Hey Barcelona, ISIS Threatens Again

Posted on August 24, 2017August 24, 2017 by Denise Simon

New video message from The Islamic State: “The First Rain: The Raid of Barcelona – Wilāyat al-Khayr”

el Pais: A week after terrorist attacks in Catalonia which left 15 people dead and over 100 injured, the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) has released a video online warning of more attacks in Spain.

In the video two jihadists can be heard speaking Spanish with an Arabic accent and proclaiming: “Allah willing, Al Andalus will become once again what it was, part of the caliphate.” Al Andalus was the name given to the territory of southern and central Spain controlled for more than five centuries by Muslims.

“If you can’t make the hegira (journey or exodus) to the Islamic State, carry out jihad where you are; jihad doesn’t have borders,” says one of the men in the video whose face is uncovered and who is identified by a video title as Abu Lais Al Qurdubi, or Abu Lais “of Cordoba,” the southern Spanish city that was the capital of Al Andalus.

Later, the jihadist adds: “Spanish Christians: don’t forget the Muslim blood spilled during the Spanish inquisition. We will take revenge for your massacre, the one you are carrying out now against the Islamic State.”

According to police sources, the individual speaking is 22-year-old Muhammad Yasin Ahram Pérez from Cordoba. His father, the Moroccan Abdelah Ahram, 42, is currently in prison in Tangier for his active role in radical jihadism.

His mother Tomasa Pérez, from a Catholic family in Malaga, met Ahram in 1984. In 2014, she left Spain with her six children, including Muhammad, the oldest sibling, to go to Syria and live in territory controlled by the Islamic State.

The name of the other participant in the video is given as Abu Salman Al Andalus (Abu Salman ‘of Andalusia). His face is covered and only his eyes can be seen. He has a rifle on his shoulder.

“We hope that Allah accepts the sacrifice of our brothers in Barcelona. Our war with you will continue until the world ends,” he says.

The jihadist group ISIS declared a worldwide caliphate in 2014 with ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi named as the caliph, or leader of all Muslims worldwide. However, this declaration has been rejected by mainstream Muslims while ISIS has been designated a terrorist organization by the United Nations and many individual countries.

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More on background:

MADRID/ AP

Spanish authorities shared information with Belgium more than a year ago about the alleged cell leader in last week’s Spain attacks, but didn’t have any details at the time to indicate he was dangerous, officials said Thursday.

Abdelbaki Es Satty, an imam who is blamed for recruiting young Muslims in a Catalan town to commit attacks in Barcelona, had served a four-year prison term for drug trafficking in 2012 and had been questioned as early as 2006 in a national police operation against jihadism.

But the Catalan police officer who answered an informal request of information from Belgium in early 2016 didn’t have the complete records on Es Satty, according to the remarks by high ranking police and government officials in Catalonia and interviews conducted by The Associated Press.

The chief of the Interior department in the Catalan regional government, Joaquim Forn, acknowledged Thursday that Belgian police in Vilvoorde made an informal request for information on the imam in 2016, when Es Satty spent three months in the city known for Islamic State group recruiting.

Forn said police gave their Belgian counterparts what they had but at no point had anyone told them Es Satty had been investigated or was dangerous. The exchange was described by another Catalan official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss an informal conversation between two police officers.

Es Satty was one of two suspects that died in a blast at a house in Alcanar on Aug. 16 which disrupted the cell’s plan to set off bombs at high-profile targets in Barcelona.

Following the explosion, other members of the cell carried out attacks with vehicles and knives as weapons on Aug. 17-18 that left 15 dead and more than 120 injured.

Police confirmed on Thursday the identity of the second body found in the house used as an explosives workshop as that of Youssef Aalla. One suspect survived the blast and has been jailed.

A National Court judge also released Salh El Karib, one of the four suspects arrested in the wake of the attacks, because of a lack of evidence that the cybercafe worker was part of the plot.

El Karib lived in Ripoll, the town where the extremist cell was allegedly formed. He used his credit card to purchase plane tickets for another suspect in the case, according to court documents released Thursday. He was reimbursed in cash and was paid an additional 5 euros ($6), the documents said.

The judge saw insufficient evidence to keep him in police custody and ordered his release requiring him to stay in Spain and show up in court once a week while the investigation is open.

Judge Fernando Andreu also freed under similar restrictions another of the suspects Tuesday, once again for lacking proof of his involvement, and sent to jail the other two people arrested after hearing their testimony.

Eight more people connected to the attacks are dead, six of them shot by police.

While the investigation continues and expands beyond Spain’s borders, new revelations on Thursday raised questions about the level of coordination and intelligence sharing between different security forces and departments in Spain.

Both Civil Guard and National Police in Spain are formally in charge of counterterrorism work and have accumulated experience after decades of fighting Basque militants and religious extremism, but Catalonia’s Mossos d’Esquadra regional force has led the response and initial investigation into last week’s attacks in their operational area.

Catalonia, the northeastern region where separatist sentiment runs high, is currently ruled by a coalition of parties that are openly seeking the region’s independence from Spain.

The regional government has bowed to push ahead with a referendum on the issue on Oct. 1 despite the vote being unconstitutional under Spanish laws.

The Mossos’ work has so far won widespread praise, especially in Catalonia. Although the central government and the national law enforcement agencies have publicly acknowledged the Mossos’ success, some officers’ unions have publicly complained about how being excluded from the response and investigation led to missing valuable input.

An officer who leads an independent group of police agents who spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity said that Civil Guard’s experts on explosives would have been key to assess what the cell was doing when their bomb workshop exploded.

Two of the main unions, the Civil Guard’s AUGC and National Police’s SUP, went even further earlier this week by openly criticizing authorities in a joint statement and saying that the decision to sideline them was aimed at “transmitting an image overseas of a ‘self-sufficient’ Catalan state.”

The events highlight “a deficient functioning of communication” between police forces because authorities in Catalonia didn’t have information on a 2007 National Police investigation into a jihadi cell where Es Satty’s name had appeared, their statement says.

“It is evident that if somebody would have alerted us, we would have acted in a different way,” Forns told reporters on Thursday in response to criticism.

Also this week, justice officials revealed that the imam had won an appeal for showing good behavior against an expulsion order handed down in 2015, right after he served time in prison for drug trafficking.

The Valencia local court upheld Es Satty’s appeal because he had found a job and showed determination to re-integrate into society. More here.

Back in School, But is it Really About Education

Posted on August 23, 2017August 23, 2017 by Denise Simon

Children of all grades are being dropped off by parents, are walking in groups to school or you can find them at bus stops where a parent keeps a watchful eye until that big yellow thing on wheels shows up.

Another year of Federally managed education where school choice is a fragmented option in systems across the country while other counties are teaching CommonCore or International Baccalaureate. Other schools have failing systems with regard to meeting grade standards yet still other locations are just financially broke due to teacher unions like the Illinois system. The debate continues on homeschooling, charter schools, parochial systems, private systems of religious/church bases education centers, as to which is best for independent students and choices.

Try this video to grab your attention:

Visiting the Federal government website for education we see this:

Overview and Mission Statement

ED’s mission is to promote student achievement and preparation for global competitiveness by fostering educational excellence and ensuring equal access.

ED was created in 1980 by combining offices from several federal agencies. ED’s 4,400 employees and $68 billion budget are dedicated to:

Establishing policies on federal financial aid for education, and distributing as well as monitoring those funds.

Collecting data on America’s schools and disseminating research.

Focusing national attention on key educational issues.

Prohibiting discrimination and ensuring equal access to education.

Government agencies are assigned an inspector general to audit those departments for compliance. There is no recent report from the IG except one in 2014 that reviewed financial matters, data compliance and accounting systems.

While performing financial audits is laudable, reviews must be performed on the educators themselves, the student performance and reviews of textbooks and the syllabus. Exactly who is teaching your child or grandchild, what are they teaching and how is it taught?

How many foreign students are in your local system that require countless accommodations including translators? How is the affecting pace and subject delivery?

The chatter regarding education seems to circle around the notion of ‘school choice’ but what is the definition of that term? What is the menu of choices and does that menu have any valuable affect on the students’ quality of education?

Open house is a new school year event where parents or guardians meet the teachers, walk the halls of the building for orientation and talk about the plans for the school year. Sounds wonderful unless tangible answers and compliance are realized. Oh yeah, there are all kinds of fees that need to be paid for ridiculous items including parking, school supply funds, meal tickets, technology usage, medical supplies and library systems to mention a few.

What about school safety and access to non-school related visitors? What about after school activities and class size? Is there really a teacher with certification heading the class or is there some intern or teaching assistant?

Parents and students are in a permission society when it comes to education, meaning can my student participate in an advanced curriculum or is there additional help for reading or algebra?

Schools across the country have been adapting to social pressures rather than just structure and teaching.

Pew Research posted an academic fact sheet in February of 2017 showing in part the following:

One of the biggest cross-national tests is the Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), which every three years measures reading ability, math and science literacy and other key skills among 15-year-olds in dozens of developed and developing countries. The most recent PISA results, from 2015, placed the U.S. an unimpressive 38th out of 71 countries in math and 24th in science. Among the 35 members of the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which sponsors the PISA initiative, the U.S. ranked 30th in math and 19th in science. Go here for more details.

Quality academics in all grades requires attention by parents and guardians and for that matter all property taxpayers. It is the single most important investment in the future of this great nation and cannot be hijacked by special interest groups, unions or local politicians.

Have you volunteered at the local school? Have you asked the right questions? Do you even know the principal’s name?

Italian Mafia Running Libyan Migrant Operation(s)

Posted on August 23, 2017August 23, 2017 by Denise Simon

Question is this: Is the Mafia trying to save Italy from the migrant crisis or could they be exploiting the crisis coming out of Libya?

A newly formed militia may be the reason why the number of migrants arriving in Italy from Libya has plummeted over the past month.

Sources told Reuters a “former mafia boss” is leading a group of several hundred policemen, army officials and civilians as part of a “very strong campaign” to stop boats taking off from Sabratha, an ancient city 45 miles west of Libya’s capital, Tripoli.

The number of arrivals in Italy has dropped by more than 50 per cent since mid-July in what is usually a surge period, when smugglers encourage Mediterranean crossings before winter approaches and the sea gets rougher.

Dawn

Since 2015, Sabratha has been the most regular departure point for migrants and refugees attempting to reach Europe.

Migrants coming from across Africa told The Independent they usually pay smugglers between $1,700 (£1,300) and $2,200 (£1,700) for the dangerous sea journey from Libya to Italy. However, many are captured by militias inside Libya, some of whom hold them hostage while demanding more money from their families.

A recent report by British charity Oxfam found that 84 percent of refugees and migrants who have come through Libya suffered inhuman or degrading treatment, extreme violence or torture there. Some 80 percent were regularly denied food and water, while 70 percent said they had been tied up.

A 2016 UN report documented sexual abuse, beatings, forced labour and malnutrition inside Libyan immigration detention centres. More here.

ISIS Accused of Beheading 11 in Libya as Jihadis’ Strength Grows in North Africa

At least 11 people have been beheaded in southern Libya following an attack apparently carried out by the Islamic State militant group (ISIS).

Nine fighters loyal to the Libyan National Army (LNA), the force aligned with Libya’s eastern government, and two civilians were executed following an assault on a checkpoint 300 miles south of the Libyan capital, Tripoli, in Jufra.

No group has claimed responsibility for the killings, but according to Agence France-Presse, LNA spokesman Colonel Ahmed al-Mesmari, ISIS carried out the gruesome attack.

The onslaught against the LNA forces, under the command of Gaddafi-era General Khalifa Haftar, comes as Libyan military sources warn ISIS is regrouping following catastrophic defeats in December 2016.

Related: African migrants smuggled into Libya sold at ‘Modern-Day Slave Markets’

The Times of London reported there were now believed to be 1,000 ISIS fighters in Libya. While the number is a fraction of the 6,000 said to be present in the country when ISIS was in its ascendency in Libya in 2015, the militants are said to be expanding.

Forces loyal to Tripoli’s western government, which ousted ISIS from its stronghold of Sirte in December 2016, have said the jihadis are attempting to regroup to the southwest of the city, close to the scene of the beheadings.

“They are looking for a new haven in the central region, the number is increasing bit by bit by the hundreds,” a spokesman for the anti-ISIS forces said.

An armed motorcade belonging to ISIS drives along a road in Derna, in eastern Libya, October 3, 2014. ISIS is accused of beheading 11 prisoners in the desert south of Tripoli. Reuters

Following ISIS’ defeat in Sirte, the U.S. military said it killed more than 80 militant fighters in air strikes. Among those killed were said to be individuals plotting attacks in Europe.

In 2014, at the start of Libya’s civil war, widespread anarchy in Libya provided a breeding ground for ISIS and allowed the black market trade in guns, petrol and people to flourish in the North African nation.

Similar conditions now continue in Libya’s lawless south, where forces loyal to the eastern and western governments trade territory in sporadic fighting.

In June, the LNA seized key strategic positions in Jufra from opposing forces, the Benghazi Defense Brigades coalition. The group, some of whose forces have been aligned with Al-Qaeda in the past, includes a wide variety of Islamists with competing allegiances.

Spain Terrorists Captured Killed, and Spain’s History

Posted on August 21, 2017August 21, 2017 by Denise Simon

SUBIRATS, Spain (Reuters) – Spanish police on Monday shot dead an Islamist militant who killed 13 people with a van in Barcelona last week, ending a five-day manhunt for the perpetrator of Spain’s deadliest attack in over a decade.

Police said they tracked 22-year-old Younes Abouyaaqoub to a rural area near Barcelona and shot him after he held up what looked like an explosives belt and shouted “Allahu Akbar” (God is Greatest). The bomb squad used a robot to approach his body.

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*** Meanwhile…

al Qaeda and the Spanish Taliban have real history in Spain where even some planning for the 9/11 attack also took place in addition to Hamburg, Germany. Further, a previously released Gitmo detainee has been arrested in 2014 in Spain. See more here.

Spain has a long history of militant Islam just as noted as the many arrests in 2015. Yet it appears these are intermittent events and they are causes for concern not only for Europe due to the Schengen agreement but the United States due to the visa waiver program.

Al-Andalus, which means, “to become green at the end of the summer” is referred to the territory occupied by the Muslim empire in Southern Spain, which refer to the cities of Almeria, Malaga, Cadiz, Huelva, Seville, Cordoba, Jaen and Granada.

For the Arab world, Spain, or at least the romanticized and nostalgic image of Al-Andalus, is still a concept to conjure with.[3] The great liberal Syrian writer Abdel Salam Al-Ujayli (ironically, from a prominent family in the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa) dealt with this theme in his evocative and sympathetic story “The Lanterns of Seville” (1954).[4] Much of the narrative is about an idealized past being lost and this as part of a larger decline. In this sense, the lament is as much or more about “the Muslims” than about Spain itself. This is a common theme. In 2014, the commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC), Qasim Suleimani, listed the decline of the Muslim world as beginning with the fall of Muslim Spain.[5]

Other echoes of Al-Andalus are more subtle or diplomatic. In 1997, the Saudi ruling family built a massive white mosque at the foot of the great cliff of Gibraltar (Gibraltar is named, of course, for the conqueror of Al-Andalus, Tariq Ibn Ziyad, and so Gibraltar is “Tariq’s Mountain”) in the British Overseas Territory of the same name. The December 22, 1997 account in Al-‘Alam Al-Islami, published by the Muslim World League and translated by MEMRI, is surprisingly straightforward. It is mostly a historical account of the struggle for supremacy of the site between the Muslims, the Spanish and later, the English, but noting that “the flag of Islam waved high in the Iberian Peninsula, for eight centuries of glory, culture, thought and science.” There is little or no whining, special pleading, or loaded language.

But much more common is the idea that the loss of Spain is an historic wrong that must be erased by violence. Salafi-jihadis from Osama bin Ladin to ISIS fighters in North Africa have frequently made this point. “Let the whole world know that we will never accept that the tragedy of Al-Andalus would be repeated,” was a sentence used by bin Ladin in October 2001 in a video message after the September 11 attacks.[6] In 2013, the Taliban called for reconquering Spain, accusing the infidel West of having “alienated Muslims from their glorious history.”[7] Urdu-speaking jihadis compared the loss of Kashmir to that of Al-Andalus.[8]

The official media arm of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) official media arm is called Al-Andalus.[9] Launched in 2009, the name was intentionally chosen “because it is the Muslims’ lost paradise.” AQIM justified the name by quoting seminal jihadist activist and founder of Al-Qaeda, Dr. Abdullah Al-Azzam, as saying, “Jihad has been an individual obligation since 1492, when Granada fell to the infidels – the Christians – and is to this day. And jihad will remain an individual obligation until we restore every bit of land that was once Islamic to the lands of Islam and to the Muslims.”[10] In another dispatch from 2007, AQIM called Spain “the stolen land.”[11]

Read much more here of the excellent summary by MEMRI

N. Korea’s Chemical Weapons to Syria Intercepted

Posted on August 21, 2017August 21, 2017 by Denise Simon

Under Barack Obama, an Executive Order was signed in 2015, adding sanctions to entities in North Korea. One such sanction was on KOMID:

Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation (KOMID): KOMID is North Korea’s primary arms dealer and main exporter of goods and equipment related to ballistic missiles and conventional weapons. KOMID, a North Korean state-owned entity, was previously listed in the annex to E.O. 13382 on July 1, 2005 for its role in North Korea’s proliferation of weapons of mass destruction. It was also sanctioned by the United Nations in April 2009. KOMID has offices in multiple countries around the world and facilitates weapons sales for the North Korean government.(Note this does specifically not mention chemical weapons but rather weapons of mass destruction)

Further there is Burma: the head of Burma’s Directorate of Defense Industries (DDI), Thein Htay, remains on the SDN list for arms deals with North Korea–presumably through KOMID which facilitates arms sales for North Korea. Several companies in Burma also are sanctioned for facilitating the import of materials to DDI from North Korea.

Additionally, KOMID is complicit with evidence here: Reportedly has assisted Syria in producing weapons, including reverse-engineered versions of the Kornet anti-tank guided missile originally supplied to Syria by Russia; in 2009, reportedly sought to procure equipment for transporter erector launchers (TELs) for Scud missiles intended for a ballistic missile project in Yemen; in 2008, reportedly sought, in cooperation with China-based New East International Trading Ltd., to transfer three Japanese-origin cylindrical grinding machines to Burma using false end-use statements; in 1999, reportedly supplied 12 missile engines to Iran. More here.

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Now the United Nations has this additional report:

UNITED NATIONS (Reuters) – Two North Korean shipments to a Syrian government agency responsible for the country’s chemical weapons program were intercepted in the past six months, according to a confidential United Nations report on North Korea sanctions violations.

The report by a panel of independent U.N. experts, which was submitted to the U.N. Security Council earlier this month and seen by Reuters on Monday, gave no details on when or where the interdictions occurred or what the shipments contained.

“The panel is investigating reported prohibited chemical, ballistic missile and conventional arms cooperation between Syria and the DPRK (North Korea),” the experts wrote in the 37-page report.

“Two member states interdicted shipments destined for Syria. Another Member state informed the panel that it had reasons to believe that the goods were part of a KOMID contract with Syria,” according to the report.

KOMID is the Korea Mining Development Trading Corporation. It was blacklisted by the Security Council in 2009 and described as Pyongyang’s key arms dealer and exporter of equipment related to ballistic missiles and conventional weapons. In March 2016 the council also blacklisted two KOMID representatives in Syria.

“The consignees were Syrian entities designated by the European Union and the United States as front companies for Syria’s Scientific Studies and Research Centre (SSRC), a Syrian entity identified by the Panel as cooperating with KOMID in previous prohibited item transfers,” the U.N. experts wrote.

SSRC has overseen the country’s chemical weapons program since the 1970s.

The U.N. experts said activities between Syria and North Korea they were investigating included cooperation on Syrian Scud missile programs and maintenance and repair of Syrian surface-to-air missiles air defense systems.

The North Korean and Syrian missions to the United Nations did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

The experts said they were also investigating the use of the VX nerve agent in Malaysia to kill the estranged half-brother of North Korea’s leader Kim Jong Un in February.

North Korea has been under U.N. sanctions since 2006 over its ballistic missile and nuclear programs and the Security Council has ratcheted up the measures in response to five nuclear weapons tests and four long-range missile launches.

Syria agreed to destroy its chemical weapons in 2013 under a deal brokered by Russia and the United States. However, diplomats and weapons inspectors suspect Syria may have secretly maintained or developed a new chemical weapons capability.

During the country’s more than six-year long civil war the Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons has said the banned nerve agent sarin has been used at least twice, while the use of chlorine as a weapon has been widespread. The Syrian government has repeatedly denied using chemical weapons.