Brits Stop Sharing Intelligence with U.S. Due to Leaks

Didsbury Mosque, where the Abedi family worshiped. Credit – Associated Press.

“And other loose ends reported from the investigation include German magazine, Focus, which “reported that British police informed their German counterparts that Abedi had received paramilitary training in Syria,” AP writes. “It also said he passed through Duesseldorf airport four days before the concert attack. Citing unnamed federal security sources, Focus reported that Salman Abedi twice flew from a German airport in recent years and wasn’t on any international watch list…Focus reported that German authorities are now trying to determine whether Abedi had contact with Islamic extremists in Germany before flying to Manchester last week. It says he previously flew from Frankfurt to Britain in 2015.”

(Another item of note in the text below, the Didsbury mosque, is part of the global network of the Muslim Brotherhood)

The British government operated an “open door” policy that allowed Libyan exiles and British-Libyan citizens to join the 2011 uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi even though some had been subject to counter-terrorism control orders, Middle East Eye can reveal.

Several former rebel fighters now back in the UK told MEE that they had been able to travel to Libya with “no questions asked” as authorities continued to investigate the background of a British-Libyan suicide bomber who killed 22 people in Monday’s attack in Manchester. More here.

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UK police find ‘significant’ evidence; May slams US on leaks

MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Home searches across Manchester and beyond have uncovered important items in a fast-moving investigation into the concert bombing that left 22 people dead, Manchester’s police chief said Thursday as a diplomatic spat escalated over U.S. leaks about the investigation to the media.

Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Ian Hopkins told reporters the eight suspects detained so far are “significant” arrests, and “initial searches of premises have revealed items that we believe are very important to the investigation.”

A retired intelligence officer says any move by the United Kingdom to stop intelligence information sharing with the United States would be “suicidal.” Bob Ayers tells the AP the UK receives more information from the US than it provides. (May 25)

He did not elaborate, but those arrests around the northwestern English city include Ismail Abedi, the brother of 22-year-old Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi. The bomber’s father Ramadan Abedi and another brother Hashim have been detained in Libya.

As police raced to uncover the network that may have helped Abedi attack an Ariana Grande concert on Monday night, furious British officials blamed U.S. authorities Thursday for leaking details of the investigation to the media.

One British official told The Associated Press that police in Manchester have stopped sharing information about their bombing investigation with the U.S. until they get a guarantee that there will be no more leaks to the media. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.

British Prime Minister Theresa May said she would discuss the leaks with President Donald Trump at a NATO summit. Upon her arrival in Brussels, May said the U.S.-British defense and security partnership is built on trust.

But she said “part of that trust is knowing that intelligence can be shared confidently.”

British officials are particularly angry that photos detailing evidence about the bomb were published in The New York Times, although it’s not clear that the paper obtained the photos from U.S. officials.

British security services are also upset that Abedi’s name was apparently leaked by U.S. officials while British police were withholding it — and while raids were underway in Manchester and in Libya, where the bomber’s father lives.

Hopkins, the Manchester police chief, said the leaks had “caused much distress for families that are already suffering terribly with their loss.”

Trump on Thursday pledged to “get to the bottom” of leaks of sensitive information, calling the leaks “deeply troubling.” He said he is asking the Justice Department and other agencies to “launch a complete review of this matter.”

The New York Times defended its publication of crime-scene photographs, saying its coverage had been “both comprehensive and responsible.”

“The images and information presented were neither graphic nor disrespectful of victims, and consistent with the common line of reporting on weapons used in horrific crimes,” the paper said.

May said the national threat level from terrorism remains at critical — the highest level, meaning that another attack may be imminent. Hun dreds of soldiers have replaced police protecting high-profile sites including Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament in London.

“The public should remain vigilant,” May said.

Around the country, many people fell silent and bowed their heads at 11 a.m. for a minute in tribute to the bombing victims.

In Manchester’s St. Ann’s Square, where a sea of floral tributes grows by the hour, a crowd sang “Don’t Look Back in Anger” — a song by the Manchester band Oasis.

Queen Elizabeth II visited Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital on Thursday to talk to some of the victims, their families and medical staff.

“It’s dreadful. Very wicked, to target that sort of thing,” the 91-year-old monarch told 14-year-old Evie Mills and her parents.

Fifteen-year-old Millie Robson, wearing an Ariana Grande T-shirt, told the queen she had won VIP tickets to the pop star’s concert. She was leaving concert when the blast struck, remembering an intense ringing but not entirely aware that she was bleeding badly from her legs.

She credited her dad’s quick action in picking her up and tying off her wounds to stem the bleeding.

“I have a few like holes in my legs and stuff and I have a bit of a cut, and my arm and just a bit here, but compared to other people I’m quite lucky really,” she said.

In addition to those killed, 116 people received medical treatment at Manchester hospitals for wounds from the blast. The National Health Service said 75 people had been hospitalized.

In Berlin, former U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel sent a message of solidarity to the Manchester bombing victims.

“(This is) a reminder that there is great danger and terrorism and people who would do great harm to others just because they’re different,” Obama said.

Investigators are chasing Abedi’s potential links with jihadi militants in Manchester, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. The bomber himself died in the attack.

France’s interior minister says Abedi was believed to have travelled to Syria, and U.S. Rep. Mike McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he was part of “a cell of ISIS-inspired terrorists.”

Investigators are trying to find whether Abedi knew several Manchester-based jihadis, including Libyan man Abdalraouf Abdallah, who was jailed in the U.K. for terror offenses, and Raphael Hostey, an IS recruiter killed in Syria.

Investigators are also looking into the Abedi family’s ties in Libya. Abedi’s father Ramadan was allegedly a member of the al-Qaida-backed Libyan Isl amic Fighting group in the 1990s — a claim he denies.

Manchester is home to one of Britain’s largest Libyan communities. Mohammed Fadl, a community leader, said the Abedi family is well known, but Salman did not attend many gatherings.

“Very few people in the community here were close to him and therefore Salman’s fanaticism wasn’t something the community was aware of,” he told the AP.

He said he had heard that Salman’s father took his son’s passport away amid concerns about his close ties to alleged extre mists and criminals.

Authorities are investigating whether Abedi could have been stopped, after Libyan community members in Manchester reported concerns about his views.

Akram Ramadan said Salman Abedi had been banned from Manchester’s Didsbury Mosque, one of the largest in the city.

“There was a sermon about anti-Daesh (IS) and he stood up and started calling the Imam — ’You are talking bollocks,’” Ramadan said. “And he gave a good stare, a threatening stare into the Imam’s eyes … he was banned.”

Fadl, the community leader, disputed that account and the bomber’s father insisted Wednesday in an interview with the AP that Salman had no links to militants, saying “we don’t believe in killing innocents.”

Abedi had been in Libya in the weeks before the attack, and German magazine Focus, citing unnamed federal security source, reported that he passed through Duesseldorf airport four days before the bombing.

A German security official told the AP on Thursday the report was accurate, speaking on condition of a nonymity because the information hadn’t been cleared for public release.

On the artistic front, Grande cancelled concerts that were to take place Thursday and Friday in London, and in several other sites in Europe. Next week’s premiere of the film “The Mummy” in London was also canceled.

State Dept. Spent $22.8 Mil to Resettle Muslim Refugees

A short list of VOLAGS  Image result for refugee resettlement

Church World Service (CWS)Visit disclaimer page

How lucrative is the resettlement business? Check out the summary document here.

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State Dept. Redacts Big Chunks of $22.8 Mil Contract to Resettle Muslim Refugees

The U.S. government spends billions of dollars to “resettle” foreign nationals and transparency on how the money is spent depends on the agency involved. Judicial Watch has been investigating it for years, specifically the huge amount of taxpayer dollars that go to “voluntary agencies”, known as VOLAGs, to provide a wide range of services for the new arrivals.

Throughout the ongoing probe Judicial Watch has found a striking difference on how government lawyers use an exemption, officially known as (b)(4), to the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) to withhold records. All the cases involve public funds being used to resettle foreigners on U.S. soil and Americans should be entitled to the records.

The (b)(4) exemption permits agencies to withhold trade secrets and commercial or financial information obtained from a person which is privileged or confidential. Depending on the government agency and the mood of the taxpayer-funded lawyers handling public records requests, that information is exempt from disclosure. In these cases, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) disclosed a VOLAG contract to resettle tens of thousands of Unaccompanied Alien Children (UAC) that entered the U.S. through Mexico under the Obama administration while the State Department withheld large portions of a one-year, $22.8 million deal to resettle refugees from Muslim countries.

Most of the UACs came from El Salvador, Honduras and Guatemala and the Obama administration blamed the sudden surge on violence in the three central American nations. The agency responsible for resettling the minors and issuing contracts for the costly services is HHS.

As a result of Judicial Watch’s work HHS furnished records with virtually nothing redacted. Disclosed were employee salaries of VOLAGs contracted by the agency to provide services for the illegal immigrant minors, the cost of laptops, big screen TVs, food, pregnancy tests, “multicultural crayons” and shower stalls for the new arrivals. The general contract was to provide “basic shelter care” for 2,400 minors for a period of four months in 2014. This cost American taxpayers an astounding $182,129,786 and the VOLAG contracted to do it was government regular called Baptist Children and Family Services (BCFS). The breakdown includes charges of $104,215,608 for UACs at Fort Sill, Oklahoma and an additional $77,914,178 for UACs at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas.

HHS rightfully provided all sorts of details in the records, including the cost of emergency surge beds ($104,215,608) for just four months; food for the illegal alien minors and staff ($18,198,000); medical supplies such as first aid kits, latex gloves, lice shampoo and pregnancy tests ($1,120,400); recreation items such as board games, soccer balls and jump ropes ($180,000); educational items like art paper and multicultural crayons ($180,000); laptops ($200,000) and cellphones ($160,000). Hotel accommodations for the BCFS staff was $6,765,000, the records show, and the salary for a 30-member “Incident Management Team” was $2,648,800, which breaks down to $88,293 per IMT member for the four-month period. It was outrageous that the Obama administration spent nearly $200 million of taxpayer funds to provide illegal alien children with the types of extravagant high-tech equipment and lavish benefits many American families cannot even afford for their own children.

This has become a heated issue for the government which may explain why other agencies aren’t as forthcoming in providing specific figures, thus abusing the (b)(4) exemption. The State Department, for instance, redacted huge portions of records involving contracts with VOLAGs to resettle refugees from mostly Muslim countries.

The files illustrate the disparate redaction treatment given by different government agencies to the same types of records. The State Department paid a VOLAG called United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) a ghastly $22,838,173 in one year to resettle refugees that came mostly from Muslim countries. Unlike HHS, the agency redacted information related to what the USCCB charged the government for things like furniture, personnel, equipment and other costs associated with contracts to resettle refugees. Why did one government agency hand over the same types of records that another agency claims are trade secrets? Judicial Watch is challenging the State Department’s (b)(4) exemption and will provide updates as they become available.

HHS and the State Department work with nine VOLAGs to resettle refugees and the voluntary agencies have hundreds of contractors they like to call “affiliates.” It’s a huge racket that costs American taxpayers monstrous sums and Judicial Watch is working to pinpoint the exact amount. Besides BCFS and USCCB, other VOLAGs with lucrative government gigs to resettle refugees are: Church World Service, Ethiopian Community Development Council, Episcopal Migration Ministries, Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, International Rescue Committee, U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, Lutheran Immigration Refugee Services and World Relief Corporation.

Manchester Bomb Suspect, Got Training with AQ in Libya

Sure Salmen Abedi was on the watch list of intelligence professionals and law enforcement. Why, his parents reported him. The family immigrated from Libya to the UK where Abedi was born in England.

Abedi was born in Manchester — the second youngest of four children. His parents fled Libya during Moammar Khadafy’s regime, first moving to London in 1994 before settling in Manchester. Police raided an address in the southern Manchester neighborhood Tuesday and detonated a controlled explosion. More here from NYDailyNews.

Salman Abedi was identified as the Manchester suicide bomber on Tuesday. Handout

MANCHESTER, England — Salman Abedi, the 22-year-old British man believed to have killed 22 people in a suicide-bomb attack, had ties to al Qaeda and had received terrorist training abroad, a U.S. intelligence official told NBC News on Tuesday as the United Kingdom raised its terrorist threat level to the highest category.

The U.S. intelligence official, who has direct knowledge of the investigation, said Abedi, whose family is of Libyan descent, was identified by a bank card found in his pocket at the scene of the explosion after an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena. The identification was confirmed by facial recognition technology, the official said.

Abedi had traveled to Libya within the last 12 months, one of multiple countries he had visited, the official said. While he had “clear ties to al Qaeda,” the official said, Abedi could have had connections to other groups.

Members of his own family had even informed on him in the past, telling British authorities that he was dangerous, according to the intelligence official.

*** ISIS claimed responsibility publishing the notion that he was a foot soldier, but that is not so true. He was more connected to al Qaeda, yet the terror operations are for the most part the same.

A spokesman for the University of Salford in Manchester told NBC News that Abedi enrolled there to study business management in September 2015. He re-enrolled last September, but he hadn’t attended classes for several months, the spokesman said.

ISIS has claimed credit for the deadly attack, but so far neither British nor U.S. authorities have been able to link Abedi to the fanatical Islamic organization, which has inspired other lethal terrorist attacks in Europe.

Abedi, however, was known to British police and intelligence services, government sources told NBC News.

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Abedi was from the Whalley Range area of Manchester, a town with a long history, dating back to the 1830’s. In 2011, the most recent census report showed the town had a population of 20,000. There are 42 mosques in the Manchester area. Does that seem rather excessive for the size of the population?

 

Philippines Declares Martial Law, Duterte’s call with Trump Transcripts

Philippines: Martial law declared as Islamic State jihadis storm city and battle national army

In Mindanao. This is a global war, and of the most curious type imaginable: no one in authority wants to admit that it is actually going on, and Western governments generally treat each enemy attack in this war as a separate and discrete criminal incident.

“Philippines soldiers battle Isis-linked gunmen on Marawi city streets,” by Gabriel Samuels, Independent, May 23, 2017:

A group of heavily-armed militants from a group linked to Isis have reportedly stormed a city in the Philippines and engaged in firefights with the national army.

Residents of Marawi City, in the south of the country, were urged to remain indoors as at least 15 gunmen from a Muslim rebel group called Maute stormed the streets brandishing assault rifles.

The group, which is also known as the Islamic State of Lanao, have reportedly received support from Isis.

Troops and a special police force were deployed to the city after residents in a nearby village raised the alarm and appealed for help.

President Rodrigo Duterte then declared martial law and a state of emergency in the province of Mindano [sic]. General Eduardo Ano, the military chief of staff, said at least one police officer was killed and eight soldiers were wounded in the fighting.  More here.

***

It was enormously controversial that President Trump placed a friendly call to Philippine strongman Duterte on April 29. Now, we can read what they said. In short, Duterte has been on a killing rampage and frankly has called the United States all kinds of nasty names. Humm…. Then there was the part of the phone call that included North Korea’s nuclear program.

Read all about it with the transcripts here.

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Duterte Lands in Russia for Visit Cut Short After Martial Law Declaration

Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte has landed in Russia for what was planned as an extensive visit including one-on-one talks with President Vladimir Putin, but the trip has been cut short following a jihadist attack in the Philippine’s south.

Breitbart: Duterte alluded to this trip as the month began, following a personal invitation to the White House, saying he could not confirm travel to America because he is “supposed to go to Russia.”

Duterte arrived in Moscow Monday night for a four-day visit, accompanied by a large Filipino business delegation. While Duterte will seek more Russian business investment in his country, a key objective of his visit will be signing a defense cooperation agreement expected to provide the Philippines with more weapons to use in the ongoing war against drug traffickers that has become a staple of the Duterte presidency.

Duterte had previously claimed Putin had offered him a “buy one, get one free” deal on firearms.

The Philippines is also facing jihadist attacks by Abu Sayyaf, the Islamic State affiliate in the country, which has become increasingly aggressive in the Muslim-majority south of the country, where Duterte is from.

Abu Sayyaf ultimately led to Duterte’s decision to leave Russia early to address the jihadist threat. Duterte declared a 60-day period of martial law in his native Mindanao island and will return home. According to the Philippine Star:

Foreign Affairs Secretary Alan Peter Cayetano said at the same press conference that the president will be cutting his visit to Russia short because his presence is needed in the country.
 The signing of bilateral agreements with Russia will push through but the meetings with Russia President Vladimir Putin and Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev were postponed. Cayetano said Duterte may just speak with the two leaders via phone.

“The agreement on military technical cooperation will pave the way for the Philippines to explore a possibility of military procurement from Russia,” Foreign Assistant Secretary Maria Cleofe Natividad told reporters before Duterte left to Russia. The agreements would also reportedly create an extradition agreement, which the two countries had not previously had, and allow for “information sharing, training, and technical cooperation,” according to the regional news outlet Rappler.

Officials have also expressed a hope that Duterte’s visit will help end the propagation of negative Russia stereotypes in the country. “There’s been a lot of stereotypes in the Philippines and I don’t really blame it. I mean, growing up watching James Bond movies, the villains were either an evil Russian scientist or some beautiful nubile Russian assassin,” Philippine Ambassador to Russia Carlos Sorreta said on Monday. “The reality is we have not had a deeper exchange with Russia even though we’ve had good relations, so we’re 40 years. And that’s going to change.”

Sorreta hoped the Russian visit would expand the “kind of independent foreign policy [they are] trying to achieve.”

Before his departure, Duterte emphasized the need to expand cooperation with Russia. “Russia must cease to be at the margins of Philippine diplomacy,” he said. “Overdependence on traditional partners has limited our room to maneuver in a very dynamic international arena. This is a strategic oversight that has led to many missed opportunities for our country. I am determined to correct this.”

Duterte has repeatedly stated that he would like to diminish the role of the United States in Philippine foreign relations, at one point declaring, ” You know, if China and Russia would decide to create a new order, I would be the first to join.”

Prior to Duterte, the government of Benigno Aquino kept close ties to the United States and maintained a distance from Russia. The Philippine Star notes that a head of state from that country has not visited Russia since President Gloria Arroyo did in 2009, and prior to that, no visit is on the record since 1997.

Duterte has eagerly expressed his fondness for Putin. “I like Putin. … We have similarities. When it comes to girls,” Duterte said in August 2016, in anticipation of their first meeting. Following that meeting, Duterte gushed that Putin had a “wide laugh” and had reserved a gun as a present for him in Russia. Neither country has confirmed whether Putin will hand over the present during this visit.

Oh, Another Incident of Chinese Industrial Espionage

There is no denying Russia is using cyber warfare against the West. Little is ever mentioned about China’s industrial espionage, something this site attempts to publish as often as possible. Further, the owner of this site participated in two key hearings today in Congress, one with former CIA Director John Brennan and the other included ODNI Dan Coats and DIA Director General Stewart.

Clearly both hearings revealed just how pervasive and common cyber warfare is at the hands of China and Russia. Here is just another example.

China’s theft of IBM’s intellectual property

A former employee of IBM pleaded guilty to theft of source code on behalf of China

Image result for Xu Jiaqiang ibm  And you think the FBI has easy work? Further, we are trusting China to deal with North Korea’s nuclear program and missile systems aimed against Western interests.

CSO: China continues to view the theft of intellectual property as a viable means of technology transfer. Global private sector entities are finding their insiders are being used by China to purloin the proprietary information for use by Chinese state-owned-enterprises or national entities with ever increasing regularity.

On 19 May 2017, Xu Jiaqiang, a PRC national, pleaded guilty to economic espionage and trade secret theft. Xu stole source code from his employer, IBM, and attempted to share it with the National Health and Family Planning Commission in the PRC.  According to the Department of Justice, Xu pleaded guilty to all six of the counts included in his indictment.

A review of Xu’s Linked-In profile shows only his employment with IBM from November 2010 through July 2014 (date is different from that which is contained in the indictment) as a “General Parallel File System Developer at IBM”

Xu was a trusted insider within IBM. According to the DOJ advisory, which contained content from both the criminal complaint and superseding indictment, Xu worked for IBM from 2010-14, with unencumbered access to the “proprietary source code.” DOJ advises, Xu voluntarily resigned from IBM in May 2014.

In late 2014, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) was informed (source unidentified) that Xu claimed to have access (unauthorized) to the source code and was using the source code in various business ventures. Undercover law enforcement officers subsequently contacted Xu to affirm Xu’s possession of the source code

The criminal complaint describes undercover officers posing as investors engaged in a multi-month email exchanges with Xu which culminated in his sharing portions of the source code as bonafides of his knowledge of “operating systems and parallel file systems.”  At that time, the victim company, IBM, identified the shared code as identical to their proprietary source code.

In late-2015, Xu had a face-to-face meeting with undercover law enforcement officers. At the meeting, Xu noted the code was his former employer’ s(IBM) code. Xu also confirmed to his interlocutors how he had purloined the code prior to his May 2014 employment separation and had made modification so as to obscure the point of origin, IBM.

In June 2016, Xu was indicted and charged with three counts of economic espionage, one count each of theft of trade secrets, possession of trade secrets, and distribution of trade secrets. He will be sentenced in October 2017.

Though IBM has declined comment to media regarding this theft of their intellectual property, reading between the lines, it would appear IBM had deduced (correctly) that Xu absconded with a copy of their GPFS proprietary source code, and was attempting to use it commercially. They then brought the theft to the attention of the FBI.

Illicit technology transfer

China has not slowed down in their acquisition of technology utilizing the access afforded to trusted insiders. The US Director of National Intelligence made it clear in his May 2017 presentation to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on the worldwide threat to the United States as to the threat posed by China.

In April 2017, we saw the arrest of a Dutch employee of Siemens, working within the energy arm of Siemens, charged with stealing the intellectual property of his employer and attempting to share it with China.

From the FBI perspective, this was the perfect economic espionage case. Theft of proprietary information for provision to a foreign government. The theft was from a company with an insider threat program in place and who was cooperative (providing technical expertise during the investigation), and of sufficient size to withstand any blow-back from China which may occur.

There is no need to be xenophobic. Multinational companies employee individuals from a great variety of nationalities. The reality is, few employees break trust with their employer.

That said, having your paper trail on agreements which safeguard intellectual property is mandatory. As is a review of all activities of all departing employees for break from pattern, be it a voluntary separation or for cause. If a deeper dive into the employees activities is warranted, make sure to look for any sudden increase in 403 errors – or similar (caused by attempts to access unauthorized data). Verify the complete inventory of all storage devices which the employee may have accessed, and have each returned and or data on the devices destroyed, and review email and uploads for any inappropriate usage.

Remember, though it is the FBI and DOJ success which brought Xu to our collective attention, it was not the FBI who initially discovered Xu’s intellectual property theft. The FBI pursued the lead brought to them by an unidentified third party (presumably IBM).

You are your company’s first line of defense in the protection of intellectual property, not the FBI.