Category Archives: FBI

Chelsea Manning and Gen. Cartwright and more Courtesy Obama

Posted on by

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama is commuting the prison sentence of Chelsea Manning, the former Army intelligence analyst who leaked classified documents.

The White House says Manning is one of 209 inmates whose sentences Obama is shortening.

Manning is more than six years into a 35-year sentence for leaking classified government and military documents to the anti-secrecy website WikiLeaks. Her sentence is now set to expire May 17.

She was known as Bradley Manning at the time of her 2010 arrest and attempted suicide twice last year.

Obama is also pardoning 64 people, including retired Gen. James Cartwright, who was charged with making false statements during a probe into disclosure of classified information.

Most of the other people receiving commutations were serving sentences for nonviolent drug offenses.

****

Obama granted clemency to Puerto Rican independence activist Oscar López Rivera, who has been imprisoned for about 35 years, much of the time in solitary confinement. In 1981, López Rivera was convicted on federal charges, including seditious conspiracy—conspiring to oppose U.S. authority over Puerto Rico by force. FALN placed more than 130 bombs in U.S. cities in the 1970s and 80s. In 1999, President Bill Clinton commuted the sentences of 16 members of the FALN, but López Rivera refused to accept the deal because it did not include two fellow activists, who have since been released.

**** General Petraeus did not get a pardon…..and did Obama put ink to paper to give Hillary legal immunity?

Going back to General Cartwright…

In part from Daily Beast: Retired Marine Gen. James Cartwright, once considered one of President Obama’s favorite generals, pleaded guilty Monday to lying to federal investigators about revealing classified information to two journalists, including a New York Times reporter who wrote about a highly-classified U.S. cyberattack against Iran’s nuclear program.

The charges weren’t exactly a surprise. Cartwright has known for more than three years that he was the target of an investigation into who leaked details about the so-called Stuxnet computer virus, which the United States used to destroy centrifuges inside an Iranian nuclear enrichment facility in 2008 and 2009.

But notably, Cartwright who previously served as vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, is the only person to have been charged in the leak investigation about the highly classified program, even though it’s clear from various books and articles that he wasn’t the only source of information about it. Times reporter David Sanger revealed the operation and wrote about it extensively in his book, Confront and Conceal.

In a statement, Cartwright acknowledged that he had talked to the journalists but said he was not the source of the leak about Stuxnet. Rather, he portrayed himself as trying to mitigate the fallout from the revelation of a secret program.

“It was wrong for me to mislead the FBI on November 2, 2012, [during an interview] and I accept full responsibility for this,” Cartwright said. “I knew I was not the source of the story and I didn’t want to be blamed for the leak. My only goal in talking to the reporters was to protect American interests and lives; I love my country and continue to this day to do everything I can to defend it.”

Gregory Craig, Cartwright’s attorney, said his client had “engaged in a well-known and understood practice of attempting to save national secrets, not disclosing classified information.” Craig said that by the time Cartwright talked to the journalists, they had already written their stories.

“His effort to prevent publication of information that might harm American lives or national security does not constitute a violation of any law,” Craig added. Neither he nor Cartwright specified what information, if any, the retired general may have prevented the journalists from publishing.

The charges state that investigators showed Cartwright “a list of quotes and statements” from Sanger’s book, “a number of which contained classified information.”  More here.

Hey Donald Trump, Day 2, Please Handle this

Posted on by

How American Charities Fund Terrorism

by Sam Westrop
The National Review

As the president-elect has repeatedly made clear, his first full day in office will be a busy one. He has promised to effect a wide array of changes. But what about his second day? If he has some free time, we have some suggestions.

As the threat from international terror groups and homegrown radicalization increases, clamping down on domestic Islamist networks should be a priority. In particular: terror financing.

Under the Obama administration, the federal government appeared to ease up on prosecutions of American Islamist charities linked to terror. This was a marked change from the years after 9/11, when scores of charities were shut down after prosecutors found financial and logistical links to terrorist groups across the globe. This effort culminated in 2008, when the Holy Land Foundation was tried in court on charges of financing terrorism. Federal prosecutors listed a considerable number of prominent American Muslim organizations as “unindicted co-conspirators.”

The Trump administration should clamp down on domestic Islamist terror financing.

Eight years of a more permissive attitude has afforded Islamist groups the chance for a resurgence. Islamist charities do not just provide a means to move money; they also offer legitimacy to American Islamist organizations struggling to free themselves from decades of allegations of extremism. Islamist charitable endeavors abroad serve to sanitize the Islamist agenda at home.

The most common terrorism link for American Islamist charities involves, unsurprisingly, the Palestinian territories. Where do charitable donations for the Palestinian territories end up? In the Gaza Strip, Hamas, which is designated a foreign terrorist organization, oversees every facet of society, especially the social services in which Western charities work. From the distribution of medicine to the running of schools, orphanages, and kids’ summer camps, Hamas rules the roost.

One example worth investigating is the Gaza-based Unlimited Friends Association for Social Development (UFA). At least eight prominent U.S. charities and, apparently, the taxpayer-funded United States Agency for International Development (USAID) are supporting this Palestinian group. A close examination of UFA shows that it is closely aligned with senior Hamas leaders, provides cash to the families of so-called martyrs in the Gaza strip, and promotes virulent anti-Semitic rhetoric.

The Gaza-based Unlimited Friends Association for Social Development (UFA) is close to the Palestinian Hamas movement.

UFA claims to “provide relief, emergency and developmental services to marginalized areas and people in need.” And it probably does. Its social-media pages show happy children playing in the sun, buildings constructed, and food packs distributed. But UFA operates with the political support of senior Hamas figures. And the support of Hamas means the support of a genocidal terror group that has pledged to eradicate Jews across the globe, that throws its political opponents off rooftops, oppresses women and homosexuals, fires rockets at Israeli schools and homes, and uses Palestinian children as human shields to advance its murderous cause.

UFA regularly collaborates with Hamas officials. In 2014, envisioning the “right of return” for Palestinians, it organized a ceremony at which the guest of honor was Mustafa Sawwaf, a prominent Hamas minister. Sawwaf had argued in the Hamas newspaper Al-Risala that “Israel’s disappearance is a necessity [according to] the Koran — that is a truth that we have learned and that we have been teaching since the first intifada, which was the Palestinian people’s first step toward ending the usurpation of Palestine by the Jewish gangs.”

In 2015, UFA hosted a public meeting with Mohamed Abu-Shkian, a senior Hamas official and the mayor of Nuseirat. They discussed “joint cooperation to implement projects that serve the various categories of the Palestinian community.” Abu-Shkian, whom Hamas media has nicknamed “Mohammed the Conqueror,” is a vocal supporter of the “mujahedeen” against Israel, has spoken at the graduation ceremony of a Hamas terror-training program, and has addressed crowds at a ceremony commemorating Hamas terrorists.

Not especially shy about its Hamas connections, UFA openly advertises projects funded by U.S. charities in prominent Hamas literature. And on its website, UFA boasts a certificate of support from Ummah University, an institution in Gaza directly controlled by Hamas’s interior ministry. UFA appears to be a cog in the Hamas martyrdom machine — the charity regularly hosts events financially benefiting “the families of martyrs and prisoners.”

Like Hamas, UFA is not shy about its hatred of Jews either. In a post published on one of the charity’s social-media pages, UFA officials wrote: “We ask God to drive away the anguish of the heroic prisoners in the Nazi Zionist jails and to free Al-Aqsa Al-Sharif [the Noble Al-Aqsa] from the filth of the most dirty Jews.”

UFA published these photos showing an official of U.S. charity Baitulmaal handing out checks, at UFA’s offices, to “the families of martyrs of the Palestinian people.”

UFA’s most important U.S. supporter is Baitulmaal, another charity. Saying they help Baitulmaal distribute cash to the “families of martyrs of the Palestinian people,” UFA officials have published photos to corroborate the claim.

These cash handouts are part of an “Orphan Sponsorship Program.” In videos published by the UFA, it defines orphans as those who have lost their fathers (not their mother), some of whom, it claims, were killed resisting “the ongoing slaughter against the Palestinian people.”

It would appear that American money is being given to the families of Hamas terrorists.

UFA and the U.S. charity Baitulmaal have such a close relationship that they even share the same staff. UFA officials Jomaa Khadoura and Amgad Mansor identify themselves as Baitulmaal employees. Mansor has promoted the views of Nabil Awadi, an Islamic cleric whom the Daily Mail has described as the “key financier” of the Islamic State.

Several other U.S. registered charities support UFA by funding UFA projects or hosting joint events. These include Islamic Relief USA, a branch of a charity established in Britain by Muslim Brotherhood operatives. Islamic Relief USA receives millions of dollars from Western governments, the European Union, and the United Nations. The U.S. government has given $370,000 to Islamic Relief Worldwide, the parent organization of its American affiliate. As with Baitulmaal, UFA and the Palestinian branch of Islamic Relief have shared the same employees.

The Trump administration should take a close look at these and other charities.

UFA boasts of financial and logistical support from another six U.S. charities: Helping Hand for Relief and Development, Life for Relief and Development, the Zakat Foundation of America, Syria Relief & Development, United Muslims Relief, and American Near East Refugee Aid (ANERA). These are just a few American charities at which a Trump administration should take a closer look.

On social media, UFA refers to American taxpayer funding. In 2013, it announced a project funded by the USAID and implemented by the U.S. charity Mercy Corps. Are taxpayer dollars funding a Gazan charity that works with Hamas, funds the families of “martyrs and prisoners,” and incites hatred against Jews? UFA, as with many Western-funded Palestinian groups, gets away with much of this perhaps because of the appearance of its work.

By providing social services, Islamist terror groups gain political and moral legitimacy among the people under their control as well as among their supporters abroad.

UFA appears to function as a “da’wah“ group that inherently benefits Hamas. Da’wah is a form of social outreach generally employed by terrorist organizations to reinforce their rule. By providing social services, Islamist terror groups gain political and moral legitimacy among the people under their control as well as among their supporters abroad. But da’wah is also “crucial to terrorist activity,” counterterrorism expert Matthew Levitt writes. “They provide cover for raising, laundering, and transferring funds, facilitate the group’s propaganda and recruitment efforts, provide employment to its operatives, and serve as a logistical support network for its terrorist operations.”

American taxpayer funding of UFA is not the first instance of its funding of the Hamas da’wah system. In 2007, ANERA (with which UFA jointly organizes projects) provided the Islamic University of Gaza with $140,000 of USAID money. The university was founded by the “spiritual leader” of Hamas, Sheikh Ahmed Yassin. In 2007, according to Palestinian media, 16 of the university’s lecturers and teachers were elected Hamas members of the Palestinian legislature. And in 2008, rockets and explosives fired by Hamas at Israeli civilians were reportedly produced at the university.

But da’wah efforts can be more basic. In areas targeted or controlled by terrorists, groups such as Hamas coordinate with charities to provide social services and welfare. Some counter-terrorism experts believe that this facilitates an influx of unchecked foreign funds, frees up money for violent operations, and whitewashes the work of terrorist organizations.

Aid money is fungible, as is already recognized under official understanding of material support for terrorism. In 2010, the solicitor general, Elena Kagan, now on the Supreme Court, explained that “Hezbollah builds bombs. Hezbollah also builds homes. . . . When you help Hezbollah build homes, you are also helping Hezbollah build bombs.”

Da’wah is not confined to the Palestinian territories; it also threatens American lives. Other terror groups have learned from the Hamas and Hezbollah. In 2012, the Times of London reported that al-Qaeda terrorists in Mali “have subsidized state utilities, capped food prices and made welfare payments to the needy.” And in 2014, I discovered that British “charity workers” were building schools in Syria that bore the Islamic State flag, all paid for through fundraising efforts in Britain.

U.S. taxpayers should not be funding charities that host Hamas leaders and reward the families of ‘martyrs.’

Islamist charities linked to terrorism do provide charitable services, including welfare, children’s summer camps, and educational programs. This allows them to acquire Western funding without raising too much suspicion. But the da’wah system ensures that such charitable services serve to prop up Hamas’s grip over the Gaza strip.

The da’wah problem is not new, but it demands the attention of the new administration. Hundreds of charities operate in the Palestinian territories. Certainly some Palestinian charities do not host high-profile visits with senior Hamas leaders, financially reward the families of “martyrs and prisoners,” and incite hatred against Jews. The U.S. taxpayer and American charities should not be funding one that does.

Looking Back at Obama’s Covert Drone War

Posted on by

Obama had a targeted kill list of which the nominated names listed came from unknown sources. The most famed drone strike authorized by Barack Obama was that of Anwar al Awlaki. He was an American citizen that preached terror but he himself never killed anyone. Obama became his judge jury and executioner.

Meanwhile, under the Obama administration, the definition and conditions by which a person was classified a terrorist has been amended and the term ‘enemy combatant’ was never used by anyone during the Obama years.

It is accurate to say the genesis of using armed drones began under GW Bush, yet Obama made a fine art of the killing drone operations. The excuse was always, the first choice is to capture and interrogate, when that is not possible then a killing strike by drone is authorized. Exactly who did if any were captured and interrogated other than just one known as Ahmed Abu Khatallah, of Benghazi fame? None.

Meanwhile, Obama’s armed drone operation has killed innocents in high numbers, a scandal largely ignored by the White House and the media.

****

Obama’s covert drone war in numbers: ten times more strikes than Bush

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism: There were ten times more air strikes in the covert war on terror during President Barack Obama’s presidency than under his predecessor, George W. Bush.

Obama embraced the US drone programme, overseeing more strikes in his first year than Bush carried out during his entire presidency. A total of 563 strikes, largely by drones, targeted Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen during Obama’s two terms, compared to 57 strikes under Bush. At least 384 civilians were killed.

The use of drones aligned with Obama’s ambition to keep up the war against al Qaeda while extricating the US military from intractable, costly ground wars in the Middle East and Asia. But the targeted killing programme has drawn much criticism.

The Obama administration has insisted that drone strikes are so “exceptionally surgical and precise” that they pluck off terror suspects while not putting “innocent men, women and children in danger”. This claim has been contested by numerous human rights group. The Bureau’s figures on civilian casualties also demonstrates that this is often not the case.

The White House released long-awaited figures in July on the number of people killed in drone strikes between January 2009 and the end of 2015, which insiders said was a direct response to pressure from the Bureau and other organisations that collect data. However the US’s estimate of the number of civilians killed – between 64 and 116 – contrasted strongly with the number recorded by the Bureau, which at 380 to 801 was six times higher.

That figure does not include deaths in active battlefields including Afghanistan – where US air attacks have shot up since Obama withdrew the majority of his troops at the end of 2014. The country has since come under frequent US bombardment, in an unreported war that saw 1,337 weapons dropped last year alone – a 40% rise on 2015.

Afghan civilian casualties have been high, with the United Nations (UN) reporting at least 85 deaths in 2016. The Bureau recorded 65 to 105 civilian deaths during this period.

Pakistan was the hub of drone operations during Obama’s first term. The pace of attacks had accelerated in the second half of 2008 at the end of Bush’s term, after four years pocked by occasional strikes. However in the year after taking office, Obama ordered more drone strikes than Bush did during his entire presidency. The 54 strikes in 2009 all took place in Pakistan.

Strikes in the country peaked in 2010, with 128 CIA drone attacks and at least 89 civilians killed, at the same time US troop numbers surged in Afghanistan. Pakistan strikes have since fallen with just three conducted in the country last year.

Obama also began an air campaign targeting Yemen. His first strike was a catastrophe: commanders thought they were targeting al Qaeda but instead hit a tribe with cluster munitions, killing 55 people. Twenty-one were children – 10 of them under five. Twelve were women, five of them pregnant

Through 2010 and the first half of 2011 US strikes in Yemen continued sporadically. The air campaign then began in earnest, with the US using its drones and jets to help Yemeni ground forces oust al Qaeda forces who had taken advantage of the country’s Arab Spring to seize a swath of territory in the south of the country.

In Somalia, US Special Operations Forces and gunships had been fighting al Qaeda and its al Shabaab allies since January 2007. The US sent drones to Djibouti in 2010 to support American operations in Yemen, but did not start striking in Somalia in 2011.

The number of civilian casualties increased alongside the rise in strikes. However reported civilian casualties began to fall as Obama’s first term progressed, both in real terms and as a rate of civilians reported killed per strike.

In Yemen, where there has been a minimum of 65 civilian deaths since 2002, the Bureau recorded no instances of civilian casualties last year.  There were three non-combatants reportedly killed in 2016 in Somalia, where the US Air Force has been given broader authority to target al Shabaab – in previous years there were no confirmed civilian deaths.

Strikes in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia have always been dwarfed by the frequency of air attacks on battlefields such as Afghanistan.

December 2014 saw the end of Nato combat operations there, and the frequency of air attacks plummeted in 2015. Strikes are now increasing again, with a 40% rise in 2016, though numbers remain below the 2011 peak.

The number of countries being simultaneously bombed by the US increased to seven last year as a new front opened up in the fight against Islamic State (IS). The US has been leading a coalition of countries in the fight against IS in Iraq and Syria since August 2014, conducting a total of 13,501 strikes across both countries, according to monitoring group Airwars.

In August US warplanes started hitting the group hard in Libya. The US declared 495 strikes in the country between August 1 and December 5 as part of efforts to stop IS gaining more ground, Airwars data shows.

In the final days of Obama’s time in the White House, the Bureau has broken down his covert war on terror in numbers. Our annual 2016 report provides figures on the number of US strikes and related casualties last year, as well as collating the total across Obama’s eight years in power:

***

Total US drone and air strikes in 2016
Pakistan Yemen Somalia Afghanistan
Strikes 3 38 14 1071
Total people reported killed 11-12 147-203 204-292 1389-1597
Civilians reported killed 1 0 3-5 65-105

 

Notes on the data: The Bureau is not logging strikes in active battlefields except Afghanistan; strikes in Syria, Iraq and Libya are not included in this data. To see data for those countries, visit Airwars.org.

Somalia

Somalia: confirmed US strikes
December 2016 2016 2009 to 2016
US strikes 0 14 32-39
Total people reported killed 0 204-292 242-454
Civilians reported killed 0 3-5 3-12
Children reported killed 0 0 0-2
Total people reported injured 0 3-16 5-26

 

Notes on the data: in the final column, strikes carried out between Jan 1 and Jan 19 2009 are not included. The figure refers to the number of strikes that took place from Jan 20, 2009, onwards – the data Obama’s presidency began. This applies to all the tables in this report.

The US officially designated Somali militant group al Shabaab as an al Qaeda affiliate at the end of November amid a rising number of US strikes in the country last year.

One week after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Congress passed the Authorisation for Use of Military Force law allowing the president to go after those responsible and “associated forces”.

The US has used this law, which predates the formation of al Shabaab, to target individual members of the group deemed to have al Qaeda links. The military has also hit the group in defence of partner forces. The group is now deemed an “associated force”, meaning all members are legitimate terrorist targets.

The US has been aggressively pursuing al Shabaab. At least 204 people were killed in US strikes in Somalia last year – ten times higher than the number recorded for any other year. The vast majority of those killed were reported as belonging to al Shabaab.

An attack on an al Shabaab training camp in the Hiran region on March 5 accounts for 150 of these deaths. This is the highest death toll from a single US strike ever recorded by the Bureau, overtaking the previous highest of 81 people killed in Pakistan in 2006.

One of the more controversial of last year’s strikes occurred on September 28. Somali forces were disrupting a bomb-making network when they came under attack from a group of al Shabaab fighters. The US launched an air strike to “neutralize the threat”.

Local officials said 22 local soldiers and civilians were killed. In the city of Galkayo, where the strike took place, citizens protested in the streets.

 

US Africa Command told the Bureau the reports of non-combatant deaths were wrong. However the US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced the next day that the Pentagon would investigate the strike. The investigation found the strike had not killed members of al Shabaab. It instead killed ten members of a local militia reportedly allied with the Americans, US Africa Command concluded.

Afghanistan

Afghanistan: Bureau data on US drone strikes and other airstrikes
December 2016 2016 2015 to 2016
US strikes 8 1071 1306-1307
Total people reported killed 24-26 1389-1597 2371-3031
Civilians reported killed 0 65-105 125-182
Children reported killed 0 3-7 6-23
Total people reported injured 12 196-243 338-390

 

Notes on the data: The US Air Force has a variety of aircraft carrying out missions over Afghanistan, including jets, drones and AC-130 gunships. The UN reported in August 2015 that most US strikes were by unmanned aerial vehicles. This matches the Bureau’s records that show most US air attacks since January were by drones. However in the absence of US authorities revealing which type of aircraft carried out which attack, it remains unclear which of the attacks recorded were by manned or unmanned aircraft.

The Bureau’s data on strikes in Afghanistan is not exhaustive. The ongoing war creates barriers to reporting and the Bureau’s data is an accumulation of what publicly available information exists on specific strikes and casualties. The US government publishes monthly aggregates of air operations in Afghanistan, minus information on casualties.

US Air Force data: Afghanistan in 2016
Total Close Air Support (CAS) sorties with at least one weapon release 615
Total CAS sorties 5162
Total weapons released 1337

 

US warplanes dropped 1,337 weapons over the country last year, a 40% rise on 2015, according to data released by the US Air Force.

The increase follows President Barack Obama’s decision in June to give US commanders more leeway to target the Taliban, amid the Afghan army’s struggle to keep strategic cities from falling into the insurgents’ hands.

Strikes conducted under this authority, referred to by the military as “strategic effects” strikes, have increased in frequency since the new rules came into force.

 

The continuing rise in attacks against the Taliban demonstrates the battle against the insurgents is far from over, despite combat operations targeting the group officially ending almost two years ago. Since then, Taliban violence has increased and Afghanistan’s branch of Islamic State has been trying to carve out territory in the east of the country.

IS emerged in Afghanistan in late 2014, growing as a force through 2015. The US responded by allowing the military to specifically target the group in a bid to stop it gaining strength.

As strikes have risen, so have reports of civilian casualties, with some significant incidents taking place in the second half of 2016.

The UN’s biannual report on civilian casualties released in July detailed the deaths of 38 civilians in US strikes. Since then, the UN has highlighted two US strikes that took the lives of a further 47 civilians.

One of the more controversial strikes hit a house in Nangarhar province on September 28. While the US has maintained that members of Islamic State were killed in the attack, the UN, with uncharacteristic speed, released a report saying the victims were civilians. In subsequent reporting, the Bureau was able to confirm this and identify the victims.

 

This particular strike caused a rift between the UN and US. In an unusual step, the US commander in charge of the Afghanistan operations General Nicholson reportedly considered banning or restricting UN access to a military base in Kabul as a result of its assertion.

There could be more civilian casualties than the two incidents highlighted. These may be documented in the UN’s annual report due for release in February. The Bureau recorded the deaths of up to 105 civilians in Afghanistan as a result of US strikes in 2016.

Not included in these figures were instances of “friendly fire” attacks. The Bureau published an investigation into one of the three such incidents in 2016 when a US strike on a Taliban prison killed Afghan police officers being held captive.

Yemen

Yemen: confirmed US strikes
December 2016 2016 2009 to 2016
US strikes 1 38 158-178
Total people reported killed 2 147-203 777-1075
Civilians reported killed 0 0 124-161
Children reported killed 0 0 32-34
Total people reported injured 0 34-41 143-287

 

Last year American air operations in Yemen reached their second highest level since 2002, when the US conducted its first ever lethal drone strike in the country.

At least 38 US strikes hit the country in 2016, targeting operatives belonging to terrorist group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) amid Yemen’s civil war.

The conflict ignited when the Houthi militant group stormed the capital of Sanaa in September 2014. Allied to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, the rebels pushed the internationally-recognised government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi into exile.

On October 12, the military launched cruise missile strikes at three rebel targets in Houthi-controlled territory following failed missile attacks on a US Navy ship. This is the first and only time the US has directly targeted Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Last year, a Saudi-led coalition began airstrikes against the rebels, which has led to widescale destruction. One of these strikes hit a funeral ceremony, killing 140 people. The munition used was identified by Human Rights Watch as a US-manufactured air-dropped GBU-12 Paveway II laser-guided bomb.

The Obama administration faced pressure to put an end to arms sales to Saudi Arabia following the strike, leading to a December decision to block the transfer of precision munitions.

The UK is facing pressure to do the same – in June the High Court granted a judicial review of the government’s arms exports to Saudi Arabia following a case brought by London-based organisation Campaign Against Arms Trade.

Pakistan

Pakistan: confirmed US strikes
December 2016 2016 2009 to 2016
US strikes 0 3 373
Total people reported killed 0 11 2089-3406
Civilians reported killed 0 1 257-634
Children reported killed 0 0 66-78
Total people reported injured 0 3-6 986-1467

 

Drone strikes in Pakistan last year fell to their lowest level in a decade, with only three strikes conducted in the country.

The most recent attack targeted Mullah Akhtar Mansour, the leader of the Afghan Taliban. Mansour was killed on May 21 while being driven through Balochistan, a restive region home to a separatist movement as well as the Afghan Taliban’s leadership. His civilian taxi driver, Mohammed Azam, was also killed in the strike.

It was the first ever US strike to hit Balochistan and only the sixth to hit a location outside Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. It was also the first to be carried out by the US military in Pakistan. The CIA has carried out strikes since the drone program began in Pakistan in 2004.

The Pakistan government summoned the US ambassador in protest following the strike. Sartaj Aziz, foreign affairs special adviser to Pakistani Prime Minister, also claimed that killing Mansour had dented efforts to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table.

US drone strikes in Pakistan peaked in 2010, during which at least 755 people were killed. It is unclear what has led to the steep drop in strikes since then. The Pakistani military conducted an 18-month ground offensive in the tribal regions flushing out many militants and pushing them into Afghanistan. It is possible that the US ran out of targets.

This does not mean that the drone programme in Pakistan has come to end. Strikes paused for a six-month period at the end of December 2013 while the Pakistani government unsuccessfully tried to negotiate a peace accord with the Taliban. It is possible attacks will resume with the change in presidency in January.

For Obama, Oman is the ‘go-to’ Country Including Gitmo Detainees

Posted on by

Primer: In 2013 – US and Iranian officials have been meeting secretly in Oman for the past year with the help of Sultan Qaboos

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — With their destination and mission among America’s closest guarded secrets, the small group of officials hand-picked by President Barack Obama boarded a military plane in March.

The travel plans of the U.S. diplomats and foreign policy advisers were not on any public itineraries. No reception greeted them as they landed. But awaiting the Americans in the remote and ancient Gulf sultanate of Oman was the reason for all the secrecy: a delegation of Iranians ready to meet them.

It was at this first high-level gathering at a secure location in the Omani capital of Muscat, famous for its souk filled with frankincense and myrrh, that the Obama administration began laying the groundwork for this weekend’s historic nuclear pact between world powers and Iran, The Associated Press has learned.

FNC: DUBAI, United Arab Emirates –  Oman said Monday it accepted 10 inmates from the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay ahead of President Barack Obama leaving office, part of his efforts to shrink the facility he promised to close.

There was no immediate word from the U.S. Defense Department about the transfer.

Oman’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement carried by the state-run Oman News Agency that it had accepted the prisoners at Obama’s request. It did not name the prisoners.

Omani and U.S. military officials did not immediately respond to a request for comment from The Associated Press.

The sultanate of Oman, on the eastern edge of the Arabian Peninsula, previously accepted 10 Guantanamo prisoners from Yemen in January 2016. Oman also took another six in June 2015. Meanwhile, Oman’s neighbor Saudi Arabia took four prisoners on Jan. 5 and the United Arab Emirates took 15 prisoners in the largest-single transfer during Obama’s administration on Aug. 15.

Oman, ruled by Sultan Qaboos bin Said since 1970, has served as an interlocutor between the West and Iran. It also has negotiated a number of prisoner releases in recent years for Western countries.

Yemen, the Arab world’s poorest country, remains in the grips of a civil war and a Saudi-led military offensive against the rebels — making returning Guantanamo inmates there impossible.

Days earlier, authorities said 19 of the remaining 55 prisoners at the U.S. military base in Cuba were cleared for release and could be freed in the final days of Obama’s presidency.

It was part of an effort by Obama to shrink the prison since he couldn’t close it.

U.S. President-elect Donald Trump said during his campaign that he not only wants to keep Guantanamo open but “load it up with some bad dudes.”

The U.S. began using its military base on southeast Cuba’s isolated, rocky coast to hold prisoners captured during the Afghanistan invasion, bringing the first planeload on Jan. 11, 2002, and reaching a peak 18 months later of nearly 680.

There were 242 prisoners when Obama took office in 2009, pledging to close what became a source of international criticism over the mistreatment of detainees and the notion of holding people indefinitely, most without charge.

Obama was unable to close Guantanamo because of Congressional opposition to holding any of the men in the United States. That ultimately became a ban on transferring them to U.S. soil for any reason, including trial, making the failure to close the detention center part of his legacy.

The majority of Guantanamo prisoners released have been sent to Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

**** This is only a temporary home for them.

Muscat: Ten prisoners from the Guantanamo Bay facility in Cuba have been released and will “temporarily reside” in Oman, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs has announced.

The 10 have been released from Guantanamo Bay and received by the Sultanate at the request of the US government, a senior official at the ministry said in a statement earlier today.

The official said that the 10 prisoners were pardoned following the directives of His Majesty the Sultan in cooperation with the United States government. The 10 will reside temporarily in the Sultanate which considers the release of the prisoners a humanitarian issue.

The statement, carried by the government run Oman News Agency, states: “An official source at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs said by following Royal Directive issued by His Majesty the Sultan to meet the American Government’s request to settle the cases of prisoners in Guantanamo Bay, considering their humanitarian conditions, 10 people who have been pardoned arrived to the Sultanate for a temporary stay.”

**** Those released are:

Ghaleb Nassar Al Bihani, Mustafa Abd al-Qawi Abd al-Aziz Al-Shamiri, Karim Bostam, Abdul Sahir, Musab Omar Ali Al-Mudwani, Hail Aziz Ahmed Al-Maythali, Salman Yahya Hassan Mohammad Rabei’i, Mohammed Al-Ansi, Muhammad Ahmad Said Haider, and Walid Said bin Said Zaid.

Hey Donald, You Ready for these Political Ambushes?

Posted on by

There is historically to be a smooth transition of power. So far that has hardly been the case. While most Democrats say that Donald Trump won the most important seat in the free world, others are out there saying not so much.

Draining the swamp could be a rather easy political mission in DC due to many progressive powerbrokers being so unabashed at revealing who they are. Sure there are a number of them that refuse to attend the inauguration which is shameful. What they plan to do in that time period is in many cases even more shameful. Exactly what are they boycotting anyway?

This is going to be a wild ride and the left is making it worse beginning with cabinet nominees and future legislation.

Related reading: ACLU Demands That Body Cams Are Turned Off During Inauguration While They Intend To Record Police

****

The boycott movement began with Georgia Rep. John Lewis, a civil rights icon, who said he did not view Trump as a “legitimate president” because of allegations that Russia attempted to sway the election in Trump’s favor. After Trump responded with several highly critical tweets about Lewis, Democrats rallied behind Lewis, and as of Saturday night, 17 members of Congress have announced they will not attend.

None of the Democrats who are boycotting is part of the House leadership for the party. All except one of those who are received at least 64 percent of their district’s vote in the November election.

Arizona Rep. Raúl Grijalva

 

“My absence is not motivated by disrespect for the office or motivated by disrespect for the government that we have in this great democracy, but as an individual act, yes, of defiance at the disrespect shown to millions and millions of Americans by this incoming administration, and the actions we are taking in this Congress,” Grijalva said on the House floor Friday, per CNN.

California Rep. Barbara Lee

But it will be worse than just boycotting January 20th. Sure there are countless protests planned and protests permits have been approved. So, what else you ask?
****

From the National Law Journal: The day after Donald Trump is sworn in as the 45th president the United States, hundreds of attorneys and activists are slated to gather in Washington to strategize on how best to resist “bad government” and coordinate pro bono efforts to protect civil rights.

They will spend two days meeting and discussing issues such as gerrymandering, human rights, better policing and U.S. Supreme Court confirmations during the so-called Rise Above conference. It’s scheduled to coincide with the Jan. 21 Women’s March on Washington.

Rise Above is co-sponsored by two fledging nonprofit groups formed in the wake of Trump’s election: the grassroots government accountability organization RISE When We Fall and the attorney-centric Lawyers for Good Government. They hope to create a “pro bono army to be on the front lines protecting our country and our values,” according to an announcement of the event.

The conference combines networking opportunities, an expo of nonprofit organizations, talks from experienced leaders intended to inspire attendees and a slew of panel discussions of specific legal and activism topics.

“One of the things that’s very important to us is to create a starting point,” said Traci Feit Love, a former DLA Piper associate who is the founder of Lawyers for Good Government. “Some people who are relatively new to activism are trying to figure out, ‘Where do we go from here? How do we approach the issues? What do we prioritize?'”

Some legal heavy hitters are on the agenda. SCOTUSBlog founder Tom Goldstein is scheduled to speak, as are Southern Poverty Law Center co-founder Joe Levin and newly-elected Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Maryland, who previously taught Constitutional Law at American University Washington College of Law.

Love got the idea for what would become Lawyers for Good Government the day after the election, following a fruitless search to connect with like-minded lawyers in Facebook. The election results had given her a sense of urgency.

“As I was putting my 8-year-old daughter to bed the night of the election, it hit me what had just happened and what it might mean for the country,” she said. “It was a punch in the gut to me and, I think, a lot of other people.”

Love decided to create her own lawyer activist Facebook group called Lawyers of the Left, thinking that 200 or so might join. Within a week, membership swelled past 100,000. Love quickly concluded that lawyers inspired to fight back against Trump’s agenda needed more than just an online gathering place, and she created Lawyers for Good Government using the online lawyer community that coalesced immediately after the election as the foundation for the new effort.

“Everyone was asking, ‘What can we do?'” she said. “No one wanted to just talk about things. It felt like a responsibility to figure out how to help this group of people make the biggest impact.”

Rise Against will be the group’s first foray into live events, though the nearly $600 full ticket price has generated some criticism. Love said Monday that the group retooled parts of the conference in response to concerns that the high cost would shut out some would-be attendees. Organizers did away with a formal evening gala and priced tickets to the networking event at $20 to $40. But staging a large event during the busy inaugural weekend was expensive, and the two host groups lacked established budgets to subsidize costs. Tickets sales were needed to cover the bulk of event, which is being held at the Lincoln Theatre and the Mayflower Hotel, she said. Love is expecting about 1,000 attendees.

“I think one of the most important things this conference can do for us is create both personal relationships and that sense of connection that can sustain a movement beyond the initial energy,” Love said. “What’s likely to happen, due to human nature, is months go by and everyone starts to refocus on their day-to-day lives. We need to ensure that we can sustain the level of energy required to keep an eye on the new administration and Congress.”