Category Archives: Libya Benghazi Muslim Brotherhood murder

Looking Back at Obama’s Covert Drone War

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Obama had a targeted kill list of which the nominated names listed came from unknown sources. The most famed drone strike authorized by Barack Obama was that of Anwar al Awlaki. He was an American citizen that preached terror but he himself never killed anyone. Obama became his judge jury and executioner.

Meanwhile, under the Obama administration, the definition and conditions by which a person was classified a terrorist has been amended and the term ‘enemy combatant’ was never used by anyone during the Obama years.

It is accurate to say the genesis of using armed drones began under GW Bush, yet Obama made a fine art of the killing drone operations. The excuse was always, the first choice is to capture and interrogate, when that is not possible then a killing strike by drone is authorized. Exactly who did if any were captured and interrogated other than just one known as Ahmed Abu Khatallah, of Benghazi fame? None.

Meanwhile, Obama’s armed drone operation has killed innocents in high numbers, a scandal largely ignored by the White House and the media.

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Obama’s covert drone war in numbers: ten times more strikes than Bush

The Bureau of Investigative Journalism: There were ten times more air strikes in the covert war on terror during President Barack Obama’s presidency than under his predecessor, George W. Bush.

Obama embraced the US drone programme, overseeing more strikes in his first year than Bush carried out during his entire presidency. A total of 563 strikes, largely by drones, targeted Pakistan, Somalia and Yemen during Obama’s two terms, compared to 57 strikes under Bush. At least 384 civilians were killed.

The use of drones aligned with Obama’s ambition to keep up the war against al Qaeda while extricating the US military from intractable, costly ground wars in the Middle East and Asia. But the targeted killing programme has drawn much criticism.

The Obama administration has insisted that drone strikes are so “exceptionally surgical and precise” that they pluck off terror suspects while not putting “innocent men, women and children in danger”. This claim has been contested by numerous human rights group. The Bureau’s figures on civilian casualties also demonstrates that this is often not the case.

The White House released long-awaited figures in July on the number of people killed in drone strikes between January 2009 and the end of 2015, which insiders said was a direct response to pressure from the Bureau and other organisations that collect data. However the US’s estimate of the number of civilians killed – between 64 and 116 – contrasted strongly with the number recorded by the Bureau, which at 380 to 801 was six times higher.

That figure does not include deaths in active battlefields including Afghanistan – where US air attacks have shot up since Obama withdrew the majority of his troops at the end of 2014. The country has since come under frequent US bombardment, in an unreported war that saw 1,337 weapons dropped last year alone – a 40% rise on 2015.

Afghan civilian casualties have been high, with the United Nations (UN) reporting at least 85 deaths in 2016. The Bureau recorded 65 to 105 civilian deaths during this period.

Pakistan was the hub of drone operations during Obama’s first term. The pace of attacks had accelerated in the second half of 2008 at the end of Bush’s term, after four years pocked by occasional strikes. However in the year after taking office, Obama ordered more drone strikes than Bush did during his entire presidency. The 54 strikes in 2009 all took place in Pakistan.

Strikes in the country peaked in 2010, with 128 CIA drone attacks and at least 89 civilians killed, at the same time US troop numbers surged in Afghanistan. Pakistan strikes have since fallen with just three conducted in the country last year.

Obama also began an air campaign targeting Yemen. His first strike was a catastrophe: commanders thought they were targeting al Qaeda but instead hit a tribe with cluster munitions, killing 55 people. Twenty-one were children – 10 of them under five. Twelve were women, five of them pregnant

Through 2010 and the first half of 2011 US strikes in Yemen continued sporadically. The air campaign then began in earnest, with the US using its drones and jets to help Yemeni ground forces oust al Qaeda forces who had taken advantage of the country’s Arab Spring to seize a swath of territory in the south of the country.

In Somalia, US Special Operations Forces and gunships had been fighting al Qaeda and its al Shabaab allies since January 2007. The US sent drones to Djibouti in 2010 to support American operations in Yemen, but did not start striking in Somalia in 2011.

The number of civilian casualties increased alongside the rise in strikes. However reported civilian casualties began to fall as Obama’s first term progressed, both in real terms and as a rate of civilians reported killed per strike.

In Yemen, where there has been a minimum of 65 civilian deaths since 2002, the Bureau recorded no instances of civilian casualties last year.  There were three non-combatants reportedly killed in 2016 in Somalia, where the US Air Force has been given broader authority to target al Shabaab – in previous years there were no confirmed civilian deaths.

Strikes in Yemen, Pakistan and Somalia have always been dwarfed by the frequency of air attacks on battlefields such as Afghanistan.

December 2014 saw the end of Nato combat operations there, and the frequency of air attacks plummeted in 2015. Strikes are now increasing again, with a 40% rise in 2016, though numbers remain below the 2011 peak.

The number of countries being simultaneously bombed by the US increased to seven last year as a new front opened up in the fight against Islamic State (IS). The US has been leading a coalition of countries in the fight against IS in Iraq and Syria since August 2014, conducting a total of 13,501 strikes across both countries, according to monitoring group Airwars.

In August US warplanes started hitting the group hard in Libya. The US declared 495 strikes in the country between August 1 and December 5 as part of efforts to stop IS gaining more ground, Airwars data shows.

In the final days of Obama’s time in the White House, the Bureau has broken down his covert war on terror in numbers. Our annual 2016 report provides figures on the number of US strikes and related casualties last year, as well as collating the total across Obama’s eight years in power:

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Total US drone and air strikes in 2016
Pakistan Yemen Somalia Afghanistan
Strikes 3 38 14 1071
Total people reported killed 11-12 147-203 204-292 1389-1597
Civilians reported killed 1 0 3-5 65-105

 

Notes on the data: The Bureau is not logging strikes in active battlefields except Afghanistan; strikes in Syria, Iraq and Libya are not included in this data. To see data for those countries, visit Airwars.org.

Somalia

Somalia: confirmed US strikes
December 2016 2016 2009 to 2016
US strikes 0 14 32-39
Total people reported killed 0 204-292 242-454
Civilians reported killed 0 3-5 3-12
Children reported killed 0 0 0-2
Total people reported injured 0 3-16 5-26

 

Notes on the data: in the final column, strikes carried out between Jan 1 and Jan 19 2009 are not included. The figure refers to the number of strikes that took place from Jan 20, 2009, onwards – the data Obama’s presidency began. This applies to all the tables in this report.

The US officially designated Somali militant group al Shabaab as an al Qaeda affiliate at the end of November amid a rising number of US strikes in the country last year.

One week after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Congress passed the Authorisation for Use of Military Force law allowing the president to go after those responsible and “associated forces”.

The US has used this law, which predates the formation of al Shabaab, to target individual members of the group deemed to have al Qaeda links. The military has also hit the group in defence of partner forces. The group is now deemed an “associated force”, meaning all members are legitimate terrorist targets.

The US has been aggressively pursuing al Shabaab. At least 204 people were killed in US strikes in Somalia last year – ten times higher than the number recorded for any other year. The vast majority of those killed were reported as belonging to al Shabaab.

An attack on an al Shabaab training camp in the Hiran region on March 5 accounts for 150 of these deaths. This is the highest death toll from a single US strike ever recorded by the Bureau, overtaking the previous highest of 81 people killed in Pakistan in 2006.

One of the more controversial of last year’s strikes occurred on September 28. Somali forces were disrupting a bomb-making network when they came under attack from a group of al Shabaab fighters. The US launched an air strike to “neutralize the threat”.

Local officials said 22 local soldiers and civilians were killed. In the city of Galkayo, where the strike took place, citizens protested in the streets.

 

US Africa Command told the Bureau the reports of non-combatant deaths were wrong. However the US Secretary of Defense Ash Carter announced the next day that the Pentagon would investigate the strike. The investigation found the strike had not killed members of al Shabaab. It instead killed ten members of a local militia reportedly allied with the Americans, US Africa Command concluded.

Afghanistan

Afghanistan: Bureau data on US drone strikes and other airstrikes
December 2016 2016 2015 to 2016
US strikes 8 1071 1306-1307
Total people reported killed 24-26 1389-1597 2371-3031
Civilians reported killed 0 65-105 125-182
Children reported killed 0 3-7 6-23
Total people reported injured 12 196-243 338-390

 

Notes on the data: The US Air Force has a variety of aircraft carrying out missions over Afghanistan, including jets, drones and AC-130 gunships. The UN reported in August 2015 that most US strikes were by unmanned aerial vehicles. This matches the Bureau’s records that show most US air attacks since January were by drones. However in the absence of US authorities revealing which type of aircraft carried out which attack, it remains unclear which of the attacks recorded were by manned or unmanned aircraft.

The Bureau’s data on strikes in Afghanistan is not exhaustive. The ongoing war creates barriers to reporting and the Bureau’s data is an accumulation of what publicly available information exists on specific strikes and casualties. The US government publishes monthly aggregates of air operations in Afghanistan, minus information on casualties.

US Air Force data: Afghanistan in 2016
Total Close Air Support (CAS) sorties with at least one weapon release 615
Total CAS sorties 5162
Total weapons released 1337

 

US warplanes dropped 1,337 weapons over the country last year, a 40% rise on 2015, according to data released by the US Air Force.

The increase follows President Barack Obama’s decision in June to give US commanders more leeway to target the Taliban, amid the Afghan army’s struggle to keep strategic cities from falling into the insurgents’ hands.

Strikes conducted under this authority, referred to by the military as “strategic effects” strikes, have increased in frequency since the new rules came into force.

 

The continuing rise in attacks against the Taliban demonstrates the battle against the insurgents is far from over, despite combat operations targeting the group officially ending almost two years ago. Since then, Taliban violence has increased and Afghanistan’s branch of Islamic State has been trying to carve out territory in the east of the country.

IS emerged in Afghanistan in late 2014, growing as a force through 2015. The US responded by allowing the military to specifically target the group in a bid to stop it gaining strength.

As strikes have risen, so have reports of civilian casualties, with some significant incidents taking place in the second half of 2016.

The UN’s biannual report on civilian casualties released in July detailed the deaths of 38 civilians in US strikes. Since then, the UN has highlighted two US strikes that took the lives of a further 47 civilians.

One of the more controversial strikes hit a house in Nangarhar province on September 28. While the US has maintained that members of Islamic State were killed in the attack, the UN, with uncharacteristic speed, released a report saying the victims were civilians. In subsequent reporting, the Bureau was able to confirm this and identify the victims.

 

This particular strike caused a rift between the UN and US. In an unusual step, the US commander in charge of the Afghanistan operations General Nicholson reportedly considered banning or restricting UN access to a military base in Kabul as a result of its assertion.

There could be more civilian casualties than the two incidents highlighted. These may be documented in the UN’s annual report due for release in February. The Bureau recorded the deaths of up to 105 civilians in Afghanistan as a result of US strikes in 2016.

Not included in these figures were instances of “friendly fire” attacks. The Bureau published an investigation into one of the three such incidents in 2016 when a US strike on a Taliban prison killed Afghan police officers being held captive.

Yemen

Yemen: confirmed US strikes
December 2016 2016 2009 to 2016
US strikes 1 38 158-178
Total people reported killed 2 147-203 777-1075
Civilians reported killed 0 0 124-161
Children reported killed 0 0 32-34
Total people reported injured 0 34-41 143-287

 

Last year American air operations in Yemen reached their second highest level since 2002, when the US conducted its first ever lethal drone strike in the country.

At least 38 US strikes hit the country in 2016, targeting operatives belonging to terrorist group al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) amid Yemen’s civil war.

The conflict ignited when the Houthi militant group stormed the capital of Sanaa in September 2014. Allied to former president Ali Abdullah Saleh, the rebels pushed the internationally-recognised government of Abed Rabbo Mansour Hadi into exile.

On October 12, the military launched cruise missile strikes at three rebel targets in Houthi-controlled territory following failed missile attacks on a US Navy ship. This is the first and only time the US has directly targeted Houthi rebels in Yemen.

Last year, a Saudi-led coalition began airstrikes against the rebels, which has led to widescale destruction. One of these strikes hit a funeral ceremony, killing 140 people. The munition used was identified by Human Rights Watch as a US-manufactured air-dropped GBU-12 Paveway II laser-guided bomb.

The Obama administration faced pressure to put an end to arms sales to Saudi Arabia following the strike, leading to a December decision to block the transfer of precision munitions.

The UK is facing pressure to do the same – in June the High Court granted a judicial review of the government’s arms exports to Saudi Arabia following a case brought by London-based organisation Campaign Against Arms Trade.

Pakistan

Pakistan: confirmed US strikes
December 2016 2016 2009 to 2016
US strikes 0 3 373
Total people reported killed 0 11 2089-3406
Civilians reported killed 0 1 257-634
Children reported killed 0 0 66-78
Total people reported injured 0 3-6 986-1467

 

Drone strikes in Pakistan last year fell to their lowest level in a decade, with only three strikes conducted in the country.

The most recent attack targeted Mullah Akhtar Mansour, the leader of the Afghan Taliban. Mansour was killed on May 21 while being driven through Balochistan, a restive region home to a separatist movement as well as the Afghan Taliban’s leadership. His civilian taxi driver, Mohammed Azam, was also killed in the strike.

It was the first ever US strike to hit Balochistan and only the sixth to hit a location outside Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas. It was also the first to be carried out by the US military in Pakistan. The CIA has carried out strikes since the drone program began in Pakistan in 2004.

The Pakistan government summoned the US ambassador in protest following the strike. Sartaj Aziz, foreign affairs special adviser to Pakistani Prime Minister, also claimed that killing Mansour had dented efforts to bring the Taliban to the negotiating table.

US drone strikes in Pakistan peaked in 2010, during which at least 755 people were killed. It is unclear what has led to the steep drop in strikes since then. The Pakistani military conducted an 18-month ground offensive in the tribal regions flushing out many militants and pushing them into Afghanistan. It is possible that the US ran out of targets.

This does not mean that the drone programme in Pakistan has come to end. Strikes paused for a six-month period at the end of December 2013 while the Pakistani government unsuccessfully tried to negotiate a peace accord with the Taliban. It is possible attacks will resume with the change in presidency in January.

Additional Details: Hillary Emails, V. FBI, V State and Sidney

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New Clinton email files detail FBI-State tussle over Benghazi message

Politico: Newly-released records about the Hillary Clinton email investigation shed new light on an early dispute between the FBI and the State Department over the classification of an email discussing the aftermath of the 2012 Benghazi attacks.

The 299 pages of internal FBI records, apparently released over the weekend on the FBI’s Freedom of Information Act page, describe the bureau’s reaction to State’s protest of an FBI decision to classify a November 2012 State email discussing arrests in the Benghazi attacks.

The email was the first from Clinton’s private account and server to be publicly identified as “SECRET,” fueling arguments that Clinton and State had been careless in handling sensitive information.

Notations applied to the message when it was reviewed in 2015 show it was classified because of the potential impact on U.S. relations overseas. However, the newly-disclosed FBI communications messages show one official there argued that the message should actually be classified based on its potential to disclose intelligence “sources and methods”—a designation that could have raised red flags with the press and on Capitol Hill.

“The redaction lists ‘interference with foreign relations as the rationale.’ The crux of States [sic] argument is they know better what will impact foreign relations and there is no longer a government in place” in Libya, the unidentified FBI official wrote to Michelle Jupina, the FBI Assistant Director for Records Management. “The more appropriate rationale is sources and methods. While the email does not name the particular official, this might be deduced and, given the threat of violence in the region, any surmise could be fatal for whoever cooperated with us. State will say no one will know if it is redacted, but that is not how classification works.”

The message shows Deputy Secretary of State for Management Patrick Kennedy intervened with the FBI to dispute the classification at least three times: in a May 14, 2015, call to International Operations Division chief Brian McCauley, at an in-person meeting at the State Department five days later and in a phone conversation with the head of FBI’s Counterterrorism Division, Michael Steinbach.

The unnamed FBI author of the message to Jupina said Kennedy summoned various officials to State to discuss the review of 55,000 of Clinton emails requested under FOIA. At that meeting, Kennedy asked the FBI representative and a Justice Department FOIA official to “stay behind to discuss the FBI determination” on classification in the first batch of Clinton emails, the FBI email says.

An email from Steinbach said he turned down Kennedy’s request that the information be withheld solely under a FOIA provision for protection of law enforcement sources, rather than by classifying it.

“I explained to Mr. Kennedy that to only exempt for (b)(7)(D) was not appropriate as the information in the two portions in question was classified at the Secret/NOFORN level,” Steinbach wrote.

Even after that decision, the FBI got another high-level contact on the issue from State that same day, with Secretary of State John Kerry’s chief of staff Jon Finer calling Jim Rybicki, then-deputy chief of staff to FBI Director James Comey.

“Finer…stated that he was not attempting to change [Steinbach’s] classification decision, and said that he just wanted to make sure that FBI leadership was aware of the decision and the procedural process and media attention it would likely trigger,” Rybicki wrote in an email to several colleagues. “I relayed back to the State Department that leadership is aware of the review process and decision.”

Rybicki said Finer asked if the FBI could classify the information rather than State doing so at FBI’s request. When the email was released, State officials said they were withholding it at FBI’s request.

State Department spokesman John Kirby said on Monday that the new records demonstrate the department’s longstanding contention that it did not feel the specific document needed to be upgraded and that there were discussions among agencies about the issue.

“Classification is an art, not a science, and individuals with classification authority sometimes have different views. We have an obligation to ensure determinations as they relate to classification are made appropriately,” Kirby said in a statement.

He added, “With respect to Mr. Finer, the material recently released by the FBI makes clear that he did not contact them to change the classification of the email. On the contrary, this was routine contact to ensure appropriate leadership in both agencies were prepared to respond to questions. As is well known and was discussed publicly at the time, the State Department did upgrade the document at the request of the FBI when we released it back in May 2015.”

Some indications of the FBI-State dispute appeared in records released in October, leading then-Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump to argue on the campaign trail that Kennedy had proposed a trade-off where State would increase FBI staffing levels overseas if State withdrew its claim that the Benghazi-related email was classified.

The notion of such a quid pro quo apparently originated with a records official at the FBI, but Kennedy flatly denied it. In addition, McCauley said he did not believe Kennedy was proposing such a trade-off, although the pair did discuss both issues in a single phone call.

While the classification dispute over the Benghazi-related message appears to have been heavily litigated, it would wind up being just the tip of the iceberg. In a statement in July, Comey said 110 emails in Clinton’s account were classified at the time they were sent, with eight email chains considered “Top Secret” at the time they were sent and 36 chains containing “Secret”-level information. None of those messages was properly marked as classified, he said.

The newly-released FBI emails and memos also contain some other details about the Clinton email probe that have not been previously reported or received little notice:

–The Secret Service rebuffed the FBI’s initial request for assistance in the investigation, according to a memo which suggests some tensions between the two law enforcement agencies.

At a July 28, 2015, meeting, a Secret Service official “advised that his management told him that any FBI request for information or assistance related to this matter would need to come via written request from the Department of Justice to the Department of Homeland Security, which would then forward the request to the USSS,” an FBI memo said. After consulting with Secret Service managers about the requested assistance, the official “refused to identify [to the FBI] the specific USSS manager(s) to whom he spoke.”

The FBI eventually obtained information on the Secret Service’s assistance to former President Bill Clinton with security issues related to his computer server, which eventually became the one hosting Hillary Clinton’s much-discussed private account.

–The FBI apparently took a week to notify the Justice Department after receiving a formal referral from the Intelligence Community Inspector General about the Clinton email matter in July 2015. A memo from Deputy FBI Director Mark Giuliano says the FBI got the referral on July 6, formally opened its full investigation on July 10, and first advised Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates on July 13.

–The investigation itself was treated as classified at its outset, but was declassified in August 2015. Internal FBI memos say it was determined that an initial batch of emails from Clinton’s account released by State under FOIA contained “Top Secret” information. The memo declassifying the investigation says that information was deemed not to be so sensitive that it could not be discussed more widely. “No previously unknown sources or informants were revealed in the identified material…. No sensitive sources or methods were disclosed.”

–The email investigation was also designated as “sensitive” and its records were closely-held at the FBI because of Clinton’s status as a political candidate.

–The FBI obtained a special “one-time” approval to show Clinton confidant Sidney Blumenthal a copy of one of his own emails to Clinton about the political situation in Kyrgyzstan. A January 5, 2016, FBI memo says the email has “since been deemed to contain classified FBI information.” The “SECRET” portion of the April 2010 message relates to what Blumenthal called an “ongoing criminal investigation.”

–An internal FBI profile of longtime Bill Clinton aide Justin Cooper derived information from a publication of the conservative watchdog group, Judicial Watch. The group had tracked Cooper’s links to Teneo Holdings, a consulting firm founded by individuals with close ties to the Clintons.

Gitmo Detainees Transfer Announced

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The Department of Defense announced today the transfer of four detainees: Salem Ahmad Hadi Bin Kanad, Muhammed Rajab Sadiq Abu Ghanim, Abdallah Yahya Yusif Al-Shibli, and Muhammad Ali Abdallah Muhammad Bwazir from the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay to the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. As directed by the president’s Jan. 22, 2009, executive order, the interagency Guantanamo Review Task Force conducted a comprehensive review of these cases.

As a result of those reviews, which examined a number of factors, including security issues, Al-Shibli and Bwazir were unanimously approved for transfer by the six departments and agencies comprising the task force. Periodic Review Boards consisting of representatives from the Departments of Defense, Homeland Security, Justice, and State; the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence determined continued law of war detention of Kanad and Ghanim does not remain necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States.

As a result of those reviews, which examined a number of factors, including security issues, Kanad and Ghanim were recommended for transfer by consensus of the six departments and agencies comprising the Periodic Review Board. The Periodic Review Board process was established by the president’s March 7, 2011 Executive Order 13567.

Date of Periodic Review Board final determination:

Salem Ahmad Hadi Bin Kanad              May 5, 2016

Muhammed Rajab Sadiq Abu Ghanim July 6, 2016

The United States is grateful to the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia  for its humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. The United States coordinated with the government of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia  to ensure these transfers took place consistent with appropriate security and humane treatment measures. Today, 55 detainees remain at Guantanamo Bay.

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Ibrahim Qosi (above): Freed in 2012 to Sudan. Two years later, became a leader in al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula  and has been featured in the terror group’s videos. The group has a at least three other senior members who were in Guantanamo and freed. It has taken credit for a string of international terror attacks, including the Charlie Hebdo shooting in 2015 and the attempted Christmas Day ‘underwear’ bombing in 2009.

Obama plans mass transfer of fanatics who have threatened to bomb and behead Americans

The group being released will be drawn from those held at Guantanamo – who include an accused senior al Qaeda bomb-maker, the terror group’s top financial manager, and two intended 9/11 hijackers, who have all been held in the Cuba-based U.S. detention facility for more than a decade.

According to a military source briefed on the process, 22 detainees are being prepared for transfer out of the camp, also known as Gitmo, before January 20.

Although the White House has not specified which inmates will be transferred out – or which foreign countries have agreed to accept them – it has indicated that this will be a priority for Obama in his final days in office.

‘I can’t speak to any individual notifications that have been made to Congress or give you a specific preview about upcoming transfers,’ said White House press secretary Josh Earnest.

Obama will likely focus on moving the 23 detainees who have been ‘cleared for transfer’ – a group that includes the alleged head of al Qaeda’s bomb-manufacturing operation in eastern Afghanistan, the head of al Qaeda’s Tunisian faction in Afghanistan, and senior weapons trainers.

Those held in Guantanamo in recent years have been dubbed ‘the worst of the worst’ by military and intelligence officials. More here.

 

 

ISIS in Latin America, Terror Funding Operations

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Islamists population report, including those in Cuba is found here. Latin America has a long history of nefarious connections starting with those in support of Nazis and harboring many that fled to the region after the fall of the Third Reich. There is Paraguay, then Argentina and Chile, even Brazil.

Now we have the modern day threat of militant Islam as a neighbor.

 Wisc.edu

 Jamaica

 Buenos Aires

 El Paso

Spanish Military Report: Islamic Terrorists Operate, Raise Cash in Latin America to Attack U.S.

JW: Latin America is a hotbed of Islamic terrorism where groups like ISIS and Hezbollah operate freely and raise large sums of money to finance terrorist activities in other countries, mainly the United States, according to a new report released by Spain’s Defense Ministry. “Latin America represents an important region for Islamic radicalism because conditions enable the free, almost undetectable, movement of their members throughout the region,” the defense document states.

Governments in the region consider Islamic terrorism to be a foreign problem, the report says, and intelligence agencies are ill equipped to handle the threat they represent. “The ignorance involving the threat of jihadist terrorism in Latin America has been such that some governments have refused to cooperate with U.S. authorities and other intelligence services,” the disturbing assessment reveals. The report was released this month by the division of Spain’s Defense agency known as Instituto Español de Estudios Estratégicos (IEEE), Spanish Institute of Strategic Studies. The document, authored by a counterterrorism expert, is titled “El radicalismo islámico en América Latina. De Hezbolá al Daesh (Estado Islámico),” Islamic Radicalism in Latin America, from Hezbollah to ISIS.

The Lebanese group Hezbollah is identified as having the largest fundraising operations in the region, though others, such as ISIS, are also prominent. The terrorist organizations have teamed up with established drug trafficking conglomerates to raise and launder large quantities of cash. The report identifies a group called El clan Barakat in Paraguay and Joumaa in Colombia as two examples of drug trafficking enterprises that have long worked with Islamic jihadists to launder money. Spain’s military experts refer to the relationships as a “marriage of convenience” between Latin American organized crime and Muslim terrorists with different objectives and interests. “Each takes advantage of the benefits that the relationship provides,” the report states.

ISIS is expanding quickly in Latin America, the report warns, revealing that around 100 individuals from the region’s large Muslim community have traveled to Syria and Iraq to join terrorist groups recently. Argentina and Brazil have the largest Muslim populations in Latin America with more than 1 million each, the report says. Venezuela, Mexico, Peru and Chile also have large and rapidly growing Muslim populations. Trinidad and Tobago, Caribbean islands on the northern edge of Latin America, are identified as “especially worrisome” because local authorities reported that 70 of their citizens traveled to Syria and Iraq to join ISIS. Additionally, nine of the islands’ citizens were detained in Turkey attempting to cross the border into Syria. The report cites a 2012 article in a military publication from Trinidad that compares the growth of radical Islam in the country to a group of violent Muslims that tried to overthrow the government in 1990.

The strong connection between Islamic terrorists and Latin America has been developing for years and Judicial Watch has reported it extensively, especially when it comes to Mexico. With a dangerously porous southern border, the collaboration between Muslim terrorists and Mexican drug cartels has created a critical threat to the United States. Last year Judicial Watch reported that ISIS is operating a camp just a few miles from El Paso, Texas, in an area known as “Anapra” situated just west of Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Judicial Watch also broke a story about Mexican drug cartels smuggling foreigners from countries with terrorist links into a small Texas rural town near El Paso. The foreigners are classified as Special Interest Aliens (SIA) by the U.S. government and they are being transported to stash areas in Acala, a rural crossroads located around 54 miles from El Paso on a state road—Highway 20.

Earlier this year Judicial Watch uncovered State Department records confirming that “Arab extremists” are entering the U.S. through Mexico with the assistance of smuggling network “cells.” Among them is a top Al Qaeda operative wanted by the FBI. The government documents also reveal that some Mexican smuggling networks actually specialize in providing logistical support for Arab individuals attempting to enter the United States. The top Al Qaeda leader in Mexico was identified in the State Department records, via a September 2004 cable from the American consulate in Ciudad Juárez, as Adnan G. El Shurkrjumah. In December, 2014 Shukrijumah was killed by the Pakistan Army in an intelligence-borne operation in South Waziristan. But before he died Shukrijumah helped plan several U.S. attacks, including plots to bomb Oprah Winfrey’s studio and detonate nuclear devices in multiple American cities. For years Shukrijumah appeared on the FBI’s most wanted list and, despite being sought by the agency, he crossed back and forth into the U.S. from Mexico to meet fellow militant Islamists in Texas. Back in 2014 Judicial Watch reported that, as one of the world’s most wanted terrorists, Shukrijumah piloted an aircraft into the Cielo Dorado airfield in Anthony, New Mexico.

Obama Terminates NSEERS

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CAIR is delighted with this Obama decision and so is the New York Attorney General. Essentially, this is removing many of the national security tools used to secure the homeland. It is not only about tracking Arab or Muslim men. How about foreign national spies?

Obama gets rid of visitor registry before Trump takes over

TheHill: The Obama administration is abolishing a national registry program created to track visitors from countries with active terrorist groups, a move likely intended to send a strong message to Donald Trump just weeks before he takes office, the New York Times reports.

The registry, officially called the National Security Entry-Exit Registration System, was created after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, but has not been in use since 2011.

President-elect Trump has suggested he was open to reviving the program and has even floated a wider national registry of all Muslims and potentially barring people from countries with a history of Islamist extremism from entering the country.

The Department of Homeland Security submitted a rule change for dismantling of the program, writing that it no longer helps security. The changes will take effect Friday.

“D.H.S. ceased use of NSEERS more than five years ago, after it was determined the program was redundant, inefficient and provided no increase in security,” Neema Hakim, a spokesman for the Department of Homeland Security, said in a statement.

Hakim said the program diverts personnel and resources from other areas that are more effective.

Civil liberties groups have long criticized the program.

The American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee praised the move, calling the registry a “failed program rooted in discriminatory profiling.”

In a statement, the group said it has worked “tirelessly” in pushing DHS to dismantle the program.

“This is the right decision by [Homeland] Secretary [Jeh] Johnson. We commend him, and the Obama administration, for letting it be known that such registry programs are futile and have no place in our country,” said Abed Ayoub, the group’s legal and policy director.

“However the community cannot be at ease; the next administration has indicated that they will consider implementing similar programs. We will work twice as hard to protect our community and ensure such programs do not come to fruition.”

Kris Kobach, Kansas’s secretary of state and a member of Trump’s transition team, was photographed with a document recommending reintroducing the visitor registry program in the first year of Trump’s presidency.

“All aliens from high-risk areas are tracked,” the document said.

Trump has waffled on whether his administration would create a broader so-called Muslim registry, and he faced new questions about the proposal this week after the attack in Berlin.

Asked by reporters if he intends to set up a registry, he said: “You know my plans,” adding, “All along, I’ve been proven to be right, 100 percent correct.”

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This site posted a summary on this database a month ago.

It is called NSEERS.

There is an entry and exit program managed by the Department of Homeland Security….well they maintain it but don’t use it to remove people…but it does exist to the point of a backlog of 1.6 million and it actually a Visa Overstay system.

Thank you GW Bush, as NSEERS was launched in 2002 and used to collect names, backgrounds and locations of people that were inside the United States that would pose a threat and cause additional harm to the homeland. The Bush administration earnestly applied all elements of this program and performed thousands of deportations as well as criminal investigations on violators or those connected to nefarious groups and organization. By the end of the calendar year 2002, 3,995 wanted criminals had been arrested attempting to cross into the United States. 

The 9/11 Commission Report dedicated an entire chapter to immigration and the flaws. Many of the hijackers were in the United States illegally. Okay, then the 9/11 Commission also made stout recommendations of which everyone in Congress agreed to and signed. Then a few years later, those agreements began to fall apart on the Democrat side and continue to be forgotten today.