Category Archives: History

Threat to NATO via Russian Aggression

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Poland to Seek NATO Response to Russia’s Military Exercises

(Reuters) – Poland expects the NATO alliance to step up its military exercises around the Baltic Sea after a flurry of activity by Russian warships and jet fighters in the area last month, Defence Minister Tomasz Siemoniak told Reuters in an interview.

Polish Defense Minister Tomasz Siemoniak, Oct. 14, 2014

“What happened in December was indeed rather unprecedented,” Siemoniak said. “We will definitely want the Baltic Sea to be taken into account to a greater extent, and I think that in terms of military exercises planned by NATO, there will be such a reaction,” he said. The interview was conducted on Monday but authorised for release by the ministry on Thursday.

The Atlantic alliance has already increased the frequency of air patrols in the region, part of a revival of Cold War tensions sparked by Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine and its support for Ukraine’s pro-Russian rebels.

Russian President Vladimir Putin visits anti-submarine ship Vice Admiral Kulakov, Sept. 23, 2014

Siemoniak said Moscow did not have an exit strategy, and that NATO and the European Union, which has imposed sanctions on Russia together with the United States, should brace themselves for years of conflict.

“We shouldn’t talk about lifting the sanctions too soon,” he said, adding that they were the most effective tool at the West’s disposal.

The French government in November put on hold a contract to supply Mistral warships to Russia after coming under pressure from NATO allies.

Asked if French-based companies such as Airbus and the Thales could suffer as they bid for contracts in Poland’s $41 billion army modernisation programme, Siemoniak said: “I’m counting on France‘s decision (not to deliver) being permanent, so the problem has been solved. It seems that Russia has also accepted that.”

Siemoniak also denied that a U.S. Senate report, which in December made clear by implication that Poland had allowed the CIA to run secret detention facilities on its soil, had damaged the relationship between the two allies.

Polish officials have expressed disappointment that the published version of the report contained enough detail to implicate Poland, putting it at risk of reprisal attacks.

“I think that, at the moment, the cooperation between our intelligence agencies is the best in history,” Siemoniak said, “so the publication of the report has not made it more difficult.”

AQAP Claims Responsibility for Paris Attack

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Charlie Hebdo’s Jihadi Attackers Tied to AQAP; More Attacks May be Planned
By: Anthony Kimery, Editor-in-Chief

Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) members and supporters swarmed social media sites immediately after the Wednesday jihadi attack on the Paris offices of the “blasphemous” newspaper Charlie Hebdo with messages implying the jihadists who attacked the newspaper were AQAP operatives.

While AQAP, a core Al Qaeda affiliate that has taken the lead in attacking the West, didn’t immediately officially take credit for the attack, its members and supporters implied as much on social media sites. Now, an AQAP leader has claimed that AQAP did, in fact, direct the attack, which isn’t surprising, since AQAP had placed Charlie Hebdo’s editor, Stephane “Charb” Charbonnier, on a “Wanted” poster for crimes against Islam for repeatedly satirizing the Prophet Mohamed in cartoons, a blasphemous act under radical Islamic law that’s punishable by death. Eight other persons AQAP considers to have blasphemed Prophet Mohamed also appear on the wanted poster.

Counterterrorism officials told Homeland Security Today Wednesday there’d been what they described as “pretty actionable” intelligence in various forms that had been connected to indicate the Charlie Hebdo attack was well-planned and “very likely” carried out by well-trained jihadists who likely received their training on the battlefields of Syria and Iraq fighting Al Qaeda or the Islamic State.

Former CIA counterterrorism analyst Aki Peritz told BBC World News the attacks were “very professional, well thought out, well researched and well executed.”

Following the killing of Charbonnier Wednesday, AQAP operative known as Mawlawi Abdallah tweeted that, “One of the men wanted by Al Qaeda has been eliminated – praise Allah, and the other wanted men are soon to come, Allah willing.”

The tweet included the “Wanted Dead or Alive for Crimes Against Islam” poster published in AQAP’s Inspire magazine in March 2013 with Charbonnier’s picture marked with a red X. The image includes the text, “Appreciation, greetings, and thanks from the ummah of Islam, to those who have avenged Prophet Muhammad.”

AQAP supporters also posted an image of AQAP leader Nasir Al Wuhayshi superimposed on a photo from the attack, with a quote from a female survivor who said that the attackers claimed to belong to Al Qaeda in Yemen.

Two of the attackers on the Charlie Hebdo offices were known jihadi brothers Said Kouachi and Cherif Kouachi, who were killed Friday afternoon in a violent shootout with French counterterrorism forces at a printing plant in Dammartin-en-Goele northeast of Paris.

In their attack on the Charlie Hebdo offices, the brothers killed 12 people, including Charbonnier, four cartoonists and two police officers in the deadliest terrorist attack in France in four decades.

Intelligence sources say Said trained with AQAP and met with AQAP recruiter and operations planner, American-born Anwar Al Awlaki when Said spent time training with AQAP in Yemen. Intelligence sources said Awlaki provided funds to the brothers. Awlaki had called for the death of Charlie Hebdo’s editor and cartoonists, and was involved in developing the terror group’s Inspire magazine, which published the wanted poster of individuals jihadis should kill, including Charlie Hebdo’s editor.

Homeland Security Today first reported Wednesday that counterterrorism sources said on background that the Kouachi brothers likely were tied to AQAP, and that intelligence indicated the attack on Charlie Hebdo may be the beginning of a larger coordinated plan of action against individuals whom jihadists have been identifying for assassination going back to at least 2010, including individuals in the United States, although previous jihadi hit lists against Western individuals in 2011 drew mostly yawns from many intelligence officials and authorities.

Britain’s director of MI5, Andrew Parker, said in a rare public speech at MI5 headquarters Thursday that, “A group of core Al Qaeda terrorists in Syria is planning mass casualty attacks against the West” designed to “cause large-scale loss of life, often by attacking transport systems or iconic targets” in the West.

When they attacked the Charlie Hebdo’s offices, the heavily armed Kouachi brothers and an 18-year-old accomplice who quickly surrendered to police, was clearly professional and well-coordinated. The brothers shouted “we have avenged the prophet” and “Al lahu Akbar” (God is great), as they stormed the offices of the satirical newspaper.

Charlie Hebdo has been on jihadists’ hit list for years for its numerous satirical portrayals of Prophet Mohamed, including a cartoon of a turbaned Muslim in a wheelchair pushed by a man dressed as an orthodox Jew with the caption, “Intouchables 2.” Another cartoon on the back page depicted a naked Mohammed exposing his butt to a film director, which was apparently inspired by a 1963 film starring French film star Brigitte Bardot.

In 2011, Charlie Hebdo made headlines when it named the Prophet Muhammad as editor-in-chief of an edition of the newspaper titled, “Sharia Hebdo,” and featured Prophet Mohammed as guest editor. Not surprisingly, the edition of the publication incited outrage and its offices firebombed.

The attack and further threats of violence didn’t deter Charlie Hebdo, which continued to publish more Muhammad illustrations the following year.

In November, French Islamic State members released a video through the Al Hayat Media Center calling on Muslims to carry out jihadi attacks on French soil and offering operational support.

The killers

The Kouachi brothers were both French-Algerian in their early 30s. Cherif was convicted in 2008 on terrorism charges for recruiting jihadists to join Islamists in Iraq and sentenced to three years in prison. Eighteen months of the sentence were suspended, however.

Cherif, who called himself Abu Issen, was part of the “Buttes-Chaumont network” that sent jihadists to fight for Al Qaeda in Iraq. He also had been detained by French police in 2005 while on his way to board a plane for Syria.

Boubaker Al Hakim, a jihadist tied to Al Qaeda was a central member of the Buttes-Chaumont network, according to authorities.

Both men had been in US terrorist databases and the “No-Fly” list for years, although authorities wouldn’t say when they were put in the databases. Presumably it would have been after Cherif’s initial arrest.

Following the 2005 incident, French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin warned that foreign-trained jihadists from his nation would eventually “come back to France, armed with their experience, to carry out attacks.”

Consequently, questions are being raised about why Cherif in particular was not more closely monitored given the intelligence the French police had on him.

A third accomplice, 18-year-old Hamyd Mourad, is believed to have been captured during a raid by police and a French counterterror unit in Reims in north-eastern France.

Authorities said all three men are believed to have recently returned from Syria where they were trained by jihadis fighting with Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, but it hasn’t been confirmed.

AQAP praises the attack

“The day after the deadly shooting at the headquarters of the Charlie Hebdo weekly in Paris, jihad supporters on social media continued to glorify the perpetrators of the attack. In particular, activists of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula boasted that the shooters were members of their organization and distributed images, banners and videos in praise of the shooting,” said the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which monitors jihadi social media. “They emphasized the role of AQAP and of its English-language magazine Inspire in encouraging lone wolf attackers, mentioning that Inspire had published a ‘wanted poster’ featuring the editor of Charlie Hebdo, Stéphane Charbonnier, who was killed in yesterday’s shooting. Others posted quotes by Osama bin Laden, calling for acting against those who insult the Prophet, and also referred to various ‘crimes’ committed by France, such as its invasion of Mali.”

According to MEMRI, “Islamic State (ISIS) activists and supporters also praised the attack, while emphasizing their organization’s role in inciting attacks against Western targets. They also stressed that the perpetrators were motivated to take vengeance on France for its role in the international campaign against ISIS. ISIS supporters are for now avoiding directly addressing reports that the perpetrators had claimed responsibility in the name of AQAP.”

“French-speaking Jihadi fighters reacted joyously at the news of the attack and its revenge for the blasphemous acts of the cartoonists, and called for more attacks against the West,” MEMRI said jihadi social media revealed. “They also criticized and leveled accusations against Muslims in the West for their reactions of support for the victims of the attack. Few tweets mentioned the doubt about whether Al Qaeda or ISIS was behind the attack; the focus was on praising the attack as revenge for Islam in general” and calling for more attacks.

MEMRI reported, “jihadi supporters on social media continued to promise that there would be a follow-up to this attack, and that the West should expect additional attacks.”

Homeland Security Today reported Wednesday following the attack that US counterterrorism intelligence sources told Homeland Security Today on condition of anonymity that intelligence indicates the attack may be the beginning of a larger coordinated plan of action against numerous individuals whom jihadists have been identifying for assassination going back to at least 2010, including individuals in the United States, although previous jihadi hit lists against Western individuals in 2011 drew mostly yawns from many intelligence officials and authorities.”

Mawlawi Abdallah posted a picture of American born jihadi convert Anwar Al Awlaki — who joined AQAP and become a prominent recruiter before being killed in US drone strike — and wrote: “Glad tidings, O martyr of da’wa … The lone wolves continue to rip the West to shreds.”

The picture of Al Awalki is superimposed on a picture from the Paris attack and includes a quote from Al Awlaki in English: “It is not enough to have the intention of doing good. One must do good in the proper way. So what is the proper solution to this growing campaign of defamation [of the Prophet Muhammad?] … The medicine prescribed by the Messenger of Allah is the execution of those involved.”

Another AQAP operative known as Danyal tweeted: “They [unclear whether referring to the West or Muslims who condemned the attack] did not condemn and were not outraged when French forces made the oppressed Muslims of Mali drink from the chalice of their animosity, but were furious over the victims of the Charlie Hebdo operation! … Bless you and bless your efforts. May Allah’s blessing be upon you, oh heroes of the Charlie Hebdo operation!”

Yemeni preacher Mamoon Hatem, who officially belongs to AQAP but supports joining the Islamic state, attempted to attribute the attack to ISIS, saying, “The Islamic State is the West’s new nightmare and its biggest enemy today. The head of the snake and its arms will be cut off, ground up, kneaded, and baked, with Allah’s help.”

“While Hatem did not directly refer to the attack, his tweet came shortly after it,” MEMRI said.

AQAP media activist Muhannad Ghallab tweeted a picture from a solidarity rally in Boston with a sign that reads “Boston is Charlie,” adding, “From Boston to Paris … The message has been delivered.” In another tweet he wrote: “#LoneJihad strategy proved today it’s the best way to exhaust, hurt, & terrorize the west, especially [since] it can’t be detected. #CharlieHebdo.”

 

An AQAP militant calling himself Jabal, MEMRI discovered, praised the group’s magazine Inspire for motivating the attackers: “Oh you who are responsible for the magazine Inspire, this is the fruit of your efforts to prepare the lone wolves – the individual jihad. May Allah bless you and increase your good reward.”

“The pro-Al Qaeda Twitter account Marsad Al Jihad Al Alami uploaded a YouTube clip edited by a supporter … accompanied by songs praising jihad, photos of the attack, photos of those wanted for execution by Al-Qaeda, and more,” MEMRI reported.

In addition, “the Twitter account for Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) published a banner supporting the attack,” MEMRI said. “The banner cites the verse from the Koran which stipulates that anyone who harms Allah or the Prophet will be punished in this world and the next world.”

The Al Qaeda-linked Syrian-based Saudi preacher Abdallah Al Mheissni wrote, “The lone wolves will not ignore/keep silent over those who defame the Prophet’s dignity. I cannot find a more fitting way of killing than the one that seeks to kill in order to defend the Prophet.”

He added, “Whoever curses the Prophet should be killed,” and that, “A general consensus exists amongst religious jurists that a person who curses the Prophet is punished by death.”

Growing jihadism and ‘hit lists’

The attack on Charlie Hebdo’s offices occurred during a time of intensified worries in France and other Western European nations over the hundreds of radicalized Muslims and self-radicalized jihadist European citizens who went to fight with both Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, and feared they would return to carry out jihadi attacks in their own countries – a uneasiness that has had Western counterterrorism authorities on edge.

Homeland Security Today Contributing Writer Dave Sloggett wrote in August that, “All across Europe, security services have become increasing candid about the threat their nations face from terrorism linked to Syria and Iraq by the establishment of the Islamic State. Their openness about the scale of the problem they face is clear. They are trying to prepare Europeans that another terrorist atrocity cannot be prevented in the West. The problems with preventing people from traveling overseas and potentially returning ready to conduct acts of extreme violence — as leaders of the Islamic State have claimed they will do — are simply too huge.”

Sloggett conducted a study of data released by the various security agencies of thirteen European countries that revealed a mixed picture of radicalization when analyzed in the context of the local demographics.

“Aside from Turkey,” he said, “whose population is nearly all classified as Muslims, France is the country with the next highest Muslim population at around 5.5 million out of a total of 63 million people. This represents around 9 percent of the total population. French authorities have been very clear that they believe around 700 people have traveled to Syria, a rate of 1 in 8,000 of the Muslim population. Despite having a similar overall population, Turkish authorities believe that, like France, only 700 have crossed the border into Syria.”

In June 2011, Homeland Security Today first reported that 11 of the nation’s top military leaders at the time were among 58 past and present military, corporate and civilian officials who were identified by members of the Al Qaeda-linked Ansar Al Mujahedeen jihadist forum as infidels who should be murdered, according to a jihadist “hit list” that accompanied a June 6 Florida fusion center bulletin.

The bulletin coincided with an unusual flurry of similar alerts that were issued at about the same time by the FBI, Department of Defense and Department of Homeland Security, and which came on the heels of then FBI Director Robert Mueller having told the Senate Committee on the Judiciary that one of the early assessments from intelligence seized at Osama Bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan is that Al Qaeda is committed to continuing attacks against the United States.

While some officials downplayed the “hit list” as wishful thinking by Al Qaeda-sympathetic jihadists, other counterterrorism authorities went on high alert in response to the jihadi forums’ members’ disturbing talk of assassinating top US military and corporate leaders.

In light of the attack on Charlie Hebdo, perhaps there is a “lone-wolf” central committee that’s not just proffering idle chatter in cyberspace, but is indeed secretly laboring away plotting additional attacks like this one. Both US and western counterterrorism officials said Thursday “there’s increased chatter” among AQAP and other Al Qaeda affiliated groups.

Congressional intelligence committee members were briefed on what US intelligence agencies know, and are said to have been told that not only was the French attack likely directly supported by a jihadist group, but that there will likely be more attacks in the very near future.

Over the past year, threatened attacks on the US and the West by Al Qaeda and the Islamic State through media services and social media platforms have exploded.

In recent months, the Department of Homeland Security, FBI and Pentagon have issued multiple alerts about the possibility of a range of attacks, including cyberterrorism, lone wolf attacks and attacks specifically targeting military and law enforcement.

In November, calling on his Islamic State soldiers “to continue their fight” and, “O soldiers of the Islamic State, continue to harvest the soldiers,” Islamic State demigod Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi (Caliph Ibrahim) vowed an “Erupt[ion] [of] volcanoes of jihad everywhere” in a 16 minute recorded audio message released by the Al Furqan media company on the Shumoukh Al Islam forum.

No Go Zones Are Old News Finally in Debate

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After the Paris attack(s), 4 since December, the dialogue has morphed to no-go zones as designed by Islamists in many towns, states and Western cultured countries.

Do you ever wonder why Muslims pray on the public streets and not in the mosques? It is an ‘in your face’ action.

Just in France there are more than 700 of them, more on that later as France is aware of them and is allegedly working to reclaim them. In a raw language translation from French to English:

The security policy that I hear lead must be resolutely turned towards the territories and their inhabitants,”he recalls in preamble to circular addressed to the whole of the prefects of France, responsible of the implementation of these areas from the start.
“It‘s to respond closely to the concerns of our citizens, often among the poorest“, insists Manuel Valls, former Deputy Mayor of Evry (Essonne). The prefects of these fifteen first ‘test zones”must, by mid-September, to make known the precise contours and the objectives of security, – number of two or three maximum – meet. Here, the decline in burglaries or the fight against drug trafficking, then occupations of buildings halls or the flights in the snatch. “It is to bring decision-making at the level of stakeholders in the field, supports a close associate of the Minister of the Interior. The contours of these areas can be adapted at any time because we must be as reactive as offenders. »
Focus on hotspots
Alain Bauer, criminologist – former adviser to Nicolas Sarkozy and also very close to Manuel Valls-, this new device could be likened to “experiments already carried out in the United States and the Canada. “In the years 1990-2000, the Americans and Canadians found that a real effective policy against crimes was to focus on a series of hot spots (hot spots in English).“ It comes then to deploy police forces highly mobile and adaptable in a coherent territory. There, for the first time in France, it approximates this spirit there. We leave the Theology for pragmatism. »
Specifically, this device will be based on an “operational cell” led by the prefect, associated with the Prosecutor of the Republic – if the latter wishes-, to coordinate all of the security forces in the area concerned. Police, CRS, gendarmes, investigators of the judicial police and intelligence services will be thus mobilized. A ‘coordination cell’ second of the various partners (municipal policies, associations, Education…) it will be, overseen by one or more local elected representatives. This cell, which must be the narrowest possible for greater efficiency, aims to drive all prevention actions against delinquency, such as the implementation of measures aimed at preventing the recurrence of minors.
Remains unknown: how will have the ZSP? “Even if the future creations of posts will be deployed, as a priority, on these areas, we will mobilize existing resources,” stressed the Ministry of the Interior, which is “not deprive certain sectors for the benefit of this new feature. Without waiting for the results of the experiment, Manuel Valls already plans to deploy “a quarantine to other priority areas of security” by summer 2013.
For a list of the no-go zones just in France click here, there are 751 of them throughout the country. My friend Steve Emerson at the Investigative Project explained on Sean Hannity last night how not only France but all of Europe has passed the point of diminishing returns to reclaim their own sovereignty. He is right and this has been fact for years, but it IS coming to America unless we advance this debate and immigration.
What is chilling is the entire Obama administration through the U.S. State Department has been coaching Muslims overseas through embassies including France.

SCOTT SAYARE, New York Times 

BONDY, France — The residents of this poor, multiracial Paris suburb say they have been abandoned. For 30 years, they say, the French authorities have written off Bondy and neighborhoods like it, treating their inhabitants as terminal delinquents and ignoring their potential.

This, residents note, is not the approach taken by the U.S. Department of State.

“We’re waiting for the president of the Republic, for his ministers,” said Gilbert Roger, the mayor of Bondy. “And we see the ambassador of the United States.”

The U.S. Embassy in Paris has formed a network of partnerships with local governments, advocacy groups, entrepreneurs, students and cultural leaders in the troubled immigrant enclaves outside France’s major cities.

Begun in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks as part of an effort to bolster the image of the United States within Muslim communities across the globe, American outreach in these hard neighborhoods — often referred to collectively as the “banlieues,” or suburbs — has grown in scale and visibility since the election of Barack Obama.

France is home to between 5 million and 6 million Muslims, Europe’s largest Muslim population, and the banlieues have long been considered potential incubators for religious extremism. But anti-American sentiment, once pervasive in these neighborhoods, seems to have been all but erased since the election of Obama, who has proved a powerful symbol of hope here and a powerful diplomatic tool.

Many suggest the Americans’ warm reception is a measure of these communities’ sense of abandonment. Others say it is the presence of Obama in the White House. Whatever the case, the United States is now more popular in the banlieues than at any time in recent memory, say French and American officials.

Much of the embassy’s outreach is meant to dispel “mistruths” about the United States, the ambassador, Charles H. Rivkin, said in an interview, adding: “It’s easier to hate something you don’t understand.”

With an annual public affairs budget of about $3 million, the Paris embassy has sponsored a variety of urban renewal projects, music festivals and conferences. Since Obama’s election, the Americans have helped organize seminars for minority politicians, coaching them in electoral strategy, fund-raising and communications.

The International Visitor Leadership Program, which sends 20 to 30 promising French entrepreneurs and politicians to America for several weeks each year, now includes more minority participants, and Muslims in particular. The embassy began a similar program for French teenagers.

Rivkin, 48, an entertainment executive and the youngest American ambassador to France in nearly 60 years, has taken a strong interest in the banlieues. Earlier this year, he thrilled a group of students in Bondy when he arrived with the actor Samuel L. Jackson, one of several entertainment industry contacts he has called upon in France. In Los Angeles, Rivkin cultivated ties between the family media and hip-hop worlds; in Paris, he has hosted local rappers at the Hotel Rothschild, his official residence.

Officials insist the outreach is not meant solely to curry favor for the United States; the Americans also see an emerging group of political and business elites in these neighborhoods. The embassy is “trying to connect with the next generation of leaders in France,” Rivkin said. “That includes the banlieues.”

Few French leaders speak in such hopeful terms.

Residents “have the sense that the United States looks upon our areas with much more deference and respect,” said Roger, the Bondy mayor. For electoral reasons, he said, French politicians exaggerate the violence and criminality here.

Ministerial excursions to the banlieues often entail a crushing police presence and vows to crack down on crime. President Nicolas Sarkozy, who as interior minister pledged to clean up one of these cities with a high-pressure hose, typically spends his time here consulting with law enforcement officials.

Although often criticized as not serious about stemming the violence, poverty and unemployment that plague the banlieues, the French government commits $5 billion annually to these cities, according to Fadela Amara, the secretary of state for urban policy. Since 2003, she said, the state has pledged more than $16 billion to a nationwide urban reconstruction program.

Residents and local politicians say this is nowhere near enough, although they add that money alone will not solve the problems.

“Do you know what it means to give recognition in the suburbs?” asked Aziz Senni, 34, the founder of a taxi service and an investment fund dedicated to spurring economic development in the banlieues, where he was raised. “It’s worth as much as gold.”

A Moroccan-born Muslim, Senni traveled to the United States in 2006 as a participant in the visitor program. He was effusive in his praise for the outreach and the optimism it has spread. “Never has France had this type of approach,” he said.

Senni spoke of feeling “stigmatized” by French leaders. A law banning the full facial veil, a government-led “debate on national identity” and a recent proposal to revoke French nationality from certain criminals “of foreign origin” have been widely felt as attacks on immigrants and Muslims here.

“The emerging elite in the suburbs doesn’t see itself in the way it’s being treated by French society,” said Nordine Nabili, 43, who directs the newly opened Bondy branch of a journalism school, ESJ Lille; he hosted Rivkin and Jackson there in April.

“You’re the future,” Jackson told the students.

Nabili said: “I don’t think people tell them that enough.” He worries the Americans may be raising hopes too high, however. Beyond good feelings, he said, “there really needs to be a true policy.”

Rivkin called such concerns unfounded. “From my vantage point, this embassy has not been peddling false dreams,” he said. “Anything is possible, if you put your mind to it and work hard enough.”

Widad Ketfi, 25, was among the students who met Rivkin and Jackson earlier this year. “We won’t be disappointed,” she insisted. The American attention is proof that “these young people are succeeding,” she said, that “we’re not invisible.”

Lebanon’s Military Contolled by Hizbollah

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Islamic State has their sights on taking over both Lebanon and Jordan. Iran is controlling this whole objective. The West and allies are doing almost nothing to stop this mission.

War Risk Rises in Middle East

by Yaakov Lappin   

Iran’s weapons industries are at the service of Hezbollah, while Hezbollah tries to acquire precision-guided rockets and missiles for future attacks on strategic Israeli sites.

The Middle East is increasingly becoming an area where it is harder for actors to exercise control over their situations or to control events.

Despite Israel’s deterrence, the risk of an inadvertent clash between Israel and Hezbollah is rising

The new year holds many new dangers and few opportunities, as Israel’s two near enemies, Hezbollah in Lebanon on its northern front and Hamas in Gaza on its west, continue their large-scale armament programs, and prepare for a future day when they will fight another war with Israel.

Although neither Hezbollah nor Hamas has an interest in sparking a war with Israel any time soon — when they stand to suffer widespread, lasting, and crippling damage from any such clash — both are nevertheless preparing in earnest.

Hezbollah, armed with over 100,000 rockets and missiles, can rain down an unprecedented number projectiles on Israel. In addition, Hamas and Hezbollah are planning cross-border raids by sending highly trained murder squads, in order to take their fight into Israeli territory, as Hamas began doing this past summer through the tunnels it built for that purpose in Gaza.

With the region in chaos, and each side arming and training itself for when hostilities break out, the risk of a localized incident inadvertently igniting a wider clash — or simply an error in judgment — appears to have grown significantly.

Hezbollah has shown signs in recent months that it is prepared openly to retaliate in response to any events it interprets as Israeli transgressions against its main base of operations in Lebanon.

Israel has warned Hezbollah and Iran on multiple occasions to refrain from smuggling advanced weapons into Lebanon. Israel has also, according to foreign reports, taken action several times to intercept attempted weapons smuggling.

Iran’s weapons industries are at the service of Hezbollah, mass-producing projectiles for it, while Hezbollah continues trying to acquire precision-guided rockets and missiles for future attacks on strategic Israeli sites.

Even though Hezbollah, acting under Iranian orders, is neck deep in its involvement in the Syrian civil war, and is stretched across Syria and Lebanon, its pace of preparations for war with Israel continues unaffected. The Syrian conflict has even given it some new tools, which it can deploy against Israel, such as improved ability to coordinate ground maneuvers. This build-up of offensive abilities represents the most serious challenge to Israel’s security in the immediate vicinity.

Hezbollah combat units, battle-hardened from fighting in the Syrian civil war, now have improved capabilities to deploy against Israel.

Meanwhile, Hezbollah continues to try to carry out deadly terror attacks on Israelis overseas.

This does not mean that the Lebanese Shi’ite terror organization is seeking an all-out war at this moment — in fact, the opposite seems true.

Its actions seem designed to keep a confrontation with Israel on a low flame for the time being, while it focuses on Syria. Despite its extremist ideology, Hezbollah would not gain much from prompting Israel to unleash waves of devastating firepower on its assets across Lebanon.

Nonetheless, any “error” or misjudgment by Hezbollah could end up triggering a sequence of events that could well lead to war. Should that happen, there are no guarantees that the conflict would remain limited to Lebanon and Israel. Other arenas, such as Gaza and Syria, could easily be sucked in as well.

The Middle East is increasingly becoming an area where it is harder for actors to exercise control over their situation or to control events.

Israel still remains the most powerful side in the Middle East, and as it is now preparing to deal with growing semi-state guerilla-terrorist forces on its borders, it has to ready for itself for the possibility that a conflict on one border will quickly spread to another. In the past, it was believed that such conflicts could be short-lived, but the duration of future clashes may be lengthier than many have previously believed.

As its military continues assessing the challenges across the borders, Israel remains prepared for all eventualities.

Meanwhile Back in Syria, Destruction

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Extremists destroy 13th century Muslim tomb in Syria

Nusra Front Islamist militants linked to al-Qaeda have blown up the 13th century tomb of a revered Islamic scholar in southern Syria, Syrian state news agency SANA and monitoring group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, reported.

The mausoleum of Imam Nawawi is in Nawa in Deraa province near the Jordanian border, a town captured by groups fighting the Syrian government in November.

The Nusra Front follows the same puritanical interpretation of Sunni Islam adopted by the Islamic State group that has also destroyed shrines in areas of eastern and northern Syria that it controls. They see tombs as sacrilegious.

Investigators confident that chlorine gas was used in 3 Syrian villages

UNITED NATIONS — Chemical weapons investigators concluded “with a high degree of confidence” that chlorine gas was used as a weapon against three opposition-controlled villages in Syria last year, affecting between 350 and 500 people and killing 13, according to a report obtained Tuesday by The Associated Press.

The third report by a fact-finding mission from the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons didn’t apportion blame but said 32 of 37 people interviewed “saw or heard the sound of a helicopter over the village at the time of the attack with barrel bombs containing toxic chemicals.”

The investigators said 26 people heard the distinctive “whistling” sound of the falling barrel bombs containing toxic chemicals and 16 visited the impact sites and saw the bombs or their remnants. They said 29 people smelled “the distinctive odor of the gas cloud” released after the bombs hit the ground, mainly describing it “as intense, chlorine-like, similar to cleaning material used to clean toilets, but much stronger.”

The report includes a description of 142 videos and 189 pieces of material obtained by the investigators as well as photos of impact sites and the inner chlorine cylinder from a barrel bomb.

The mission was established by the OPCW on April 29 to establish the facts surrounding allegations of the use of chlorine “for hostile purposes” in Syria. Chlorine gas is readily available and is used in industry around the world, but it can also be used as a weapon.

The U.N. Security Council has been intensely involved in the issue of alleged chemical weapons use in Syria. After an August 2013 sarin gas attack near Damascus in which the U.S. says more than 1,400 people were killed, the Security Council unanimously adopted a resolution backed by the U.S. and Russia on Sept. 27, 2013, ordering Syria’s chemical weapons stockpile to be destroyed. U.N. investigators could not find enough evidence to assess blame for the sarin attack. Syria’s declared chemical weapons stockpiles have since been destroyed under international supervision, but questions remain about whether it may still be hiding deadly chemical agents.

Chlorine gas is not listed as a chemical weapon. But eight council members, including the United States, said in a Dec. 30 letter accompanying the OPCW report that the 2013 resolution also states that any use of chemical weapons threatens international peace and security and must be condemned.

The 15 council members discussed the fact-finding mission’s report behind closed doors Tuesday, and diplomats said the U.S. and other Western nations who signed the letter along with Jordan urged Security Council action in response to the findings. But Russia, Syria’s closest ally, insisted that the report on chlorine attacks was an issue for the OPCW, which polices the Chemical Weapons Convention, the diplomats said, speaking on condition of anonymity because consultations were private.

Syria’s Deputy Foreign Minister Faysal Mekdad told an OPCW meeting on Dec. 1 that his government has never used chemical weapons or chlorine gas during the country’s four-year civil war, which has claimed over 200,000 lives and displaced one third of the country’s population. He said terror groups “have used chlorine gas in several of the regions of Syria and Iraq.”

But U.S. Ambassador Samantha Power tweeted that “only Syrian regime uses (helicopters).” She also tweeted that the Syrian “Regime must be shown it is not enough to destroy declared CW (chemical weapons); must stop dropping chemical-laden explosives on civilians.”

The investigators interviewed 14 people from the village of Talmenes in Idlib governorate about barrel bomb attacks on April 21 and April 24. At two houses that were hit, a 7-year-old boy, a teenage girl, and the matriarch of a family died from exposure to chlorine gas, they said. Domestic animals including cows, goats and sheep also died at both houses.

Fourteen people from the village of Al Tamanah, also in Idlib, were interviewed by the mission’s investigators about five incidents in April and May – all but one at night. Eight members of two families who had sought refuge in the village died shortly after separate attacks involving the toxic chemical, the report said.

Investigators said they interviewed nine people from Kafr Zita in Hama Governorate in northern Syria and were told that the village had been the target of hundreds of attacks with conventional weapons and 17 attacks using toxic chemicals between April and August.