Category Archives: Libya Benghazi Muslim Brotherhood murder

Europe’s Training Programs the US can Use

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At least this is forward thinking both in Germany and in the United Kingdom. By launching these programs, it is actually a declaration of terror problems in Europe and these are positive steps. Do you wonder if our own DHS or FEMA have a response on this? So do I.

German military training 100 Syrian migrants in pilot project

Reuters: The German military is training more than 100 Syrian migrants for civilian roles suited to helping the eventual reconstruction of their country, Defence Minister Ursula von der Leyen said in remarks released ahead of publication on Sunday.

Von der Leyen told the Frankfurter Allgemeine daily that the pilot program was focused on training migrants in a variety of areas such as technology, medicine and logistics.

It was not immediately clear if von der Leyen planned to expand the program to include more of the one million migrants who arrived in Germany last year.

“The idea is that they will go back to Syria one day and help with the reconstruction” of their war-shattered country, von der Leyen told the newspaper.

She said Germany could also play a role in training Syrian security forces once it had a responsible government.

Syrian refugees can carry out civilian tasks for the German military, but are not eligible to work as soldiers, she said.

Von der Leyen sparked controversy within her own Christian Democratic party recently when she suggested that EU citizens could in certain cases take over armed roles in the German military. The defense minister also advocates greater diversity in the German military and moves to recruit more immigrants.

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More than 500,000 public sector workers put through Prevent counter-terror training in bid to spot extremism

Exclusive: Training courses criticised as ‘inadequate’ while the strategy has been described as divisive

IndependentUK: More than half a million nurses, teachers, childminders and other frontline public sector workers have been put through a mass counter-terrorism training programme to help them spot and report potential extremists in their workplaces.

The Home Office has confirmed that of the 550,000 now trained in the controversial Prevent strategy, at least 150,000 are public-facing NHS staff, such as doctors and nurses.

They have all completed various online or classroom exercises to comply with a statutory Prevent duty that was forced on a wide range of public authorities by Theresa May as Home Secretary last year.

Related reading: The 14 page Prevent Duty document outline is here.

Aimed mainly at tackling Islamist extremists and far right white supremacists, it is one of the biggest counter-terror awareness programmes ever undertaken by the UK Government.

Some in the Muslim community and beyond feel Prevent is divisive; it creates a “climate of suspicion” and is an attempt to create a huge network of spies.

The training courses themselves, particularly those online, are also being criticised as “inadequate” and an exercise in box ticking that is not being taken seriously enough by attendees.

Under the Prevent strand of the Government’s counter-terror strategy, Contest, extremism is defined as “vocal or active opposition to fundamental British values, including democracy, the rule of law, individual liberty and mutual respect and tolerance of different faiths and beliefs”.

Anyone who “calls for the death of members of our armed forces” is also an extremist, according to the policy.

The Prevent duty requires a large range of public sector workers to be trained and also includes college lecturers, youth and social workers, probation officers and childcare providers.

But many Prevent trainees have simply clicked through online tutorials recommended by a Home Office catalogue.

Although most of the online courses are free and take about an hour to complete, one provider charges up to £30 a head for a module that uses a snakes and ladders game to teach people about paths to radicalisation.

Another provider listed on the Government’s Gov.uk website charges safeguarding officers in higher education £500 a head for a two-day classroom workshop.

Another course teaches people how to spot far right extremism by training social workers and police and probation officers for signs of anti-Semitism and Islamophobia.

Under the programme, people are taught how to spot the signs that someone maybe becoming radicalised.

These might be “reports of unusual behaviour, friendships or actions and request for assistance”, according to NHS documents.

Other signs could be “patients or staff accessing extremist material online”, or “artwork or literature promoting violent extremist messages or images”.

The Government wants to teach staff to contact their authority’s designated “Prevent lead” when they have concerns about an individual, such as a student or even a patient.

The Prevent lead will alert the police whenever the risk is deemed immediate or substantiated.

Prevent was introduced by the last Labour government, but it was transformed under Ms May. She widened its scope to include non-violent extremism in 2011 when she also encouraged many authorities to start training programmes.

Between 2011 and 2015, some 300,000 public sectors had received a form of training.

But The Independent has discovered that figure has now almost doubled as a result of the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act, which Ms May drove through last year.

The Home Office says that as a result of Ms May’s work, 1,000 people have been referred to the Government’s Channel initiative which tries to de-radicalise individuals.

Earlier this month, the Government’s education watchdog Ofsted warned that some schools and colleges were being too slow in complying with the Prevent duty.

But the Muslim Council of Britain, which has long opposed Prevent, said the mass training of public sector workers risked being “counterproductive”.

A spokesman said: “We need to be vigilant given the real threat of terrorism, and we therefore support effective measures to identify and report terrorist activity.

“However, we are not convinced about the effectiveness of a programme requiring hundreds of thousands of people to look for signs of what they perceive to be behaviour that potentially leads to terrorism. We are instead likely to see many false flags in an inconsistent approach that is applied in a discriminatory way.

“This runs the risk of being –as the parliamentary Joint Committee on Human Rights said on Friday –counterproductive to our goal of a safe and secure nation.”

The campaign group Students Not Suspects, who say the Prevent strategy unfairly targets black and Muslim students, said in a YouTube video in April: “The Prevent duty under the Counter-Terrorism and Security Act forces colleges and universities to spy on students. They’ll say this is to safeguard students but in reality it is creating a climate of suspicion around students’ political and religious views.

“Prevent is silencing students, promoting a culture of surveillance and self-censorship and undermining our universities and colleges as spaces for free and rigorous debate.”

Hillary’s VP, Kaine and the Muslim Brotherhood

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Clinton VP Pick Tim Kaine’s Islamist Ties

Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s newly-announced running mate, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, has a history of embracing Islamists.

Clarion: Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s newly-announced running mate, Virginia Senator Tim Kaine, has a history of embracing Islamists. He appointed a Hamas supporter to a state immigration commission; spoke at a dinner honoring a Muslim Brotherhood terror suspect and received donations from well-known Islamist groups.

A worldwide Islamist organization founded in Egypt in 1928 by Hassan al-Banna that seeks to implement Sharia-based governance globally.

Appointing a Muslim Brotherhood Front Leader Who Supports Hamas

In 2007, Kaine was the Governor of Virginia and, of all people chose Muslim American Society (MAS) President Esam Omeish to the state’s Immigration Commission. A Muslim organization against Islamism criticized the appointment and reckless lack of vetting.

The interpretation of Islam as a governmental system in which strict Sharia law must be enforced; synonymous with Political Islam.

Federal prosecutors said in a 2008 court filing that MAS was “founded as the overt arm of the Muslim Brotherhood in America.” A Chicago Tribune investigation in 2004 confirmed this, as well as MAS’ crafty use of deceptive semantics to appear moderate. Convicted terrorist and admitted U.S. Muslim Brotherhood member Abdurrahman Alamoudi testified in 2012, “Everyone knows that MAS is the Muslim Brotherhood.”

Read our fully-documented profile of MAS here.

According to Omeish’s website, he was also president of the National Muslim Students Association (click there to read our profile about its Muslim Brotherhood origins) and served for two years on the national board of the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA), which the Justice Department also labeled as a U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entity and unindicted co-conspirator in a Hamas-financing trial.

His website says he was the vice president of Dar al-Hijrah Islamic Center, a radical mosque known for its history of terror ties, including having future Al-Qaeda operative Anwar Al-Awlaki as its imam and being frequented by two of the 9/11 hijackers and Nidal Hasan, the perpetrator of the Fort Hood shooting. Omeish’s website says he remains a board member.

Omeish’s website also says he was chairman of the board of Islamic American University, which had Hamas financier and Muslim Brotherhood spiritual leader Yousef Al-Qaradawi chairman of its board until at least 2006.

Omeish was also chairman of the board for the Islamic Center of Passaic County, a New Jersey mosque with heavy terrorist ties and an imam that the Department of Homeland Security wants to deport for having links to Hamas.

Omeish directly expressed extremism before Kaine appointed him. He claimed the Brotherhood is “moderate” and admitted that he and MAS are influenced by the Islamist movement.

In 2004, Omeish praised the Hamas spiritual leader as “our beloved Sheikh Ahmed Yassin.” Videotape from 2000 also surfaced where Omeish pledged to help Palestinians who understand “the jihad way is the way to liberate your land” (he denied this was an endorsement of violence).

A holy war waged against non-Muslims on behalf of Islam considered to be a religious duty; also, a personal struggle in devotion to Islam.

  When a state delegate wrote a letter to then-Governor Kaine warning him that the MAS has “questionable origins,” a Kaine spokesperson said the charge was bigotry.

Kaine obviously failed to do any kind of basic background checking in Omeish.

Omeish resigned under heavy pressure, and Kaine acknowledged that his statements “concerned” him. But, apparently, they didn’t concern him enough to actually learn about the Muslim Brotherhood network in his state and to take greater precautions in the future.

 

Speaking at a Dinner Honoring Muslim Brotherhood Terror Suspect

In September 2011, Kaine spoke at a “Candidates Night” dinner organized by the New Dominion PAC that presented a Lifetime Achievement Award for Jamal Barzinji, who the Global Muslim Brotherhood Watch describes as a “founding father of the U.S. Muslim Brotherhood.”

He first came on to the FBI’s radar in 1987-1988 when an informant inside the Brotherhood identified Barzinji and his associated groups as being part of a network of Brotherhood fronts to “institute the Islamic Revolution in the United States.” The source said Barzinji and his colleagues were “organizing political support which involves influencing both public opinion in the United States as well as the United States Government” using “political action front groups with no traceable ties.”

Barzinji had his home searched as part of a terrorism investigation in 2003. U.S. Customs Service Senior Special Agent David Kane said in a sworn affidavit that Barzinji and the network of entities he led were investigated because he “is not only closed associated with PIJ [Palestinian Islamic Jihad]…but also with Hamas.”  Counter-terrorism reporter Patrick Poole broke the story that Barzinji was nearly prosecuted but the Obama Justice Department dropped plans for indictment.

Barzinji played a major role in nearly every Brotherhood front in the U.S. and was vice president of the International Institute of Islamic Thought (IIIT), which came under terrorism investigation also. Barzinji’s group was so close to Palestinian Islamic Jihad operative Sami Al-Arian that IIIT’s President considered his group and Al-Arian’s to be essentially one entity.

The indictment of Al-Arian and his colleagues says that they “would and did seek to obtain support from influential individuals, in the United States under the guise of promoting and protecting Arab rights (emphasis mine).”

The quotes about Brotherhood operative Barzinji’s aspirations to use civil rights advocacy as a means to influence politicians are especially relevant when you consider that video from the event honoring Barzinji shows Kaine saying that it was his fourth time at the annual dinner and thanked his “friends” that organized it for helping him in his campaign for lieutenant-governor and governor and asked them to help his Senate campaign.

 

Islamist Financial Support

Barzinji’s organization, IIIT, donated $10,000 in 2011 to the New Dominion PAC, the organization that held the event honoring Barzinji that Kaine spoke at. The Barzinji-tied New Dominion PAC donated $43,050 to Kaine’s gubernatorial campaign between 2003 and 2005. That figure doesn’t even include other political recipients that assisted Kaine’s campaign.

The PAC has very strong ties to the Democratic Party in Virginia, with the Virginia Public Access Project tallying almost $257,000 in donations. This likely explains why Barzinji’s grandson served in Governor McAuliffe’s administration and then became the Obama Administration’s liaison to the Muslim-American community.

The Middle East Forum’s Islamist Money in Politics database shows another $4,300 donated to Kaine’s Senate campaign in 2011-2012 by officials from U.S. Muslim Brotherhood entities Islamic Society of North America (ISNA) and the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR). Another $3,500 came from Hisham Al-Talib, a leader from Barzinji’s IIIT organization.

It’s worth noting that Barzinji’s IIIT donated $3,500 to Esam Omeish’s 2009 campaign delegate campaign, tying together the cadre of Muslim Brotherhood-linked leaders who got into Kaine’s orbit.

 

Conclusion

Kaine has no excuse. If he has an Internet connection, then he and his staff should have known about their backgrounds. They were either extremely careless (something Kaine would have in common with the top of the ticket) or knew and looked the other way in the hopes of earning donations and votes.

Clinton’s choice of Kaine is widely seen as a way of strengthening her campaign’s national security credentials. Yet, Clinton is asking us to trust a candidate on national security who appoints a Hamas supporter to an immigration commission and speaks at a dinner honoring a Muslim Brotherhood terror suspect.

 

Hillary’s Newest Legal Machinery at Work on Depositions

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Lawyers from several government agencies have rallied to Hillary’s defense, including those from the State Department and from the Justice Department. Likely, lawyers from the White House have also been consulted while Hillary herself has a team of lawyers. So, if she does prevail in the general election, does that mean she will provide a very late deposition and even pardon herself?

 

Clinton preserves option to stall deposition

Politico: Hillary Clinton’s lawyers are expected to appear before a federal judge Monday morning in a bid to keep her from being forced into videotaped, sworn testimony about her email system, but they’re keeping their options open if things don’t go their way.

In a little-noticed passage in a court filing last week, Clinton’s legal team laid the groundwork for a potential appeal that could allow the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee to delay any deposition for weeks or months, perhaps even until after the November election.

“For the sake of preserving any and all rights, counsel to Secretary Clinton respectfully submit that discovery is unwarranted in this case as a general matter,” longtime Clinton lawyer David Kendall and colleagues wrote in a filing submitted to U.S. District Court Judge Emmet Sullivan.

Legal experts say the language is aimed at keeping the door open for Clinton to try to block a deposition at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit if Sullivan decides to order one.

Kendall “is preserving that position for ultimately raising it on appeal, if necessary….It’s safe lawyering,” said Dan Metcalfe, former co-director of the Justice Department’s Office of Information and Privacy, now with American University’s law school. “It’s a wise thing to do, but one could infer from that that he’s not 100 percent confident that the argument….would prevail.”

It’s difficult to predict whether Sullivan will grant the request he’s set to take up Monday from the conservative group Judicial Watch, which is demanding to put Clinton under oath in connection with a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit exploring aspects of her private email set-up.

The judge—an appointee of President Bill Clinton—has been sharply critical of the former secretary of state for her handling of her emails. At a hearing last August, Sullivan said Clinton’s “violation of government policy” was responsible for the email imbroglio. And in May, the judge approved depositions for several of Clinton’s aides and issued an order explicitly leaving open the possibility Clinton herself might be required to testify.

But Sullivan has also seemed concerned about the litigation becoming a football in the presidential campaign. In May, he not only acceded to a request from a close Clinton aide to put videos of the depositions off limits to the public, he expanded the court-ordered restriction to the videos of all depositions conducted in the case.

If Sullivan approves a deposition for Clinton and the Clinton camp goes to the D.C. Circuit to try to block such testimony, Clinton appears to have a decent chance of succeeding at least in winning a delay, in part because that court has been very deferential to cabinet members in similar circumstances.

In 2014, the D.C. Circuit blocked a court-ordered deposition of Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack in a defamation lawsuit former Agriculture employee Shirley Sherrod brought against late conservative blogger Andrew Breitbart over a video he published. The appeals court said it was “well-established” that c members should not be deposed in civil suits absent “extraordinary circumstances.”

Clinton is a former cabinet official, not a sitting one. However, her court filings last week mention that her status as a former cabinet official more than half a dozen times.

The D.C. Circuit may be more politically fertile territory for Clinton than it was a few years ago. The court is now split between Democratic and Republican appointees, 7-4. Four of the court’s Democratic appointees have joined the court since 2013.

Another reason Clinton’s legal team got directly involved in the case for the first time last week: while State is opposing a deposition for Clinton, the agency and its lawyers at the Justice Department might not try to appeal to block Clinton’s deposition if it is ordered.

In May, when Sullivan ordered depositions of about half a dozen former State officials—including a couple of close aides to Clinton—State did not try to seek relief from the D.C. Circuit, even though State argued against allowing the depositions in the first place.

The hearing Monday before Sullivan is likely to focus on whether Clinton’s use of a private email server could bring Judicial Watch’s Freedom of Information Act lawsuit within an exception to a 1980 Supreme Court case involving the papers of another former secretary of state, Henry Kissinger. The high court ruled that Kissinger’s papers were not obtainable under FOIA because they were not in the State Department’s control at the time of the request, but in a footnote the court suggested its ruling might be different if an employee intentionally placed outside an agency’s possession.

“We need not decide whether this standard might be displaced in the event that it was shown that an agency official purposefully routed a document out of agency possession in order to circumvent a FOIA request. No such issue is presented here. We also express no opinion as to whether an agency withholds documents which have been wrongfully removed by an individual after a request is filed,” Justice William Rehnquist wrote for the court’s majority.

In filings last week, Clinton’s lawyers argued that because the Judicial Watch request involved in the suit came after Clinton left office in February 2013, the Kissinger case controls and State has no obligation to provide records that Clinton possessed at that time.

“Kissinger squarely covers this case,” Kendall wrote, noting that Judicial Watch’s request for records about Clinton aide Huma Abedin’s employment arrangement came several months after Clinton left State.

Clinton’s lawyers went even further, arguing that “a general intent to ‘thwart’ FOIA” isn’t enough to upend the general rule that records outside an agency’s possession are lost to FOIA requesters.

In a statement last week, Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton called it “both significant and disturbing” that Clinton was asserting her private email account was her private property, just as Kissinger asserted about the records he took and deposited in a restricted collection at the Library of Congress.

Sullivan might choose to shut down or delay the request for Clinton testimony given that it’s unclear what the court could do at this point to recover more of Clinton’s emails. She already turned over about 30,000 messages her lawyers deemed work-related. Those records have been searched by State, processed under FOIA, and released with the exception of a few messages deemed to contain “Top Secret” information.

The FBI currently has possession of several servers used by Clinton, as well as some messages recovered from other sources. After FBI Director James Comey announced he wasn’t recommending criminal charges against Clinton or others over the emails, the law enforcement agency said it plans to provide emails that might qualify as official records to the State Department.

Clinton has said she has no emails from that period in her possession at this point, beyond the equipment transferred to the FBI. However, it remains unclear how long it will take for State to obtain those records and just who will decide which of Clinton’s emails might qualify as official State records.

In addition, some of the records and equipment in the FBI’s possession might still be Clinton’s property, leaving open some prospect of Judicial Watch winning some court-supervised process to examine that material for government records.

On the other hand, it’s also possible Sullivan might decide the lawsuit under discussion Monday isn’t the right vehicle to pursue questions about Clinton’s handling of her email. There are dozens of other FOIA suits pending against State, including some relating to requests filed before Clinton stepped down as secretary.

Those other cases might be stronger ones to press the issue, but it’s unclear whether judges in those case would demand Clinton submit to deposition, how quickly they would do so, and whether a higher court would intervene over an order for such testimony issued in the months or weeks before Clinton is expected to face presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump in the November election.

 

 

House Intel Cmte has Declassified/Released the 28 Pages

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The 28 Pages Omitted from the 9/Commission Report are officially declassified and have been release by the House Intelligence Committee. They are here in full text with redactions.

Saudi Arabia’s leaders have long supported the release of the section, commonly known as the 28 pages. They insist their government played no role in the 9/11 attacks.

Fifteen of the 19 hijackers on Sept. 11, 2001, were Saudi nationals.

28 pages

Vehicles as Weapons, not a New Terror Tactic

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Directly after the terror attack in Nice, France, Islamic State instructed soldiers to go to the their Telegram channel for more information and discussion. While Islamic State has not claimed responsibility, they encourage this kind of attack as did al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula in 2010 published in their Inspire magazine.

Vehicles as weapons

Before Nice, Palestinian terrorists used cars as lethal weapon

Vehicular attacks have featured heavily in wave of violence against Israelis since October; similar attacks recently in UK, Canada, read more here

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MEMRI: On October 11, 2010, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) released the second issue of its English-language magazine Inspire. In its Open Source Jihad (OSJ) section, two articles written by Yahya Ibrahim discuss possible methods for American Muslims to carry out terrorist operations.

Yahya’s feature article, titled “The Ultimate Mowing Machine,” discusses the idea of using “a pickup truck as a mowing machine, not to mow grass but mow down the enemies of Allah.” Yahya says that this idea comes as a response to America’s brutality towards Muslims.

In the next segment, Yahya provides tips for American Muslims on various aspects pertaining to the planning and execution of terrorist attacks against the U.S.

When presenting the different options for operations, Yahya talks about the use of biological or chemical weapons. Yahya ends his article promising further information in future issues of the magazine on the topic of weapons of mass destruction.

The following are excerpts from Yahya Ibrahim’s “The Ultimate Mowing Machine,” followed by selected excerpts from Yahya’s tips for American Muslims:

“Use a Pickup Truck as a Mowing Machine – Not To Mow Grass, But Mow Down the Enemies of Allah”

“America is a terrorist state and Americans are complacent in some of the worst forms of terrorism our Muslim nation has been subjected to. Millions of Muslim lives have been lost to American brutality. It is about time Muslims wake up and payback America what is due to it.

“In this section, the OSJ [i.e. Open Source Jihad], we give our readers suggestions on how to wage their individual jihad. Here is one idea of how an individual Muslim may do so. It is a simple idea and there is not much involved in its preparation. All what is needed is the willingness to give one’s life for Allah.

“The idea is to use a pickup truck as a mowing machine, not to mow grass but mow down the enemies of Allah. You would need a 4WD pickup truck. The stronger the better. You would then need to weld on steel blades on the front end of the truck. These could be a set of butcher blades or thick sheets of steel. They do not need to be extra sharp because with the speed of the truck at the time of impact, even a blunter edge would slice through bone very easily. You may raise the level of the blades as high as the headlights. That would make the blades strike your targets at the torso level or higher.

“Pick your location and timing carefully. Go for the most crow[d]ed locations. Narrower spots are also better because it gives less chance for the people to run away. Avoid locations where other vehicles may intercept you.

“To achieve maximum carnage, you need to pick up as much speed as you can while still retaining good control of your vehicle in order to maximize your inertia and be able to strike as many people as possible in your first run. Keep in mind that as soon as people realize what you are up to, they would scatter and run in every direction looking for cover. They would look for areas where the vehicle cannot reach them. Therefore, it is important to study your path of operation before hand. The ideal location is a place where there are a maximum number of pedestrians and the least number of vehicles. In fact if you can get through to ‘pedestrian only’ locations that exist in some downtown (city center) areas, that would be fabulous. There are some places that are closed down for vehicles at certain times due to the swarms of people. If you have access to firearms, carry them with you so that you may use them to finish off your work if your vehicle gets grounded during the attack.

Yahya’s Tips for American Muslims to Use Weapons of Mass Destruction

The following are selected excerpts from Yahya’s tips for American Muslims, lightly edited for clarity:

“…These are some of our suggestions [to our brothers in the U.S.]. The best operation however is the one where you come up with an innovative idea that the authorities have not yet turned their attention to, and that leads to maximum casualties or – equally important – maximum economic losses.

“The Firearm Operation…It’s the least suspicious if you already own a firearm. For this choose the best location. A random hit at a crowded restaurant in the Washington DC at lunch hour for example might end up knocking out a few government employees. Targeting such employees is paramount and the location would also give the operation additional media attention.

“Also those brothers of ours who have specialized expertise, and those who work in sensitive locations that would offer them unique opportunities to wreak havoc on the enemies of Allah, should take advantage of their skills.

“For those mujahid brothers with degrees in microbiology or chemistry lays the greatest opportunity and responsibility. For such brothers, we encourage them to develop a weapon of mass destruction, i.e. an effective poison with the proper method of delivery.

“Poisonous gases such as nerve gas are not out of reach for the chemist and require simple equipment. A microbiologist would be capable of developing the most effective strains of Clostridium botulinum and thus develop the most lethal toxin of all: botulin. An effective botulin attack administered properly could lead to hundreds if not thousands of casualties.

“For such brothers we would ask them to take the utmost security precautions and take their time even if that means years [of preparation]. Such an operation is worth the wait.