Category Archives: Middle East

Soros: Hey Refugees, AmericaisBetter.org

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A group masquerading as conservative but backed by left-wing foundations including George Soros’ Foundation to Promote Open Society (FPOS) has launched an online advertising campaign in defense of bringing Syrian refugees to the United States.

http://action.immigrationforum.org/p/dia/action3/common/public/?action_KEY=21750

Breitbart: The banner ads bear tag lines like, “Support freedom, not fear,” and, “America is better when we welcome refugees.” They lead to a microsite located at Americaisbetter.org with Old Glory-clothed, American flag-waiving young people, with a light-skinned blonde leading the way for others who appear to be ethnic minorities partially or fully obscured behind her.

The site in turn quotes conservative icon former president Ronald Reagan, saying, “America is better when we embrace President Reagan’s ‘shining city … teeming with people of all kinds, living in harmony and peace.’”

The site derides “who would make us react in fear of those different from us.” It continues, “As commander in chief, Reagan kept America safe. At the same time, he was the world’s ‘Great Liberator,’ in the words of British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher. He welcomed refugees from the Soviet Union, Cuba, Vietnam, and elsewhere.”

“From a faith perspective,” (emphasis in the original) the site argues, “we must not blame victims who are fleeing the evil from which we also seek to protect ourselves. We are called to love our neighbor as ourselves, not slam the door in his face.”

Ironic considering that Mr. Soros is an avowed atheist who has said he “grew up in a Jewish, anti-semitic home,” that his parents were “uncomfortable with their religious roots,” and whose foundations have supported Planned Parenthood and other ultra-liberal organizations.

The site likewise quotes unnamed “security experts” as supporting the screening process. The quote in fact comes from John Sandweg, Former Acting Director, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, a former criminal defense attorney “whose appointment to the post raised eyebrows because of his scant law enforcement experience,” and who resigned after just five months on the job.

At the time of his appointment, Rep. John Carter (R-TX) , R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Appropriations Subcommittee, reacted with horror: “I am deeply disappointed by this appointment and believe it is disrespectful to the thousands of dedicated professionals at ICE who are working tirelessly to enforce our laws and provide for our security…I urge the administration to re-think this appointment and promptly appoint a qualified, confirmable applicant for this essential post.”

Members of Congress also derided the choice as an example of the “blatant politicization” of ICE under President Obama. As a criminal defense attorney, Sandweg represented “accused and convicted murderers, sex offenders and pedophiles and fought for the release of violent convicted offenders.”

The site also shamelessly claims that “we know that refugees are not a burden, but instead represent a valuable, hardworking community of grateful residents who enrich our communities and help our businesses,” in spite of the fact that nearly 70% of refugees were on welfare and over 90% were on food stamps between 2008 and 2013, according to data drawn from the Obama Administration’s own Office of Refugee Resettlement.

The site concludes with, “Conservative Voices” including well-known moderates former Gov. Jeb Bush, R-Tex., former Amb. Ryan Crocker, currently the dean of the George Bush School of Government and Public Service at Texas A&M University, and Michael Gerson and Kathleen Parker, both columnists at the Washington Post.

In spite of its transparent attempt to ape conservative rhetoric, funding for the National Immigration Forum comes overwhelmingly from left-wing foundations including not just Soros’ FPOS, but the Carnegie Corporation of New York, John S. and James L. Knight Foundation, and the Ford Foundation.

The truth is that, as the overwhelming bipartisan U.S. House vote indicated today, not even a majority of Democrats in the public still back President Obama’s suicidal plan to bring 10,000 Syrians to America.

The truth is, it’s the furthest-left forces in America, who for 50 years have systematically worked to bring what they hope will be future leftist voters into the country, that are using a sock-puppet front group to try to persuade conservatives to leave themselves open to a Paris-style attack.

 

POTUS Remains in Denial as Paris Attackers on US Watchlist

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Reuters: The U.S. officials said four of the attackers who have been publicly named by France were listed before the attacks in TIDE, a central, highly classified database of raw information maintained by the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC), a division of the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. They did not name those who were listed in TIDE. A paper issued by NCTC last year reported that as of December 2013, TIDE contained “about 1.1 million persons,” many including “multiple minor spelling variations of their names.”

According to the officials, the names of the attackers had been entered into the database after European authorities shared information with the United States. They are not believed to be citizens or residents of the United States, though thousands of names of U.S. citizens are in the database.

Separately, the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC), which is maintained by an official with the FBI, compiles a large list of terrorist suspects called the Terrorist Screening Database in addition to two more selective lists called the “select list” and the “no fly” list.

Three of the anonymous U.S. officials said that one of the Paris attackers, and perhaps more, was on the “no fly” list. A spokesman for TSC would not confirm or deny the report.

Airlines are required to give lists of passengers to TSC so the government entity can screen passengers before flights depart.

The gun attacks and suicide bombings in Paris last Friday killed 129 people and wounded over 350 others. Authorities believe that nine people were behind the attacks, eight of whom are now dead.

Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the terrorist who French authorities suspected was the ringleader behind the attacks, was killed in a police raid in the Paris suburb of Saint-Denis Wednesday.

*** Barack Obama refuses reality as noted by the Weekly Standard:

Speaking to reporters at the G20 summit in Antalya, Turkey, Obama said that, while the Paris attacks might have been a “setback” for his ISIS strategy, they would not change it. When reporters expressed surprise at his continued embrace of an approach that was failing, he lashed out at them for daring to question him. At a time when an American president might have been expected to show some righteous anger at the attackers and those who enabled them, Obama instead directed his fury towards critics at home who worry about jihadist violence against the homeland. It was a shameful spectacle, and a revealing one.

Barack Obama remains committed to a failed strategy against an enemy he has long underestimated in a war he has no plans to win. Nothing has changed. And this time, what’s past truly is prologue.

In an interview with ABC News the day before Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists killed more than 130 people in multiple, coordinated attacks in Paris, Obama told George Stephanopoulos that the terror group had been “contained.” Stephanopoulos had asked Obama a straightforward question: “ISIS is gaining strength, aren’t they?”

“Well, no, I don’t think they’re gaining strength,” Obama responded. “What is true is that from the start our goal has been first to contain, and we have contained them. They have not gained ground in Iraq. And in Syria they’ll come in, they’ll leave. But you don’t see this systematic march by [ISIS] across the terrain. What we have not yet been able to do is to completely decapitate their command and control structures. We’ve made some progress in trying to reduce the flow of foreign fighters.”  (The full article is a long, but a MUST read and can be found here.)

ISIS Targets are Nominated, POTUS Refuses 75%

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Is John Kerry at odds with the White House? Does Kerry even talk to the White House when it comes to the war against Islamic State? The White House is running the conflict against ISIS but refuses to prosecute it with conventional engagement rules.

Reuters: U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry said on Thursday the United States has the ability to “neutralize” Islamic State much faster than it was able to do with al Qaeda.

“We are going to defeat Daesh. We always said it will take time,” Kerry said, using an alternative name for the Islamist militant group.

“We began our fight against al Qaeda in 2001 and it took us quite a few years before we were able to eliminate Osama bin Laden and the top leadership and neutralize them as an effective force. We hope to do Daesh much faster than that and we think we have an ability to do that,” he told reporters.

U.S. Pilots Confirm: Obama Admin Blocks 75 Percent of Islamic State Strikes

‘We can’t get clearance even when we have a clear target in front of us’

FreeBeacon: U.S. military pilots who have returned from the fight against the Islamic State in Iraq are confirming that they were blocked from dropping 75 percent of their ordnance on terror targets because they could not get clearance to launch a strike, according to a leading member of Congress.

Strikes against the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) targets are often blocked due to an Obama administration policy to prevent civilian deaths and collateral damage, according to Rep. Ed Royce (R., Calif.), chair of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.

The policy is being blamed for allowing Islamic State militants to gain strength across Iraq and continue waging terrorist strikes throughout the region and beyond, according to Royce and former military leaders who spoke Wednesday about flaws in the U.S. campaign to combat the Islamic State.

“You went 12 full months while ISIS was on the march without the U.S. using that air power and now as the pilots come back to talk to us they say three-quarters of our ordnance we can’t drop, we can’t get clearance even when we have a clear target in front of us,” Royce said. “I don’t understand this strategy at all because this is what has allowed ISIS the advantage and ability to recruit.”

When asked to address Royce’s statement, a Pentagon official defended the Obama administration’s policy and said that the military is furiously working to prevent civilian casualties.

“The bottom line is that we will not stoop to the level of our enemy and put civilians more in harm’s way than absolutely necessary,” the official told the Washington Free Beacon, explaining that the military often conducts flights “and don’t strike anything.”

“The fact that aircraft go on missions and don’t strike anything is not out of the norm,” the official said. “Despite U.S. strikes being the most precise in the history of warfare, conducting strike operations in the heavily populated areas where ISIL hides certainly presents challenges. We are fighting an enemy who goes out of their way to put civilians at risk. However, our pilots understand the need for the tactical patience in this environment. This fight against ISIL is not the kind of fight from previous decades.”

Jack Keane, a retired four-star U.S. general, agreed with Royce’s assessment of the administration’s policy and blamed President Barack Obama for issuing orders that severely constrain the U.S. military from combatting terror forces.

“This has been an absurdity from the beginning,” Keane said in response to questions from Royce. “The president personally made a statement that has driven air power from the inception.”

“When we agreed we were going to do airpower and the military said, this is how it would work, he [Obama] said, ‘No, I do not want any civilian casualties,’” Keane explained. “And the response was, ‘But there’s always some civilian casualties. We have the best capability in the world to protect from civilians casualties.’”

However, Obama’s response was, “No, you don’t understand. I want no civilian casualties. Zero,’” Keane continued. “So that has driven our so-called rules of engagement to a degree we have never had in any previous air campaign from desert storm to the present.”

This is likely the reason that U.S. pilots are being told to back down when Islamic State targets are in site, Keane said, citing statistics published earlier this year by U.S. Central Command showing that pilots return from sorties in Iraq with about 75 percent of their ordnance unexpended.

“Believe me,” Keane added, “the French are in there not using the restrictions we have imposed on our pilots.”

And the same goes for Russians, he said, adding, “They don’t care at all about civilians.”

The French have been selecting their own targets since beginning to launch strikes on the Islamic State earlier this week, according to a second Pentagon source who spoke to the Free Beacon earlier this week about the strikes.

France dropped at least 20 bombs on key Islamic State targets within two days after the terror attacks in Paris that killed 129. French strikes have killed at least 33 Islamic State militants in the past several days.

In the case of the initial French strikes, the “targets were nominated by the French whose strikes against them were supported by the coalition” fighting the Islamic State, the official explained.

Any coalition member can nominate a potential target.

“Once a target is validated, great care is taken—from analysis of available intelligence to selection of the appropriate weapon to meet mission requirements—to minimize the risk of collateral damage, particularly any potential harm to non-combatants,” the official said.

Since the beginning of the year, more than 22,000 munitions were dropped on Islamic State targets during more than 8,000 sorties, according to information provided to the Free Beacon by the Defense Department.

Some experts questioned whether the administration is handing off portions of the battle to other nations.

“The French airstrikes have been billed as a significant uptick in the battle against the Islamic State; preliminary data indicate that this is not the case,” said Jonathan Schanzer, a former terrorism expert at the U.S. Treasury Department. “It appears that the U.S. is simply allowing France to strike many of the targets that would usually be reserved for the U.S. and some of its coalition allies. In other words, this appears to be a redistribution of daily targets in the ongoing campaign, and not a significant change.”

These strikes have forced the Islamic State to evacuate at least 20 to 25 percent of the territories it held one year ago in both Iraq and Syria, according to the Pentagon.

Attacks have focused on the Islamic State’s “staging areas, fighting position, and key leaders,” as well as its “oil distribution chain,” according to the Pentagon.

Meanwhile, a poll released Thursday found that at least 70 percent of American support an expanded fight against the Islamic State, including sending U.S. troops to the region.

U.S., Allies Conduct 31 Air Strikes in Syria, Iraq: U.S. Military
The U.S. military said, U.S.-led forces targeted Islamic State militants in Syria with five air strikes from Sunday to Monday morning and conducted 26 strikes against the group in Iraq. Four of the strikes in Syria hit targets in Kobani, striking an Islamic State tactical unit, and destroying fighting positions and a heavy machine gun.The military said in a statement on Monday, that the coalition forces also hit eight fighting positions with a strike near Al Hasakah. In Iraq, eight air strikes near Fallujah destroyed Islamic State fighting positions, mortar tubes, an excavator and a vehicle, and hit seven tactical units.
Inform

6 Americans Among Hostages in Mali al Qaeda Attack

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On Friday, a group of local terrorists stormed the Radisson Blu hotel in Bamako, Mali, taking 170 hostages and up to 3 are dead. Some hostages have been released if they could recite verses of the Koran. U.S. military personnel is assisting as they were already in the region doing training. The U.S. State Department has confirmed there are 6 Americans as part of the hostages. The UN was also holding an event at the hotel.

The group of attackers is known as the Macina Liberation Front, an operating wing of Boko Haram, another operating wing of al Qaeda. Some of the attackers spent the night at the hotel while others stormed the building with grenades and gunfire.

Meanwhile, when the world and especially looks to Barack Obama for answers, solutions, missions and strategies, only blank stares are the result. Obama has retreated completely from global conflicts and national security to focus on social justice agendas. He  attends only 40% of presidential daily briefings known as PDN’s. The Pentagon and the intelligence apparatus is disgusted with the commander in chief. The safety of America and other allied nations is damned to some doom over Obama’s lack of will, knowledge or involvement.

Breitbart:

A new Government Accountability Institute (GAI) report reveals that President Barack Obama has attended only 42.1% of his daily intelligence briefings (known officially as the Presidential Daily Brief, or PDB) in the 2,079 days of his presidency through September 29, 2014.
The GAI report also included a breakdown of Obama’s PDB attendance record between terms; he attended 42.4% of his PDBs in his first term and 41.3% in his second.

The GAI’s alarming findings come on the heels of Obama’s 60 Minutes comments on Sunday, wherein the president laid the blame for the Islamic State’s (ISIS) rapid rise squarely at the feet of his Director of National Intelligence James Clapper.

“I think our head of the intelligence community, Jim Clapper, has acknowledged that I think they underestimated what had been taking place in Syria,” said Obama.

According to Daily Beast reporter Eli Lake, members of the Defense establishment were “flabbergasted” by Obama’s attempt to shift blame.

“Either the president doesn’t read the intelligence he’s getting or he’s bullshitting,” a former senior Pentagon official “who worked closely on the threat posed by Sunni jihadists in Syria and Iraq” told the Daily Beast.

On Monday, others in the intelligence community similarly blasted Obama and said he’s shown longstanding disinterest in receiving live, in-person PDBs that allow the Commander-in-Chief the chance for critical followup, feedback, questions, and the challenging of flawed intelligence assumptions.

“It’s pretty well-known that the president hasn’t taken in-person intelligence briefings with any regularity since the early days of 2009,” an Obama national security staffer told the Daily Mail on Monday. “He gets them in writing.”

The Obama security staffer said the president’s PDBs have contained detailed threat warnings about the Islamic State dating back to before the 2012 presidential election.

“Unless someone very senior has been shredding the president’s daily briefings and telling him that the dog ate them, highly accurate predictions about ISIL have been showing up in the Oval Office since before the 2012 election,” the Obama security staffer told the Daily Mail.

This is not the first time questions have been raised about Obama’s lack of engagement and interest in receiving in-person daily intelligence briefings. On September 10, 2012, the GAI released a similar report showing that Obama had attended less than half (43.8%) of his daily intelligence briefings up to that point. When Washington Post columnist Marc Thiessen mentioned the GAI’s findings in his column, then-White House Press Secretary Jay Carney dubbed the findings “hilarious.” The very next day, U.S. Libyan Ambassador Chris Stevens and three American staff members were murdered in Benghazi. As Breitbart News reported at the time, the White House’s very own presidential calendar revealed Obama had not received his daily intel briefing in the five consecutive days leading up to the Benghazi attacks.

Ultimately, as ABC News reported, the White House did not directly dispute the GAI’s numbers but instead said Obama prefers to read his PDB on his iPad instead of receiving the all-important live, in-person briefings.

Now, with ISIS controlling over 35,000 square miles of territory in its widening caliphate in Iraq and Syria, and with Obama pointing fingers at his own Director of National Intelligence James Clapper for the rise of ISIS, the question remains whether a 42% attendance record on daily intelligence briefings is good enough for most Americans.

Paris Terror Plotter Dead, Greece Abetting?

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When it comes to the insurgency of immigrants and illegals into the United States, Mexico is a failed partner. When it comes to the insurgency of immigrants and illegals into Europe, Greece is the failed partner.

CNN:  Greece has become an unwitting crossroads — both for jihadists trying to reach Iraq and Syria from Europe, and for fighters returning home from the Middle East.

Greece’s long land and maritime boundaries, its proximity to Turkey, the explosion of illegal migration from Syria and the country’s dire financial situation make it an inviting hub for jihadist groups, according to multiple counterterrorism sources.

One source close to the Greek intelligence services told CNN there may be some 200 people in the country with links to jihadist groups such as the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or the al Nusra Front — the two groups that most Europeans join.
In 2011, Greek authorities detained nearly 50,000 illegal migrants from Afghanistan and Pakistan, according to police figures.

One analyst who has studied jihadist travel patterns says there are indications that militants are setting up logistical, recruitment and financial cells in Greece, in part to facilitate the travel of a growing number of would-be fighters traveling from Kosovo and Albania.

The suicide-vest-clad woman who killed herself during Wednesday’s raid in Saint-Denis has been identified by official sources in France as Hasna Ait Boulahcen.

Linking ISIS leadership and European jihadists

Intelligence agencies had identified him as a link between ISIS leadership in Syria and European terror cells, and he is believed to have moved between several European countries without being apprehended.

Abaaoud, in his late 20s, had been on the counterterrorism radar for some time and was targeted in French airstrikes on Syria last month, a French counterterrorism source told CNN.

He was believed to be close to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

French military forces carried out airstrikes in October targeting an ISIS training camp for foreign fighters in Raqqa, Syria, in an effort to kill Abaaoud, the French counterterrorism source said.

“He was the one training foreign fighters,” and he spent time at the camp, the source said, but it’s not clear if Abaaoud was there at the time of the airstrikes.

France’s former top counterterror judge, Jean-Louis Bruguiere, told CNN’s Jim Sciutto the Paris attacks were planned in Syria.

Bruguiere said Abaaoud would certainly have been in contact with Baghdadi about an attack like the one last week. In addition, Bruguiere said, this fits with Baghdadi’s vision of establishing the ISIS caliphate and then exporting the war to the West.

A personal connection also points to Abaaoud’s alleged involvement in planning the Paris attacks. Salah Abdeslam — the on-the-run suspected eighth attacker — is a longstanding associate of Abaaoud, with both men involved in gangs in Molenbeek, Belgium, that carried out robberies and other petty crimes.

AFP-Paris: Moroccan intelligence helped put French investigators on the trail of the Belgian jihadist suspected of orchestrating last week’s deadly attacks in Paris, police sources said Thursday.

A Moroccan tip-off, along with other information, helped police track Abdelhamid Abaaoud to an apartment block in a northern Paris suburb, where he was killed in a raid on Wednesday.

*** Islamic State is a tech savvy organization and quite advanced in protecting its military tactics and communications. This has proven difficult for counterterrorism professionals to trace and track their work, but it is clearly not impossible.

In part from TheHill: The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) uses a 34-page manual to instruct its followers on how to stay invisible on the Internet.

The Arabic document was translated and released this week by analysts at the Combating Terrorism Center.

Users are also directed to use Apple’s encrypted FaceTime and iMessage features over regular unencrypted text and chat features.

“This short guide ask God’s faithfulness in it, and we hope to be published and participation on a wider scale,” the document concludes.