Sid and Hillary’s Personal Spy Network, ServerGate

Posted on January 10, 2016January 10, 2016 by Denise Simon

There are only a handful of results of the FBI investigation into Hillary. 1. The DoJ’s Loretta Lynch will give Hillary as pass if there is a criminal referral. 2. Barack Obama will give Hillary full protection under ‘Executive Privilege’ under the excuse of national security. 3. There will be a full blown revolt by the whole intelligence community. 4. Leaks will come out forcing a criminal referral of Hillary Clinton and we could see a Bernie Sanders/Elizabeth Warren ticket.

Hillary’s EmailGate Goes Nuclear

Does the latest release of Hillary’s State Department emails include highly classified U.S. intelligence?

Schlinder: Back in October I told you that Hillary Clinton’s email troubles were anything but over, and that the scandal over her misuse of communications while she was Secretary of State was sure to get worse. Sure enough, EmailGate continues to be a thorn in the side of Hillary’s presidential campaign and may have just entered a new, potentially explosive phase with grave ramifications, both political and legal.

The latest court-ordered dump of her email, just placed online by the State Department, brings more troubles for Team Hillary. This release of over 3,000 pages includes 66 “Unclassified” messages that the State Department subsequently determined actually were classified; however, all but one of those 66 were deemed Confidential, the lowest classification level, while one was found to be Secret, bringing the total of Secret messages discovered so far to seven. In all, 1,340 Hillary emails at State have been reassessed as classified.

There are gems here. It’s hard to miss the irony of Hillary expressing surprise about a State Department staffer using personal email for work, which the Secretary of State noted in her own personal email. More consequential was Hillary’s ordering a staffer to send classified talking points for a coming meeting via a non-secure fax machine, stripped of their classification markings. This appears to be a clear violation of Federal law and the sort of thing that is a career-ender, or worse, for normals. The chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee termed that July 2011 incident “disturbing,” and so it is to anyone acquainted with U.S. Government laws and regulations regarding the handling of classified material.

Part 1

But the biggest problem may be in a just-released email that has gotten little attention here, but plenty on the other side of the world. An email to Hillary from a close Clinton confidant late on June 8, 2011 about Sudan turns out to have explosive material in it. This message includes a detailed intelligence report from Sid Blumenthal, Hillary’s close friend, confidant, and factotum, who regularly supplied her with information from his private intelligence service. His usual source was Tyler Drumheller, a former CIA senior official and veteran spy-gadfly, who conveniently died just before EmailGate became a serious problem for Hillary’s campaign.

Part 2

However, the uncredited June 8 memo, which Mr. Blumenthal labeled as “Confidential” – his personal classification system, apparently – but which the State Department has labeled Unclassified, doesn’t appear to be from Drumheller, whose assessments were written just like CIA intelligence reports. This is not.

Part 3

Remarkably, the report emailed to Hillary by “sbwhoeop,” which was Mr. Blumenthal’s email handle, explains how Sudan’s government devised a clandestine plan, in coordination with two rebel generals, to secure control of oil reserves in the disputed region of Abyei. This is juicy, front-page stuff, straight out of an action movie, about a region of Africa that’s of high interest to the American and many other governments, and the report is astonishingly detailed.

Part 4

Its information comes from a high-ranking source with direct access to Sudan’s top military and intelligence officials, and Mr. Blumenthal’s write-up repeatedly states the sources – there turn out to be more than one – are well-placed and credible, with excellent access. It’s the usual spytalk boilerplate when you want the reader to understand this is golden information, not just gossip or rumors circulating on the street, what professionals dismiss as “RUMINT.” Needless to add, this is generating a lot of talk in Sudan, where the media is asking about this shady affair – and how Sid Blumenthal, who’s not exactly an old Africa hand, knew all about it.

Part 5

But the most interesting part is that the report describes a conversation “in confidence” that happened on the evening of June 7, just one day before Mr. Blumenthal sent the report to Secretary Clinton. It beggars the imagination to think that Sid’s private intelligence operation, which was just a handful of people, had operators who were well placed in Sudan, with top-level spy access, able to get this secret information, place it in a decently written assessment with proper espionage verbiage, and pass it all back to Washington, DC, inside 24 hours. That would be a feat even for the CIA, which has stations and officers all over Africa.

In fact, the June 8, 2011 Blumenthal report doesn’t read like CIA material at all, in other words human intelligence or HUMINT, but very much like signals intelligence or SIGINT. (For the differences see here). I know what SIGINT reports look like, because I used to write them for the National Security Agency, America’s biggest source of intelligence. SIGINT reports, which I’ve read thousands of, have a very distinct style and flavor to them and Blumenthal’s write-up matches it, right down to the “Source Comments,” which smack very much of NSA reporting and its “house rules.”

But is this an NSA assessment? If so, it would have to be classified at least Secret/Sensitive Compartmented Information, a handling caveat that applies to most SIGINT, and quite possibly Top Secret/SCI, the highest normal classification we have. In that case, it was about as far from Unclassified as it’s possible for an email to be.

No surprise, NSA is aflutter this weekend over this strange matter. One Agency official expressed to me “at least 90 percent confidence” that Mr. Blumenthal’s June 8 report was derived from NSA reports, and the Agency ought to be investigating the matter right now.

There are many questions here. How did Sid Blumenthal, who had no position in the U.S. Government in 2011, and hasn’t since Bill Clinton left the White House fifteen years ago, possibly get his hands on such highly classified NSA reporting? Why did he place it an open, non-secure email to Hillary, who after all had plenty of legitimate access, as Secretary of State, to intelligence assessments from all our spy agencies? Moreover, how did the State Department think this was Unclassified and why did it release it to the public?

It’s possible this Blumenthal report did not come from NSA, but perhaps from another, non-American intelligence agency – but whose? If Sid was really able to get top-level intelligence like this for Hillary, using just his shoestring operation, and get it into her hands a day later, with precise information about the high-level conspiracy that was just discussed over in Sudan, the Intelligence Community needs to get him on our payroll stat. He’s a pro at the spy business.

*******

Hillary Clinton was battered with questions by CBS host John Dickerson on Sunday about new revelations from her private email server.

Appearing on Face The Nation, Clinton was asked about ordering an aide to send information through “nonsecure” channels and her hypocritical surprise that another State Department employee was not using a government account at the time.

The Free Beacon reported:

In the June 2011 email exchange, Jake Sullivan, then-Secretary Clinton’s deputy chief of staff, discussed forthcoming “TPs,” appearing to refer to talking points, that Clinton was waiting to receive.

“They say they’ve had issues sending secure fax. They’re working on it,” Sullivan wrote of the forthcoming information in an email dated June 17, 2011.

“If they can’t, turn it into nonpaper [with] no identifying heading and send nonsecure,” Clinton wrote Sullivan in response the same day.

“Aren’t you ordering him to violate the laws on handling classified material there?” Dickerson asked.

“No, not all, and as the State Department said just this week, that did not happen, and it never would have happened, because that’s just not the way I treated classified information,” Clinton said. “Headings are not classification notices, and so, oftentimes, we are trying to get the best information we can, and obviously what I’m asking for is whatever can be transmitted, if it doesn’t come through secure, to be transmitted on the unclassified systems. So, no, there is nothing to that, like so much else has been talked about in the last year.”

Dickerson said the email was “striking” because it suggested she knew how to get around restrictions for sending classified information.

“You’re saying there was never an instance, any other instance, in which you did that?” Dickerson asked.

“No, and it wasn’t sent,” Clinton said. “This is another instance where what is common practice, namely, I need information. I had some points I had to make, and I was waiting for a secure fax that could get me the whole picture, but oftentimes there’s a lot of information that isn’t at all classified, so whatever information can be appropriately transmitted, unclassified, often was. That’s true for every agency in the government and everybody who does business with the government.”

Clinton said the “important point” was she had “great confidence“ she wasn’t in breach of government regulations on classification.

“In fact, as the State Department has said, there was no transmission of any classified information, so it’s another effort by people looking for something to throw against the wall … to see what sticks, but there’s no ‘there’ there,” she said.

Dickerson wasn’t finished, though, pointing to a 2011 email showing Clinton expressing surprise that another State Department staffer wasn’t using a government account, even while she was flouting rules by using a private email to do business.

That was “what you were doing,” Dickerson said, so “why was that a surprise to you?”

“Well, I emailed two people on their government accounts, because I knew that all of that would be part of the government system, and indeed, the vast majority of all my emails are in the government systems, so that’s how I conducted the business,” she said. “I was very clear about emailing anything having to do with business to people on their government accounts.”

In other words, Clinton did not answer the question about her fairly blatant hypocrisy.

ISIS in the Caribbean and Michelle’s SOTU Guest, Sigh

Posted on January 10, 2016January 10, 2016 by Denise Simon

Top US General Offers Warning on IS Fighters in Caribbean

PENTAGON—

VoA: A top U.S. general is concerned that a small number of motivated Islamic State fighters could commit acts of terror in Caribbean nations.

General John Kelly, commander of the U.S. Southern Command, told reporters Friday at the Pentagon that about 150 Islamic extremists left the Caribbean region to join Islamic State fighters in the Middle East last year, about 50 more than in the previous year.

However, he said, the biggest threat might not be the extremists who leave to train and fight with the Islamic State, but the ones who stay behind.

Kelly said Islamic extremist groups seem to have a new message for would-be jihadists.

“And that [message] is, ‘Rather than coming here to Syria, why don’t you just stay at home and do San Bernardino or do Boston or do Fort Hood?’ ” the general said, referring to attacks in the U.S. perpetrated by Muslims sympathetic to extremist groups. As recently as Thursday, a gunman claiming allegiance to the Islamic State ambushed a police officer as he sat in his car in Philadelphia.

“They [Caribbean nations] don’t have an FBI, they don’t have law enforcement like we do,” Kelly said, adding that the U.S. military provides as much information as it can to agencies in those countries.

Iraq, Afghanistan

When asked about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Kelly praised recent comments made to USA Today by General John Campbell, commander of the NATO-led Resolute Support Mission, that the president should delay the drawdown of U.S. troops and maintain the current force of 9,800 because of the volatile security situation in Afghanistan.

He also appeared to pointedly disagree with the U.S. decision to withdraw all troops in Iraq by the end of 2011, telling a reporter there were “other ways to have done it.”

“I believe this war stuff is hard, and it’s not for the untrained and the unadvised,” he said.

Kelly, who served in Iraq’s Anbar province, said the removal of U.S. troops took away vital mentors the Iraqi army needed as it continued to develop.

“The equipment is important, but it doesn’t come close to having people who are just with them,” he said.

Kelly, a Marine, said there would eventually be “pressure” to lower standards for women so more of them could advance in combat roles, such as the Marine infantry and the Army Rangers.

Last year, the Marine Corps asked that certain combat jobs remain closed to women, but Defense Secretary Ash Carter overruled the request.

Pentagon officials have vowed that standards for those jobs will not be lowered.

***

Meanwhile, who will be Michelle Obama’s guest at the State of the Union address? Whoa….

Syrian refugee among first lady’s guests for State of Union

WASHINGTON (AP) — A Syrian scientist stricken with cancer and seeking a new start for his family in Michigan will represent Syrian refugees as a guest of first lady Michelle Obama for the president’s final State of the Union address.

President Barack Obama has committed to accepting an additional 10,000 Syrian refugees, but some Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates are critical of the expansion. Republican presidential candidate Ted Cruz, for example, noted the recent arrest of two Iraqi refugees. During an interview with CNN that aired Sunday, Cruz emphasized that they came to the United States “using the same vetting that President Obama wants us to trust with Syrian refugees.”

Refaai Hamo, his son and three daughters landed at Detroit Metropolitan Airport in December, anxious to rebuild their lives. Hamo fled to Turkey from Syria after a missile attack killed his wife and one other daughter. Hamo was profiled on the popular photo blog Humans of New York and identified as “The Scientist.”

The White House said Sunday that Hamo will be among about 20 guests who will sit near the first lady on Tuesday. The guests include several veterans and service members, including one of the three Americans who thwarted a terrorist attack aboard a Paris-bound train.

Those on the guest list will highlight issues that Obama has attempted to prioritize during his tenure, such as expanded health insurance coverage, and issues that he hopes to work on during his final year, such as criminal justice reform. The guest list includes a California man whose partner was killed in the San Bernardino attack, the first female Army Reserve officer to graduate from the Army’s elite Ranger School and a plaintiff in the landmark Supreme Court case that found same-sex couples have a constitutional right to marry. One seat will be empty, to represent the victims of gun violence.

Obama read about Hamo’s story last month. His cancer had gone untreated because he lacked health insurance. The actor, Ed Norton, set up for the Hamo family an online fundraising campaign that raised more than $450,000. The White House described Hamo as living the kind of life in Syria that is associated with the American dream. He married his college sweetheart, and they built a life together before a missile tore through the complex he helped design and where his family lived.

Obama told Hamo through a Facebook posting that, “Yes, you can still make a difference in the world, and we’re proud that you’ll pursue your dreams here. Welcome to your new home. You’re part of what makes America great.”

Other guests include:

— Staff Sgt. Spencer Stone of Sacramento, California, who, along with Anthony Sadler and U.S. Army Specialist Alex Skarlatos, stopped a man from opening fire on passengers aboard a crowded Paris-bound train.

— Oscar Vazquez of Fort Worth, Texas, a veteran who came to the U.S. as a child from Mexico, and now works as a business analyst and advocate for Latino students.

— Sue Ellen Allen of Scottsdale Arizona, co-founder of a nonprofit that helps former prisoners re-enter society.

Edward Archer Ambush to Kill Philly Police Officer

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

In the name of the Koran and in solidarity with ISIS, Edward Archer attempted to kill the officer in an ambush. He used a stolen police 9mm weapon, stolen in 2013 and unloaded the entire magazine. The officer, Jesse Hartnett took 3 gunshot wounds into his arm, was able to immediately give chase and to shoot Archer when other officers soon arrived on the scene.

Archer has a deep history and the prosecutor has chosen not to prosecute on several previous criminal acts. The other question is , did he become radicalized with militant inspired sympathies when he was in fact doing time in prison.

According to court records, he was scheduled to be sentenced Monday in a Delaware County traffic-accident case. He was found guilty in a November non-jury trial of forging documents, careless driving, driving with a suspended or revoked license, and related offenses.

Judge Richard Cappelli recalled that Archer defended himself. “He didn’t want the public defender,” Cappelli added, because Archer said that the the public defender didn’t’ believe his story.

In Philadelphia, he was sentenced in March to nine to 23 months in jail and two years probation in an assault case. He was immediately paroled. Read much more here.

Officer Hartnett was on the force for 5 years and enlisted in the Coast Guard directly after 9/11. He will require several surgeries and will likely have long term nerve damage.

The shooter, Archer, age 30 has a long record:

Embedded image permalink

A frame grab of the attempted killing of officer Jesse Hartnett during a press conference at Police Headquarters on Friday, Jan. 8, 2016.

PhillyInquirer: While not classifying the shooting as a terrorist attack, police said Friday that the man arrested after shooting and wounding a police officer in an ambush in West Philadelphia Thursday night confessed he acted “in the name of Islam.”

Police Commissioner Richard Ross said the weapon used to wound Officer Jesse Hartnett was a police 9mm semiautomatic pistol stolen in 2013 from an officer’s home.

Capt. James Clark, homicide unit commander, said suspect Edward Archer told detectives: “I follow Allah. I pledge my allegiance to the Islamic State. That is why I did what I did.”

“He confessed to committing this act in the name of Islam,” Ross said at a news conference Friday afternoon.

He said the suspect told detectives he believed police enforced laws counter to Islam.

Archer’s mother has indicated that he is mentally ill and Ross said investigators do not know yet if the suspect was indeed radicalized or tied to terrorism.Friday afternoon, police and agents with the FBI’s Terrorism Task Force searched a house in Yeadon and another location in West Philadelphia, both associated with Archer.

Investigators are also scouring Archer’s Internet activity to see if he may have had contact with ISIS members or other radical Islamic groups. A law enforcement source said Friday that, so far, they had not found any record that Archer had contact with known terrorism suspects. Federal authorities are also looking into a trip Archer took to Egypt in 2012, that source said.

“We will see where the investigation leads us,” said Ross, adding that officers were executing search warrants.

Mayor Kenney stressed that whatever the gunman’s motive, it had “nothing to do” with Islam.

Jacob Bender, executive director of the Philadelphia chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations, said more investigation is needed.

“We need more information,” Bender said. “Was he in contact with any bona fide terrorist or anything like that? We don’t know.”

He said Archer’s name was not immediately familiar to some of the imams with whom he spoke Friday morning.

Echoing statements by Kenney and other officials, Bender said: “This should not be seen as representative of Muslims or the faith of Islam.”

Hartnett was wounded about 11:40 p.m. Thursday when a gunman unloaded a semiautomatic pistol into the officer’s marked cruiser at 60th and Spruce Streets, authorities said.

Hartnett, 33, was hit three times in the arm and taken to Penn Presbyterian Hospital, where he was reported to be in stable condition but faces a long recovery, authorities said.

Archer, 30, of Yeadon, was wounded by return fire from Harnett and taken into custody after attempting to flee, police said. Officers recovered a black, 9mm semiautomatic pistol, its slide locked to the rear.

The shooter in the attack is seen wearing a long white robe over dark pants on surveillance video, but Ross said he did not know if it was Muslim garb.

The FBI has been notified of the attack, but the agency Philadelphia Police Department remains the lead in the investigation.

The shooting came on Kenney’s and Ross’ first week in their jobs and both rushed to the hospital after the shooting.

Ross said the officer was driving north on 60th Street when the gunman jumped out and strode toward the police cruiser, firing 13 times and pocking the cruiser with bullets before shooting into the driver’s side window.

Wounded three times in the left arm, Hartnett got out of the car and chased his assailant, squeezing off three rounds and hitting the suspect in the buttocks, police said.

Officers caught Archer on the 6000 block of Delancey Street. He was treated at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania before being taken to Police Headquarters for questioning.

Neighbors said they heard a torrent of gunfire from the street, and then police sirens and helicopters as officers from around the city rushed to the scene.

“There were tons and tons of police, coming from every direction,” said Tyesha Fisher, 36, who lives at 60th and Spruce Streets, feet from where authorities say Archer opened fire.

Of Hartnett, Ross said: “The bravery he demonstrated was absolutely remarkable.”

He repeatedly expressed surprise that the officer survived.

“This guy tried to execute the police officer,” the commissioner said early Friday morning.

The officer suffered a broken arm and nerve damage and has “a lot of recovery ahead of him,” Ross said.

Kenney said the shooting showed the sacrifices officers make and highlighted the city’s gun-violence problem.

“There are too many guns on our streets,” putting both police and civilians in harm’s way, he said.

Hartnett’s father, Robert Hartnett, 58, called his son “a very quality young man.”

“He has good determination and he’s always wanted to help people and be a policeman,” the elder Hartnett said.

It was around midnight that police officers arrived at Robert Hartnett’s house in East Lansdowne and transported him to the hospital to be with his son.

“It was shocking but the officers were very excellent and comforted me and got me down there,” he said. “Jesse was groggy when they finally got him out but he was aware of his surroundings and knew what was going on.”

Robert Hartnett said his son’s survival is “a miracle.”

Hartnett said his son served 14 years in with the U.S. Coast Guard. A spokesman for the U.S. Coast Guard, Chief Nick Ameen, confirmed Jesse Hartnett’s service and said he joined shortly after Sept. 11, 2001 and was active duty until Aug. 2008. Jesse Hartnett served in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserves until November 2015, Ameen said.

Jesse Hartnett was also an officer with the East Lansdowne police force from Sept. 2010 until July 2011, according to East Lansdowne Police Chief John Zimath.

“He was a good officer. Actually, he was a great officer,” Zimath said of Hartnett. “He was very well-liked in the community.”

In the meantime, details of Archer’s background gradually emerged Friday.

Reached at her home in Lansdowne, his mother, Valerie Holliday, said Archer was the eldest of seven children and suffered head injuries from playing football and a moped accident. Unfortunately, moped accidents do happen and can be quite serious, which is why it is always best to compare moped insurance before you start riding your moped.

“He’s been acting kind of strange lately. He’s been talking to himself . . . laughing and mumbling,” Holliday said. “He’s been hearing voices in his head. We asked him to get medical help.”

She said her son is a devout Muslim who has practiced the faith “for a long time.”

“He’s going through a lot lately,” Holliday said, adding that Archer believed he was targeted by police.

“I don’t know how he got the gun,” she said. “I’m still hoping they have the wrong child.”

Archer was scheduled to be sentenced Monday in a Delaware County case, according to court records. He was found guilty in a November nonjury trial of forging documents, careless driving, driving with a suspended or revoked license and other related offenses.

In Philadelphia, he was sentenced in March to nine to 23 months in jail and two years consecutive probation in an assault case. He was immediately paroled. He was charged with aggravated assault, conspiracy, firearms offenses and terroristic threats for a January 2012 incident but pleaded guilty to simple assault and carrying a gun without a license.

According to court files, on Jan. 31, 2012, Archer had threatened another man with a gun at a house on Alden Street, near 57th and Spruce, in West Philadelphia, then briefly chased the victim outside.

The victim, Roy Walker, told police that about 4:10 p.m. that day, his girlfriend’s father came to the house and argued with him about the relationship.

Walker said the father pushed him out the door and he then saw two men he didn’t know get out of a parked Jeep Cherokee. One of the men – Archer – who had a long beard and skull cap, pulled out a small black-and-silver handgun and pointed it at Walker’s stomach while grabbing his shirt, Walker told police. Walker said he broke free and ran, and Archer briefly chased him before leaving.

Sometime after the January 2012 incident, Archer apparently went to Egypt. It was not immediately clear why he went there.

When he returned to the U.S. on Dec. 2, 2012, he was taken into custody by New York authorities because of his outstanding arrest warrant from the January 2012 case.

Archer was held in a New York City jail until mid-April 2013, when he was brought back to Philadelphia. He posted bail two weeks later.

Defense attorney Doug Dolfman, who represented Archer at bail hearings in Philadelphia Municipal Court, said Friday that Archer’s mother had told him her son had been in Egypt. He said he did not know why his former client had traveled there.

Philadelphia police officers took to social media to express support for their wounded colleague.

“Thank the lord that one of own will recover after being ambushed & shot last night. Please use extreme caution while out on patrol!!” a message from the 14th District’s official Twitter account said.

Raymond Niglio, an officer in the Third District, called Hartnett a “true hero.” He tweeted: “Great job brother. Get well. We stand with you, you are never alone.”

Gov. Wolf issued a statement saying, “We are thankful that Officer Hartnett is alive and not facing life-threatening injuries after being ambushed.”

“This alleged intentional act of violence against an officer seeking to help a fellow citizen is horrifying and has no place in Pennsylvania.”

Sen. Bob Casey (D., Pa.) called the shooting “an act of barbarism” and said he was pleased that federal authorities were working on the case with local police.

“Those who carry out attacks in the name of ISIS or any other terrorist organization must be fully prosecuted,” he said, but added: “This individual and any who would advocate similar acts are not representative of any religion – they are thugs and criminals.”

Rep. Patrick Meehan (D., Pa.) praised Hartnett’s “tremendous heroism” and said he found Archer’s statements about the Islamic State “troubling,” and called for federal investigators to investigate any possible ties to “overseas radical groups.”

A study by the Department of Justice’s Office of Community Policing, released in October, found that the number of ambush attacks on police officers has been relatively steady, at about 200 per year, since a decline in the 1990s. The report found a small uptick in ambush attacks against officers in the late 2000s and early 2010s.

“Concerns about targeted violence against police are on the rise, while officers must not only be guardians of the public but also be prepared to respond to violence targeting them,” the report said.

Cologne, Germany Rape HQ by Refugee Jihad

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

One officer quoted an attacker as saying, “I’m a Syrian! You have to treat me kindly! Mrs. Merkel invited me.”

German vigilante group vows to protect women from migrant attackers as 34 suspects are arrested – including three for gang-raping two teenagers

Hundreds of women were sexually assaulted, robbed on New Year’s Eve

The attackers were migrants who taunted police saying: ‘Merkel invited us’

Three Syrians arrested for raping two teenage girls in southern Germany

Vigilante group ‘Dusseldorf is Watching’ has since gained 8,000 followers

Threatening notes in German were found on one of the arrested suspects Read more here.

Germany confirms most mob attack suspects were asylum seekers

Berlin (AFP) – Germany said Friday most suspects in the mob violence that marred Cologne’s New Year’s Eve celebrations were asylum seekers, fuelling calls to quickly deport criminal migrants.

Unsettled by a record refugee influx, Germany has reacted with shock to news that women had to run a frightful gauntlet of groping, insults and robberies in an aggressive and drunken crush of around 1,000 men.

A week after the chaotic scenes outside Cologne railway station, federal police said they had identified 31 suspects whose alleged offences were “mostly theft and causing bodily harm”.

Eighteen of them are asylum seekers, the interior ministry said.

Among the suspects are nine Algerians, eight Moroccans, five Iranians, four Syrians, two Germans and one citizen each from Iraq, Serbia and the United States, ministry spokesman Tobias Plate said.

Federal police had received several complaints about sexual offences, but “the perpetrators of these have not been identified,” he said at a press conference.

Cologne police have separately confirmed receiving over 120 complaints of assaults, ranging from groping to two alleged rapes, calling them apparently coordinated attacks during the year-end festivities.

About three-quarters of the cases involved sexual offences, while others related to theft or bodily harm.

– A question of criminality –

Victims and eyewitnesses had since the beginning blamed men of “Arab or North African” appearance, inflaming a heated public debate about Germany’s ability to integrate the nearly 1.1 million asylum seekers it took in last year.

Right-wing populists have charged that Chancellor Angela Merkel’s liberal migration policy has fuelled crime and destabilised society.

German police stand guard outside’s Cologne’s landmark cathedral, where several offenses aga …

Merkel’s spokesman George Streiter said it was “important that the whole truth comes out, that nothing is withheld or glossed over”, but also warned that migrants must not be put under general suspicion or collectively blamed.

“Primarily, this is not about refugees but about criminality,” he said, noting that most asylum seekers in Germany had come seeking protection.

Still, the mob attacks have stoked popular anger and fuelled doubts about the biggest influx of asylum seekers to any EU nation, most of whom are from the Middle East and Africa, and led to pledges of a law and order crackdown.

“We must do everything to prevent such incidents from happening again,” Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere told the Rheinische Post daily, pledging “more CCTV cameras in places where many people gather, heightened (police) presence on the streets and harsher penalties”.

At the weekend, Merkel’s conservative party plans to agree on tougher policies, including cancelling asylum and refugee status for any convicted applicants with jail terms of any length, and the speeding up of deportations.

– Act with ‘full force’ –

“We need more police, a better equipped judiciary and tougher laws, among other things to more quickly expel criminal foreigners,” said Volker Kauder, the parliamentary leader of Merkel’s Christian Democrats.

Under current laws, asylum seekers are only sent back if they have been sentenced to jail terms of at least three years, and if their lives are not at risk in their countries of origin. And there is a backlog in carrying out officially-ordered deportations.

“Citizens expect that those without a right to stay really do leave the country,” Kauder told news weekly Der Spiegel.

“We have to act with full force,” agreed Katharina Barley, general secretary of the centre-left Social Democrats, calling the New Year’s Eve violence “a very dangerous mix of organised crime and sexual violence”.

Merkel herself has vowed to “re-examine if everything necessary has been done with regards to expulsions to send a clear signal to those who do not respect our law.”

****

A police report on the mass sexual assaults in Germany on New Year’s Eve has been leaked and shows that officers had a difficult time containing the situation which was described as “chaotic and shameful.”

Der Spiegel received the copy of the report, which describes officers as being overwhelmed as approximately a thousand men gathered outside a Cologne train station attacking and sexually assaulting women.

“The officers on the ground couldn’t gain control of all of the events, attacks and crimes – there were simply too many at the same time for that to be possible,” a high-ranking officer wrote. “On the square outside were several thousand mostly male people of a migrant background who were firing all kinds of fireworks and throwing bottles into the crowd at random.”

Cartel Leader Guzman Recaptured in Shootout

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

The Mexican Navy said in a statement that marines acting on a tip raided a home in the town of Los Mochis before dawn. They were fired on from inside the structure. Five suspects were killed and six others arrested. The marine’s injuries were not life threatening.

At the home marines seized two armoured vehicles, eight long guns, one handgun and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

BREAKING NEWS: Joaquin ‘Chapo’ Guzman recaptured in Mexico

FoxLatino: Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto confirmed on Friday that authorities have captured fugitive drug lord Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzman in his hometown of Sinaloa.

“Mission accomplished: we have it,” Peña Nieto tweeted Friday.” I want to inform Mexicans Joaquin Guzman Loera has been arrested.”

Misión cumplida: lo tenemos. Quiero informar a los mexicanos que Joaquín Guzmán Loera ha sido detenido.

— Enrique Peña Nieto (@EPN) January 8, 2016

The arrest of Guzmán was followed by a raid at a home in the town of Los Mochis, before dawn by Mexican marines, the AP is reporting. They were fired on from inside the structure. Five suspects were killed and six others arrested, the AP is reporting. The marine’s injuries were not life threatening.

It is unclear if the this was connected to the arrest.

At the home marines seized two armored vehicles, eight long guns, one handgun and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

The statement said they believed a regional commander for a criminal organization was present, but escaped.

The area has been the site of other military operations in recent months as the government continues to search for Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, leader of the Sinaloa cartel.

Guzmán fled in July through a mile-long tunnel dug from what authorities say was a building especially set up for the prison break in plain sight of the prison. The tunnel was equipped with a ventilation system and even a customized motorcycle most likely used to remove the dirt while digging towards the shower area of the drug lord’s prison cell.