Category Archives: ISIS ISIL Islamic State Caliphate

New Anti-Terrorism Commission via Blair and Panetta

Posted on by

Frankly this mission appears to be riddled with political correctness and even more a robust agenda to influence the candidates running for the Oval Office. They want to study radical or militant Islam? Really? What more needs to be learned and understood?

This new commission also speaks to the fact that Obama and Cameron both refuse to speak the truth on the effects of militant Islam, such that all existing approaches have been feeble and feckless. Wonder if this commission will include Iran, Syria, Russia, Iraq, Libya, an Nusra, Hamas, Hezbollah or al Qaeda, much less the Muslim Brotherhood.

 

Tony Blair, Leon Panetta to launch antiterrorism commission

WaPo: Former British prime minister Tony Blair and former U.S. Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta are launching a commission on violent extremism that will aim to help the next U.S. administration counter radicalization among Muslims.

The soon-to-launch effort, which also hopes to guide European leaders, will unite experts to study extremist groups like the Islamic State and recommend ways to blunt their appeal among disaffected youth. It is being sponsored by the CSIS Commission on Countering Violent Extremism.

Commission organizers said they plan to produce a report by the end of July to coincide with the Republican and Democratic political conventions, where party nominees will be decided.

“Whoever is the next president is going to have to deal with this,” Blair said Sunday during an interview in Washington.

“I want to produce a practical policy handbook … something that, if I was sitting in office today, would give me a comprehensive view of the different dimensions of this issue.”

Panetta, who led the CIA from 2009 to 2011, said government leaders do not yet fully understand the problem.

“We haven’t been very effective at developing a strategy to reduce the allure of extreme ideologies both at home and abroad, to understand what we can do to undermine this narrative that attracts so many recruits to violence,” he said in a phone interview on Friday.

The problem of competing for the hearts and minds of Muslim youth has dogged experts for years. But the rapid rise of the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, and recent attacks in Paris and San Bernardino have made a solution more urgent for world leaders.

Radical Islam has also become a topic of discussion on the presidential campaign trail.

Amid a contentious primary, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump has vowed to “quickly and decisively bomb the hell out of ISIS … [so] no one will mess with us.” At one campaign event, candidate Ted Cruz said he would “carpet bomb” ISIS “into oblivion.”

“I don’t know if sand can glow in the dark, but we’re going to find out,” Cruz said.

While declining to criticize the candidates directly, Panetta lamented the “simplistic solutions” offered on the campaign trail and suggested the commission could broaden the debate.

“It is is our nature to want to hear simple solutions to complex problems,” Panetta said. “But the reality is that this threat, which I think is a clear and present danger, requires a much more thoughtful and comprehensive approach.”

Blair argued that Republicans’ plans to counter to ISIS with vast bombing campaigns are unwise.

“Anything that ends up alienating a large part of the Muslim world is counterproductive. So let’s be clear: We need allies in this fight, and they are our allies. They’re also the biggest victims of this terrorism.”

“The religion of Islam in its nature is peaceful and honorable and has made great contributions to the world,” he added.

For Panetta, the venture represents a kind of unfinished business in Washington. Since 2013, the former congressman has been retired in California, running his Panetta Institute for Public Policy and tending his walnut farm. Few expected him to return to D.C. for commission work.

“Whether it was a Republican or Democratic administration, I think a lot of the response to the terrorism threat has been based on the crisis of the moment,” said Panetta, who has criticized President Obama’s leadership on foreign policy. “What we have not done is taken in the bigger picture of violent extremism and tried to understand the root causes.”

Asked what would constitute success for his effort, Panetta called it a “damn good question.”

“A lot of these commission reports have stayed on the shelves for a long time,” he said, pointing to the failure of the 2010 Simpson-Bowles deficit commission to produce reforms. “But history tells us that if we care enough about a problem we’re confronting, that ultimately we can find a way to deal with it. For that reason, I think this effort is worth it.”

The commission’s executive director is Shannon Green, a former Obama administration official who worked on the National Security Council and in the U.S. Agency for International Development. Green is director and senior fellow with the CSIS Human Rights Initiative.

Members will include academics, former government officials and several technology leaders, including Microsoft President Brad Smith and Google general counsel Kent Walker. The presence of tech executives speaks to the need to counter ISIS and other groups online, where they maintain vast recruitment and radicalization networks, organizers said.

Blair, who served as prime minister during the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and was criticized for involving British troops in the invasion of Iraq, works on issues of radicalization at his Tony Blair Faith Foundation.

Officials at CSIS called him a natural fit to lead a commission on violent extremism.

He argued against using the term “clash of civilizations,” a favorite of GOP presidential candidate Marco Rubio, to describe conflicts between the West and extreme versions of Islam.

“I don’t think it’s accurate,” he said. “The majority people in Islam want to counter this. … It’s a tragedy that their religion is hijacked by the extremists but that’s a reality that we have to face and have to deal with.”

 

Is There a Future for Gitmo?

Posted on by

For the Obama administration when it comes to terrorists or enemy combatants, the title of the playbook is ‘Let Some Other Country Handle It’.

Guantánamo parole board OKs release of Osama bin Laden bodyguard

Majid Ahmed at Guantánamo in a photo from his 2008 prison profile provided to McClatchy Newspapers by WikiLeaks.

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, Cuba

MiamiHerald: The national security parole board, in just a month, has approved a former Osama bin Laden bodyguard for release to another country as the Pentagon-run panel works on accelerating reviews.

The board has six more hearings scheduled into May — two of them so-called “forever prisoners” like the man whose approval to go was disclosed Friday and four of them who were at one time considered candidates for war-crimes trial.

In the latest decision, the board recommended release of Yemeni Majid Ahmed, 35, to an Arabic-speaking country with security precautions. An intelligence assessment concluded that he was recruited to join the Taliban at age 18 or 19 and became a bin Laden bodyguard at 21, a month before the Sept. 11 terror attacks.

The decision to approve the release of Ahmed means that, of Guantánamo’s 91 captives, 35 are approved for transfer, 10 are in war crimes proceeding and the rest are either forever prisoners or candidates for war crimes trial.

The board said Ahmed “has been relatively compliant during his time at Guantánamo, although he has been largely uncooperative with interrogators.” The intelligence profile said he “still harbors anti-U.S. sentiments and holds conservative Islamic views that may make transfer and reintegration to many countries difficult.”

The board’s three-paragraph statement disclosing Ahmed’s approval for transfer, dated Feb. 18, recommended release to resettlement in an Arabic-speaking country, “with appropriate security assurances.” It was available on the Pentagon’s parole board website Saturday, a month after his Jan. 19 hearing. Full story here.

*** What will a new U.S. president do on the war on terror and will there be an approval for capturing future terrorists?

What to do if U.S. begins capturing more suspected terrorists?

MilitaryTimes: WASHINGTON — President  Obama has refused to send any suspected terrorists captured overseas to the detention center at Guantanamo Bay. But if the U.S. starts seizing more militants in expanded military operations, where will they go, who will hold them and where will they be tried?

Those are questions that worry legal experts, lawmakers and others as U.S. special operations forces deploy in larger numbers to Iraq, Syria and, maybe soon, Libya, with the Islamic State group and affiliated organizations in their sights.

Throughout Obama’s presidency, suspects have been killed in drone strikes or raids, or captured and interrogated, sometimes aboard Navy ships. After that, they are either prosecuted in U.S. courts and military commissions or handed over to other nations.

This policy has been enough, experts say — at least for now.

“If you’re going to be doing counterterrorism operations that bring in detainees, you have to think through what you are going to do with them,” said Phillip Carter, former deputy assistant defense secretary for detainee policy. “If the U.S. is going to conduct large-scale combat operations or large-scale special ops and bring in more detainees, it needs a different solution.”

Rebecca Ingber, an associate law professor at Boston University who follows the issue, warns that if the U.S. engaged in a full ground war in Syria, “chances are there would need to be detention facilities of some kind in the vicinity.”

Obama has not sent a single suspected terrorist to the U.S. military prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, where many have been detained for years without being charged or tried — something the president says is a “recruitment tool” for militant extremists.

He is to report to Congress this month on how he wants to close Guantanamo and possibly transfer some of the remaining detainees to the United States. That report also is supposed to address the question of future detainees.

Sen. Kelly Ayotte, R-N.H., believes that the absence of a long-term detention and interrogation facility for foreign terrorist suspects represents a “major shortcoming in U.S. national security policy.”

Republican candidates who want to succeed Obama are telling voters that they would keep Guantanamo open.

“Law enforcement is about gathering evidence to take someone to trial, and convict them,” said Florida Sen. Marco Rubio. “Anti-terrorism is about finding out information to prevent a future attack so the same tactics do not apply. … But, here’s the bigger problem with all this: We’re not interrogating anybody right now.”

That’s not true, said Frazier Thompson, director of the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group. The tight-lipped team of interrogators from the FBI, Defense Department, the CIA and other intelligence agencies gleans intelligence from top suspected terrorists in the U.S. and overseas.

“We were created to interrogate high-value terrorists and we are interrogating high-value terrorists,” Thompson said in an interview with The Associated Press.

Since it was established in 2009, that team has been deployed 34 times, Thompson said, adding that other government agencies conduct independent interrogations as well. “We are designed to deploy on the highest-value terrorist. We are not going out to interrogate everybody,” he said.

Thompson would not disclose details of the cases his team has worked or speculate on whether he expects more interrogation requests as the battle against IS heats up.

“If there is a surge, I’m ready to go. If there’s not, I’m still ready to go,” Thompson said.

The U.S. has deployed about 200 new special operations forces to Iraq, and they are preparing to work with the Iraqis to begin going after IS fighters and commanders, “killing or capturing them wherever we find them, along with other key targets,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter said.

Brett McGurk, special presidential envoy for the global coalition to counter IS, told Congress this month that in the final six months of 2015, 90 senior to midlevel leaders were killed, including the IS leader’s key deputies: Haji Mutazz, the top leader in Iraq, and Abu Sayyaf, the IS oil minister and financier.

Sayyaf was killed in a raid to rescue American hostage Kayla Mueller; his wife, known as Umm Sayyaf, was captured.

Her case illustrates how the Obama administration is prosecuting some terrorist suspects in federal courts or military commissions or leaving them in the custody of other nations.

Umm Sayyaf, a 25-year-old Iraqi, is being held in Iraq and facing prosecution by authorities there. She also was charged Feb. 9 in U.S. federal court with holding Mueller and contributing to her death in February 2015.

Ali Soufan, a former FBI agent who investigated and supervised international terrorism cases, including the U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa and the attack on the USS Cole in Yemen the 1990s, said sending suspected terrorists through the American criminal justice system works. He said the courts are more effective than military commissions used at Guantanamo that have been slow in trying detainees who violate the laws of war.

“The current practice of investigating and prosecuting terror suspects has proved incredibly effective,” Soufan said, noting that since the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, only seven people have been tried and convicted under military commissions. “During that same time period, hundreds of terrorists have been convicted in federal courts and almost all are still in jail.”

But it’s hard to evaluate the effectiveness of the system.

The Justice Department declined to provide the number of foreign terrorist suspects who have been prosecuted or the number handed over to other countries, or their status. Lawmakers, including Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., have asked the Defense Department for the numbers.

Reports on how other countries handle the suspects are classified.

Raha Wala, senior counsel at Human Rights First, also is concerned about detention operations abroad.

“The government needs to be more transparent to the American people — and to the world — about who it is transferring overseas, and what procedures are in place to make sure we are not transferring individuals into situations where human rights will be abused,” he said.

Libya: Operation Sophia, When?

Posted on by

Operation Sophia

Tackling the refugee crisis with military means

by Thierry Tardy

The EU anti-migrant smuggling operation in the Mediterranean sea – known as ‘EUNAVFOR Med’ or ‘Operation Sophia’ – is now entering its operational phase, aimed at boarding and seizing on the high seas vessels suspected of being used for human smuggling and trafficking. This follows a first phase of intelligence gathering on smuggling networks and is intended to precede operations due to take place within the territorial waters of Libya as well as coercive actions against the smugglers – including on Libyan soil.

This military component of the EU response to the migrant and refugee crisis is innovative in different ways. Following the anti-piracy operation in the Gulf of Aden (Atalanta), EUNAVFOR Med confirms the maritime dimension of CSDP in the management of new types of security threats. The operation also brings CSDP closer to the EU internal security portfolio and its Freedom, Security and Justice (FSJ) agenda. Full document here.

 

New Leak Expose EU Plan For Military Engagment In Libya

According to the operation’s commander, it’s a question of when, not if, the EU will enter Libya.

MintPress/Vice: The European Union is planning an extension of its military operation against human traffickers, known as Sophia, which could eventually include sending ground troops to war-torn Libya. According to a confidential document shared with VICE Alps and with Wikileaks by a highly-placed source in a EU member nation, who requested anonymity, the Sophia mission is ready to move into Libyan territorial waters to stop people smugglers there, but it will not do so until it is invited by Libyan authorities.

However, Libya does not have a unified national authority that can extend such an invitation, torn as it is between two rival governments and other armed groups.

The document, a report addressed to the European Union Military Committee as well as the Political and Security Committee and written by the Italian officer commanding the Sophia force, also makes mentions of a “phase 3” of the operation. That may refer to the eventual presence of EU troops in Libya — again, once a national government to work with has been estabilished.

The report by rear admiral Enrico Credendino, dated January 29, explains that the mission has been since last October in phase 2A, using 16 ships and aircraft from various EU nations to stop smugglers in international waters. Credendino calls that mission a success, saying his force has arrested 46 smugglers and destroyed 67 boats. People on the boats are rescued and taken to refugee centers generally located in Italy.

46 smugglers in custody may not seem like a large number in a crisis that has brought almost a million people to Europe last year, but according to the report, the Sophia operation has had a profound effect. Smugglers now choose to transport most people towards the European Union from the east through Greece instead of Libya, where Sophia is focused.

“Prior to the start of the operation there was an even split between the people using the central route and the eastern route, whereas now 16% (of) migrants use the central route, with almost 83% of migrants using the eastern route,” the report says, referencing the smuggling corridors through Libya and Southeastern Europe respectively.

“From a military perspective, I am ready to move to phase 2B in Libyan Territorial Waters,” Credendino wrote in the report. That would mean moving closer to the Libyan coast to arrest smugglers, “but there are a number of political and legal challenges that must be addressed before I can recommend such a transition,” the officer wrote.

Until there is a legal decision on “our powers to apprehend suspected smugglers in Territorial Waters and who will prosecute any suspected smugglers detained there,” the European forces (22 out of 28 EU nations are contributing) will stay out of Libyan waters.

According to the operation’s commander, it’s a question of when, not if, Sophia will move to Libya.

“When Operation SOPHIA progresses into phases 2B and 3, the smugglers will again most likely adapt quickly to the changing situation,” Credendino wrote. “Following the progress of Op SOPHIA into Libyan TTW or onto Libyan soil there will possibly be a greater risk of smugglers trying to counter the operation’s efforts in order to secure in their income from the activity,” he added, indicating that there are indeed plans for a possible move onto Libyan soil.

But the operation cannot do that until it has more ships and aircraft — which Credendino wrote in the report he would request this month — and most of all until there’s a government with the authority to ask the European forces to come to Libya.

Right now there are two rival bodies in the country, resulting from the 2014 election that has followed the toppling of Muammar Ghadafi’s regime in 2011. The internationally-recognized parliament is based in Tobruk, in the east, while the capital Tripoli hosts another one where Islamist factions dominate and which also claims to be the legitimate parliament. Adding to those entities and the forces they control is the Islamic State group, which has existed in Libya since 2014, originally in Derna where local militias pledged allegiance to it, and now in Sirte, a major city which the group now says is its Libyan capital. The United Nations has brokered a peace deal between the two rival parliaments, but a national unity government is nowhere near yet.

An image of the Sophia report from EUNAVFOR MED, the acronym of “European Union Naval Forces in the Mediterranean”  

According to the EU source, both combating local authorities have said they would not tolerate a possible European operation on Libyan soil.

A way to get an invitation would be, the report said, to offer training for the Libyan Navy and Coast guard, through which “we will be able to give the Libyan authorities something in exchange for their cooperation in tackling the irregular migration issue. This collaboration could represent one of the elements of the EU comprehensive approach to help secure their invitation to operate inside their territory during Phase 2 activities.”

“Moreover, training together during phase 2 could also be a key enabler to build confidence and facilitate the conduct of Phase 3 operations jointly with the Libyan authorities,” Credendino wrote.

The EU source claimed, however, that according to Frontex, the European Union agency in charge of the EU’s external borders, training Libyan naval forces and the local Coast Guard would actually mean training the leaders of the smuggling networks.

Saudi Testing that Nuke?

Posted on by

Saudi Political Analyst Dahham Al-‘Anzi: KSA Has Obtained Nuclear Bomb. Test May Be Held Soon

Saudi political analyst Dahham Al-‘Anzi spoke on Russia Today Arabic TV channel on February 15 and claimed that Saudi Arabia has obtained a nuclear bomb. Al-‘Anzi said that the Saudis have acquired the bomb two years ago and that a nuclear test is expected soon. “The superpowers know about this,” he added.

TribuneIndia: SAUDI ARABIA’S foreign minister Adel al-Jubeir faced some difficult questions in Washington on January 20, following a meeting with Secretary of State John Kerry. The visit to Washington took place amidst reports that the desert kingdom was set to acquire nuclear weapons from Pakistan, in response to perceived threats from Iran. Just a day earlier, Kerry had warned both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia against partnering in any transfer or deployment of Pakistani nuclear weapons in Saudi Arabia. He bluntly stated that there would be “all kinds of NPT consequences” if any such transfer took place. Responding to queries on Kerry’s comments, Jubeir retorted: “I will not discuss these things in a public forum, certainly not on television.” While not ruling out a Pakistani nuclear umbrella to guarantee his country’s security, Jubeir averred: “Saudi Arabia is committed to two things. I always say two things we do not negotiate over — our faith and our security. Saudi Arabia will do what it takes in order to protect its security.”  Referring to his discussions with Kerry, Jubeir said: “I discussed the bilateral relationship with Pakistan, which is a strategic one. We discussed the regional situation and ways to promote security and stability in the region.

We discussed the negative and aggressive Iranian interference and the affairs of the region.” He predictably lashed out at Iran, saying: “Iran should cease support for terrorism. Iran should cease to assassinate diplomats and blow up embassies.” (This was perceived as a condemnation of alleged Iranian attacks on Israeli diplomatic missions.) For good measure, Jubeir added: “Iran should cease its negative propaganda in the region,” while adding that the nuclear deal with Iran would “release billions of dollars” for funding its “nefarious activities”.The concerns expressed by Kerry came after meetings that Saudi Arabia’s deputy crown prince and defence minister Mohammad bin Sultan had with General Raheel Sharif and Prime Minister Nawaz on January 10. After meeting Prince Salman in his office in Rawalpindi, Raheel Sharif warned that any threat to Saudi Arabia’s territorial integrity would evoke a strong response from Pakistan. Raheel Sharif’s nominal boss, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif, was more circumspect, telling Prince Salman that the “people of Pakistan will always stand by the people of Saudi Arabia”, while holding that defence ties with Saudi Arabia were held in “high esteem”.

Saudi Arabia has, however, rejected a Pakistani offer to promote dialogue with Iran, though the Pakistani offer has been welcomed in Washington and Moscow. Saudi Arabia has been assiduously wooing Pakistan, ever since it found out that it had landed itself in a military quagmire in Yemen, where its relentless bombing campaign has led to the displacement of 2.5 million Yemenis. About 78 per cent of the Yemeni population is today in desperate need of water, food and medical assistance. Despite the fierce and unrelenting bombing, the resistance to the Saudis, spearheaded by the Shia Houthi population and former President Abdullah Saleh is resolute in preventing Yemen’s takeover by a Saudi nominee, like former President Mansur Hadi. Saudi diplomatic woes have been compounded by the US led deal to end global sanctions on Iran and stern warning by President Putin that “Saudi Arabia will be utterly destroyed and annihilated” if it falls out of line, with military intervention in Syria. Shortly after the Saudi intervention in Yemen commenced, Nawaz Sharif was welcomed personally at the Riyadh Airport on March 3, 2015, by King Salman bin Abdul Aziz, together with Crown Prince Mukri and the entire Saudi cabinet. This was rare honour, especially for a country, which has depended for decades on Saudi doles and handouts. But the Saudis obviously had high expectations from Nawaz Sharif, whom they saved from possible execution and sheltered, after the Musharraf coup, in October 1999.

More important, was a low-key visit to Riyadh, a few weeks earlier, by Pakistan’s seniormost military officer, who oversees the Strategic (Nuclear) Forces Command — the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff committee, General Rashad Mahmoud. Subsequent developments have made it clear that Pakistan will be unable to commit forces for backing the Saudi military misadventure in Yemen. But nuclear ties between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia go back decades, commencing with the Saudi financing of Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions in the 1970s. Saudi defence minister Prince Salman was given unprecedented access to the Kahuta uranium enrichment and missile facilities headed by Dr AQ Khan, popularly described as the chairman of “Pakistan’s nuclear Walmart”, just prior to Pakistan’s nuclear tests. Khan thereafter paid visits to Saudi Arabia. Significantly, just after the visits of General Mahmud and Nawaz Sharif to Riyadh, Pakistan tested its 2,750-km  range Shaheen 3 missile, which could well replace the obsolescent CSS 2 missiles supplied by Beijing to Riyadh, in the 1980s. The Chinese missiles have an adequate range to target Tehran. Pakistan’s Shaheen missiles are originally of Chinese design. The visits of President Xi Jinping to Saudi Arabia and Tehran clearly demonstrate the dexterity of Chinese diplomacy in the oil-rich Gulf region.

Saudi insecurities resulting from the virtual U-turn in American policies following the nuclear deal with Iran are being addressed by China, with Beijing’s “all-weather friend” Pakistan, signaling that it has missiles that can replace the obsolescent Chinese missiles. Differences between Iran and Pakistan over Afghanistan will likely continue, as a Wahhabi oriented, Taliban dominated, Pakistan sponsored regime in Kabul will be seen as threatening in Iran and neigbouring Central Asian republics. It remains to be seen if the Saudis return to their earlier policies of support for a Pakistan sponsored, Taliban dominated setup in Kabul. Both Iran and Saudi Arabia have pledged to treat China as their “most favoured customer” for oil supplies. This should not cause undue concern in India, given the global glut in oil supplies and the reemergence of Iraq, as a growingly significant player in world energy markets. India will, however, have to move much faster in dealing with crucial projects like the development of the Chabahar Port in Iran, and in the development of undersea gas pipelines. We have to recognise that the inexcusable delays in the implementation of projects abroad, like the Kaladan Corridor in Myanmar and the Parliament building in Kabul have tarnished our image and reputation.

***

2013 ~ BBC: Saudi Arabia has invested in Pakistani nuclear weapons projects, and believes it could obtain atomic bombs at will, a variety of sources have told BBC Newsnight.

While the kingdom’s quest has often been set in the context of countering Iran’s atomic programme, it is now possible that the Saudis might be able to deploy such devices more quickly than the Islamic republic.

Earlier this year, a senior Nato decision maker told me that he had seen intelligence reporting that nuclear weapons made in Pakistan on behalf of Saudi Arabia are now sitting ready for delivery.

Last month Amos Yadlin, a former head of Israeli military intelligence, told a conference in Sweden that if Iran got the bomb, “the Saudis will not wait one month. They already paid for the bomb, they will go to Pakistan and bring what they need to bring.”

Since 2009, when King Abdullah of Saudi Arabia warned visiting US special envoy to the Middle East Dennis Ross that if Iran crossed the threshold, “we will get nuclear weapons”, the kingdom has sent the Americans numerous signals of its intentions.

Joint Chiefs, ‘NO’ on Closing Gitmo

Posted on by

Obama tweets: I’m going to Cuba

BI: President Barack Obama announced Thursday on Twitter that he was going to Cuba next month, which will be the first time a sitting president has visited the country since 1928.

The US recently restored diplomatic relations with the communist country after a 54-year break.

“14 months ago, I announced that we would begin normalizing relations with Cuba — and we’ve already made significant progress,” Obama tweeted.

In subsequent tweets, he said:

Our flag flies over our Embassy in Havana once again. More Americans are traveling to Cuba than at any time in the last 50 years. We still have differences with the Cuban government that I will raise directly. America will always stand for human rights around the world. Next month, I’ll travel to Cuba to advance our progress and efforts that can improve the lives of the Cuban people.

Obama also tweeted a link to a post on the website Medium that explained the thinking behind his trip.

Ben Rhodes, a national security adviser to Obama, wrote that the president would “have the opportunity to meet with President [Raúl] Castro, and with Cuban civil society and people from different walks of life” on the trip.

“Yes, we have a complicated and difficult history,” Rhodes wrote. “But we need not be defined by it. Indeed, the extraordinary success of the Cuban-American community demonstrates that when we engage Cuba, it is not simply foreign policy  —  for many Americans, it’s family.”

JW: As President Obama frees droves of terrorists—including five Yemenis this week—from the U.S. military prison in Guantanamo news reports confirm that a Gitmo alum who once led a Taliban unit has established the first Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) base in Afghanistan.

His name is Mullah Abdul Rauf and international and domestic media reports say he’s operating in Helmand province, actively recruiting fighters for ISIS. Citing local sources, a British newspaper writes that Rauf set up a base and is offering good wages to anyone willing to fight for the Islamic State. Rauf was a corps commander during the Taliban’s 1996-2001 rule of Afghanistan, according to intelligence reports. After getting captured by U.S. forces, he was sent to Gitmo in southeast Cuba but was released in 2007. More here.

*** The Obama administration is in somewhat of a panic over the most recent development of Ibrahim al Qosi.

FNC: When Ibrahim al Qosi was released from Guantanamo Bay in 2012, a lawyer for the former Usama bin Laden aide said he looked forward to living a life of peace in his native Sudan.

Three years later, Qosi has emerged as a prominent voice of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, appearing in a number of AQAP propaganda videos — including a 50-minute lecture calling for the takeover of Saudi Arabia.

The 56-year-old Qosi delivered a scathing critique of the Saudi monarchy — which appeared online on Feb. 6 — denouncing the Saudi government’s execution of more than 40 “mujahedeen” in January, according to the Long War Journal.

Joint Chiefs Issue Resounding ‘No’ to Obama on Gitmo Closure

Granger – TheBlaze: Just in case it couldn’t be more clear, the Joint Chiefs of Staff of the armed forces of the United States said “no, we won’t help” to the president in a letter regarding his possible use of an executive order to close the U.S. military detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, and then bring the remaining detainees to the United States.

Quoting the law, Lt. Gen. William Mayville Jr., the director of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, wrote:

“Current law prohibits the use of funds to ‘transfer, release or assist in the transfer or release’ of detainees of Guantanamo Bay to or within the United States, and prohibits the construction, modification or acquisition of any facility within the United States to house any Guantanamo detainee. The Joint Staff will not take any action contrary to those restrictions.”

Sixteen members of the U.S. House of Representatives with military experience had written to the Joint Chiefs regarding the legal question of whether or not they would follow an executive order by President Barack Obama to close Gitmo by relocating the remaining detainees to the U.S.

Getty Images

The president is now alone in his fantasy of bringing detainees to U.S. shores.

Without the cooperation of the military, no physical transfer of Gitmo detainees can take place.

The president said in his end-of-year press conference, “We will wait until Congress has definitively said no to a well-thought-out plan with numbers attached to it before we say anything definitive about my executive authority here.”

Apparently, the Joint Chiefs beat Congress to the punch. There is no authority of the president to move anybody anywhere against the law.

Far from just an opinion, the Joint Chiefs are factually correct in their decision. Unless an order, even coming from the commander in chief, is legal, ethical and moral, the nation’s most responsible generals may not carry it out.

The letter is a first response in what could be a legal argument that could reach the attorney general and/or the Supreme Court.

With the balance of power in the highest court tilting slightly to the left now that conservative Antonin Scalia has passed away and his seat is vacant for the foreseeable future, any decision made by that body in question of the president’s Constitutional authority would probably side with him.

Without reaction to the letter, the Obama administration is surely scrambling for ideas on what next to do.

The really disappointing aspect of Obama’s obsession with closing Gitmo is the fact that he has forgotten the reason for the facility in the first place.

Sept. 11, 2001, is the reason for Gitmo. It is the reason for detaining as many potential sources of important information (that could save many lives) as possible. It is the reason so many lives have been lost and others changed forever.

Why has Obama forsaken the safety and security of the American people by releasing unlawful combatant Islamists who want to kill Americans before the Global War on Terror is won?

Thirty percent of all released Gitmo detainees are known or are suspected of returning to the fight. If that isn’t bad enough, there is NO information on the other 70 percent. Where are they; your neighborhood?

The president’s reckless behavior, from releasing dangerous enemies to wanting to bring others to the U.S. is proof that his priorities are confused. Thankfully, the Joint Chiefs of Staff have just reminded him that even he is bound by law, and they will not help him break it.

Montgomery Granger is a three-times mobilized U.S. Army major (Ret.) and author of “Saving Grace at Guantanamo Bay: A Memoir of a Citizen Warrior.” Amazon, Blog, Facebook