Obama Has it Both Ways on Iran

Posted on May 13, 2015May 13, 2015 by Denise Simon

Barack Obama has the memo on Iran…in fact all of them and he has dismissed them for the sake of continued talks on the nuclear program. He admits Iran is a sponsor of terror. The president knows full well the history of Iran yet still works diligently to sell an unwritten deal where sanctions and inspections of Iran are not only debatable but suspect at best.

There is chatter that Saudi Arabia has taken delivery of nuclear weapons they funded through Pakistan’s program while the arms race builds in the Middle East as other Gulf States are in talks with acquiring nuclear weapons.

This era has become the most dangerous and threatening in the world since the Cuban missile crisis under Barack Obama, his National Security Council and with John Kerry, Secretary of State. The whole globe understands the full risk of a nuclear Iran as well as their proxy armies deployed in several locations across the world. Terrorism de jour and sponsoring more is the constant mission of Iran.

Obama says Iran sponsors terrorism

WASHINGTON – President Obama is calling Iran “a state sponsor of terrorism” in his first interview with an Arab newspaper, as he tries to sell skeptical regional allies on a nuclear deal with the terror-backing state.

It was his toughest comments about Iran since the US and other nations reached the tentative nuclear pact with Tehran.

Obama gave the interview to the Saudi-owned Asharq al-Awsat on the eve of a Camp David summit with leaders and officials of the Gulf Cooperation Council, which represents Persian Gulf Arab nations — although several heads of state are skipping the Camp David affair Thursday.

“The countries in the region are right to be deeply concerned about Iran’s activities, especially its support for violent proxies inside the borders of other nations,” Obama said, a reference to Hezbollah and other groups.

“Iran clearly engages in dangerous and destabilizing behavior in different countries across the region. Iran is a state sponsor of terrorism. It helps prop up the Assad regime in Syria. It supports Hezbollah in Lebanon and Hamas in the Gaza Strip. It aids the Houthi rebels in Yemen,” Obama said.

Obama made his reassuring comments as he prepares to brief Arab allies on the status of the nuclear framework reached with Iran following months of negotiations with the regime that included a half-dozen nations.

Anxious about the Iranian threat, Gulf nations are seeking security guarantees from the US. Obama told the paper “there should be no doubt about the commitment of the United States to the security of the region” and our Gulf partners.

He also called for “working to resolve the conflicts across the Middle East that have taken so many innocent lives and caused so much suffering for the people of the region.”

“When it comes to Iran’s future, I cannot predict Iran’s internal dynamics. Within Iran, there are leaders and groups that for decades have defined themselves in opposition to both the United States and our regional partners,” the president said.

“I’m not counting on any nuclear deal to change that. That said, it’s also possible that if we can successfully address the nuclear question and Iran begins to receive relief from some nuclear sanctions, it could lead to more investments in the Iranian economy and more opportunity for the Iranian people, which could strengthen the hands of more moderate leaders in Iran. More Iranians could see that constructive engagement — not confrontation — with the international community is the better path,” he added.

Obama also said the US was taking a “hard look” at the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and called for both sides to demonstrate a “genuine commitment” to a two-state solution.

It appears Obama isn’t taking Saudi King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud’s decision to skip the Camp David summit too hard. The newspaper is controlled by the king’s sons.

Iran’s weapons program continues to advance and any inspections are out of the question of their nuclear sites as told by Iran’s leadership.

Iran rejects Amano’s remarks on access to military sites

TEHRAN, May 13 (MNA) – AEOI spokesman said IAEA chief‘s interpretation of the Additional Protocol on getting access to Iran’s military sites is his own subjective interpretation, although Iran has reservations about it.

“Amano has not dictated any obligation for Iran but rather presented his own subjective interpretation of the Additional Protocol about which we have our reservations,” AEOI Spokesman Behrouz Kamalvandi told IRIB on Wednesday, while referring to an Associated Press interview with International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Yukiya Amano on Tuesday.

Yukiya Amano said on Tuesday that a nuclear agreement being worked on by Tehran and the six states would give his experts the right to push for access to Iranian military sites.

Kamalvandi clarified, however, that the Additional Protocol to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty’s safeguards agreements does not oblige its signatories to allow inspections to their military sites.

“First of all, Iran has neither approved nor implemented the Additional Protocol yet; secondly, no article of the protocol dictates a specific obligation regarding access to the military sites of the signatories,” he asserted.

Kamalvandi added that under the Additional Protocol, access to the sites demanded by the UN nuclear agency requires evidence and the IAEA must take into account the considerations of the signatories, including security considerations.

“If a signatory has a reason to refrain from allowing a visit to the site, the Additional Protocol has permitted access to areas adjacent to the ones demanded by the IAEA or the use of other means of inspection,” he said.

He emphasized that if Iran signs up to the Additional Protocol, it would fulfill its commitments in accordance with the document.

Iran has repeatedly stressed that it will not allow inspections of its military facilities under the pretext of nuclear inspections.

Amano’s remarks came as Iran and the 5+1 negotiators kicked off a new round of deputy-level talks in the Austrian capital of Vienna on drafting the text of a final deal over Tehran’s nuclear program.

Iran and the 5+1 countries – the United States, France, Britain, China, Russia and Germany – are seeking to finalize a deal on Tehran’s nuclear program by the end of June. The two sides reached a mutual understanding in Lausanne, Switzerland, on April 2.

Yukiya Amano said on Tuesday that a nuclear agreement being worked on by Tehran and the six states would give his experts the right to push for access to Iranian military sites.

He emphasized that if Iran signs up to the Additional Protocol, it would fulfill its commitments in accordance with the document.

Iran has repeatedly stressed that it will not allow inspections of its military facilities under the pretext of nuclear inspections.

Tunisia, Revolution Then and Now and Again

Posted on May 12, 2015May 12, 2015 by Denise Simon

The new normal is here and it suggests that protests, aggressions, hostilities and war is part of the every day future unless a multi-track cure is introduced.

In 2013, it was said ‘North Africa is the next frontier in the War on Terror’….

From a 2011 summary on the Arab Revolution:

A year ago, 26-year-old Mohamed Bouazizi was getting ready to sell fruits and vegetables in the rural town of Sidi Bouzid, Tunisia. Bouazizi was the breadwinner for his widowed mother and six siblings, but he didn’t have a permit to sell the goods. When the police asked Bouazizi to hand over his wooden cart, he refused and a policewoman allegedly slapped him. Angered after being publicly humiliated, Bouazizi marched in front of a government building and set himself on fire. His act of desperation resonated immediately with others in the town. Protests began that day in Sidi Bouzid, captured by cellphone cameras and shared on the Internet. Within days, protests started popping up across the country, calling upon President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and his regime to step down. About a month later, he fled.

The revolution begins…

Predictions are important and are based on historical facts, current conditions, tracking people, policy, money and weapons. To see into the future, analysts must form dynamic summaries and then work to give credibility to them or alter them daily as new ground conditions dictate. Is there another Arab Spring, Summer or Fall coming? All clues and symptoms point to yes.

In part from Reuters, Africa:

“We exhausted all our options,” said Zied Salem, who graduated in mathematics nine years ago but made a living from smuggling until a government clampdown ended even that. “After the revolution we had a dream but now they stole our dream.” Salem warned Tunisia’s democratically-elected leaders that they risked suffering the same fate as autocrat Zine El-Abidine Ben Ali, who fell in the 2011 revolution. “If they do not provide us jobs quickly, their lives will be darker. We will revolt and expel them like Ben Ali,” said Salem, who pitched his tent in front of the phosphate company’s office. Despair is not new. In late 2010, a young man burned himself to death in protest, setting off the revolution that swept Tunisia to democracy and the region into uprisings.

Between the Islamic State and al Qaeda in Tunisia

by Aaron Zelin

If al-Qaeda and IS operatives in Tunisia decide to challenge each other for local jihadist supremacy, the result could be more high-profile attacks that threaten the country’s summer tourist industry. Over the past month, there are increasing signs that The Islamic State (IS) intends to build a base and set up a new wilayah (province) in Tunisia in the near future named Wilayat Ifriqiya, a medieval name for the region of Tunisia (as well as northwest Libya and northeast Algeria). This would challenge al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghrib’s (AQIM) Tunisian branch Katibat ‘Uqba ibn Nafi’s (KUIN) monopoly on insurgency and terrorism since their campaign in Jebel Chambi began in December 2012, opening another front in the broader AQ-IS war. As a consequence, outbidding between these two adversaries could lead to an escalation in violence, with Bardo National Museum style attacks becoming more common.

THE ISLAMIC STATE SIGNALING IN TUNISIA

In mid-December last year, IS directed its first overt message to the Tunisian state and its people. Aboubaker el-Hakim (who went by Abu al-Muqatil in the video) claimed responsibility for the assassination of Tunisia’s secular leftist politicians in 2013 — “Yes, tyrants, we’re the ones who killed Chokri Belaid and Mohamed Brahmi” — thus confirming the Ennahda-led government’s suspicions that he was involved. Beyond calling for more violence and for Tunisians to remember its imprisoned brothers and sisters, he also called upon the Tunisian people to pledge bay’a to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, to raise the banner of tawhid (pure monotheism) and to rip down the flags of Charles de Gaulle and Napoleon (alluding to the historically close relations between Tunisia and France). This was followed on April 7th by Abu Yahya al-Tunisi of IS’s Wilayat Tarabulus in Libya, who urged Tunisians to travel to Libya for training in order to establish and extend the writ of IS back at home. Only two days later, a new media account, Ajnad al-Khilafah bi-Ifriqiya (Soldiers of the Caliphate in Ifriqiya) Media Foundation, was created. While unofficial, it foreshadowed the targeting of Tunisia in much the same way the establishment of al-‘Urwah al-Wuthqa (The Indissoluble Link) Media foreshadowed the pledge of bay’a given by Boko Haram to IS in March 2015. Besides IS’s claim of responsibility for the Bardo National Museum attack (which the government actually believes KUIN was responsible for), Ajnad al-Khilafah bi-Ifriqiya Media announced IS’s first claim of responsibility for an insurgent attack in Jebel al-Meghila, near the town of Sbeitla. Additionally, Ajnad al-Khilafah bi-Ifriqiya Media claimed responsibility on April 22 for a separate attack in Jebel Salloum, in which one of its Algerian fighters was killed (signaling to Tunisians as well that other nationalities were within its ranks.) This was followed by IS official media disseminators, including Ajnad al-Khilafah bi-Ifriqiya Media, claiming responsibility for attacks in Tunisia on May 2, also in Jebel Salloum. This increasingly formalized approach suggests that the official announcement of a new wilayah may be imminent.

AL-QAEDA IN THE ISLAMIC MAGHRIB’S TUNISIAN GAMBIT

Although KUIN was first identified as a Tunisian cut-out for AQIM in December 2012 by then Tunisian Interior Minister Ali Larayedh, it was not until mid-January 2015 that the battalion publicly acknowledged the association. This pledge was reaffirmed by KUIN following the death of its leader Khalid Shaaib (Abu Sakhr Lukman) in late March and was an attempt to consolidate strength following false rumours that the KUIN might switch sides to IS. These rumors emanated in part from a statement by KUIN showing support for IS though there was no indication of bay’a. The need to distinguish between general support and a religiously-binding pledge of allegiance is vital — AQAP released a statement in support of IS in Iraq after the fall of Mosul last year. KUIN has also identified with Ansar al-Sharia in Tunisia (AST) when announcing martyrs, highlighting how some of its fighters are former members. AST has become largely defunct however, with members either being arrested, going abroad to fight and train in Syria and Libya, or joining up with KUIN followings its designation by the Tunisian government as a terrorist organization in late August 2013. Since it first entered the public gaze, KUIN has remained obscure, maintaining a low-level insurgency with the Tunisian military for 2.5 years in Jebel Chambi. Members have also been arrested for attempted attacks in different cities of Tunisia as well as for weapons smuggling. More recently it has increased its online profile, at first through the Fajr al-Qayrawan Facebook and Twitter account and then Ifriqiya Media, a well-known non-partisan aggregator of online jihadi releases from all African-based jihadi organizations. Only this past weekend, KUIN created an official media outlet for itself called al-Fatih (the conqueror). Up until then, the main content it released showed pictures of its fighters, martyrs, training camps, graphics with quotes from the Qur’an and ghana’im (spoils of war) from its past operation in Hanchir Ettala.

WHAT NOW?

While KUIN has been involved in a low-level insurgency for 2.5 years, it has not altered the status quo in Tunisia. Therefore, if IS attempts a full-scale terrorist or insurgent campaign in Tunisia, pressure on KUIN could mount and an outbidding scenario of escalating violence could ensue. It could also put more pressure on the Tunisian state, which has up to now been able to maintain control against jihadis since the revolution. That said it is possible one or both organizations might attempt a large-scale attack that would gain a huge media audience, given the onset of tourist season. Moreover, in the aftermath of the Bardo National Museum attack, supporters of IS flipped the popular meme #IWillComeToTunisiaThisSummer in support of the Tunisian tourism industry on its head by showing off with bullets and weapons, intimating that they too would be coming to Tunisia this summer. Vigilance from both the state and the public, then, will be vital in maintaining order and diminishing the effects of violence.

Beirut to Benghazi, 32 Years Later

Posted on May 11, 2015May 11, 2015 by Denise Simon

For decades, studies have been performed on what led up to the attacks on U.S. facilities in Beirut all covering issues from forecasting the attack, to the motivations of the attack, to protecting further attacks to what went wrong. Thirty-two years later we are still in much the same feeble security condition as well as naming those behind attacks and what stimulated the attacks yesterday, today and tomorrow.

While the U.S. military is chartered with security of U.S. interests globally, the Rules of Engagement as susceptible to robust scrutiny by agencies outside the Pentagon, namely the State Department and the National Security Council. Winning the ‘hearts and minds’ ethos did not work 32 years ago, it did not work with al Qaeda, the Taliban or even North Korea much less Iran. The sensitivity doctrine as practiced today by the White House and the State Department with regard to the wide talks with Iran have proven to be not only misguided but dangerous.

Knowing history is key so as not to repeat mistakes. After Action Reports are investigated and published to ensure more effective pro-active measures against all enemies. The Long Commission report on the attacks in Beirut was crafted such that Benghazi never should have happened and frankly neither should have the event in Garland, Texas. We repeat and repeat the stupidity and it stays bloody. There are National Security threats to America and those threats to do include Climate Change or federalizing law enforcement.

Text in part from the Long Commission Report, full text is here and here.

Summary of General Observations.

1. Terrorism.

The Commission believes that the most important message it can bring to the Secretary of Defense is that the 23 October 1983 attack on the Marine Battalion Landing Team Headquarters in Beirut was tantamount to an act of war using the medium of terrorism. Terrorist warfare, sponsored by sovereign states or organized political entities to achieve political objectives, is a threat to the United States that is increasing at an alarming rate. The 23 October catastrophe underscores the fact that terrorist warfare can have significant political impact and demonstrates that the United States, and specifically the Department of Defense, is inadequately prepared to deal with this threat. much needs to be done, on an urgent basis, to prepare U.S. military forces to defend against and counter terrorist warfare.

2. Performance of the USMNF.

The USMNF was assigned the unique and difficult task of maintaining a peaceful presence in an increasingly hostile environment. United States military personnel assigned or attached to the USMNF performed superbly, incurring great personal risk to accomplish their assigned tasks. in the aftermath of the attack of 23 October 1983, U.S. military personnel performed selfless and often heroic acts to assist in the extraction of their wounded and dead comrades from the rubble and to evacuate the injured. The Commission has the highest admiration for the manner in which U.S. military personnel responded to this catastrophe.

3. Security following the 23 October 1983 Attack.

The security posture of the USMNF subsequent to the 23 October 1983 attack was examined closely by the Commission. A series of actions was initiated by the chain of command to enhance the security of the USMNF, and reduce the vulnerability of the USMNF to further catastrophic losses. However, the security measures implemented or planned for implementation as of 30 November 1983 were not adequate to

–4–

prevent continuing significant attrition of USMNF personnel.

4. Intelligence Support.

Even the best of intelligence will not guarantee the security of any military position. However, specific data on the terrorist threats to the USMNF, data which could best be provided by carefully trained intelligence agents, could have enabled the USMNF Commander to better prepare his force and facilities to blunt the effectiveness of a suicidal vehicle attack of great explosive force.

The USMNF commander did not have effective U.S. Human Intelligence (HUMINT) support. The paucity of U.S. controlled HUMINT is partly due to U.S. policy decisions to reduce HUMINT collection worldwide. The U.S. has a HUMINT capability commensurate with the resources ad time that has been spent to acquire it. The lesson of Beirut is that we must have better HUMINT to support military planning and operations. We see here a critical repetition of a long line of similar lessons learned during crisis situations in many other parts of the world.

***

What we are facing today on our own soil is bubbling to the surface as noted by recent arrests leading up to the shooting in Garland, Texas.

The Jihad At Home

ISIS strikes in Texas.

by: Judith Miller

Ben Torres/Getty Images News

Fortunately, no innocent people died in the militant Islamic terror attack Sunday night in Garland, Texas, where an anti-Islamist organization was holding a Mohammed cartoon-drawing contest. The two wannabe Jihadists, armed with assault rifles and body armor, proved no match for an off-duty Texas traffic cop, who shot them dead with his pistol. But had the “homegrown” terrorists been more numerous, better trained, or better armed, the attack might have proved as deadly as that on Charlie Hebdo, the satirical magazine where 12 people were murdered in January. Mitchell Silber, the former director of counterterrorism research for the New York Police Department and now with K2 Intelligence, a consulting group, called the Garland strike the “first ISIS-inspired terror attack on U.S. soil.”

On Tuesday, ISIS embraced the assailants in a statement on its radio station for the Garland attack, calling them “soldiers of the caliphate,” and expressing hope that they would be granted “the highest rank of paradise” for their attack. In another message posted on JustPasteit, an anonymous message board, the group claimed credit for the assault and warned Pamela Geller, the head of the American Freedom Defense Initiative, which sponsored the cartoon contest, that it would not rest until she was dead. Boasting that it has “71 trained soldiers in 15 different states,” among them Virginia, Maryland, Illinois, Michigan, and California, “ready at our word to attack,” ISIS vowed to send “all our Lions to achieve her slaughter.” The attack in Garland, the message states, was “only the beginning of our efforts to establish a wiliyah (authority or governance) in the heart of our enemy.”

While the authenticity of this message has not been independently confirmed, ISIS has frequently used that message board to publish propaganda. And terrorism analysts and law enforcement officials alike take seriously its warning that the Garland attack is only the start of a sustained effort to create havoc and fear through such strikes. According to a report published in April by the New York-based Anti-Defamation League, which fights anti-Semitism and other forms of religious, racial, and ethnic discrimination, this year has seen a dramatic spike in such attacks and plots by individuals inspired by ISIS and other militant Islamic groups. Since the beginning of the year, the report notes, 31 people in 11 U.S. states have been linked to “plots, conspiracies and other activity on behalf of foreign terrorist groups motivated by Islamic extremist ideologies.” The pace of arrests—unprecedented, notes the ADL report—is a “stark reminder of the varied extremist threats we face in this country,” warned Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director. While most of the attacks and more serious plots were hatched in other countries—most notably in Canada, France, and Denmark—“the U.S. is far from immune from the global reach of Islamic extremism,” he said.

Oren Segal, director of the ADL’s Center on Extremism, said that the “alarming” number of mostly young people drawn to jihadist causes demonstrates the “impact foreign terrorist groups have on this generation of homegrown extremists,” mainly through terrorist propaganda or communication on social media. ISIS, the report says, is the largest inspirer, accounting for 29 of the 31 individuals. Terrorism may well be a family enterprise, the ADL report suggests. Nine of the 31 have family members who have also been implicated in militant Islamic activity. Just over half are believed to have traveled or planned to travel to join terror groups abroad. Eleven of the 31 were engaged in domestic terrorist plots. Five of those arrested were female, which brings the number of women linked to Islamic militancy since the start of last year to a total of 14. At least seven of those arrested were converts to Islam—a trend first identified in a controversial 2007 report coauthored by Silber and published by the NYPD.

Considerable debate is underway about what is prompting the dramatic rise in such plots and attacks. Silber says that greater decentralization is an important factor. ISIS has issued a standing order to attack Western targets, “as in Nike’s old tag line: ‘Just do it!’ ” he said. Unlike al-Qaida, whose chief of external operations had to approve a plot in advance, aspiring jihadis can interpret mere “contact with ISIS and its supporters through Twitter and other social media as an order to mobilize.” At least one of the attackers in Texas had a history with terrorist groups and causes: Elton Simpson, who lived in Arizona, was indicted in 2010 for lying to the FBI about having discussed travel to Somalia, which he denied. In 2011, he was found guilty and received three years of probation.

The explosion of social media concerns terrorism and law-enforcement terrorism experts alike. “If the current rate of arrests continues,” Segal said, “the number of Islamic-extremist-related terror arrests in 2015 will exceed that of any previous year.” The best defense against such radicalization, he and others say, is an informed community.

But educating Americans about the danger increasingly posed by homegrown radicals may not be easy. Some analysts have spent almost as much time denouncing the anti-Islamist group that sponsored the event in Texas as they have the two dead attackers. The Southern Poverty Law Center called Geller, a free-speech advocate who has been highly critical of Islam, an “anti-Muslim propagandist.” The ADL, too, has branded Geller’s group an organization that spreads “virulent anti-Muslim bigotry and conspiracy theories.” Many of the group’s critics have suggested that Geller’s event provoked the attack by offering $10,000 to the person who drew the best caricature of Mohammed, an offense to many pious Muslims who believe that the Koran forbids depictions of their prophet. While spokesmen for both the ADL and the Southern Poverty Law Center stress that such provocative action in no way justifies a resort to violence, both have criticized conduct by Geller as offensive to Muslims.

Geller is having none of it. Continuing to portray herself as an advocate for free speech, she denies that she is anti-Muslim, but rather “anti-jihadi” and “anti-Sharia,” a reference to Islamic law. She also defends her controversial contest in Garland, saying that it is precisely the kind of event protected by the First Amendment. “Inoffensive speech doesn’t require legal protection,” she says. “Offensive speech does.”

John Kerry’s Iran Relations Deeper that Reported

Posted on May 8, 2015May 8, 2015 by Denise Simon

Afternoon tea with Foreign Minister Mohammad Zarif at the Upper East Side in New York on Park Avenue is a first in over 20 years. There is also Wendy Sherman and Ernest Moniz that are working the streets at the behest of the White House to get a nuclear agreement signed with Iran. Then there is the matter of gratuity with regard to new embassy locations including that (never-neutral) Switzerland. Imagine the non-reported and secretive discussions.

Secretary of State John Kerry is meeting with Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif this afternoon at the official residence of the Iranian ambassador to the UN in New York City. This is a rare symbolic move to have a secretary of state entering Iran’s soil for the first time since the Islamic Revolution in 1979. Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman is accompanying Kerry in his visit to the Upper East Side residence.

When asked by reporters how Iran nuclear talks were progressing, Kerry replied, “We’re plugging away, we’re plugging away.” Earlier in the day, speaking at the UN on the opening day of a month-long conference on nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, Kerry said Iran and world powers were closer than ever to a historic Iran nuclear deal.

Iran and U.S. cut deal on new diplomatic offices in Washington, Tehran

The United States, in what may be among the first negotiated deals with Iran since relations broke off in 1980, is allowing the Iranian Interests Section in Washington to move to new headquarters on 23rd Street Northwest in West End.

In exchange, Switzerland, which had been looking for new space for the U.S. Interests Section in Tehran — because the current offices, we were told, were “no longer viable and pretty decrepit” — will be getting new offices as well for the U.S. facility.

“Reciprocity is the hallmark of diplomacy,” one source told us. “This was a swap.”

This news comes after Secretary of State John F. Kerry’s visit in New York last week to the elegant second-floor parlor in the residence of the Iranian ambassador to the United Nations — making Kerry the first senior American official to, at least technically, set foot on Iranian soil in decades.

We asked whether the deal indicated a thaw in relations and was related to negotiations over Iran’s nuclear programs.

A State Department official, in an e-mail reply Thursday, said “there is no connection that we are aware of between this long-planned relocation and the ongoing . . . negotiations to address the international community’s concerns over Iran’s nuclear program.”

“The Iranian Interests Section requested last year to relocate to a new address,” the official said, “and permission was granted, per standard protocol.” (The Iranians say they’ve been trying to move to new space for about 30 years.)

The Iranian mission here, which is technically under the auspices of Pakistan, basically handles visas, passports and some cultural matters for the estimated 1.5 million Iranian Americans in this country. It’s currently housed on Wisconsin Avenue north of the Georgetown Social Safeway and above the Wide World of Wines.

Well, this is one deal the Senate won’t get to review.

In part from al Monitor: There will be a “very detailed understanding of the process to resolve the IAEA’s [International Atomic Energy Agency] Iran requirements for satisfying and clarifying the [past] possible military dimensions” of its program.

Moniz also reiterated that under the framework deal reached earlier this month with Iran, the only enrichment site Iran will operate will be at Natanz, and that the underground Fordow facility will have no enrichment, no fissile material and also no advanced centrifuge research and development.

Under the agreement, “Fordow is shut down as an enrichment facility,” Moniz said. “Nearly two-third of its apparatus will be shipped out. There will be continuous surveillance and monitoring.”

“There will be no enrichment at Fordow,” Moniz said. “There will be no enrichment research and development at Fordow. There will be no uranium at Fordow.”

He added, “All of the enrichment and enrichment research and development will be at Natanz.”

ThreatCon Bravo and Background Information

Posted on May 8, 2015May 8, 2015 by Denise Simon

Today, the military bases across the homeland have taken an extraordinary measure not seen since 2011, declaring ThreatCon Bravo.

Terrorist Threat Conditions

A Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff-approved program standardizes the military services’ identification of and recommended responses to terrorist threats against U.S. personnel and facilities. This program facilitates interservice coordination and support for antiterrorism activities. Also called THREATCONs. There are four THREATCONs above normal:

THREATCON ALPHA		THREATCON BRAVO		THREATCON CHARLIE		THREATCON DELTA
This condition applies when there is a general threat of possible terrorist activity against personnel and facilities, the nature and extent of which are unpredictable, and circumstances do not justify full implementation of THREATCON BRAVO measures. However, it may be necessary to implement certain measures from higher THREATCONS resulting from intelligence received or as a deterrent. The measures in this THREATCON must be capable of being maintained indefinitely.		This condition applies when an increased and more predictable threat of terrorist activity exists. The measures in this THREATCON must be capable of being maintained for weeks without causing undue hardship, affecting operational capability, and aggravating relations with local authorities.		This condition applies when an incident occurs or intelligence is received indicating some form of terrorist action against personnel and facilities is imminent. Implementation of measures in this THREATCON for more than a short period probably will create hardship and affect the peacetime activities of the unit and its personnel.		This condition applies in the immediate area where a terrorist attack has occurred or when intelligence has been received that terrorist action against a specific location or person is likely. Normally, this THREATCON is declared as a localized condition. See also antiterrorism.

Texas incident fuels concern about lone-wolf terror attacks

DAVID CRARY and ERIC TUCKE, Associated Press

By DAVID CRARY and ERIC TUCKER, Associated Press

NEW YORK (AP) — The attempted attack on a provocative cartoon contest in Texas appears to reflect a scenario that has long troubled national security officials: a do-it-yourself terror plot, inspired by the Islamic State extremist group and facilitated through the ease of social media.

Trying to gauge which individuals in the United States pose such threats — and how vigorously they should be monitored — is a daunting challenge for counterterrorism agencies. Some experts caution that a limited number of small-scale attacks are likely to continue.

Michael McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said federal authorities are aware of “thousands” of potential extremists living in the U.S., only a small portion of whom are under active surveillance.

Concerns have been intensifying since the rise of the Islamic State group and were heightened this week after two gunmen were shot dead while trying to attack the event in Garland, Texas, that featured cartoon images of the Prophet Muhammad. One of the men, Elton Simpson of Phoenix, was charged in 2010 after being the focus of a terror investigation; investigators are trying to determine the extent of any terror-related ties involving him or his accomplice, Nadir Soofi.

At the White House, Press Secretary Josh Earnest said intelligence officials would be investigating Islamic State’s claim of responsibility.

“This is consistent with what has previously been described as a lone-wolf attack,” Earnest said. “Essentially you have two individuals that don’t appear to be part of a broader conspiracy, and identifying those individuals and keeping tabs on them is difficult work.”

Terrorism experts say the spread of social media, and savvy use of it by extremist groups, has facilitated a new wave of relatively small-scale plots that are potentially easy to carry out and harder for law enforcement to anticipate.

While plots orchestrated by al-Qaida have historically involved grandiose plans designed to yield mass carnage — including airline bombings or attacks on transportation systems — the Islamic State group has endorsed less ambitious efforts that its leaders say can have the same terrorizing effect.

“If you can get your hands on a weapon, how is the state security apparatus supposed to find you?” said Will McCants, a fellow in the Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution in Washington. “It’s attractive because it gets just as much attention as a small- to mid-size bomb.”

A public forum like Twitter, with its millions of users, means those who might otherwise have had limited exposure to terrorist ideologies now have ample access to what FBI Director James Comey has described as the “siren song” of the Islamic State. Social media provides a venue for agitators to exhort each other to action, recruit followers for violence and scout locations for potential attacks.

A former Minneapolis man who goes by the name Mujahid Miski on Twitter was among those urging an attack on the event in Garland. A law enforcement official familiar with the investigation confirmed to The Associated Press that Mujahid Miski is Mohamed Abdullahi Hassan, who left the U.S. in 2008 to join al-Shabab in Somalia. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because details of the investigation are not public.

Hassan has been prolific on social media in recent months — urging his Twitter followers to carry out acts of violence in the U.S., including beheadings — commending attacks elsewhere, and using protests of police activity in Ferguson, Missouri, and Baltimore, Maryland, to try to recruit others.

The phenomenon poses a challenge for investigators as they sift through countless online communications.

“Where is the threshold of saying this is more than just an avid consumer of propaganda?” asked William Braniff, executive director of a terrorism research center at the University of Maryland and a former instructor at the U.S. Military Academy‘s Combating Terrorism Center.

“It’s exceptionally difficult to estimate of the number of people who’ve considered becoming foreign fighters,” he said. “Often you’re not dealing with specific behaviors, but with expressions of belief, which are constitutionally protected.”

U.S. officials say that more than 3,400 people from Western countries — including nearly 180 from the U.S. — have gone to Syria or Iraq, or attempted to do so, to fight on behalf of Islamic State or other extremists groups.

Although there is concern that fighters returning to the U.S. might pose a terrorism threat, some experts say a more immediate danger is posed by individuals in America who are inspired by these extremist groups yet have no direct ties to them.

Such individuals “can be motivated to action, with little to no warning,” National Counterterrorism Center director Nicholas Rasmussen told the House Committee on Homeland Security in February. “Many of these so-called homegrown violent extremists are lone actors, who can potentially operate undetected and plan and execute a simple attack.”

He predicted that the threat posed by these individuals will remain stable, “resulting in fewer than 10 uncoordinated and unsophisticated plots annually from a pool of up to a few hundred individuals.”

The online propaganda can be alluring, even to U.S. residents leading comfortable lives, said Peter Bergen, director of International Security Program at the public policy institute New America.

In testimony Bergen planned to give Thursday before the Senate Homeland Security Committee, he says some Islamic State group recruits are motivated by the same level of idealism as young people who join the Marines or the Peace Corps. In their view, Bergen asserts, the extremist group “is doing something that is of cosmic importance.”

Daniel Benjamin, former coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department and now director of a global issues center at Dartmouth College, said the lone-wolf terrorist phenomenon is not new, but has taken on a new character due to the aggressive military and propaganda activities of the group also known as ISIS.

“What is new is the level of excitement among extremists,” Benjamin said. “The feeling is that ISIS has done what al-Qaida couldn’t — it has held territory, it has damaged armies much larger than it is.”

Benjamin cautions that low-level, lone-wolf attacks may be difficult to stamp out, and said Americans should not let such attacks demoralize them.

Long before this week, the lone-wolf scenario manifested itself when Army Maj. Nidal Hasan, who had been inspired by a radical Yemen-based preacher, killed 13 people at Fort Hood in 2009.

Government officials have acknowledged that surveillance programs, however diligent, aren’t the full answer to thwarting terrorism. Among the preventive strategies is a federal program launched last fall called Countering Violent Extremism, which aims to encourage community engagement to thwart radicalization. It’s been tested in Los Angeles, Boston and Minneapolis-St. Paul.
[3:24:28 PM] The Denise Simon Experience: Bergen, in his prepared testimony for the Senate committee, said relatives of potential Islamic state group recruits might be more willing to inform authorities if the family member faced options other than a long prison term. He suggested some sort of mix of a token prison term, followed by probation and counseling services.