There are CIA political hacks and then the Others

Posted on May 5, 2014May 5, 2014 by Denise Simon

I have nothing to add to this one except to say, there once was a time when the oath and sense of duty meant something.

WEST PALM BEACH, Florida, May 2, 2014 – Benghazi showed us a difficult truth. Once upon a time, the CIA left no man behind. The Agency took care of its own, even in the face of disapproval from the public or from other government organizations. Right or wrong, the Agency did everything it could to protect its employees.

And the leaders in the United States Government backed those decisions, anxious to protect Americans overseas.

That was the CIA that saved Dick Holm; that went into the Congo not once but twice to rescue him.

In 1964, Dick Holm was a young CIA officer. After a two-year tour in Laos and Thailand, Holm was assigned to the Congo, to collect intelligence and support Belgian operations in the country.

One day in 1965, the chief of the air unit directed Holm to conduct an air survey of the area to determine whether arms and ammunition were coming across the border with Sudan. Holm was to ride with pilot Juan Peron in his T-28, a two-seater plane where the passenger sits behind the pilot. The mission was to gather intelligence but, even more importantly, to attack military targets

Holm tells how he and Peron spotted some trucks and a power plant, and Peron attacked both targets.

After the attacks, the weather turned threatening, blowing the plane off course. Lost and low on fuel, Peron decided to take the plane down before dark while he still had the ability to land in a clearing. They crash-landed into the jungle.

During the landing, Holm was splashed with flaming jet fuel on his face, his hands and his legs. Juan was unhurt. The plane was on fire. Holm’s eyes were seared shut from the fire and he had little use of his hands. He could smell fire and hear Juan yelling at him to get out of the plane. He used his elbows to release the harness and then crawled out of the plane, and Juan helped him get away from the plane minutes before it exploded.

Holm was weak and barely able to move, and he and Juan were in enemy territory with no support. Holm says he knew burns meant dehydration and infection, and the jungle was an inhospitable place for someone hurt as badly as he was. Holm says in his book, “Juan used his knife to cut charred skin hanging from several of my fingers. There were already bugs on some of my burns.”

Holm and Juan were also in enemy territory. Simba rebels, the force the Belgians and Americans opposed, were in the jungle and would not hesitate to kill Holm and Juan if they found them. They were known to eat their enemies after killing them, believing they gained strength from eating their vital organs.

The next morning, Juan found a village. Village Chief Faustino agreed to help Holm and Juan to safety, and to take care of Holm while Juan went for help. When Juan and the villagers came back to Holm, he was covered in bees and barely conscious.

The villagers made a litter and carried Holm back to the village. They cared for his burns and dug out the worm-like bugs that had burrowed into his wounds. They applied a salve that hardened and created a type of coating, which Holm credits with saving his life. Juan and two villagers left Holm in the village to go for help.

Eight days later, Juan and the villagers arrived at an air station in Paulis. Within two hours, the Agency officers at Paulis received permission to use one of the Belgian helicopters at the field to rescue Holm. They also sent a T-28, piloted by Juan, and the air operations chief in Paulis had ordered a C130 to be at Paulis to transport Holm as soon as he arrived.

When the helicopter crashed on landing to rescue Holm, the air operation authorized a second helicopter to take its place.

That second helicopter saved Holm, and returned him to Paulis. He then immediately was transferred to the C130 and sent to a hospital in what was then Leopoldville, now Kinshasa.

Holm also reports that when CIA headquarters heard Holm was in Paulis, Dick Helms, the Deputy Director for Plans, now the Directorate of Operations, immediately went to Director of Central Intelligence John McCone and said the only way to save Holm’s life was to get him to the National Burn Center in San Antonio, Texas. The DCI called Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara, who authorized the US Air force to deploy a 707 to carry a burn team to care for Holm.

Holm survived, and after years of painful rehabilitation, returned to have an extraordinary 35-year career at the CIA.

The U.S. government went in to rescue Holm, one man, and spared no expense to give him the best care possible.

Where was that CIA on September 11, 2012?

On September 11, 2012, CIA-affiliated officers stood on a roof in Benghazi for seven hours waiting for help from the U.S. government. None came. Eventually, they could no longer hold back the terrorists, and they lost their lives.

Charles Woods and Glen Doherty, part of a Global Response Staff that provides security for CIA officers overseas held off hostile attackers at the US Consulate in Benghazi for seven hours on September 11. For seven hours after Ambassador Christopher Stevens and Sean Smith were attacked, they manned machine guns on the roof of the CIA annex and defended US territory and personnel. They called for help but were ignored.

While the public still does not know exactly what happened in Benghazi, we do know that US government leaders did not deploy forces to rescue Americans stranded on a rooftop taking enemy fire. We know that for seven hours, those men called for assistance were ignored.

We don’t know where leaders were on September 11. We do know they were not on a rooftop in Benghazi and they did not send help, despite seven hours of requests.

We know they left those men behind.

Lisa M. Ruth

Lisa M. Ruth started her career at the CIA, where she won several distinguished awards for her service and analysis. After leaving the government, she joined a private intelligence firm in South Florida as President, where she oversaw all research, analysis and reporting. Lisa joined CDN as a journalist in 2009 and writes extensively on intelligence, world affairs, and breaking news. She also provides CDN with investigative reporting and news analysis. Lisa continues to write both for her own columns and as a guest writer on a wide variety of subjects, and is now Executive Editor for CDN. She is also a regular contributor to Newsmax and other publications.

Tony Blair, More Right than Barack Obama

Posted on May 2, 2014May 2, 2014 by Denise Simon

Tony Blair on the Islamist Threat

by Mark Durie
Frontpage Magazine
May 1, 2014

http://www.meforum.org/3813/tony-blair-on-the-islamist-threat

Tony Blair delivered a major speech on April 23 entitled, “Why the Middle East Matters”. In summary, he argued that the Middle East, far from being a “vast unfathomable mess” is deep in the throes of a multi-faceted struggle between a specific religious ideology on the one hand, and those who want to embrace the modern world on the other. Furthermore, the West, blinded up until now as to the religious nature of the conflict, must take sides: it should support those who stand on the side of open-minded pluralistic societies, and combat those who wish to create intolerant theocracies.

In his speech Blair makes a whole series of substantial points:

He states that a ‘defining challenge of our time’ is a religious ideology which he calls ‘Islamist’, although he is not comfortable with this label because he prefers to distance himself from any implication that this ideology can be equated with Islam itself. He worries that “you can appear to elide those who support the Islamist ideology with all Muslims.”

He considers Islamism to be a global movement, whose diverse manifestations are produced by common ideological roots.

He rejects Western non-religious explanations for the problems caused by Islamist ideology, including the preference of “Western commentators” to attribute the manifestations of Islamism to “disparate” causes which have nothing to do with religion. Likewise he implies that the protracted conflict over Israel-Palestine is not the cause of this ideology, but rather the converse is the case: dealing with the wider impact of Islamist ideology could help solve the Israel-Palestinian conflict.

According to Blair, what distinguishes violent terrorists from seemingly non-violent Islamists – such as the Muslim Brotherhood – is simply “a difference of view as to how to achieve the goals of Islamism”, so attempts to draw a distinction between political Islamist movements and radical terrorist groups are mistaken. Blair considers that the religious ideology of certain groups like the Brotherhood, which may appear to be law-abiding, “inevitably creates the soil” in which religio-political violence is nurtured.

He considers “Islamism” to be a major threat everywhere in the world, including increasingly within Western nations. The “challenge” of Islamism is “growing” and “spreading across the world” and it is “the biggest threat to global security of the early 21st Century.”

Because of the seriousness of the threat of this religio-political ideology, Blair argues that the West should vigorously support just about anybody whose interests lie in opposing Islamists, from General Sisi in Egypt to President Putin in Russia. He finds it to be an absurd irony that Western governments form intimate alliances with nations whose educational and civic institutions promote this ideology: an obvious example of this would be the US – Saudi alliance.

In all this, one might be forgiven for thinking that Blair sounds a lot like Geert Wilders, except that, as he takes pains to emphasize, he emphatically rejects equating Islamism with Islam. Tony Blair and Geert Wilders agree that there is a serious religious ideological challenge facing the world, but they disagree on whether that challenge is Islam itself.My Blair’s speech is aimed at people who do not wish to be thought of as anti-Musilm, but who need to be awakened to the religious nature of the Islamist challenge. He is keen to assure his intended audience that if they adopt his thesis they would not be guilty of conflating those who support radical Jihadi violence with all Muslims.

Islam and Islamism

Two key assumptions underpin Blair’s dissociation of Islamism the religio-political ideology from Islam the religion. First, Blair presupposes that Islamism is not “the proper teaching of Islam”. It may, he concedes, be “an interpretation”, but it is a false one, a “perversion” of the religion, which “distorts and warps Islam’s true message.” He offers two arguments to support this theological insight.One is that there are pious Muslims who agree with him: “Many of those totally opposed to the Islamist ideology are absolutely devout Muslims.”

This is a fallacious argument. It is akin to asserting that Catholic belief in the infallibility of the Pope cannot be Christian merely because there are absolutely devout protestant Christians who totally oppose this dogma. The fact that there are pious Muslims who reject Islamism is not a credible argument that Islamism is an invalid interpretation of Islam.

Blair’s other argument in support of his belief that Islamism is a perversion of Islam is an allegation that Christians used to hold similarly abhorrent theologies: “There used to be such interpretations of Christianity which took us years to eradicate from our mainstream politics.” This is a self-deprecating variant of the tu quoque logical fallacy, in which another’s argument is attacked by accusing them of hypocrisy. Here Blair rhetorically directs the ad hominem attack against himself and his culture. In essence, he is saying “It would hypocritical of us to regard Islamist ideology as genuinely Islamic, because (we) Christians used to support similarly pernicious theologies in the past (although we do not do so today).”

This logic is equally fallacious: observations about the history of Christian theology, valid or not, prove nothing about what is or is not a valid form of Islam.

Blair’s second key assumption is a widely-held view about the root cause of “the challenge”. The fundamental issue, he argues, is people of faith who believe they and only they are right and do not accept the validity of other views. Such people believe that “there is one proper religion and one proper view of it, and that this view should, exclusively, determine the nature of society and the political economy.” “It is not about a competing view of how society or politics should be governed within a common space where you accept other views are equally valid. It is exclusivist in nature.”

Hilary Clinton has expressed a very similar understanding of extremist religionists, who “define religion in such a way that if you do not believe what they want you to believe, then what you are doing is not practicing religion, because there is only one definition of religion.”

Such views about religion may reflect the secularist Zeitgeist, but they offer a very weak explanation for the challenge of radical Islam. The problem is not that Islamists believe they and only they are right. The problem is all the rest of what they believe.Consider this: Tony Blair himself believes his goal is valid, true and worth fighting for, namely a tolerant, open, democratic society, and the Islamists’ goal of a sharia society is invalid. He does believe that his view should determine the nature of society. Likewise many religious groups believe that they follow the one true religion, including the Catholic Church, which Tony Blair formally joined in 2007: Mother Theresa of Calcutta certainly did not consider alternative religious views equally valid to Catholic dogma. But none of this certainty of belief implies that Tony Blair or Catholics in general are disposed to become terrorists, cut hands off thieves or kill apostates.

Blair’s argument manifests the paradox of tolerance. His vision of a good society is one in which people must respect the views of others as “equally valid”. At the same time he argues that we should disallow and combat Islamism because it is “perverse”. He is asking for Islamism not to be tolerated because it is intolerant. If Blair’s explanation for Islamist nastiness is flawed, what then is the explanation? This takes us back to Islam itself. Does Blair’s position on Islam hold water?

Blair’s arguments for his positive view of Islam are weak. The validity of Islamism does not rest or fall on whether there are pious Muslims who accept or reject it, nor on whether Christians have advocating equally perverse theologies in the past. In the end, Islam as a religion – all mainstream Muslim scholars would agree – is based upon the teachings of the Sunna (the example and teaching of Muhammad) and the Koran. Islam’s religious validity in the eyes of its followers stands and falls on how well it can be justified from those authorities.There are at least three respects in which Islamist ideologies claim strong support from Islam – that is, from the Koran and Muhammad.

One is the intolerance and violence in the Islamic canon. The Koran states “Kill them / the polytheists wherever you can find them (Sura 9:5, 2:191). Muhammad, according to Islamic tradition, said “I have been sent with a sword in my hand to command people to worship Allah and associate no partners with him. I command you to belittle and subjugate those who disobey me …” He also said to his followers in Medina, “Kill any Jew who falls into your power.” Following in Muhammad’s footsteps, one of Muhammad’s most revered companions and successors as leader of the Muslim community, the Caliph Umar, called upon the armies of Islam to fight non-Muslims until they surrender or convert, saying “If they refuse this, it is the sword without leniency.”

It will not do, in the face of many such statements found in the Koran and the traditions of Muhammad, to throw one’s hands up in the air and say there are also bad verses in the Bible. If Jesus Christ had said such things as Muhammad did, Christianity’s political theology would look very different today and medieval Christian Holy War theology – developed initially in response to the Islamic jihad – would have come into being as part of the birth-pangs of the religion, just as the doctrine of the Islamic jihad did in the history of Islam.

Islamist apologists find it relatively easy to win young Muslims over to their cause precisely because they have strong arguments at their disposal from the Koran and Muhammad’s example and teaching. Their threatening ideology is growing in influence because it is so readily supported by substantial religious foundations. Islamism may not be the only interpretation of Islam, but by any objective measure, it is open for Muslims to hold it, given what what is in their canon.

Blair makes a telling over-generalisation when he states that Islamist ideology is an export from the Middle East. Another important source has been the Indian sub-continent. Today Pakistanis today are among the most dynamic apologists for Islamism. Abul A’la Maududi, an Indian (later Pakistani) Islamic teacher and founder of Jamaat-e-Islami was writing powerful texts to radicalise Muslims more than 70 years ago – including his tract Jihad in Islam (first published in 1927). His works remain in widespread use as tools of radicalization by Islamist organisations. Maududi’s theological vision was driven, not by Middle Eastern influences or Saudi petrodollars, but by his life-long study of the Koran and the example of Muhammad. The spiritual DNA of Maududi’s Islamist theology was derived from the Islamic canon itself.

The second point to understand about Islamist ideologies is that the conflation of politics and religion, which is one of Blair’s main objections to Islamism, has always been accepted as normative by the mainstream of Islamic theology. It is orthodox Islam. As Bernard Lewis pointed out, the separation of church and state has been derided by most Muslim thinkers since the origins of Islam: “Separation of church and state was derided in the past by Muslims when they said this is a Christian remedy for a Christian disease. It doesn’t apply to us or to our world.”

The third point about Islamist ideologies is that their vision of a closed society in which non-Muslims are second-class participants is in lock-step with the conservative mainstream of Islamic thought. Here again Bernard Lewis: “It is only very recently that some defenders of Islam began to assert that their society in the past accorded equal status to non-Muslims. No such claim is made by spokesmen for resurgent Islam, and historically there is no doubt that they are right. Traditional Islamic societies neither accorded such equality nor pretended that they were so doing. Indeed, in the old order, this would have been regarded not as a merit but as a dereliction of duty. How could one accord the same treatment to those who follow the true faith and those who willfully reject it? This would be a theological as well as a logical absurdity.” (The Jews of Islam, Princeton University Press, 1987, p.4).

Tony Blair is right to call the world to engage with and reject radical Islamist ideology. This is a defining global challenge of our time. He is also correct to affirm that this ideology is religious. But he is profoundly mistaken to characterize it as un-Islamic. The fallacious arguments he puts forward for distinguishing Islam from Islamism are nothing but flimsy rhetoric. The hard evidence against separating Islamism from Islam is clear, the sentiments of some pious Muslims non-withstanding.

Islamism is a valid interpretation of Islam, not in the sense that it is the only ‘correct’ or ‘true’ one, but because its core tenets find ready and obvious support in the Islamic canon, and they align with core principles of 1400 years of Islamic theology. (To make this observation is not the same thing as saying that all pious Muslims are Islamists!)

Blair is right to call for the West to combat “radical Islam”, but the reason why “radical” is a correct term to use for this ideology is that radical means “of the root,” and Islamist ideas are deeply rooted in Islam itself. Islamism is a radical form of Islam. This explains why the radicalization project has been advancing with such force all over the world.

In order to combat radical Islamic views we do need to have a frank and open dialogue about the dynamics of radicalization. Blair is concerned about the damage being caused by denial about Islamism, but he indulges in his own form of blinkered thinking, which is just as unhelpful. He was right to identify Islamist ideology as the soil in which violent jihadi ideologies “inevitably” take root, but fails to identity mainstream Islam itself as the soil in which Islamism develops. In reality the Islamist movement is but the tip of the iceberg of the Islamic movement, a deeper and broader revival of Islam across the whole Muslim world.

When countering radical Islamic ideologies, Western leaders should refrain from putting themselves forward as experts on theology, who are somehow competent to rule on whether a particular interpretation of Islam is valid or “perverse”. There is something ridiculous about secular politicians ruling on which manifestations of Islam are to be judged theologically correct. As Taliban Cleric Abu Qutada once said, “I am astonished by President Bush when he claims there is nothing in the Quran that justifies jihad violence in the name of Islam. Is he some kind of Islamic scholar? Has he ever actually read the Quran?”

Ritual displays of respect for Islam should not be naively used as sugar to coat the pill of opposition to the objectionable beliefs and behaviour of some Muslims. Leaders need to be absolutely clear about what values they stand for, and insist on these values. They should not need to express a theological opinion about what is or is not valid Islam in order to challenge the anti-semitism of Palestinian school textbooks, the denial of basic religious rights to non-Muslim guest workers in Saudi Arabia, incitement against Christians in Egypt, the promotion of female genital mutilation in the name of Islam in the Maldives, or the UK practice of taking child brides.

In this post-secular world, our leaders need to “do God” with less naivety. They need to grasp that the inner pressure they feel to manifest respect for Islam whenever they object to some of its manifestations is itself a symptom of the ideology of dominance which powers the Islamist agenda. They should resist the pressure to mount an apology for Islam. The mullahs can do that.

Mark Durie is a theologian, human rights activist, pastor of an Anglican church, and an Associate Fellow at the Middle Eastern Forum. He has published many articles and books on the language and culture of the Acehnese, Christian-Muslim relations and religious freedom. A graduate of the Australian National University and the Australian College of Theology, he has held visiting appointments at the University of Leiden, MIT, UCLA and Stanford, and was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of the Humanities in 1992.

The Terror Report has Omissions

Posted on April 30, 2014April 30, 2014 by Denise Simon

Polls suggest that American is war weary and we are, but our enemy is not weary at all, so what is the solution? Diplomacy after twenty plus years in various sorts of approaches including money and political correctness has not been a viable solution even when we leave a war theater like Iraq. In fact in Iraq, we just dispatched many spies and CIA operatives there once again. So how bad is the terror report even if partially accurate? Well no better today at all while the White House tells us differently. Terror is not only in the Western Hemisphere, but attacks are growing and we cannot overlook the Homeland.

The State Department publishes a Global Terror Report from time to time and there are some omissions especially with respect to the Homeland. Terror is in America, with training camps, arms and money smuggling and governmental political collusion with Federal agencies. I read the whole report, yet to spare you, below is the State Department Summary.

Jamaat ul-Fuqra (a.k.a the Muslims of America, a.k.a. Muslims of the Americas, a.k.a. Quranic Open University) is an Islamic organization boasts dozens of rural compounds throughout the United States, Canada, and reportedly the Caribbean. It is headed by Sheikh Sayed Mubarik Ali Hasmi Shah Gilani, a Pakistani Sufi, who is persona non grata to the U.S. government and has been forbidden entry to the United States for several decades. Most of the rank-and-file of Jamaat ul-Fuqra are African Americans, and many of them were recruited in the prison system. According to some accounts, the earliest membership of the organization was made up of defectors from the Nation of Islam who had become disenchanted with Louis Farrakhan and his reluctance to plan for an unconstrained violent jihad against the infidel society and government of the United States. Back in the 1980s and early ’90s, members of Jamaat ul-Fuqra committed a series of fire-bombings, murders, and other crimes, many of them targeting Hindus. Sheikh Gilani reportedly reined them in later in the 1990s, and most of their crimes since have been confined to non-violent offenses such as money-laundering, welfare fraud, product counterfeiting, and unauthorized trafficking in firearms. For a few years the State Department listed Muslims of America as a terrorist organization, but that designation was mysteriously withdrawn in the year 2000. More here.

Now on for the core of the report.

Al-Qa’ida (AQ) and its affiliates and adherents worldwide continue to present a serious threat to the United States, our allies, and our interests. While the international community has severely degraded AQ’s core leadership, the terrorist threat has evolved. Leadership losses in Pakistan, coupled with weak governance and instability in the Middle East and Northwest Africa, have accelerated the decentralization of the movement and led to the affiliates in the AQ network becoming more operationally autonomous from core AQ and increasingly focused on local and regional objectives. The past several years have seen the emergence of a more aggressive set of AQ affiliates and like-minded groups, most notably in Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Northwest Africa, and Somalia.

AQ leadership experienced difficulty in maintaining cohesion within the AQ network and in communicating guidance to its affiliated groups. AQ leader Ayman al-Zawahiri was rebuffed in his attempts to mediate a dispute among AQ affiliates operating in Syria – al-Nusrah Front and al-Qa’ida in Iraq (AQI), now calling itself the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) – which resulted in the expulsion of ISIL from the AQ network in February 2014. In addition, guidance issued by Zawahiri in 2013 for AQ affiliates to avoid collateral damage was routinely disobeyed, notably in attacks by AQ affiliates against civilian religious pilgrims in Iraq, hospital staff and convalescing patients in Yemen, and families at a shopping mall in Kenya.

Terrorist violence in 2013 was fueled by sectarian motivations, marking a worrisome trend, in particular in Syria, Lebanon, and Pakistan, where victims of violence were primarily among the civilian populations. Thousands of extremist fighters entered Syria during the year, among those a large percentage reportedly motivated by a sectarian view of the conflict and a desire to protect the Sunni Muslim community from the Alawite-dominant Asad regime. On the other side of the conflict, Iran, Hizballah, and other Shia militia continued to provide critical support to the Asad regime, dramatically bolstering its capabilities and exacerbating the situation. Many of these fighters are also motivated by a sectarian view of the conflict and a desire to protect the Shia Muslim community from Sunni extremists.

The relationship between the AQ core and its affiliates plays out in the financial arena as well. As was the case for the last few years, the affiliates have increased their financial independence through kidnapping for ransom operations and other criminal activities such as extortion and credit card fraud. Al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) and al-Qa’ida in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) are particularly effective with kidnapping for ransom and are using ransom money to fund the range of their activities. Kidnapping targets are usually Western citizens from governments or third parties that have established a pattern of paying ransom for the release of individuals in custody.

Private donations from the Gulf also remained a major source of funding for Sunni terrorist groups, particularly for those operating in Syria.

In 2013, violent extremists increased their use of new media platforms and social media, with mixed results. Social media platforms allowed violent extremist groups to circulate messages more quickly, but confusion and contradictions among the various voices within the movement are growing more common. Increasingly, current and former violent extremists are engaging online with a variety of views on tactics and strategy, including admitting wrongdoing or recanting former beliefs and actions.

Key Terrorism Trends in 2013 –The terrorist threat continued to evolve rapidly in 2013, with an increasing number of groups around the world – including both AQ affiliates and other terrorist organizations – posing a threat to the United States, our allies, and our interests. –As a result of both ongoing worldwide efforts against the organization and senior leadership losses, AQ core’s leadership has been degraded, limiting its ability to conduct attacks and direct its followers. Subsequently, 2013 saw the rise of increasingly aggressive and autonomous AQ affiliates and like-minded groups in the Middle East and Africa who took advantage of the weak governance and instability in the region to broaden and deepen their operations. –AQ leader Ayman al-Zawahiri experienced difficulty in maintaining influence throughout the AQ organization and was rebuffed in his attempts to mediate a dispute among AQ affiliates operating in Syria, with ISIL publicly dissociating its group from AQ. Guidance issued by Zawahiri in 2013 for AQ affiliates to avoid collateral damage was routinely disobeyed, notably in increasingly violent attacks by these affiliates against civilian populations. –Syria continued to be a major battleground for terrorism on both sides of the conflict and remains a key area of longer-term concern. Thousands of foreign fighters traveled to Syria to join the fight against the Asad regime – with some joining violent extremist groups – while Iran, Hizballah, and other Shia militias provided a broad range of critical support to the regime. The Syrian conflict also empowered ISIL to expand its cross-border operations in Syria, and dramatically increase attacks against Iraqi civilians and government targets in 2013. –Terrorist violence in 2013 was increasingly fueled by sectarian motives, marking a worrisome trend, particularly in Syria, but also in Lebanon and Pakistan. –Terrorist groups engaged in a range of criminal activity to raise needed funds, with kidnapping for ransom remaining the most frequent and profitable source of illicit financing. Private donations from the Gulf also remained a major source of funding for Sunni terrorist groups, particularly for those operating in Syria. –“Lone offender” violent extremists also continued to pose a serious threat, as illustrated by the April 15, 2013, attacks near the Boston Marathon finish line, which killed three and injured approximately 264 others. –Many other terrorist groups not tied to AQ were responsible for attacks in 2013, including the People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C), which carried out a number of high-profile attacks last year, including a February 1 suicide plot targeting the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, Turkey.

Key Terrorism Trends in 2013

–The terrorist threat continued to evolve rapidly in 2013, with an increasing number of groups around the world – including both AQ affiliates and other terrorist organizations – posing a threat to the United States, our allies, and our interests.

–As a result of both ongoing worldwide efforts against the organization and senior leadership losses, AQ core’s leadership has been degraded, limiting its ability to conduct attacks and direct its followers. Subsequently, 2013 saw the rise of increasingly aggressive and autonomous AQ affiliates and like-minded groups in the Middle East and Africa who took advantage of the weak governance and instability in the region to broaden and deepen their operations.

–AQ leader Ayman al-Zawahiri experienced difficulty in maintaining influence throughout the AQ organization and was rebuffed in his attempts to mediate a dispute among AQ affiliates operating in Syria, with ISIL publicly dissociating its group from AQ. Guidance issued by Zawahiri in 2013 for AQ affiliates to avoid collateral damage was routinely disobeyed, notably in increasingly violent attacks by these affiliates against civilian populations.

–Syria continued to be a major battleground for terrorism on both sides of the conflict and remains a key area of longer-term concern. Thousands of foreign fighters traveled to Syria to join the fight against the Asad regime – with some joining violent extremist groups – while Iran, Hizballah, and other Shia militias provided a broad range of critical support to the regime. The Syrian conflict also empowered ISIL to expand its cross-border operations in Syria, and dramatically increase attacks against Iraqi civilians and government targets in 2013.

–Terrorist violence in 2013 was increasingly fueled by sectarian motives, marking a worrisome trend, particularly in Syria, but also in Lebanon and Pakistan.

–Terrorist groups engaged in a range of criminal activity to raise needed funds, with kidnapping for ransom remaining the most frequent and profitable source of illicit financing. Private donations from the Gulf also remained a major source of funding for Sunni terrorist groups, particularly for those operating in Syria.

–“Lone offender” violent extremists also continued to pose a serious threat, as illustrated by the April 15, 2013, attacks near the Boston Marathon finish line, which killed three and injured approximately 264 others.

–Many other terrorist groups not tied to AQ were responsible for attacks in 2013, including the People’s Liberation Party/Front (DHKP/C), which carried out a number of high-profile attacks last year, including a February 1 suicide plot targeting the U.S. Embassy in Ankara, Turkey.

* * *

While AQ core leadership in Pakistan is much diminished, Ayman al-Zawahiri remains the recognized ideological leader of a jihadist movement that includes AQ-affiliated and allied groups worldwide. Along with AQ, the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani Network, Tehrik-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP), and other like-minded groups continue to conduct operations against U.S., Coalition, Afghan, and Pakistani interests from safe havens on both sides of the Afghanistan/Pakistan border, and in Pakistan, terrorist groups and AQ allies, such as TTP, have executed armed assaults not only on police stations, judicial centers, border posts, and military convoys, but also on polio vaccination teams and aid workers. Other South Asian terrorist organizations, including Lashkar e-Tayyiba (LeT), cite U.S. interests as legitimate targets for attacks. LeT, the group responsible for the 2008 Mumbai attacks, continues to pose a threat to regional stability.

AQAP carried out approximately one hundred attacks throughout Yemen in 2013, including suicide bombings, car bombings, ambushes, kidnappings, and targeted assassinations, regaining the initiative it had lost through 2012 as a result of sustained Yemeni government counterterrorism efforts. Of the AQ affiliates, AQAP continues to pose the most significant threat to the United States and U.S. citizens and interests in Yemen. AQAP has demonstrated a persistent intent to strike the United States, beginning in December 2009 when it attempted to destroy an airliner bound for Detroit, and again the following year with a plot to destroy several U.S.-bound airplanes using bombs timed to detonate in the cargo holds. In 2013, AQAP’s leader, Nasir Wahishi, was designated by AQ leader Zawahiri as his deputy, and the group continued to maintain a focus on Western targets.

Some of the thousands of fighters from around the world who are traveling to Syria to do battle against the Asad regime – particularly from the Middle East and North Africa, Central Asia, and Eastern and Western Europe – are joining violent extremist groups, including al-Nusrah Front and ISIL. A number of key partner governments are becoming increasingly concerned that individuals with violent extremist ties and battlefield experience will return to their home countries or elsewhere to commit terrorist acts. The scale of this problem has raised a concern about the creation of a new generation of globally-committed terrorists, similar to what resulted from the influx of violent extremists to Afghanistan in the 1980s.

The violence and disorder in Syria extended to the various violent extremist groups operating amongst the Syrian opposition. In late 2013 and early 2014, violent infighting occurred between al-Nusrah Front and ISIL, resulting in the February death of Ayman al-Zawahiri’s envoy to Syria Abu Khalid

al-Soury, who was a member of Ahrar al Sham. Despite this infighting, ISIL is the strongest it has been since its peak in 2006; it has exploited political grievance among Iraq’s Sunni population, a weak security environment in Iraq, and the conflict in Syria to significantly increase the pace and complexity of its attacks. ISIL continues to routinely and indiscriminately target defenseless innocents, including religious pilgrims, and engages in violent repression of local inhabitants.

In 2013, AQIM remained focused on local and regional attack planning, and concentrates its efforts largely on kidnapping-for-ransom operations. While a successful French and African intervention countered efforts to overrun northern Mali by AQIM and several associate groups, these factions continued to pursue attacks against regional security forces, local government targets, and westerners in northern Mali, Niger, and the broader Sahel region in 2013.

Originally part of AQIM, the al-Mulathamun Battalion (AMB), also known as al-Murabitoun, became a separate organization in late 2012 after its leader, Mokhtar Belmokhtar, announced a split from AQIM. AMB claimed responsibility for the January 2013 attack against the Tiguentourine gas facility near In Amenas, in southeastern Algeria. Over 800 people were taken hostage during the four-day siege, which led to the deaths of 39 civilians, including three U.S. citizens. AMB was also involved in terrorist attacks committed in Niger in May 2013, targeting a Nigerien military base and a French uranium mine.

Groups calling themselves Ansar al-Shari’a in Tunisia and the Libyan cities of Benghazi and Darnah also operated in the North Africa space. The three share some aspects of AQ ideology, but are not formal affiliates and generally maintain a local focus. In Libya, the terrorist threat to Western and Libyan government interests remains strong, especially in the eastern part of the country. Libya’s porous borders, the weakness of Libya’s nascent security institutions, and large amounts of loose small arms create opportunities for violent extremists. In Tunisia, Ansar al-Shari’a in Tunisia attempted suicide attacks against two tourist sites in late October 2013 and killed a political oppositionist in July that same year, suggesting the group remains intent on attacking Western and Tunisian interests.

In East Africa, al-Shabaab continued to pose a significant regional threat despite coming under continued pressure by African forces operating under the African Union’s AMISOM command and steady progress in the establishment of Somali government capability. Perhaps because of these positive steps, al-Shabaab targeted its attacks on those participating in the effort to bring stability to Somalia. In September 2013, al-Shabaab struck outside of Somalia (its first external attack was in July 2010 in Kampala, Uganda), attacking the Westgate Mall in Nairobi, Kenya. The assault resulted in the death of at least 65 civilians, including foreign nationals from 13 countries outside of Kenya and six soldiers and police officers; hundreds more were injured. Al-Shabaab’s attacks within Somalia continued in 2013, and resulted in the deaths of hundreds of people, including innocent women and children.

Boko Haram (BH) maintained a high operational tempo in 2013 and carried out kidnappings, killings, bombings, and attacks on civilian and military targets in northern Nigeria, resulting in numerous deaths, injuries, and destruction of property in 2013. The number and sophistication of BH’s attacks are concerning, and while the group focuses principally on local Nigerian issues and actors, there continue to be reports that it has financial and training links with other violent extremists in the Sahel region. Boko Haram, along with a splinter group commonly known as Ansaru, has also increasingly crossed Nigerian borders to neighboring Cameroon, Chad, and Niger to evade pressure and conduct operations.

Palestinian terrorist organizations in the Hamas-controlled Gaza continued rocket and mortar attacks into Israeli territory. The number of rocket and mortar launchings on Israel from Gaza and the Sinai was the lowest in 2013 in more than a decade, with 74 launchings compared to 2,557 in 2012. According to Israeli authorities, 36 rocket hits were identified in Israeli territory in 2013, compared to 1,632 in 2012. Of the 74 launchings on southern Israel, 69 were launched from the Gaza and five from the Sinai Peninsula.

Sinai-based groups, such as Ansar-Beit al Maqdis, also continued to pose a serious threat, conducting attacks against both Israeli and Egyptian targets in 2013.

Since 2012, the United States has also seen a resurgence of activity by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps’ Qods Force (IRGC-QF), the Iranian Ministry of Intelligence and Security (MOIS), and Tehran’s ally Hizballah. On January 23, 2013, the Yemeni Coast Guard interdicted an Iranian dhow carrying weapons and explosives likely destined for Houthi rebels. On February 5, 2013, the Bulgarian government publicly implicated Hizballah in the July 2012 Burgas bombing that killed five Israelis and one Bulgarian citizen, and injured 32 others. On March 21, 2013, a Cyprus court found a Hizballah operative guilty of charges stemming from his surveillance activities of Israeli tourist targets in 2012. On September 18, 2013, Thailand convicted Atris Hussein, a Hizballah operative detained by Thai authorities in January 2012. On December 30, 2013, the Bahraini Coast Guard interdicted a speedboat attempting to smuggle arms and Iranian explosives likely destined for armed Shia opposition groups in Bahrain. During an interrogation, the suspects admitted to receiving paramilitary training in Iran.

On June 22, 2013, the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) declared it would treat Hizballah as a terrorist organization. On July 22, 2013, the EU designated the “military wing” of Hizballah as a terrorist organization, sending a strong message to Hizballah that it cannot operate with impunity. Both Hizballah and Iran issued public statements to denounce the EU, demonstrating the impact of the designation. The EU designation will constrain Hizballah’s ability to operate freely in Europe by enabling European law enforcement agencies to crack down on Hizballah’s fundraising, logistical activity, and terrorist plotting on European soil.

Iran remained one of the chief external supporters of the Asad regime in Syria and continued to help ensure the regime’s survival. The IRGC-QF, Hizballah, and Iraqi Shia terrorist groups have all increased the number of their personnel in Syria since the start of the conflict. Iran also continued to send arms to Syria, often through Iraqi airspace, in violation of the UN Security Council prohibition against Iran selling or transferring arms and related materials.

While terrorism by non-state actors related to AQ and state-sponsored terrorism originating in Iran remained the predominant concern of the United States, other forms of terrorism undermined peace and security around the world. In Turkey, the DHKP/C was responsible for a number of high-profile attacks in 2013, including exploding a suicide vest inside the employee entrance to the U.S. Embassy in Ankara on February 1. Anarchists in Greece launched periodic attacks, targeting private businesses, foreign missions, and symbols of the state. In Colombia, there were still hundreds of terrorist incidents around the country. In Northern Ireland, dissident Republican groups continued their campaigns of violence. “Lone offender” violent extremists also remain a concern, as we saw on April 15, 2013, in the United States, when two violent extremists exploded two pressure cooker bombs near the Boston Marathon’s finish line, killing three people and injuring an estimated 264 others.

* * *

To meet the challenges described herein, our response to terrorism cannot depend on military or law enforcement alone. We are committed to a whole of government counterterrorism effort that focuses on countering violent extremism; building the capacity of partner nation security forces to address threats within their own borders and participate in regional counterterrorism operations; and strengthening relationships with U.S. partners around the world to make the rule of law a critical part of a broader, more comprehensive counterterrorism enterprise. See Chapter 5, Terrorist Safe Havens (7120 Report) in this report for further information on these initiatives, which also include designating foreign terrorist organizations and individuals, countering violent extremist narratives, strengthening efforts to counter the financing of terrorism, and furthering multilateral initiatives such as the Global Counterterrorism Forum.

Dempsey there but not John Kerry (Israel)

Posted on April 2, 2014April 2, 2014 by Denise Simon

Well, people, the matter of Israel at the core of two epic issues remains, the matter of a peace agreement with the Palestinians and the matter of negotiations on Iran’s nuclear program. So, while Barack Obama has capitulated with Iran with wide spread news and failures, Martin Dempsey, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs is in Israel gaining an assessment on Israel’s war plans with Iran.

ABOARD A GOVERNMENT AIRCRAFT — Israel and the United States are now in broad agreement about the threat that Iran poses to the region and how to deal with it, the top US military official said Tuesday.

“I think they are satisfied that we have the capability to use a military option if the Iranians choose to stray off the diplomatic path,” Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said of Israeli officials. “I think they are satisfied we have the capability. I think they believe we will use it.”

Acknowledging there were differences in the past, Dempsey said Israel and the United States are closer now in their assessment of the threat Iran poses and America’s willingness to act.

Dempsey made the remarks after wrapping up a two-day visit to Israel, where he met with military and government officials.

The international community has reached an agreement with Iran to lessen sanctions against the country in return for curbing its nuclear program.

In the past, Israeli officials have expressed wariness about the international accord with Iran and also disagreed with the United States at times over the pace at which Iran could field a nuclear weapon. Israel had raised the prospect of a unilateral attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities.

“Our clocks are more harmonized than they were two years ago,” Dempsey said.

“They just wanted to know that we are maintaining and continuing to refine our military options,” he said.

Jim Michaels writes for USA Today.

Then the matter of John Kerry and his broken talks with Abbas, Kerry bailed out.

JERUSALEM, Jan. 13 (UPI) — U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry called off his Monday visit to Israel at the last minute, Israeli broadcaster Arutz Sheva reported.

The cancellation is apparently in reaction to poor results in Kerry’s attempt to broker an agreement between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, the broadcaster said.

The next stages of the diplomatic negotiations were expected to be finalized at Monday’s meeting.

Currently, Israel hasn’t responded to Kerry’s suggested security arrangements in the Jordan Valley that would replace the presence of Israeli troops.

The Palestinian Authority objects to Israel’s demand that Israel be recognized as the state of the Jewish people. It also refuses to give up on the so-called “right of return” for displaced Arabs and their descendants to Israel.

Oh yeah, one more thing, the issue of releasing Jonathan Pollard just to keep the talks moving forward, well that is for the most part off too. Pollard does not want to be released just to save John Kerry and the White House….I don’t blame him.

Benghazi Bosa Nova

Posted on March 9, 2013March 9, 2013 by Denise Simon

Sadly, this current administration has worked diligently to obscure and impede the truth on the murders of four Americans in Bemnghazi. Security Environment Threat Lists (SETL) published by the State Department twice a year provides for a clear condition of areas around the world and Libya with particular emphasis on Benghazi was a true hot zone yet no offensive action was taken with regard to elevating security. In an effort to provide additional known facts on Benghazi as the media refuses to do so, below is an update of known facts.

1. All survivors of the Benghazi terror attack that required medical treatment and or still do are in treatment facilities that include Walter Reid or other locations under alias names.
2. After the Brits closed their presence in Benghazi where their SAS forces and Ml6 personnel were/are part of activities in Libya, continued to perform operations in joint efforts with the U.S. The Brits also left with for safekeeping their fast response weapons and gear at the CIA safehouse. The Brits, the French and the U.S. had long been providing lethal and non-lethal equipment to the Libyan rebels as well as on the ground training and conflict assistance. The laser systems used to point to targets for identification from the air assets were UK issued laser systems and not that of what the U.S. issues.
3. The mission post in Benghazi notified per procedure and protocol all officials of an imminent threat/attack even the day of the attack.
4. The interagency including the CIA ‘press-office’ were responsible for altering all the talking points that were used by the administration on the ‘why’ the attack occurred including who coordinated the attack and the reason for it.
5. Six months after the attack, still no subpoena has been issued for and to any of the survivors of the attack nor has any been issued to James Clapper. The ‘sitrep’ reports required by those with knowledge of the Benghazi attack have not been released. Interviews to this date have not been performed by agencies of the Red Cross, the Brits or other organizations that had a footprint or relationship in Libya to gain historical knowledge of anti-West militia activities. Government contractors hired by the State Department and the personnel on site working for or at the behest of the CIA have not been interviewed.
6. There has been no published summary of those that participated in the attack by the FBI or other investigating agencies as they related to Ansar al Sharia or those background connections of the membership of connected AQ militias.
7. Interviews have not been conducted with Libyan leadership by our investigating agencies.
8. Live feed videos of 9-11 in Benghazi summaries have not been made available nor have associated communications that include emails, text messages, or critical action alert exchanges.
9. No summary has been provided on the origination of the weapons, theft or smuggling that were part of Qaddafi’s arsenal or that of what the U.S. or contractors provided including State Department authorized weapons contractors including Turi Defense Systems.
10. Moktar Belmoktar of AQIM had phone call exchanges with those participating in the Benghazi attack. Belmoktar has allegedly been killed in the last week. This phone exchange is important as it points directly to al Qaeda and the immediate identification of those responsible for the attack.
11. It remains below radar that the contractors hired by the State Department that include Blue Mountain hired the February 17 Martyr Brigade to tend security at the compound. Not only were background checks not perform, but the contracts were no bullet contracts. Due to the pay scale and working conditions, many if not most of the February 17 Martyr Brigade were on strike the day of the attack.
12. USAID personnel were also working out of the mission post, the quantity of staff is unknown and to date, no one from USAID has been interviewed.
13. The State Department from the outset also lied with regard to hiring outside contract firms for security at the mission post in Benghazi, saying none had been hired.

14. Little to nothing is said with regard to the two U.S. destroyers off the coast of Tripoli at the time of the attack as this is especially important as it relates to connected communications during the night and day of the attack.