Category Archives: Middle East

Tug of War Over Qaddafi’s Wealth

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Did it really take all this time to discover the location of the wealth of Libya, hidden by Qaddafi? Well no, it has taken this long to understand who is part of the wrangling for control.

Muammar Gaddafi was able to build his massive personal wealth thanks to a violent and domineering control over Libya’s natural resources. Specifically their rich supply of oil. Libya has the largest supply of oil in Africa and the tenth largest in the world. Gaddafi used Libya’s oil to print money for 40 years! During that time he spread his money around the globe through family members, Swiss bank accounts, real estate and investments. Estimated at $200 billion, he had enough to give $30,000 to each of Libya’s 6.6 million citizens.

At the beginning of the Lybian conflict, authorities discovered and seized roughly $67 billion of Gaddafi’s wealth hidden in bank accounts around the globe. England, France, Italy and Germany seized another $30 billion and the Obama administration found a staggering $37 billion in the United States. Investigators suspect that Gaddafi hid an additional $30 billion around the world.

Muammar Gaddafi had made over $200 billion from Libya's rich oil supply

As more investigations take place, it looks like Gaddafi had money stashed or invested in almost every major country in the world including the United States, Europe, the Middle East and Asia. In addition to bank accounts, Muammar owned a stake in the Italian soccer club Juventus and the car company Fiat. He also was a minority of London’s Financial Times. Gaddafi had luxury homes around the world including the huge estate pictured below. Surprisingly this house is located in the United States. In Englewood, New Jersey of all places! His house includes a huge swimming pool, tennis court and even a shooting range…

Muammar Gaddafi had a home in Englewood, New Jersey, USA

Investigators from U. N. Security are still waiting on many countries to resolve what Gaddafi might have within their borders. Several neighboring African nations refused to freeze Gaddafi’s accounts because of their fear and loyalty to the ruthless leader. Now that he’s dead, we should see even more money come to light. On top of all this, it’s believed that Gaddafi had billions of dollars worth of gold hidden in Libya, which has yet to be discovered.

Did Mummar Gaddafi’s $200 billion make him the richest person of all time? To find out how he stacks up, click this article:

The 25 Richest People Who Ever Lived – Inflation Adjusted

Gaddafi had a secret fortune of over $200 billion hidden around the world

So, where is the wealth of the failed and rogue leader and country? Ah, SA. But it will likely be embargoed for a long while after all the forensic accounting and criminal activity is matched to a comprehensive investigation. Oh yes, one more thing, our own U.S. Treasury and Secretary of State John Kerry is actively engaged in the process. It is a sure bet many other global leaders and the United Nations will complicate resolutions as their names are also likely attached.

Johannesburg – The South African government and President Jacob Zuma have been caught in the middle of an international wrangle over as much as R2 trillion in US dollars as well as hundreds of tons of gold and at least six million carats of diamonds in assets belonging to the people of Libya.

What could be the world’s largest cash pile is stored in palettes at seven heavily guarded warehouses and bunkers in secret locations between Joburg and Pretoria.

The Libyan billions have led to a Hawks investigation into possible violation of exchange controls as well as international interests from the UN and the US.

It has also led to heightened interest in the local and international intelligence community as well as the criminal underworld.

Those interested in the Libyan loot include several high-ranking ANC politicians, several business leaders, a former high court judge and a number of private companies.

The R2-trillion held in warehouses is separate from several other billions, believed to be in excess of R260 billion, held legally in four banks in South Africa.

Other legal assets include hotels in Joburg and Cape Town.

The Sunday Independent has seen official South African government documents which confirm that at least $179bn in US dollars is kept, illegally, in storage facilities across Gauteng.

Soon after Muammar Gaddafi’s death in October 2011, the new Libyan government embarked on a large-scale mission to recover legal assets in South Africa, the rest of Africa, the US and Europe.

In South Africa, the focus of the Libyans has been on assets brought into the country legally as well as illegally.

Last year, the Libyan government put in place a separate process to identify and repatriate the illegal assets in South Africa.

Investigations by The Sunday Independent on the illegal assets have led to allegations that:

* The US dollar loot was ferried to South Africa in at least 62 flights between Tripoli and South Africa. The crew of the planes were mainly ex-special forces from the apartheid era. The crew are understood to have deposed affidavits clarifying their role in an effort to avoid criminal charges.

* The money, gold and diamonds were moved to South Africa. Most of it was kept here and some was moved to neighbouring southern African countries. Most of the assets were taken out of Libya after Zuma got involved in an AU process to persuade then Libyan President Gaddafi to step down after an Arab-spring-like uprising to force him out of office.

Gaddafi was killed as he tried to flee Tripoli.

The Libyan government has formed a special board, the National Board for the Following Up and Recovery of Libyan Looted and Disguised Funds, to recover the assets. Now two companies have presented themselves to the South African government, claiming they were mandated by the national board to recover the funds.

The two companies are the Texas-based Washington African Consulting Group (WACG), led by its chief executive Erik Goalied, and Maltese-based Sam Serj, led by its chief executive, Tahah Buishi. Both companies claim to be the only legitimate representatives of the Libyan government.

Goalied has dismissed Sam Serj as impostors who want to stage the “biggest heist in the world”.

He said they were using fake documents and had used a number of South Africans, with the lure of lucrative commissions, to get the South African government to comply. Goalied has formalised his allegations about Sam Serj in an affidavit that he has submitted to the National Prosecuting Authority, who have passed it on to the Hawks.

He told The Sunday Independent that on September 26 he met with the Libyan Prime Minister Abdullah al-Thani in New York, where both parties reconfirmed that the WACG should work with the South African government. “The assets are important but the bigger goal is to resolve this smoothly so that relations between South Africa and Libya can improve,” he said.

Goalied said the Libyans did not necessarily want the loot to be sent back to Tripoli. They wanted full and legal control of the assets which, he added, could be used for investments and other job-creation projects that would benefit both countries.

Last month, Goalied wrote to Zuma asking for co-operation and assistance in resolving the assets saga. The Presidency wrote to him this week, acknowledging his letter.

The Presidency has referred The Sunday Independent’s queries to the Treasury. The Treasury, in turn, referred The Sunday Independent to a statement issued last June in which the government called on those with knowledge of Libyan assets in South Africa to come forward. Hawks spokesman Paul Ramaloko declined to confirm the probe.

The Sunday Independent has also established that Goalied has also written to UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and US Foreign Secretary John Kerry asking for assistance. The UN adopted Resolution 438 which forces countries that have Libyan assets to return them.

The second company – Sam Serj – has already been in South Africa to discuss the return of the assets.

Sam Serj chief executive Buishi claimed his company was the only legitimate entity with a mandate to find and recover assets that belong to the people of Libya.

Buishi said his company has been contracted by the Libyan government to trace and recover assets looted by Gaddafi and those close to him.

He said the assets had been traced to South Africa, Libya’s neighbour, Tunisia, and several countries in Europe.

“We have been contracted by the Libyan government and are working with the South African government to recover the looted assets.

“We had a good meeting during our last visit with the then-minister of finance, Pravin Gordhan.

“We are working with the South African government. Hopefully, there will be a delegation to South Africa to repatriate the assets or come to some sort of arrangement.

“We want to work with the South African government to not only recover the assets but to find ways of re-investing them in South Africa.

“We want the assets to be identified as belonging to the Libyan people.

“Politically, we are trying to help the new Libya integrate with the rest of the African continent. Libya is a very big and rich country and together with South Africa can play a strategic role in Africa,” Buishi said.

Several sources told The Sunday Independent that the Libyans have complained to the UN and have placed South Africa and Zuma on terms, threatening to lay charges of theft with the International Criminal Court if the assets were not returned promptly.

The Sunday Independent understands that the money was brought in by a company, which has hired former SADF special forces and is keeping the warehouses where the money, gold and diamonds are being kept under 24-hour surveillance.

Other cash assets, running into hundreds of millions of rand, are being kept in accounts in South Africa’s major banks.

Several sources have confirmed that the ex-apartheid era special forces pilots and soldiers have deposed affidavits that are designed to protect them from, among others, money-laundering charges.

 

DHS Avoids Details to Maintain NatSec

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By Susan Jones

(CNSNews.com) – The United States must use “all of the tools at our disposal” to deal with the threat posed by Americans and other Westerners who go to Syria and Iraq to fight with ISIS, a State Department official told Congress on Tuesday.

But so far, that does not include revoking the passports of U.S. citizens who have traveled to Syria to fight with ISIS.

“Has the State Department cancelled the passports of any U.S. citizens who have joined any terrorist groups in Syria and Iraq?” Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) asked Ambassador Robert Bradtke on Tuesday at a hearing of a House Foreign Affairs subcommittee.

“To my knowledge, the State Department has not cancelled any passports,” responded Bradtke, a senior adviser with the State Department’s Bureau of Counterterrorism who was called out of retirement to focus on foreign fighters.

“As Secretary Kerry said, he does have the authority to revoke passports. And this is something we would only do in relatively rare and unique circumstances because of the importance for average Americans (to) have the freedom to travel,” Bradtke said.

“We would only do it also in consultations with law enforcement authorities. And we have not yet had any requests from law enforcement authorities to cancel the passports of ISIS or foreign fighters. So again, we have the authority; it is one tool; we do have other tools to use as well in this regard.”

A second government official told lawmakers that the no-fly list is one of those other tools:

“Congressman, if we have indications that someone on the no-fly list is trying to fly back to the United States, we would deny them boarding,” said Thomas Warrick, a deputy assistant secretary for counter-terrorism policy at the Department of Homeland Security.

“If someone shows up in the United States and there’s indications that that person has been a foreign fighter in Syria, it would be referred to the FBI, and then it would be a matter for law enforcement,” Warrick explained.

Video of hearing is below:

http://www.mrctv.org/videos/foreign-affairs-subcommittee-witness-says-us-has-not-cancelled-passports-any-foreign-fighters

“We would have the ability at the border to ask any questions that were necessary and appropriate; we would have the ability and the authority to inspect their luggage, inspect their personal possessions, in order to determine whether they were or were not a foreign fighter who had been fighting with ISIL. Anything like this, I can assure you, is taken extremely seriously.”

Later in the hearing, Warrick was asked what would happen if an Irish national, for example, tried to come to the U.S. after fighting with terrorists in Syria.

“Where somebody has been identified as a foreign fighter fighting for ISIL in Syria…they’re going to be in all likelihood on a no-fly list or another list of the U.S. government that is going to attract a great deal of attention before they’re allowed to get on board an airplane for the United States.”

But Warrick admitted that the no-fly list can’t guarantee that foreign fighters will be kept out of this country:

“Well, they wouldn’t be able to fly here,” he said. “The no-fly list obviously doesn’t apply to other modes of transportation. However, I can assure you that there are equal or equivalent measures in place so that somebody on the no-fly list is almost certainly not going to be allowed entry into the United States, if they come by cruise ship or if they fly to Canada, for example…and they were to try, let’s say, to come across the U.S.-Canadian border.”

No one mentioned the U.S.-Mexico border, which was overwhelmed by an influx of people from Central America just a few months ago.

Additional video of hearing is below:

http://www.mrctv.org/videos/dhs-witness-cant-guarantee-no-fly-list-will-keep-foreign-fighters-out-us

Warrick put the number of U.S. citizens fighting with ISIS/ISIL at “greater than a hundred,” and he said some of those returning fighters have been arrested on arrival in this country. He did not say how many have been arrested, but when it happens, he  said the returning fighters move from DHS purview to FBI purview.

Two Democrats on the subcommittee asked why the State Department has not hired its own expert on Islamic law.

“It is incredibly important that we get Islamic scholars, experts and jurists to issue rulings adverse to ISIS and favorable to the United States,” said Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Calif.).

“It is about time that the State Department hire its first Islamic legal expert to work full time on that — maybe a couple (of experts). And it is time that at least somebody be hired at the State Department, not because they went to a fancy American school or because they did well on the foreign service exam.”

Sherman said he’s been told that the State Department is relying on outsiders to provide expertise on Islamic law and issue statements that are favorable to the United States.

Rep. Gerald Connolly (D-Va.) said the Middle East is “unraveling,” posing “a threat to us and the West.”

“As the United States moves forward, it just seems that the State Department needs to be promoting leadership from within that has particular focus on this region, since that’s what we’re dealing with…I do think Mr. Sherman has a point, that longer term, the United States has got to get serious about this region and expertise in this region if we’re going to address the challenges we face.”

Groups Behind Closing Gitmo

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A few years ago, Marc Thiessen wrote a book titled Courting Disaster. The spirit of the book delivers proven evidence that interrogation of enemy combatants kept America safe and offered up more actionable knowledge in the terror networks globally. Thiessen provides names, organizations and lobby groups in full opposition of black sites and Guantanamo. One needs to understand all the moving parts before they offer criticism of decisions by the Bush administration.

So as Barack Obama entered the White House, his first move was to close Gitmo while almost 7 years later there are 140 detainees still there. The question is why? The team known to be the go-to operation to close Gitmo has also proven some success in getting terrorists released from the ‘other’ Gitmo, the prison(s) in Colorado that actually has more detainees than Gitmo.

These wars across the globe against terror networks involves hundreds of thousands of fighters, hence in begs the question, who no capture and interrogate? Is killing the via drone since all ground hostilities have been terminated effective? Terror cells have grown exponentially including al Nusra, Daesh, AQAP, Boko Harem and more. Their operating territory has expanded in the last 6 years as well.

Here are some facts that cannot be disputed.

If you knew who was behind “Close-Gitmo” push, you’d be shocked

On Saturday, January 11, a coalition of “Close-Gitmo” forces is expected to march on Washington to commemorate the 12th anniversary of detention and interrogation operations.

Though the march from the White House to the National Museum of American History is purportedly about advancing “human rights” and “stopping torture,” a closer look at the key participants reveals a more troubling, some might say hidden, agenda.

If more Americans knew who is behind this campaign, there would be nationwide outrage.

While everyone is for “human rights” and “stopping torture,” Americans should not be fooled by these false flags meant to damage U.S. power and prestige.

Dig a little deeper into who has been driving the anti-Gitmo disinformation campaign these past 12 years, and you will discover an international, fervently anti-American, far-left coalition attacking the nation through a savvy propaganda effort.

Just dig a little deeper into who has been driving the anti-Gitmo disinformation campaign these past 12 years, and we discover an international, fervently anti-American, far-left coalition attacking the nation through a savvy propaganda effort.

This includes those linked to Al Qaeda financiers, communist groups, anarchist movements – backed by sympathetic press and politicians.

Regrettably, it’s a coalition President Barack Obama has sided with in his priority to release as many Al Qaeda, Taliban and “affiliates” as humanly possible.

Let’s take a look at the key players:

Amnesty International. Along with Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International was revealed as partner organization to Al Karama, a human rights non-profit run by Qatar’s Abdul Rahman Omeir Al-Naimi.

Al-Naimi was recently exposed by the U.S. Treasury Department in December 2013 as a long-term major financier of Al Qaeda.  According to an expose by Eli Lake in the Daily Beast, “Terrorists for Human Rights,” the Treasury Department’s designation said he, “oversaw the transfer of hundreds of thousands of dollars to Al Qaeda and its affiliates in Iraq, Somalia, Syria, and Yemen over the last 11 years.”

Center for Constitutional Rights. CCR was founded by far-left civil rights lawyer William Kunstler in the 1960s, a man who told the press his goal was to “destroy society from within.”

Kunstler represented the “Chicago 7,” a group that was charged with conspiracy to start a riot at the 1968 Democratic National Convention, and later he defended domestic militant/terror groups like the Black Panthers, Weather Underground, and Attica Prison Rioters.

CCR is currently funded by groups like the “1848 Foundation,” named after the year Karl Marx’s Communist Manifesto was published and revolutions swept through Europe.

Kunstler would be proud of CCR’s signature work over the past decade in coordinating the “Gitmo Bar Association” of 500 lawyers representing detainees.

Reprieve. A British organization led by blogger Andy Worthington, it pressures release of British citizens and residents.  Ethiopia’s Binyam Mohammed, a British resident, allegedly plotted to blow up high rise apartment buildings in the U.S. with a dirty bomb; Ruhal Ahmed, Asif Iqbal, and Shafiq Rasul, a.k.a., the Tipton Three, ethnic Pakistanis went to fight for jihad in Afghanistan but were caught by the Northern Alliance in Nov. 2001; and Shaker Aamer, a Saudi citizen with British residence, alleged to have led a unit of Al Qaeda fighters in Tora Bora, and reportedly a former close associate of Usama Bin Laden, shoe-bomber Richard Reid and 20th hijacker, Zacharias Moussaoui.

World Can’t Wait. This organization is believed to have been founded by members and supporters of the Revolutionary Communist Party & Anarchists. It organized at least 24,000 supporters during Iraq War, including actor Sean Penn and anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan.

Jason Leopold. Leopold is a former Los Angeles Times investigative journalist with a checkered past.  According to Fox News media critic Howard Kurtz, writing in a 2005 Washington Post feature, “Leopold says he engaged in ‘lying, cheating and backstabbing,’ is a former cocaine addict, served time for grand larceny, repeatedly tried to kill himself and has battled mental illness his whole life.”

So these are the folks Mr. Obama and Democrats in Congress are trying to appease by releasing more Gitmo detainees?

Nearly half the current population of 155 may be freed under the National Defense Authorization Act of 2014.

It would be comical if the stakes weren’t so high.

We’ve already seen Al Qaeda re-take Fallujah, site of the Iraq War’s bloodiest battles, just two years after Mr. Obama’s ordered withdrawal.  And Al Qaeda and/or “affiliates” killed our Ambassador and three other Americans in Benghazi.

Speaking of which, a Fox News report this week by Catherine Herridge reveals that the State Dept. will finally designate ex-Gitmo detainee, Libya’s Sufian Bin Qumu, and his group, Ansar Al-Sharia as “foreign terrorist entities” for their roles in the Benghazi Consulate attack.

Does Mr. Obama really think it’s in America’s security interests to free more terrorists from Gitmo, nearly one-third of whom have already returned to terrorism?

The silent majority must take this opportunity to speak up. Preventing the next Al Qaeda attack may depend on it.

J.D. Gordon is a retired Navy Commander who served as a Pentagon spokesman in the Office of the Secretary of Defense from 2005-09. He serves as senior adviser to several Washington-based think tanks.

***

Military tribunals have proved excruciatingly slow and imprisonment at Guantánamo hugely costly — $800,000 per inmate a year, compared with $25,000 in federal prison.

The criminal justice system, meanwhile, has absorbed the surge of terrorism cases since 2001 without calamity, and without the international criticism that Guantánamo has attracted for holding prisoners without trial. A decade after the Sept. 11 attacks, an examination of how the prisons have handled the challenge of extremist violence reveals some striking facts:

Lengthy sentences. Terrorists who plotted to massacre Americans are likely to die in prison. Faisal Shahzad, who tried to set off a car bomb in Times Square in 2010, is serving a sentence of life without parole at the Supermax, as are Zacarias Moussaoui, a Qaeda operative arrested in 2001, and Mr. Reid, the shoe bomber, among others. But many inmates whose conduct fell far short of outright terrorism are serving sentences of a decade or more, the result of a calculated prevention strategy to sideline radicals well before they could initiate deadly plots.

¶ Special units. Since 2006, the Bureau of Prisons has moved many of those convicted in terrorism cases to two special units that severely restrict visits and phone calls. But in creating what are Muslim-dominated units, prison officials have inadvertently fostered a sense of solidarity and defiance, and set off a long-running legal dispute over limits on group prayer. Officials have warned in court filings about the danger of radicalization, but the Bureau of Prisons has nothing comparable to the deradicalization programs instituted in many countries.

¶ Quiet releases. More than 300 prisoners have completed their sentences and been freed since 2001. Their convictions involved not outright violence but “material support” for a terrorist group; financial or document fraud; weapons violations; and a range of other crimes. About half are foreign citizens and were deported; the Americans have blended into communities around the country, refusing news media interviews and avoiding attention.

About 40 percent of terrorism cases since the Sept. 11 attacks have relied on informants, by the count of the Center on Law and Security at New York University, which Ms. Greenberg headed until earlier this year. In such cases, the F.B.I. has trolled for radicals and then tested whether they were willing to plot mayhem — again, a pre-emptive strategy intended to ferret out potential terrorists. But in some cases prosecutors have been accused of overreaching.

Do we really want to close Gitmo? Do we really want to keep these terrorists in prisons around the homeland? They are quietly being released by the Justice Department while being radicalized still during their prison terms. Do you know where they are now?

FBI, Shameful Treatment

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INTERIM REPORT ON THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE’S HANDLING OF KNOWN OR SUSPECTED TERRORISTS ADMITTED INTO THE FEDERAL WITNESS SECURITY PROGRAM

So why is that important? The Justice Department is protecting terrorists while they have lost others around the country. But when it comes to our own citizens that are part of the free press, doing their jobs in foreign countries and they get taken hostage then escape, the Justice Department offers no protections.

Below is a shameful display of a government agency known as the FBI. The FBI is worse than al Qaeda? You be the judge.

Former al-Qaida hostage recounts nightmare of dealing with FBI after his return

By Nancy A. Youssef

WASHINGTON — The only thing as bad as being tortured for months as a captive of jihadists in Syria was dealing with the U.S. government afterward, according to one former American hostage.

Matt Schrier, 36, a freelance photographer held by extremists for seven months in 2013 until he escaped, has told McClatchy that the bureaucracy he endured upon his return home was a second kind of nightmare following the months of abuse he suffered while he was a hostage.

“I never thought it would get this bad,” Schrier said.

The FBI never told his father that he had been kidnapped. It waited six months into his capture to produce a wanted poster, and only after his mother prodded. It allowed jihadist forces to empty his bank account — $17,000 — with purchases on eBay, even as the government warned hostage families not to pay ransom so as not to run afoul of anti-terrorism laws.

After his escape, the government made him reimburse the State Department $1,605 for his ticket home just weeks after he arrived in the United States. The psychiatrist assigned to help him readjust canceled five appointments in the first two months. And when he had no means to rent an apartment, FBI victims services recommended New York City homeless shelters.

The FBI declined to comment on the specifics of Schrier’s complaints but said in a statement that “When an American is detained illegally overseas, the FBI’s top priority is ensuring the safe return of that individual.”

“To that end,” the statement said, “the FBI provides support services to victims and their families, to include help in meeting short-term exigent needs, and shares information about their loved ones that is timely and appropriate.”

There is no way to independently confirm Schrier’s version of events, and emails he shared with McClatchy make it clear that his relationship with his FBI handlers was, at best, acrimonious. But his telling of his experience is consistent with the anger relatives of other hostages have expressed in interviews with McClatchy when speaking of their interactions with U.S. government officials.

“The next time the FBI calls me will be the first time,” said Schrier’s father, Jeffrey, 67, who lives in Coconut Creek, outside Fort Lauderdale, Fla. “I thank God my son was able to escape, because if he was waiting for the government to spring him he would still be waiting in that hellhole.”

Spurred by the recent beheadings of three Americans who had been held hostage in Syria by the Islamic State, the Obama administration earlier this month said it is reviewing the way government agencies handle hostages and their families.

But none of the families of those who have been killed or are still missing have been asked to be a part of the review, which White House spokesman Josh Earnest said last week had begun in August. Schrier and another American who was released told McClatchy that they too have not been contacted. Some families said the administration has yet to reply to a weeklong request to give their input to the review.

“How can you change a policy where there is not one?” Jeffrey Schrier asked. “If there had been a policy, on what planet would you not notify the kidnapped person’s father?”

National Security Council spokesman Alistair Baskey said the White House would have no comment.

Schrier’s complaints are a symptom of a bigger problem, the families say — a government approach to retrieving hostages that gets lost among several government agencies, none of which is tasked with doing everything possible to bring an American home.

The FBI generally is a family’s main point of contact because it is charged with investigating overseas crimes against Americans, but the State Department, intelligence community and the National Security Council all have roles. Often, the agencies don’t share what they learn with one another — or the families.

How aggressively a family pushes for a loved one often shapes the U.S. government’s approach, several families have told McClatchy. Many alleged that the government’s approach appeared to be to do the minimum possible to secure an American’s return and that a hostage’s release appeared to depend primarily on the goodwill of whoever is holding him.

Often families said they feared that their loved ones’ cases were seen more as a way for the U.S. to gather intelligence on the groups holding American citizens than on actually finding and freeing the hostages.

Schrier is among those making the accusation. “They use us,” he said. “They use journalists as chum to bring sharks to the surface.”

Such handling not only hurts the chances of getting hostages home but the subsequent investigation into the effects of the kidnapping, Schrier said.

In his case, his kidnappers used his debit card to buy things overseas. They also paid off his Discover card, he said, leading the FBI to suspect he had joined the extremists. Then they created a clone of the card, which someone used as recently as this summer in Garden City, N.Y. Schrier fears that portends an extremist sleeper cell in the United States, funded in part by a card in his name.

But he’s never received a call from the FBI, though he has called them repeatedly to report the misuse. “I am the victim and I have been shut out of the investigation,” Schrier said.

Schrier was entering Syria for the second time in December 2012 seeking to become a news photographer when he went missing. At the time, there was little indication in news accounts that al Qaida-affiliated rebels were a significant presence in northern Syria, making it appear relatively safe for Westerners to cover the war there, and so Schrier went. Instead, a group of kidnappers surrounded his taxi and snatched him. He eventually would fall under the control of the Nusra Front, al-Qaida’s affiliate in Syria.

Back home, his mother called the authorities and reported her son missing. When the FBI arrived, she told them not to call his father as she was estranged from him and Schrier had not talked to him for years. They followed her wishes during the entire time he was a hostage, Schrier said.

Schrier’s mother did not realize at first that he was just one of several Americans being held hostage in Syria. When she realized there were other victims, she noticed that the FBI had created missing-person posters for the others, but not for her son. When she asked why, the FBI hurriedly posted one online, six months after her son’s disappearance, he said.

His mother also deferred to the FBI on how to get her son home. Every time she sought answers, however, the FBI gave her vague responses, Schrier said. They said, for example, that the government could not get into his email, but when she called AOL and explained the situation AOL gave her a temporary password. FBI agents made no mention of jihadists’ spending her son’s money.

She received poorly worded emails from her son’s account during his capture telling her he was all right. The agents told her they could not say whether he was writing the emails or still being held, Schrier said.

During his captivity, Schrier’s captors tortured him, whipping his feet repeatedly until he could not walk, giving him electric shocks and holding him in a dark room for extended periods, making it difficult for him to know how many days had passed.

He escaped through a window on July 29, 2013. Hours later, he met with American officials across the border in Turkey in what he thought would be a warm welcome home. Instead, the next day officials had him sign a document vowing to reimburse the State Department for his airfare back to the United States. He complied, as he said they told him it was only a formality. Less than a month later, officials said they would not help him get a new passport unless he paid.

The FBI’s Office of Victim Assistance is supposed to help American hostages who return home, but Schrier said that in his case it ignored his requests for help and valued him only as an intelligence source on jihadists in Syria. He briefed the office for weeks.

“I am the one who told the government that the (rebel) groups are fighting each other,” Schrier said. “I regret doing anything for them.”

With an al Qaida-affiliated group using his identity to make purchases, Schrier needed to get a new ID and Social Security number. It took five months for him to get a new identification card — and that was only after he cursed the agent who was supposed to help. He so far has not received a new Social Security number.

The FBI put him up in a hotel when he returned to the United States. But one month into his return, with his lack of valid identification contributing to his difficulty finding an apartment, the FBI suggested he move to a homeless shelter.

“I hear they are not that bad,” he said the victims assistance agent told him.

Schrier said his experience is a case study in how not to treat a hostage who’s returning to the United States.

“It is like a scam. I don’t understand what they do, victims services,” Schrier said. “The FBI has made it impossible for me to recover.”

 

Jihad John, the Beheader had Support Network

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Jihadi John’s British terror ring smashed as cops uncover a network stretching across the UK

An intelligence expert has told how evidence has been discovered showing a dozen or more suspects have been helping the ISIS executioner

Terror network: Jihadi John

Security agents who spent months tracking a UK terror network supporting Jihadi John uncovered a chilling web of evil stretching from West Yorkshire to the South East.

An intelligence expert has told how evidence has been discovered showing a dozen or more suspects have provided the Islamic State executioner with “money, contacts, and facilitated travel to Syria”.

The revelation comes after agents compiled one the “most extensive dossiers” on those behind the British killer whose identity is known by MI5 and the FBI.

Our source revealed all of his friends and contacts in Britain had been identified and that a web had been uncovered “stretching from Dewsbury to London”.

An intelligence expert commented: “Those supporting this terrorist face a simple choice – either co-operate with inquiries or face the full force of the justice system. There is nowhere to hide.”

Nowhere to hide: Jihadi John

Counter-terror police officers acting on US intelligence have found and tracked suspected members of his terror support network in the UK.

The Sunday Mirror understands up to a dozen suspects have already been targeted by the authorities.

Last month the FBI confirmed they knew Jihadi John’s true identity but details have deliberately not been made public while intelligence officers continue to monitor the movements and electronic ­communication of his alleged helpers.

Some of the suspects were already known to British security services and have been linked to previous UK-based Islamic terror plots.

It is also understood that friends of Birmingham-born Junaid Hussain, one of Jihadi John’s close associates in a gang of British IS fighters dubbed “The Beatles”, have been co-operating with intelligence officers.

A US intelligence source close to the investigation said: “The emphasis has been to track down the support network around the British IS executioner because we know they are still communicating with him.

“There has been success in this approach and our monitoring techniques have exposed British members of a tight network that is actively sending funds and resources to IS fighters in Iraq and Syria.

“Familiar names of known jihadists have cropped up again and again in this investigation.”

Former London rapper Abdel – Majed Abdel Bary, 23 – shares several physical attributes with the killer and had been considered a suspect.

But voice recognition experts believe it is not him.

There has also been confusion over whether the man seen talking in the beheading videos is the same person who carried out the executions.

Crucial clues have been provided by US analysts who have used advanced facial recognition technology to literally unmask the killer.

Using only the man’s eyes — the only part of his face left uncovered in the video – they have pieced together a photofit style picture of what they say lies underneath the mask.

The forensic officials created two versions of the likeness: one clean shaven and another with a moustache.

The US source said: “High-tech imaging techniques have been used, but it is still only a very good guess at what the killer could look like.”

Other experts are using the IS beheading videos to determine exactly where and when the Western hostages were beheaded.

US experts now say it is possible that two militants appear in the video. Both dressed in the same black garb, they could be switching places between frames.

In the James Foley video, the man speaking has a pistol holster underneath his left arm — a sign that he is right-handed. But the masked fighter who beheaded Foley did so with his left hand.

In another sign of inconsistency, the knife the man held at the start of the video does not appear to be the same  knife shown next to Foley’s decapitated body.

Two weeks ago Jihadi John, believed to have beheaded two British and  two American hostages, was reported to have been injured in a US-led air strike.

The masked ‘executioner’ with a London accent is believed to have narrowly escaped death when he attended a summit of the group’s leaders in an Iraqi town close to the Syrian border last Saturday.

Jihadi John is reported to have been rushed to hospital after the air strike in Al Qaim, in Anbar Province, Western Iraq.

The Foreign Office said: “We don’t have any representation inside Syria, so it is difficult to confirm these reports.”

The joint US-Iraqi mission left at least 10 IS commanders dead and around 40 injured.

IS members issued urgent calls through the local mosque’s loudspeakers, appealing for the town’s residents to donate blood at the hospital.

Jihadi John has become one of the world’s most hunted terrorists after the beheading of British aid workers David Haines, 44, from Perth, and Alan Henning, 47, from Manchester, as well as American journalists James Foley, 40, Steven Sotloff, 31, Peter Kassig, 26, and an unknown Syrian soldier.

Unlike most other western Muslim recruits, Jihadi John has risen to a ­position of some seniority.

Normally, Western fighters occupy lowly positions. He is believed to have been a prison guard for IS and has risen to be a member of a shura council, or governing body, of an IS ‘wilayat’, or province.

Jihadi John is aged between 28 and 31, and is fluent in English, Arabic and classical Arabic, the language of the Koran.

He first joined IS in Iraq when he left the UK, but then moved to Syria.

He is said to travel around in a black Audi jeep, and has six other British terrorists with him who act as his  bodyguards.

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But America has the same issues as noted below.

U.S. federal prosecutors have charged two young American men from Minnesota, one of whom is in the Middle East fighting, with supporting the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) militant.

Somali Americans Abdi Nur, 20, and Abdullahi Yusuf, 18, were charged with “conspiracy to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization, namely, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS),” Assistant Attorney General John Carlin said.

Abdi Nur, who traveled on May 29 to Turkey, through which many Islamist militant pass en route to fight with ISIS, was to have returned to the United States on June 16 but did not, the statement added.

Yusuf was arrested on his way to school at Inver Hills Community College. His attorney argued for his release during a Tuesday hearing in U.S. District Court in Minneapolis, noting he had been going to school and work despite knowing for months that he was under investigation. But a magistrate judge ordered him held until a detention hearing Wednesday.

“More than 16,000 recruits from over 90 countries traveled to Syria to become foreign terrorist fighters with alarming consequences,” said Carlin.

“This is a global crisis and we will continue our efforts to prevent Americans from joining the fight and to hold accountable those who provide material support to foreign terrorist organizations,” he added. “With these two defendants, we have now charged more than 15 individuals with offenses related to the foreign fighter threat in Syria.”

Yusuf in Minneapolis sought an expedited U.S. passport for his trip to Turkey, but could not give an itinerary or explain the source of his funds for his trip, as he was unemployed, authorities said.

Yusuf’s parents – who authorities said didn’t know about their son’s plans – attended Tuesday’s court hearing but declined to speak to The Associated Press.
ISIS emerged in Syria’s war in the spring of 2013.

The militants proclaimed a “caliphate” in June after seizing swathes of Iraq and Syria.