a Bush administration era Pentagon prosecutor swore out conspiracy and providing material support for terrorism military commissions charges for allegedly serving as an al Qaeda explosives expert in a now defunct version of the military commissions. In January 2010, a federal task force recommended he be considered for trial. Subsequently, the war court’s chief prosecutor declared the material support charge no longer viable. Internal Defense Department documents showed that in late 2014 he was still considered a candidate for a war crimes trial. But on Feb. 12, 2015, a national security parole panel, called a Periodic Review Board declared him approved for transfer, “with appropriate support, including medical care” and security assurances.

ISN550 Walid Said Bin Said Zaid, Yemeni. In January 2010, a federal task force approved him for conditional return to his homeland, a third country or transfer to the United States if the prison camps in Cuba are closed. It said he was eligible for conditional release, if the security situation in Yemen improves — or a viable third-country settlement or rehabilitation program is found.

ISN560 Hajawali Mohmad, Afghan. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee.

ISN566 Masour Mohamed Mutaya Ali, Saudi-born Yemeni. An Obama administration task force in January 2010 designated him as cleared for release.

ISN569 Suhail Abdo Anam Shorabi, Yemeni. In January 2010, a federal task force recommended he be considered for trial. He’s never been charged with a crime.

ISN576 Zahir Omar Hamis Bin Hamdoun, Yemeni. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee.

ISN578 Abdul Aziz al-Suwedy, Yemeni. In January 2010, a federal task force approved him for conditional return to his homeland, a third country or transfer to the United States if the prison camps in Cuba are closed. It said he was eligible for conditional release, if the security situation in Yemen improves — or a viable third-country settlement or rehabilitation program is found.

ISN682 Ghassan al-Sharbi, Saudi. During the Bush administration he was designated for trial by a now defunct version of the military commissions using a crime, providing material support for terror, that the war court prosecutor considers no longer viable. In January 2010, a federal task force recommended he be considered for trial.

ISN685 Abdul Razak Ali, Algerian. A federal judge upheld his indefinite detention as June 23, 2011, denying the habeas corpus petition of this Taliban government media spokesman, governor and Cabinet minister. In January 2010, a federal task force recommended he be considered for trial. He’s never been charged with a crime.

ISN694 Sufiyan Barhoumi, Algerian. During the Bush administration he was designated for trial by a now defunct version of the military commissions. A federal judge upheld his indefinite detention on Sept. 3, 2009, denying his habeas corpus petition, and a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld that decision detention on Jun. 22, 2010. In January 2010, a federal task force recommended he be considered for trial.

ISN695 Omar Mohammed Khalif, Libyan. A federal judge upheld his indefinite detention May 28, 2010, denying his habeas corpus petition. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee. But a national security parole panel, called a Periodic Review Board, lifted the “forever prisoner” designation and declared him approved for transfer, with security arrangements, Aug. 20, 2015.

ISN696 Jubran Qahtani, Saudi. During the Bush administration he was designated for trial by a now defunct version of the military commissions using a crime, providing material support for terror, that the war court prosecutor considers no longer viable. In January 2010, a federal task force recommended he be considered for trial.

ISN702 Ravil Mingazov, Russian. In January 2010, a federal task force recommended he be considered for trial. He’s never been charged with a crime. He won his habeas corpus lawsuit on May 13, 2010. The U.S. government appealed to the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia Circuit, which in 2012 sent the habeas petition back to the U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., for reconsideration. The case hasn’t been re-heard. His story has garnered more attention in the United States than many Guantánamo captive, in part because of offers by communities in western Massachusetts and Berkeley, Calif., to offer him asylum resettlement, were U.S. law to allow it.

ISN708 Ismael Ali Faraj al Bakush, Libyan. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee.

ISN728 Abdul Muhammad Ahmad Nassir al-Muhajari, Yemeni. In January 2010, a federal task force approved him for conditional return to his homeland, a third country or transfer to the United States if the prison camps in Cuba are closed. It said he was eligible for conditional release, if the security situation in Yemen improves — or a viable third-country settlement or rehabilitation program is found.

ISN753 Abdul Zahir, Afghan. In 2006, the Bush administration designated him for trial by military commissions in charges the Obama administration had dismissed without prejudice. Charges included attacking civilians, aiding the enemy and conspiracy for allegedly attacking a civilian vehicle, injuring three journalists, and supporting the Taliban and al Qaeda forces in hostilities against coalition forces in Afghanistan. Internal Defense Department documents showed that in late 2014 he was still considered a candidate for a war crimes trial. His lawyer is arguing in federal court that, with combat over in Afghanistan he should be released.

ISN760 Mohamedou Ould Slahi, a Mauritanian who got to Guantánamo Aug. 5, 2002. He won his habeas corpus lawsuit on March 22, 2010 but the U.S. government appealed to the U.S. Appeals Court for the District of Columbia Circuit, which on Nov. 5, 2010 ordered the lower court to review his detention with a different standard. In January 2010, a federal task force recommended he be considered for trial. He’s never been charged with a crime. Little, Brown, the U.S. publishing house, released his memoirs based on declassified accounts written at the prison in southeast Cuba. Written in English, the book “Guantánamo Diary” was translated into about two dozen languages and distributed in that many countries.

ISN762 Obaidullah, Afghan. During the Bush administration he was designated for trial by a now defunct version of the military commissions. Attorney General Eric Holder has also approved his trial by the new revamped military commission. In January 2010, a federal task force recommended he be considered for trial. A federal judge upheld his indefinite detention Oct. 19, 2010. His lawyer is arguing in federal court that, with combat over in Afghanistan he should be released.

ISN768 Ahmed Muhammed Haza al Darbi, Saudi. He pleaded guilty to terror charges Feb. 20, 2014 as an accomplice in the 2002 terrorist attack against the French oil tanker, MV Limburg, carried out while Darbi was already at Guantánamo. He agreed to testify at the war court in exchange for return to a Saudi prison in 2018 and a maximum 15-year sentence begun Feb. 20, 2014.

ISN836 Ayub Murshid Ali Salih, Yemeni who got to Guantánamo Oct. 28, 2002. A chart accompanying the so-called Senate Intelligence Committee ‘Torture Report’ indicates he was held by the CIA for 30 days or more, apparently separate and apart from his military detention. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee.

ISN837 Bashir Nasir Ali al-Marwalah, Yemeni who got to Guantánamo Oct. 28, 2002. A chart accompanying the so-called Senate Intelligence Committee ‘Torture Report’ indicates he was held by the CIA for 30 days or more, apparently separate and apart from his military detention. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee.

ISN838 Shawqi Awad Balzuhair, Yemeni who got to Guantánamo Oct. 28, 2002. A chart accompanying the so-called Senate Intelligence Committee ‘Torture Report’ indicates he was held by the CIA for 30 days or more, apparently separate and apart from his military detention. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee.

ISN839 Mussab Omar Ali al-Madhwani, Yemeni who got to Guantánamo Oct. 28, 2002. A chart accompanying the so-called Senate Intelligence Committee ‘Torture Report’ indicates he was held by the CIA for 30 days or more, apparently separate and apart from his military detention. A federal judge upheld his indefinite detention on Dec. 14, 2009, denying his habeas corpus petition., and a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit upheld his indefinite detention on May 27, 2011. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee.

ISN840 Hayil al-Mithali, Yemeni who got to Guantánamo Oct. 28, 2002. A chart accompanying the so-called Senate Intelligence Committee ‘Torture Report’ indicates he was held by the CIA for 30 days or more, apparently separate and apart from his military detention. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee.

ISN841 Said Salih Said, Yemeni who got to Guantánamo Oct. 28, 2002. A chart accompanying the so-called Senate Intelligence Committee ‘Torture Report’ indicates he was held by the CIA for 30 days or more, apparently separate and apart from his military detention. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee.

ISN893 Tawfiq Nassar al-Bihani, Yemeni who got to Guantánamo Feb. 6, 2003. A federal judge upheld his indefinite detention on Sept. 22, 2010, denying his habeas corpus petition. A list included in the so-called Senate Intelligence Committee ‘Torture Report’ indicates he was held by the CIA for 50 days or more, apparently separate and apart from his military detention. His brother, Ghaleb, is ISN 128, also lost his unlawful detention case. In January 2010, a federal task force approved him for conditional return to his homeland, a third country or transfer to the United States if the prison camps in Cuba are closed. It said he was eligible for conditional release, if the security situation in Yemen improves — or a viable third-country settlement or rehabilitation program is found.

ISN975 Bostan Karim, Afghan. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee. His lawyer is arguing in federal court that, with combat over in Afghanistan he should be released.

ISN1017 Omar Mohammed Ali al-Rammah, Yemeni. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee.

ISN1045 Mohammed Kamin, Afghan. During the Bush administration, he was designated for trial by military commission. The Obama administration considered the case and in 2010 put him in the category of “Law of War detainee,” a forever prisoner, until the Periodic Review Board concluded in September 2015 that he can be released. His lawyer had argued in federal court that, with combat over in Afghanistan, he should be released.

ISN1094 Saifullah A. Paracha, Pakistan who got to Guantánamo Sept. 19, 2004. A former U.S. green card holder, he is also the eldest of the Guantánamo detainees, according to leaked detention center records. The U.S. Senate Intelligence Commitee ‘Torture Report’ says he was captured July 5, 2003 in an FBI orchestrated operation and while the CIA wanted to take custody of him and interrogated him with so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, the proposal was rejected. He was born in Aug. 17, 1947, and has a history of coronary artery disease. In January 2010, a federal task force recommended he be considered for trial. He’s never been charged with a crime.

ISN1119 Haji Hamidullah, Afghan. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee. His lawyer is arguing in federal court that, with combat over in Afghanistan he should be released.

ISN1453 Sanad Yislam al-Kazimi, Yemeni who got to Guantánamo Sept. 19, 2004. A chart accompanying the so-called Senate Intelligence Committee ‘Torture Report’ indicates he was held by the CIA for 270 days or more, apparently separate and apart from his military detention. In January 2010, a federal task force recommended he be considered for trial. He’s never been charged with a crime but internal Defense Department documents showed that in late 2014 he was still considered a candidate for a war crimes trial.

ISN1456 Hassan Ali Bin Attash,Yemeni who got to Guantánamo Sept. 19, 2004. According to leaked military records, he is the youngest of the current detainees. He is also the brother of high-value detainee Walid Bin Attash, held in a different camp. His lawyer says they’ve never seen each other at Guantánamo. A chart accompanying the so-called Senate Intelligence Committee ‘Torture Report’ indicates he was held by the CIA for 120 days or more, apparently separate and apart from his military detention. In January 2010, a federal task force recommended he be considered for trial. He’s never been charged with a crime.

ISN1457 Abdu Ali Sharqawi, Yemeni known as Riyadh the Facilitator who got to Guantánamo Sept. 19, 2004. A chart accompanying the so-called Senate Intelligence Committee ‘Torture Report’ indicates he was held by the CIA for 120 days or more, apparently separate and apart from his military detention. In January 2010, a federal task force recommended he be considered for trial. He’s never been charged with a crime but internal Defense Department documents showed that in late 2014 he was still considered a candidate for a war crimes trial.

ISN1460 Abdul Rahim Gulam Rabbani, Saudi-born Pakistani who got to Guantánamo Sept. 19, 2004. A chart accompanying the so-called Senate Intelligence Committee ‘Torture Report’ indicates he was held by the CIA for 550 days or more, apparently separate and apart from his military detention. In January 2010, a federal task force recommended he be considered for trial. He’s never been charged with a crime.

ISN1461 Ahmed Ghulam Rabbani, Saudi-born Pakistani who got to Guantánamo Sept. 19, 2004. A chart accompanying the so-called Senate Intelligence Committee ‘Torture Report’ indicates he was held by the CIA for 550 days or more, apparently separate and apart from his military detention. In January 2010, a federal task force recommended he be considered for trial. He’s never been charged with a crime.

ISN1463 Abdulsalam al Hela, Yemeni who got to Guantánamo Sept. 19, 2004. A chart accompanying the so-called Senate Intelligence Committee ‘Torture Report’ indicates he was held by the CIA for 590 days or more, apparently separate and apart from his military detention. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee.

ISN3148 Harun al Afghani, Afghan. In January 2010, a federal task force recommended he be considered for trial. He’s never been charged with a crime.

ISN10011 Mustafa Ahmad al-Hawsawi, Saudi who’s charged in death-penalty proceedings by military commission as an alleged co-conspirator in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The ICRC says Pakistani authorities arrested him March 1, 2003 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. As a former CIA “black site” captive who was taken to Guantánamo in September 2006, he is held in a secret prison where the Pentagon segregates so-called high-value detainees. Hear him speak to a military panel at Guantánamo in March 2007. Transcript here.

ISN10013 Ramzi bin al Shibh, Yemeni who’s charged in death-penalty proceedings by military commission as an alleged co-conspirator in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The ICRC says Pakistani authorities arrested him Sept. 11, 2002 in Karachi, Pakistan. As a former CIA “black site” captive who was taken to Guantánamo in September 2006, he is held in a secret prison where the Pentagon segregates so-called high-value detainees. The so-called Senate Intelligence Committee ‘’Torture Report’ also says he was held previously at Guantánamo from September 2003 into April 2004. He went before a military panel at Guantánamo in March 2007 but chose to say nothing. You can hear it or read the transcript here.

ISN10014 Walid bin Attash, Yemeni who’s charged in death-penalty proceedings by military commission as an alleged co-conspirator in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The ICRC says Pakistani authorities arrested him on April 29, 2003 in Karachi, Pakistan. As a former CIA “black site” captive who was taken to Guantánamo in September 2006, he is held in a secret prison where the Pentagon segregates so-called high-value detainees. Hear him speak to a military panel at Guantánamo in March 2007. Transcript here.

ISN10015 Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, Saudi who’s charged in death-penalty proceedings by military commission as an alleged conspirator in the October 2000 al Qaeda suicide bombing of the USS Cole off Aden, Yemen. The ICRC says he was arrested in October 2002 in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. The so-called Senate Intelligence Committee “Torture Report” also says he was held previously at Guantánamo from September 2003 into April 2004. As a former CIA “black site” captive who was taken to Guantánamo in September 2006, he is held in a secret prison where the Pentagon segregates so-called high-value detainees. Hear him speak to a military panel at Guantánamo in March 2007. Transcript here.

ISN10016 Zayn al Abdeen Mohammed al Hussein, Palestinian known as Abu Zubaydah. The ICRC says he was arrested March 28, 2002 in Faisalabad, Pakistan. In January 2010, a federal task force recommended he be considered for trial but he’s never been charged with a crime. Hear him speak to a military panel at Guantánamo in March 2007. Transcript here.

ISN10017 Mustafa Abu Faraj al Libi, Libyan. The ICRC says Pakistani authorities arrested him on May 2, 2005 in Mardan, Pakistan. As a former CIA “black site” captive who was taken to Guantánamo in September 2006, he is held in a secret prison where the Pentagon segregates so-called high-value detainees. In January 2010, a federal task force recommended he be considered for trial but he’s never been charged with a crime.

ISN10018 Ammar al-Baluchi, Pakistani who’s charged in death-penalty proceedings by military commission as an alleged co-conspirator in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The ICRC says Pakistani authorities arrested him on April 29, 2003 in Karachi, Pakistan. As a former CIA “black site” captive who was taken to Guantánamo in September 2006, he is held in a secret prison where the Pentagon segregates so-called high-value detainees.

ISN10019 Riduan Isomuddin, Indonesian known as Hambali. The ICRC says he was arrested Aug. 11, 2003 in Bangkok, Thailand. As a former CIA “black site” captive who was taken to Guantánamo in September 2006, he is held in a secret prison where the Pentagon segregates so-called high-value detainees. In January 2010, a federal task force recommended he be considered for trial but he’s never been charged with a crime. Internal Defense Department documents showed that in late 2014 he was still considered a candidate for a war crimes trial.

ISN10020 Majid Khan, Pakistani. The International Red Cross says this Baltimore area educated man was arrested March 5, 2003 in Karachi, Pakistan. As a former CIA “black site” captive, he was taken to Guantánamo in September 2006 and held in a secret prison where the Pentagon segregates so-called high-value detainees. He turned government witness and pleaded guilty to war crimes Feb. 29, 2012, and is held in a separate secret site for cooperating ex-CIA captive witnesses at Guantánamo. There is currently no other. Hear him speak to a military panel at Guantánamo in March 2007. Transcript here.

ISN10021 Mohd Farik Bin Amin, Malaysian known as Zubair. The ICRC says he was arrested June 8, 2003 in Bangkok, Thailand. As a former CIA “black site” captive who was taken to Guantánamo in September 2006, he is held in a secret prison where the Pentagon segregates so-called high-value detainees. In January 2010, a federal task force recommended he be considered for trial but he’s never been charged with a crime. Internal Defense Department documents showed that in late 2014 he was still considered a candidate for a war crimes trial.

ISN10022 Bashir Lap, Malaysian known as Lilie. The ICRC says he was arrested Aug. 11, 2003 in Bangkok, Thailand. As a former CIA “black site” captive who was taken to Guantánamo in September 2006, he is held in a secret prison where the Pentagon segregates so-called high-value detainees. In January 2010, a federal task force recommended he be considered for trial but he’s never been charged with a crime. Internal Defense Department documents showed that in late 2014 he was still considered a candidate for a war crimes trial.

ISN10023 Hassan Guleed, Somali. The ICRC says he was arrested March 4, 2004 in Djibouti. As a former CIA “black site” captive who was taken to Guantánamo in September 2006, he is held in a secret prison where the Pentagon segregates so-called high-value detainees. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee, a forever prisoner.

ISN10024 Khalid Sheik Mohammad, Pakistani who’s charged in death-penalty proceedings by military commission as the alleged mastermind in the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks. The ICRC says Pakistani authorities arrested him March 1, 2003 in Rawalpindi, Pakistan. As a former CIA “black site” captive who was taken to Guantánamo in September 2006, he is held in a secret prison where the Pentagon segregates so-called high-value detainees.

ISN10025 Abdul Malik, Kenyan. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee, a forever prisoner.

ISN10026 Abd al Hadi al Iraqi, Iraqi. The Pentagon announced that this former CIA captive was taken to Guantánamo on April 27, 2007. He is held in a secret prison where the Pentagon segregates so-called high-value detainees. He was arraigned June 18 and faces non-capital charges at the war court alleging he was commander of al-Qaida’s army between 2002 and 2004. If convicted, could be punished with a maximum of life in prison. No trial date has been set yet.

ISN10029 Muhammad Rahim al-Afghani, Afghan. The Pentagon announced that this former CIA captive was taken to Guantánamo on March 14, 2008. He is held in a secret prison where the Pentagon segregates so-called high-value detainees. A multi-agency federal task force classified him in January 2010 as “continued detention pursuant to the Authorization for Use of Military Force (2001), as informed by principles of the laws of war,” an indefinite detainee, a forever prisoner.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/world/americas/guantanamo/article2203501.html#storylink=cpy

Ukraine Cyber Attack on Power Grid, U.S. Warning

Posted on January 14, 2016January 14, 2016 by Denise Simon

Ex-spy chief: Ukrainian cyberattack a warning sign for US utilities

Retired Gen. Michael Hayden, the former director of the National Security Agency and the CIA, says the US faces ‘darkening skies’ after malware linked power outages in Ukraine.

MIAMI — Former National Security Agency chief Gen. Michael Hayden warned that a recent malware attack on the Ukrainian power grid is yet another troubling sign that the US electric supply is vulnerable to hackers.

The Dec. 23 attack on utilities serving the Ivano-Frankivsk region of Ukraine appears to be the second confirmed incident of a computer-based attack to damage physical infrastructure. The attack led to blackouts throughout the region for several hours before power was restored. The Stuxnet worm that targeted the Iranian nuclear program is the only other such incident.

What happened in Ukraine is a harbinger for the kinds of cyberthreats the US faces, possibly from rival nations such as Russia and North Korea, the retired Air Force general told a crowd of critical infrastructure experts at the S4x16 security conference in Miami. General Hayden served as director of the NSA from 1999 to 2005 and served as CIA chief from 2006 to 2009.

“There a darkening sky,” he told reporters after his speech Tuesday, referring to the increasing threat of malware infections leading to physical damages. “This is another data point on an arc that we’ve long predicted,” he said, acknowledging that the Ukraine attack reinforces concerns in official circles about security of the American power grid. What’s more, he said, if early analysis of malware discovered at the Ukrainian facility that links it to Russia is accurate, the incident foreshadows a troubling uptick in the conflict between Ukraine and Russia over the disputed Crimea region.

The Department of Homeland Security has acknowledged that a version of the BlackEnergy program linked to the Ukraine attack has been discovered in US facilities. Hayden said that the link was troubling. “If they have a presence on the grid [with BlackEnergy] then they have already achieved what they need to carry out a destructive attack.”
Analysis of the malware recovered from the Ukrainian facility conducted by the security firm iSight Partners and SANS Institute revealed that a variant of BlackEnergy, dubbed “BlackEnergy3,” was present in the compromised utilities. However, security experts caution that it is premature to conclude that BlackEnergy was actually involved in the outages.

“It is possible but far too early in the technical analysis to state that,” wrote Michael Assante, who heads up industrial control system research for SANS. “Simply put, there is still evidence that has yet to be uncovered that may refute the minutia of the specific components of the malware portion of the attack.”

Hayden also remarked during his talk Friday on the general state of overall cybersecurity, calling on US lawmakers to pass legislation that will help bolster the nation’s digital defenses.

He also criticized of efforts by FBI Director James Comey, and others in the Obama administration, to weaken strong encryption on consumer devices to make it easier for law enforcement to conduct surveillance operations. “End-to-end encryption is good for America,” he said. “I know that it represents challenges for the FBI, but on balance it creates more security for Americans than the alternative – backdoors.”

Regarding the recent Office of Personnel Management hack – which US intelligence agencies and cybersecurity expert have blamed on China – Hayden said that as head of the NSA he would have absolutely stolen similar data from the Chinese government if given the opportunity. What’s more, he said, he wouldn’t have had to ask permission to carry out the operation.

“Fundamentally, the limiting factor now is a lack of legal and policy framework to do what we are capable of doing today,” Hayden said. “OPM isn’t a bad on China,” he said. “It’s a bad on us.”

What is vulnerable in the United States?

Project ‘Gridstrike’ Finds Substations To Hit For A US Power Grid Blackout

Turns out free and publicly available information can be used to determine the most critical electric substations in the US, which if attacked, could result in a nationwide blackout.

Remember that million-dollar Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) study in 2013 that found that attacks on just nine electric substations in the US could cause a blackout across the entire grid? Well, a group of researchers decided to see just what it would take for a small group of domestic terrorists to identify the US’s most critical substations — using only free and public sources of information.

While FERC relied on confidential and private information in its shocking report and spent a whopping $1 million in research, researchers at iSIGHT Partners used only so-called open-source intelligence, at a cost of just $15,000 total for 250 man-hours by their estimates. The Wall Street Journal, which obtained and first reported on the confidential FERC report, never publicly revealed the crucial substations ID’ed by FERC for obvious reasons, nor does iSIGHT plan to disclose publicly the ones it found.

Sean McBride, lead analyst for critical infrastructure at iSIGHT, says the goal of his team’s so-called “Gridstrike” project was to determine how a small local-grown terror group could sniff out the key substations to target if it were looking to cause a power blackout — either via physical means, a cyberattack, or a combination of the two. “How would an adversary go about striking at the grid?” McBride said in an interview with Dark Reading. He will speak publicly for the first time about the Gridstrike research next week at the S4x2016 ICS/SCADA conference in Miami.

The iSIGHT researchers drew from a combination of publicly available transmission substation information, maps, Google Earth, and grid congestion documentation, and drew correlations among the substations that serve the top ten cities in the US. They then were able to come up with 15 substations that serve as the backbone for much of the electric grid: knocking out those substations would result in a nationwide blackout, they say.

FERC’s report had concluded that the US could suffer a nationwide blackout if nine of the nation’s 55,000 electric transmission substations were shut down by attackers.

“We looked at maps and tried to … identify [power] generation facilities, and looked up both centers and what substations are in the middle that would make high-value targets,” for example, McBride says. “We tried to identify which substations have the highest number of transmission lines coming in and out,” as well, and weighed their significance.

The researchers shared the findings from Gridstrike with their customers as well as “organizations most interested from a defense perspective” to such attacks, says McBride, who declined to provide any further details on the specific organizations.

“We were extremely concerned about the amount of publicly available information” on the critical substations, McBride says. There were several documents available publicly that should not have been: in some cases, a sensitive document was sitting on an organization’s public website even though it specified that the report was not for public consumption.

The hope is that the findings will alert critical infrastructure and other organizations with ties to the power grid that understanding how an adversary thinks can help shore up defenses, McBride says. “They need to manage their recon exposure.”

What does all of this mean for the US power grid’s actual vulnerability to a physical or cyber-physical attack? McBride says the openly available intel is “reason for concern.” He says he worries more about the possibility of a regional, localized, grid attack targeting a city or area, than a nationwide attack.

As for the recent power blackout in the Ukraine that appears to have been due in part to a cyberattack, McBride says he’d be surprised if the attackers didn’t gather some of their reconnaissance via open source intelligence.

Paid Cash for Real Estate or via LLC, Read on…

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

Note, there are other cities where real estate money laundering occurs with frequency. They include San Diego, Los Angeles, Houston, Dallas, Las Vegas, Chicago and Atlanta.

There are guidelines for real estate professionals, click here.

Money laundering also occurs in commercial real estate, click here.

The official 21 page document on real estate money laundering is here.

Click here to see an actual case that involved a Russian.

U.S. targets money laundering in all-cash home sales in Miami, Manhattan

Reuters: The United States is hunting down international criminals who launder money through real estate deals, with the Treasury Department ordering title insurance companies to report the identities of people paying cash for high-end properties in Miami and Manhattan.

The Financial Crimes Enforcement Network, an arm of the U.S. Treasury, said on Wednesday it is concerned that individuals buy residential real estate in cash through shell companies to hide their assets and veil their identities.

“We are seeking to understand the risk that corrupt foreign officials, or transnational criminals, may be using premium U.S. real estate to secretly invest millions in dirty money,” FinCEN Director Jennifer Shasky Calvery said in a statement.

FinCEN has issued rules aimed at preventing laundering through the mortgage market, but “cash purchases present a more complex gap that we seek to address,” Calvery added.

Title insurers will have to disclose buyer identities in deals of at least $1 million in Miami and at least $3 million for Manhattan, the Miami Herald reported. FinCEN did not answer Reuters’ requests for details.

Research conducted by the Homeland Security officials suggests that the majority of real estate purchases of at least $1 million in Florida’s Miami-Dade and Broward counties are made through shell companies, said John Tobon, deputy special agent in charge at Homeland Security Investigations in Miami.

Money trails linked to drug trafficking, foreign corruption and other criminal activity often lead to luxury real estate properties, but when agents try to determine the true, or “beneficial” owners, they find only documents listing shell companies, many of which in turn are owned by other shell companies, Tobon said.

“It is a part of every single significant investigation that we have ongoing right now,” he added.

But the threshold for reporting cash purchases is so low in the two markets that it will include many mainstream buyers, said Terrence Oved, lawyer with Manhattan real estate and commercial litigation firm Oved & Oved LLP.

“You’re going to get a lot of small fish caught up in this net,” he said.

The temporary orders begin on March 1 and last 180 days, and Oved expects a surge in deals to be completed March. Buyers may turn to other major metropolitan markets such as Los Angeles, as well, he added.

In November 2015, the most recent month for which data is available, 17 percent of the 82,595 all-cash purchases of single family homes and condos went to buyers with an “LLC” in the name, according to the housing data company RealtyTrac, indicating they were purchased by companies. Altogether, a third of home purchases in the United States since 2011 were all-cash.

Meanwhile, there were about $104 billion in transactions involving foreign investors in the U.S. real estate market between April 2014 and March 2015. More than half the buyers in those deals were from China, Canada, India, Mexico, and the United Kingdom, and the majority of transactions involving overseas buyers were in cash, said Deborah Friedman, who works in the FBI’s money laundering intelligence unit, in September.

Those purchases were concentrated in Florida, Texas, Arizona and California, she said.

The Patriot Act of 2001 required the Treasury to either issue rules on anti-money laundering controls and reporting of suspicious activity by real estate professionals or grant an exemption. The exemption has been in place now for more than a decade.

The Islamic State vs. al-Qaeda

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

The Islamic State vs. al-Qaeda: The War within the Jihadist Movement

WotR: The post-Arab Spring period has seen extraordinary growth in the global jihadist movement. In addition to the Islamic State seizing a vast swathe of territory spanning Syria and Iraq and al-Qaeda establishing itself as a potent military force in the Syrian civil war, instability and unfulfilled expectations in numerous countries — including Egypt, Libya, Mali, Tunisia, and Yemen — have presented jihadists with unprecedented opportunities.

But even as the jihadist movement experiences rapid growth, it has also endured unprecedented internal turmoil. The Islamic State’s emergence marks the first time that leadership over the global jihadist movement has been seriously contested. Since that group’s expulsion from the al-Qaeda network in February 2014, a fierce competition between the Islamic State and al-Qaeda has defined the militant landscape. The United States has an opportunity to exploit and aggravate fissures within the jihadist community, but to do so successfully, it is essential to understand the differences in the modus operandi of these two rival jihadist groups.

Two Models of Revolutionary Warfare

Though al-Qaeda and the Islamic State share the same ultimate goal — establishing a global caliphate ruled by an austere version of sharia (Islamic law) — each group maintains a distinct approach to revolutionary warfare. Al-Qaeda has come to favor covert expansion, unacknowledged affiliates, and a relatively quiet organizational strategy designed to carefully build a larger base of support before engaging in open warfare with its foes. By contrast, the Islamic State believes that the time for a broader military confrontation has already arrived, and has loudly disseminated its propaganda to rally as many soldiers as possible to its cause. The group combines shocking violence with an effective propaganda apparatus in an effort to quickly build its base of support.

The Maoist and focoist schools of revolutionary thought provide a useful framework for understanding these groups’ differing strategies. Al-Qaeda exhibits a revolutionary strategy that is both implicitly and explicitly based on the works of Mao Tse-tung, while the Islamic State’s approach is more consonant with the focoist writings of Ernesto “Che” Guevara and Régis Debray.

Interestingly, in 2010 Kenneth Payne published an article in Studies in Conflict & Terrorism arguing that al-Qaeda’s strategy was focoist in nature, based on a review of the group’s strategic literature and operations. Though al-Qaeda has exhibited both Maoist and focoist strands of thought, the fact that Payne’s argument was published in 2010 is significant: He wrote just on the cusp of the “Arab Spring” revolutions, which, as this article details, provided al-Qaeda the opportunity to make its Maoist-style turn that focused on the population more apparent. Ryan Evans’s argument, which was published in the CTC Sentinel the same year as Payne’s piece, has held up better over time. Evans discerned a shift in strategy between the efforts of al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI) and the later campaign of al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and argued that AQAP’s more population-centric approach was forged by the group’s failures in Iraq. He noted that the shift in strategy in Yemen may herald “a larger turn for al-Qaeda globally toward a more Maoist attitude.”

Mao’s theory of revolution is rooted in the primacy of politics over warfare. In Mao’s view, a steadfast political foundation is necessary to allow guerrilla forces to create bases for logistics and operations and slowly build strength and momentum for the final conventional stage of warfare. Thus, according to Mao, before guerilla forces can initiate military action, they must first focus on “arousing and organizing the people,” and “achieving internal unification politically.” This stage is followed seamlessly by a stage of progressive expansion, followed by a third and final stage of decision — the destruction of the enemy.

Maoist revolutionaries continue to emphasize the political stage of organization and consolidation even as they pursue progressive expansion. Consistent with Maoist theory, al-Qaeda and its affiliates have focused on maintaining and expanding the group’s political support. Even in areas where al-Qaeda has engaged in open warfare, it has been somewhat restrained in its approach to civilian populations since the initiation of AQAP’s campaign in 2009 that Ryan Evans noted was a departure from the group’s Iraq model of insurgency. Thereafter, the group has adopted a phased implementation of its hardline version of sharia where it enjoys control or significant influence. The only one of al-Qaeda’s branches that explicitly did not fit this new model was AQI, which later was expelled from al-Qaeda’s network and adopted the new moniker of the Islamic State. (Al-Qaeda’s approach toward civilian populations can only be considered “restrained” in very relative terms, juxtaposed with the more oppressive and publicly violent tactics of the Islamic State, and al-Qaeda’s own previous approach.) Al-Qaeda’s adherence to a largely Maoist framework was shaped by its experience of being hunted by the United States and its allies for a decade and a half, and — as Evans argued — particularly by the defeat of its Iraqi affiliate. Al-Qaeda’s use of Maoist strategy is designed to be low-risk and to yield long-term results.

The focoist approach to revolutionary war contrasts sharply with the Maoist approach. First used successfully in Cuba in the early 1950s, focoism holds that the political foundation necessary for revolution can be crafted through violence. Guevara essentially flipped Mao’s theory by arguing that the use of violence against the state would inspire the peasants to rise up. Unlike Mao’s strategy, focoism accepts great risks in order to inspire support. The Islamic State has in many ways followed the focoist model; it believes in the power of violence to forge the political opinions of the Muslim masses. The Islamic State views al-Qaeda’s more deliberate approach as too slow. It appears happy to win today and lose tomorrow, as long as today’s win creates a large enough subject for propaganda.

This framework of Maoist versus focoist models of revolutionary warfare should not be seen as a complete explanation for either al-Qaeda or the Islamic State’s behavior. Neither group is perfectly Maoist or focoist, but using these models provides a useful paradigm for interpreting the strategic competition between the groups.

Al-Qaeda’s Population-Centric Approach

Al-Qaeda has taken advantage of two major opportunities driven by the unsuccessful revolution in Syria and the successful revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt, and Libya. The first opportunity is that the regional upheaval created a growth environment for jihadism, and al-Qaeda has established a significant presence in places where it had previously been suppressed. The second opportunity is that as al-Qaeda expanded into new areas, it perceived an opening to repair its global image that had been badly damaged by AQI. Al-Qaeda has implemented a population-centric approach to increase its base of popular support by employing gradualism and cooperation with local actors. Al-Qaeda has also made use of popular front groups in its expansion. This is intended to reduce the organization’s exposure to counterinsurgent forces, including the United States and the Middle East’s Sunni regimes, and to avoid frightening or alienating local populations.

Popular support has become essential to al-Qaeda. While the group once conceptualized itself as exclusively a vanguard movement, it has come to view itself in recent years as a popular movement that needs the support or acquiescence of the populace. This transformation had begun prior to the Arab Spring. In 2005, then al-Qaeda deputy emir Ayman al-Zawahiri explained in a letter to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, AQI’s reckless emir, that “the strongest weapon which the mujahedeen enjoy … is popular support from the Muslim masses in Iraq, and the surrounding Muslim countries. So, we must maintain this support as best we can, and we should strive to increase it.” As previously noted, AQAP’s approach in its first year of operations reflected this paradigm. But the transformation of al-Qaeda into a more broad-based movement was supercharged by the Arab Spring, which provided a critical opening for jihadism.

In the wake of those revolutions, al-Qaeda’s senior leadership pushed hard to regain the trust and support of local populations and avoid the mistakes that marred AQI’s Iraq campaign. In an undated letter that al-Qaeda’s masul aqalim (head of regions) Atiyah Abd al-Rahman wrote to Nasir al-Wuhayshi, AQAP’s emir, he noted that “the people’s support to the mujahedin is as important as the water for fish,” referencing Mao’s famous adage that “the guerrilla must move amongst the people as a fish swims in the sea.” Wuhayshi in turn transmitted a similar message to the leadership of al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, illustrating al-Qaeda’s coordinated efforts.

The most significant example of these changes came in September 2013, when Zawahiri, who became al-Qaeda’s emir following Osama bin Laden’s death in May 2011, released a document entitled “General Guidelines for Jihad” that made public al-Qaeda’s new population-centric approach. Zawahiri instructed affiliates to avoid conflict with Middle Eastern governments when possible, asserting that conflict with local regimes would distract from efforts to build bases of support. Zawahiri also instructed affiliates to minimize violent conflict with Shia and non-Muslim populations, and to abstain from attacks that could result in Muslim civilian casualties. Consonant with these changes to al-Qaeda’s operations, the organization has also launched a “rebranding” campaign (a subject we have addressed previously at War on the Rocks) designed to present the group as a more reasonable — and perhaps controllable — alternative to the Islamic State, and as a potential bulwark against Iranian encroachment.

Al-Qaeda’s strategy of covert expansion — its use of front groups and its embrace of a relatively low-key public profile — is another critical element in the group’s post-Arab Spring approach. In a letter recovered from his Abbottabad compound, bin Laden explained the rationale for preferring a low profile. He noted that when a branch’s affiliation with al-Qaeda “becomes declared and out in the open,” the group’s enemies escalate their attacks on it.

Al-Qaeda’s efforts in Tunisia exemplified its early post-Arab Spring strategy. Its expansion was spearheaded by a front organization called Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia (AST). Several high-profile salafi jihadists who had been released from prison when the regime of dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali was overthrown established the group. AST initially focused its resources on dawa (evangelism) by organizing dawa events, holding public protests, and dominating physical spaces near places of worship. AST also provided services, including food, clothing, and medical care, to impoverished communities, and developed a social media apparatus to publicize its dawa activities.

AST’s emphasis on dawa was characteristic of al-Qaeda’s early post-Arab Spring strategy. The group’s ideologues understood that they would have unprecedented opportunities to disseminate salafi jihadist ideology to the public. While the old dictators placed strict restrictions on religious expression, strategists foresaw fewer restrictions in post-autocratic environments. This strategic logic was expressed by Atiyah, who in February 2011 exhorted jihadists in post-revolutionary states to “spring into action and initiate or increase their preaching, education, reformation and revitalization in light of the freedom and opportunities now available in this post revolution era.”

As AST’s dawa gained traction, the group also began to engage in hisba violence targeting those who violated salafist religious norms. AST was initially methodical in its use of violence, striking targets such as prostitutes and establishments that served alcohol — which would be widely considered acceptable by those inclined toward religious fundamentalism. Moreover, AST refrained from claiming responsibility for these hisba attacks, creating the perception that this violence was organic to the Tunisian people. Through this approach, AST ensured that its use of violence did not cross a line that would provoke a government crackdown.

As it became more entrenched, AST eventually embraced jihadist violence, first facilitating Tunisians’ travel to foreign battlefields like Syria, Libya and Mali before eventually turning its guns against the Tunisian state. AST members were implicated in the 2013 assassinations of secularist politicians Chokri Belaïd and Mohammed Brahmi. Less than a week after Brahmi’s July 2013 death, a jihadist ambush in Jebel el-Chaambi killed eight Tunisian soldiers, five of whom had their throats slit. These bloody incidents constituted a point of no return, and in August 2013 the government designated AST a terrorist organization and cracked down on the group.

It is not clear that AST’s leadership wanted the group’s violence to escalate so quickly. Indeed, it seems the group had not progressed far enough through Mao’s stages of revolutionary warfare by July 2013 to justify the initiation of open warfare. AST gave its local branches considerable autonomy, which may have contributed to violence escalating faster than the leadership wanted or anticipated. Despite this, al-Qaeda’s blueprint for Tunisia nonetheless demonstrates how its plans for the post-Arab Spring environment followed Maoist insurgent principles.

The Islamic State’s Bold, Boisterous Growth Model

The Islamic State’s strategy for supplanting al-Qaeda centers on two techniques. First, the group sought to portray al-Qaeda’s slower and more deliberate strategy as weakness and indecisiveness. Second, the Islamic State appealed to al-Qaeda’s affiliates by emphasizing its momentum and expansion with the aim of poaching groups, members, and potential recruits. In essence, the Islamic State’s approach is the opposite of al-Qaeda’s: While al-Qaeda has sought to minimize the amount of attention it receives in order to reduce its exposure to counterinsurgents, the Islamic State constantly seeks the spotlight, and touts its victories (real or invented) at every opportunity. The Islamic State is trying to transform al-Qaeda’s strategic methods into weaknesses.

One way the Islamic State has tried to distinguish itself from al-Qaeda is its approach to governance, particularly its implementation of sharia. The Islamic State’s ability to impose governance where it enjoys military power is essential to the caliphate’s legitimacy. Following its capture of territory in Iraq and Syria, the organization quickly set up governance structures and showcased its efforts to provide social services to local populations. Rather than building public support prior to fully enforcing its austere version of sharia, the Islamic State quickly implemented hudud punishments (sharia-prescribed corporal punishment). As such, coercive violence is a major component of the Islamic State’s governance. The organization has thrown people suspected of being gay off of roofs, beheaded those it deems traitors or apostates, cut off the hands of thieves, and stoned to death women accused of adultery.

By contrast, al-Qaeda and its affiliates have chosen a slower, more methodical imposition of sharia. The group’s guidelines emphasize a somewhat pragmatic approach aimed at winning over the population. Al-Qaeda leaders have instructed affiliates to tailor the implementation of sharia to local conditions, taking into consideration local customs and religious practices, and to implement sharia flexibly in its initial phases, forgiving minor transgressions during that period. Al-Qaeda’s gradualist approach has been on display in Syria, where its affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra has repealed bans on cigarette smoking, and has made public displays of punishing fighters who unjustly harm local residents. This approach should not be mistaken for moderation on Nusra’s part — there are compelling reports of the group’s continuing extremism, especially in its treatment of religious minorities — but Nusra has done a masterful job of concealing its atrocities and maintaining its local image as a populist entity.

Al-Qaeda’s population-centric approach has been a major target of derision for the Islamic State, which accuses al-Qaeda of abandoning true Islamic principles by giving “preference to popularity and rationalization.”

Overt and Covert Expansion

Military strategy is another area where the Islamic State and al-Qaeda differ. The Islamic State employs an aggressive approach to territorial conquest. The group’s willingness to employ force-on-force warfare enabled it to take major territory quickly: Overall, this tactic has borne fruit for the organization, but has also increased the Islamic State’s rate of attrition. As the Islamic State has experienced military setbacks, it has moved toward greater use of irregular warfare, a strategic shift that illustrates the group’s capacity for adaptation.

The Islamic State’s hybrid warfare strategy does not necessarily distinguish it from al-Qaeda, which has employed similar tactics in some theaters. What makes the Islamic State unique is the way it showcases its military operations, using virtually all of them as propaganda pieces. While one function of the Islamic State’s military actions is to showcase the group’s strength, al-Qaeda has systematically sought to conceal the size of its network and downplay its capabilities. The group has masked its involvement in emerging theatres of conflict and established covert relationships with unacknowledged affiliate organizations like AST.

Consequently, many analysts underestimate al-Qaeda’s strength, and counterinsurgent forces have allowed al-Qaeda front groups to thrive in some theaters. Concealing affiliates’ relationships with al-Qaeda allows these groups to gain public support and attract resources from individuals and entities that might otherwise be wary of assisting an overt al-Qaeda entity.

Al-Qaeda’s military approach and preference for more covert activities is shaped by its patient worldview. Ostentatious, tactical victories that expose the network to attack and undermine its long-term prospects are of little value to the organization from a strategic perspective. In an article published in al-Qaeda’s online magazine Resurgence, jihadist strategist Abu Ubaydah al-Maqdisi explained the rationale behind this policy of restraint:

A guerilla force may possess the capacity of inflicting huge blows on the enemy, but it may be better for it to restrain from doing so in situations when the reaction of the enemy may be overwhelming.

Essentially, al-Qaeda’s senior leadership wants the organization to slowly develop its capabilities and resources in preparation for a longer campaign. At the same time, al-Qaeda leadership instructs its affiliates to begin destabilizing state regimes. This two-pronged strategy of enhancing its capabilities and destabilizing enemy regimes positions al-Qaeda to capitalize on state weakness and collapse in the long term.

A New Jihadist Era

The Islamic State’s rise has reshaped the global jihadist landscape, which for nearly two decades was dominated by al-Qaeda. With the Islamic State seizing the world’s attention, the age of unipolarity within the jihadist movement is over, replaced by intense internal conflict. Each group is firm in the belief that its organizational model is superior to that of its opponent.

The transnational jihadist movement is likely to be shaped in the coming years by this competition. It is essential that the United States understand the two groups’ strategies and pay close attention as their approaches continue to evolve. The United States has tremendous opportunities to exploit the cleavages between the Islamic State and al-Qaeda. But if we fail to understand the two organizations’ strengths, weaknesses, and strategic and tactical postures, the jihadist movement may emerge from this period of competition stronger than before.

Daveed Gartenstein-Ross is a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and the chief executive officer of Valens Global, a consulting firm that focuses on violent non-state actors. Nathaniel Barr is the research manager at Valens Global, where Bridget Moreng is an analyst. This article was adapted from their report (co-authored with War on the Rocks senior editor Jason Fritz) Islamic State vs. Al-Qaeda: Strategic Dimensions of a Patricidal Conflict, which was published by the New America Foundation in December 2015.