Didsbury Mosque, where the Abedi family worshiped. Credit – Associated Press.
“And other loose ends reported from the investigation include German magazine, Focus, which “reported that British police informed their German counterparts that Abedi had received paramilitary training in Syria,” AP writes. “It also said he passed through Duesseldorf airport four days before the concert attack. Citing unnamed federal security sources, Focus reported that Salman Abedi twice flew from a German airport in recent years and wasn’t on any international watch list…Focus reported that German authorities are now trying to determine whether Abedi had contact with Islamic extremists in Germany before flying to Manchester last week. It says he previously flew from Frankfurt to Britain in 2015.”
(Another item of note in the text below, the Didsbury mosque, is part of the global network of the Muslim Brotherhood)
The British government operated an “open door” policy that allowed Libyan exiles and British-Libyan citizens to join the 2011 uprising that toppled Muammar Gaddafi even though some had been subject to counter-terrorism control orders, Middle East Eye can reveal.
Several former rebel fighters now back in the UK told MEE that they had been able to travel to Libya with “no questions asked” as authorities continued to investigate the background of a British-Libyan suicide bomber who killed 22 people in Monday’s attack in Manchester. More here.
UK police find ‘significant’ evidence; May slams US on leaks
MANCHESTER, England (AP) — Home searches across Manchester and beyond have uncovered important items in a fast-moving investigation into the concert bombing that left 22 people dead, Manchester’s police chief said Thursday as a diplomatic spat escalated over U.S. leaks about the investigation to the media.
Greater Manchester Police Chief Constable Ian Hopkins told reporters the eight suspects detained so far are “significant” arrests, and “initial searches of premises have revealed items that we believe are very important to the investigation.”
A retired intelligence officer says any move by the United Kingdom to stop intelligence information sharing with the United States would be “suicidal.” Bob Ayers tells the AP the UK receives more information from the US than it provides. (May 25)
He did not elaborate, but those arrests around the northwestern English city include Ismail Abedi, the brother of 22-year-old Manchester Arena bomber Salman Abedi. The bomber’s father Ramadan Abedi and another brother Hashim have been detained in Libya.
As police raced to uncover the network that may have helped Abedi attack an Ariana Grande concert on Monday night, furious British officials blamed U.S. authorities Thursday for leaking details of the investigation to the media.
One British official told The Associated Press that police in Manchester have stopped sharing information about their bombing investigation with the U.S. until they get a guarantee that there will be no more leaks to the media. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak publicly.
British Prime Minister Theresa May said she would discuss the leaks with President Donald Trump at a NATO summit. Upon her arrival in Brussels, May said the U.S.-British defense and security partnership is built on trust.
But she said “part of that trust is knowing that intelligence can be shared confidently.”
British officials are particularly angry that photos detailing evidence about the bomb were published in The New York Times, although it’s not clear that the paper obtained the photos from U.S. officials.
British security services are also upset that Abedi’s name was apparently leaked by U.S. officials while British police were withholding it — and while raids were underway in Manchester and in Libya, where the bomber’s father lives.
Hopkins, the Manchester police chief, said the leaks had “caused much distress for families that are already suffering terribly with their loss.”
Trump on Thursday pledged to “get to the bottom” of leaks of sensitive information, calling the leaks “deeply troubling.” He said he is asking the Justice Department and other agencies to “launch a complete review of this matter.”
The New York Times defended its publication of crime-scene photographs, saying its coverage had been “both comprehensive and responsible.”
“The images and information presented were neither graphic nor disrespectful of victims, and consistent with the common line of reporting on weapons used in horrific crimes,” the paper said.
May said the national threat level from terrorism remains at critical — the highest level, meaning that another attack may be imminent. Hun dreds of soldiers have replaced police protecting high-profile sites including Buckingham Palace and the Houses of Parliament in London.
“The public should remain vigilant,” May said.
Around the country, many people fell silent and bowed their heads at 11 a.m. for a minute in tribute to the bombing victims.
In Manchester’s St. Ann’s Square, where a sea of floral tributes grows by the hour, a crowd sang “Don’t Look Back in Anger” — a song by the Manchester band Oasis.
Queen Elizabeth II visited Royal Manchester Children’s Hospital on Thursday to talk to some of the victims, their families and medical staff.
“It’s dreadful. Very wicked, to target that sort of thing,” the 91-year-old monarch told 14-year-old Evie Mills and her parents.
Fifteen-year-old Millie Robson, wearing an Ariana Grande T-shirt, told the queen she had won VIP tickets to the pop star’s concert. She was leaving concert when the blast struck, remembering an intense ringing but not entirely aware that she was bleeding badly from her legs.
She credited her dad’s quick action in picking her up and tying off her wounds to stem the bleeding.
“I have a few like holes in my legs and stuff and I have a bit of a cut, and my arm and just a bit here, but compared to other people I’m quite lucky really,” she said.
In addition to those killed, 116 people received medical treatment at Manchester hospitals for wounds from the blast. The National Health Service said 75 people had been hospitalized.
In Berlin, former U.S. President Barack Obama and German Chancellor Angela Merkel sent a message of solidarity to the Manchester bombing victims.
“(This is) a reminder that there is great danger and terrorism and people who would do great harm to others just because they’re different,” Obama said.
Investigators are chasing Abedi’s potential links with jihadi militants in Manchester, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. The bomber himself died in the attack.
France’s interior minister says Abedi was believed to have travelled to Syria, and U.S. Rep. Mike McCaul, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said he was part of “a cell of ISIS-inspired terrorists.”
Investigators are trying to find whether Abedi knew several Manchester-based jihadis, including Libyan man Abdalraouf Abdallah, who was jailed in the U.K. for terror offenses, and Raphael Hostey, an IS recruiter killed in Syria.
Investigators are also looking into the Abedi family’s ties in Libya. Abedi’s father Ramadan was allegedly a member of the al-Qaida-backed Libyan Isl amic Fighting group in the 1990s — a claim he denies.
Manchester is home to one of Britain’s largest Libyan communities. Mohammed Fadl, a community leader, said the Abedi family is well known, but Salman did not attend many gatherings.
“Very few people in the community here were close to him and therefore Salman’s fanaticism wasn’t something the community was aware of,” he told the AP.
He said he had heard that Salman’s father took his son’s passport away amid concerns about his close ties to alleged extre mists and criminals.
Authorities are investigating whether Abedi could have been stopped, after Libyan community members in Manchester reported concerns about his views.
Akram Ramadan said Salman Abedi had been banned from Manchester’s Didsbury Mosque, one of the largest in the city.
“There was a sermon about anti-Daesh (IS) and he stood up and started calling the Imam — ’You are talking bollocks,’” Ramadan said. “And he gave a good stare, a threatening stare into the Imam’s eyes … he was banned.”
Fadl, the community leader, disputed that account and the bomber’s father insisted Wednesday in an interview with the AP that Salman had no links to militants, saying “we don’t believe in killing innocents.”
Abedi had been in Libya in the weeks before the attack, and German magazine Focus, citing unnamed federal security source, reported that he passed through Duesseldorf airport four days before the bombing.
A German security official told the AP on Thursday the report was accurate, speaking on condition of a nonymity because the information hadn’t been cleared for public release.
On the artistic front, Grande cancelled concerts that were to take place Thursday and Friday in London, and in several other sites in Europe. Next week’s premiere of the film “The Mummy” in London was also canceled.
Category Archives: Libya Benghazi Muslim Brotherhood murder
Manchester Bomb Suspect, Got Training with AQ in Libya
Sure Salmen Abedi was on the watch list of intelligence professionals and law enforcement. Why, his parents reported him. The family immigrated from Libya to the UK where Abedi was born in England.
Abedi was born in Manchester — the second youngest of four children. His parents fled Libya during Moammar Khadafy’s regime, first moving to London in 1994 before settling in Manchester. Police raided an address in the southern Manchester neighborhood Tuesday and detonated a controlled explosion. More here from NYDailyNews.
Handout
MANCHESTER, England — Salman Abedi, the 22-year-old British man believed to have killed 22 people in a suicide-bomb attack, had ties to al Qaeda and had received terrorist training abroad, a U.S. intelligence official told NBC News on Tuesday as the United Kingdom raised its terrorist threat level to the highest category.
The U.S. intelligence official, who has direct knowledge of the investigation, said Abedi, whose family is of Libyan descent, was identified by a bank card found in his pocket at the scene of the explosion after an Ariana Grande concert at Manchester Arena. The identification was confirmed by facial recognition technology, the official said.
Abedi had traveled to Libya within the last 12 months, one of multiple countries he had visited, the official said. While he had “clear ties to al Qaeda,” the official said, Abedi could have had connections to other groups.
Members of his own family had even informed on him in the past, telling British authorities that he was dangerous, according to the intelligence official.
*** ISIS claimed responsibility publishing the notion that he was a foot soldier, but that is not so true. He was more connected to al Qaeda, yet the terror operations are for the most part the same.
A spokesman for the University of Salford in Manchester told NBC News that Abedi enrolled there to study business management in September 2015. He re-enrolled last September, but he hadn’t attended classes for several months, the spokesman said.
ISIS has claimed credit for the deadly attack, but so far neither British nor U.S. authorities have been able to link Abedi to the fanatical Islamic organization, which has inspired other lethal terrorist attacks in Europe.
Abedi, however, was known to British police and intelligence services, government sources told NBC News.
Abedi was from the Whalley Range area of Manchester, a town with a long history, dating back to the 1830’s. In 2011, the most recent census report showed the town had a population of 20,000. There are 42 mosques in the Manchester area. Does that seem rather excessive for the size of the population?
Slave Labor Markets in Libya and Beyond
So, the United Nations reports this but so what? Is anyone at the United Nations taking action? Never heard anything out of the Obama White House either, did you? How about out of the Hillary Clinton or John Kerry State Department? Anything? Did WikiLeaks cables include any of this? Nah….
That whole Hillary Libya operation did not work out well at all, the country remains in a tailspin.
Migrant Smuggling – a deadly business
Currently, data is too scattered and incomplete to paint an accurate picture of numbers of people who are smuggled each year and the routes and methods used by those who smuggle them. Still, available evidence reveals the following trends and patterns:
- Criminals are increasingly providing smuggling services to irregular migrants to evade national border controls, migration regulations and visa requirements. Most irregular migrants resort to the assistance of profit-seeking smugglers. As border controls have improved, migrants are deterred from attempting to illegally cross them themselves and are diverted into the hands of smugglers.
- Migrant smuggling is a highly profitable business in which criminals enjoy low risk of detection and punishment. As a result, the crime is becoming increasingly attractive to criminals. Migrant smugglers are becoming more and more organized, establishing professional networks that transcend borders and regions.
- The modus operandi of migrant smugglers is diverse. Highly sophisticated and expensive services rely on document fraud or ‘visa-smuggling’. Contrasted with these are low cost methods which often pose high risks for migrants, and have lead to a dramatic increase in loss of life in recent years.
- Migrant smugglers constantly change routes and modus operandi in response to changed circumstances often at the expense of the safety of the smuggled migrants.
- Thousands of people have lost their lives as a result of the indifferent or even deliberate actions of migrant smugglers.
These factors highlight the need for responses to combat the crime of migrant smuggling to be coordinated across and between regions, and adaptable to new methods. In this regard, UNODC seeks to assist countries in implementing the Smuggling of Migrants Protocol while promoting a comprehesensive response to the issue of migrant smuggling.
More here. Has anyone heard from the African American community on this issue at all?
PBS
Back in 2013, the UN essentially reported the same conditions in North Korea.
North Korea’s hidden labor camps exposed: A new UN panel is vowing to hold North Korea’s Kim regime to ‘full accountability’ for decades of mass crime and murder. Will Pyongyang face ICC indictment?
More here from CS Monitor.
The Global Slavery Index also provides insight into the estimated absolute numbers of people in modern slavery, in 162 countries. When the estimated number of enslaved people is considered in absolute terms as a single factor, the country ranking shifts considerably.
The countries with the highest numbers of enslaved people are India, China, Pakistan, Nigeria, Ethiopia, Russia, Thailand, Democratic Republic of Congo, Myanmar and Bangladesh. Taken together, these countries account for 76% of the total estimate of 29.8 million in modern slavery.
The country with the largest estimated number of people in modern slavery is India, which is estimated to have between 13,300,000 and 14,700,000 people enslaved. The India country study suggests that while this involves the exploitation of some foreign nationals, by far the largest proportion of this problem is the exploitation of Indians citizens within India itself, particularly through debt bondage and bonded labour.
The country with the second highest absolute numbers of enslaved is China, with an estimated 2,800,000 to 3,100,000 in modern slavery. The China country study5 suggests that this includes the forced labour of men, women and children in many parts of the economy, including domestic servitude and forced begging, the sexual exploitation of women and children, and forced marriage.
The country with the third highest absolute number in modern slavery is Pakistan, with an estimated 2,000,000 to 2,200,000 people in modern slavery. Read the 2013 report here.
European Union’s Attention and Dollars on Failing Africa
The European Commission has launched an “Emergency Trust Fund for stability and addressing root causes of irregular migration and displaced persons in Africa”, made up of €1.8 billion from the EU budget and European Development Fund, combined with contributions from EU Member States and other donors. The Trust Fund will benefit a wide range of countries across Africa that encompass the major African migration routes to Europe. These countries are among the most fragile and those most affected by migration. They will draw the greatest benefit from EU financial assistance. The countries and regions are:
The Sahel region and Lake Chad area: Burkina Faso, Cameroon, Chad, the Gambia, Mali, Mauritania, Niger, Nigeria and Senegal.
The Horn of Africa: Djibouti, Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Tanzania and Uganda.
The North of Africa: Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya and Egypt.
Neighbouring countries of the eligible countries may benefit, on a case by case basis, from Trust Fund projects with a regional dimension in order to address regional migration flo ws and related cross- border challenges. Read the full document here.
EU Economic and Military Investments in Africa Increase
Africa faces a number of security challenges, from terrorist groups such as Boko Haram and al Shabaab, to civil wars and violent conflicts in South Sudan and Libya, to severe droughts causing hunger crises in Somalia and Yemen.
This instability contributes to migration from Africa to Europe. In addition, a demographic boom is taking hold in Africa, stoking concerns about future mass migration. “Today, Africa is twice the population of Europe. In 2050, it will be four times the population of Europe, and it is projected at the end of this century to be 10 times the population of Europe. … There is a sense in many political circles in Europe that what’s happening today is just the beginning of a much bigger movement that could reach Europe tomorrow,” Philippe Fargues, founding Director of the Migration Policy Centre at the European University Institute in Italy, told The Cipher Brief.
The European Union is intervening. On the migration front, the EU is engaged in Partnership Framework Agreements with several African countries to stem the flow of migrants. “This was followed up with the setting up of the EU Emergency Trust Fund for Africa (a €2 billion aid program aimed at securing African countries’ cooperation in tackling irregular migration), leading to the initial signing of bilateral agreements with Niger, Nigeria, Mali, Senegal and Ethiopia” says the Abuja, Nigeria-based Director of the Centre for Democracy and Development, Idayat Hassan.
Niger, for example, is receiving €610 million to keep migrants from reaching Europe, Hassan says, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel has pledged €17 million to Niger to help develop the Agadez region, a major route for West African migrants.
Germany seems to be leading European action in Africa. Last year, German Development Minister Gerd Müller unveiled a “Marshall Plan” for the continent. “Germany and Europe have an interest to save people’s lives, to limit the effects of climate change and avoid ‘climate refugees,’ to prevent mass migration and to help create a future for Africa’s youth,” said Müller.
Asmita Parshotam, a researcher under the Economic Diplomacy Programme at the South African Institute of International Affairs, tells The Cipher Brief that this plan is intended to “cover a broad range of issues such as trade, increased private investment, bottom-up economic development, entrepreneurship, and job creation and employment.”
In addition to Germany’s unilateral aid to Africa, the EU recently announced its EU External Investment Plan that will help expand Africa’s private sector, with €3.35 billion in funding until 2020 and €88 billion if EU member states fully match that contribution.
The European Development Fund and African Investment Facility also provide economic development assistance from the EU to Africa.
In the development-security aid realm lies the EU Sahel Strategy, launched in April 2015. “The enhancement of security in the region through the fight against terrorism, illicit trafficking, radicalisation and violent extremism, remains the key objective of the EU,” according to a memo on the EU Sahel Strategy from the Council of the European Union.
EU member states also host a number of military bases in Africa. France, Germany, Italy, and Spain all have boots on the ground in Djibouti. France’s presence there is now around 1,700 personnel.
About 3,500 French troops operate in Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali, Mauritania, and Niger, and Gabon is a key base that France has used to send troops to interventions in the Central African Republic. France last year boosted its military presence in Cote d’Ivoire to about 900 men to serve as a forward operating base for West Africa.
The French, along with the Germans, are also in Niger. Germany has an air transport base at the Niamey international airport that supports its increasing troop contribution to the UN’s peacekeeping mission in Mali, a country that underwent a rebellion and coup in 2012 and a serious deterioration in the security environment in January 2013 when terrorist groups – Ansar Dine and the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa, in addition to al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb – advanced south.
A majority of UN peacekeeping missions, in which many Europeans are involved, are in Africa.
The question remains, will the EU’s economic and military investment in Africa work in stabilizing a continent plagued by terror, war, drought and famine, extreme poverty, and inadequate governance?
Müller’s “Marshall Plan” acknowledges that African governments must take responsibility for fighting corruption, ensuring good governance, and improving opportunities for women.
The EU has made much of its development aid contingent on African governments’ cooperation in addressing the EU’s security concerns. For example, on migration, Parshotam notes that an EU-Mali deal will give Mali aid in exchange for Mali taking back all citizens whose asylum claims were rejected.
But with African countries that have no stable government to work with, it becomes harder for the EU to invest in and create stability. “Libya is a failing state – there’s no central authority,” Leonard Doyle, Spokesperson of the Director General at the International Organization for Migration, told The Cipher Brief. “So the Europeans have not been able to reach a coherent agreement with Libya [on migration]. Although there is a lot of pressure now, especially militarily, to stop the smugglers, and economically as well, to help Libya get back on its feet,” he said.
“I think we are completely wrong in our policies,” said Fargues. “The amount of money contributed to African development is too small, but also in the short term and medium term, development will not curb migration,” he said, because the African population continues to grow, while Europe’s continues to shrink. “We have to get prepared for migration.”
Sharyl Attkisson’s Lawsuit Advances
She wrote a book, it is chilling and a must read, STONEWALLED. Further, Ms. Attkisson had to sue the Department of Justice to get access to the FBI file concerning her case. Why won’t the FBI show me my FBI file –as the law requires? Anyone else asking besides me, since we have a new AG at Main Justice, how come we have no declassified Fast and Furious and Benghazi just to mention a few? Any, read on…
***
Below are excerpts from the judge’s opinion, which provides a good summary.
UNITED STATES DISTRICT COURT
FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA
MEMORANDUM OPINION, by U.S. District Judge Emmet Sullivan
As an investigative reporter for CBS News, Ms. Attkisson was responsible for investigating and reporting on national news stories. Between 2011 and 2013, she investigated and prepared various high-profile news reports, including ones related to the “Fast and Furious” “gunwalking” operation and the attack on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi, Libya…
In 2011——at the same time that Ms. Attkisson was conducting investigations and issuing certain of her high-profile news reports——the Attkissons “began to notice anomalies in numerous electronic devices at their home in Virginia.” These anomalies included Ms. Attkisson’s work-issued laptop computer and a family desktop computer “turning on and off at night without input from anyone in the household,” “the house alarm chirping daily at different times,” and “television problems, including interference.” All of these electronic devices used “the Verizon FiOS line installed in [the Attkissons’] home,” but Verizon was unable to stanch the anomalous activity despite multiple attempts. In January 2012, the Attkissons’ residential internet service “began constantly dropping off.”
In February 2012, “sophisticated surveillance spyware” was installed on Ms. Attkisson’s work-issued laptop computer. A later forensic computer analysis revealed that Ms. Attkisson’s laptop and the family’s desktop computer had been the “targets of unauthorized surveillance efforts.” That same forensic analysis revealed that Ms. Attkisson’s mobile phone was also targeted for surveillance when it was connected to the family’s desktop computer. The infiltration of that computer and the extraction of information from it was “executed via an IP address owned, controlled, and operated by the United States Postal service.” Additionally, based on the sophisticated nature of the software used to carry out the infiltration and software fingerprints indicating the use of the federal government’s proprietary software, the infiltration and surveillance appeared to be perpetrated by persons in the federal government.
An independent forensic computer analyst hired by CBS subsequently reported finding evidence on both Ms. Attkisson’s work-issued laptop computer and her family’s desktop computer of “a coordinated, highly-skilled series of actions and attacks directed at the operation of the computers.” Computer forensic analysis also indicated that remote actions were taken in December 2012 to remove the evidence of the electronic infiltration and surveillance from Ms. Attkisson’s computers and other home electronic equipment.
As Ms. Attkisson’s investigations and reporting continued, in October 2012 the Attkissons noticed “an escalation of electronic problems at their personal residence, including interference in home and mobile phone lines, computer interference, and television interference.” In November of that year, Ms. Attkisson’s mobile phones “experienced regular interruptions and interference, making telephone communications unreliable, and, at times, virtually impossible.”
Additionally, in December 2012, a person with government intelligence experience conducted an inspection of the exterior of the Attkissons’ Virginia home. That investigator discovered an extra Verizon FiOS fiber optics line. Soon thereafter, after a Verizon technician was instructed by Ms. Attkisson to leave the extra cable at the home, the cable disappeared, and the Attkissons were unable to determine what happened to it. In March 2013, the Attkissons’ desktop computer malfunctioned, and in September of that year, while Ms. Attkisson was working on a story at her home, she observed that her personal laptop computer was remotely accessed and controlled, resulting in data being deleted from it. On April 3, 2013, Ms. Attkisson filed a complaint with the Inspector General of the Department of Justice. The Inspector General’s investigation was limited to an analysis of the compromised desktop computer, and the partially-released report that emerged from that investigation reported “no evidence of intrusion,” although it did note “a great deal of advanced mode computer activity not attributable to Ms. Attkisson or anybody in her household.”
The Attkissons allege that the “cyber-attacks” they “suffered in [their] home” were perpetrated by “personnel working on behalf of the United States.” Accordingly, they have asserted various claims against the United States and against former Attorney General Eric Holder, former Postmaster General Patrick Donahoe, and unknown agents of the Department of Justice, the United States Postal Service, and the United States, all in their individual capacities. Those claims include claims against the United States under the FTCA and claims against the individual federal officers for violations of constitutional rights under Bivens v. Six Unknown Named Agents of Fed. Bureau of Narcotics, 403 U.S. 388 (1971)…
Having determined that venue is improper as to the Attkissons’ FTCA claims and that the pendent venue doctrine is inapplicable, the Court may either “dismiss, or if it be in the interest of justice, transfer [this] case to any district or division in which it could have been brought.” “The decision whether a transfer or a dismissal is in the interest of justice . . . rests within the sound discretion of the district court,” Naartex Consulting Corp. v. Watt, 722 F.2d 779, 789 (D.C. Cir. 1983), but the “standard remedy for improper venue is to transfer the case to the proper court rather than dismissing it——thus preserving a [plaintiff’s] ability to obtain review.” Nat’l Wildlife Fed’n v. Browner, 237 F.3d 670, 674 (D.C. Cir. 2001). The Court will use that standard remedy here and find that
the interest of justice warrants transfer rather than dismissal so that the Attkissons’ claims can be adjudicated on the merits.
Conclusion
For the reasons stated above, defendants’ amended motion to dismiss is GRANTED IN PART and DENIED IN PART WITHOUT PREJUDICE. As to their assertion that the Attkissons’ FTCA claims are improperly venued, defendants’ motion is granted. Accordingly, this consolidated case shall be transferred in its entirety to the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia. The remainder of defendants’ amended motion to dismiss is denied without prejudice so that defendants may refile it, if appropriate, upon transfer to the Eastern District of Virginia. Likewise, the Attkissons’ motion for reconsideration of the Order denying various motions related to third-party discovery is DENIED WITHOUT PREJUDICE so that it may be refiled in and more appropriately resolved by the transferee court. An appropriate Order accompanies this Memorandum Opinion.
SO ORDERED.
Signed: Emmet G. Sullivan
United States District Judge
March 19, 2017