Category Archives: Middle East

2 S. Florida Men Sentenced for NY Terror Plot

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Going back to 2012, the Qazi brothers’ case involved material support to terrorists and conspiring to use weapons of mass destruction. They are naturalized citizens from Pakistan and additionally pledged loyalty to al Qaeda and participated in online forums discussing jihad and the Inspire magazine, the media publication by Anwar al Awlaki.

Qazi Brothers Sentenced on Terrorism Violations and Assault on Two Deputy U.S. Marshals

Younger Sibling Plotted to Attack New York City with a Weapon of Mass Destruction

Brothers Raees Alam Qazi, 22, and Sheheryar Alam Qazi, 32, both naturalized U.S. citizens from Pakistan, were sentenced today to 35 years and 20 years in prison for terrorism violations and assaulting two Deputy U.S. Marshals while in custody, announced Assistant Attorney General for National Security John P. Carlin, U.S. Attorney Wifredo A. Ferrer of the Southern District of Florida, Director Stacia A. Hylton of the U.S. Marshals Service and Special Agent in Charge George L. Piro of the FBI’s Miami Division.

Raees Qazi and Sheheryar Qazi were sentenced by U.S. District Court Judge Beth Bloom of the Southern District of Florida, and their prison term will be followed by a term of 10 years and five years of supervised release, respectively.

“With the sentences handed down today, Raees Qazi and his brother Sheheryar Qazi are being held accountable for their roles in a plot to conduct a terrorist attack using a weapon of mass destruction in New York City and their assault on two federal officers during their pretrial detention,” said Assistant Attorney General Carlin. “This case highlights our commitment to pursue any individuals who would seek to conduct an attack on U.S. soil or to injure law enforcement officials who risk their lives to protect us. I want to thank the U.S. Marshals, agents, analysts, and prosecutors who are responsible for this successful result.”

“Protecting the homeland and our national security remains our number one priority,” said U.S. Attorney Ferrer. “Today’s sentences demonstrate this Office’s unwavering commitment to work with our law enforcement partners to combat all forms of terrorism by proactively finding and prosecuting those who actively seek to kill or harm innocent citizens in the name of violent extremism.”

“Today’s sentencing of the Qazi brothers represents the final chapter for two men who wished to bring harm and mass destruction to Americans on U.S. soil,” said Director Hylton. “Their sentences demonstrate that justice prevailed. I am proud of our brave men and women who participated in this process, and thank the prosecutors who worked tirelessly for this successful conclusion.”

“The threat of a terrorist attack against innocent Americans is real as demonstrated by the actions of these two brothers,” said Special Agent in Charge Piro. “The fact that their terrorist aspirations were cut short didn’t stop Raees and Sheheryar Qazi from attempting to use potentially lethal force against two U.S. Marshals while they were in custody. This case highlights outstanding work and team effort of our South Florida Joint Terrorism Task Force.”

On March 12, 2015, Raees Alam Qazi pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to provide material support and resources to terrorists in preparation for the use of a weapon of mass destruction, one count of attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization and one count of conspiring to assault a federal employee. Sherheyar Alam Qazi pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to provide material support and resources to terrorists in preparation for the use of a weapon of mass destruction and one count of conspiring to assault a federal employee.

The brothers acknowledged during the plea hearing that Raees Alam Qazi was going to initiate an attack using a weapon of mass destruction in New York City and that he had been financially and emotionally supported by his older brother, Sheheryar Alam Qazi, who encouraged him to launch the attack. Among other things, the brothers acknowledged that Sheheryar Alam Qazi had encouraged his younger brother to travel from Pakistan to Afghanistan in 2011, and that when Raees Alam Qazi had been unsuccessful in his attempt to enter Afghanistan, he returned to his older brother. The brothers acknowledged that Raees Alam Qazi had been trying to reach the “guys from Yemen” aka Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) on the internet and that they told him not to come to Afghanistan because there were enough people, but instead suggested they do something in the United States. Raees Alam Qazi admitted that he had taken “hints” from an AQAP online publication entitled Inspire Magazine, including building an explosive device using Christmas tree light bulbs. Raees Alam Qazi also conceded that he had used information in Inspire to communicate with AQAP, and that his communications with Al Qaeda dealt with his desires to launch an attack in the United States.

The brothers acknowledged that Raees Alam Qazi travelled to New York in November 2012 to conduct an attack with a weapon of mass destruction while Sheheryar Alam Qazi actively misled friends and family members about Raees Alam Qazi’s true whereabouts and activities. The brothers acknowledged that Raees Alam Qazi called Sheheryar Alam Qazi from New York to notify him that he had not been successful in his task. Sheheryar Alam Qazi encouraged Raees Alam Qazi to return to “practice over here [Florida] then you may return [to New York] you know…. I will give you complete freedom.”

The brothers additionally admitted their participation in a conspiracy to assault federal officers. They conceded that on April 8, 2014, while being moved within the U.S. Courthouse complex in Miami, they simultaneously punched two Deputy U.S. Marshals in the face and struggled with them and attempted to use potentially lethal force on them. Raees Alam Qazi and Sheheryar Alam Qazi acknowledged that while struggling with the Deputy U.S. Marshals, the defendants simultaneously exclaimed “Allahu Akbar,” an Arabic exhortation meaning “God is Great.”

The case was investigated by the FBI’s South Florida Joint Terrorism Task Force. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Karen E. Gilbert and Adam S. Fels of the Southern District of Florida, and Trial Attorney Jennifer E. Levy of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section.

Mr. Weinstein is Dead, Hostages Could Have Been Saved

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Warren Weinstein is shown in a still from video released anonymously to reporters in Pakistan, Dec. 26, 2013.

Additional details and video of testimony is here.

Amerine received the Bronze Star with “V” for “Valor” device for his service in Afghanistan, where he led the Special Forces Operational Detachment-Alpha team that protected Hamid Karzai after 9/11 as the future Afghan president drummed up Pashtun tribal support to lead the country.
Now he joins critics of the failed U.S. hostage policy — currently under review by a former Army Delta Force commander at the National Counterterrorism Center — such as Diane and John Foley, whose son James Foley was a journalist beheaded by ISIS in Syria in a grisly video last August.
Amerine claims he led a highly-secret Pentagon team tasked with finding ways to recover Americans held captive in Pakistan’s tribal areas — until a “dysfunctional” bureaucracy bungled the mission on the verge of success.
“In early 2013, my office was asked to help get Sgt. Bergdahl home. We informally audited the recovery effort and determined that the reason the effort failed for four years was because our nation lacks an organization that can synchronize the efforts of all our government agencies to get our hostages home. We also realized that there were civilian hostages in Pakistan that nobody was trying to free so they were added to our mission,” Amerine said in his testimony.
“To get the hostages home, my team worked three lines of effort: Fix the coordination of the recovery, develop a viable trade and get the Taliban back to the negotiating table. My team was equipped to address the latter two of those tasks but fixing the government’s interagency process was beyond our capability,” Amerine said.

Bergdahl was freed in 2014 after five years of captivity in a highly controversial swap for five Taliban leaders held at the U.S. detention center at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. Bergdahl now faces charges by the Army for deserting his post in Afghanistan and could wind up in prison for the rest of his life, if convicted.
Amerine said that he and his colleagues had designed a plan to trade an Afghan drug lord, Bashir Noorzai, for the American and Canadian hostages. Noorzai was lured to the U.S., Amerine said, where he was arrested and eventually sentenced to two life sentences on drug charges.
Amerine said his group got as far as working with Noorzai’s tribe and bringing the Taliban to the table about a deal for the drug lord, but then the State Department intervened and killed that deal in favor of the one that eventually freed Bergdahl for five Taliban fighters. Noorzai remains in a high-security prison in California.

The veteran Special Forces field-grade officer told the Senate committee that he, Amerine, also fell under criminal investigation by the Army because the FBI was irked over his criticism of how the Bureau and other agencies mismanaged the hostage crisis and for sharing his frustrations with Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a member of the House Armed Services Committee. He helped Hunter craft legislation to reform and streamline how government agencies should work jointly to handle hostage cases.
“The FBI formally complained to the Army that information I was sharing with Rep. Hunter was classified. It was not,” Amerine said in his testimony, noting that federal law protects military whistleblowers. “The FBI made serious allegations of misconduct to the Army in order to put me in my place and readily admitted that to a U.S. congressman.”
The Army deleted his retirement paperwork and cut off his pay temporarily recently, Amerine recounted.
“It’s utterly ridiculous in my mind,” Amerine said.
U.S. officials at the Department of Justice and the FBI did not immediately offer comment today regarding Amerine and his claims.
Army spokesperson Cynthia Smith said that while the service’s policy dictates that they cannot confirm the names of anyone who “may or may not be under investigation,” Smith noted that “both the law and Army policy would prohibit initiating an investigation based solely on a Soldier’s protected communications with Congress.”
A spokesperson for Hunter, in turn, said that the Army had confirmed to Hunter their investigation into Amerine for “potential unauthorized disclosures” to Congress.


“It’s a sad day for the Army, in its struggle to be truthful,” said Joe Kasper, Hunter’s spokesperson.
Amerine plans to tell the Committee today, “You, the Congress, were my last resort to recover the hostages. But now I am a whistleblower, a term that has become radioactive and derogatory.
“And let us not forget: Warren Weinstein is dead while Colin Rutherford, Josh Boyle, Caitlin Coleman, and her child remain prisoners. Who is fighting for them?”

WH Ignoring Iran’s $6Billion for Syria Iraq Terror

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John Kerry, Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, Tony Blinken, Tom Donilon, Samantha Power, Valerie Jarrett and Barack Obama are but part of the team that knew and ignored the billions for years that Iran used to support Bashir al Assad’s terror in Syria and later Iraq. The Obama regime has been gifting Iran money by lifting sanctions for the sake of humanitarian purposes in Iran when the money was not used for that but rather to support the Assad tyrannical power in Syria. Sanction waivers under the Obama regime regarding Iran have been common since the Iranian nuclear talks began.

Now the question is will this White House and State Department come clean and walk away from the P5+1 Iranian nuclear talks? This betrayal is historic.

Iran Spends Billions to Prop Up Assad

By Eli Lake
Iran is spending billions of dollars a year to prop up the Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad, according to the U.N.’s envoy to Syria and other outside experts. These estimates are far higher than what the Barack Obama administration, busy negotiating a nuclear deal with the Tehran government, has implied Iran spends on its policy to destabilize the Middle East.

On Monday, a spokeswoman for the U.N. special envoy for Syria, Staffan de Mistura, told me that the envoy estimates Iran spends $6 billion annually on Assad’s government. Other experts I spoke to put the number even higher. Nadim Shehadi, the director of the Fares Center for Eastern Mediterranean Studies at Tufts University, said his research shows that Iran spent between $14 and $15 billion in military and economic aid to the Damascus regime in 2012 and 2013, even though Iran’s banks and businesses were cut off from the international financial system.

Such figures undermine recent claims from Obama and his top officials suggesting that Iran spends a relative pittance to challenge U.S. interests and allies in the region. While the administration has never disclosed its own estimates on how much Iran spends to back Syria and other allies in the Middle East, Obama himself has played down the financial dimension of the regime’s support.

“The great danger that the region has faced from Iran is not because they have so much money. Their budget — their military budget is $15 billion compared to $150 billion for the Gulf States,” he said in an interview last week with Israel’s Channel 2.

But experts see it another way. The Christian Science Monitor last month reported that de Mistura told a think tank in Washington that Iran was spending three times its official military budget–$35 billion annually–to support Assad in Syria. When asked about that earlier event, Jessy Chahine, the spokeswoman for de Mistura, e-mailed me: “The Special Envoy has estimated Iran spends $6 billion annually on supporting the Assad regime in Syria. So it’s $6 billion not $35 billion.”

Either way, that figure is significant. Many members of Congress and close U.S. regional allies have raised concerns that Iran will see a windfall of cash as a condition of any nuclear deal it signs this summer. Obama himself has said there is at least $150 billion worth of Iranian money being held in overseas banks as part of the crippling sanctions. If Iran spends billions of its limited resources today to support its proxies in the Middle East, it would follow that it will spend even more once sanctions are lifted.

The Obama administration disagrees. It says the amount Iran spends on mischief in the region is so low that any future sanctions relief will not make a difference in its behavior. Speaking at a conference this weekend sponsored by the Jerusalem Post, Treasury Secretary Jack Lew said that even as Iran’s economy has suffered from sanctions in recent years, it has been able to maintain its “small” level of assistance to terrorists and other proxies. “The unfortunate truth remains that the cost of this support is sufficiently small, that we will need to remain vigilant with or without a nuclear deal to use our other tools to deter the funding of terror and regional destabilization,” he said.

Shehadi and other experts acknowledged that their figures were estimates, because the Tehran regime does not publicize budgets for its Revolutionary Guard Corps or the full subsidies it provides to allies. Nonetheless, Shehadi says, Iranian support to Syria today is substantial, especially when factoring in the line of credit, oil subsidies and other kinds of economic assistance Iran provides the Syrian regime.

Steven Heydemann, who was the vice president for applied research on conflict at the U.S. Institute of Peace until last month, told me earlier this year that the value of Iranian oil transfers, lines of credit, military personnel costs and subsidies for weapons for the Syrian government was likely between $3.5 and $4 billion annually. He said that did not factor in how much Iran spent on supporting Hezbollah and other militias fighting Assad’s opponents in Syria. Heydamann said he estimated the total support from Iran for Assad would be between $15 and $20 billion annually.

A Pentagon report released last week was quite clear about what Iran hopes to achieve with its spending: “Iran has not substantively changed its national security and military strategies over the past year. However, Tehran has adjusted its approach to achieve its enduring objectives, by increasing its diplomatic outreach and decreasing its bellicose rhetoric.” The report says Iran’s strategy is intended to preserve its Islamic system of governance, protect it from outside threats, attain economic prosperity and “establish Iran as the dominant regional power.”

If Iran ends up accepting a deal on its nuclear program, it will see an infusion of cash to pursue that regional agenda. Shehadi said this fits a pattern for dictatorships in the Middle East: they preoccupy the international community with proliferation issues while, behind the scene, they continue to commit atrocities.

“In the early 1990s, Saddam Hussein was massacring his people and we were worried about the weapons inspectors,” Shehadi said. “Bashar al-Assad did that too. He kept us busy with chemical weapons when he massacred his people. Iran is keeping us busy with a nuclear deal and we are giving them carte blanche in Syria and the region.”

 

General Flynn on Iran and 450 to Al-Taqaddum Air Base

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The original request for additional U.S. troops to Iraq was 1000, yet the White House authorized 450 for purposes of intelligence gathering and training as well as some ground surveillance.

al Taqaddum is 74 kilometers from Baghdad and the ultimate mission is to retake Ramadi and Fallujah. This was a Marine base comprised of The airfield is served by two runways 13,000 and 12,000 feet (3,700 m) long. that was eventually turned over to the Iraqi military in 2009.

Meanwhile, today, June 10, 2015, General Flynn gave testimony before the Joint Foreign Affairs and HASC Subcommittees on Iran’s hegemony in the region.

Retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was director of the Defense Intelligence Agency until August 2014
He testified Wednesday in a congressional hearing that the administration doesn’t have ‘a permanent fix but merely a placeholder’ for the Iran crisis
Flynn said the notion that the U.S. can ‘snap back’ sanctions on Tehran if it breaks an agreement is ‘fiction’
Warned that ‘Iran’s nuclear program has significant – and not fully disclosed – military dimensions’
Obama administration has less than three weeks to finalize a nuclear agreement that would pare back Iran’s ability to build a nuclear weapon.

His full written presentation is found here. In part however, his situation report is not only chilling but demonstrates what the future predictions include.

Wishful Thinking:

In lengthy written remarks, Flynn asserted that Iran has “every intention” of building a nuclear weapon, and their desire to destroy Israel is “very real.”

“Iran has not once (not once) contributed to the greater good of the security of the region,” he said in his remarks, noting their fighters “killed or maimed thousands of Americans and Iraqis” in Iraq.

The administration is working alongside five other world powers to try and strike a nuclear deal – which would aim to curb Tehran’s nuclear program in exchange for sanctions relief – by the end of the month. But Flynn said Iran already has made it clear they will put limits on inspections, making for “incomplete verification.” Plus he said it’s “unreasonable” to believe international sanctions could be resumed once lifted.

He also echoed concerns of some other analysts in saying the “perceived acceptance” of Iran’s program will likely “touch off a dangerous domino effect in the region” as Saudi Arabia and other nations seek nuclear capability.

As for the rising threat posed by the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, Flynn voiced concern that the U.S. is not keeping up with the crisis. He said there is “absolutely no end in sight,” and “no clear U.S. policy” for dealing with it.

 

ISIS Tactics Include Taxes and Treasures

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With a multi-country coalition, air strikes, ground intelligence gathering, surveillance drones and up to 1000 more troops being deployed to Iraq, the White House has no strategy and blames the Pentagon.

The Pentagon has a division that is assigned to war-gaming and planning in all conditions across the globe that is based on human intelligence, information gathered from diplomatic staff in all embassies, use of software, estimations, locations of military assets, threats from the enemy, money, transportation, secret deals, ordnance positioning and more. The Pentagon always has several strategies that are current and nimble that require dynamic alterations as even minor conditions change. For Obama to blame the Pentagon is childish and misguided.

Despite nine months and $2.44 billion in U.S. airstrikes against the fighters and their oil facilities and smuggling networks, the self-proclaimed Islamic State has proven to be as resilient financially as it’s been militarily.

The group that President Barack Obama dismissed in January 2014 as a junior varsity team last year seized an estimated $675 million from banks, plus $145 million in oil sales and ransom payments and tens of millions more from other commercial enterprises, looting and extortion, according to U.S. Treasury and United Nations figures.

“This isn’t your average terrorist group operating from your average safe haven,” said Juan Zarate, a former assistant secretary of Treasury for terrorist financing and financial crimes who spent years targeting al-Qaeda funding. “They have access to oil in Iraq and Syria; access to major population centers; access to banks, antiquities and smuggling groups — all of that allows them to be more agile and have access to more capital and resources than your average terrorist group.”

“The truth is nobody really knows how much they’re making now,” said Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies. “The U.S. government is getting closer to pegging the group’s finances because of things like last month’s raid in eastern Syria. But no one knows how much they’re getting versus their spending.”

Islamic State “is in some ways a proto-state, in some ways a terrorist organization, in some ways an insurgency and in some ways a transnational criminal group,” he said. Like drug cartels in Colombia and Mexico and al-Qaeda offshoots in Somalia, northern Mali and Yemen, the group is extorting taxes, plundering local resources and taking a cut of commercial enterprises, he said. Read much more detail here.

ISIS has published their objectives on the internet for the world to see and yet operates with unhindered. ISIS is fully functional in an estimated 12 countries while the Obama administration is in neutral to lead the coalition in both offensive and defensive measures. The impact of the coalition is inert.

Egypt, a country working to recover from a power revolution is at particular risk.

From Oren Kessler in part: Egypt’s once-foundering economy is slowly rising from the abyss. President Abdel-Fattah al-Sisi has cut costly fuel and food subsidies, cut red tape on investments, instructed the Central Bank to tackle the black market in foreign currencies and vowed to bring unemployment under 10 percent.

His efforts are beginning to bear fruit. In May, the ratings agency Standard & Poor’s revised Egypt’s country outlook from stable to positive, predicting real GDP growth over the next three years of 4.3 percent – double the average of the four years since the revolution. Meanwhile, the government’s suspension of the capital gains tax sent stocks soaring 6.5 percent in a single day.

Still, no economic turnaround will be complete without a recovery in tourism. The U.S. State Department currently urges citizens to exercise caution in traveling to the country, and advises against any non-essential travel in Sinai, where an insurgency by Islamic State-linked militants has raged since the military ouster of Muslim Brotherhood president Mohamed Morsi in July 2013. At the same time, shadowy pro-Brotherhood groups calling themselves Ajnad Misr (“Soldiers of Egypt”) and the “Popular Resistance Movement” are increasingly targeting the populous mainland, including Cairo, Alexandria and the cities of the Nile Delta. The government accuses the now-banned Brotherhood of responsibility for virtually every attack, but the extent to which the group is actually orchestrating the violence remains unclear.

What is clear is that continued terrorism, particularly against tourists, has the capacity to set back the fragile gains Cairo has made in restoring stability and reviving its economy. For Egypt, persuading visitors to come soak up the country’s sights and sun will require convincing them beyond a reasonable doubt that traveling to the land of the Pharaohs will not be a one-way ticket. More detail here.