Category Archives: ISIS ISIL Islamic State Caliphate

Obama Failed Redline, U.S. Military, Chemical Weapons Suits

Posted on by

US military ordering troops in Iraq to dust off chemical weapon suits

FNC: The U.S. military has ordered its nearly 3,500 troops stationed in Iraq to reacquaint themselves with their chemical weapons suits due to evidence that the Islamic State has obtained chemical weapons and used them on multiple occasions.

“It is a precautionary measure,” a defense official told Fox News, acknowledging the order.

During a briefing Thursday, the Pentagon would not publicly confirm the order but reassured reporters that the military is prepared to handle a chemical attack by ISIS.

“The commanders in the field are making sure their troops are adequately prepared for the threats they may face,” Pentagon Press Secretary Peter Cook said when asked about the new preparations.

Defense officials recently confirmed that a “mustard agent” was used by ISIS against Kurdish Peshmerga forces in a mortar attack on Aug. 11 in the northern Iraqi city of Makhmur, located southwest of Erbil.

“[We] were able to take the fragments from some of those mortar rounds and do a field test, a presumptive field test on those fragments and they showed the presence of HD, or what is known as sulfur mustard. That is a class one chemical agent,” said Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Killea, chief of staff, Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve, in a Pentagon video-teleconference with reporters from his base in southwest Asia  late last month.

In the past few days, more evidence has surfaced of chemical weapons attacks by ISIS in Syria and Iraq.

On Monday, a rocket suspected of carrying chemical weapons was fired by ISIS at Kurdish Peshmerga forces guarding the Mosul Dam, the Kurdish media news agency Rudaw reported.

The attack produced “yellow smoke,” according to the report.  There were no significant injuries reported.

On Wednesday, Rudaw also reported that ISIS allegedly used chemical weapons again, this time in Syria against Kurdish fighters of the Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG) in Hasaka province.

Where Did ISIS Get Its Chemical Weapons?

DailyBeast: The terror group is suspected of using mustard gas in a series of recent attacks, and a notorious Dutch jihadi says it’s from Assad’s stockpile. But U.S. officials beg to differ.
An infamous Dutch soldier turned ISIS fighter says the group has acquired chemical weapons once belonging to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, resurrecting fears that what was supposed to be the regime’s destroyed program has instead fallen into jihadi hands.

“The regime uses chemical warfare on a regular basis these days, and nobody bats an eye—yet when [ISIS] captures it from them and uses it against them it’s all of a sudden a huge problem?” ISIS fighter Omar Yilmaz, 27, said in a Tumblr post. “Fight them the way they fight you.”

The post marks the first time a public ISIS figure has declared that the group obtained chemical weapons from the Assad regime. And it comes just days after the first series of suspected ISIS mustard gas attacks in northern Iraq and Syria.

On Tuesday, Kurdish forces said ISIS fired a homemade rocket filled with chemical weapons at peshmerga forces. In a suspected Aug. 21 attack in the northern Syrian city of Marea, at least 25 people were contaminated. And on Aug. 13, Kurdish officials in Iraq said 60 peshmerga were exposed to mustard gas in the northern Iraqi city of Makhmour.

Pentagon officials believe there is credible evidence that mustard gas could indeed have been used in the two August strikes.

Yilmaz’s Aug. 31 post renews questions of ISIS’s source for several suspected chemical weapons attacks it orchestrated in northern Iraq and Syria. Did the Assad regime fail to fully destroy its chemical weapons arsenal? If Yilmaz’s claims are true, that would refute Pentagon claims that the group has developed its own rudimentary weapon.

Defense and intelligence officials told The Daily Beast on Wednesday that despite Yilmaz’s claims, they are still skeptical the weapons under ISIS control came from the Assad regime.

These officials noted that the recent attacks did not have the kind of impact they would expect to see from a state-sponsored chemicals weapons program. Attacks from such programs have the potential to kill thousands, as they did two years ago in the Damascus suburbs. These recent attacks instead injured scores.

Officials said they believe the weapons ISIS used are homegrown, noting the attacks have been rudimentary and that such weapons could be created by anyone with the right basic supplies. That is, the type of attacks believed to be carried out by ISIS did not require state-acquired weapons.

But critics note that the impact of the attacks could speak to how much state-acquired weapons have degraded. Others said ISIS could have state-created chemical weapons but not the munitions to disperse them effectively, weakening their impact. At the time Assad agreed to destroy his weapons, he did not control all the territory or facilities that held such weapons, still others asserted.

The most cynical of critics suggested that Assad could have purposely supplied ISIS with such weapons to perpetuate the narrative that he is confronting a far more ruthless foe than his regime.

Defense officials are dubious. Such weapons, if they still exist in Syria, “Assad is keeping for himself, in case he wants to use” them, one defense official retorted.

Either way, Yilmaz’s claims elevate the level of terror the group has sown in the region and the prospects that sophisticated chemical weapons are now part of its arsenal.

“I think [ISIS] is trying to convey several things. Its propaganda has been geared at intimidating enemies. This serves that purpose,” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Washington, D.C.-based Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “And it wants to show its capability to would-be allies, to attract fighters.”

Yilmaz, as he is known, is a Dutch citizen of Turkish descent who first attracted attention roughly two years ago when photos emerged of the jihadist fighter wearing a Dutch military uniform. At the time, he was a facilitator for several other jihadist groups. His Instagram account depicting fighting in Syria, his prolific online presence, and his willingness to communicate with the West made him one of Europe’s highest-profile jihadists. Yilmaz reportedly first traveled to Syria after he was turned down for the Dutch’s military’s elite special forces.

In the last year he reportedly joined ISIS.

Last year, the mother of his one-time supposed 19-year-old bride, a Dutch woman raised Catholic before converting to Islam, retrieved her daughter from the Turkish-Syrian border. According to several postings online attributed to him shortly after she fled, he has since remarried.

In an October 2014 CBS News interview, Yilmaz said he felt that Syria was his homeland.

“We want Islamic law. We want our own rules,” he said in the interview from Syria, adding: “This fight never ends. This is our religion.”

The international push to rid Syria of chemical weapons began in the summer of 2013 after more than 300 people were killed in a chemical weapons attack in Ghouta, a rebel-controlled suburb of Damascus. The West believed Assad carried out the attacks while the Syrian leader blamed opposition forces. President Obama had called the use of chemical weapons by the regime a red line, and the images of children convulsing after being exposed to chemical weapons created an international outcry. The U.S. appeared to be poised to launch strikes on Syria in response when the regime agreed to rid its nation of chemical weapons under a U.S.- and Russia-brokered agreement.

In August 2014, the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons said it had verified that Syria had destroyed 1,040 tons of its Category 1 chemical weapons or munitions filled with chemicals that have no peaceful purpose.

But in May, OPCW reported its inspectors found traces of traces of sarin and VX nerve agent at a Syrian military research facility, suggesting the regime lied about destroying its arsenal or the extent of his stockpile.

When Global Leaders and the UN Retreat….

Posted on by

When the United States as part of the P5+1 negotiated with Iran on a nuclear deal, at no time were demands placed on Iran to stop the tyrannical and militant support of Bashir al Assad’s civil war in Syria. The same holds true, when any diplomatic efforts between Russia and the United States avoids Russian support for the Assad regime. With 11 million Syrians that have fled their home country, the damage, the costs and the deaths coupled with desperation leads to a global crisis, where advanced world leaders shirk their duty to protect.

Nothing is more shameful when refugees fleeing to freedom by any means possible including boats, where passengers are attacked and or drowned such that bodies wash up on shore.

From the DailyMail:

 

Refugees lay on train tracks in fear of being taken to camps

Scuffles break out at a small Hungarian train station as refugees lay on the train tracks in fear of being taken to camps.

Riot police, who were waiting at the small station of Bicske, ordered the asylum seekers off the train. Many clung to the doors and some wrestled trying to get back on board.

 

One man threw himself on the tracks with his wife clutching their crying baby in fear of being sent to a camp.

On arriving at the town of Bicske, which has a migrant reception centre, many refugees were shouting “No camp, no camp!”

The train left Budapest’s Keleti station bound for the town Sopron, near the Austrian border, this morning after more than 1,000 people poured into the capital’s main terminal.

 

Hungary’s rail operator said no direct trains are running to western Europe due to “railway transport” security reasons. Despite this, desperate refugees pushed themselves and their children on to carriages through doors and windows. Many cheered as trains pulled into the station.

Hungary had initially allowed people to travel on Monday, letting more than 1,000 people pack on to westbound trains from Budapest, but then withdrew the option 24 hours later.

The decision to allow people inside the train station today came hours before Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban met European leaders in Brussels to discuss the growing humanitarian crisis.

He said that because so many migrants wanted to reach Germany, it was a “German problem”, however European Parliament President Martin Schulz argued that fair and just distribution of people was needed.

‘A German problem’

“The problem is not a European problem. The problem is a German problem.”

“Nobody would like to stay in Hungary, neither in Slovakia, nor Poland, nor Estonia. All of them would like to go to Germany. Our job is only to register them,” he said.

Mr Orban said EU rules state that countries must protect their boarders and refugees looking to leave the country without registration is “totally against European regulations”.

Under EU regulations, refugees must seek asylum in the first country they arrive in, however this has come into question after Germany said it would accept asylum claims from Syrian refugees regardless of where they entered the EU.

Austrian authorities say refugees arriving in Vienna from Budapest will not be checked or registered and will be allowed to continue their onwards journey.

Police chief Gerhard Puerstl said: “What we certainly can’t do is check all those people coming through, establish all their identities, or possibly even arrest them – we can’t do this, and we have no plans to do this.”

Meanwhile, Czech police announced that they will stop detaining Syrian migrants who have claimed asylum in Hungary but are attempting to travel to Germany, according to local media in the country.

Hungary is the gateway to Europe

More than 150,000 refugees and economic migrants have travelled to Hungary this year as it is the gateway to the EU for those crossing by land through Macedonia and Serbia. Many of those, who have come from Syria or Afghanistan, are looking to travel to western countries such as Germany and Austria.

The mass influx of refugees seeking asylum in Europe are fleeing war-torn countries from the Middle East and parts of Africa.

Eritreans, who are granted refugee status when they reach Germany, make up a large number of those fleeing across the Mediterranean to Europe – around 15 per cent of the total reaching Europe’s sea border are from the country.

Most of the Eritreans arriving in Europe have travelled by sea, initially, via Ethiopia and Sudan.

 

In Other News, al Qaeda an Ally of United States?

Posted on by

When a president is rudderless as Barack Obama is, all ships, soldiers and strategy fall silent as the enemy fills the gaps with successful terror. Retired General Petraeus announced a option of perhaps peeling off al Nusra (al Qaeda) fighters and enlisting their resources as allies to take on the fight against Islamic State. This raised some real eyebrows. Is there reality in this plan or is it desperation?

Petraeus’s Plan to Defeat Islamic State Won’t Work

By

Bloomberg: Former CIA Director David Petraeus today confirmed that he is urging Obama administration officials to try to peel off some fighters from the radical al-Nusrah group, to join the U.S.-led coalition fighting ISIS. But Petraeus’s explanation does not account for the fact that U.S. policy in Syria has been alienating the “reconcilable” Islamists for over four years.

“We should under no circumstances try to use or coopt Nusrah, an al-Qaeda affiliate in Syria, as an organization against ISIL,” Petraeus told CNN. “But some individual fighters, and perhaps some elements, within Nusrah today have undoubtedly joined for opportunistic rather than ideological reasons: They saw Nusrah as a strong horse, and they haven’t seen a credible alternative, as the moderate opposition has yet to be adequately resourced.”

It sounds like the “Sunni Awakening” from his time in Iraq, but there’s little to no chance of repeating that in Syria today. Recent U.S. action, and inaction, shows why.

Just last week, the commander of Division 30, the Syrian “moderate” opposition group that hosts a few dozen U.S.-trained fighters, sent out a worrying notice: His troops had just been bombed by planes from Assad’s air force. The U.S. military did not respond.

“We have no information on whether Assad forces targeted Vetted Syrian Opposition Groups or the New Syrian Force specifically,” Lieutenant Commander Kyle Raines, U.S. Central Command spokesman, told me, using the official term for the 54 Syrian soldiers who were trained and armed by the U.S. and sent back into Syria to fight the Islamic State.

Only three weeks earlier, the U.S. military did respond with force to an attack on Division 30, this time coming from al-Nusrah, the Syria rebel group affiliated with al-Qaeda.  Nusrah had kidnapped some of the U.S.-trained fighters and killed others, and the U.S. military sent drones to exact retribution. But Division 30 itself was opposed to the U.S. attacks on al-Nusrah and pledged never to fight the group, only the Assad regime and the Islamic State.

In 2012, when he was C.I.A. director, Petraeus and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton proposed significantly arming the Syrian opposition, a plan supported by Defense Secretary Leon Panetta and Joint Chiefs Chairman Martin Dempsey. But the White House rejected the plan, and U.S.-supported opposition groups were routed.

Now Petraeus is proposing to separate the “reconcilables” from al-Nusrah to fight against the Islamic State. He compared the plan to the Sunni Awakening in Iraq in 2007 and 2008.

“In Iraq, during the Surge, Sunni tribes and insurgent groups that were previously aligned with AQI (al Qaeda in Iraq) switched sides because they concluded that there was a better alternative — namely, partnership with us and, ultimately, the government of Iraq — and because they saw that AQI was a losing bet,” Petraeus said. “The process of ‘reconciliation’ contributed significantly to the defeat of al Qaeda in Iraq in 2007-2008, a situation sustained for 2-3 more years.”

He acknowledges that the Sunni Awakening in Iraq broke down after most of the agreements with Iraqi Sunni tribes were broken by the Iraqi government. He also acknowledges that Syria and Iraq are not the same. But Petraeus concludes that the U.S. should work to defeat radical groups in Syria “by splintering their ranks by offering a credible alternative.”

The key problem with Petraeus’s idea is that the U.S. may no longer have any chance of being “credible” in Syria. Four years after the crisis began, U.S. support for groups fighting the Assad regime has slowed. Those moderate groups that haven’t been crushed or coopted by Islamic groups feel abandoned by Washington.

The $500 million program to train and equip fighters in Syria has been hampered by the fact that new recruits are compelled to pledge not to fight Assad. Obama administration officials are pursuing a de facto policy of regime preservation while paying lip service to the unfounded hope for a political process whereby Assad would negotiate his own departure.

Petraeus was not wrong in 2012 when he called for robust American support for moderate opposition forces in Syria. But in 2015, that plan has been overtaken by events. Unless the Obama administration completely reverses course — creating a Syria policy that is about more than quashing the Islamic State — the Petraeus plan can’t work.

All Syrian groups fighting the Islamic State derive their credibility from the Syrian people in the lands they control. Petraeus is right that Syrian tribes can be persuaded to break from al-Nusrah and join a U.S.-backed cause.

“U.S. regaining credibility wouldn’t take much; it would take stopping barrel bombs from falling on civilians,” said Mouaz Moustafa, executive director of the Syrian Emergency Task Force, a nongovernmental organization that works with rebel groups on the ground. “The reason that the U.S. does not have any credibility with armed groups on the ground is because it is seen as supporting Iran, Russia and the Assad regime.”

There are other reasons Petraeus’s plan has little chance. In Iraq, the U.S. had over 100,000 troops, tens of billions of dollars to spend, a relationship with the host government that could be leveraged, and the political will to commit U.S. attention to the matter. None of those things exist in Syria today.

The Obama administration appears content to contain the Islamic State in Syria, and after years of missed opportunities, Obama seems unlikely to confront Assad. Syrians remember when Obama last year said that the entire idea that a group of “former doctors, farmers, pharmacists and so forth” could defeat the Assad regime and its supporters has “always been a fantasy.”

The nature of the American commitment in Syria is not likely to change. Not even the hawkish leading Republican presidential candidates are supporting a dramatic increase of American resources or personnel to turn Syria around. The only Syrian “awakening” will be when Assad does fall — and the U.S. realizes it has no friends there to represent its interests.

Come the F*ck On: al Qaeda Is Not Our Ally!

DailyBeast: A new argument among jihad analysts has it that the makers of 9/11 are now a handy bulwark against ISIS. Um, no.

Enemies becoming friends is seemingly all the rage these days. First Cuba. Then Iran. Now, there are those arguing that al Qaeda must also be brought into the fold. That’s right: the same group which fly planes into our buildings, blows up our tube networks, embassies and longs for the return of the Caliphate.

The argument seems to be catching on. The journalist Ahmed Rashid has recently taken to the pages of the New York Review of Books (“Why we need al Qaeda”) and the front cover of The Spectator (“Al Qaeda to the rescue”) to question whether al Qaeda “might be the best option left in the Middle East for the US and its allies.” The argument goes that the U.S., regional Arab powers, and Turkey have a shared enemy in Bashar al-Assad, Iran and its proxies. Al Qaeda not only shares these enemies, it is at the frontline of this fight in Syria and Yemen.

Rashid also says that al Qaeda is going through “dramatic changes” and is now taking a “soft line” on certain issues. Charles Lister from Brookings has also explored potential al Qaeda moderation—with the headline used in his May article for the Huffington Post, “An Internal Struggle: Al Qaeda’s Syrian Affiliate is Grappling with its Identity,” making the group sound more like a 16 year-old goth from Portland than a murderous terrorist organization.

Other, less savory figures have spoken out on other ways in which al Qaeda may be useful. Moazzam Begg—the former Guantanamo Bay detainee—cites Rashid while arguing that “the most credible voices against IS have been Islamic clerics traditionally associated with al Qaeda”: Abu Qatada and Abu Muhammad al-Maqdisi. These two jihadist theologians’ fatwas have been used to justify barbaric violence for decades. Yet Begg laments the UK government’s reluctance to reach out to such figures, arguing that it would help avert a repeat of the massacre of British tourists that just occurred in Tunisia.

This is largely unsurprising coming from Begg, who has long argued the Islamist cause. Yet as others view al Qaeda as a potentially constructive partner, it is worth exploring this thesis on its merits.

The examples of moderation cited by the likes of Rashid are anything but. A statement from Abu Mohammed al-Joulani, the head of al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate, saying that he was under instructions not to use Syria “as a base to launch attacks on the West or Europe” is highlighted as a sign of progress. However, even this concession—as deeply generous as it is—is not because of a lack of desire to kill more Westerners; it is “so as not to muddy the current war” in Syria. A change in tactics should not be confused for a change in strategy.

The al-Nusra Front also remains proud of al Qaeda’s past successes when it comes to mass murder. A propaganda video they just released is heavy on video footage from 9/11—an attack described in the video as “the most effective solution”—and speeches by Osama bin Laden.

Asylum Seekers Die Across the Globe

Posted on by

The United Nations Refugee Agency’s solution to global unrest appears to be the same as that of world leaders, report the crisis and force other countries to accept refugees and asylum seekers. Meanwhile, death tolls mount.

Between the fact that the Obama White House never had a strategic plan for the Middle East, nor one for Central and Latin America, while as Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and John Kerry do not have one either. Meanwhile people suffer and the whole consequence threatens national security, healthcare, education, taxpayers, crimes and more.

Germany

Poland

United Kingdom

Italy

United States

There is more for sure….

Bodies found dead in a truck near border, while asylum seekers flow into Hungary

GENEVA, Aug 28 (UNHCR) – The UN refugee agency said it was “deeply shocked and saddened” at the grim discovery yesterday of the bodies of 71 people inside a truck abandoned near the Austrian border with Hungary.

“This tragedy underscores the ruthlessness of people smugglers who have expanded their business from the Mediterranean sea to the highways of Europe. It shows they have no regard for human life and are only after profit,” UNHCR spokesperson Melissa Fleming told a press briefing in Geneva.

Austrian police said that they believed the truck came from Hungary and entered Austria on Wednesday night or early on Thursday morning, and that the victims might have been dead for one or two days. Their identity is still unknown but it is presumed that they were being transported by smugglers.

After establishing that there were no survivors, the truck was closed again by the police and moved to another location for further investigations. Police said that they counted at least 20 bodies but the actual number is likely to be much higher.

“This tragedy also highlights the desperation of people seeking protection or a new life in Europe. UNHCR hopes this incident will result in strong cooperation among European police forces, intelligence agencies and international organisations to crack down on the smuggling trade while putting in place measures to protect and care for victims,” Fleming said.

UNHCR has reiterated its call to European countries to approach the refugee crisis in a spirit of solidarity and cooperation and to provide those seeking safety in Europe with safe legal alternatives to dangerous irregular voyages. These legal avenues include resettlement or humanitarian admission programs, flexible visa policies and family reunification.

“This week, the Hungarian border police have been intercepting more than 2,000 people crossing the border from Serbia every day. On Wednesday, police reported 3,241 new arrivals, including 700 children. This is the highest number in a single day so far this year,” Fleming detailed.

She added that these people, a majority of whom are refugees from Syria, including many women and children, are coming in large groups of over 200 people, walking along the rail tracks or crawling under barbed wire, as work continues on a 175 kilometres long wall at the border between Hungary and Serbia.

“Fear of police detection makes many of them rush through the razor wires, sustaining cuts and injuries in the process. UNHCR staff at the border report that many people are arriving on wheelchairs pushed by relatives, while others are in need of urgent medical assistance,” Fleming explained.

Police take the new arrivals to a pre-registration centre in Röszke in southern Hungary, near the Serbian border and some 184 kilometres away from the capital, Budapest. The centre in Röszke does not offer adequate conditions for the exhausted, hungry and thirsty asylum-seekers who have spent many days on the road.

In Röszke, new arrivals are searched by the police and their details recorded, before being sent to registration centres, further inland. Asylum-seekers are kept in mandatory detention between 12 and 36 hours, and then handed over to the Office of Immigration and Nationality to process their asylum claims. Hungary’s four reception centres have a maximum capacity of 5,000 people.

“Overcrowding and long waits result in frustration for the asylum-seekers. The Hungarian police do not have social workers or enough interpreters in Arabic, Dari, Pashto and Urdu, which makes it hard to communicate with asylum-seekers,” Fleming continued.

Over 140,000 people have sought asylum in Hungary so far this year, according to the latest official statistics, compared to 42,000 people last year. Most of those lodging asylum applications this year are nationals from Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan and they include around 7,000 unaccompanied children or separated from their parents.

Many refugees and migrants choose to leave Hungary for other countries in Europe. Every day up to 500 people sleep at the two main train stations in Budapest where volunteers look after their basic needs, including food, clothing and urgent medical attention, and where the city authorities give them access to sanitation facilities. In order to provide more adequate accommodation, the city authorities are planning to open a transit facility, with UNHCR’s technical advice.

Islamist Incursion Continues in Sheriff’s Dept.

Posted on by

It is not just one Sheriffs Office either, there is Los Angeles County and then add in the fact that even County Commissioners are in lock step with Islamists and CAIR. Question is how does their oath square with Sharia law? Anyone?

Islamist Deputy Sheriff Received Go-Ahead to Keep Job at CAIR

The Sheriff’s Office signs off on employment with a terrorist organization.

Front Page: Nezar Hamze has two paying jobs. In one, he is a Deputy Sheriff at the Broward Sheriff’s Office (BSO), under oath to watch over, protect and promote the best interests of the community. In the other, he is the Regional Operations Director and Chief Executive Officer (CEO) for the Florida chapter of CAIR, an Islamist group with numerous ties to international terrorism. It is disturbing and dangerous that someone from CAIR is involved with law enforcement. It is more disturbing that Hamze has his job at CAIR with the blessings of the Sheriff’s office.

In June 2014, Hamze applied for the position of Certified Reserve Deputy with the BSO. He had applied for the same position in March 2012 but was rejected. At the time of his 2012 application, Hamze was serving as the Executive Director of CAIR-Florida. His 2014 application states (in type) that he, at the time, had the title of Regional Operations Director of CAIR-Florida and has the word “current” penciled next to it.

The 2014 application states that the Broward Sheriff, Scott Israel, recommended Hamze for the job. The application was approved, and soon after, Hamze was sworn in.

In order to keep his position with CAIR, at the same time as serve the BSO, Hamze had to fill out a form asking the BSO if he could do so. On his ‘Broward Sheriff’s Office Off-Duty Employment Form,’ dated February 2015, it states, “I, Nezar Hamze… request that I be granted permission to accept off-duty employment for the year 2015.”

Hamze stated for his job description, “As Coordinator for CAIR Florida I will be responsible for assisting in community events and educational lectures. My job duties include: public speaking, fundraising, media relations, lectures, employment training, diversity and culture training. The nature of this job does not require any regular office hours and I am able to work on my days off and at my leisure.”

Along with Hamze, both the Unit Supervisor and the Division Commander signed the form.

It doesn’t take a genius to understand the conflict of interest with respect to Hamze’s two jobs. There is not even an issue of ‘dual loyalty’ in this case, since it is obvious that Hamze is exploiting his position in law enforcement solely to further his Islamist agenda as a CAIR official. Hamze’s hiring is no doubt a coup for CAIR, but it is a ‘coup de grace’ for counter terrorism efforts within the BSO and beyond, as it could result in grave harm done to criminal and/or terrorist investigations.

CAIR or the Council on American-Islamic Relations was established, in June 1994, as one of four groups under the leadership of then-global head of Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook, who had been residing in the US for decades. Following the White House’s January 1995 designation of Hamas as a terrorist organization, Marzook was arrested and placed in prison. Two years later, in May 1997, he was deported to Jordan. Marzook is currently residing in Egypt, as the number two leader in Hamas.

Since CAIR’s founding, a number of representatives for the group have been imprisoned in and/or deported from the U.S. for various reasons related to terrorist activity. CAIR itself was named a co-conspirator by the US government for two federal trials dealing with the financing of Hamas. And the hierarchy of CAIR is still intact, as the national office’s founding Executive Director, Nihad Awad, and founding Communications Director, Ibrahim Hooper, still hold the same positions.

In November 2014, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) government officially named CAIR a terrorist organization.

When Hamze applied for the BSO in 2014, he e-mailed the Backgrounds division of the Sheriff’s Office, giving permission for them to contact CAIR-Florida. He stated, “I report to the Board of Directors and you can contact them for any information you need,” and he proceeded to give the numbers for two individuals who sit on CAIR-Florida’s Board, Board Member Rashid Abbara (a.k.a. Muhammad Abbara) and the Chairman of the Board Zaid Abdur-Rahman.

Abdur-Rahman, who is a black belt in karate, has called the arrest and conviction of terrorist Syed Fahad Hashmi an “atrocity” that future Presidents and politicians should “apologize” for. In June 2010, Hashmi, a former student at Brooklyn College in New York, was sentenced to 15 years in prison, after pleading guilty to providing material support to al-Qaeda.

In July 2014, Abdur-Rahman posted a video to his Facebook page denouncing Israel for conducting air strikes against Hamas targets in Gaza. The individual posing as a reporter on the video, states, “[W]hen the IDF talks about hitting quote Hamas targets, remember that Hamas is the democratically elected leadership of Gaza, which could mean any government building or social services.”

In July 2014, a BSO ‘Employment Verification’ form for Hamze was filled out by CAIR-Florida’s Community and Government Relations Director Ghazala Salam.

This past July, Salam was featured on a video interview for al-Hikmat, the media arm of the radical Darul Uloom mosque located in Pembroke Pines, Florida.

Darul Uloom has been associated with a number of al-Qaeda terrorists, including now-deceased al-Qaeda Global Operations Chief Adnan el-Shukrijumah, “Dirty Bomber” Jose Padilla, and possibly one of the 9/11 hijackers. Interviewing Salam for the video was the imam of the mosque, Maulana Shafayat Mohamed. Shafayat Mohamed was thrown off a number of boards in Broward County for his outspokenness against homosexuals. In February 2005, Darul Uloom published an article by him claiming that homosexual sex caused the 2004 Indonesian tsunami.

In viewing Nezar Hamze’s applications for employment with the Broward Sheriff’s Office – both his 2012 and 2014 applications – CAIR’s fingerprints are all over them. And for someone like Hamze that makes sense, because CAIR is Hamze’s real life and loyalty.

On Hamze’s BSO ‘Off-Duty Employment Form’ asking to keep his job at CAIR, the form reads, “I further understand that the Sheriff reserves the right to approve, deny, suspend, and or revoke this request at any time for any reason.”

Given Hamze’s role in CAIR, Hamze should have never been hired for any position within the Broward Sheriff’s Office, let alone a position where he gets to walk around with a badge and a gun. No matter how one looks at it, Hamze’s hire is a risk to national security.

Yet what is entirely unfathomable is the fact that the BSO signed off on allowing Hamze to keep his job with CAIR, while serving in his capacity as Deputy Sheriff. If Hamze’s hire reflects the BSO’s approach to combatting terrorism and engaging the Muslim community, they have effectively sabotaged themselves.

All of this took place under the watch of Broward Sheriff Scott Israel, and for that Israel should resign his office immediately. Hamze should be fired, and Israel should go with him.

If you wish to contact Sheriff Israel to discuss this matter, you can do so by sending an e-mail to: [email protected] , or you can call the Broward Sheriff’s Office, at 954-764-4357. Please be respectful in any and all communications with this office.

Beila Rabinowitz, Director of Militant Islam Monitor, contributed to this report.