Obama Orders ISIS Intel Report Investigations

Posted on November 23, 2015November 23, 2015 by Denise Simon

Great, now the White House deflects blame and places it on the intelligence community. This is also coming from a commander in chief that misses 59% of the daily presidential briefings. Imagine what we know by virtue of watching any of the news, by doing individual research or listening to testimony before Congress. Perhaps Barack Obama should watch C-Span if he refuses and wants intelligence reports altered to fit his political narrative. Further, imagine what more troubling the intelligence facts and estimates can be outside of the scope what is in the public domain.

Barack Obama is being highly criticized by the domestic media, world leaders, the Pentagon, Centcom and the intelligence community for his lack of attention and ‘will’ to engage in defeating terror in the Middle East and Europe. Heck, his campaign on fighting terror is perfect as he tells us and all others are wrong, so he blames the analysts. Further, how about all those personal phone calls the White House has with other world leaders? What is Susan Rice, his top National Security Council advisor and director of this war on ISIS telling her boss?

But one should ask what is in the evidence like White House emails on the topic.

Tampa: Speaking at a news conference before leaving Malaysia to return home at the end of a 10-day overseas trip, Obama said he expected the Pentagon’s inspector general to investigate allegations that significant changes were made to reports from analysts at the U.S. Central Command, which is based at Tampa’s MacDill Air Force Base.

“I don’t know what we’ll discover with respect to what was going on in CentCom,” Obama said. “What I do know is my expectation — which is the highest fidelity to facts, data, the truth.”

Emails show DOD analysts told to ‘cut it out’ on ISIS warnings; IG probe expands

FNC: Analysts at U.S. Central Command were pressured to ease off negative assessments about the Islamic State threat and were even told in an email to “cut it out,” Fox News has learned – as an investigation expands into whether intelligence reports were altered to present a more positive picture.

Fox News is told by a source close to the CENTCOM analysts that the pressure on them included at least two emails saying they needed to “cut it out” and “toe the line.”

Separately, a former Pentagon official told Fox News there apparently was an attempt to destroy the communications. The Pentagon official said the email warnings were “not well received” by the analysts.

Those emails, among others, are now in the possession of the Pentagon inspector general. The IG’s probe is expanding into whether intelligence assessments were changed to give a more positive picture of the anti-ISIS campaign.

The former Pentagon official said there were “multiple assessments” from military intelligence and the CIA regarding the “rapid rise” of ISIS in Iraq and North Africa in the year leading up to the group’s territory grab in 2014.

Similar intelligence was included in the President’s Daily Brief, or PDB – the intelligence community’s most authoritative product — during the same time period. Yet the official, who was part of the White House discussions, said the administration kept “kicking the can down the road.” The official said there was no discussion of the military involvement needed to make a difference.

The IG probe started earlier this year amid complaints that information was changed to make ISIS look more degraded than it really was.

Among the complaints is that after the U.S. air campaign started in August 2014, the metrics to measure progress changed. They were modified to use measures such as the number of sorties and body counts — a metric not used since the Vietnam War — to paint a more positive picture.

Critics say this “activity-based approach” to tracking the effectiveness of strikes does not paint a comprehensive picture of whether ISIS is being degraded and contained.

The New York Times first reported on Sunday that the IG investigation was expanding and adding more investigators, and that the office had taken possession of a trove of documents and emails as part of that probe.

Asked about the report, House intelligence committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., said Sunday that his committee and others are involved in the investigation.

“We heard from a lot of whistle-blowers and other informants who have given us information. And not just … related strictly to the latest allegations,” Nunes said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”

Citing the renewed focus on ISIS after the Paris terror attacks, he added: “So the president to have a successful strategy is going to admit that they’ve got it wrong and they need to relook at a larger strategy that deals with north Africa, the Middle East, all the way over to Afghanistan, Pakistan, and then work closely with our NATO allies with what appears to be a command and control structure that ISIS has created successfully in Europe.”

President Obama, speaking at a press conference in Malaysia over the weekend, said he expects to “get to the bottom” of whether ISIS intelligence reports were altered – and has told his top military officials as much.

“One of the things I insisted on the day I walked into the Oval Office was that I don’t want intelligence shaded by politics. I don’t want it shaded by the desire to tell a feel-good story,” Obama said Sunday. “I believe that the Department of Defense and all those who head up our intelligence agencies understand that, and that I have made it repeatedly clear to all my top national security advisors that I never want them to hold back, even if the intelligence or their opinions about the intelligence, their analysis or interpretations of the data contradict current policy.”

At the same time, he said, “As a consumer of this intelligence, it’s not as if I’ve been receiving wonderfully rosy, glowing portraits of what’s been happening in Iraq and Syria over the last year and a half. … [I]t feels to me like, at my level at least, we’ve had a pretty clear-eyed, sober assessment.”

The president’s call for a thorough investigation was greeted with cynicism by those involved in the 2014 intelligence assessments, since the administration did not act on the earlier raw intelligence that painted a dire picture of developments, especially in Iraq.

Europe Warned Months Ago to Plug the Border Holes

Posted on November 21, 2015November 21, 2015 by Denise Simon

The United States had better take a reality check especially when it comes to visa waiver countries, vacation visas and student visas. Those are easier to obtain that any refugee status.

EU border agency warned of migrant terror threat 18 months ago – but nothing was done

After years of inaction, sources warn it will take “months, if not years” to plug holes in Europe’s sieve-like borders.

Between France and Belgium

By Peter Foster, Europe Editor and Matthew Holehouse in Brussels

3:51PM GMT 21 Nov 2015

TheTelegraph: Frontex, the European border agency warned more than 18 months ago that radicalised European jihadis could exploit the migrant crisis in order to return to Europe and commit terrorism, but systematic checks on migrants only began last Friday, The Sunday Telegraph can reveal.

The failure of Europe’s border bureaucracy to respond to the terror threat emerged as security sources told The Sunday Telegraph that it will still be “months, even years” before Europe’s borders are fully capable of screening arrivals.

Frontex’s own risk assessment for April 2014 said that the numbers of foreign fighters travelling to Syria and Iraq for jihad had “risen threefold”, with some would-be fighters as young 15 years old.

The report noted that EU representatives were “increasingly discussing ways” to monitor and prevent young people moving to Syria, while clearly acknowledging that the fighters could return to Europe “ideologically and militarily trained, thus posing a terrorist threat to societies.”

A Frontex helicopter flies over an overcrowded raft with refugees and migrants approaching the shores of the Greek island of Lesbos Photo: REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

“Overall, there is an underlying threat of terrorism-related travel movements especially due to the appeal of the Syrian conflict to both idealist and radicalised youths. It is possible that foreign fighters use irregular migration routes and/or facilitation networks (irrespective of whether this is recommended by terrorist structures or not), especially when the associated risks and costs are perceived as low in comparison to legal travel options,” the report said.

“It will take many months – and realistically years – before we screen everyone entering Europe.”

Security source to Sunday Telegraph

The cost of inaction over securing Europe’s external borders were displayed to devastating effect this week, when it emerged that Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the mastermind behind the Paris attacks, had slipped into France unchecked – via Greece – without setting off alarms.

He had previously joked in the Islamic State magazine, Dabiq, how he had once been stopped by Belgian police but not arrested.

The inability of Europe to protect its borders has been blamed on a combination of a lack of resources in poorer members like Greece, Romania and Bulgaria and privacy concerns that have stalled necessary legislation in the European Parliament.

Mohamad Nouv Khanji, a Syrian doctor waits to register with the police in refugee center in the southern Serbian town of Presevo. Khanji traveled with his passport, but the EU border security agency Frontex says most migrants enter Europe with no valid documents. Photo: AP/Darko Vojinovic

Timothy Kirkhope, a Tory MEP and former immigration minister, blamed “political correctness” and the view that “people should be allowed to go anywhere they like” for the failure to adequately stand up Frontex.

“The external border has to be protected, and if the Greeks and Italians can’t do it we have to beef up Frontex. We’ve got to put the money in,” he added. “I’ve been pressing them to get on this: to not let anyone go anywhere without being processed.”

“Frontex has no access to operational intelligence,’

Fabrice Leggeri, the executive director of Frontex

In a sign of the glacial rate of progress, the same warnings on the potential security risk posed by migrant were repeated almost word-for-word in the 2015 version of the Frontex report.

As recently as September Fabrice Leggeri, the executive director of Frontex, admitted to a House of Lords committee that Frontex had “no access to intelligence” since it was an EU agency.

Mr Leggeri said that Frontex could find “no evidence” that potential terrorists had used migrant routes to cross back into the EU, but was forced to admit that this was probably because it was not connected with anti-terror databases.

A Frontex helicopter flies over refugees and migrants seen on a beach, moments after arriving on a dinghy on the Greek island of Lesbos Photo: REUTERS/Alkis Konstantinidis

“FRONTEX, as an EU agency, has no access to this kind of operational intelligence,’ he admitted, “This may be why we cannot trace evidence of people who might be involved in terrorist activities.”

France has been demanding tough new controls ever since last January’s terror attacks on the offices of the satirical magazine, Charlie Hebdo, which were finally agreed to a meeting of EU home ministers in Brussels last week.

These include that European passenger name records (PNR) data should be collected and available for scrutiny by intelligence agencies, and that EU citizens should also be subjected to “systematic” checks when re-entering Europe.

However, senior officials have admitted to The Sunday Telegraph that it will take “months, if not years” to secure the EU borders, even as richer EU nations were offering to send small ‘hit squads’ to plug the most obvious gaps in Bulgaria, Romania and Greece.

“This kind of capacity cannot be stood up overnight,” said the source close to the discussions over securing Europe’s borders, “it will take many months – and realistically years – before we really do screen everyone entering Europe against databases of known terrorists and criminals.”

The scale of challenge was revealed in the official communique from the EU Home Ministers meeting, that admitted that many EU border posts still required “electronic connection” to relevant Interpol databases.

As a sign of the depth of concern, Dutch officials this week even floated the idea of a “mini-Schengen”, that would dramatically cut Europe’s 26-member open-frontier zone, taking it back to its original core of group of Germany, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and Luxembourg.

Germany and the European Commission have rejected the idea, arguing the answer must be to focus on fixing Schengen as it currently exists, perhaps even by creating an EU-wide intelligence agency, an idea that was quickly shot down by member states.

Even before the Paris attacks, Donald Tusk, the European Council president had acknowledged that the EU was in a “race against time” to stop the collapse of Schengen. “The clock is ticking, we are under pressure, we need to act fast,” he said.

In the meantime, Europe remains at risk of further terror attacks that analysts warn could shatter confidence in a Schengen free-movement system whose credibility has already been seriously damaged by two major terror attacks on Paris in the space of nine months.

Carsten Nickel, Europe analyst with Teneo Intelligence, compared the existential nature of the Schengen crisis with that of the Euro crisis earlier this year, but warned that the security issues would be even harder to fix at a European level.

“The reality is that it is going to take a while to build up the administrative and physical capabilities required to protect Europe’s external borders,” he said.

“As with the Eurozone crisis, there is a logic to creating a centralized, supra-national institutions – like, say in the case of the Eurozone, the ECB – to tackle the problem; but when it comes to security it is just not clear there is the same administrative and political capacity to deliver,” he said.

China vs. ISIS in Middle East

Posted on November 21, 2015November 21, 2015 by Denise Simon

China does have involvement in Syria and the conflict against Islamic State. The reasons are many.

In part from WSJ: For years, China has battled a sporadically violent separatist movement, made up of Turkic-speaking mainly Muslim Uighurs, who seek to establish an independent state in the Xinjiang region in northwestern China. Beijing says the Uighur separatist group East Turkestan Islamic Movement has links with terrorist groups abroad, including Islamic State. Those skeptical of that claim say the movement is motivated more by large-scale Han Chinese migration to Xinjiang and discriminatory ethnic policies than by calls for global jihad.

Cracking down on the separatist movement “should become an important component of international counterterrorism,” Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi said this week at the Group of 20 summit in Turkey.

The killing might help China to push for better counterterror collaboration with other countries, though such cooperation comes with its own liabilities, according to Ni Lexiong, a military expert at Shanghai’s University of Political Science and Law. “If China grows too close with Europe and the U.S., then terrorists are more likely to kill the Chinese people they find. But if it doesn’t do anything, it will look weak.”

China shares intelligence and conducts counterterror exercises with neighboring countries such as Pakistan and India, and has been attempting to help mediate between the Taliban and the government in Afghanistan. Most of those agreements involve Uighurs, and Beijing has steered clear of direct support for the fight against Islamic State in Syria and Iraq, citing a long-standing policy of noninterference in other countries’ internal affairs.

In part from Bloomberg: President Xi Jinping condemned the Islamic State’s execution of a Chinese national, an act that raises pressure on China to take a greater role in resolving Syria’s civil war.
Xi issued a statement on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation summit in Manila on Thursday, after Islamic State claimed credit for killing Fan Jinghui, 50, and another Norwegian captive. The group published pictures of the two dead men in its English-language Dabiq magazine on Wednesday under the banner “Executed.” It was the first time the Islamic State had killed a Chinese captive.
The executions show the increasingly global impact of violence by Islamic State and its affiliates, as leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi looks to incite a clash of civilizations. Attacks that killed scores in Paris and Beirut — days after a bomb brought down a Russian jet with 224 people on board — have increased efforts for greater international cooperation to strike back against Islamic State.
While the killing might increase China’s urgency in seeking a resolution to the Syrian civil war helping Islamic State to thrive, it was unlikely to steer the country toward support for military intervention, said Li Wei, head of security and anti-terrorism research at the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations. “I don’t see any possibility for China to join the international coalition in air-striking the group in any near future,” Li said. “China will likely play a more active diplomatic role in participating in the Syrian peace process.”
Thursday’s statement was the first time Xi had publicly mentioned the Islamic State by name, Li said.

In part NYT‘s: Mix of Foreigners in Mali Reflects Different Business Interests

While Mali’s tourism industry has been devastated in recent years by growing unrest, the country continues to host foreigners who represent a variety of business interests.

The presence of Chinese soldiers as part of a peacekeeping effort in Mali, and the release of several Chinese nationals from the hotel hostage crisis on Friday reflect Africa’s relationship with its largest trade partner.

In Mali, the China Railway Engineering Corporation, which is thought to employ several of the freed hostages, is reported to be part of an $8 billion project to update the railway infrastructure that links Guinea and Mali.

The area near Bamako is also a draw for Chinese entrepreneurs, part of a group of more than one million people who have left China to seek out better opportunities in Africa.

Along with China, several other countries, including the United Arab Emirates and India, are looking to expand their business foothold in African countries. In Mali, initiatives include the expansion of agricultural investments, the mining of iron ore and other natural resources, and the distribution of pharmaceuticals.

Twenty Indian citizens who were evacuated from the hotel were working for a company based in Dubai and were staying at the Radisson on a long-term basis, according to CNN. In July, the Dubai-based Emirates Airline said it would begin offering direct flights between Dubai and Bamako.

Anonymous Hacked ISIS, Terror Plots Revealed

Posted on November 21, 2015November 21, 2015 by Denise Simon

———————————————————————————————————————————–
———- SPREAD THIS LINK ON TWITTER, FACEBOOK, INSTAGRAM, WHATSAPP OR ANY MEDIA SERVICE USING #22DAESH AND #OPPARIS ————
===================================================================================================================================
Tl;dr: Daesh plans attack on Paris and the world on the 22nd of November. #22Daesh #OpParis http://pastebin.com/wkigzJZD
^^^^^^ You can copy this as a post for on social medias. Required trending #: #22Daesh
===================================================================================================================================
Short summarization:
All proof was submitted to official authorities all around the globe days ago. They have it and it is their responsibility to do something with it. But because they have not done anything with it yet and it’s almost the 22nd, we have taken matters into our hands. We only take the responsibility of warning civilians (incase the authorities do not act well enough).
We have seen and received threats from several (pro-)Daesh accounts, but not just regular threats. These threats were all focussed on 1 date: the 22nd of November. Our intel team started gathering Intel after having verified the threats and has narrowed all it’s findings down to this pastebin.
This is a warning to anyone going to any of the events listed below or going to any event with a lot of people, church services included – but the risk of any churches outside Paris/France being targeted is low.
=======================================================================
Events in Paris that have been confirmed are at risk:
—————————————————–
– Demonstration by: “Collectif du droit des femmes” (Group for women’s rights) (Demonstrations are now banned, cancelled)
– Cigales Electroniques with Vocodecks, RE-Play & Rawtor at Le Bizen
– Concrete Invites Drumcode: Adam Beyer, Alan Fitzpatrick, Joel Mull.. at Concrete (Probably cancelled)
—————————————————–
Events we have received/found threats for, but weren’t 100% confirmed:
—————————————————–
– WWE Survival Series (US)
– Feast of Christ the King celebrations (Rome/Worldwide)
– Al-Jihad, 1 Day Juz (Indonesia)
– Five Finger Death Punch (Milan, Italy)
– University Pastoral Day (Holy Spirit University of Kaslik, Lebanon)
“Threats” aren’t the same as “plans”, even though some threats look like plans it doesn’t mean they are all planned to be executed.
We hope that at these events adding more security will be enough to prevent any possible attacks.
—————————————————–
There will be big events worldwide on the 22nd, go at your own risk.
(..) = Added notes after our official release
=======================================================================
History: http://pastebin.com/pX0z2mi7
Official press release: http://pastebin.com/u03Rr634
—————————————————–
We are Anonymous.
We are Legion.
We do not Forgive.
We do not Forget.
Expect us.

Anonymous says ISIS planning attacks in US, Paris, elsewhere Sunday

TheHill: The hacker collective Anonymous says the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) is planning to launch attacks in the U.S., Paris, Indonesia, Italy and Lebanon on Sunday.

OpParisIntel, the name of Anonymous’ mission against ISIS, released a statement Saturday saying it had uncovered information regarding new terror plots “on Paris and the world” scheduled for Nov. 22.

“All proof was submitted to official authorities all around the globe days ago,” the statement said, as first reported by the International Business Times. “They have it and it is their responsibility to do something with it. But because they have not done anything with it yet and it’s almost the 22nd, we have matters into our own hands.”

“We only take the responsibility of warning civilians (incase the authorities do not act well enough),” the statement added.

Anonymous warned against attending events with large crowds, especially church services, but added that “the risk of any churches outside Paris/France being targeted is low.”

The group listed several events in Paris that it said “have been confirmed are at risk” and several events around the world that are not yet “100% confirmed,” including a major WWE pro wrestling event in Atlanta, Ga.

“The goal is to make sure the whole world, or at least the people going to these events, know that there have been threats and that there is possibility of an attack to happen,” the statement continued.

Anonymous told IBT that it has sent the information to U.K. intelligence agency MI5, as well as the CIA and the FBI in the U.S., but has refused to release proof of the attacks publicly.

“If we share the proof [publicly], everyone will start calling it fake because screenshots can be edited and accounts can be deleted,” the hacking group said. “We have purposely not shared account links publicly because they would be shut down immediately and then no one would believe the proof.”

Anonymous declared cyber war on ISIS after the group claimed responsibility for a terrorist attack in Paris last week, killing at least 132 civilians and injuring hundreds.

The collective claimed to have shut down 5,500 ISIS Twitter accounts earlier this week.

Paris Terrorist Hiding in Brussels, Country Lockdown

Posted on November 21, 2015November 21, 2015 by Denise Simon

When a war is ranging on in cities in Europe, when borders are open, when migrants roam through the streets and towns, metropolitan areas take on the appearance of World War ll.

DailyMail: Hunt for world’s most wanted: Final Paris fugitive is alive, hiding in Brussels and has SKYPED his friends – as his brother pleads with him to turn himself in

Salah Abdeslam phoned friends who claim he is now hiding in Brussels
The dangerous fugitive used skype to contact two friends while on the run
Abdeslam’s brother Mohammed has urged Salah to give himself up
An international arrest warrant has been issued for Salah Abdeslam following his role in the deadly Paris attacks
Four people dragged from their car and arrested by police in Brussels

By Tom Wyke for MailOnline

Salah Abdeslam, 26, is believed to be the eight gunman and is wanted in connection to the horrific co-ordinated ISIS attacks

The fugitive ISIS gunman wanted in connection to the deadly Paris attacks has spoken to three friends via Skype and is thought to be hiding in Brussels, Belgium.

Salah Abdeslam, 26, is believed to be the eight gunman and played a key part in organising the horrific co-ordinated ISIS attacks.

Two of the jihadi’s friend told Salah’s brother Mohammed, that they had spoken to the wanted man although it remains unclear why he made contact.

Fresh photos of Salah emerged this week with the radical Islamist wearing a pair of large framed glasses and long floppy hair.

It is believed the wanted gunman may be in disguise after photos were published of him as part of a wanted poster.

‘I believe he is not far away,’ Mohammed Abdeslam when asked about the phone conversation, sparking suggestions his brother may be hiding in Brussels.

He urged his brother to give himself up and contact the authorities.

Salah Abdeslam, a French national, lived in Brussels for several years, and is thought to have played a key part in organising logistics for the shocking terror attacks in Paris.

Despite an international arrest warrant on his head, the French national has so far managed to evade capture after going on the run on November 13.

Police did stop Salah Abdeslam just before the Belgian border but after briefly questioning him, they mistakenly allowed the wanted terrorist to carry on his way.

It is believed the dangerous gunman was assisted over the border along with two men, who were later arrested by police.

‘I believe he is not far away,’ Mohammed Abdeslam (pictured) when asked about the phone conversation, sparking suggestions his brother may be hiding in Brussels

Mohammed Abdeslam was questioned and later released by police after the horrific attacks in Paris. Three days ago he was spotted lighting candles in remembrance of the victims in the attack

The embarrassing gaffe was later confirmed by the police who are pursuing Abdeslam having tracked down and killed the attack’s mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

Abaaoud died in a hail of bullets after a lengthy shootout with police, in which over 5,000 gun rounds were fired by police and two of the three heavily armed wanted men.

Abaaoud’s cousin, Hasna Aitboulahcen, was also killed in the shooting, although initial reports that she had died after detonating a suicide vest proved to be false.

A third suspect in the flat is thought to have detonated his vest, killing Hasna Aitboulahcen and wanted ISIS poster boy Abdelhamid Abaaoud.

Wanted: Police have issued an international arrest warrant for 26-year-old Salah Abdeslam, from Brussels, who is one of three brothers said to be involved in terror plot and rented their getaway

Hiding: Authorities had believed he might be hiding with Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the suspected mastermind of the Paris terror attacks, pictured, who was staying in a flat in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis

Suspect: Salah’s brother Brahim Abdeslam (left) blew himself up at le Comptoir Voltaire. Belgian Bilal Hadfi, 20, (centre left), detonated his suicide vest at the Stade de France, French bomber Omar Mostefai, centre, killed himself at the Bataclan and Samy Amimour, 28, (right) was also involved in the gig attack

Timeline of events: Eight terrorists carried out the devastating attacks on Friday night, leaving 130 people dead and another 352 injured

The hunt for Salah Abdeslam comes as heavily armed police and soldiers patrolled in the streets of Brussels today.

The city’s subways as well as many stores were closed as the government warned of a threat of Paris-style attacks.

Prime Minister Charles Michel said the decision to raise the threat alert to the highest level was taken ‘based on quite precise information about the risk of an attack like the one that happened in Paris.’

The plot involved ‘several individuals with arms and explosives’, according to the Prime Minister who speculated the jiihadis may have been looking to target several locations.

The Belgian Federal Prosecutor’s office said Saturday that several weapons were discovered during the search of the home of one of three people arrested in connection with the Paris attacks, but said no explosives were found.

Authorities across Europe, the Mideast and in Washington are trying to determine how a network of primarily French and Belgian attackers with links to Islamic extremists in Syria plotted and carried out the deadliest violence in France in decades – and how many may still be on the run.

Prime Minister Charles Michel (pictured centre) said the decision to raise the threat alert to the highest level was taken ‘based on quite precise information about the risk of an attack like the one that happened in Paris’

The city’s subways as well as many stores were closed as the government warned of a threat of Paris-style attacks

Belgian soldiers patrol the streets of Brussels as the government raised the terror alert level following ‘serious and imminent threat’

Heavily armed and watchful, troops have been keeping a careful eye in Brussels ahead of security worries