Egypt on Full Terror Alert from Islamic State

Posted on June 9, 2016June 9, 2016 by Denise Simon

Egypt – On the 10th of Rabī’ al-Ākhir, Islamic State covert units blew up a house rigged with explosives when it was stormed by a number of murtadd Egyptian policemen and their commanding officers on al-Haram Street in Giza, killing 10 of them – including officers – and injuring 20 more, including Muhammad Amīn, the chief of the investigations division for al-Haram. Just 11 days later, two soldiers of the Khilāfah set out towards a security checkpoint belonging to the murtadd Egyptian police in the region of al-Munīb in Giza. More here from the most recent issue of Dabiq, the Islamic State online publication.

Islamic State posts video threatening to blow up Giza Pyramids, Sphinx

MadaMasr: The Islamic State posted a new video threatening to destroy Egypt’s Giza Pyramids, the last remaining wonder of the ancient world, along with the Sphinx. The video also revealed footage of the militant group’s alleged destruction of the ancient Assyrian temple of Nabu in Iraq.

Released on Tuesday, the video includes images of the ancient temple of Abu Simbel in the Aswan governorate in Egypt, warning that the militant group will destroy such “idols.”

An Islamic State member, identified in the video as Abu Nasser al-Ansari, calls on Muslims not to identify with the history and cultural heritage of ancient artifacts and “idols” because they “are the works of infidels and Satan.” Early Muslim leaders were determined to destroy the pyramids in Egypt, yet “despite their intentions, this was not possible,” the militant explained.

“Today, however, we do have the means to carry out this great endeavor,” Ansari stated.

The video moves to an Islamic State member standing outside the ancient temple of Nabu in Iraq, who talks about of the responsibility of “believers” to destroy idols, while a bulldozer is seen plowing through the 2,500 year-old monument. Another segment of the video shows part of the temple being destroyed using explosives.

The video’s narrator claims that contemporary Muslims are following in the footsteps of the infidels, taking pride in temples built by idolaters “on the basis that they represent civilization.”

“What some people refer to as civilization – such as the pyramids and large idols — are in fact symbols of repression, ignorance, and moral degeneracy of those deviant societies,” the narrator states. “Civilization is not measured according to their buildings and construction works, but is measured by how peoples obey God’s ordinances.”

Egyptian news outlets, however, have largely dismissed the threats against any ancient Egyptian artifacts. The state-owned Al-Akhbar news portal reported on Wednesday that it would be impossible to execute operations of this scale, as police forces guard the Giza Pyramids complex heavily.

In its coverage on Wednesday, the privately owned Youm7 news portal also cited the presence of x-ray machines at the entrances to the Giza Pyramids, surveillance cameras, a bomb squad at the site, sniffer dogs, as well as a large number of police personnel and guards from the Antiquities Ministry, as reasons why the Islamic State’s cannot carry out its latest terrorist threat.

However, despite the heavy security presence within the pyramids complex, armed assailants managed to shoot dead two policemen at the entrance of the site in June 2015, although no militant group claimed responsibility for the incident.

Since its emergence in 2014, the Islamic State and its affiliates have destroyed large parts of the Nineveh Wall in Mosul, an ancient Assyrian gateway lion in Syria’s Islamic State-controlled Raqqa province, along with the temples of Baalshamin and Bel in Palmyra, and artifacts found within the Museum of Mosul.

The Islamic State’s destruction has not been limited to pagan temples and artifacts, but also a host of Shi’a shrines and tombs, old Christian monasteries and churches, and the Ottoman-era Tal Afar Citadel in northern Iraq.

Egypt’s police and Armed Forces have been engaged in counter-terrorism campaigns for several years in the Sinai peninsula in attempt to flush out radical armed Islamist elements – particularly the group formerly known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdes, which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in November 2014, changing its name to the Province of Sinai.

Bill Clinton was a Chancellor of a University eh?

Posted on June 9, 2016June 9, 2016 by Denise Simon

An online university at that and oh…imagine it is has been sued as well.

In 2015, Bill Clinton ended his role with a for-profit college system on Friday, nearly two weeks after his wife, Hillary Rodham Clinton, began her second presidential campaign and singled out that industry for criticism. More here from the New York Times.

The Clinton University Problem: Laureate Education Lawsuits Present Problem For Clintons

Jonathan Turley

While largely ignored by the media, the Clintons have their own university scandal. Donald Trump has been rightfully criticized and sued over his defunct Trump University. There is ample support for claiming that the Trump University was fraudulent in its advertisements and operations. However, the national media has been accused of again sidestepping a scandal involving the Clintons that involves the same type of fraud allegations. The scandal involves the dubious Laureate Education for-profit college and entails many of the common elements with other Clinton scandals: huge sums given to the Clintons and questions of conflicts with Hillary Clinton during her time as Secretary of State. There are distinctions to draw between the two stories, but the virtual radio silence on the Clinton/Laureate story is surprising.

I have long been a critic of most online courses, though I am increasingly in the minority even on my faculty. However, the rise of online courses has allowed for an increase in dubious pitches and practices that prey upon people who cannot afford or attend a traditional academic institution.

Laureate Education has been sued over such programs as its Walden University Online offering, which many have alleged is a scam designed to bilk students of tens of thousands of dollars for degrees. Students says that they were repeatedly delayed and given added costs as they tried to secure degrees, leaving them deeply in debt.

The respected Inside Higher Education reported that Laureate Education paid Bill Clinton an obscene $16.5 million between 2010 and 2014 to serve as an honorary chancellor for Laureate International Universities. While Bill Clinton worked as the group’s pitchman, the State Department funneled $55 million to Laureate when Hillary Clinton was secretary of state. That would seem a pretty major story but virtually no mainstream media outlet has reported it while running hundreds of stories on the Trump University scandal.

There was even a class action — like the Trump University scandal. Travis et al v. Walden University LLC, was filed in U.S. District Court in the District of Maryland but dismissed in 2015. It is not clear why it was dismissed. However, the size of the contract to Clinton, the payment from State and the widespread complaints over alleged fraud should warrant a modicum of attention to the controversy. The controversy has many of the familiar complaints over fraudulent online programs that take advantage of hard working people.

As an academic, I find both Trump University and Laureate to be deeply troubling stories. Yet, only one has been pursued by the media to any significant degree. I am not suggesting that Laureate as a whole is fraudulent. Moreover, there are distinctions that can be drawn with a university like Trump that is based entirely on the presumptive nominee and his promises in advertising. However, the money given to the Clintons, the involvement of the State Department, and the claims of fraud make this an obviously significant story in my view.

What do you think?

More to the Paula Broadwell Classified Material

Posted on June 9, 2016June 9, 2016 by Denise Simon

FBI found hundreds of classified files on Petraeus biographer Broadwell’s computer

CharlotteObserver: FBI agents found hundreds of classified documents on Paula Broadwell’s home computers in Charlotte during their investigation into her relationship with then-CIA Director David Petraeus, according to newly unsealed FBI documents obtained by the Observer.

More than 300 of those documents were classified as secret, according to a 2013 FBI affidavit accompanying the agency’s request to search Petraeus’ home in Arlington, Va.

A newly unsealed FBI search warrant reveals that agents found hundreds of classified documents on Paula Broadwell’s computers when they searched her Charlotte home in 2012, part of the agency’s investigation into her relationship with then CIA Director David Petraeus. File photo, July 13, 2011 AP

The documents, which were unsealed Tuesday by the U.S. District Court in Eastern Virginia, offer new details of the sweeping federal investigation into the relationship between Broadwell, a Charlotte author, and Petraeus, a highly decorated military commander, the subject of Broadwell’s book as well as her former lover.

The probe uncovered their affair, revealed their mishandling of classified documents and lead to Petraeus’ resignation as head of the CIA. Last year, Petraeus pleaded guilty in Charlotte to a misdemeanor charge of mishandling government documents and was fined $100,000.

Broadwell, the author of Petraeus’ biography, was never charged. Legal experts say her role as a journalist made any prosecution problematic.

Broadwell did not respond Wednesday to a phone message and email seeking comment. Neither did her Washington-based attorney Robert Muse. Jacob Sussman, the Charlotte member of Petraeus’ defense team during his plea hearing, had no comment.

The documents, partially redacted, have been sealed for more than three years. At the time of the search warrant request, the FBI asked that the affidavit remain sealed to protect an ongoing investigation. It was released in response to a public-information request by the media.

The affidavit is signed by a Charlotte-based FBI agent. Its allegations include:

▪ The documents show that when confronted by the FBI, both Broadwell and Petraeus appeared to mislead investigators about their extensive exchange of classified material, most of it involving military and diplomatic operations during Petraeus’ years as commander of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Petraeus admitted his affair with Broadwell during an October 2012 interview with the FBI in his CIA office. But he said he never gave classified information to her. That answer led some prosecutors to recommend that Petraeus be hit with a felony charge of obstructing a federal investigation. As part of his plea deal with Charlotte-based prosecutors, Petraeus admitted he lied to the FBI.

Interviewed in Charlotte, Broadwell claimed to have gotten some of the documents doing research for her book but “was unable to provide specifics as to how she obtained them … Broadwell advised that she never received classified information from Petraeus,” the affidavit says.

On the contrary, the new documents include details of multiple emails between the two over classified records, including the “black book” diaries and logs Petraeus kept as commander.

In one exchange included in the affidavit, Broadwell told Petraeus that certain records he’d shared were “naturally very helpful … (I want more of them! I know you’re holding back.)”

In June 2011, the affidavit says she expressed excitement at Petraeus’ willingness to share certain files. “(I)’ll protect them. And I’ll protect you,” she wrote.

During the same conversation, Petraeus referred to some files from his time as Iraqi War commander. “Class’d, but I guess I might share!” he told Broadwell.

From 2003 to 2012, Broadwell had security clearance to handle classified information, the affidavit says. But that came with the understanding that she not unlawfully remove the information “from authorized storage facilities” and not store the classified information “in unauthorized locations.”

The FBI found that Petraeus shared eight of his black books with Broadwell in 2011. Those contained secret codes, highly sensitive diplomatic information and wartime strategies, among other highly classified information. At the time, she was writing “All In,” Petraeus’ biography.

None of the classified information appeared in the book, documents say. But the affidavit says the FBI seized numerous photographs of the contents of the black books during a search of Broadwell’s home.

▪ The FBI gathered recordings Petraeus made as military commander in the Middle East in which he discussed information classified as “Top Secret” with reporters.

In an audio file taken from Broadwell’s home in November 2012, Petraeus can be heard discussing “sensitive military campaigns and operations” with reporters from the Washington Post. His only demand was to be referred to in the subsequent stories “as a senior military officer,” the affidavit says.

▪ Petraeus tried to stop the FBI investigation as soon as he heard about it. According to the affidavit, the FBI began its probe in Tampa, Fla., after a person identified as “Witness 1,” who is clearly Tampa socialite and Petraeus confidante Jill Kelley, complained of receiving threatening emails from someone who had access to the CIA director’s schedule – a potential breach of security.

According to Kelley’s recent book, an email went to her husband, Scott, on June 1, 2012, and referred to a Washington, D.C., dinner when Kelley and Petraeus, after a night of drinking, had compared each other’s muscles.

“As her husband, you might want to examine your wife’s behavior and see if you can rein her in before we publicly share the pictures of her with her hands sliding between the legs of a senior service official,” the email said.

The FBI later traced those messages to Broadwell.

On June 22, 2012, the FBI notified Petraeus’ security detail of its investigation. A month later, Kelley notified the FBI that she no longer wanted to press charges against the cyber stalker. That August, Kelley told the FBI that Petraeus “personally requested” that Kelley “call off the G-men,” and that the stalker “possessed information which could embarrass Petraeus and other public officials,” the affidavit says.

▪ Broadwell, who is married, and Petraeus, also married, took steps to hide their correspondences. The affidavit says the two used prepaid cellphones and email accounts “using non-attributable names.”

In September 2012, Broadwell told agents that she and Petraeus would use the same email account, saving messages in the “draft” folder instead of sending them.

[READ MORE: The aftermath of a scandal]

In the years since, Broadwell has apologized for the affair and says she has attempted to rebuild her marriage and has focused on charitable issues such as returning veterans and “Wounded Warriors.” She has also started a foundation to examine gender bias in the media.

‘I’m the first to admit I screwed up,” Broadwell recently told the New York Times. “… But how long does a person pay for their mistake?

CIA Personnel may have been Compromised Due to Hillary Emails

Posted on June 9, 2016June 9, 2016 by Denise Simon

Anyone remember the Valerie Plame affair, the outing of her position at the CIA?

The names of some CIA personnel could have been compromised in release of Clinton emails

WASHINGTON (AP) – The names of CIA personnel could have been compromised not only by hackers who may have penetrated Hillary Clinton’s private computer server or the State Department system, but also by the release itself of tens of thousands of her emails, security experts say.

Clinton, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, turned over to the State Department 55,000 emails from her private server that were sent or received when she was secretary of state.

Some contained information that has since been deemed classified, and those were redacted for public release with notations for the reason of the censorship.

At least 47 of the emails contain the notation “B3 CIA PERS/ORG,” which indicates the material referred to CIA personnel or matters related to the agency. And because both Clinton’s server and the State Department systems were vulnerable to hacking, the perpetrators could have those original emails, and now the publicly released, redacted versions showing exactly which sections refer to CIA personnel.

“Start with the entirely plausible view that foreign intelligence services discovered and rifled Hillary Clinton’s server,” said Stewart Baker, a Washington lawyer who spent more than three years as an assistant secretary of the Homeland Security Department and is former legal counsel for the National Security Agency.

If so, those infiltrators would have copies of all her emails with the names not flagged as being linked to the agency.

In the process of publicly releasing the emails, however, classification experts seem to have inadvertently provided a key to anyone who has the originals. By redacting names associated with the CIA and using the “B3 CIA PERS/ORG” exemption as the reason, “Presto – the CIA names just fall off the page,” Baker said.

The CIA declined to comment.

A U.S. official said the risk of the names of CIA personnel being revealed in this way is “theoretical and probably remains so at this time.” The official, who did not have the authority to publicly address the matter, spoke on condition of anonymity and would not elaborate.

Steven Aftergood, who directs the Federation of American Scientists’ Project on Government Secrecy, said even if any identities were revealed, they might be the names of analysts or midlevel administrators, not undercover operatives.

“I don’t think there’s any particular vulnerability here,” Aftergood said.

Clinton has acknowledged that the email server, set up in the basement of her New York home, was a mistake. But she says she never sent or received anything that was marked classified at the time of transmission. Clinton, who was secretary of state from 2009 to 2013, insists the personal server she used was never actually breached.

The AP discovered last year that Clinton’s private server was directly connected to the internet in ways that made it more vulnerable to hackers. A recent State Department inspector general’s report indicated the server was temporarily unplugged by a Clinton aide at one point during attacks by hackers, but her campaign has said there’s no evidence the server was hacked.

In each year from 2011 to 2014, the State Department’s poor cybersecurity was identified by its inspector general as a “significant deficiency” that put the department’s information at risk. Another State Department inspector general report revealed that hacking attempts forced Clinton off her private email at one point in 2011.

Then in 2014, the State Department’s unclassified email system was breached by hackers with links to Russia. They stole an unspecified number of emails. The hack was so deep that State’s email system had to be cut off from the internet while experts worked to eliminate the infestation.

Baker points out another instance where Clinton’s server might have been hacked.

A March 2, 2009, email warned against State Department officials using Blackberries. Eric Boswell, assistant secretary of state, says the “vulnerabilities and risks associated with the use of Blackberries … considerably outweigh their convenience.”

Nine days later, another email states that Clinton approached Boswell and says she “gets” the risk. The email also said: “Her attention was drawn to the sentence that indicates we (the diplomatic security office officials) have intelligence concerning this vulnerability during her recent trip to Asia.”

Clinton traveled to China, Indonesia, Japan and South Korea in February 2009.

At Least 12 Former Gitmo Detainees Killed Americans Since

Posted on June 8, 2016June 8, 2016 by Denise Simon

They were not even the worst of the worst. Has anyone tracked those 5 Taliban released for Bergdahl?

“Despite the current restrictions of the [Memorandum Of Understanding], it is clear… that the five former detainees have participated in activities that threaten U.S. and coalition personnel and are counter to U.S. national security interests–not unlike their activities before they were detained on the battlefield.,” the Intelligence Committee statement said.

Last year, the non-partisan Government Accountability Office also found that the Obama administration violated the law on the Bergdahl swap.

Related reading: House Report Taliban 5 Report

About 12 released Guantanamo detainees implicated in attacks on Americans

WaPo: The Obama administration believes that about 12 detainees released from the prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, have launched attacks against U.S. or allied forces in Afghanistan, killing about a half-dozen Americans, according to current and former U.S. officials.

In March, a senior Pentagon official made a startling admission to lawmakers when he acknowledged that former Guantanamo inmates were responsible for the deaths of Americans overseas.

The official, Paul Lewis, who oversees Guantanamo issues at the Defense Department, provided no details, and the Obama administration has since declined to elaborate publicly on his statement because the intelligence behind it is classified.

But The Washington Post has learned additional details about the suspected attacks, including the approximate number of detainees and victims involved and the fact that, while most of the incidents were directed at military personnel, the dead also included one American civilian: a female aid worker who died in Afghanistan in 2008. The officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, declined to give an exact number for Americans killed or wounded in the attacks, saying the figure is classified.

[Pentagon official: Release of Guantanamo detainees has led to American deaths]

Lewis’s statement had drawn scrutiny on Capitol Hill, where some lawmakers see the violence against Americans as further evidence that the president’s plans for closing the prison are misguided and dangerous. They also describe the administration’s unwillingness to release information about the attacks as another instance of its use of high levels of classification to avoid discussion of a politically charged issue that could heighten political opposition to its plans.

One U.S. official familiar with the intelligence said that nine of the detainees suspected in the attacks are now dead or in foreign government custody. The official would not specify the exact number of detainees involved but said it was fewer than 15. All of them were released from Guantanamo Bay under the administration of George W. Bush.

The official added: “Because many of these incidents were large-scale firefights in a war zone, we cannot always distinguish whether Americans were killed by the former detainees or by others in the same fight.”

Military and intelligence officials, responding to lawmakers’ requests for more details, have provided lawmakers with a series of classified documents about the suspected attacks. One recent memo from the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), which was sent to the House Foreign Affairs Committee after Lewis’s testimony, described the attacks, named the detainees involved and provided information about the victims without giving their names.

But lawmakers are prohibited from discussing the contents of that memo because of its high classification level. A similar document provided last month to the office of Sen. Kelly Ayotte (R-N.H.), a vocal opponent of Obama’s Guantanamo policy, was so highly classified that even her staff members with a top-secret clearance level were unable to read it.

“There appears to be a consistent and concerted effort by the Administration to prevent Americans from knowing the truth regarding the terrorist activities and affiliations of past and present Guantanamo detainees,” Ayotte wrote in a letter to Obama this week, urging him to declassify information about how many U.S. and NATO personnel have been killed by former detainees.

Rep. Edward R. Royce (R-Calif.), who chairs the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has also written legislation that would require greater transparency surrounding the transfer of Guantanamo detainees.

Royce and Ayotte are among the lawmakers who opposed a road map for closing the prison that the White House submitted to Congress earlier this year. That plan would require moving some detainees to U.S. prisons and resettling the rest overseas.

“The administration is releasing dangerous terrorists to countries that can’t control them, and misleading Congress in the process,” Royce said in a statement. “The president should halt detainee transfers immediately and be honest with the American people.”

Just under 700 detainees have been released from Guantanamo since the prison opened in 2002; 80 inmates remain.

Secrecy about the top-security prison, perched on an inaccessible corner of Cuba, is nothing new. The Bush administration for years refused to provide a roster of detainees until it was forced to do so in a Freedom of Information Act case in 2006. To this day, reporters have never been able to visit Camp 7, a classified facility that holds 14 high-value detainees, including the five men on trial for organizing the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

Both the Bush and Obama administrations have provided only limited information on current and former detainees; most of what the public knows about them comes from defense lawyers or from documents released by WikiLeaks.

According to a 2012 report from the House Armed Services Committee, the Defense Intelligence Agency ended the practice of naming some suspected recidivists in 2009 when officials became concerned that it would endanger sources and methods.

National Security Council spokesman Myles Caggins said it was difficult to discuss specific cases in detail because the information was classified.

“But, again, we are committed to being forthcoming with the American people about our safe and responsible approach to Guantanamo detainee transfers, including about possible detainee re-engagement in terrorist activities,” he said.

One Republican aide who has reviewed the classified material about the attacks on Americans said the information has been “grossly overclassified.”

Administration officials say that recidivism rates for released Guantanamo inmates remain far lower than those for federal offenders. According to a recent study, almost half of all federal offenders released in 2005 were “rearrested for a new crime or rearrested for a violation of supervision conditions.” Among former Guantanamo detainees, the total number of released detainees who are suspected or confirmed of reengaging is about 30 percent, according to U.S. intelligence.

Nearly 21 percent of those released prior to 2009 have reengaged in militancy, officials say, compared with about 4.5 percent of the 158 released by Obama.

Human rights activists say the statistics are suspect and cannot be verified because the administration provides almost no information about whom it is counting and why.

Most of those suspected of re-engagement are Afghan, reflecting the large numbers of Afghans detained after the Sept. 11 attacks and the ongoing war there. More than 200 Afghan prisoners have been repatriated from the prison.

Officials declined to identify the woman killed in Afghanistan in 2008. But there are two female aid workers killed that year who might fit the description.

Cydney Mizell, a 50-year-old employee of the Asian Rural Life Development Foundation, was abducted in Kandahar as she drove to work. Her body was never recovered, according to a former colleague who said he was told about a month later that she had died.

Another woman, Nicole Dial, 30, a Trinidadian American who worked for the International Rescue Committee, was shot and killed the same year south of Kabul, along with two colleagues.

Relatives of Mizell and Dial said they have not been in touch with the FBI for years. Dial’s brother said he was unaware of a former Guantanamo detainee being involved in his sister’s killing.

Mizell’s stepmother said she was never told the exact circumstances of her daughter’s death or who abducted her.

“She was definitely killed,” Peggy Mizell said. “I figured she was shot.”