The Reason for Boehner’s Invitation to Netanyahu

Posted on January 30, 2015January 30, 2015 by Denise Simon

Having some clarity about future threats that include nuclear weapons, ICBM’s and genocide is clearly required. If it has to be the voice of Benjamin Netanyahu, then so be it as the threats against Israel are shared by allied countries to the United States.

Why Netanyahu, The Churchill Of Our Time, Must Speak Before Congress

It is fitting and proper–indeed essential for our very security–that Speaker John Boehner has extended an invitation to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin “Bibi” Netanyahu to address Congress on Iran and its efforts to develop nuclear weapons and the missiles to deliver them anywhere in the world. The invitation has bipartisan support because many members on both sides of the aisle recognize the fundamental threat to world peace that a nuclear-armed Iran would pose. Like Winston Churchill in the 1930s with Nazi Germany, Netanyahu has been sounding the alarm about Iran’s ominous nuclear and terrorist activities.

It’s a message much of Europe and even segments of the US, particularly in the Obama administration, don’t want to hear. The President has made clear his intense dislike of Israel’s prime minister and his refusal to keep quiet about Obama’s desire to conclude a Neville Chamberlain-like deal with Teheran. In a flagrant interference in another country’s election, Obama operatives are working hard in Israel to help bring down the courageous Prime Minister.

Congress needs to hear first-hand the truth about what Iran is doing and the dreadful implications of those activities.

Thanks to US leadership, the ever-harder sanctions imposed over the years had taken a politically damaging toll on the Iranian economy. The mullahs agreed to sit down with the US and Britain, France, Russia, China and Germany to come up with an agreement ostensibly to get Iran to back off its nuclear ambitions. Iran’s agenda was simple: get the sanctions eased, and then with a loophole-ridden treaty, get them removed altogether.

The basic problem is that the Obama administration wants a deal–any deal–with Teheran and the other parties to the talks are willing to go along in order to snag business contracts with Iran, oblivious to the implications of a radical regime that will be in the position to get the Bomb any time it wants.

Appeasers argue that containment will work with a nuclear-armed Iran just as it did with the old Soviet Union during the Cold War and thus there is nothing to really worry about. Israel and other Mideast nations know better.

The Iranian government, despite the immense corruption of many of its leaders, is a revolutionary regime. Its actions over the years demonstrate that the rhetoric of its officials is more than just hot air. Iran is terror central. It bankrolls and provides arms to Hamas, Hezbollah and all sorts of Islamic terrorists organizations. If the US tacitly concedes its resignation to Iran becoming a nuclear power, then other countries will follow suite in creating their own nukes, including Turkey, Saudi Arabia and Egypt.

That kind of proliferation enormously increases the chances of a nuclear war. We saw in 1914 how the then-center of civilization plunged into a catastrophic war. Even during the Cold War, Washington and Moscow went to the brink of a nuclear holocaust during the Cuban Missile Crisis. (President John Kennedy was acutely aware during those fraught days of how events in 1914 ran away from European leaders.) With nukes in so many unstable hands, a disaster is almost a certainty. Moreover, the widespread knowledge of how to make the Bomb will certainly fall into terrorist hands, which is why the US must prevent this nuclear proliferation in the first place.

Ominously Iran has apparently developed an intercontinental ballistic missile that can reach not only Israel but also Europe. It won’t be many years before the mullahs can aim nuclear tipped missiles against the US. No surprise, the current negotiations don’t cover Iranian missile development.

Another factor Obama and his appeasement-minded minions willfully ignore is the existential threat Iran poses to Israel. Given the size of the Jewish state, it has no room for error. A nuclear-armed Iran will put Israeli leaders in a dangerous, hair-trigger situation. Israel is a crucial US ally, strategically and morally. It is the only durable democracy in the Mideast. With only 8 million people, Israel has surpassed the European Union, with a population of over 400 million, in high technology, rivaling Silicon Valley. It was born from the ashes of the Holocaust. The destruction of Israel would mean, ultimately, the end of Western civilization; the moral rot that would permit such an event would be just about impossible to surmount.

It is not only Israel that is appalled by what Iran is up to. When Israel very nearly undertook preemptive action against Teheran in 2012, countries such as Saudi Arabia were remarkably open about their support for Israeli military actions that would destroy or cripple Iran’s nuclear facilities.

President Obama is either oblivious to all this or feels that in his perverted worldview, these things don’t much matter. Iran knows Obama desperately wants an agreement. It figures that the more it refuses to accept Obama’s willingness to surrender, the more concessions he will offer.

And spin to the contrary, an agreement will be a surrender. For all intents and purposes, Iran will be allowed to make a nuclear device any time it wishes. Obama and Secretary of State John Kerry will proclaim that if Teheran goes to make the Bomb, the US will have plenty of time to stop them before the Iranians can actually do it. Nonsense. It is has already crossed a very difficult threshold on uranium enrichment. The mullahs are moving ahead on the plutonium front. Teheran has brazenly blocked the International Atomic Energy Agency from access to its nuclear installations.

Congress is considering legislation proposed by Sen. Robert Menendez (D., NJ) and Sen. Mark Kirk (R., Ill.) that would impose stiff sanctions on Iran if an agreement is not reached by the deadline of June 30. Twice before, negotiation deadlines have been extended. This would effectively tell Iran, put up or shut up. Obama is naturally opposed. He wants nothing that might jeopardize his dangerous course of abject appeasement of an evil regime. The President outrageously dragooned British Prime Minister to play the role of unregistered lobbyist to call Senators to block the Menendez-Kirk bill.

Which gets to why Speaker John Boehner was well within his bounds to extend that invitation to Netanyahu. Such a momentous treaty with Iran as desired by Obama must, under the Constitution, be submitted to the US Senate for ratification. Obama has trampled on the Constitution time and again–making laws and changing laws at will–and wants no Congressional involvement precisely because the resultant debate would glaringly show what a dangerously miserable deal he had cut. The ranking Democrat on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Robert Menendez, recently declared: “The more I hear from the Administration and its quotes, the more it sounds like talking points that come straight out of Teheran.” When President Obama declared in his State of the Union Address that Iran has “halted the progress of its nuclear program and reduced its stockpile of nuclear material,” the guffaws could be loudly heard from every intelligence agency in the world.

Congress is a separate branch of government. Hearing directly from Netanyahu is well within its prerogatives, especially on a matter as critical as this. By the way back in 2011, Speaker Boehner attempted to coordinate a Netanyahu invitation with the White House. Naturally Obama gave Boehner the back of his hand by ignoring this courtesy.

What to Do About Islamic State’s Cyber Army

Posted on January 30, 2015January 30, 2015 by Denise Simon

Islamic State has taken cyber-terrorism to a whole new plateau. What is the NSA, the Cyber-Command, ODNI or partners do about this electronic war?

ISIS Establishes A Cyber-Alliance With Anti-Israel Hackers

Several pro-ISIS Twitter accounts that promote the terrorist group’s propaganda are collaborating with established anti-Israel hackers in an effort to increase cyber-attacks on behalf of ISIS.

“Terrorists Team for Electronic Jihad” claim of responsibility.

On January 13, the Alazm Center Twitter account, which has over 5,000 followers, called on hackers to contact them. Since then, a group of anti-Israel hackers calling themselves “Terrorists Team for Electronic Jihad” has claimed responsibility for several attacks against Israeli websites on behalf of ISIS.

The group claims to have hacked the website of a security contractor in Israel, a tour organizer and few other Israeli businesses by redirecting visitors to websites featuring the name and flag of ISIS along with the signature of “Terrorists Team for Electronic Jihad.”

“Terrorists Team for Electronic Jihad” claimed responsibility for these attacks in a statement on JustPaste.it, a file sharing site ISIS has been using to publish its statements anonymously. The statement said, “Thanks to God, below is today’s summary of hacking websites which is part of a campaign against Zionist websites” and included a list of individual hackers affiliated with “Terrorists Team for Electronic Jihad.”

Videos of the hacks were also made available on Aljyyosh (“the armies” in Arabic), an online forum for Arab hackers that have claimed responsibility for stealing personal information belonging to American Jews and Israelis. The videos show the hacked websites defaced with ISIS flags and the logo of the “Terrorists Team for Electronic Jihad” along with a song that begins with, “Report our greetings to Abu Bakir [ISIS’ leader].”

Several of the names listed in that statement have previously taken part in other cyber-attacks against Israeli websites on behalf of groups in North Africa such as Al Falaga, a Tunisian hacker group that participated in a large-scale cyber-attack on Israel on Holocaust Remembrance Day in 2013.

Another ISIS Twitter account, Mo7_AbuAzzamNM, which has over 1,000 followers and identifies itself as the “Hacker of the Caliphate State,” posted other statements praising the hacking of “Zionist websites” and sharing links to the statement by “Terrorists Team for Electronic Jihad.” On January 16, Mo7_AbuAzzamNM Tweeted “America has drones, but we have cyber experience. Oh mule of the Jews [Obama], the coming days will show you.”

Prior to their apparent collaboration with ISIS, “Terrorists Team for Electronic Jihad” posted a video on YouTube on November 29, 2014, declaring its allegiance to the Islamic State. The video showed a masked man reading a message in Arabic saying, “We the Terrorists Team for Electronic Jihad declare our support for the Islamic State in Iraq and Levantine with all our force and capabilities.” It is possible that the video attracted the attention of ISIS, and led to the more recent collective efforts.

“Terrorists Team for Electronic Jihad” also operates a Facebook page and a Twitter account that have included messages in support of ISIS. “May allah bless the #ISIS,” read one post on October 8.

Another prominent hacker group that has targeted Jewish, Israeli and American websites called AnonGhost is also showing increasing interest in ISIS. A Twitter account of Mauritania Attacker, the presumed leader of AnonGhost posted several comments in the past few days related to cyber-attacks in the name of ISIS and shared a video claiming to show ISIS how to avoid being monitored by the CIA.

Cyber-attacks on behalf of ISIS have increased over the past several months. In addition to the hacking of Twitter and YouTube accounts affiliated with U.S. Central Command, Jewish institutions, universities and other websites and been targeted as well.

*** How effective is Islamic State’s cyber army?

Although it is already force to be reckoned with, the presence of the Islamic State on Twitter is not as strong as it might seem.

MOSCOW, January 28 (Sputnik) – The Islamic State, also known as ISIS, relies on as many as 45,000 Twitter accounts to wage its propagandistic and recruitment campaign in social media, according to researcher J.M. Berger.

.M. Berger described the social media campaign by the Islamic State as “highly organized,” adding that the radical Sunni group “uses deceptive tactics and shows a sophisticated understanding of how such networks operate.” However, the Islamic State’s network on Twitter has suffered a heavy blow since then.

As many as 18,000 Twitter accounts affiliated with the militants were suspended in recent months. “ISIS supporters on Twitter are under significant pressure, with the most active and viral users taking the brunt of the suspensions,” Berger told House Committee on Foreign Affairs, probing terrorist propaganda after a deadly attacks in Paris. Testimony in part:

In a forthcoming study on ISIS’s use of Twitter, commissioned by Google Ideas and to be published by the Brookings Institution’s Project on U.S. Relations with the Islamic World, technologist Jonathon Morgan and I set out to develop metrics that could define the size and function of this coordinated effort on Twitter.

While our analysis is not complete, we can confidently estimate that during the autumn of 2014, there were at least 45,000 Twitter accounts used by ISIS supporters. This figure includes accounts that were both created and suspended during the time it took us to collect the data.

We found that the vast majority of ISIS supporters on Twitter, about 73 percent, had fewer than 500 followers each. During that period of time, we found no accounts actively supporting ISIS that possessed more than 50,000 followers, a sharp change from early 2014 when some ISIS users could be found with more than 80,000 followers.

The researcher warned that the Twitter campaign against the Islamic State should continue. Otherwise, the network will reemerge. He also said that although Twitter should suspend accounts of the most active users affiliated with the jihadist group, some low profile accounts could be kept active to be used as an open source for gathering intelligence.

A Future Coup in Egypt?

Posted on January 30, 2015January 30, 2015 by Denise Simon

Not enough can be said about the Muslim Brotherhood and their wide and global influence in policy. Several countries have listed the Muslim Brotherhood as terror organization including Egypt and Saudi Arabia. So one must ask what information do they have to classify the Muslim Brotherhood as a terror group. Last year, a petition was placed on the White House website to deem the Muslim Brotherhood a terror organization in the United States and after the required number of signatures the White House responded with a ‘no’ stating not enough evidence for that classification. The question again here is why? Given the Holyland Foundation trial and years of evidence, the associated organizations and names were tied to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.

This brings us to current day where the Muslim Brotherhood is on an aggressive mission to escalate policy and they still have their sites on a power shift once again in Egypt. The Muslim Brotherhood is working diligently to maintain power, recognition, community service, financial stability and legitimacy in Egypt with the full support of the White House and the State Department. The Muslim Brotherhood is getting huge support from academia most of all Georgetown University.

It was Georgetown University that coordinated the recent confab of the Muslim Brotherhood at the State Department as told by the State Department spokesperson Jen Psaki.

A must see video from Georgetown University who has a foreign policy office in Doha, Qatar and it was there that a presentation was made on behalf of the Muslim Brotherhood, explaining the movement politically and diplomatically in Egypt and beyond.

Qatar is also the location where Hamas has moved their headquarters, it is the new location for the Muslim Brotherhood and lastly the location of the Taliban home office, where the 5 Taliban generals released from Guantanamo now reside freely.

Open Jihad Declared in Egypt Following State Dept. Meeting with Muslim Brotherhood-Aligned Leaders

Muslim Brotherhood call for ‘long, uncompromising jihad’The Muslim Brotherhood called for “a long, uncompromising jihad” in Egypt just days after a delegation of the Islamist group’s key leaders and allies met with the State Department, according to an official statement released this week.

Just days after a delegation that included two top Brotherhood leaders was hosted at the State Department, the organization released an official statement calling on its supporters to “prepare” for jihad, according to an independent translation of the statement first posted on Tuesday.

The State Department meeting was attended by a deputy assistant secretary for democracy, human rights, and labor and other State Department officials.

The Muslim Brotherhood statement also was issued just two days before a major terror attack Thursday in Egypt’s lawless Sinai region that killed at least 25.

“It is incumbent upon everyone to be aware that we are in the process of a new phase, where we summon what is latent in our strength, where we recall the meanings of jihad and prepare ourselves, our wives, our sons, our daughters, and whoever marched on our path to a long, uncompromising jihad, and during this stage we ask for martyrdom,” it states.

Preparation for jihad is a key theme of the Brotherhood’s latest call for jihad.

An image posted with the statement shows two crossing swords and the word “prepare!” between them. Below the swords it reads, “the voice of truth, strength, and freedom.” According to the statement, “that is the motto of the Dawa of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

The statement also invokes the well-known Muslim cleric Imam al-Bana, who founded the Brotherhood and has called for the death of Jews.

“Imam al-Bana prepared the jihad brigades that he sent to Palestine to kill the Zionist usurpers and the second [Supreme] Guide Hassan al-Hudaybi reconstructed the ‘secret apparatus’ to bleed the British occupiers,” the statement says.

The Brotherhood’s renewed call for jihad comes at a time when current Egyptian President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi is cracking down on the group and imprisoning many of its supporters, who notoriously engaged in violence following the ouster of Brotherhood-ally Mohamed Morsi.

Egypt experts said the timing of this declaration is an embarrassment for the State Department.

“The fact that the Brotherhood issued its call to jihad two days after its meeting at the State Department will be grist for endless anti-American conspiracy theories about a supposed partnership between Washington and the Brotherhood,” said Eric Trager, a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP). “The State Department should have foreseen what an embarrassment this would be.”

One member of that U.S. delegation, a Brotherhood-aligned judge in Egypt, posed for a picture while at Foggy Bottom in which he held up the Islamic group’s notorious four-finger Rabia symbol, according to his Facebook page.

“Now in the U.S. State Department. Your steadfastness impresses everyone,” reads an Arabic caption posted along with the photo.

Other members of that group included Gamal Heshmat, a leading member of the Brotherhood, and Abdel Mawgoud al-Dardery, a Brotherhood member who served as a parliamentarian from Luxor.

When asked on Tuesday evening to comment on the meeting, a State Department official told the Washington Free Beacon, “We meet with representatives from across the political spectrum in Egypt.”

The official declined to elaborate on who may have been hosted or on any details about the timing and substance of any talks.

The meeting was described by a member of the delegation, Maha Azzam as “fruitful,” according to one person who attended a public event in Washington earlier this week hosted by the group.

The call for jihad, while surprising in light of the Brotherhood’s attempts to appear moderate, is part and parcel of organization’s longstanding beliefs, Trager said.

“Muslim Brothers have been committing violent acts for a very long time,” Trager explained. “Under Morsi, Muslim Brothers tortured protesters outside the presidential palace. After Morsi’s ouster, they have frequently attacked security forces and state property. “

“But until now, the official line from the Brotherhood was to support this implicitly by justifying its causes, without justifying the acts themselves,” he added. “ So the Brotherhood’s open call to jihad doesn’t necessarily mean a tactical shift, but a rhetorical one.”

Terrorism expert and national security reporter Patrick Poole said he was struck by the clarity of the Brotherhood’s call.

“It invokes the Muslim Brotherhood’s terrorist past, specifically mentioning the ‘special apparatus’ that waged terror in the 1940s and 1950s until the Nasser government cracked down on the group, as well as the troops sent by founder Hassan al-Banna to fight against Israel in 1948,” he said.

“It concludes saying that the Brotherhood has entered a new stage, warns of a long jihad ahead, and to prepare for martyrdom,” Poole said. “Not sure how much more clear they could be.”

Poole wondered if the call for jihad would convince Brotherhood apologists that the group still backs violence.

“What remains to be seen is how this announcement will be received inside the Beltway, where the vast majority of the ‘experts’ have repeatedly said that the Brotherhood had abandoned its terrorist past, which it is now clearly reviving, and had renounced violence,” Poole said. “Will this development be met with contrition, or silence? And what says the State Department who met with these guys this week?”

The State Department did not respond to a request for comment before press time.

Obama’s War on Israel

Posted on January 29, 2015January 29, 2015 by Denise Simon

There is no denying, Obama has declared diplomatic war on Israel. Today, Senator Ted Cruz called for a full investigation.

Obama Administration Unloads On Israeli Ambassador Dermer The recent rift between President Obama and Prime Minister Netanyahu has become more contentious lately and by all appearances, will only grow wider. Netanyahu seems determined defy Obama and speak in front of congress. Standing alongside Netanyahu is the Israeli Ambassador to the US, Ron Dermer, and he is drawing as much fire from the White House and Bibi’s critics as his boss.

For perhaps the first time, Israel has become a strongly partisan issue in Washington. An axiom that has rung true in American politics since the Liberty Bell cracked is that Jews vote Democrat. In the 2012 election, the Republicans tried to wrest the Jewish vote away from Obama by claiming that his administration did not support Israel. Those efforts failed, but Congress is strongly divided and with his State of the Union Address, the president set out his battle lines on the issue of sanctions against Iran.

The Israeli ambassador has been walking through this minefield since he was appointed in July 2013. This speech will place Bibi firmly in the crossfire between Democrats and Republicans, on Capitol Hill. There are many who are angered by a foreign leader pushing his way into the middle of what most consider to be a strictly Washington affair. Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, normally a strong advocate of Israel and Netanyahu, said that he was offended by the way the Israeli prime minister inserted himself into a domestic debate between the White House and Congress over America’s Iran policy and called it “wicked”. Netanyahu’s speech could be construed as foreign meddling, with Bibi taking the side of Obama’s opponents. Given Bibi’s blatant support of Mitt Romney in the last US election, it could hardly be the first time that Bibi could be accused of this.

The White House is blaming the Israeli Ambassador for the recent blowout with Israel, according to the NY Times. John Boehner extended the invitation to Netanyahu via Dermer, so he is certainly involved and if blame is to be allocated, he deserves a share. An unnamed White House official blamed Dermer for putting Netanyahu’s personal political fortunes above the relationship between the United States and Israel. This claim sounds convincing since Dermer is considered to be one of Netanyahu’s closest advisers. At the very least, he has been accused of a breach of protocol, by facilitating his Prime Minister’s visit without going through or even informing the White house.

When Mr. Boehner extended the invitation, Mr. Dermer relayed the invitation to Mr. Netanyahu. He did not contact the White House. In a subsequent meeting with John Kerry, Dermer still did not raise the issue of Netanyahu’s speech in front of congress.

White House has called the invitation a breach of diplomatic protocol and announced that Mr. Obama would not meet with Mr. Netanyahu when he visits. In addition, they maintain that the decision not to meet with Netanyahu was due to a policy of not meeting with world leaders close to their elections. This is to avoid the appearance of influence. That policy has been ignored in the past, including one meeting between Clinton and Shimon Peres just before he ran against Netanyahu during which an anti-terror agreement was signed, to much fanfare.

Dermer responded to these issues:

“I have no regrets whatsoever that I have acted in a way to advance my country’s interests. My understanding was that it was the speaker’s prerogative to do, and that he would be the one to inform the administration. The prime minister feels very strongly that he has to speak on this issue. That’s why he accepted the invitation, not to wade into your political debate or make this a partisan issue, and not to be disrespectful to the president.”

This conflict brings into question Mr. Dermer’s performance of his duties.

“He’s a political operative, he’s not really an ambassador,” said Daniel C. Kurtzer, a former United States ambassador to Israel. “What he did was totally unacceptable from a standpoint of diplomacy. To think about going behind the back of a friendly country’s administration and working out this kind of arrangement with the parliament or the Congress — it’s unheard-of.”

Mr. Kurtzer said while it was unlikely the Obama administration would take the extraordinary step of declaring Mr. Dermer “persona non grata” — the official method for a foreign diplomat to be ousted from a country — it could request that Mr. Dermer by reprimanded or removed.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, the executive director of J Street, a Democratic-aligned pro-Israel group agrees with that assessment. “To be an ambassador, you need to be a representative of your country to the entirety of the other country, and that has not been his role to date.”

There are those who disagree and feel that ron Dermer has performed his duties well.

“He’s more direct than they are, he’s less judicious with his words, but he makes it up with principle,” said Mr. Luntz, who taught Mr. Dermer at the University of Pennsylvania before hiring him in 1993. “He’s got tremendous courage and he’s prepared to take a principled risk. I don’t know anyone who is as focused on a specific goal and is prepared to walk through brick walls to get there.”

Matt Brooks, the executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, agrees. “He’s been extremely strong and successful at his most important tasks, which are to represent Israel’s interests and defend Mr. Netanyahu’s prerogatives at a critical time for Israel’s security. This administration has repeatedly sought to both undermine and embarrass this prime minister, and the same Democrats who now profess to be so outraged by this have been notably silent. When the dust settles on this — and the dust will settle — I think that he’ll continue to be effective”

*** But there is more:

Enter Jeremy Bird of One Voice: Operation V15 or Victory 2015 is the Obama team dispatched to torpedo the elections in Israel.

The Obama Administration, through the state Department, is funding a group that is helping an Israeli leftist group to oust Israeli Prime Minister N=Benjamin Netanyahu, according to the Washington Free Beacon. One Voice international, which garnered two grants from the State Department last year, and writes on its website that it is a “partner” with the state Department, is teaming with V15, a leftist Israeli group which coyly avoided naming Netanyahu, but stated, “We say ‘replace the government,’ it’s not directed at specific individuals. There have been many years of right-wing governments during which little happened, it’s time to change course and give people hope.”Jeremy Bird, the national field director for Obama’s 2012 campaign and a co-founder of 270 Strategies, is now working with V15, according to the Daily Caller, which interviewed Lynda Tran, co-founder of 270 Strategies She acknowledged that her organization and Bird are indeed working with One Voice. Bird is virulently anti-Netanyahu; after Netanyahu was invited by Speaker John Boehner to speak before Congress, Bird tweeted that the invitation was a suck-up to Jewish Republicans, writing, “What do you think Adelson promised GOP in exchange for this insane BiBi House visit?” Bird wrote on Twitter. “Blatant attempt to bolster Israeli PM before elections.”

OneVoice development and grants officer Christina Taler would only admit that her organization would help V15 with voter registration and get-out-the-vote efforts, claiming that the efforts would be non-partisan. She told the Beacon, “We’ve formed a partnership with [V15], but it’s important to know we’re absolutely nonpartisan. Our biggest emphasis and focus right now is just getting people out to vote.”

Taler protested that One Voice used the State Department funding for other activities, not the Israeli election. She said that the funding was used to “build public campaign support for the [Israeli-Palestinian] negotiations” that Secretary of State John Kerry attempted in 2014.

Yasser Mahmoud Abbas, the son of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, sits on the advisory board of One Voice.

Islamic State Funnels U.S. Dollars/Kills Former Marine

Posted on January 28, 2015January 28, 2015 by Denise Simon

Islamic State has an operating wing in Pakistan and fundraising dollars are funneled through the United States. The attacked yesterday on the hotel in Libya killed an American, a former Marine. ISLAMABAD: Yousaf al Salafi – allegedly the Pakistan commander of Islamic State (IS) or Daish – has confessed during investigations that he has been receiving funds through the United States.

Law enforcing agencies on January 22 claimed that they arrested al Salafi, along with his two companions, during a joint raid in Lahore. However, sources revealed that al Salafi was actually arrested sometimes in December last year and it was only disclosed on January 22.

“During the investigations, Yousaf al Salafi revealed that he was getting funding – routed through America – to run the organisation in Pakistan and recruit young people to fight in Syria,” a source privy to the investigations revealed to Daily Express on the condition of anonymity.

Al Salafi is a Pakistani-Syrian, who entered Pakistan through Turkey five months ago. Earlier, it was reported that he crossed into Turkey from Syria and was caught there. However, he managed to escape from Turkey and reached Pakistan to establish IS in the region.

Sources said al Salafi’s revelations were shared with the US Secretary of State John Kerry during his recent visit to Islamabad. “The matter was also taken up with CENTCOM chief General Lloyd Austin during his visit to Islamabad earlier this month,” a source said.

Al Salafi also confessed that he – along with a Pakistani accomplice, reportedly imam of a mosque – was recruiting people to send them to Syria and was getting around $600 per person from Syria.

“The US has been condemning the IS activities but unfortunately has not been able to stop funding of these organisations, which is being routed through the US,” a source said.

“The US had to dispel the impression that it is financing the group for its own interests and that is why it launched offensive against the organisation in Iraq but not in Syria,” he added.

There are reports that citizens from Libya, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India besides other countries are being recruited by the IS to fight in Syria. Posters and wall chalking in favour of the IS have also been seen in various cities in Pakistan. Former U.S. Marine Killed by Islamic State’s Tripoli ‘Province’

Two gunmen entered the Corinthia Hotel in Tripoli Tuesday morning. When their shooting rampage was over, at least ten people had been killed. For jihadists in Libya, the hotel was an inviting target. Foreign diplomats, Western tourists and officials from Libya’s rival governments are known to frequent it. Indeed, the victims were five foreigners, including an American, and five Libyans.

The American killed in the attack has been identified as David Berry. According to the New York Daily News, Berry is a former U.S. Marine who worked as a security contractor for Crucible, LLC. The company’s web site says that Crucible “provides high-risk environment training and global security solutions to employees of the U.S. Government, NGOs, and multinational corporations who live and work in dangerous and austere locations worldwide.” The company has not identified the client Berry was working for at the time of his death.

In the past, it could take weeks or months for a terrorist organization to take credit for an attack. Sometimes there is no claim of responsibility at all. Before the siege of the Corinthia Hotel had even been ended, however, a group calling itself the Islamic State’s province in Tripoli claimed on Twitter that the attack was the work of its members. In short order, the group posted photos of the two gunmen, identifying one as a Tunisian and the other as being from the Sudan.

The Islamic State, an al Qaeda offshoot that controls much of Iraq and Syria as a self-declared “caliphate,” announced the establishment of several “provinces” in North Africa and the Middle East in November of last year. The group’s provinces are more aspirational than real, as none of them controls much territory.

Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, who heads the Islamic State, argues that all other jihadist groups, and indeed all Muslims, in his provinces’ territories owe him their loyalty now that the caliphate has expanded. From Baghdadi’s perspective, this means that more established jihadist groups, such as al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) in Yemen, are now null and void. AQAP, which rejects Baghdadi’s assumed role as “Caliph Ibrahim I,” naturally takes offense to the Islamic State’s proclamations. An already heated rivalry became even testier after the Islamic State’s announcement in November.

Baghdadi’s international sway is often exaggerated. The Islamic State has failed to usurp the power of organizations such as AQAP and Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), both of which remain loyal to al Qaeda emir Ayman al Zawahiri. AQIM and its allies maintain a strong presence in Libya. And we cannot be sure how much of an operational relationship there is between the Islamic State’s headquarters in Iraq or Syria and the groups that fight in Baghdadi’s name in Libya and elsewhere.

Regardless, the Islamic State’s international network, and the threat it poses to American interests, is real. The establishment of “provinces,” which was intended to cut into al Qaeda’s dominant share of the global jihadist market, has had some success.

In fact, Berry is not the first American victim of the Islamic State’s provinces.

Late last year, the Islamic State’s province in the Sinai claimed responsibility for the death of a petroleum worker named William Henderson. The Sinai province was formed by a faction of another group, Ansar Bayt al Maqdis (ABM), which split over the rivalry between al Qaeda and the Islamic State. Henderson was actually killed in August 2014, before ABM’s Sinai presence officially swore allegiance to the Islamic State’s Baghdadi. But there are credible reports of cooperation between ABM and the Islamic State before their formal alliance.

The Sinai province has launched a string of attacks already this year, focusing on Egyptian security forces and others.

Earlier this week, Islamic State spokesman Abu Muhammad al Adnani, announced the formation of a province in the “Khorasan,” a geographical region that covers Afghanistan, Pakistan and parts of neighboring countries. A former Pakistani Taliban leader was named as the Khorasan province’s “governor.” His deputy governor is a former Guantanamo detainee known as Abdul Rauf Khadim.

As is the case elsewhere, the Islamic State’s Khorasan province is not the strongest jihadist organization in its home turf. The Taliban, al Qaeda and their allies have a much firmer foothold in South Asia. And the Khorasan province’s leaders include jihadists who lost internal power struggles in their previous organizations, paving the way for the Islamic State to garner their allegiance. Khadim, for example, was once a senior Taliban commander. After Khadim was forced out of the Taliban, Khadim and his supporters threw their lot in with Baghdadi. It wasn’t the pull of the Islamic State that led Khadim to switch allegiances, so much as the Taliban’s push, which was caused by Khadim’s disagreements with his fellow jihadists.

Still, Khadim has been an effective commander and the Khorasan province is already active in southern Afghanistan. There have been skirmishes between Baghdadi’s followers and their rivals in the Taliban, which is clearly gunning for Khadim. One report says that the Taliban has captured Khadim and dozens of his followers, but that has not been confirmed.