Category Archives: Middle East

Facts on Militant Islam Infiltration in America

Posted on by

Early on in the jihad career of Usama bin Ladin, he was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood. Table set, read on.

The Investigative Project is a stellar non-profit organization that researches and investigates all militant influence, groups and people in the United States.

IPT Exclusive: Witnesses Say CAIR’s Hamas/MB Links Cemented From Start

Like a good politician, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) repeatedly proves adept at inserting itself into national debates.

When presidential candidate Ben Carson said he could not support a Muslim president, CAIR gathered reporters to express outrage and call on Carson to drop out of the race. When a 14-year-old Texas boy was detained for bringing what he said was a homemade clock to school that a teacher feared might be a bomb, a CAIR official expressed outrage and sat by the boy’s side during news conferences and interviews.

And in the immediate aftermath of the Dec. 2 mass killings in San Bernardino by a radicalized Muslim man and his wife, CAIR called a news conference where its top Los Angeles official “unequivocally” condemned the killings.

CAIR’s aggressive approach, and a combination of media ignorance or laziness, generates uncritical television and newspaper stories throughout the country. This helps the organization reinforce its self-anointed and incorrect reputation as the voice for America’s roughly 2 million Muslims. CAIR is presented as a responsible, moderate organization.

But when cracks appear in that façade, journalists rarely rise to the occasion. Less than two days later, the same CAIR official who unequivocally condemned the San Bernardino killings appeared on CNN to blame “our foreign policy” for fueling radicalization that leads to such violence.

In blaming the United States for an attack by radical Islamists, CAIR- Los Angeles director Hussam Ayloush picked up talking points CAIR officials pushed in the wake of last month’s ISIS massacres in Paris. The aim is to keep the killers’ religious motivations out of any conversation.

“We are partly responsible,” Ayloush said about the United States. “Terrorism is a global problem, not a Muslim problem. And the solution has to be global. Everyone has a role in it.”

Anchor Chris Cuomo did not challenge this statement.

Such uncritical news coverage comes despite a well-documented record establishing CAIR’s own ties to terrorists. Internal Muslim Brotherhood records obtained by the FBI place CAIR and its founders at the core of a Brotherhood-created Hamas support network in the United States. It is a history so checkered that formal FBI policy since 2008 bars interaction with its officials except in criminal investigations.

On Thursday, CAIR legislative director Corey Saylor told the Wall Street Journal that the alleged Hamas ties were “put to rest by the Department of Justice in 2011 and now exists as an Internet story.”

This is a lie. Saylor knows that the FBI policy toward CAIR remains in effect, and it was publicly reaffirmed in 2013. And there simply is no way to “put to rest” the internal records admitted into evidence in 2008.

FBI records recently obtained by the Investigative Project on Terrorism further illustrate why CAIR merits closer scrutiny, rather than free air time, from the mainstream media. The records cement CAIR’s connections to the Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas from its very foundation, including disclosures about the only executive director CAIR has ever had – Nihad Awad.

Before he helped create CAIR 21 years ago, Awad moved from Dallas to Washington, D.C. “in order to represent Hamas,” an acquaintance said.

Awad’s co-founder Omar Ahmad sought the blessing of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt to proceed with the new political start-up. That approval went as far as getting the global Islamist movement’s blessing over CAIR’s bylaws.

These accounts came from separate sources, each of whom ran in the same Islamist circles as Awad and Ahmad, during interviews with the FBI in 2005 and in 2009-10. They were among more than 1,000 pages of FBI records released to the IPT, via a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. The IPT sought records from the 2010 deportation of another CAIR official, former national board member Nabil Sadoun.

Sadoun’s deportation resulted at least in part from his “connections to HAMAS, HAMAS leader Mousa Abu Marzook, and HAMAS front organizations,” papers filed in Immigration Court show. Sadoun was a longtime CAIR national board member and served as president of the Muslim Arab Youth Association (MAYA), the 1,013-page FOIA response shows.

“MAYA served as a conduit for money to HAMAS, through the HLF [Holy Land Foundation], and served as a forum where HAMAS could promote its ideology and recruit new members,” a February 2010 declaration filed in Sadoun’s deportation case said. He also made anti-Semitic statements and advocated for violent jihad during an interview in a MAYA publication. (For more on Sadoun, click here)

CAIR was uncharacteristically reticent when asked about Sadoun’s case in 2010. The group promotes itself as “arguably the most visible and public representative of the American Muslim community.” But questions about its connections to Hamas have dogged the organization for years. Those questions led the FBI to break off outreach contact with the group in 2008, with an associate director explaining, “until we can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and HAMAS, the FBI does not view CAIR as an appropriate liaison partner.”

CAIR’s Hamas connection is established by evidence FBI agents uncovered while investigating a Muslim Brotherhood controlled Hamas-support network in the United States. One document, coinciding with the group’s 1994 creation, places CAIR among the Brotherhood’s “Palestine Committee” branches. A 1992 internal memo, “Islamic Action for Palestine,” explains that the Brotherhood’s guidance office and international Shura Council (governing board) created Palestine Committees throughout the world “whose job it is to make the Palestinian cause victorious and to support it with what it needs of media, money, men and all of that.”

Lest there be any confusion over who benefits from the committees’ efforts, the next paragraph is devoted to Hamas. “This Movement – which was bred in the bosom of the mother movement, ‘The Muslim Brotherhood’ – restored hope and life to the Muslim nation and the notion that the flare of Jihad has not died out and that the banner of Islamic Jihad is still raised.”

CAIR officials have tried to ignore or minimize attention given to the evidence establishing the Hamas connections, or to dismiss critics who call attention to them – including the IPT – as anti-Muslim smear merchants.

Disclosures in the FOIA records the IPT obtained should be more difficult for CAIR to brush aside. They come from two former activists, both of whom were deeply involved in the same Muslim Brotherhood/Hamas-support network.

Omar Ahmad and the Muslim Brotherhood

Omar Ahmad’s CAIR bio

The FOIA records include prosecution evidence accepted by the Immigration Court and used to find Sadoun deportable on a 21-count charging document. Among the records, an FBI agent’s sworn statement from February 2010 – just days before Sadoun’s scheduled deportation hearing – which described CAIR co-founder Omar Ahmad (also known as Omar Yehia) as “one of the leaders of HAMAS.”

An FBI report from January 2005 summarizes an interview with a man who said he was “part of the Brotherhood for many years” in the United States. The FBI describes him in immigration court papers as “a former leader of the Muslim Brotherhood.”

He provided a history of the Brotherhood in America, including a power struggle pitting members who wanted more autonomy from the International Muslim Brotherhood against those who favored “a direct and official relationship.”

During the mid-1980s, the FBI source became a member of the U.S. Brotherhood’s Majlis al Shura, or governing board, and he described its structure and operation during the 2005 interview. “The Palestine Committee was the largest and most powerful nationalistic committee within the Brotherhood at that time,” the FBI summary of the interview said.

The U.S. Palestine Committee, like all national chapters throughout the world, “report directly to the IMB [international Brotherhood]’s leadership,” an FBI declaration in the Sadoun case said. A chart included in the file shows Sadoun’s connections within the network, including CAIR.

According to the witness, the U.S. Brotherhood’s estimated 1,500 to 2,000 members unanimously supported the Palestinian intifada and saw Hamas as its leader. The group then created the Holy Land Foundation to be “the Brotherhood’s primary organization to support the Intifadah,” the FBI report of the 2005 interview said.

Other branches included a think tank called the United Association for Studies and Research (UASR) and a propaganda outfit called the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP). UASR was created by Mousa Abu Marzook, a longtime Hamas political leader, along with Ahmed Yousef – later a Hamas spokesman in Gaza – and Nabil Sadoun, the longtime CAIR national board member.

UASR “published papers and books about Hamas,” the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in denying the Holy Land Foundation’s appeal.

The IAP served as the Palestine Committee’s media outlet, promoting Hamas attacks and even publishing the terrorist group’s anti-Semitic charter which calls for Israel’s annihilation. The IAP worked with the Holy Land Foundation and other groups on fundraising events with the money being routed to charities controlled by Hamas. In addition, Marzook routed more than $750,000 to the IAP between 1985 and 1992.

IAP published a booklet, “America’s Greatest Enemy: The Jew! and an Unholy Alliance!”

CAIR founders Omar Ahmad and Nihad Awad worked for the IAP immediately before launching CAIR.

Ahmad became Palestine Committee president after Marzook was deported from the United States, the FBI source said. He knew this because Ahmad “approached [name redacted] and asked the Brotherhood’s permission to start the CAIR organization.” Ahmad “requested the Brotherhood’s approval for CAIR’s by-laws, etc. YEHIA [Ahmad] wanted CAIR to work for all Muslim causes in the United States. The Brotherhood authorized the opening of CAIR because, unlike the HLF, it was not an organization that was concerned only about activities taking place in the Eastern part of the world.”

In 2010, reports surfaced that, after the successful prosecution of five former Holy Land Foundation officials for Hamas support, investigators proposed indicting Ahmad, the CAIR co-founder. That request was rejected by the Justice Department.

Information in the FOIA records, including the witness statements, offers new insight into why the investigators pushed for more.

During the Holy Land trial, evidence showed that Ahmad played a key role in organizing and leading a secret 1994 meeting of Hamas supporters in Philadelphia. It was called in response to the 1993 Oslo Accords, which offered the potential for a peace agreement between Israelis and Palestinians.

The FBI recorded the weekend-long meeting. Transcripts entered into evidence show that the group opposed the deal for two reasons: They, like Hamas, opposed any peaceful settlement to the conflict. And, the agreement empowered the secular Palestine Liberation Organization to lead the newly created Palestinian Authority, diminishing the influence and power of the Islamist Hamas movement.

Ahmad helped determine who should attend the meeting and called it to order. At one point, he acknowledged that the group cannot afford to be honest with the public about their true ideology.

“We’ve always demanded the 1948 territories,” he said, referring to all of Israel and not just the West Bank and Gaza.

“Yes, but we don’t say that publicly,” an unidentified speaker said. “You cannot say it publicly, in front of the Americans.”

“No,” Ahmad replied. “We didn’t say that to the Americans.”

Nihad Awad and Hamas

Awad participated in that 1994 meeting, too, and joined the others in following instructions to refer to Hamas only in code. Those in the meeting were admonished not to say “Hamas,” but refer instead to “sister Samah” – or Hamas spelled backward.

“If there is a political issue, a Samah’s input, for instance, about this or that, we inform people to contact their representatives,” Awad said during the Philadelphia meeting.

Awad’s true mission was spelled out during a 2010 interview FBI officials had with Mohamed Shorbagi, a former Rome, Ga. imam who pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to Hamas through donations and service to the Holy Land Foundation, and agreed to cooperate with federal prosecutors, testifying twice for the government in Hamas-support cases.

Shorbagi remembered attending the 1994 Muslim Arab Youth Association (MAYA) conference in Chicago where the Palestine Committee organized break-out sessions. Shorbagi attended a political group discussion with Nihad Awad. Awad, he was told, had been sent by the IAP to Washington “in order to educate and inform U.S. political leaders about the Palestinian cause. His job was to influence the leaders of the U.S. government in favor of the Palestinian cause,” an FBI memo summarizing the interview said.

Shorbagi had a different take: “The IAP’s only purpose was to support Hamas through media work. [Name redacted]’s job within the IAP was to work for and support Hamas and nothing else,” an FBI report from his 2009 interview said.

The head of the IAP in Dallas told Shorbagi that Awad “went to Washington, D.C. for the IAP in order to represent Hamas.” But then the idea to start CAIR came to fruition and Awad was tasked with running the new organization. “It was known in the community that CAIR was under or influenced by the IAP because its (CAIR) leadership had come from the IAP.”

The timing and the claim that Ahmad sent Awad to Washington fits with other information already in the public domain.

Awad’s own account of his move to Washington, in an article he wrote in 2000, offers a more benign motivation, but matches Shorbagi in saying it was Ahmad who “proposed that I move to Washington, D.C., where any effective national effort would have to be based.”

During a 2003 deposition in a civil lawsuit, Awad said he served as public relations chief for the Islamic Association for Palestine (IAP) in 1993, then moved to Washington “to work for CAIR.” As mentioned, the IAP was the Palestine Committee’s media arm, publishing the Hamas charter and reproducing Hamas communiques. Awad denied knowledge of this fact and claimed he had never read the Hamas charter.

In the deposition, Awad described IAP merely as a “cultural association” and denied ever seeing or reading the Hamas charter. But Shorbagi told federal investigators that “IAP ‘festivals’ championed the cause of Hamas exclusively” after the intifada. This point is clearly established by video exhibits entered into evidence during the Holy Land Foundation trial.

In March 1994, Awad was part of a panel discussion at Miami’s Barry University. He said he used to support the PLO, but “after I researched the situation inside Palestine and outside, I am in support of the Hamas movement more than the PLO.” In the 2003 deposition, he claimed this was due to Hamas social services and not because of its violent attacks against Israel.

But in a November 1994 interview with “60 Minutes,” Mike Wallace asked Awad for his views of the “military undertakings of Hamas.”

“Well, I think that’s for people to judge there,” Awad said.

Wallace asked again.

“The United Nations Charter grants people who are under occupation to defend themselves against illegal occupation,” Awad said.

In addition to being the only executive director CAIR has had, Awad also serves as a national board member.

On social media posts a year ago, Awad argued that “Israel is the biggest threat to world peace and security,” making the statement between unrelated posts about acts of brutality committed by ISIS terrorists. Since then, other senior CAIR officials have issued their own Twitter posts arguing Israel is on par with ISIS.

Hamas officials in Gaza have taken notice of Shorbagi’s cooperation with the government. They were holding his passport, his father told him, “because the Holy Land Foundation received stiff prison sentences because of [Shorbagi]’s testimony on behalf of the U.S. Government. [Shorbagi]’s family warned him not to return to Gaza even for a few minutes.”

*** Ah, but there is more and if you can stand to know more truths on Muslim Organizations in America, click here. FOIA Exposes Deported CAIR Official’s Support for Jihad

Bowe Bergdahl Full Court Martial Case Referred

Posted on by

While Bowe Bergdahl’s defense team requested a lower level referral for his desertion case, such is not the outcome. He is formally being charged with in his court martial for desertion and abandoning his post as well as mis-behavior before the enemy.

The Republicans issued a 98 page report out of the House Armed Services Committee that concluded the Obama administration violated law by not giving Congress the mandatory 30 day notice of transfer of Guantanamo detainees to Qatar of which 5 were transferred in exchange for Bergdahls’s release.

Then there is the hypocrisy of the Obama administration with regard as to paying ransom for hostages.

But there is plenty more about the Bergdahl case and it includes the FBI, failed information and money.

Inside the Botched Rescue of Bowe Bergdahl

Shane Harris/DailyBeast: The U.S. government paid a ransom in the hopes of freeing the captive American soldier, a congressman alleges. But when the FBI went to get Bowe Bergdahl, he wasn’t there.
In late February of 2014, a representative of the Federal Bureau of Investigation traveled to the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan, ready to bring home Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who had been held for nearly five years by an ally of the Taliban.The operation wasn’t announced publicly. But within U.S. national security agencies, word spread that the most well-known American hostage, who had disappeared from his remote post in Afghanistan in 2009, was about to be released. It was a particularly anxious moment because the Taliban had recently broken off talks over a potential prisoner swap for Bergdahl.But the FBI wasn’t anticipating a prisoner exchange. Instead, according to a member of Congress and another individual who is knowledgeable about the operation, the U.S. government had sent money to Bergdahl’s captors in the hopes of freeing him.

The FBI’s representative waited. But Bergdahl never came. Any hopes for his homecoming were soon eclipsed by concerns that the information that prompted the rescue effort was false or misleading. Had the FBI been duped? Had the U.S. paid a ransom for Bergdahl and been cheated?
Bergdahl was eventually freed at the end of May 2014, in exchange for five Taliban prisoners held at Guantanamo Bay. But the botched rescue operation three months earlier raised questions about whether the FBI, which is in charge of efforts to repatriate all Americans held hostage overseas, had received shoddy intelligence about where Bergdahl was being held and his condition, and if other efforts to recover Americans might also be the victim of bad intelligence.
“What we know is that non-DOD [Department of Defense] organizations, led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), undertook the recovery mission,” Rep. Duncan Hunter, who has investigated the Bergdahl case and is a critic of the Obama administration’s hostage rescue efforts, wrote in a letter Friday to the Justice Department Inspector General.

“In fact, in February 2014, it was the FBI that disclosed to military officials that Bergdahl’s release was imminent; however, after several days, nothing happened,” Hunter said.
A copy of the letter describing the FBI’s lead role, which hasn’t been previously reported, was obtained by The Daily Beast.
What had prompted the FBI to send an emissary to a dangerous border region, all while efforts were under way, albeit in fits and starts, to conduct a prisoner swap?

Hunter wrote to the the Justice Department that a senior official has claimed that the U.S. government “paid [the] Haqqani Network for Bergdahl’s release and received nothing in return.” The Haqqani are a Taliban ally that operates along the border region, and have a history of negotiating for prisoners.

Based on his own sources and information he has seen, Hunter said, the person sent by the FBI to the border “awaited Bergdahl’s arrival following some form of discussion about facilitating a payment.”

President Obama and his top aides have said many times that the U.S. will not pay ransoms for hostages, despite the willingness of the Haqqani and other groups, including al Qaeda, to barter for the lives of their captives.

But that policy is at best a half-truth. In fact, the government has paid money to hostage takers and helped hostages’ families do the same, and that practice is likely to continue, according to kidnapping ransom experts and current and former U.S. officials.

But the administration has never said it paid a ransom for Bergdahl. Instead, officials have argued that the prisoner swap was the only viable option. The administration faced opposition to the swap in Congress, after senior intelligence officials told lawmakers that the five Taliban were likely to return to hostilities against the U.S. if they were freed. And the families of some civilian hostages questioned why the president was willing to exchange prisoners for a solider but not their loved ones.

Hunter has previously raised allegations that the U.S. government paid a ransom for Bergdahl and questioned whether any intermediaries absconded with the money. But the release of a scathing report on the prisoner swap last week by the House Armed Services Committee has fueled a new effort to learn if the U.S. tried to pay for Bergdahl’s return.

Bergdahl himself is also back in the public spotlight, as the subject of Season 2 of the acclaimed podcast Serial, which premiered last week.

Some of Bergdahl’s fellow soldiers have said the Army risked lives trying to rescue him, and have accused Bergdahl of desertion. And the soldier has become a lightning rod in the 2016 presidential election. The leading Republican presidential candidate, Donald Trump, has repeatedly called Bergdahl a traitor who abandoned his post and endangered other troops who tried to rescue him.

Allegations of failed rescue missions and secret ransoms would only deepen the controversy surrounding Bergdahl’s release.

The Defense Department’s inspector general looked into the allegations of a ransom payment and determined that none was paid. But the watchdog agency has no jurisdiction over the FBI and apparently only looked at whether Pentagon funds were used. Now, Hunter wants the Justice Department to investigate the FBI’s role and whether money came from there or other sources, and if such payments violated any laws.

Two sources familiar with the FBI-led operation in 2014 said it involved no exchange of prisoners, but that there was no reason to believe Bergdahl’s captors would let him go without getting something in return. Indeed, they had already been negotiating for a prisoner swap.

By late February, word of the plan was spreading throughout the corridors of government. On Feb. 27, the committee found, an email was sent around to personnel in the National Security Council, the Defense Department, and the State Department, about a report that “[i]n approximately 7-10 days, there is the possibility that the USG may be able to recover Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl.”

The committee doesn’t identify the author of the email, but two knowledgeable sources said it refers to the FBI operation. There’s no indication from the committee’s report that anyone who received the message realized the operation was going nowhere, and that Bergdahl wasn’t about to be freed.

Some important details of the FBI-led operation remain unclear, including whether the person sent over the border was an FBI agent or a proxy.

A spokesperson for the FBI didn’t comment for this story.

But what is clear is that the Pentagon knew that the FBI was getting involved. How much military officials vetted the intelligence that prompted the bureau to go to the border, however, is an open question. Committee investigators claimed that senior military officials tried to obscure what they knew about the FBI plan, and to portray the five-for-one prisoner swap, which was backed by the administration, as the only real option being pursued.

The Defense Department “was aware of this operation and maintained situational awareness of it, but did not directly participate in it,” the Pentagon’s inspector general told the committee, referring to what sources told The Daily Beast was the FBI operation.

How closely the military and law enforcement worked together to recover Bergdahl is important for understanding whether more could have been done to secure his release without trading the five Taliban prisoners. There are also at least three Americans still being held by the Haqqani network, and understanding what has worked in the past—or hasn’t—could help speed their safe return.

The military was also pursuing a plan to rescue Bergdahl by force, the committee found, another option that apparently involved no prisoner swaps.

An email sent on Feb. 28, 2014, refers to a briefing and “slidedeck” that had been “evidently worked up by JSOC [the military’s Joint Special Operations Command], replete with a code name and an exfiltration plan,” according to the email’s anonymous author.

The email was sent to Michael Dumont, the deputy assistant secretary of defense for Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Central Asia. After receiving it, he wrote to two senior colleagues with concerns that the plan might be exposed.

“For something that was to be very, very close hold and extremely sensitive, this is starting to get out. We need to somehow shut this down and get the info back under control,” Dumont told Rear Adm. Craig Faller, who was then director of operations at U.S. Central Command, and Army Brig. Gen. Robert White, then the director of the Pakistan Afghanistan Coordination Cell for the Joint Staff.

The rescue plan was apparently never launched, and it’s not clear why. But Dumont’s email shows that the prisoner swap was not the only rescue operation on the Pentagon’s drawing board.

When the Armed Services Committee asked Dumont and other officials about alternate plans, they said they had no knowledge of them, a fact that “deeply concerned” the investigators considering there was an email trail and active discussion within several branches of government about multiple efforts, including the allegedly imminent release of Bergdahl to the FBI.

The committee asked Dumont how close any options besides the prisoner swap came to fruition. “Were you on the verge at some point [of recovering Sgt. Bergdahl]?”

Dumont responded, “During my tenure, I would say, no, we were not on the verge. Proposals that people were coming to talk to me about I thought were half-baked and ill-conceived and risky… I didn’t find anything that was viable.”

After Bergdahl was released, senior administration officials also said the trade was the only option to free him. Testifying before the Armed Services Committee in June 2014, then-Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel was asked if the prisoner swap was the only non-military alternative to get Bergdahl.

“Yes…this was the one option that we had,” Hagel said, adding that there were no other “non-kinetic” alternatives that were “serious,” that is, options for freeing Bergdahl that didn’t involve the use of force.

The congressional investigators accused the Pentagon of misrepresenting those plans and how advanced they really were.

“The fact that the Committee did not learn about any prospective alternative recovery planning efforts until related information was produced in the course of this investigation additionally illustrates the fraught oversight relationship which exists between the Committee and the Department.”

The committee said it would continue investigating Bergdahl’s release.

Mainstream Media Starts Questioning Obama Policy….

Posted on by

Political correctness got people killed and many others injured. Who started the policy of Islamic political correctness? Countless Muslim organizations in America.

From ABC News: Secret US Policy Blocks Agents From Looking at Social Media of Visa Applicants, Former Official Says

Fearing a civil liberties backlash and “bad public relations” for the Obama administration, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson refused in early 2014 to end a secret U.S. policy that prohibited immigration officials from reviewing the social media messages of all foreign citizens applying for U.S. visas, a former senior department official said.

“During that time period immigration officials were not allowed to use or review social media as part of the screening process,” John Cohen, a former acting under-secretary at DHS for intelligence and analysis. Cohen is now a national security consultant for ABC News.

One current and one former senior counter-terrorism official confirmed Cohen’s account about the refusal of DHS to change its policy about the public social media posts of all foreign applicants.

A spokesperson for the DHS, Marsha Catron, told ABC News that months after Cohen left, in the fall of 2014, the Department began three pilot programs to include social media in vetting, but current officials say that it is still not a widespread policy. A review of the broader policy is already underway, the DHS said.

The revelation comes as members of Congress question why U.S. officials failed to review the social media posts of San Bernardino terrorist Tashfeen Malik. She received a U.S. visa in May 2014, despite what the FBI said were extensive social media messages about jihad and martyrdom.

Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., demanded Sunday that the U.S. immediately initiate a program that would check the social media sites of those admitted on visas.”

“Had they checked out Tashfeen Malik,” the senator said, “maybe those people in San Bernardino would be alive.”

Former DHS under-secretary Cohen said he and others pressed hard for just such a policy change in 2014 that would allow a review of publicly-posted social media messages as terror group followers increasingly used Twitter and Facebook to show their allegiance to a variety of jihadist groups.

Cohen said officials from United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) and U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) both pressed for a change in policy.

“Immigration, security, law enforcement officials recognized at the time that it was important to more extensively review public social media postings because they offered potential insights into whether somebody was an extremist or potentially connected to a terrorist organization or a supporter of the movement,” said Cohen, who left DHS in June 2014.

Cohen said the issue reached a head at a heated 2014 meeting chaired by Homeland Security Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, other top deputies and representatives of the DHS Office of Civil Liberties and the Office of Privacy.

“The primary concern was that it would be viewed negatively if it was disclosed publicly and there were concerns that it would be embarrassing,” Cohen said in an interview broadcast on “Good Morning America” today.

Cohen said he and others were deeply disappointed that the senior leadership would not approve a review of what were publicly-posted online messages.

“There is no excuse for not using every resource at our disposal to fully vet individuals before they come to the United States,” Cohen said.

A former senior counter-terrorism official, who participated in the 2014 discussion, said, “Why the State Department and Homeland Security Department have not leveraged the power of social media is beyond me.”

“They felt looking at public postings [of foreign U.S. visa applicants] was an invasion of their privacy,” the official told ABC News. “The arguments being made were, and are still, in bad faith.”

Cohen said the disclosures by Edward Snowden about National Security Agency (NSA) surveillance policies fed concern of bad public relations that would affect the U.S. government’s standing with civil rights groups and European allies.

“It was primarily a question of optics,” said Cohen. “There were concerns from a privacy and civil liberties perspective that while this was not illegal, that it would be viewed negatively if it was disclosed publicly.”

Cohen said he and others were deeply troubled by the decision.

“If we don’t look and don’t review, we don’t know,” he said.

Officials said that because Malik used a pseudonym in her online messages, it is not clear that her support for terror groups would have become known even if the U.S. conducted a full review of her online traffic.

DHS’s Catron told ABC News the Department is “actively considering additional ways to incorporate the use of social media review in its various vetting programs,” while keeping an eye on privacy concerns.

“The Department will continue to ensure that any use of social media in its vetting program is consistent with current law and appropriately takes into account civil rights and civil liberties and privacy protections,” Catron said.

State Department records show that in 2014 the U.S. government issued nearly 10 million nonimmigrant visas, over 40,000 of which were K-1 fiancé visas like the one Malik used to enter the country.

From Ben Shapiro at DailyWire:

We already know that political correctness got Americans killed in San Bernardino. A neighbor of that delightful, non-suspicious, American-as-apple-pie couple Syed Farook and Tashfeen Malik refused to report his suspicions of nefarious activity thanks to his fear of being labeled a racist.

That fear was legitimate – the same Obama administration that tells Americans to say something if they see something is now investigating the Irving Police Department for doing just that with a Muslim teenager who brought a device that looked like a bomb to school.

But at least you could make the case that it wasn’t directly the fault of the Obama administration that the neighbor didn’t call the cops.

Not any longer.

We knew last week that not only was Malik “screened” by the Department of Homeland Security counterterrorism squad, but that she passed a criminal and national security background check using an FBI database.

Now we know something more: we know that, according to a former acting under-secretary at DHS for intelligence and analysis, the Obama administration actively prohibited its own agents from screening social media messages of foreign citizens applying for visas to enter the country. According to John Cohen, that official, “During that time period immigration officials were not allowed to use or review social media as part of the screening process.”

This is pure insanity. The same adminisitration that insists it must gather metadata from the entire population of the United States for security purposes refuses to screen the social messages of non-citizens with no American rights. Why? For public relations. Said Cohen:

Immigration, security, law enforcement officials recognized at the time that it was important to more extensively review public social media postings because they offered potential insights into whether somebody was an extremist or potentially connected to a terrorist organization or a supporter of the movement….The primary concern was that it would be viewed negatively if it was disclosed publicly and there were concerns that it would be embarrassing.

He added, “it was primarily a question of optics. There were concerns from a privacy and civil liberties perspective that while this was not illegal, that it would be viewed negatively if it was disclosed publicly.

Fourteen Americans died for optics. But that’s nothing new for the Obama administration, which has allowed thousands worldwide to die for optics.

Even Democrats acknowledge this is dangerous and idiotic policy. Senator Chuck Schumer (D-NY) admitted as much, stating, “Had they checked out Tashfeen Malik, maybe those people in San Bernardino would be alive.”

This is why Donald Trump’s blanket ban on Muslim immigration until the government can “figure things out” has suddenly spiked in popularity. According to a Rasmussen poll released Friday, “46 percent of likely voters would favor a policy preventing Muslim immigrants from entering the country until tighter security screening procedures can be implemented, while 40 percent would oppose such a measure.”

This isn’t bigotry. It’s rational distrust of a government hell-bent on protecting its own public relations ass rather than the American people.

Political correctness kills. And the Obama administration is its headman.

Top Issue for America: Terrorism or the Economy?

Posted on by

Obama has willingly ignored the global terror threat matrix telling the world that climate change is a major threat.

In part USAToday: President Obama is sticking with his view that climate change is a global threat on the order of terrorism, in part because terrorist groups like the Islamic State will be defeated in traditional ways.

“But If you start seeing the oceans rise by five, six, seven feet” and if weather patterns change to where “bread baskets to the world suddenly can no longer grow food, then you’re seeing the kind of crisis that we can’t deal with through the deployment of the Marines,” Obama said in an interview on CBS This Morning.

“We can’t deal with it through pouring money at it,” Obama added.

As for terrorism, Obama — who is seeking a global climate change agreement — said “we’re gonna get” the Islamic State.

“They will be defeated,” Obama said. “There will be ongoing efforts to disrupt the world order from terrorists, from rogue states, from cyber attacks. There’s always some bad people out there trying to do bad things. And we have to be vigilant in going after them.”

Americans Name Terrorism as Top Problem for US

Nearly one in six say so, the highest figure in a decade

FreeBeacon: Americans are most likely to name terrorism as the top problem facing the United States in the wake of the terror attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, California.

Sixteen percent of Americans name terrorism as the largest problem for the country, more than a fivefold increase over the 3 percent who said so in early November before coordinated shootings and suicide bombings killed 130 people in Paris, according to a Gallup poll released Monday.

Terrorism ranks as a higher concern than the government, which 13 percent of U.S. adults name as the top issue facing the country. Americans are also more likely to point to terrorism as the largest issue than they are the economy (9 percent) and guns (7 percent).

The share of Americans labeling terrorism the primary issue is at its highest level in a decade, though remains far below the 46 percent who said so following the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The poll also found that, though Republicans are more likely than Democrats to name terrorism as today’s biggest issue, Americans identifying with both political parties are much more likely to mention terrorism as the top problem today than they were one month ago.

Currently, nearly a quarter of Republicans name terrorism the primary issue, six times the share who did so in early November. The percentage of Democrats has tripled in one month to 9 percent, and the share of independents has jumped more than sevenfold to 15 percent.

The poll was conducted in the days following the deadly shooting at a San Bernardino office party that killed 14 people and wounded more than 20 others. The two attackers, who later died in a shootout with police, had both been radicalized for years. Both were also allegedly supporters of ISIS, the terrorist group that claimed responsibility for the attacks in Paris on November 13.

In addition to naming terrorism the top issue, Americans are also decreasingly confident in the U.S. government’s ability to protect the nation from terrorist attacks in the future, according to previously released Gallup polling. A new low of 55 percent have at least a fair amount of confidence in the government under President Obama to protect the country against terrorism, a number that has eroded 12 percentage points since June.

Americans are particularly dissatisfied with the way in which Obama has been handling ISIS, with a majority of 64 percent disapproving of the way in which the president has responded to the terror group, according to a CNN/ORC survey released last week. Majorities of both Republicans and Democrats do not believe that the U.S. military response to the terrorists has been aggressive enough.

Though a majority of adults now want the U.S. to send ground troops into combat operations against ISIS in Iraq and Syria, the Obama administration has argued that doing so is not the answer to defeating the terror group.

“While we certainly have the capability to furnish a U.S. component to such a ground force, we have not recommended this course of action for several reasons,” Defense Secretary Ash Carter told lawmakers Wednesday. “In the near term, it would be a significant undertaking that, much as we may wish otherwise, realistically, we would embark upon largely by ourselves; and it would be ceding our comparative advantage of special forces, mobility, and firepower, instead fighting on the enemy’s terms.”

“In the medium-term, by seeming to Americanize the conflicts in Iraq and Syria, we could well turn those fighting [ISIS] or inclined to resist their rule into fighting us instead,” Carter added.

 

ISIS Moves on China

Posted on by

As posted on this website on December 8th, Islamic State is aggressively recruiting in China.

The methods and objectives:

ISIS is now recruiting in China

CNBC: Terrorist group Islamic State (ISIS) is now recruiting in China, expanding its drive to attract fighters from all over the world, according to media reports.

According to terrorism monitoring website SITE intelligence Group, ISIS published a four-minute propaganda song or chant – called a “nashid” — in Mandarin to attract Chinese Muslims to Jihad, or so-called holy war.

Expanding on the languages it offers, al-Hayat Media Center of released a chant in Chinese entitled, “Mujahid”

The following media may contain sensitive material.

 

Embedded image permalink

The song, entitled “I am Mujahid” (someone engaged in holy war), features a single male voice calling for “Muslims brothers to awaken” and take up weapons. “To die fighting on the battlefield is my dream,” and “No force can stop our advance” were other lines in the song, according to Reuters.

The chant was posted online on Monday by Al Hayat Media Center, the foreign-language media division of the Islamic State, SITE Intelligence said in a Tweet Monday.

It is unknown how many Chinese Muslims have joined ISIS, but the treatment of Muslims in China – notably, Muslim Uighers in western China who are often discriminated against – has been criticized in the past.

As such, ISIS could be trying to attract disaffected Chinese Muslims to the group which is primarily based in Syria and Iraq and is trying to expand its self-proclaimed caliphate.

China has criticized Western airstrikes in Syria, saying a political solution was the only way to resolve the country’s civil war, but has become indirectly involved in the conflict. Last week, ISIS executed a Chinese hostage along with a Norwegian, according to various news reports, after it said no one had come forward to pay the ransom for their release.

Responding to the recording, China’s Foreign Ministry said that it highlighted the need for closer global cooperation against terrorism.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Hua Chunying said she could not comment on whether the recording was issued by ISIS, but said it showed that “terrorism is the common enemy of mankind” and the need to stop extremists using the internet, Reuters reported.

***

In part from ChinaDigitalTimes: The recording comes only weeks after the Islamic State executed Fan Jinghui, a Chinese national who had been held by the terrorist group for ransom. The following is an excerpt of the chant translated by Josh Chin at China Real Time:

A century of slavery, leaving that shameful memory.
Deep in ignorant slumber, the nightmare continues on.
A century of slavery, leaving that shameful memory.
Deep in ignorant slumber, the nightmare continues on.
Wake up! Muslim brother, now is the time to awaken
Take up your faith and courage, fulfill the lost doctrine.
Wake up! Muslim brother, now is the time to awaken
Take up your faith and courage, fulfill the lost doctrine.
We are Mujahid, our shameless enemy panics before us
To die fighting on this battlefield is our dream.

To this day we guard the Koran and the Sunnah.
No power can stop our progress.
To this day we guard the Koran and the Sunnah.
No power can stop our progress.
To fight against those who fight you is Great Allah’s command.
To take up weapons in rebellion is Muhammad’s order.
To fight against those who fight you is Great Allah’s command.
To take up weapons in rebellion is Prophet Muhammad’s order
We are Mujahid, our shameless enemy panics before us
To die fighting on this battlefield is our dream. [Source]