Category Archives: ISIS ISIL Islamic State Caliphate

When Countries Fail, Terror Spreads

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While Donald Trump is cresting the political wave running for President, he did get one thing wrong. His statement about ‘letting Syria and Islamic State fight’, it becomes a matter of 300,000 dead and an estimated 4 million displaced people, many that are flowing into Europe and causing epic financial burdens on other countries.

In the case of the most recent Paris attack, Syria and Belgium failed causing a massacre in France.

Investigation Uncovers New Details About How the Paris Terror Attacks Unfolded

ViceNews: As the investigation into the Paris terror attacks continues, one thing has become clear: The attacks started in — and may have been directed from — neighboring Belgium.

After accessing 6,000 official records from the ongoing police investigation, French daily Le Monde has reconstructed the days that led to the coordinated attacks that brought the French capital to a standstill and left 130 people dead.

On November 13, three teams of gunmen attacked three targets in Paris: the Stade de France, the Bataclan concert hall, and cafés and restaurants in the 11th and 12th Arrondissements. The attackers used three vehicles: a Renault Clio, a SEAT, and a Volkswagen Polo.

In the early hours of November 12, the Clio and the SEAT were spotted in a backstreet of Molenbeek, a neighborhood of Brussels that has been labeled “the heart of jihadism” in Europe. Three men reportedly exited the vehicles and exchanged a package.

According to investigators, the men in the cars were Salah Abdeslam, now one of the world’s most wanted fugitives, his brother Brahim, who blew himself up at the Comptoir Voltaire café, and Mohamed Abrini, a 30-year-old Belgian man who helped mastermind the attack. Like Abdeslam, Abrini still remains at large.

First Stop: Charleroi
Le Monde revealed that, prior to meeting up in Molenbeek, the cars made a brief stop in the Belgian city of Charleroi, spending time in a neighborhood infamous for weapons and drugs trafficking.

At around 4pm on November 12, the two cars set off for Paris. There, they were met by a third vehicle, which would transport the third team of attackers.

In Paris, the attackers split up into two groups. The Bataclan attackers took a hotel room in the southeast Paris suburb of Alfortville. The men who would carry out the attacks at the stadium and along the busy sidewalks of the 11th and 12th Arrondissements spent the night in a house in the northeastern Paris suburb of Bobigny. Investigators found a roll of Scotch tape in the house that the attackers used to assemble their explosive belts.

A Mysterious Trip to the Airport
At 6pm on November 13, the Clio traveled to the Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris and remained there until 7:20pm. Investigators still aren’t sure about the purpose of this brief stop. At 7:40pm, the three Bataclan attackers left their hotel in the Polo. At 8:29pm, Salah Abdeslam drove the third car to the Stade de France, where he dropped off three of his accomplices, each of them wearing a belt packed with explosives. At 8:39pm, the SEAT continued toward the 11th Arrondissement.

Salah Abdeslam, Bilal Hadfi, and two unidentified men carrying fake Syrian passports rode in the Clio. So far, the only thing known about the unidentified men is that they entered Europe at the start of October.

Riding in the SEAT were Abdelhamid Abaaoud, Brahim Abdeslam, and a third man, who may have died in the police raid on Abaaoud’s hideout in Saint-Denis, in the early hours of November 18.

Omar Ismail Mostefaï, Samy Amimour, and Foued Mohamed-Aggad rode in the Polo. Their car was headed to the Bataclan concert hall, where 1,500 people gathered to hear the Eagles of Death Metal perform.

Attacks Likely Coordinated in Belgium
Le Monde also confirmed earlier reports that three Bataclan gunmen were communicating with an individual in Belgium until the moment the attack began. Investigators found a white Samsung mobile phone bearing the DNA of Mostefaï and Mohamed-Aggad in a trash can near the Bataclan. The discarded phone contained a text message sent at 9:42pm to an unknown contact in Belgium.

“We’ve left,” the message said. “We’re starting.” The contact communicated a total of 25 times with the attackers, disabling the line immediately after receiving the text message announcing the start of the attack.

Abaaoud was also in touch with someone in Belgium on the night of November 13. Investigators have established that the two Belgian phone lines were situated at the exact same location, suggesting both teams in Paris were communicating with the same person.

Paris Associate Killed in Syria
An associate of the Paris attackers was recently killed in an airstrike in Syria. Charaffe Al-Mouadan, a 26-year-old Syria-based member of the Islamic State (IS), was born in the northeastern Paris suburb of Bondy and was a close friend of Amimour, one of the Bataclan gunman. They were both arrested in October 2012 for suspected terror activity, a year before Al-Mouadan relocated to Syria to join IS.

Al-Mouadan — who went by the nickname “Souleymane” — was also friends with Abaaoud. Radio station France Info revealed the existence of a photograph that shows Al-Mouadan posing with Abaaoud’s younger brother in Syria.

Investigators turned their attention to Al-Mouadan after one of the Bataclan survivors said he overheard Mostefaï refer to a man called “Souleymane.” According to the witness, Mostefaï asked Amimour whether he was planning to “get in touch with Souleymane.”

In a statement released on Tuesday, US coalition spokesman Steve Warren said that Al-Mouadan was one of 10 IS leaders killed in targeted airstrikes. Several of these leaders, he noted, were directly linked to attacks abroad — including the Paris attacks.

According to David Thompson, a reporter for French radio station RFI, Al-Mouadan was not a leader of the group — just a fighter with a strong social media presence.

Cheyenne Mtn: Pentagon Went Pro-Active, EMP

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Given the recent missile tests by Iran and North Korea, there is cause for attention, further, Russia is never out of the equation. Paying attention to offensive measures and completion dates is an indication of the Pentagon having clues, seeing violations of agreements and resolutions and adversarial military build up of advanced technology.

Pentagon Moves More Communications Gear into Cheyenne Mountain

Largely abandoned a decade ago, the iconic Cold War bunker is getting an upgrade.

In April of 2015: The Pentagon is beefing up its communications setup inside a hollowed-out section of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains less than a decade after it had largely abandoned the site.

The gear is being moved into Cheyenne Mountain to protect it from electromagnetic pulses, said Adm. William Gortney, commander of U.S. Northern Command and NORAD.

“[T]here is a lot of movement to put capability into Cheyenne Mountain and to be able to communicate in there,” Gortney said Tuesday during a news briefing at the Pentagon.

Electromagnetic pulses, or EMPs, can occur naturally or by manmade devices such as nuclear weapons. For years, the Pentagon has been working on building weapons that could fry the electronic equipment of an enemy during battle.

“Because of the very nature of the way that Cheyenne Mountain is built, it’s EMP-hardened,” Gortney said. “It wasn’t really designed to be that way, but the way it was constructed makes it that way.”

Being able to communicate during an EMP attack is important, Gortney said.

“My primary concern was: ‘Are we going to have the space inside the mountain for everybody that wants to move in there?’ … but we do have that capability,” he said.

Last week, the Pentagon awarded defense firm Raytheon a $700-million contract to install new equipment inside the mountain. The company said the contract, which runs through 2020, will “support threat warnings and assessments for the North American Aerospace Defense Command Cheyenne Mountain Complex.”

The Pentagon’s March 30 contract announcement said Raytheon will provide sustainment services and products supporting the Integrated Tactical Warning/Attack Assessment (ITW/AA) and Space Support Contract covered systems. “The program provides ITW/AA authorities accurate, timely and unambiguous warning and attack assessment of air, missile and space threats,” it said.

Since 2013, the Pentagon has awarded contracts worth more than $850 million for work related to Cheyenne Mountain.

The Colorado complex is the embodiment of the Cold War, an era when bunkers were built far and wide to protect people and infrastructure. Cheyenne Mountain was the mother of these fallout shelters, a command center buried deep to withstand a Soviet nuclear bombardment. The complex was locked down during the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington.

Air Force Space Command runs the mountain and maintains sleeping quarters, fresh water and a power station that would be used during an attack.

Almost a decade ago, NORAD pulled most of its staff out of Cheyenne Mountain and moved its command center into the basement of a headquarters building at nearby Peterson Air Force Base. Since then, Cheyenne Mountain has served as a back-up site.

Now the Cheyenne Mountain staff is set to grow again. Still, the command center at Peterson will remain operational, Gortney said.

In June 2013, then-U.S. Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel gave a speech in front of the mammoth blastproof doors on the roadway leading into the mountain.

“These facilities and the entire complex of NORAD and NORTHCOM represent the nerve center of defense for North America,” he said at the time.

***

MissileThreat: The U.S. has no ballistic-missile early-warning radars or ground-based interceptors facing south and would be blind to a nuclear warhead orbited as a satellite from a southern trajectory. The missile defense plans were oriented during the Cold War for a northern strike from the Soviet Union, and they have not been adapted for the changing threats.

The Pentagon was wise to move Norad communications back into Cheyenne Mountain and to take measures elsewhere to survive an EMP attack. But how are the American people to survive? In the event of a yearlong nationwide blackout, tens of millions of Americans would perish from starvation and societal chaos, according to members of the Congressional EMP Commission, which published its last unclassified report in 2008.

Yet President Obama has not acted on the EMP Commission’s draft executive order to protect national infrastructure that is essential to provide for the common defense. Hardening the national electric grid would cost a few billion dollars, a trivial amount compared with the loss of electricity and lives following an EMP attack. The U.S. also should deploy one of its existing transportable radars in the Philippines to help the ground-based interceptors at California’s Vandenberg Air Force defend the country against an attack from the south.

Congress also has failed to act on the plans of its own EMP commission to protect the electric grid and other civilian infrastructure that depends on a viable electric grid—such as communications, transportation, banking—that are essential to the economy. In recent years, the GRID Act, the Shield Act, and the Critical Infrastructure Protection Act have gained bipartisan and even unanimous support in the House, yet they died in the Senate.

States are not waiting for Washington to act. Maine and Virginia have enacted legislation and undertaken serious studies to consider how to deal with an EMP attack. Florida’s governor and emergency manager are considering executive action to harden their portion of the grid. Colorado legislators are holding hearings on legislation to protect their citizens. Texas, North Carolina, South Carolina, Indiana, Idaho and New York have initiatives in various stages to deal with an EMP attack.

Muslim Brotherhood in U.S. Gets Millions in Grants

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The Muslim Brotherhood in the United States document is here.

The House Intelligence Committee Testimony on the Muslim Brotherhood is here.

Mosque Linked To Muslim Brotherhood Has Received Millions In Federal Grants

DailyCaller: A Kansas City mosque owned by an Islamic umbrella organization with deep ties to the U.S. arm of the Muslim Brotherhood has received millions of dollars in federal grants over the past several years, according to a federal spending database.

The Islamic Center of Greater Kansas City has received $2,739,891 from the Department of Agriculture since 2010, a Daily Caller analysis has found. The money largely went to the mosque’s Crescent Clinic to provide services through the Women, Infant and Children nutrition program, known as WIC.

The most recent federal payment — in the amount of $327,436 — was handed out Oct. 1.

Property records show the mosque is owned by the North American Islamic Trust (NAIT), which acts as a financial holding company for Islamic organizations. It offers sharia-compliant financial products to Muslim investors, operates Islamic schools and owns more than 300 other mosques throughout the U.S.

Founded in 1973 as an offshoot of the Muslim Brotherhood-backed Muslim Students Association, NAIT’s most controversial connection is to the 2007 and 2008 Holy Land Foundation terror financing cases. Along with other Muslim Brotherhood-linked organizations like the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR), NAIT was named a co-conspirator in the federal case but was not indicted.

At the Holy Land Foundation trial, evidence was presented that ISNA diverted funds from the accounts it held with NAIT to institutions linked to Hamas and to Mousa Abu Marzook, a senior Hamas leader.

Federal prosecutors introduced evidence in the case that “established that ISNA and NAIT were among those organizations created by the U.S.-Muslim Brotherhood.” Hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of checks drawn from ISNA’s account and deposited in the Holy Land Foundation’s account with NAIT were made payable to “the Palestinian Mujahadeen,” which is the original name for Hamas’ military wing.

While Hamas was designated as a foreign terrorist organization by the U.S. government in 1997 and is considered the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood, the larger Muslim Brotherhood is not itself designated as a terrorist group.

NAIT has other ties to the Holy Land Foundation case. Its newly-appointed executive director, Salah Obeidallah, was a founding member and former president of the Islamic Center of Passaic County in Paterson, N.J.

In the 1990s, the imam at that mosque was Mohammad El-Mezain, a founding member of the Holy Land Foundation who was sentenced to 15 years in prison for helping fund Hamas. Obeidallah has said that he was not aware of El-Mezain’s terror funding activities.

In being owned by NAIT, the Kansas City organization is in company with numerous mosques with ties to known terrorists, terror sympathizers and fundamentalist Islamists.

Purportedly backed by money from Saudi Arabia and supporting a fundamentalist branch of Sunni Islam known as Wahhabism, NAIT holds the deed to the Islamic Society of Boston, which operates the mosque attended by Dzhokhar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the so-called Boston Marathon bombers.

It also controls the Islamic Center of San Diego, which was attended by Khalid al-Mihdhar and Nawaf al-Hazmi, two al-Qaeda members who helped fly American Flight 77 into the Pentagon on Sept. 11, 2001.

According to a 2002 Newsweek investigation, members of the San Diego mosque helped the two terrorists obtain housing, driver’s licences and social security numbers. They claimed not to have known about the men’s terror plans.

NAIT also owns the Dar Al-Hijrah mosque in Fairfax Co., Va. — a known hotbed of terrorist activity. Al-Qaeda recruiter Anwar al-Awlaki served as imam at that location in 2001 and 2002. He was killed by an American drone in Yemen in 2011.

The Islamic Center of Greater Kansas City has its own loose links to terrorist activities. The mosque made news earlier this year when it held the funeral for Nadir Soofi, one of the two jihadis who attempted to pull off a terrorist attack in Garland, Tex. Soofi, who was 34, and his accomplice, 30-year-old Elton Simpson, opened fire outside of an art exhibit featuring cartoons of Muhammad, but were killed by a security guard.

Both Soofi and Simpson attended the Islamic Community Center in Phoenix, which land deeds show is owned by NAIT.

That particular mosque posted $100,000 bond for Simpson following his 2010 arrest for lying to FBI agents about his plans to travel to Somalia to join a terrorist group. Simpson was given three years probation in that case.

The Islamic Center of Greater Kansas City has also hosted Imam Khalid Yasin, an American-born convert to Islam, who has publicly supported sharia law and claimed that homosexuals should receive the death penalty.

As a May 2010 Yahoo! message board post shows, Yasin visited the Islamic Center of Greater Kansas City and other area mosques that month to hold a series of lectures and workshops about Islam.

That was nearly two years after Yasin touted the virtues of sharia law and capital punishment in a speech at a British mosque. Full article here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Ramadi Liberated? Not so Fast

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BAGHDAD — An Iraqi military spokesman says that the city of Ramadi, which was taken by the Daesh group in May, has been “fully liberated.”

Brig. Gen. Yahya Rasool announced on Monday[28 Dec] that government forces had retaken the capital of Anbar Province after a protracted siege. But Gen. Ismail al-Mahlawi, head of military operations in Anbar, said that troops had only retaken a strategic government complex and that parts of the city remained under Daesh control.

Iraq’s military flew the Iraqi flag above the central government complex in city of Ramadi, a military spokesman said on Monday[28 Dec], the morning after the army declared the city captured in its first major victory over Daesh.

“Yes, the city of Ramadi has been liberated. The Iraqi counter terrorism forces have raised the Iraqi flag over the government complex in Anbar,”

joint operations spokesman Brigadier General Yahya Rasool said in a statement broadcast on state television.

Victory in Ramadi is the first major triumph for Iraq’s US-trained army since it collapsed in the face of an assault by the militants 18 months ago.

The Liberation Of Iraq’s Ramadi And What Comes Next

MusingsonIraq: Both the taking of Ramadi by the Islamic State and its recapture by the Iraqi forces were a long time coming. IS attacked the city for almost a year, while the operation to free it took five months. The aftermath of securing the area, re-establishing governance and services will take even longer. Despite these difficulties the liberation of Ramadi was a huge setback for the militants proving that they lack the resources to hold urban areas in Iraq, and a boost for the Iraqi government that was severely criticized for losing the city in the first place.

Both before and after the summer 2014 offensive, which saw the seizure of Mosul and Tikrit, the Islamic State remained focused upon Anbar and its capital Ramadi. The province was one of its major bases, and was the first place it seized territory when the insurgency was reborn. Its Sunni population and its tribes were also seen as an enticing base for the organization to build within. The final push that took Ramadi came in two waves. First, in mid-April IS started a new series of attacks, which led to the seizure of several neighborhoods. On April 16 a security source told the National Iraqi News Agency that 70% of the city was under IS control. The final assault came in mid-May. IS sent in reinforcements from Mosul and Salahaddin, and began with men dressed in military uniforms and driving Humvees to infiltrate the defenses, and then unleashed thirty suicide car bombs against the government complex in the downtown. The Iraqi Security Forces and allied tribes quickly crumbled, IS took the city, and immediately began executing people. This was a huge victory for IS. It solidified the group’s control over more than half of the governorate topped off by capturing the provincial capital. It also caused dissent amongst local tribes and undermined the government’s attempt to create a new Sahwa in Anbar. Ramadi was the birthplace of the Awakening and its loss was a sign that Baghdad could not protect its allies there. For example, several sheikhs accused the government of betraying them during the battle as they felt abandoned when the ISF pulled out of the city. Anbar’s tribes would only back the side that would stand by them to assure their self-preservation, and after Ramadi the government did not look like it could play that role.

There were also repercussions for Prime Minister Haider Abadi. First, he was talking about freeing all of Anbar after Tikrit was taken in March. Then Ramadi fell and his strategy looked like a failure. Second, even before Ramadi was lost the premier was coming under increasing pressure from Nouri al-Maliki and pro-Iranian Hashd groups such as Badr and Asaib Ahl Al-Haq (AAH). They complained they were being kept out of the Ramadi fight, and being constrained in Anbar overall even though they were already operating in places like Garma. Even though Abadi is commander and chief and the Hashd are supposed to be under his command Badr’s Hadi Ameri said they would fight in Anbar no matter what the premier said. Third, the Anbar provincial council undercut Abadi as well authorizing the Hashd to deploy to the governorate since it was shell shocked after the fall of Ramadi. Finally, members of the prime minister’s own Dawa Party and State of Law (SOL) list came out against him. One SOL parliamentarian said that IS’s victory in Ramadi proved that the United States was helping the insurgents, and that Iraq should turn towards Iran instead. A Dawa official claimed elements of the security forces and the tribes the Abadi was arming were working with IS. Abadi had been riding high just a few months beforehand when Iraqi forces retook Tikrit the first major city to be liberated from IS. Then he lost all of that prestige with Ramadi. Not only that it allowed his rivals like Maliki and Ameri to attack his governance, and his alliance with the Americans as everything was blamed on the two. That split continued as plans were made to retake the city.

The divide between Abadi and the pro-Iranian Hashd continued when the offensive to retake Ramadi began. Immediately after the city was taken the prime minister said there would be a swift response to liberate it. Ameri contradicted him by saying he had his own plan for Anbar, and that did not include going after Ramadi right away. Ameri’s strategy was quickly revealed to not include the city at all, but going for Fallujah instead. That meant the day the Ramadi offensive began the Hashd started their own one in Fallujah. Hashd leaders like Ameri were directly challenging Abadi’s leadership of not only security in Anbar, but the entire country. Ameri and others had already been calling for them to take over command of operations instead of the security forces. Now the fall of Ramadi gave them the opportunity to claim the premier had failed, and now they were going to bring victory to the province. Not only that, it split the forces that could have been arrayed against Ramadi. That hurt because the lack of manpower has been an on going dilemma for the Iraqi forces as they have not been able to hold many of the towns and suburbs that they cleared. In turn, the Hashd did not have the fighters to be successful in Fallujah either causing problems in both cities.

On the other hand, the United States stepped up its support to make sure that Ramadi would be retaken. U.S. advisers in Anbar helped plan the operation. The Americans trained the army units fighting for the city, and a new force of tribal fighters. Washington also wanted to keep the Hashd out of Ramadi to make sure that it was an Iraqi Security Forces’ (ISF) victory. That eventually happened as Hashd units left bases where U.S. advisers were working, and then a mass exodus occurred by October under pressure from Baghdad. An Iraq Oil Report article claimed there was an agreement between the Abadi government, the U.S. and the Hashd to withdraw from the operation. The Americans got their tribal fighters into the Hashd so that they could get paid. Finally, the U.S. fired artillery from bases they were stationed at and carried out air strikes to support the ISF’s advances. The Americans were determined that Ramadi would be liberated. They also wanted to make sure that it would help PM Abadi after all of the criticism he received for losing the city. That meant building up ISF and Sunni Hashd units to capture Ramadi, and pushing the Shiite Hashd out that were trying to undermine the premier. While much of this happened behind the scenes by the end of the battle the Iraqi papers were full of stories of U.S. special forces and helicopters taking part. It’s not clear how much the Americans were involved in end, but their influence was apparent to all especially to the pro-Iran Hashd who were opposed to their presence and assistance.

The final attack on Ramadi started on December 22. The elite Golden Division led the operation crossing a bridge that was construction by the ISF to cross the Warar canal into the center of the city. Iraqi police units came from a different direction. Five days later the Khalidiya Council said that IS was withdrawing to the east taking civilians with them as civilian shields. Then the next day the ISF declared victory and hoisted the Iraqi flag over the government center that was taken by the Islamic State seven months earlier. This was a huge accomplishment for the ISF, which had been humiliated back in May. Not only was it able to liberate the city, the ISF did it largely on their own with Shiite Hashd units mostly on the periphery. This helped PM Abadi as well because he could say his forces and leadership were the right way to take in the fight against IS unlike the pro-Iranian groups who quickly got bogged down in Fallujah, and worked against the Ramadi campaign from the start. Most importantly it exposed the Islamic State. The group can put up a grinding defense, but it lacks the fighters to hold any city against a large and determined government force. At the same time, reaching the middle of a city is only the start of the larger battle to rid Iraq of the insurgency.

The taking of the downtown was not the end of the struggle for Ramadi or against the Islamic State. There are still IS elements in many of the surrounding suburbs and towns and it has re-infiltrated into others. A member of the Anbar council said that there were insurgents in 25% of the city and in the outlaying region that would have to be dealt with. It will take a lot to permanently clear out these fighters, something the ISF has always struggled with. The government is trying to create a new police force to carry out these duties, but the numbers that have appeared in the press are nowhere close to what is required. There are also fears that tribes will want to exact revenge upon those who worked with IS. For example, there was a story that claimed that tribes had lists of collaborators. Carrying out vendettas will not help bring stability to the city or prove that the government is back in control. Last, 80% of the city is reportedly destroyed, and a member of the Anbar Council believed that it would take 10 years worth of budgets to rebuild it. None of these issues are easy to tackle. Fighting will continue in the city and its environs and could quickly deteriorate to what it was like right before the city fell with neighborhoods under IS control. The tribal vengeance can only be deterred if the government is strong, but it may not have the forces or judicial capacity to fully deal with the situation. Finally, real stability can not return to Ramadi until it is reconstructed, services are restored and the authorities have real power over the entire area. These are the challenges that lie ahead and could very well be replayed in future military operations in places like Fallujah and Mosul. If the government can’t get Ramadi right it may not be up to the task of providing real security to other cities after they are freed of IS in the future. The victory in the city therefore, brings both promise and peril that will play out in the coming months.

 

Ramadi, capital of mainly Sunni Muslim Anbar province in the Euphrates River valley west of Baghdad, had been Daesh’s biggest prize of 2015, seized in May.

 

Iraqi forces launched an assault on the city last week and made a final push to seize the central administration complex on Sunday[27 Dec]. Their progress had been slowed by explosives planted in streets and booby-trapped buildings.

 

Security officials have said the forces still need to clear some pockets of insurgents in the city and its outskirts.

 

If the recapture of Ramadi is confirmed, it will be the first major city seized from Daesh by Iraq’s military.

 

The militias were held back from the battlefield in Ramadi this time to avoid antagonizing the mainly Sunni population.

 

The government has said the next target after Ramadi will be the northern city of Mosul, by far the largest population center controlled by Daesh in either Iraq or Syria. —  Sources and citations

Muslim Brotherhood, Cameron: No Obama: Yes

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The topic of the Muslim Brotherhood, the mac-daddy umbrella jihad organization globally with a terror history, Cameron is right, Obama is wrong.

The United Kingdom has an epic Islamic issue in country and the United States is a close follow. The worst part for our homeland is the UK and Europe are part of the United States visa waiver program. Travel freely, no questions asked. We must now rely on U.S. Customs and Border Patrol assigned to the UK to work the issues.

Couple Guilty Of Plotting Major Terror Attack

‘Silent Bomber’ Mohammed Rehman and his wife were days from building a bomb that would have caused multiple casualties in London.

Mohammed Rehman court case

Couple Guilty Of Terror Attack Plot

SkyNews: Would-be suicide bomber Mohammed Rehman and his wife Sana Ahmed Khan have been found guilty of planning a major terror attack in London.

Rehman, 25, had stockpiled bombmaking materials at his Reading home and using the Twitter username ‘Silent Bomber’ he asked his followers which targets they thought suitable for a massive terror attack; Westfield shopping centre or the London Underground.

Rehman used a profile picture of ‘Jihadi John’ Mohammed Emwazi, to post: “Westfield shopping centre or London underground? Any advice would be appreciated greatly,” accompanied by a link to an al Qaida media release about the 7/7 bombings.

The same day, he searched YouTube for ‘London bombings’ and ‘Shehzad Tanweer’ – one of the 7/7 bombers who he referred to as his “beloved predecessor”.

Prosecutors claimed Rehman proved he was “intent on martyrdom” when he also tweeted: “Now I just make explosives in preparation for kuffar lol and when I’ve made the required amount I’ll be wearing them on my chest.” More details here.

So for Prime Minister David Cameron, he has work to do starting with the Muslim Brotherhood, an organization that Barack Obama remains supportive of and quite loyal.

Statement by David Cameron on the findings of the internal review to improve the government’s understanding of the Muslim Brotherhood.

I have today laid before both Houses the main findings of the internal review I commissioned in the last Parliament to improve the government’s understanding of the Muslim Brotherhood; establish whether the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology or activities, or those of individual members or affiliates, put at risk, damaged, or risked damaging the UK’s national interests; and where appropriate inform policy.

The review involved substantial research and wide consultation including Muslim Brotherhood representatives in the UK and overseas, and an open invitation to other interested parties to submit written contributions.

Read the Muslim Brotherhood review.

It is a complex subject: the Muslim Brotherhood comprises both a transnational network, with links in the UK, and national organisations in and outside the Islamic world. The movement is deliberately opaque, and habitually secretive.

Since the authors completed their initial research in 2014, and during the course of the government’s examination of the findings, further allegations of violence carried out by supporters of the Muslim Brotherhood have surfaced, which the government will continue to investigate, taking action as appropriate.

As the Muslim Brotherhood continues to evolve, so must our understanding of it. The findings have revealed much that we did not know but work will continue to ensure we keep up to date with developments.

The government considers the following the most important findings.

The Muslim Brotherhood’s foundational texts call for the progressive moral purification of individuals and Muslim societies and their eventual political unification in a Caliphate under Sharia law. To this day the Muslim Brotherhood characterises Western societies and liberal Muslims as decadent and immoral. It can be seen primarily as a political project.

Parts of the Muslim Brotherhood have a highly ambiguous relationship with violent extremism. Both as an ideology and as a network it has been a rite of passage for some individuals and groups who have gone on to engage in violence and terrorism. It has stated its opposition to al-Qaida (AQ) but it has never credibly denounced the use made by terrorist organisations of the work of Sayyid Qutb, one of the Brotherhood’s most prominent ideologues. Individuals closely associated with the Muslim Brotherhood in the UK have supported suicide bombing and other attacks in Israel by Hamas, an organisation whose military wing has been proscribed in the UK since 2001 as a terrorist organisation, and which describes itself as the Palestinian chapter of the Muslim Brotherhood.

Moreover, despite the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood’s public condemnation of violence in 2012/13 and afterwards, some of their supporters have been involved in violent exchanges with the security forces and other groups. Media reports and credible academic studies indicate that in the past 12 months a minority of Muslim Brotherhood supporters in Egypt have engaged alongside other Islamists in violent acts. Some senior leaders have publicly reiterated the Muslim Brotherhood’s commitment to non-violence, but others have failed to renounce the calls for retribution in some recent Muslim Brotherhood statements.

Muslim Brotherhood-associated and influenced groups in the UK have at times had a significant influence on national organisations which have claimed to represent Muslim communities (and on that basis have had a dialogue with government), charities and some mosques. But they have also sometimes characterised the UK as fundamentally hostile to Muslim faith and identity; and expressed support for terrorist attacks conducted by Hamas.

Aspects of the Muslim Brotherhood’s ideology and activities therefore run counter to British values of democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty, equality and the mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs. The Muslim Brotherhood is not the only movement that promotes values which appear intolerant of equality and freedom of faith and belief. Nor is it the only movement or group dedicated in theory to revolutionising societies and changing existing ways of life. But I have made clear this government’s determination to reject intolerance, and to counter not just violent Islamist extremism, but also to tackle those who create the conditions for it to flourish.

The main findings of the review support the conclusion that membership of, association with, or influence by the Muslim Brotherhood should be considered as a possible indicator of extremism.

We will therefore keep under review the views that are promoted and activities that are undertaken by Muslim Brotherhood associates in the UK, in Arabic as well as English. We will consider whether any action under the Counter-Extremism Strategy or as part of our wider work may be appropriate, including action in line with the new engagement policy the government will develop to ensure central and local government does not inadvertently provide legitimacy or a platform for extremists. We will challenge extremists’ poisonous narratives and promote positive alternatives that show vulnerable people that there are better ways to get on in life.

We will continue to:

  • refuse visas to members and associates of the Muslim Brotherhood who are on record as having made extremist comments, where this would be conducive to the public good and in line with our existing policy guidelines and approach to extremism in all forms
  • seek to ensure charities that have links to the Muslim Brotherhood are not misused to support or finance the Muslim Brotherhood instead of their lawful charitable purpose
  • strengthen liaison arrangements with international partners to ensure that allegations of illicit funding or other misuse of charities are robustly investigated and appropriate action taken
  • enforce the EU asset freeze on Hamas
  • keep under review whether the views and activities of the Muslim Brotherhood meet the legal test for proscription

We will also intensify scrutiny of the views and activities that Muslim Brotherhood members, associates and affiliates (whether based in the UK or elsewhere) promote overseas. As our Counter-Extremism Strategy makes clear, insights from our overseas posts will help the government better understand drivers, networks and ideologies. We will continue to consult, and share information and analysis with, governments in the Middle East and North Africa as appropriate. We will then take further decisions and actions as needed.