Death is the Sentence, Orlando Mosque, Seminary, Gangs

Posted on June 12, 2016June 12, 2016 by Denise Simon

Father of Orlando shooter hosted political show on Afghan-Pakistan issues

Reuters: The Afghan-born father of Omar Mateen, the man police identified as the gunman who killed 50 people at a packed gay nightclub in Florida on Sunday, hosted a political show on an U.S.-based Afghan satellite channel that took a hard anti-Pakistan line.

ijreview

In an interview with NBC News on Sunday, Seddique Mateen, also known as Mir Siddique, said his son’s rampage had “nothing to do with religion.”

He described an incident in downtown Miami in which his son saw two men kissing in front of his wife and child and he became very angry.

“We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident,” NBC News quoted him as saying. “We weren’t aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country.”

Seddique Mateen lives in Florida, according to public records, but it was not immediately known when came to the United States. He did not immediately return messages left on his phone, which appeared to be turned off, or respond to an email.

Omar Khatab, the owner of the California-based satellite channel Payam-e-Afghan, said in an interview that Seddique Mateen occasionally bought time on his channel to broadcast a show called “Durand Jirga,” which focused in part on the disputed Durand Line, the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan demarcated by the Indian subcontinent’s former British rulers.

“Three or four times a year, he would show up in Southern California,” Khatab said in a phone interview on Sunday. “He’d talk for about two to three hours. He’d buy his own time and come here and broadcast and leave within a day.”

Khatab said Seddique Mateen’s political views were largely anti-Pakistan.

One of Seddique Mateen’s videos refers to the “killer ISI” – the acronym for Pakistan’s main military-run intelligence service – and says the agency is the “creator and father of the world’s terrorism.”

U.S. officials have accused Pakistani intelligence of backing violence against U.S. targets in Afghanistan, although Pakistan denies the allegations.

A U.S. congressman said Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old Florida resident and U.S. citizen, may have pledged allegiance to the Islamic State militant group.

U.S. officials cautioned that they had no immediate evidence of any direct connection with Islamic State or other foreign extremist group, nor had they uncovered any contacts between the gunman and any such group.

Fifty-three people were wounded in the rampage. It was the deadliest single U.S. mass shooting incident, eclipsing the 2007 massacre of 32 people at Virginia Tech university.

Seddique Mateen interviewed Afghan President Ashraf Ghani in January 2014, according to a video posted on his YouTube channel. The interview touched on economic development and youth unemployment in Afghanistan. Khatab said Mateen conducted the interview in Kabul and brought it to California for broadcast.

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The connections are deeper, they include an American suicide bomber that the Orlando shooter Omar met with face to face. Then there is al Nusra and the Khorasan Group. The suicide bomber was Abusalha and his father is a Palestinian. Read the whole story here.

Omar Mateen had been investigated by the FBI twice before, in 2013 and then in 2014. The first investigation took place in 2013 when he made inflammatory comments to co-workers that indicated sympathy for terrorists. He was investigated and interviewed twice but the FBI was “unable to verify the substance of his comments,” FBI Assistant Special Agent In charge Ronald Hopper said.

Then in 2014, Hopper said,Mateen was investigated and interviewed again, this time for suspected connections to Moner Mohammad Abu-Salha, an American citizen who became a suicide bomber in Syria in 2014. Hooper said Mateen’s contact with Abu-Sallah was minimal and it was deemed that “he did not constitute a substantive threat at that time.

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FNC: The gunman who murdered at least 50 people in a Florida nightclub early Sunday morning was a follower of a controversial gang leader-turned-bank robber who was released from prison last year despite warnings from prosecutors that he would recruit people to carry out violent acts, sources told FoxNews.com.

Omar Mateen, whose bloody siege inside a packed Orlando gay nightclub ended when SWAT teams stormed the building and killed him, was a radical Muslim who followed Marcus Dwayne Robertson, a law enforcement source said.

Marcus Dwayne Robertson, a former U.S. Marine known to his supporters at his Orlando-based Fundamental Islamic Knowledge Seminary as “Abu Taubah.”

“It is no coincidence that this happened in Orlando,” said a law enforcement source familiar with Robertson’s history of recruiting terrorists and inciting violence. “Mateen was enrolled in [Robertson’s online] Fundamental Islamic Knowledge Seminary.”

Robertson and several associates were rounded up for questioning early Sunday, according to law enforcement sources, a development his attorney refused to confirm or deny.

“No comment,” Corey Cohen said in an email reply when asked if his longtime client was in custody. Police also did not confirm or deny picking up Robertson.

This undated image provided by the Orlando Police Department shows Omar Mateen, the shooting suspect at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., Sunday, June 12, 2016. The gunman opened fire inside the crowded gay nightclub early Sunday before dying in a gunfight with SWAT officers, police said. (Orlando Police Department via AP) (The Associated Press)

FoxNews.com has reported extensively on Robertson, a former U.S. Marine who served as a bodyguard to the Blind Sheik involved in the 1993 World Trade Center Attack and led a gang of New York bank robbers called “Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves” before resurfacing in Orlando, where he started an Islamic seminary.

The school, recently renamed the Timbuktu Seminary, is operated by Robertson, a 47-year-old firebrand known to his thousands of followers as Abu Taubah.

Robertson, who recently spent four years in prison in Florida on illegal weapons and tax fraud charges before being released by a Florida judge one year ago, has openly and enthusiastically preached against homosexuality. The targets of Mateen’s bloody rampage were members of the gay community of Orlando, an hour’s drive from the 29-year-old’s home in Fort Pierce.

Prosecutors said wiretaps from 2011 proved Robertson instructed one of his students, Jonathan Paul Jimenez, to file false tax returns to obtain a tax refund to pay for travel to Mauritania for terror training.

Jimenez studied with Robertson for a year in preparation for his travel to Mauritania, where he would study and further his training in killing, suicide bombing, and identifying and murdering U.S. military personnel. He pleaded guilty in 2012 to lying to authorities and conspiring to defraud the IRS and was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison.

Robertson was arrested on a firearms charge in 2011 and pleaded guilty in January 2012. On March 14, 2012, federal authorities charged him with conspiring to defraud the IRS, which he was convicted of in December 2013.

While in the John E. Polk Correctional Facility in Seminole County, Robertson was considered so dangerous, he was kept in shackles and assigned his own guards. Whenever he was transported to court, a seven-car caravan of armed federal marshals escorted him. He was initially moved into solitary confinement after prison authorities believed he was radicalizing up to 36 of his fellow prisoners.

In seeking enhanced terrorism charges during sentencing for the two crimes, prosecutors said Robertson has been involved with terrorism activities, “…focused on training others to commit violent acts as opposed to committing them himself” … “overseas instead of inside the United States.”

Yet efforts by federal prosecutors to tack on another 10 years to his sentence, based on enhanced terrorism charges under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, were not persuasive enough for U.S. District Judge Gregory Presnell, who freed Robertson in June 2015 with time served.

Robertson had denied being involved with terrorist activities, in court and in postings on social media and in statements from his attorney to Fox News.

Federal law enforcement has been familiar with Robertson since 1991.

As a former U.S. Marine who became the leader known as “Ali Baba” of a notorious New York gang “Ali Baba and the 40 Thieves”, Robertson and his crew robbed more than 10 banks, private homes and post offices at gunpoint, shot three police officers, and attacked one cop after he was injured by a homemade pipe bomb.

During the same period, federal authorities claimed Robertson served as a bodyguard to Omar Abdel Rahman, nicknamed the “Blind Sheik,” who led the terrorist group that carried out the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and donated more than $300,000 in stolen funds to mosques he attended, both claims Robertson denied. Robertson has adamantly denied the claims.

After he was arrested in 1991 along with most of the other members of the gang, prosecutors cut a deal with Robertson, and let him serve four years in prison before going to work undercover for the FBI between 2004 and 2007 to document terrorists’ plans and networks in Africa, Egypt and the United States.

Many of the court’s filings, including Robertson’s own testimony from his most recent criminal case, remain under federal seal, which means only prosecutors, the judge and the defense can review the records.

Cohen told FoxNews.com in a statement that his client “never taught or condoned violence in any way.”

“In fact for his federal case the judge did not find terrorist acts, which led to his sentence of time served,” Cohen sai

Orlando Jihadi was Known to FBI, Kill List

Posted on June 12, 2016June 12, 2016 by Denise Simon

West LA Arrest just made in Los Angeles. Why? ****

The shooter worked for G4S, a corrupt company this site wrote about last week.

Caliphate kill list was distributed via the app called Telegram and that is an encrypted platform. More data is here.

The ex-wife said she met Omar Mateen online about eight years ago and decided to move to Florida and marry him.

At first, the marriage was normal, she said, but then he became abusive. He has a 3 year old son.

“He was not a stable person,” said the ex-wife, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feared for her safety in the wake of the mass shooting. “He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn’t finished or something like that.” More here from WaPo.

TCPalm: Mateen has multiple ties to the Treasure Coast. Here are the local connections:

Mateen, born in New York, lived in an apartment complex in the 2500 block of South 19^th Street in Fort Pierce. Law enforcement was at the complex Sunday.

He also received mail at his parents’ home in the 900 block of Southwest Bayshore Boulevard in Port St. Lucie. Law enforcement remained at the home Sunday with his family.

He received degrees in science in 2006 and 2007 from Indian River State College. However, further details about how long he attended the school were unavailable.

He attended his freshman year of high school at Martin County High School. It’s unclear whether he attended MCHS after that.

Mateen married Sitora Yusufiy of Port St. Lucie in 2009, according to court documents. They divorced two years later in 2011, St. Lucie County court records show.

Mateen has no state criminal record, according to Florida Department of Law Enforcement records.

Omar Mateen’s freshman year high school yearbook photo at Martin County High School.

Omar Mateen’s father was an activist for the Taliban. Note the radio network that gave him airtime, Payem e Afghan, a radio show in California called Durand Jirga. (video link) Much more on the father being a full supporter of the Taliban here.

Omar worked security at a juvenile facility.

Islamic State (ISIS) has put out an official statement;

Pulse

Omar was investigated twice. He was a state licensed security guard and owned the weapon legally. Born in New York of Afghan parents. He was married to a woman from Uzbekistan.

Governor Scott declared a state of emergency.

Rep Schiff, top Dem on House Intel, says on CNN he was told shooter made pledge of allegiance to ISIL,cautions still early in investigation.

Omar Mateen Terrorist was 29-Year-Old Islamic Radical (PHOTO)

The killer in the Orlando nightclub slaughter is 29-year-old Omar Mateen. TMZ has done a records search and found he held a Florida security officer license and a state firearms license.

He’s an American citizen and he has family that are not — his parents are Afghan. Authorities say he was a terrorist and was targeting gays. They say in addition to terrorism this is a hate crime.

Authorities also believe he is part of the radical Islam movement, although they do not know if it was an organized attack or if he was a lone wolf. Authorities also believe Mateen specifically targeted a gay club.

Mateen’s father told NBC News, “This has nothing to do with religion.” He says his son became angry after seeing 2 men kissing a few months ago in Miami, and he speculates that could have triggered his decision to kill.

Law enforcement says Mateen was well prepared, with an assault weapon, a handgun and 2 suspicious devices.

The NYPD tells TMZ, Mateen has no association with the department, and that the shirts he was photographed in were unofficial garments that could be purchased at any store.

50 people were murdered and another 53 injured inside Pulse nightclub in Orlando. It’s the biggest slaughter at the hands of a gunman in American history.

Take a look at the pic below … it’s a police helmet with a bullet hole. The helmet saved the officer’s life, although he suffered facial injuries.

Police descended on Mateen’s home to search shortly after the massacre. More here from TMZ

The gunman entered the crowded Pulse nightclub, a popular gay club, on Sunday night and opened fire before dying in a gunfight with SWAT officers. Orlando Police Chief John Mina said the suspect took hostages before law enforcement officials took out the shooter.

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We were warned but who heard those warnings?

ISIS ‘kill list’ targets Palm Beach, Treasure Coast residents: Ex-FBI agent

WWMT: A pro-Isis group has released a hit list with the names of more than 8,000 peoplemostly Americans.

More than 600-people live in Florida, and one security expert believes that many of those targeted live in Palm Beach County and on the Treasure Coast.

The “United Cyber Caliphate” that hacked U.S. Central Command, 54,000 Twitter accounts and threatened President Barack Obama is the same pro-Isis group that’s reportedly created a “kill list” with the names, addresses and emails of thousands of civilian Americans.

Reports of the list came to light online when Vocativ reported the list was shared via the encrypted app, Telegram, and called on supporters to kill.

Former FBI agent-turned lawyer Stuart Kaplan says the threat is especially alarming, because the people on this list are civilians who don’t have the security necessary to protect themselves.

“It’s going to create some hysteria,” he said.

Kaplan believes civilians from our community are on the list.

“I would suspect a head of a hospital or, perhaps, a local community leader. Those are the individuals that may appear on the list–or just a local banker or local school teacher–someone who, for some reason, was in the public eye.”

Kaplan is concerned the list will inspire “lone wolf” style attacks.

“If in fact a sympathizer gets ahold of this list and is readily able to identify you as being his neighbor and, then, decides (because they’re a sympathizer) to go out and do something horrific to you, there is no way to calculate the potential or to prevent that.”

The list has not yet been made public.

We reached out to the FBI, the Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office and Martin County Sheriff’s Office to see how credible they view the threat and what action they might be taking.

We are awaiting their response.

According to the Martin County Sheriffs office,the FBI is aware of this and the agency will work closely with the Joint-Terrorism Task Force to keep citizens safe.

Latin America, Hezbollah Moving Cocaine, Funding Terror

Posted on June 10, 2016June 10, 2016 by Denise Simon

Hezbollah moving ‘tons of cocaine’ in Latin America, Europe to finance terror operations

Taylor/Dinan/WashingtonTimes: Hezbollah’s terrorism finance operations are thriving across Latin America months after the Drug Enforcement Administration linked the Iran-backed Lebanese militant group to drug cartels in the region, U.S. lawmakers were told this week.

Former DEA operations chief Michael Braun said Hezbollah is “moving [multiple] tons of cocaine” from South America to Europe and has developed “the most sophisticated money laundering scheme or schemes that we have ever witnessed.”

The agency announced in February that it had arrested several Hezbollah operatives accused of working with a major Colombian drug cartel to traffic drugs to Europe and launder money through Lebanon. Those arrests come against a backdrop of rising fears in Washington about smuggling connections between Middle East terrorist groups and the Western Hemisphere.

Hezbollah has “metastasized into a hydra with international connections that the likes of [the Islamic State] and groups like al Qaeda could only hope to have,” Mr. Braun told the House Financial Services Committee.

Adding to concerns about security threats from Central and South America, intelligence reports have also tracked how smugglers managed to sneak illegal immigrants from the Middle Eastern and South Asia straight to the doorstep of the U.S. — including helping one Afghan who U.S. authorities say was part of an attack plot in North America.

Immigration officials identified at least a dozen Middle Eastern men smuggled into the Western Hemisphere by a Brazilian-based network that connected them with Mexicans who guided them to the U.S. border, according to internal government documents reviewed this month by The Washington Times.

Those smuggled included Palestinians, Pakistanis and the Afghan man who Homeland Security officials said had family ties to the Taliban and was “involved in a plot to conduct an attack in the U.S. and/or Canada.”

Concerns about Hezbollah’s activities in Latin America have surged the DEA’s announcement in February that top operatives from the group’s so-called Business Affairs Component, or BAC, “have established business relationships” with South American drug cartels such as the Colombia-based Oficina de Envigado, a crime syndicate “responsible for supplying large quantities of cocaine to the European and United States drug markets.”

The DEA said several of the BAC’s Europe-based operatives had been arrested on charges of trafficking drugs and laundering money from South America to purchase weapons and finance the group’s military activities in Syria. The agency described an intricate network of money couriers who collect and transport millions of euros in drug proceeds from Europe to the Middle East.

“The currency is then paid in Colombia to drug traffickers,” it said, adding that “a large portion of the drug proceeds was found to transit through Lebanon, and a significant percentage of these proceeds are benefiting terrorist organizations, namely Hezbollah.”

The DEA said seven countries, including France, Germany, Italy and Belgium, were involved in an ongoing investigation. But few details were provided about how many suspects had been apprehended or where they are being held.

Officials said the most significant arrest was of Mohamad Noureddine, whom the DEA accused of being a Lebanese money launderer for Hezbollah. A week prior to the announcement, the Treasury Department had imposed sanctions freezing any U.S. accounts tied to Mr. Noureddine as well as to Hamdi Zaher El Dine, another suspected money launderer.

Decades of activity

U.S. officials have long been wary of Hezbollah, a Shiite Islamic group.

While it has a mainstream political arm in Lebanon, officials have linked the group to terrorist attacks in various corners of the world over the past 25 years — the vast majority targeting Israel. The State Department listed Hezbollah as a terrorist organization in the late 1990s and has characterized Iran as a leading state sponsor of terrorism largely on grounds that it supplies the group with weapons.

But the full scope of Hezbollah’s operations has long been a subject of debate in Washington. The DEA’s recent claims followed years of speculation about Iranian activities in Latin America.

Responding to pressure from Republican lawmakers, the State Department conducted a formal probe into the matter in 2013 and issued a report claiming that Iran was not supporting any active terrorist cells in the region.

While the report said the number of Iranian officials operating in Latin America had increased, the report concluded Tehran had far less influence in Latin America than critics claimed.

But former officials like Mr. Braun, who retired as DEA chief of operations in 2008, say Hezbollah is extremely active in the region.

President Obama signed the “Hizballah International Financing Prevention Act” last year, authorizing a range of actions, including sanctions, to block Hezbollah’s ability to fund itself.

Emanuele Ottolenghi, a senior fellow on Iran and illicit finance with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, told lawmakers at Wednesday’s hearing that Congress and the administration should use the law to “aggressively focus” on Hezbollah’s presence in Latin America.

Brazilian connection

Mr. Ottolenghi pointed to the group’s “vast network of support,” particularly in Brazil, which is home to some 7 million people of Lebanese descent, including an estimated 1 million Shiite Muslims.

“Hezbollah generates loyalty among the local Shia communities by managing their religious and educational structures,” Mr. Ottolenghi told the hearing. “It then leverages loyalty to solicit funds and use business connections to its own advantage, including, critically, to facilitate its interactions with organized crime.”

He cited a 2014 report by the Brazilian newspaper O Globo that outlined a connection between Hezbollah and the Primeiro Comando da Capital, a Sao Paulo-based prison gang, which is widely regarded to be among the country’s biggest exporters of cocaine.

“Drug cartels need middlemen, as well as commodity and service providers, for the supply line and delivery to cartels in Colombia, Venezuela and Central America,” Mr. Ottolenghi said. “They need assistance facilitating transit to West Africa before drugs cross the Sahara on their way to Western Europe and enabling the producers, refiners and cartels to launder their revenues and acquire the accessories for the trade in the process.”

Global Human Trafficking, Here at Home

Posted on June 9, 2016June 9, 2016 by Denise Simon

Pigs Fly, the UN Finally Admitted Global Sex Violence/Trafficking

Even CNBC is Sounding Alarm on Smuggling at Southern Border

Reps. Cohen, Kinzinger, Cárdenas and Wagner Introduce Bipartisan Human Trafficking Bill

June 9, 2016

Press Release

[WASHINGTON, DC] – Congressman Steve Cohen (D-TN), Congressman Adam Kinzinger (R-IL), Congressman Tony Cárdenas (D-CA) and Congresswoman Ann Wagner (R-MO) yesterday introduced H.R. 5405, the Stop, Observe, Ask and Respond (SOAR) to Health and Wellness Act. This bipartisan legislation would provide health care professionals at all levels training on how to identify and appropriately treat human trafficking victims. It is a companion bill to S. 1446, which was introduced by Senators Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) and Susan Collins (R-ME).

“Human trafficking is a hidden crime that impacts hundreds of thousands of people across the U.S., and many of these victims end up in a health care setting while being exploited,” said Congressman Cohen. “Our bill aims to ensure health care professionals are trained to identify victims of human trafficking and provide them with critical, victim-centered health care. Our bill also enables health care providers to implement protocols and procedures to work with victims, service organizations, and law enforcement so that victims can get proper support and perpetrators of human trafficking are brought to justice. I would like to thank Reps. Kinzinger, Cárdenas and Wagner for joining me in introducing this bill.”

“It is critical that our health care providers are trained to recognize cases of human trafficking and have the proper procedures to best help those most vulnerable,” said Rep. Kinzinger. “I’m proud to be an original cosponsor of the SOAR Act and I believe this pilot program will have a significant impact towards identifying cases of human trafficking and helping more victims across the country from this disgusting crime.”

“Human trafficking has grown into a large scale industry that is disproportionately geared towards women,” said Rep. Cárdenas. “This is just one of the many reasons why I did not hesitate to become an original cosponsor of the SOAR bill. Victims of trafficking suffer long-term effects, and with the introduction of new research, it is evident that the people who seek help can be identified and properly cared for by trained professionals. It is time to use this information in order to help stop the growth of the trafficking industry and facilitate the well-being of both survivors and victims.”

“Education and awareness are critical in the fight to end human trafficking. This legislation will provide health care providers on all levels with the appropriate training and tools necessary to identify and report potential cases of human trafficking,” said Congresswoman Wagner. “With tens of thousands of victims being trafficked in the United States each year, I am happy to work with my colleagues across the aisle to introduce and quickly pass this legislation.”

“Victims of human trafficking are hidden in plain sight – making those in captivity unrecognizable even to our most trusted professionals like doctors and nurses,” said Senator Heitkamp. “By implementing across the country the successes of health worker pilot training programs in North Dakota, my bipartisan bill with Sen. Collins would help provide the critical tools medical professionals need to recognize and protect victims of human trafficking. Today’s introduction of our bill in the U.S. House of Representatives is a critical step toward putting an end to human trafficking by identifying victims and getting them the support they need.”

“Sex trafficking is a heinous crime that tragically affects every corner of America. Human traffickers prey upon the most vulnerable, often homeless or runaway children,” said Senator Collins. “Identification is a crucial, and frequently missed, step in helping victims and stopping these atrocities. This bipartisan legislation would expand a successful pilot program at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to ensure that more health care providers have the training to identify, report, and treat these cases, which will help us shine a light on some of the darkest stories imaginable and protect victims of these detestable crimes.”

The Stop, Observe, Ask and Respond (SOAR) to Health and Wellness Act supports efforts underway at the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to combat human trafficking by directing the Secretary to establish a pilot program to be known as ‘Stop, Observe, Ask and Respond to Health and Wellness Training.’ While human trafficking victims are often difficult to identify, a reported 68 percent of trafficking victims end up in a health care setting at some point while being exploited, including in clinics, emergency rooms and doctor’s offices. Despite this, out of more than 5,680 hospitals in the country, only 60 have been identified as having a plan for treating patients who are victims of trafficking and 95 percent of emergency room personnel are not trained to treat trafficking victims. The SOAR Act will help close the gap in health care settings without plans for treating human trafficking victims.

**** How bad is it?

BBC: Dubbed “the General”, Mered Medhanie is alleged to have led a multi-billion dollar empire which specialised in people-smuggling.

Mered Medhanie styled himself on the late Libyan leader Col Muammar Gaddafi

A 35-year-old Eritrean, he came to public attention after being linked to the worst migrant disaster at sea – the deaths of 359 migrants in October 2013 after their boat sank near the Italian island of Lampedusa.

Canada-based barrister Christine Duhaime, who specialises in money-laundering legislation, said Mr Mered was suspected to be a ringleader of the people-smuggling network which stretched across Africa and Europe.

“He is notorious just for the fact that he controlled a lot of money and a lot of people,” she told the BBC’s Newsday programme.

“As kingpin, the amount of money that went through him is apparently in the billions.” More to the story here.

Egypt on Full Terror Alert from Islamic State

Posted on June 9, 2016June 9, 2016 by Denise Simon

Egypt – On the 10th of Rabī’ al-Ākhir, Islamic State covert units blew up a house rigged with explosives when it was stormed by a number of murtadd Egyptian policemen and their commanding officers on al-Haram Street in Giza, killing 10 of them – including officers – and injuring 20 more, including Muhammad Amīn, the chief of the investigations division for al-Haram. Just 11 days later, two soldiers of the Khilāfah set out towards a security checkpoint belonging to the murtadd Egyptian police in the region of al-Munīb in Giza. More here from the most recent issue of Dabiq, the Islamic State online publication.

Islamic State posts video threatening to blow up Giza Pyramids, Sphinx

MadaMasr: The Islamic State posted a new video threatening to destroy Egypt’s Giza Pyramids, the last remaining wonder of the ancient world, along with the Sphinx. The video also revealed footage of the militant group’s alleged destruction of the ancient Assyrian temple of Nabu in Iraq.

Released on Tuesday, the video includes images of the ancient temple of Abu Simbel in the Aswan governorate in Egypt, warning that the militant group will destroy such “idols.”

An Islamic State member, identified in the video as Abu Nasser al-Ansari, calls on Muslims not to identify with the history and cultural heritage of ancient artifacts and “idols” because they “are the works of infidels and Satan.” Early Muslim leaders were determined to destroy the pyramids in Egypt, yet “despite their intentions, this was not possible,” the militant explained.

“Today, however, we do have the means to carry out this great endeavor,” Ansari stated.

The video moves to an Islamic State member standing outside the ancient temple of Nabu in Iraq, who talks about of the responsibility of “believers” to destroy idols, while a bulldozer is seen plowing through the 2,500 year-old monument. Another segment of the video shows part of the temple being destroyed using explosives.

The video’s narrator claims that contemporary Muslims are following in the footsteps of the infidels, taking pride in temples built by idolaters “on the basis that they represent civilization.”

“What some people refer to as civilization – such as the pyramids and large idols — are in fact symbols of repression, ignorance, and moral degeneracy of those deviant societies,” the narrator states. “Civilization is not measured according to their buildings and construction works, but is measured by how peoples obey God’s ordinances.”

Egyptian news outlets, however, have largely dismissed the threats against any ancient Egyptian artifacts. The state-owned Al-Akhbar news portal reported on Wednesday that it would be impossible to execute operations of this scale, as police forces guard the Giza Pyramids complex heavily.

In its coverage on Wednesday, the privately owned Youm7 news portal also cited the presence of x-ray machines at the entrances to the Giza Pyramids, surveillance cameras, a bomb squad at the site, sniffer dogs, as well as a large number of police personnel and guards from the Antiquities Ministry, as reasons why the Islamic State’s cannot carry out its latest terrorist threat.

However, despite the heavy security presence within the pyramids complex, armed assailants managed to shoot dead two policemen at the entrance of the site in June 2015, although no militant group claimed responsibility for the incident.

Since its emergence in 2014, the Islamic State and its affiliates have destroyed large parts of the Nineveh Wall in Mosul, an ancient Assyrian gateway lion in Syria’s Islamic State-controlled Raqqa province, along with the temples of Baalshamin and Bel in Palmyra, and artifacts found within the Museum of Mosul.

The Islamic State’s destruction has not been limited to pagan temples and artifacts, but also a host of Shi’a shrines and tombs, old Christian monasteries and churches, and the Ottoman-era Tal Afar Citadel in northern Iraq.

Egypt’s police and Armed Forces have been engaged in counter-terrorism campaigns for several years in the Sinai peninsula in attempt to flush out radical armed Islamist elements – particularly the group formerly known as Ansar Beit al-Maqdes, which pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in November 2014, changing its name to the Province of Sinai.