Category Archives: Illegal Immigration

51 Revolting at the State Dept over Assad/Syria

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Dozens of US officials call for military action against Syria’s Assad

FNC: Dozens of U.S. officials have called on the Obama administration to order “targeted military strikes” against the regime of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, with the aim of pressuring Damascus to accept a binding cease-fire and engage in peace talks.

The Wall Street Journal reported that 51 State Department officials advising Syria policy signed the so-called “dissent channel cable”.

State Department spokesman John Kirby confirmed the cable’s existence Thursday, but said he would not comment further until officials have reviewed its contents.

The cable expresses clear frustration with America’s inability to halt a civil war that has killed perhaps a half-million people and contributed to a worldwide refugee crisis, and goes to the heart of Obama’s reluctance to enter the fray.

“It’s embarrassing for the administration to have so many rank-and-file members break on Syria,” a former State Department official told the Journal.

Obama called for regime change early on in the conflict and threatened military strikes against Syrian forces after blaming President Bashar Assad for using chemical weapons in 2013. But Obama only has authorized strikes against the Islamic State (ISIS) and other U.S.-designated terror groups in Syria.

While Washington has provided military assistance to some anti-Assad rebels, it has favored diplomacy over armed intervention as a means of ushering Syria’s leader out of power. A series of partial cease-fires in recent months have only made the war slightly less deadly, and offered little hope of a peace settlement.

The U.S. does have military assets available in the region, including two aircraft carriers in the Mediterranean Sea and a number of Air Force jets based at Incirlik Air Force Base in Turkey.

However, Assad has enjoyed the protection of his Russian allies in recent months, and any action against the Syrian regime would likely bring U.S. and Russian forces into direct conflict.

Moscow has deployed an advanced S-400 surface-to-air missile system to Syria, as well as dozens of air-to-air interceptors and strike fighters such as the Su-35 and Su-24.

Navy Vice-Admiral James Foggo III, commander of the U.S. Sixth Fleet, told Fox News Thursday that Russia also has two Kilo-class submarines in the Black Sea armed with state-of-the art Kalibr cruise missiles. One kilo boat launched one of these cruise missiles into Syria from the Mediterranean Sea this past December.

Since September, Russia has deployed dozens of jets and helicopter gunships to Syria, which are now spread out among four bases. Russia also has dispatched bombers on missions from Engels and Mozdok, in southern Russia, which have launched cruise missiles and dozens of unguided bombs in the last year.

Republican and even some Democratic lawmakers have been urging Obama to take greater military action in Syria for years, from air strikes to the establishment of a no-fly zone over rebel-held areas. As secretary of state, Hillary Clinton pushed some of these steps, too.

But Obama has resisted, fearful of leading America into another war in the Muslim world after finding it impossible to withdraw U.S. forces from Afghanistan and keep forces out of Iraq. Military commanders have been similarly reticent, given the lack of a clear alternative to Assad that might unify Syria and advance U.S. national security interests.

Nevertheless, Obama has said Assad must relinquish control if there is to be peace. And Kerry, Clinton’s successor as the chief U.S. diplomat, has repeatedly said that to defeat ISIS, the U.S. must be able to assure Syria’s many other rebel groups that there will be a post-Assad future for their country.

The dissent document echoes these sentiments, calling the government’s barrel bomb attacks on civilians “the root cause of the instability that continues to grip Syria and the broader region.”

“Failure to stem Assad’s flagrant abuses will only bolster the ideological appeal of groups such as (ISIS),” the document continued, “even as they endure tactical setbacks on the battlefield.” More here including graphs.

CIA Brennan’s Chilling Statements in Testimony

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Update, Jo Cox died of her injuries from the terror attack. See below.

NYPost: CIA Director John Brennan told Congress on Thursday that the Islamic State remains “formidable” and “resilient,” is training and attempting to deploy operatives for further attacks on the West and will rely more on guerrilla-style tactics to compensate for its territorial losses in the Middle East.

Giving the Senate intelligence committee an update on the threat from extremists, Brennan said IS has been working to build an apparatus to direct and inspire attacks against its foreign enemies, as in the recent attacks in Paris and Brussels — ones the CIA believes were directed by IS leaders.

“ISIL has a large cadre of Western fighters who could potentially serve as operatives for attacks in the West,” Brennan said, using another acronym for the group. He said IS probably is working to smuggle them into countries, perhaps among refugee flows or through legitimate means of travel.

Brennan also noted the group’s call for followers to conduct so-called lone-wolf attacks in their home countries. He called the attack in Orlando a “heinous act of wanton violence” and an “assault on the values of openness and tolerance” that define the United States as a nation.

Brennan said the CIA is sharing intelligence with the FBI to help identify potential lone-wolf attackers, but the CIA’s responsibility is to gather information about operations overseas.

More Islamic State fighters worldwide than al Qaeda at its height: CIA director

Reuters: The director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, John Brennan, said on Thursday there were tens of thousands of Islamic State fighters around the world, more than al Qaeda at its height.

He also told a Senate Intelligence Committee hearing that the agency was concerned about the growth of Libya as a base of operations for Islamic State militants, who had 5,000-8,000 fighters there, although the group’s fighters in Iraq and Syria had dropped to 18,000 to 22,000 from 19,000 to 25,000.

“I am concerned about the growth of Libya as another area that could serve as the basis for ISIL to carry out attacks inside of Europe… that is very concerning,” Brennan said, using an alternative acronym for the Islamic State militant group.

Questioned about the broader crisis, Brennan told lawmakers he believed the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad had been strengthened with Russia’s support.

“A year ago, (Assad) was on his back foot as the opposition forces were carrying out operations that were really degrading the Syrian military. He is in a stronger position than he was in June of last year” as a result of Russian support, Brennan said.

Just two days ago, Obama held a national security team meeting and then a presser stating the major gains being made against Islamic State. When the same day, MSNBC questions that statement from an on the ground in Turkey, we know we are being oversold on this national security threat.

***** Meanwhile, during this ridiculous gun control debate as a solution to terrorists, it seems that a knife and a gun was used in an attack on a member of the UK Parliament. Europe has exceptionally tight gun control laws.

Labour MP Jo Cox in critical condition after being shot and stabbed

Guardian: Jo Cox, the MP for Batley and Spen, is in a critical condition after being shot and stabbed multiple times in her West Yorkshire constituency.

Armed officers responded to the attack near a library in Birstall on Thursday afternoon, and a 52-year-old man was arrested in the area, police confirmed.

Jo Cox, the Labour MP for Batley and Spen.

They added that the Labour politician had suffered “serious injuries and is in a critical condition”. She has been taken by helicopter to Leeds general infirmary.

Police also confirmed a man in his late 40s to early 50s nearby suffered slight injuries in the incident.

Witnesses said the attack was launched after the MP became involved in an altercation involving two men near her weekly advice surgery. A Labour source confirmed Cox was shot and stabbed after she had concluded the drop-in session for constituents at around 1pm.

The scene pictures in Birstall, West Yorkshire.

The shopkeeper in a greengrocer opposite Birstall Library, Golden D’Licious, told the Guardian that he believed the attacker had been waiting for the MP outside the library.

“I was inside the shop and all I heard was a scream and then the gunshot,” he said, without giving his name. “I went out and everyone was dispersing. I couldn’t see because it happened behind a car.”

But witness Hithem Ben Abdallah, 56, who was in the cafe next door to the library shortly after 1pm, said he the MP involved in an altercation between two arguing men.

He told PA a man in a baseball cap “suddenly pulled a gun from his bag” and after a brief scuffle with another man the MP became involved.

He added: “He was fighting with her and wrestling with her and then the gun went off twice and then she fell between two cars and I came and saw her bleeding on the floor.”

 

Police close to the scene in Birstall, Yorkshire.

Belgium Warnings of Imminent Terror Attacks

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      FBL-EURO-2016-SECURITY-FAN-ZONE

By AFP Belgium, France face ‘imminent’ terror attacks — report

A Belgian soldier patrols the shopping centre City2 in central Brussels, Belgium, on Wednesday (Reuters photo)

JordanTimes: BRUSSELS — A fresh wave of Daesh terror group’s militants has left Syria and could commit attacks imminently in France and Belgium, Belgian police have been warned, according to media reports on Wednesday.

“Fighters traveling without passports left Syria about a week and a half  ago in order to reach Europe by boat via Turkey and Greece,” a memo sent to police and security services across Belgium said, according to La Derniere Heure newspaper.

The militants were traveling armed and plan to carry out attacks in groups of two the memo is reported to have said.

Their action is imminent,” the memo added, without giving the total of suspected attackers.

Belgium’s OCAM national crisis centre in a statement did not deny the report, but said the information needed to be looked at further.

The information reported by the media “is non-contextualised and, as such, has not made a direct impact on the current level of threat” in Belgium.

Belgium’s terror alert is currently at the second-highest level of three, which means a threat is possible and likely.

Belgium is still reeling from Daesh suicide bombings at Brussels airport and on the city’s metro on March 22 which killed 32 people and wounded hundreds more.

They came five months after militants, many of them from Brussels, carried out gun and bombing attacks in Paris on November 13, killing 130 people and wounding hundreds more.

France, which is hosting the Euro 2016 football championships, is on maximum alert after an assailant previously convicted for jihadism killed a police officer and his partner on Monday.

The attacker told police negotiators before being gunned down that he had sworn loyalty to Daesh three weeks earlier.

It was not immediately clear how seriously French and Belgian authorities were treating the threat. French authorities told local newspapers that such warnings are relatively common.

“According to the information received, these people could already in be in possession of the necessary weapons and their action could be imminent,” the alert said, according to the Belgian Dernière Heure newspaper.

The attackers were expected to split into two groups, one heading toward France and the other toward Belgium, and to conduct attacks in pairs, the alert said. It offered no details on the basis of the information.

Belgian counterterrorism police declined to comment. Belgium’s security threat coordination center has not raised its threat level, which is currently set at three out of four levels, with the fourth being the expectation of an imminent attack.

The group was planning to travel from Syria into Europe via boat from Turkey to Greece, without passports, according to the alert.

Possible Belgian targets include a Brussels shopping center, an American fast-food chain and a police station, the newspaper reported.

On Monday, an attacker claiming loyalty to the Islamic State killed a police captain and his partner, who worked at a police department outside Paris. The assailant was killed in a police raid.

Amid numerous public memorials for the slain couple, President François Hollande called for international unity to face a “long war” against terrorism.

This battle, he said in an address at the Elysee Palace, is “not just in a few countries but in the world. Everyone can be concerned.”

In an interview on France Inter radio, French Prime Minister Manuel Valls predicted the fight could take decades.

“Other innocent people will die,” Valls said. “It is very hard to say. People can accuse me — and I completely understand — of making the society even more fearful than it already is today with these events. But, unfortunately, this is the reality. It will take a generation.”

Officials added that it was unclear whether there was any link to the murder of a senior policeman and his partner on Monday by a man who pledged allegiance to IS.

Europe has an Unaccompanied Children Crisis Too

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New World Dis-Order

Unaccompanied child refugees: ‘These children aren’t seen as children’

A network of 30 European NGOs supporting missing and exploited children have come together to tackle the rising problem of missing refugee children

Guardian: Human smugglers increasingly combine smuggling with exploitation and their victims are often children,” says Federica Toscano. “At chaotic border situations, it happens that smugglers deliberately separate refugee children from their parents to exploit them.’’

“We also hear that families at the border between Greece and Macedonia have been forced to ‘pay’ smugglers with one of their children,” continues Toscano. “Smugglers have come to realise they can make much more profit by taking advantage of vulnerable people. And the most vulnerable people are children.”

Toscano is well-placed to know. She works for Missing Children Europe, a network of thirty European NGOs that are active in the field of missing and sexually exploited children. Since its foundation in 2001, MCE has focussed on different groups of missing children (pdf). Half of the cases of children that disappear in Europe are runaways: those who run away from home or institutions after a history of violence or abuse. More than a third are abducted by parents.

Related reading: Invisible refugees: ‘You are the only organisation that has ever visited us’ 

But the most recent category is unaccompanied child refugees. “This group only makes up 2% of cases, which is a low percentage,” says Delphine Moralis, the secretary general of MCE, “but that doesn’t say anything about the magnitude of the problem. These children are seldom reported as missing. That’s why we find it so important to focus on this problem too.’’

Earlier this year Europol stated that at least 10,000 unaccompanied child refugees have gone missing in Europe. A recent EU report warned that these children have become targets for criminal gangs, who exploit them in the sex industry or force them to beg, steal or smuggle drugs.

But MCE believe the true number to be far higher than 10,000. Toscano says that “in Italy alone 5,000 refugee children have gone missing. And Germany reported that in 2015 almost 6,000 of these children have disappeared.’’

The organisation has been aware of the problem for some time. “As far back as 2005 a Belgian study showed that one fourth of unaccompanied children seeking asylum went missing within the first 48 hours upon arrival. So it’s no news to us.”

But for a whole range of reasons, many of these disappearances go unreported. “First of all, there’s no sense of urgency,” explains Toscano. “When a child refugee goes missing, the general assumption is that he or she has a plan, and that the child is resilient. The police and social services don’t feel the same sense of urgency as when the child is from their own country. They are not aware of the risks these children run, that they might fall victim to exploitation. So nothing is really done.’’

The lack of formal procedures when these children disappear is another problem. “Much depends on the goodwill of the single professional involved,” says Toscano. “There is no common system to collect information about missing children in Europe. There are good practices, but they’re very local. So the traffickers just go to another area.’’

MCE was founded fifteen years ago in 2001, when it became clear that European cooperation on this issue was seriously lacking. “I was working for a Belgian NGO at the time when two Belgian girls went missing,” says Moralis. “On the third day of their disappearance a judge called us and said: ‘We have no idea where these children are, they could be anywhere in Europe, we really need your help now.’ There was no other way to tackle the problem but by contacting one by one all the 309 European organisations working in this field. That’s when we realised it was necessary to create a network of contact points for missing children.”

The organisation facilitates training of professionals to respond better to the disappearance of child refugees. It also exerts pressure on European institutions to provide clear rules and legislation to protect these children. This year, MCE has published a handbook (pdf) on good practises to help prevent and respond to unaccompanied children going missing.

“We try to be as practical as possible,” says Toscano. “You can do so much to prevent a child from disappearing. Just a simple example: when a child arrives in a shelter and is given food, he may think he has to pay for it. When he has no money, he will try to escape as soon as possible. Workers should take time to explain everything to the child … Sometimes these children don’t even realise it when they are exploited. Their traffickers tell them all kinds of lies to make them extra vulnerable. They say: watch out for authorities, they will lock you up.’’

They also closely monitor development throughout Europe. Toscano has been collecting information on missing children in Europe through the EU co-funded SUMMIT project (pdf). This included a study into interagency cooperation around unaccompanied migrant children done through surveys and interviews with hotlines for missing children, professionals at refugee reception centres, guardians and law enforcement in the UK, Italy, Greece, Cyprus, Spain, Belgium and Ireland.

As a result they are hearing from the frontlines. “We know that there are networks of child traffickers that operate in different countries,” says Toscano. “For example, when a refugee child has been exploited in Eritrea and claims asylum in the Netherlands, there will be another criminal gang waiting to exploit him there. Traffickers have excellent lines of communication. When a child has a history of trafficking, the risk that he will be trafficked again is very high.”

According to Moralis, the closing of borders means that lots of refugees are stuck in bad conditions: “This makes them more vulnerable and creates more opportunities for criminals. How is it possible that all this is going on in Europe and nobody seems to know where these children are?”

“Our main aim is to raise awareness that these children are children,” says Toscano. “It’s very simple. You’d think that everyone would be aware of this, but it is certainly not the case. Not for authorities, not for members of the civil society, nor for the general public. These children usually aren’t seen as children, but as people who just come here and use resources that we want to use for something else.’’

Militant Islam, Obama Admin Forbidden Terms

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A distinction needs to be made. Radical extremists are for the force multipliers, those like Anwar al Awlaki. The militants like Mohammed Emwazi are born from the radicals and they are the deadly enforcers of the Islamic doctrine and Sharia.

Don’t blame the FBI for failures, with particular regard to the worst terror attack in American by a gunman, Orlando. Blame the White House. All the Q&A sessions, congressional testimony and press briefings by FBI Director James Comey have had an underlying message, a cry for help, attention and support.

Don’t blame the intelligence community including CENTCOM and the Pentagon for battlefield or rules of engagement failures. That belongs to the entire White House national security team. The Office of National Intelligence has also been affected.

This is not political correctness at all, it is a Barak Obama edict, sensitivity to Islam across our homeland and across the globe. Obama has had a strident mission since he assumed the Oval Office to create a Muslim protective shield. This is beyond dispute.

While not in any chronological order, there are some very key decisions that were made and continue to be made by the Obama administration that affect our national security and this generational war titled the Overseas Contingency Operation.

In April of 2009, Barak Obama delivered ‘The New Beginnings’ speech. In this presentation he spelled out his full agenda in what was to become the long-term mission to elevate Muslims and their organizations at home and globally. The White House objectives have been successful and consequential.

With the new beginning announced, Obama extended his same purpose throughout government agencies, law enforcement and policies as a mandatory doctrine.

‘Just before that Christmas Day attack, in early November 2009, I was ordered by my superiors at the Department of Homeland Security to delete or modify several hundred records of individuals tied to designated Islamist terror groups like Hamas from the important federal database, the Treasury Enforcement Communications System (TECS). These types of records are the basis for any ability to “connect dots.”  Every day, DHS Customs and Border Protection officers watch entering and exiting many individuals associated with known terrorist affiliations, then look for patterns. Enforcing a political scrubbing of records of Muslims greatly affected our ability to do that. Even worse, going forward, my colleagues and I were prohibited from entering pertinent information into the database.’ Philip Haney, The Hill.

Directly after the 9/11 attack, the Bush administration did reach out to the Muslim communities to determine who was with peace and national security and who perhaps gave clues of a larger and hidden condition that could be festering that would prove clues to more domestic security challenges.

Then came the Holyland Foundation trial in 2007/2008. The material facts and conditions of the domestic threat, people, money, collaboration and global consequence all converged in a courtroom in Texas.

During the Holy Land trial, FBI Agent Lara Burns testified in court that CAIR was a front for HAMAS. One trial exhibit submitted by federal prosecutors – and stipulated to by the defense in the case – explained that these organizations were dedicated to a “civilizational-jihadist process” to destroy America from within and replace the Constitution with sharia (Islamic law):

The Ikhwah [Muslim Brotherhood] must understand that their work in America is a kind of grand Jihad in eliminating and destroying the Western civilization from within and “sabotaging” its miserable house by their hands and the hands of the believers so that it is eliminated and God’s religion [Islam] is made victorious over all other religions. (p. 21)

Federal prosecutors specifically cited this internal Muslim Brotherhood planning document as the strategic goal of these U.S.-based Islamic groups – the very same group advising the Obama Administration. The federal judge in the Holy Foundation case agreed with the case presented by the federal prosecutors had made regarding these organizations, stating in one ruling that “the Government has produced ample evidence to establish the associations with CAIR, ISNA and NAIT with HLF…and with HAMAS.” (p. 14-15) More important details here from the CounterjihadReport.

The Department of Justice under Eric Holder was included in the full protection of the terror networks and associated people. Congressman Gohmert of Texas challenged AG Holder to no avail in a chilling exchange.

Here is where the ‘words matter’ material documentation began. The Obama administration took this agenda to new standard.

In 2009, DHS published via the Office of Intelligence and Analysis Assessment a ‘Rightwing Extremism’ document, pinpointing those that may challenge the Obama Muslim doctrine. Additionally, DHS posted The Department of Homeland Security launched a ‘Do’s and Dont’s bulletin.

The entire complexion of the Department of Homeland Security began to change with new personnel and outreach under Secretary Janet Napolitano. The outreach extended to law enforcement agencies of which LAPD demonstrates.

The order to purge documents, training materials and database was made. The proof is here.

Barak Obama was not finished. In 2015, the White House introduced a strategy for CVE, Counter Violent Extremism.

Then comes the foreign policy of Obama. All deference to Iran began before Obama assumed the White House in 2009 and continues today. Secret back channels to Iran using Ambassador Burns began in 2008. Further, there is Iraq and Syria with Islamic State. Documents here on ISIS prove the intelligence and forecasts were known, available and delivered.

This would not be complete without mentioning China, Russia or North Korea where policies are non-existent.

The Paris attack was a slaughter and Obama found it wise to snub the solidarity march with other world leaders.

Obama touted Yemen as one of his successes but the country collapsed. Finally, the Obama policy doctrine crumbled and the cause was fully explained here. Obama wilfully recoiled as he and Hillary did on Benghazi.

It really no longer matters that Barak Obama, Hillary Clinton or John Kerry refuse to use key terms to describe militant Islam, the entire well verse and informed world have defined it for them. What does matter beyond the words are the policies and refusals of missions, strategies and conditions to keep America, her interests and allies safe.

It is no wonder there is no global respect for the Obama administration and there is much less to fear from her.

In summary, Obama owns this terror, owns this jihad and owns the death as well as the genocide. This is his legacy, he owns it as his own scarlet letter.