Category Archives: Failed foreign policy

What You Dont Know About the Tsarnaev Case

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Jury selection is occurring today for the Jokar Tsarneav case while his lawyers failed in their attempt to move the case to another court system. Since the Boston bombing, several items have surfaced. Remember, this WAS a terror attack again on America.

It’s the second, the sentencing phase, including a possible death sentence, that has been the subject of behind the scenes discussions.

Federal prosecutors and defense attorneys for Tsarnaev have held talks on a possible plea agreement but failed to reach one, U.S. officials familiar with the talks say.

The discussions in recent months have centered on the possibility of Tsarnaev pleading guilty and receiving a life sentence without parole, according to the officials.

A spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney in Boston declined to comment. Attorney Judy Clarke, who represents Tsarnaev, didn’t respond to a request for comment.

The outcome so far is unusual for Clarke who helped negotiate plea deals that saved the lives of notorious criminals including 9/11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui, Unabomber Ted Kaczynski and Jared Loughner, who carried out the mass shooting that killed six and gravely injured former Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords.

Boston Bomber Could Have Been Deported After 2009 Arrest

Updated 4 p.m. Friday related to arrest versus conviction issue:  One of the Chechen terrorists who carried out the Boston Marathon bombings could have been deported years ago after a criminal arrest and/or conviction and the other was granted American citizenship on the 11th anniversary of the worst terrorist attack on U.S. soil.

Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the 26-year-old killed in a wild shootout with police, was a legal U.S. resident who nevertheless could have been removed from the country after a 2009 domestic violence arrest and conviction, according to a Judicial Watch source. That means the Obama administration missed an opportunity to deport Tsarnaev but evidently didn’t feel he represented a big enough threat.

Other reporting confirms Tsarnaev’s arrest for domestic violence but we’re seeking confirmation of a conviction. Nevertheless he would have been subject to removal for the arrest itself.

Adding insult to injury, the other bomber, little brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, was rewarded with American Citizenship on September 11, 2012 in Boston, according to JW’s source. The 19-year-old, who is still on the run, was granted asylum in Arlington Virginia on September 27, 2002, JW’s source reveals.

Years before these Chechen terrorists carried out the Boston Marathon bombings Judicial Watch uncovered critical intelligence documentsdetailing al Qaeda’s activities in Chechnya, including the creation of a 1995 camp—ordered by Osama bin Laden—to train “international terrorists” to carry out plots against Americans and westerners.

The goal, according to the once-classified documents obtained by JW in 2011, was to “establish a worldwide Islamic state capable of directly challenging the U.S., China, Russia, and what it views as Judeo-Christian and Confucian domination.” Further, radical Islamic regimes were to be established and supported everywhere possible, from “sea to sea,” including Chechnya. “Terrorist activities are to be conducted against Americans and westerners…” according to the report issued by the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA).

In other words, it was only a matter of time before terrorists from the predominantly radical Islamic republic carried out an attack on U.S. soil. Chechnya declared independence from Russia in 1991 and Chechen militants are quite the savvy terrorists because they’ve successfully targeted Moscow with bombings and hostage plots for more than two decades.

In 2004 Chechen Islamic militants attacked a school in Beslan, North Ossetia, Russia and they murdered 380 children, parents, teachers and visitors after holding more than 1,000 captive for three days. Judicial Watch also obtained intelligence documents from the government detailing that terrorist attack. Jointly released by the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), the October 12, 2004, report analyzes the Beslan terrorist attack with a view toward gleaning lessons for potential attacks on schools in the United States.

There’s no telling how many of these Chechen terrorists have infiltrated the United States or how many opportunities the government has missed to protect the country by deporting them. Osama bin Laden specifically chose Chechnya as a terrorist training camp because it’s an “area unreachable by strikes from the west,” according to the intelligence report obtained by JW years ago.

The Associated Press is reporting that Khairullozhon Matanov, a friend of Boston marathon bomber Tamerlan Tsarnaev, used aliases to transfer over $70,000 overseas in the years leading up to the Apr. 15, 2013, attack. The source of the money has not been disclosed, but we know that the Tsarnaev brothers were the recipients of over $100,000 in public benefits from 2002 to 2012. The AP reports that one of the overseas transfers was made while Tsarnaev was travelling in Russia—the intimation being that the transfer may have been for or on behalf of Tsarnaev.

Were Matanov and Tsarnaev scratching each other’s backs?

…Agent Timothy McElroy said that between 2010 and 2013, Matanov sent more than $71,000 to 15 people in six countries. McElroy said agents determined that most of the money — about $56,590 — was sent to Matanov’s family, while the rest — about $14,800 — went to non-family.

Matanov’s lawyer, Edward Hayden, said the money transfers ‘had nothing to do with terrorism.’

‘He was uncomfortable sending all the money in his own name,’ he said.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Scott Garland said Matanov had repeatedly deceived authorities when questioned about his relationship with Tamerlan Tsarnaev in the days after the bombings. Garland said his “pattern of deceit” was also shown through Matanov’s use of aliases when sending money….

 

Islamic State has no Bureaucracy, We DO

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The media nor the Pentagon is reporting but:

U.S. troops serving at the Al Asad air base in Iraq are being targeted with “regular” mortar and rocket fire from Islamic State (IS) terrorists, according to the Pentagon.

The increasingly dangerous situation for the 320 U.S. troops serving at the base is raising concern among Pentagon officials, according to Defense Department spokesman Col. Steven Warren.

While no soldiers have been injured by the IS attacks, the rockets and mortars are landing around the base’s perimeter, according to CNN.

The Pentagon will not say if it is changing base security measures to account for the increased risk, according to CNN.

Raqqa is the defacto headquarters for Islamic State….has anyone questioned why no one including Assad has not bombed Raqqa? We have intelligence services globally that are watching all Islamic State operatives. Islamic extremist’s movements were easily trackable down to the building via geotags in his Twitter post.

People often are unaware that they’re accidentally posting their location on Facebook Inc. (FB) or Twitter Inc.’s (TWTR) social sites.  One would be ISIS jihadist from New Zealand found that out the hard way.

IBRABO, a Canadian open source intelligence research firm, posted details of how a would-be Jihadi calling himself the “Kiwi Jihadi” accidentally revealed his current location and his locations during the past few months of 2014, months he’s spent serving the so-called “Islamic State” (ISIS), a group behind much of the brutal violence in Syria in Iraq.

Posting to his Twitter account, @M_Taylor_Kiwi, the “Kiwi Jihadi” boasted of his exploits with ISIS.  But he also inadvertently shared months of maps detailing ISIS hideouts he spent time at.  He deleted the Tweets — more than 40 — when he grew wise that they were geotagged and might have revealed his location.  But iBrabo had already mapped his movements in glorious detail.

Fighting the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS, also known as ISIL) is costing up to $10 million a day, the Pentagon has said. According to one estimate released this week, the fight could cost as much as $8.6 billion a year.

So far, that effort has been funded through a war budget that’s not subject to the same budget caps as the Defense Department’s base budget. It’s likely to continue to be funded this way, even though both Democrats and Republicans have referred to this fund as a “slush fund” for the Pentagon.

“Right now, the cost for operations in Iraq are coming out of Overseas Contingency Operations,” Deputy Defense Secretary Robert Work said Tuesday at the Council on Foreign Relations. “For the foreseeable future, we believe that is the case.”

Work and others have made the case that funding the war against ISIS through the Overseas Contingency Operations (OCO) budget is the best option available since Congress has no plans this year to put an end to sequestration.

It gets worse….

Isis news: Caliphate unveils first annual budget of $2bn with $250m surplus war chest

Islamic State (Isis) has claimed it has an annual budget of $2bn (£1.31bn) for 2015 and an estimated surplus of $250m (£163m) which will act as the group’s war chest against the West.

In an interview with Arabic outlet Al-Araby Al-Jadeed, religious leader Naji Abdullah from Mosul claimed that the group is using the budget as part of wider plans to develop and expand its self-proclaimed “caliphate” in Iraq and Syria.

Another senior religious figure in the city of Mosul, Sheikh Abu Saad al-Ansari, said its first-ever budget would help those in poverty, the disabled and families of Islamic State (IS) fighters who have been killed in operations conducted by the US-led coalition or Iraqi forces.

According to The Economist, the group already pay its fighters a $400 a month, more than any Syrian rebel group or the Iraqi government pays its own fighters.

With the $250m surplus left after projected expenditure, the group plans to use the money to beef-up its fight against the US-led coalition which has been conducting air strikes against IS positions in both Iraq and Syria while arming Kurds in northern Iraq, according to The Washington Times.

As well as the announcement of an annual budget, the group has reportedly opened its own bank, known as the “Islamic Bank”, where customers are able to receive a loan or deposit their money.

Iraq expert Fouad Ali told Al-Araby that the announcement of a budget and an Islamic bank were propaganda tactics to “undermine the morale of the coalition and the Iraqi government”.

The group’s revenue is believed to come from kidnapping, taxes, oil revenues and extortion.

The announcement of the new budget or Islamic bank could not be independently verified by IBTimes UK.

In June last year, the militants launched an offensive across northern and western Iraq, capturing large swathes of land around vital cities such as Ramadi and Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city, where they robbed $450m from the central bank.

Wartime President Fails on Afghan Exit Strategy

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The Assumptions behind a Strategy that Has Been a Long Time Dying

The reality, however, is that the strategy developed under General Stanley McCrystal has been dying for a long time and for many more reasons than the growing distrust between U.S. and ISAF personnel and the Afghans. It was already clear in 2009 that the odds of success were no better than 50 percent.
The key reasons shaping uncertainty as to whether the mission could be accomplished—whether it would be possible to create an Afghanistan that could largely stand on its own and be free of any major enclaves of terrorists or violent extremists—went far beyond the problems created by the insurgents.
It was clear that there were four roughly equal threats to success, of which the Afghan Taliban, Haqqani, and Hekmatyar were only the first. The second was the corruption and incompetence of the Afghan government. The third was the role of Pakistan and its tolerance and support of insurgent sanctuaries. The fourth was the United States and its allies.  The full report is here.

Afghanistan’s president has suggested that the U.S. “re-examine” its plan to withdraw all of the American-led coalition troops from the country by the end of 2016.

“Deadlines concentrate the mind. But deadlines should not be dogmas,” Ashraf Ghani told CBS’ “60 Minutes” in an interview that aired Sunday evening.

“If both parties, or, in this case, multiple partners, have done their best to achieve the objectives and progress is very real, then there should be willingness to re-examine a deadline,” he added.

When asked if he had made his view clear to President Barack Obama, Ghani said “President Obama knows me. We don’t need to tell each other.”

There was no immediate response from the White House, State Department, or Pentagon to Ghani’s remarks Sunday night.

The U.S. and its NATO allies marked the formal end of the U.S. combat mission in Afghanistan last week. On Thursday, 13,500 soldiers of the International Security Assistance Force, almost 11,000 of them American, transitioned to a supporting role for Afghanistan’s military.

The handover of primary responsibility for battling the Taliban represents the ultimate test for the 350,000 strong Afghan army. Critics have long questioned the local troops’ morale, discipline, and competence in the face of Taliban attacks. According to a United Nations report, 2014 was the deadliest year on record for non-combatants in Afghanistan, with at least 3,188 civilians killed in the intensifying war. By comparison, at least 4,600 members of the Afghan security forces were killed by fighting last year.

Ghani also told CBS that he was concerned about the possibility that Islamic State fighters could make their way to Afghanistan. However, that concern was refuted by ISAF commander Gen. John Campbell, who said that “This is not Iraq. I don’t see [Islamic State] coming into Afghanistan like they did into Iraq. The Afghan Security Forces would not allow that.”

Campbell also described the Afghan National Army as “the number one respected institution in Afghanistan. Couple years ago, I probably wouldn’t have said that, but today it is.”

Jordan the Next Militant Target from Islamic State?

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Jordan has been a generous country giving refugee protections to hundreds of thousands of Syrians. Jordan is ill equipped to protect itself from militant Islamists as Islamic State and has asked the West and NATO, but to little result. NATO is taxed itself due to the hostilities of Putin’s Russia. King Abdullah is seeking protections, attention and cooperation from any in the West including the Saudis.

Countries are falling quickly to combatants that include Ukraine, Libya, Iraq and even Turkey.

Saudi Paper: Jordan handed NATO secret security reports showing expansion of extremists in Iraq, ideas to counter group’s advance towards its territory.

In part: Jordan handed NATO secret security reports showing the expansion of the terrorist group in Iraq, including ideas to counter the group’s advance towards its territory, the Saudi newspaper Okaz reported.

A NATO Summit is scheduled to begin on Thursday in Wales.

The British ambassador to Jordan, Peter Millet, said his country and NATO are ready to coordinate with Jordan to deal with the danger it faces from the Islamic State. Millet added that the stability and security of the Hashemite Kingdom are a top priority for his government.

The evidence is becoming clear that Islamic State is not being stopped much less controlled in spite of what the White House or the Pentagon publishes.

Who is ISIS’s next target?

Dabiq magazine, which is published by supporters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), recently ran an interview with the captive Jordanian pilot Maaz al-Kassasbeh. Perhaps the most striking feature of the whole thing was ISIS’s keenness to publish a picture of this young pilot with a stricken look on his face and wearing an orange jumpsuit—a garment commonly worn by convicts in the U.S. The interview ended with a question about his fate, and Kassasbeh answered that he expects to be killed.

The interview struck an emotional chord with the Jordanian people, and the case of the captured pilot has now become a national issue. More than this, the Jordanian government has reportedly opened secret lines of communication in order to try and resolve the case.

While the Levant seems to be increasingly falling under the sway of ISIS and its followers, Jordan’s domestic scene is relatively balanced

The interview with Kassasbeh came hot on the heels of unverified reports of a major split between ISIS leaders on how to deal with the pilot. Some, like the Chechens, favor executing him, while others, like the Iraqis, would prefer to use him as a bargaining chip. While this information cannot be confirmed, ISIS has never carried out an interview such as this with those that it intends to execute. It does not let its victims express themselves, with the exception of a few phrases at their execution. In contrast, we’ve seen a completely different story with the Jordanian pilot.

All eyes on Jordan?

The interview with the captive Jordanian pilot was published alongside articles describing some of the most prominent Salafist–Jihadist sheikhs in Jordan (such as Abu Qatada and Abu Muhammad Al-Maqdisi) as “misleading imams.” In the same issue of Dabiq, there is also an article by someone called Abu Jarir Al-Shamali, which offers a first-person narrative of a portion of his life including a period in which he was a member of in al-Qaeda under Osama Bin Laden, and then his decision to join ISIS. This story makes reference to places and people in Jordan, including Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

So why is Dabiq, by which we mean ISIS, focusing so much on Jordan? It seems that ISIS, despite its ambitions and its ability to attract supporters from across the world, has a complex about Jordan. The Kingdom of Jordan, of course, is officially participating in the international military coalition against ISIS, and has maintained its opposition to groups like ISIS and al-Qaeda. Jordan is also the country where Abu Qatada and al-Maqdisi hail from, and the same goes for the butcher Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. In fact, if we think about it, we can see that the first symbols of al-Qaeda had strong ties to Jordan, including Sheikh Abdullah Azzam. We should also pay attention to the origin of ISIS from among the followers of Zarqawi, particularly as this is something that Dabiq itself highlighted in its previous issue, placing Zarqawi ahead of other Salafist–jihadist figures. So it is clear that the fatwas issued by Abu Qatada and Maqdisi criticizing ISIS have also angered the group.

Relatively balanced

While the Levant seems to be increasingly falling under the sway of ISIS and its followers, Jordan’s domestic scene is relatively balanced. ISIS ideology is present among Jordan’s Salafist–Jihadist circles, and many al-Qaeda leaders and members have been Jordanian nationals. Despite this, it seems that Jordan has found it easy to deal with these groups, perhaps explaining the recent fixation on Jordan in ISIS media platforms such as Dabiq.

ISIS’s focus on Jordan could also be influenced by the country’s willingness to negotiate over the fate of its captured pilot. It will not be easy for Jordan to secure the release of their pilot by agreeing to release figures such as Iraqi national Sajidah al-Rishawi, who tried to blow up a hotel in Amman 10 years ago. At the same time, it will not be easy for ISIS to execute the pilot, particularly as it will not want to throw away the negotiating channel that has been opened for it.

Dabiq has said that ISIS’s eye is on Jordan—but clearly not just on the Jordanian authorities, also its Salafist–Jihadist sheikhs.

 

16th Hole, Obama Signs onto North Korea Sanctions

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When it came to the alleged hack of Sony by North Korea, as there is still great dispute over the origins of the hackers, Obama criticized Sony for their decisions and later called the matter ‘cyber-vandalism’.

Today, the second day of the new year, Obama today signed more sanctions on North Korea.

HONOLULU (AP) — The U.S. is imposing sanctions on North Korea in retaliation for the cyberattack against Sony Pictures Entertainment.

President Barack Obama signed an executive order on Friday authorizing the sanctions. Although the U.S. has already sanctioned North Korea over its nuclear program, these are the first sanctions punishing Pyongyang for alleged cyberattacks.

The Obama administration says the sanctions affect three North Korean entities, including a government intelligence agency and a North Korean arms dealer. The U.S. is also sanctioning 10 individuals who work for those entities or the North Korean government.

Those sanctioned are barred from using the U.S. financial system, and Americans are prohibited from doing business with them.

The White House says this is just the first part of the U.S. response to the Sony incident.

H/T Zeke Miller…

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Official statement:

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