London Terror Attack Outrage

Posted on December 2, 2019December 2, 2019 by Denise Simon

In part: Usman Khan, 28, was jailed in 2012 for his role in an al Qaeda-inspired terror group that plotted to bomb the London Stock Exchange and the US Embassy and kill Boris Johnson.

The members of Usman Khan’s Al Qaeda-inspired gang who plotted to blow up the London Stock Exchange and kill Boris Johnson. From left to right: Mohammed Moksudur Chowdhury, Mohammed Shahjahan, Shah Mohammed Rahman. Middle row: Mohibur Rahman, Gurukanth Desai, Abdul Malik Miah. Bottom row: Nazam Hussain, Usman Khan, Omar Sharif Latif

Giving a statement outside Scotland Yard, Metropolitan Police Assistant Commissioner Neil Basu said Usman Khan was subject to an ‘extensive list of licence conditions’ on his release from prison and that ‘to the best of my knowledge he was complying with those conditions’.

A furious political row began today after it was revealed that Khan was released automatically from prison last year – though he was still tagged and monitored.

Khan, born and raised in Stoke-on-Trent, originally received an indeterminate sentence for public protection with a minimum of eight years behind bars after his 2012 arrest, meaning he would remain locked up for as long as necessary, to protect the public.

Passing judgment at the time, Mr Justice Wilkie said: ‘In my judgment, these offenders would remain, even after a lengthy term of imprisonment, of such a significant risk that the public could not be adequately protected by their being managed on licence in the community, subject to conditions, by reference to a preordained release date.’

But this sentence was quashed at the Court of Appeal in April 2013 and he was given a determinate 16-year jail term instead, meaning he would be automatically released after eight years.

It has been speculated that the attack may have been revenge for the death of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

It has also emerged today that he was a student and ‘personal friend’ of hate preacher Anjem Choudary. Khan spent years preaching on stalls that were linked to al-Muhajiroun, the banned terror group once led by Choudary.

As part of the plotting which led to his 2012 arrest, Khan’s group planned to set up a training camp in Kashmir, where his family had land.

Prime Minister Boris Johnson has said that it was a ‘mistake’ to release Khan from prison and has vowed to crack down on early releases for inmates. The PM visited the scene of the attack today with Metropolitan Police Commissioner Cressida Dick, and Home Secretary Priti Patel.

When first sentenced, yesterday’s attacker Khan was handed an Imprisonment for Public Protection (IPP) with a minimum term of eight years by Mr Justice Wilkie in February 2012.

This was overturned by the Court of Appeal in April 2013, when the indeterminate sentence was quashed. Instead, he was handed 16 years in jail with an extended licence period of five years.

At the time he was jailed, Khan had spent 408 days on remand and this was taken into account when considering his release date.

He was eligible for release after serving half of his 16-year jail term, less the time he had already spent on remand.

Khan was obliged to adhere to the notification provisions of the 2008 Counter Terrorism Act for a total of 30 years.

He was released from prison after agreeing to wear an electronic tag and be monitored by authorities.

Speaking before chairing a meeting of the Government’s emergency committee Cobra on Friday night, Prime Minister Boris Johnson said he had ‘long argued’ that it is a ‘mistake to allow serious and violent criminals to come out of prison early and it is very important that we get out of that habit and that we enforce the appropriate sentences for dangerous criminals, especially for terrorists, that I think the public will want to see’.

Chris Phillips, a former head of the UK National Counter Terrorism Security Office, said today: ‘The criminal justice system needs to look at itself.

‘We’re letting people out of prison, we’re convicting people for very, very serious offences and then they are releasing them back into society when they are still radicalised. Much more here.

*** Just for consideration, there are an estimate 74 more cases of those just like Khan walking the streets of Britain. With the numbers of returning ISIS fighters to Europe….well it is easy to predict more attacks. ISIS may no longer have caliphate territory but the internet is for sure the headquarters for continued and successful militant Islamic fighters. Europe….hear the clarion call.

Erdogan of Turkey to Visit Trump White House

Posted on November 11, 2019November 11, 2019 by Denise Simon

This visit is on and off and maybe on again. The meeting is scheduled the same day as the open impeachment inquiry hearings begin.

President Erdogan is angry with the United States due to Congress moving legislation to apply sanctions that would affect Turkey as a result of the invasion into Syria.

Turkey has been threatening Europe, especially Germany with more migrants and Chancellor Merkel capitulated. Erdogan is in fact deporting what he calls ISIS fighters to their home countries including the United States. Stating that Turkey is not a hotel, even if the home country has revoked citizenship, he is deporting them.

Now that Erdogan feels like he is in the driver’s seat, he has been also bombing Iraq as recently as last week.

On Tuesday morning Turkish air strikes targeted Kurdish forces on Sinjar Mountain in northern Iraq.

According to initial reports, the Turkish Air Force struck at bases used by the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, and its ally, the Yazidi Shingal Protection Units.

If Erdogan does meet President Trump it is going to be an interesting session. Trump is slated to confront Erdogan about buying the Russian air defense system and the recent three sanctions that Trump lifted could easily be applied again. Tensions are in fact high.

This is what happened the last time Erdogan was in Washington DC.
U.S. Secret Service agents were among those attacked during the May 16, 2017 protests. Two Diplomatic Security special agents, six U.S. Secret Service officers and one MPD officer sustained multiple injuries, with at least one taken to the hospital.

THAWING TIES: Erdogan to meet Trump | Local News for ...

Just last month, the House of Representatives passed a resolution 405-11 reaffirming the United States’ condemnation of “the killing of 1.5 million Armenians by the Ottoman Empire from 1915 to 1923.”

“Whereas Raphael Lemkin, who coined the term genocide in 1944, and who was the earliest proponent of the United Nations Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of Genocide, invoked the Armenian case as a definitive example of genocide in the 20th century,” the resolution states.

Turkey does not recognize the loss of 1.5 Armenians as genocide.

Meanwhile, a closer look at Turkey reveals the following:

In Germany, Turkey controls 900 mosques out of a total of 2,400. These Islamic centers not only serve members of the Turkish diaspora, but also stop them from assimilating into German society. Speaking with Turks in Germany, Erdogan urged them not to assimilate, and called the assimilation of migrants in Europe “a crime against humanity.”

Erdogan has also been expanding Turkey beyond its borders – starting with Cyprus, the Greek Islands, Suakin Island (Sudan) and Syria.

Mosques, migrants and the military are now Erdogan’s new weapons in his threats against the West.

Erdogan is the head of NATO’s second-largest army; he has spies throughout Europe through a network of mosques, associations and cultural centers; he has brought his country to the top of the world rankings for the number of imprisoned journalists and has shut the mouth of German comedians with the threat of legal action. By keeping migrants in Turkish refugee camps, he controls immigration to Europe.

The worse Erdogan behaves, the greater his weight in Europe. In a 2015 meeting, Erdogan reportedly was “openly mocking” European Commission President Jean-Claude Juncker and other “senior European leaders”, as Juncker asked Erdogan to consider how he was treated “like a prince” at a Brussels summit.

Turkey’s 2018 military budget increased to $19 billion, 24% higher than 2017, according to a report by the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute. Erdogan has placed Turkey’s military — once a bastion of Turkish nationalism and secularism — under his political authority. While Europe is pacifist and refuses to invest in its own security or, like Germany, support NATO’s budget, Turkey is belligerent.

Ever since his Justice and Development Party (AKP) became Turkey’s dominant political force in 2002, for Erdogan, elevating the public role of Islam has been more than a slogan. At public gatherings, the Turkish president has made the “rabia“, a hand gesture of four fingers raised and the thumb hidden, to protest the overthrow of Egypt’s Islamist then President Mohamed Morsi by Egypt’s military. Erdogan evidently sees himself as a global Islamic leader with national elections to win. Through four million Turkish Muslims in Germany and vast communities in the Netherlands, France, Austria and beyond, Erdogan does indeed have enormous influence in Europe.

Erdogan has also been expanding Turkey beyond its borders – starting with Cyprus, the Greek Islands, Suakin Island (Sudan) and Syria. “We are a big family of 300 million people from the Adriatic to the Great Wall of China”, Erdogan said in a recent speech from Moldova. The borders of Turkey, he stated in Izmir, span “from Vienna to the shores of the Adriatic Sea, from East Turkistan (China’s autonomous region of Xinjiang) to the Black Sea”. More here.

Deaths Rise in Libya Due to Russians

Posted on November 7, 2019November 7, 2019 by Denise Simon

Whatever vision that Hillary Clinton and the Obama administration had to Libya is now best described as a Russian operation where death and destruction manifests.

As Fox News Anchor, Bret Baier says each night, ‘beyond our borders’ there is a very ugly nasty world that is hardly if at all reported.

From the United Nations Mission in Libya:

25 Oct 2019

UNSMIL condemns continuous attacks on health sector including field hospitals and health…

17 Oct 2019

Three months after the kidnapping of MP Sergewa, UNSMIL calls for her immediate releases…

How bad it is really? What about Russia?

photo

TRIPOLI, Libya — The casualties at the Aziziya field hospital south of Tripoli used to arrive with gaping wounds and shattered limbs, victims of the haphazard artillery fire that has defined battles among Libyan militias. But now medics say they are seeing something new: narrow holes in a head or a torso left by bullets that kill instantly and never exit the body.

It is the work, Libyan fighters say, of Russian mercenaries, including skilled snipers. The lack of an exit wound is a signature of the ammunition used by the same Russian mercenaries elsewhere.

The snipers are among about 200 Russian fighters who have arrived in Libya in the last six weeks, part of a broad campaign by the Kremlin to reassert its influence across the Middle East and Africa.

After four years of behind-the-scenes financial and tactical support for a would-be Libyan strongman, Russia is now pushing far more directly to shape the outcome of Libya’s messy civil war. It has introduced advanced Sukhoi jets, coordinated missile strikes, and precision-guided artillery, as well as the snipers — the same playbook that made Moscow a kingmaker in the Syrian civil war.

The Russians have intervened on behalf of the militia leader Khalifa Hifter, who is based in eastern Libya and is also backed by the United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and, at times, France. His backers have embraced him as their best hope to check the influence of political Islam, crack down on militants and restore an authoritarian order.

Mr. Hifter has been at war for more than five years with a coalition of militias from western Libya who back the authorities in Tripoli. The Tripoli government was set up by the United Nations in 2015 and is officially supported by the United States and other Western powers. But in practical terms, Turkey is its only patron.

The new intervention of private Russian mercenaries, who are closely tied to the Kremlin, is just one of the parallels with the Syrian civil war.

The Russian snipers belong to the Wagner Group, the Kremlin-linked private company that also led Russia’s intervention in Syria, according to three senior Libyan officials and five Western diplomats closely tracking the war.

In both conflicts, rival regional powers are arming local clients. And, as in Syria, the local partners who had teamed up with the United States to fight the Islamic State are now complaining of abandonment and betrayal.

The United Nations, which has tried and failed to broker peace in both countries, has watched as its eight-year arms embargo on Libya is becoming “a cynical joke,” as the United Nations special envoy recently put it.

Yet in some ways, the stakes in Libya are higher.

More than three times the size of Texas, Libya controls vast oil reserves, pumping out 1.3 million barrels a day despite the present conflict. Its long Mediterranean coastline, just 300 miles from Italy, has been a jumping-off point for tens of thousands of Europe-bound migrants.

And the open borders around Libya’s deserts have provided havens for extremists from North Africa and beyond. Read on.

Two Raids Killing Baghdadi and More

Posted on October 28, 2019October 28, 2019 by Denise Simon

The mission was called Operation Mueller, named after the American girl that was doing international missionary work that became al Baghdadi’s sex slave and eventual dead victim. The mission by American Delta Force was planned in late summer and included major intelligence gathered by the Kurds.

There was an arrest a few months ago of an al Baghdadi wife and the cultivation of a al Baghdadi aid where information was gathered through respective interrogations of those people. Additionally, Iraq did offer some information.

Baghdadi would sometimes hold strategy talks with his commanders in moving minibuses packed with vegetables in order to avoid detection, Ismael al-Ethawi told officials after he was arrested by Turkish authorities and handed to the Iraqis.

“Ethawi gave valuable information which helped the Iraqi multi-security agencies team complete the missing pieces of the puzzle of Baghdadi’s movements and places he used to hide,” one of the Iraqi security officials said.

“Ethawi gave us details on five men, including him, whom were meeting Baghdadi inside Syria and the different locations they used,” he told Reuters. After the group largely collapsed in 2017, Ethawi fled to Syria with his Syrian wife.

Many details were provided CIA and they used a satellite and drones to watch the location for the past five months,” the official said.

Two days ago, Baghdadi left the location with his family for the first time, traveling by minibus to a nearby village.

The day after the Baghdadi operation, there was yet another by CIA. The CIA has targeted Islamic State militant group (ISIS) spokesperson Abu al-Hassan al-Muhajir in a new operation that comes one day after the organization’s leader was killed in a Joint Special Operations Command raid.

“Continuing the previous operation, terrorist Abu al-Hassan al-Muhajir, the right-hand man of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and an ISIS spokesman, was targeted in the village of Ayn al-Bayda, near Jarablus, in direct coordination between SDF intelligence and the U.S. military. Muhajir was named ISIS spokesperson in 2016 after his predecessor, Abu Mohammad al-Adnani, was killed in a U.S. airstrike, also in Aleppo. Unlike Baghdadi and Adnani, who were known to be Iraqi and Syrian nationals, respectively, and were openly active in Al-Qaeda in Iraq, Muhajir’s identity was publicly unknown, though his nickname⁠—meaning “emigrant”⁠—suggested he may be a foreigner.

Due to Baghdadi having to move often and remain in isolation, a named figure was assigned to be the second in command. Abdullah Qardash was named and nominted by Baghdadi and was formally put in the top command upon the death of Baghdadi.Qardash was a former high-ranking officer in the Iraqi army, who served under the country’s late leader Saddam Hussein.

Who Is Baghdadi's Successor? - The Syrian Observer

Iraq and Syria Growing in Terror Again

Posted on September 12, 2019September 12, 2019 by Denise Simon

CBS News

Billboards with the slogans “Death to America — Death to Israel” have appeared in the Iraqi capital of Baghdad in recent days. There are at least five of the large signs in central Baghdad, some less than a mile from the U.S. Embassy, the Iraqi presidential palace and the national government’s headquarters.

The signs appear to be part of a campaign by Iran, carried out through proxy groups that directly threaten U.S. troops in Iraq, to demonstrate its strength and reach in the region as tension between Washington and Tehran threatens to explode into conflict.

“The billboards erected in the streets of Baghdad are evidence of the government’s inability to control pro-Iranian groups who want to drag Iraq into an international conflict that endangers the country’s future on behalf of Iran,” Atheel al-Nujaifi, the governor of Iraq’s Nineveh province, said last week.

At the end of August, a senior PMU leader made it clear that all Americans in Iraq would become targets in the event of a U.S. war with Iran.

“All those Americans will be taken hostage by the resistance,” said Abu Alal al-Walaei, Secretary General of Kataib Sayed al-Shuhadaa, one of the biggest PMU militias in Iraq. The interviewer was startled by the assertion.

“I will say it again,” al-Walaei said. “All Americans will be hostages of the resistance if a war breaks out, because we will stand by the Islamic Republic (of Iran).” He said he wasn’t speaking in his capacity as a PMU leader, but merely as leader of an individual “resistance faction.” More here.

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Then there is Syria.

The market at al-Hol camp is a sea of unidentifiable figures clad in black, clutching their children’s grubby hands as they drag them past those haggling their wares.

Al-Hol is a sprawling encampment for those displaced from the former ISIS territory in northeastern Syria. Wind and sand blow mercilessly against tents in the scorching heat of the Syrian summer.

About 15% of the inhabitants here are foreigners, but the international community has for months neglected the camp. And as living conditions worsen, nostalgia for ISIS’ rule is beginning to brew. “We started to notice that the new arrivals were very well organized,” says Mahmoud Karo, who is in charge of the camps in northeastern Syria’s Jazira district. “They organized their own moral police. They are structured.”

“The camp is the best place to develop the new ISIS. There is a restructuring of the ISIS indoctrination,” says Karo. “You can’t differentiate between who is ISIS and who isn’t.”

Tracking down the perpetrators is difficult, he says. The women, cloaked in niqab, are nearly impossible to identify. They change tents frequently to avoid capture.

A Pentagon report by the inspector general, released last month, warned that the US and its local allies have been unable to closely monitor movements inside al-Hol. A drawdown of the US military presence in the area has allowed “ISIS ideology to spread ‘uncontested’ in the camp,” the report found.

Growing extremism in al-Hol runs parallel to signs of ISIS’ resurgence elsewhere in the region.

ISIS attacks in northwestern Iraq, where the group formerly ruled large swathes of territory, are becoming more frequent, and the group has claimed responsibility for other attacks in the region in recent months.

“If the situation stays like this and nations don’t help, ISIS will come back,” Khalaf warns. “We hear about it, the sleeper cells, they take advantage of the children, trying to recruit them.”

The al-Hol camp is a desolate, miserable place nations want to wish away. It stands as a legacy of yesterday’s war. More here from CNN.