Category Archives: Middle East

Malhama Tactical, Elite Jihadis, Expanding Beyond Syria

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Image result for russian vdv .pdf VDV

Unconfirmed: Abu Rofik (or Rafik) Abdul Mukaddim Tatarstani – Russian speaking al-Qaida operative in Syiria Killed in airstrike. Abu Rafiq claims to be a former VDV member. VDV is:

Russia’s elite airborne force (parachute and air assault) is the Vozdushno-Desantnye Voyska (VDV).1 It can be considered a strategic force, on a par with their rocket and space forces. With its origins in the 1930s, Russia’s airborne force is currently the largest and most highly-mechanised in the world. Having fought with distinction during World War II, against the mujahideen in Afghanistan, and in the Five-Day War with Georgia, the presence of Russian airborne troops in Crimea and eastern Ukraine only confirmed their status as an elite force within the Russian military.

Image result for Malhama TacticalSouthfront

Note: Great War is (‘Mal’hama’) in the Hadith.

The Blackwater of Jihad

A consortium of elite, well-paid fighters from across the former Soviet Union are training jihadis in Syria. Their business model could go global.

FP: Heavily armed and expertly kitted with body armor and ballistic helmets, the men can be seen defending bunkers, storming buildings, and even posing by whiteboards giving tactical lessons. Though the titles of these YouTube videos are written in Russian Cyrillic, their background music is an a cappella Islamic chant known as a nasheed, which is often used by extremist groups in propaganda films. But the men are no ordinary jihadis. They are members of Malhama Tactical, the world’s first jihadi private military contractor (PMC) and consulting firm.

Malhama Tactical isn’t an enormous military conglomerate like the infamous Blackwater (now named Academi). It consists of 10 well-trained fighters from Uzbekistan and the restive Muslim-majority republics of the Russian Caucasus. But size isn’t everything in military consulting, especially in the era of social media. Malhama promotes its battles across online platforms, and the relentless marketing has paid off: The outfit’s fighting prowess and training programs are renowned among jihadis in Syria and their admirers elsewhere. It helps that until now the group has specialized its services, focusing on overthrowing Bashar al-Assad’s regime and replacing it with a strict Islamic government.

The group’s leader is a 24-year-old from Uzbekistan who goes by the name Abu Rofiq (an Arabic pseudonym that means father of Rofiq). Little is known about him other than that he cycles through personal social media accounts rapidly, using fake names and false information to throw off surveillance efforts. In virtually every video and photo posted online, he wears a scarf or balaclava to cover his face from the nose down, leaving visible only his narrow dark eyes and long, somewhat tangled, pitch-black hair. He speaks fluent Russian, but with a slight Uzbek accent.

Since launching in May 2016, Malhama has grown to do brisk business in Syria, having been contracted to fight, and provide training and other battlefield consulting, alongside groups like the al Qaeda-affiliated Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly known as the Nusra Front) and the Turkistan Islamic Party, a Uighur extremist group from China’s restive Xinjiang province. And despite recent rebel setbacks in Syria, including the loss of Aleppo, demand for Malhama Tactical’s services in the country is as strong as ever, Abu Rofiq told Foreign Policy in an interview conducted over the messaging app Telegram.

But he is also beginning to think about expanding elsewhere. His group is willing to take work, Abu Rofiq says, wherever Sunni Muslims are oppressed. He cites China and Myanmar as places that would benefit from jihad. He also suggests that Malhama Tactical might go back to its roots, returning to fight in the North Caucasus against the Russian government.

In November, the group placed job ads on Facebook looking for instructors with combat experience to join the group. The ad described the outfit as a “fun and friendly team” looking for recruits who are willing to “constantly engage, develop, and learn” and work with Jabhat Fateh al-Sham. It even specified that instructors were privy to benefits like vacation time and one day off a week from jihad. The wording was more befitting of a Fortune 500 company than a group of extremists fighting in a brutal and bloody war. Jihad went global long before Malhama Tactical, but rarely with so entrepreneurial a spirit.

*** whwv8t3bbz4

Although Malhama Tactical is the first PMC to work exclusively for extremist groups, it’s hardly the first foreign PMC to enter the Syrian battlefield. The Syrian war has now lasted for nearly six years and cost the lives of more than 400,000 men, women, and children. And amid the chaos of groups like the Islamic State, the left-wing Kurdish People’s Protection Units, and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham vying for territory and influence, the Syrian front has also been a boon for military contractors, who have found work fighting on both sides of the war.

The first iteration of PMCs in Syria was the Slavonic Corps, an ill-fated, Hong Kong-registered company comprising ex-Russian military that briefly worked alongside government forces in 2013, according to a report by the Interpreter magazine. But it quickly became clear that they did not have the full support of the Syrian government. First, the Syrian army stole their vehicles, then their paychecks never arrived, and finally a Syrian air force helicopter crashed into the Slavonic Corps convoy after flying too low and running into power lines, injuring one mercenary. The Slavonic Corps’ misadventures came to an end when the group disbanded after a defeat by rebels in the desert near the city of Sukhnah in southern Syria in October 2013. The mercenaries returned home to Moscow and were promptly arrested by the Russian Federal Security Service (FSB) for their unsanctioned Syrian intervention.

Following the Kremlin’s own intervention in Syria in September 2015, nearly 1,500 Russian mercenaries arrived from the “Wagner” group, an infamous and secretive Russian PMC that previously fought alongside Russian-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine, according to an investigation by Sky News. Their mission was to assist the Assad regime, and unlike the Slavonic Corps, Wagner enjoys extensive support from the Russian government. Dmitry Utkin, a former special forces brigade commander of Russia’s military intelligence service, allegedly leads the group. Although little is known about Wagner, it’s believed that it mimics Academi’s model by operating as an elite infantry unit and relies on the Russian government for support, even flying into Syria on board official military aircraft and training at a Russian special forces base in Molkino in southwestern Russia. Wagner remains in Syria to this day.

At the same time, a litany of Russian-speaking fighters have fought alongside jihadi groups waging war against the Syrian government. According to the Soufan Group, there are at least 4,700 foreign fighters from the former Soviet Union in Syria, the majority of whom come from the Russian republics of Chechnya and Dagestan. These fighters typically arrive in Syria better equipped and trained than local militants and with years of experience fighting the Russian government in the mountains of Chechnya and Dagestan during the 1990s and 2000s.

These battle-hardened fighters quickly earned respect from local militants, who noticed the Russian speakers took on a much higher death rate than local fighters. They came to populate the ranks of both the Islamic State and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, as well as various smaller groups, where locals refer to them as inghimasi, a term used among jihadis to refer to fighters who plunge into enemy front lines to inflict the maximum amount of casualties with no plan of returning alive. The archetypal inghimasi fights until he runs out of ammunition before detonating his suicide vest as his position is overrun.

But while many of their compatriots have become front-line shock troops, the former Soviet fighters of Malhama Tactical go a different way, carving out their own distinct niche between the worlds of professional PMCs and jihadi groups operating in Syria. They function as consultants, arms dealers, and, on occasion, elite warriors.

***

Malhama’s elite status makes sense against the background of Abu Rofiq’s own military career. Abu Rofiq told FP that he had moved as a young man from Uzbekistan to Russia, where, in addition to starting a family, he joined one of the Russian government’s most elite military units, a group of airborne troops known as the VDV. In 2013, Abu Rofiq left Russia for Syria, where rather than joining one faction, like most foreign fighters do, he remained independent and moved between them, before founding Malhama in 2016.

Throughout 2016, Malhama Tactical’s units trained the hard-line Islamist rebel group Ahrar al-Sham and Jabhat Fateh al-Sham in urban combat to help their fight against the Syrian regime in Aleppo. In one video, trainees practice firing multiple rocket-propelled grenade (RPG) rounds and work as squads to assault a building. In another, a two-man team clears rooms and eliminates targets using grenades and gunfire, all under the watchful eye of Malhama instructors.

This type of training isn’t cheap — the RPG rounds Malhama uses in its practice sessions are estimated to cost around $800 each on the black market — which is why military training for most rebel and jihadi groups in Syria has tended to consist of little more than marching, acrobatics, and basic marksmanship. But for jihadi groups that can afford it, Malhama Tactical’s infantry training is worth the expense. One European military contractor who spoke on the condition of anonymity acknowledged that the group’s tactical skills would provide it, and whomever it trains, a distinct advantage on the Syrian battlefield.

***

Malhama Tactical’s operators have, on occasion, also acted as special forces for different jihadi groups. In September 2016, they embedded with the Turkistan Islamic Party to help it repulse an Assad regime attack in southern Aleppo, according to a rebel activist source familiar with the group. However, Abu Rofiq says his outfit’s primary goal is to train other rebel and jihadi groups in combat, rather than fight on the front lines. Abu Rofiq admitted that Malhama also produces equipment for other jihadi groups as needed. Malhama, for example, manufactures accessories for the PKM, an extremely popular Russian-made 7.62 mm machine gun. The vests and grips, widely used in Aleppo during the intense fighting there, have become especially sought after among jihadis.

Malhama Tactical also takes its social media presence very seriously. The group advertises its services through Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, and the Russian social media site VKontakte, although the group’s account has been suspended. Its Instagram feed has the feel of something produced by a major corporate gun manufacturer. It features artsy, filtered photos of weapons and fighters taken from multiple angles, interspersed between various high-quality Malhama logo designs. With more than 208,160 views on YouTube, Malhama has a large reach, especially for its size. By comparison, the Free Syrian Army al-Moutasem Brigade, which is 50 times larger and half a year older, has just over 110,000 YouTube views. Everyone from rebels in Syria to Ukrainian soldiers and Russian separatists in Donetsk has commented on the group’s posts.

Malhama’s YouTube and Facebook pages also showcase free online guides for jihadis, covering improvised grenade construction, weapon cleaning, room clearing, and urban combat, among other skills. The group’s instructors organize online training sessions — on subjects including battlefield first aid; the use of weapons, such as RPG-7s; hand signal systems for urban combat; and introductions on how to conduct ambushes — when in-person assistance and consulting is not possible.

Although Malhama Tactical charges for its services, Abu Rofiq insists he isn’t a mercenary. He says his group’s motivation transcends money. “Our goal is different; we are fighting for an idea,” he said — namely, jihad against Assad.

“We’ll see a lot more of this activity going forward in the decades to come,” said Sean McFate, an associate professor at the National Defense University and author of The Modern Mercenary, a book about private armies. For McFate, the growth of Malhama Tactical is a natural offshoot of the prolonged Syrian war, but the outfit’s mixture of extremist ideology with the privatization of war is a unique and troubling trend. “A jihadi group doing this is a new level because if you’re talking about hardcore idealists paying for [military training], then that’s a milestone of modern warfare,” McFate said.

Abu Rofiq’s leadership has also brought him unwanted attention from the Russian government, which views him as a major terrorism threat. On Feb. 7, Russian airstrikes flattened Abu Rofiq’s apartment in Idlib, killing his wife, infant son, and several other civilians. Despite initial reports to the contrary, a local source confirmed that the airstrikes missed Abu Rofiq entirely. He had exited his apartment just moments before to help casualties from another nearby bombing.

In either case, Abu Rofiq’s jihadi PMC model has already had a significant effect on battles in northern Syria and could soon inspire copycat organizations outside the Middle East. Even if Abu Rofiq is killed and Malhama Tactical is destroyed, he’s already shaken up the war against Assad — and maybe even the future of the global military-industrial complex.

Neil Hauer, lead analyst for the SecDev Group in Ottawa, Canada, contributed to this report.

 

Does DHS Secretary Kelly Know RAPS?

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My friend Tom Del Beccaro explains in his summary at Forbes how the Federal government maintains primacy over the states for immigration law and item 8 U.S. Code Section 1182, which the liberal court chose never to previously challenge.

In spite of the 9th Circuit 3 judge panel ruling maintaining the stay on the Trump Executive Order for the travel restraining order, there is much work to do administratively as this continues to be challenged.

The data is private and protected:

Once the information is entered into the system, RAPS generates an appointment notice for the collection of fingerprints used to complete criminal and background checks and to create Employment Authorization Documents (EADs), as appropriate. The applicant will appear at a USCIS service center to provide fingerprints and confirm application information.

RAPS then automatically initiates several background security check processes: Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) Name Check, United States Visitor and Immigrant Status Indicator Technology (US-VISIT) and DHS’ Automated Biometric Identification System (IDENT), Customs and Border Protection (CBP) TECS, FBI Fingerprint, and the ENFORCE Alien Removal Module (EARM) (for a full discussion of the background check process, see Section 5.1). RAPS also stores the results of security checks.

Image result for USCIS Asylum Office Image result for USCIS Asylum Office

When a new application is entered into RAPS, it is forwarded to a USCIS Asylum Office for interview and adjudication.  Asylum Offices use RAPS to schedule an asylum interview to evaluate the claim of asylum status and to conduct various aspects of case maintenance such as address changes, updates of information pertaining to dependent claimants, to record preliminary and final decisions, and to generate decision documents. An individual who files for asylum may include in his or her application any spouse or child who is within the United States and appears for the asylum interview. This is because a grant received by the principal asylum applicant is conveyed to the spouse and children included in the family group if the spouse/child is in the U.S. and not otherwise barred from a grant of asylum.

RAPS is a comprehensive case management tool that enables USCIS to handle and process applications for asylum pursuant to Section 208 of the Immigration and Naturalization Act (INA) and applications for suspension of deportation or special rule cancellation of removal pursuant to NACARA § 203. DHS offices worldwide can access RAPS as a resource of current and historic immigration status information on more than one million applicants. DHS officials can use RAPS to verify the status of asylum applicants, asylees, and their dependents to assist with the verification of an individual’s immigration history in the course of a review of visa petitions and other benefit applications as well.

RAPS Typical Transaction

A typical transaction begins when an individual initiates the process to apply for asylum by completing and filing Form I-589, Application for Asylum and for Withholding of Removal, with a USCIS Service Center, or in certain circumstances directly with an asylum office. Service Center personnel receive the application in person or via mail and manually enter, most, but not all, of the information from a new application into RAPS.

As set forth in Section 451(b) of the Homeland Security Act of 2002, Public Law 107-296, Congress charged USCIS with the administration of the asylum program, which provides protection to qualified individuals in the United States who have suffered past persecution or have a well-founded fear of future persecution in their country of origin as outlined under INA § 208 and 8 CFR § 208. USCIS is also responsible for the adjudication of the benefit program established by Section 203 of the Nicaraguan Adjustment and Central American Relief Act (NACARA § 203) (discussed in more detail in Section B below), in accordance with 8 CFR § 240.60 and the maintenance and administration of the credible fear and reasonable fear screening processes, in accordance with 8 CFR §§ 208.30 and 208.31. USCIS developed RAPS and APSS in order to carry out its obligations in administering these benefit programs.

Functions

RAPS and APSS track case status and facilitate the scheduling of appointments and interviews and the issuance of notices (including receipt notices, appointment notices, and decision letters) at several stages of the adjudication process. USCIS Asylum Offices use RAPS and APSS to:

  • record decisions and to generate decision documents such as approval, dismissal, or rescission of an asylum or NACARA § 203 application,
  • denial of an asylum application,
  • administrative closure of an asylum application, or
  • referral of an asylum or NACARA § 203 application to Executive Office of Immigration Review (EOIR).

The systems also initiate, receive, and record responses for national security and background check screening and prevent the approval of any benefit prior to the review and completion of all security checks. Finally, the systems provide fully developed and flexible means for analyzing and managing program workflows and provide the Asylum Program with statistical reports to assist with oversight of production and processing goals.

Read more from the two DHS documents here and here.

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***

GAO Raps DHS for Failure to Get Security Data from Visa Waiver Countries

One of the requirements for allowing visa-free entry of tourists from countries in the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) is that those governments share with us information on nationals with terrorism links and/or criminal histories. According to a report of the Government Accountability Office (GAO) issued in May 2016, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has obtained those agreements with most of the countries, but more than a third of  the agreements have not been implemented, and no data have been received from them.

In addition, Congress has required reports from DHS on implementation of the VWP with each of the participating countries, but GAO found that DHS has failed to provide many of those reports when due.

The recommendation of agency (GAO-16-498) is that, “DHS should (1) specify time frames for working with VWP countries on the requirement to implement information-sharing agreements and (2) take steps to improve its timeliness in reporting to Congress on whether VWP countries should continue in the program.”

FAIR has consistently pointed to the VWP as a national security threat and called for its termination. This GAO report underscores the security flaw and finds that it is exacerbated by cavalier implementation by DHS

 

Putin Financing Marine Le Pen’s Presidential Run

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Marine Le Pen’s links to Russia under US scrutiny

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Ms Le Pen’s Front National party has made no secret of the fact that it has taken foreign loans to help bankroll its presidential campaigns because, it has argued, French banks refuse to stump up the funds.

But in light of allegations of Russian interference in the US election of Donald Trump, scrutiny has now turned to Ms Le Pen, who is polled to reach the final round of France’s presidential elections in May.

In an extract of a letter dated November 28 to James Clapper, who heads up 17 American intelligence organisations and agencies, he notes that the Front National “publicly acknowledged that it had received a $9.8 million loan from a Russian bank with links to the Kremlin, allegedly brokered by a sanctioned Russian Duma deputy, according to French press reporting.”

The bank in question was First Czech Russian Bank (FCRB) in Moscow. Mr Turner goes on: “In February 2016, the FN asked Russia for a $30 million load to fund the FN leader Marine Le Pen’s 2017 campaign. More here from the Telegraph.

dgse franceFITSANAKIS: France’s primary intelligence agency warned the country’s government this week that Russia has launched a secret operation to try to influence the outcome of the upcoming French presidential election in favor of the far right. According to the Paris-based weekly newspaper Le Canard Enchaîné, France’s Directorate-General for External Security (DGSE) has notified the country’s leadership that a covert operation by the Kremlin is already underway, and is expected to intensify in the run-up to April’s election. The spy agency allegedly believes that Russian efforts aim to promote Marine Le Pen, leader of the ultra-right National Front. Le Pen wants to curb immigration to France and remove the country from the European Union.

In an article published on Wednesday, Le Canard Enchaîné said the DGSE’s warning has alarmed the Élysée Palace. The paper also said that French President François Hollande, who chairs the country’s defense council, has decided to devote the entire agenda of the council’s next meeting to the subject of Russia’s alleged interference in the election. Anonymous sources told the paper that, according to a classified DGSE report, Russian spy agencies are using automated systems designed to “fill the Internet with tens of millions” of articles, images and memes that support the National Front candidate. Additionally, several news media that are controlled by Moscow will try to discredit Le Pen’s rivals for the presidency. At the same time, websites such as WikiLeaks —which some American commentators accuse of working with Moscow— will publish leaked information designed to damage Le Pen’s competitors.

The Le Canard Enchaîné allegations sound very similar to accusations leveled against the Kremlin by American intelligence agencies and by members of the United States Democratic Party. However, these allegations have not been supported by concrete evidence, and Russia denies that it had any involvement in last November’s presidential election in the US, which was won by Donald Trump.

*** Meanwhile…. As top U.S. commanders are sounding the alarm of the forgotten war in Afghanistan due to the terror factions operating there including the even more deadly Taliban, Russia is legitimizing them to counter NATO. Are the Western leaders nurturing relationships with the Kremlin good with that as coalition countries have troops in Afghanistan?

Image result for russia taliban

In part from The Hill:

“The Russian involvement this year has become more difficult,” Gen. John Nicholson told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “First, they have begun to publicly legitimize the Taliban. This narrative that they promote is that the Taliban are fighting Islamic State and the Afghan government is not fighting Islamic State and that, therefore, there could be spillover of this group into the region. This is a false narrative.”

“I believe its intent is to undermine the United States and NATO,” he later added.

Nicholson was testifying about the current situation in Afghanistan, which he called a stalemate that he needs a few thousand more troops to break.

Among the challenges in the country are the actions of external actors such as Pakistan, Iran and Russia, Nicholson said.

He said Russia’s meddling in Afghanistan started in 2016 and continues to increase.

In addition to spreading a narrative that the Taliban is fighting the Afghan branch of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Russia has also organized a series of meetings to discuss the future of Afghanistan without inviting the Afghan government, Nicholson said. More here.

 

Venezuela Gave Passports to Terrorists, Syria and Iraq?

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Venezuela may have given passports to people with ties to terrorism

Toledo, Spain (CNN): The stunning postcard-perfect vista surrounding Misael Lopez in this town about one hour from Madrid belies his constant anxiety, even fear.

That’s because the former legal adviser to the Venezuelan Embassy in Iraq is revealing secrets he says his government doesn’t want disclosed.
“I’m concerned about my safety and my family’s safety everywhere I go,” Lopez said as he walked the cobble-stoned streets of Toledo.
Lopez, 41, says he reported what he says was a scheme to sell passports and visas for thousands of dollars out of the embassy and repeatedly turned down offers to get a cut of the money. But it was the response from his government — which has denied his allegations — that surprised him the most.
CNN and CNN en Español teamed up in a year-long joint investigation that uncovered serious irregularities in the issuing of Venezuelan passports and visas, including allegations that passports were given to people with ties to terrorism. The investigation involved reviewing thousands of documents, and conducting interviews in the U.S., Spain, Venezuela and the United Kingdom.
One confidential intelligence document obtained by CNN links Venezuela’s new Vice President Tareck El Aissami to 173 Venezuelan passports and ID’s that were issued to individuals from the Middle East, including people connected to the terrorist group Hezbollah.
The accusation that the country was issuing passports to people who are not Venezuelan first surfaced in the early 2000s when Hugo Chavez was the country’s president, interviews and records show.
A Venezuelan passport permits entry into more than 130 countries without a visa, including 26 countries in the European Union, according to a ranking by Henley and Partners. A visa is required to enter the United States.
Over the course of the CNN investigation, Lopez provided documents that show he repeatedly told Venezuelan officials about what he discovered. But he said instead of investigating his allegations, the government targeted him for disclosing confidential information. U.S. officials were also made aware of his findings.
“You cannot be a cop, and a thief at the same time,” Lopez said. “I decide to be a cop and do the right thing.”
Doing the right thing has cost him.

Unwelcome surprise

It didn’t start out that way.
Lopez, a lawyer who worked as a police officer in Venezuela, said he thought becoming a diplomat was a great career opportunity, which would also allow him to serve his country. With that in mind, he moved to Baghdad to start his new life at the Venezuelan Embassy.
But, he recalled, he got an unwelcome surprise on his first day in July 2013.
His new boss, Venezuelan Ambassador Jonathan Velasco, gave him a special envelope, he said.
“He gave me an envelope full of visas and passports,” Lopez recalled. “He told me, ‘Get this, this is one million U.S. dollars.’ I thought it was like a joke. Then he told me here people pay a lot of money to get a visa or a passport to leave this country.”
About one month later, Lopez said he realized it was no joke.
An Iraqi employee of the embassy, who was hired to be an interpreter, told him she had made thousands of dollars selling Venezuelan passports and visas, he said. And he could make a lot of money, too.
But Lopez said he told her it was wrong and he refused.
The employee pressed the issue, telling him there were thousands of dollars to be made, he said, even discussing an offer to sell visas to 13 Syrians for $10,000 each.
And, Lopez, said, she told him he could get a cut of the money, too.
Again, he said he refused.
“I suspect it might be terrorists; that’s why I reject, of course, immediately,” Lopez said.
And he said it just got worse.

Lists of names

Lopez said he was stunned when he found a document inside the embassy. It was a list of 21 Arabic names with corresponding Venezuelan passport numbers and Venezuelan identification numbers. A Venezuelan immigration official told CNN that a cross-check of the passport numbers indicated that the passports are valid and match the names on the list Lopez found — meaning the people on the list could be able to travel using those passports.
But incredibly, a publicly available database in Venezuela examined by CNN shows 20 of the 21 identification numbers are registered to people with Hispanic names — not the Arabic names listed on the passports.
Lopez kept investigating what was going on inside the embassy. He said he even found the case of a convicted drug dealer with an Iraqi identification certificate that appears to show he was born in Iraq. But the man had a Venezuelan passport that said he was born in Venezuela.
He kept evidence and notes of what he found.
Concerned that the passport and visa scheme was continuing without his knowledge, Lopez investigated the embassy employee who he said had offered to sell passports. He took photos of her desk where he says he found the embassy’s official stamp, used to authenticate visas, as well as sheets of papers printed with the Venezuelan government seal.
He eventually fired the employee. Lopez did not have any other documents that would confirm the allegations against her.
The employee did not respond to repeated requests from CNN for comment.
In April 2014, only nine months after he started the job, he emailed a report to Ambassador Velasco about the alleged selling of passports and visas. By then, he said he was convinced that Velasco knew about what was going on inside the embassy.
“He’s been there since 2008,” Lopez said. “How could he (have) been there so long, couldn’t notice that?”
He said Velasco did nothing and even threatened to fire him.
By 2015, frustrated that no one would investigate, he took what he found to Delcy Rodriguez, Venezuela’s foreign minister. His emailed report said there was “fraudulent issuing of visas, birth certificates and Venezuelan documents.”
He said nothing happened.

Going to the FBI

Eventually, with nowhere else to turn, Lopez contacted an FBI official at the U.S. Embassy in Madrid. The two met at a restaurant across the street from the embassy, and the official sent Lopez’s information to FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C., a law enforcement source said. The FBI would not comment about what happened with the information.
For Lopez, it was his final attempt to get something done.
But it was too late.
By the end of 2015, the Venezuelan government accused Lopez of “abandoning his post” and removed him. A police official showed up at his home in Venezuela with a document that said he was under investigation for revealing “confidential documents or secrets.”

Looking for answers

In an email, Velasco strongly denied Lopez’s allegations.
“This embassy is ready open to be audit [sic] and investigated for any international organization and intelligent [sic] Services as well, I don’t have nothing to hide or fear. I be sure [sic] that under my duties this embassy don’t never [sic] and ever sell Venezuelan nationalities, this will be a joke for all the international security organization [sic] and we already cooperate with the (Iraqi) government and international intelligent [sic] service,” the email read in English.
In an attempt to get answers, a team from CNN en Español traveled to Caracas last June. In a letter, the government restricted CNN’s coverage to stories related to tourism, weather, alternative energy sources and relations among the different government institutions in Venezuela.
Rodriguez, the foreign minister, ignored reporter Rafael Romo when he tried to question her at a press event.
A government official told the CNN en Español team that any questions about the passport allegations would be grounds for expulsion from the country.
On a second visit to Caracas last August, a CNN en Español producer and videographer were forced to leave the country after Venezuelan authorities impounded CNN camera equipment at the airport.
Last September, Rodriguez represented Venezuela at the United Nations General Assembly. Inside the UN, she again ignored CNN’s attempt to ask her questions.
Finally, CNN was able to speak with her as she was walking with a small group on the sidewalk across from the UN. As she walked away from the crews, she said, “You’re going to hurt yourself for following the lies of a person who doesn’t know what he’s talking about.” She said allegations of selling passports and visas were “totally” false.
But it’s not the first time allegations about Venezuelan passports have been made public.

Links to terror

U.S. lawmakers heard reports about Venezuelan passport fraud during congressional hearings as far back as 2006. In fact, a congressional report warned, “Venezuela is providing support, including identity documents that could prove useful to radical Islamic groups.”
And a state department report at the time also concluded that “Venezuelan travel and identification documents are extremely easy to obtain by persons not entitled to them.”
Roger Noriega, the former US ambassador to the Organization of American States and former assistant secretary of state for Western Hemisphere affairs, said in prepared remarks before a congressional in 2012 that “Venezuela has provided thousands of phony IDs, passports and visas to persons of Middle Eastern origin.”
Noreiga, who is now managing director of Vision Americas and works for a conservative think tank, told CNN that evidence began to emerge in 2003 in Venezuela that passports were being issued to non-Venezuelans.
“I absolutely believe, and I state it so publicly, that if we do not get our arms around this problem, people are going to die, either our allies or our own personnel or facilities are going to be attacked by networks abetted by the Venezuelans,” Noriega said.
The U.S. State Department declined CNN’s request late last year for an interview, instead emailing a link to its 2015 country terrorism overview. That report concluded, “There were credible reports that Venezuela maintained a permissive environment that allowed for support of activities that benefited known terrorist groups.”
A 2013 confidential intelligence report from a group of Latin American countries obtained by CNN says that from 2008 to 2012, 173 individuals from the Middle East were issued Venezuelan passports and IDs. Among them were people connected to the terrorist group Hezbollah.
The official who ordered the issuing of the passports, the report said, is Tareck El Aissami, who was appointed vice president of Venezuela in January. He is the former minister in charge of immigration as well as a governor.
El Aissami “took charge of issuing, granting visas and nationalizing citizens from different countries, especially Syrians, Lebanese, Jordanians, Iranians and Iraqis,” the report said.
He did not respond to multiple requests for comment.
Ghazi Nasr Al-Din

Ghazi Nasr Al-Din
Another high-profile Venezuelan linked to terrorism is Ghazi Nasr Al-Din, a former Venezuelan diplomat who worked in the country’s embassy in Syria. He is “wanted for questioning” by the FBI for “his fundraising efforts” with Hezbollah contributors, according to a notice on the FBI website. The bureau confirmed that the information was still active, but would not comment further.
U.S. officials say he has “facilitated the travel” of Hezbollah members to and from Venezuela, according to a 2008 press release from the U.S. Treasury Department.

Leaks in the process

What allegedly happened in Iraq is no surprise to General Marco Ferreira, who was in charge of Venezuela’s immigration office in 2002.
Today, Ferreira is living in Miami after being granted political asylum after he supported a 2002 failed coup against Venezuela’s then-President Hugo Chavez. He told CNN that he personally witnessed corrupt senior officials ordering passports for people who were not citizens when he was running the department. He added anyone could get a passport at a local office because each worked independently.
He said it was “very easy” to assume someone else’s identity.
“One of the problems was the corrupted people that was working in that place,” Ferreira said. “The second one was the fragility of the system because everything was very old and they have a lot of leaks in the process.”
He said it was “very, very easy to go and be Venezuelan, or pretend being born in Venezuela.”
Asked about what Misael Lopez described as the alleged passport and visa-selling operation at the Venezuelan Embassy in Iraq, he said he was not surprised.
As for Misael Lopez, he’s living modestly in Spain, where he also has citizenship; he knows he can’t go back to Venezuela.
With his safety always an issue, he still says he had to tell his story. And going public, he hopes, will help protect him and his family.
“I did the right thing and I’m proud it,” he said. “No regrets at all.”

Gulen Paid for Congressional Members’ Travel to Turkey

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The Trump administration successfully saw Betsy DeVos confirmed as Secretary of Education. Perhaps she will take on these charter school immediately?

Atlantic/2014: FBI raid last month on the headquarters of over 19 Gülen-operated Horizon Science Academies in Midwest. According to search warrants obtained by the Chicago Sun-Times, federal authorities were interested in gathering general financial documents and records of communication. The warrant specifically mentions something called the E-rate program—a federal program that, according to the Sun-Times, “pays for schools to expand telecommunications and Internet access.” A handful of the Gülen-affiliated contractors assisting the schools were receiving money from this federal fund. It’s difficult speculate what this could all mean, as all documents pertaining to the investigation, save the warrants themselves, have been sealed from the public. A must read of the full article here.  

Image result for fethullah gulen

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Hillary Clinton has been the biggest recipient of Gulenist donations of any presidential candidate this cycle, federal election records show.

Besides his massive Clinton Foundation donation, Recep Ozkan, who is listed on various campaign finance disclosures as an executive at JIG Corp., Everglobe Partners, and Baharu Inc., gave $25,000 to the pro-Clinton Ready PAC in 2014. He contributed an additional $5,400 to her campaign this year.

As president of the Turkish Cultural Center, Ozkan hosted Clinton at Ramadan celebration dinners in 2006 and 2007 when she was in the Senate. More details here from the Daily Caller.

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H1B visas abuse is a large part of the immigration abuse and Gulen has exploited the system.

Turkey’s authoritarian’s ruler is Recep Erdogan; he is at loggerheads with his former ally, Fethullah Gulen, the self-exiled leader of an Islamic cult that is devoted to undoing the reforms of modern Turkey’s George Washington, Kamal Ataturk. Gulen’s followers in the U.S. have created a series of charter schools which use public school moneys, via staff extortions, to support the cult’s activities. The Gulen schools, which have also used political contributions to shore up their position, are charters, and, as such, are sheltered by conservatives promoting charters generally. Erdogan has said that he wants Gulen extradited from Pennsylvania to Turkey because of his alleged ties to the failed coup in Turkey.

Why is this of any interest to immigration policy types?

In spite of the presence of tens, perhaps hundreds, of thousands of unemployed U.S.-trained teachers, Gulen’s schools continue to use local tax funds to secure H-1B visas for, and to provide wages for, teachers from Turkey, including in a few cases English teachers, as we have reported previously.

CIS: Why are the Gulen schools so interested in recruiting Turkish teachers (and often paying them more than U.S. teachers in the same schools)? To some extent it is a Tammany Hall sort of nepotism – let’s use public funds to help our landsmen – but there is another apparent motive. According to a long, detailed, and stinging report by LA Weekly, there is a highly organized, systematic shake-down of Turkish teachers to benefit Gulen cult organizations. The name of one of Gulen’s collectors in one of his school systems, the amounts raised, and their transportation, in cash, to cult meetings are all spelled out in detail. More details here.

Image result for gulen home in pa NBC, Gulen’s home in Saylorsburg, PA.

Deeper dive:

Scores of state lawmakers took trips subsidized by controversial Turkish opposition movement

Gulen groups are connected to U.S. charter school network overseen by legislators

In part from Public Integrity: Just why exactly would 151 state legislators from places like Idaho and Texas accept subsidized junkets from a Turkish opposition group now blamed by that country’s government for an attempted coup last summer?

It’s puzzling that state legislators who rarely get involved in foreign policy matters have been courted with international trips.

It’s especially surprising for the invitations to come from a powerful religious movement that until recently ran media outlets and a bank before falling out with the government in Turkey, a pivotal U.S. ally that serves as the gateway to the Middle East. Though followers of the movement deny having supported the failed coup, Turkey has asked the United States to extradite its leader, Fethullah Gulen, a reclusive Islamic cleric who lives in a compound not in Ankara or Istanbul but in the woods of Pennsylvania.

The Center for Public Integrity documented the extent of the trips and found that some state lawmakers who attended them later introduced resolutions supporting Gulen’s controversial Hizmet movement. And some have even supported charter schools that are part of a network from Washington, D.C., to California of roughly 160 taxpayer-funded schools run by friends of the movement.

While some familiar with the lawmakers’ trips frame them as innocuous learning experiences, the trips are meant to transform American community leaders into Gulen sympathizers, according to Joshua Hendrick, a sociologist at Loyola University and a leading expert on the movement.

“It most certainly has the impact of cultivating influence,” Hendrick said. “It is a political effort but it is framed as a grassroots mobilization of dialogue.”

‘Sympathetic to the cause’

The long parade of state legislators who have accepted the heavily subsidized trips from the Gulen movement includes some influential figures. The man known as Illinois’ most powerful state politician, Democratic Speaker of the House Mike Madigan, traveled four times to Turkey on trips sponsored by nonprofit groups associated with Gulen’s Hizmet — or “service” — movement.

In 2011, at least a tenth of Idaho’s state legislators toured the land of the Ottomans on the movement’s dime.

At least four Texas lawmakers who have served on legislative education committees went on the sponsored trips. The Lone Star state is home to the most Gulen-linked charter schools.

California has about a dozen of the schools, as do Florida and Ohio. Arizona, Illinois and Missouri are among the states that have them, as well.

The Center for Public Integrity used lawmakers’ annual disclosures and news reports to identify 151 state legislators from 29 states who toured Turkey between 2006 and 2015 thanks to more than two dozen nonprofits associated with the Gulen movement.

Among those who went on the trips were lawmakers who had rarely traveled overseas. Many had little knowledge of Gulen or Turkish politics. Few of their states have trade connections to Turkey.

But state legislators represent the political farm team of leaders who may someday play in the big leagues of Congress or beyond. Thom Tillis, for one, was first elected to the North Carolina statehouse in 2006 and went on a trip to Turkey with a Gulen movement group in 2011. Fast forward: The Republican is now a U.S. senator serving on the powerful Armed Services Committee, which oversees members of the U.S. military stationed in Turkey.

State lawmakers also shape education policy and hold the purse strings on state budgets, which fund charter schools.

“It’s effective public relations,” said William Martin, a Rice University sociologist who went on two sponsored trips. “That can affect their schools, it can affect the things they would like to do.”

The schools have denied connections to Gulen, but experts and even some friends of the movement call the links obvious. The charter schools are often founded and run by individuals with long ties to the Gulen movement, and they frequently hire Turkish teachers, sponsor their visas and move them between schools.  Many were set up with the help of nonprofits tied to the movement.

Gulen supporters say the trips for lawmakers promoted intercultural dialogue, a key component of Gulen’s teaching. The former imam preaches a unique brand of Islamic mysticism paired with Turkish nationalism and respect for modern science.

“We wanted to act as a kind of a bridge”between Americans and Turks, said Atilla Kahveci, vice president of the California-based Pacifica Institute, a Gulen-movement group that has organized lawmaker trips. “We didn’t have any kind of, from our point of view, ulterior agenda, no matter how it seems from outside.”

But other experts think the trips have political motivations.

“It’s like any other lobbying or political operation,” said James Jeffrey, who served as ambassador to Turkey under President George W. Bush and is now a fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a think tank. “They’re doing this to advance their cause.”

American sympathizers have stuck up for Gulen and his followers. Since 2011, state lawmakers in 23 states have introduced at least 54 resolutions honoring Turkey or Turkish Americans, some of which specifically praised Gulen or Gulen-movement organizations, according to a Center for Public Integrity analysis of data from Quorum, a legislative tracking service.

For example, the Illinois House of Representatives passed a resolution in 2011 recognizing Gulen for his “inspirational contributions to the promotion of global peace and understanding.” A Gulen-movement group sponsored at least 32 trips to Turkey for Illinois state lawmakers between 2008 and 2012, according to the Chicago Sun-Times.

In Kansas, former state Rep. Tom Moxley, a Republican who went on a subsidized trip to Turkey in 2011, sponsored a resolution the following year that praised Turkey’s diversity and called for the creation of a Kansan-Turkish Friendship Network.

“I’m more sympathetic to the cause, the belief system of this group of Muslims, versus the ones that are in power in Turkey today,” he said. “We’re watching a dictator take over at a time when the American government can least afford to lose them as a friend.”

A movement centered in the Poconos

Fethullah Gulen, Turkey’s most wanted man, lives tucked in the green mountains of the Poconos, a Pennsylvania tourism spot better known for its honeymoon suites with heart-shaped tubs than as an incubator for international insurrection.

Gulen, now in his 70s, began preaching in Turkey by the early 1960s and quickly drew followers to his messages of devotion to Islam paired with success in the modern world.

He moved to the United States in 1999, ostensibly for medical treatment, though he left just before the secularist regime ruling at the time accused him of threatening to overthrow the government. Gulen later obtained a U.S. green card, on the grounds that he had special abilities in the field of education.

Gulen’s movement in Turkey continued to grow, aligning itself with the conservative AKP party that now rules the country.

His followers established dormitories and schools in Turkey and elsewhere, as well as a network of nonprofit groups and foundations, including those in the United States that sponsor lawmakers’ trips, such as the Pacifica Institute and the American Turkish Friendship Association.

The nonprofits frequently share open allegiance to Gulen’s Hizmet movement, staff or other ties, according to Hendrick, the Loyola sociologist who mapped the connections between the groups in his research. Hendrick calls their informal connections to each other and Gulen part of the movement’s “strategic ambiguity,” which makes it more difficult for outsiders to assess the movement’s size and power.

But tensions in Turkey flared in 2013, and the AKP blamed its former political allies for the attempted coup in July 2016.

Though Gulen and his followers have denied responsibility for the recent coup attempt, the Turkish government led by President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has cracked down on the Gulen movement, arresting 40,000 people and firing more than 100,000 soldiers, teachers and civil servants. Erdogan has also moved to silence dissenters and has jailed more than 100 journalists.

Today, Turkish leaders call Gulen a terrorist.

Turkey has also hired Amsterdam and Partners LLP, an international law firm that specializes in “political advocacy and cross-border disputes,” to pursue investigations into U.S. schools connected to the movement. The Turkish embassy did not return requests for comment.

Gulen was not available for an interview, according to the Alliance for Shared Values, a Gulen-movement umbrella group based in New York that handles his media requests.

“We hope that Americans see that he is a peaceful man who has been wrongly accused by an autocratic Turkish president,” said Mustafa Akpinar, CEO of the Rumi Forum, a Gulen-movement nonprofit based in Washington, D.C. “We are confident in the rule of law in the United States and expect due process for Turkey’s misguided extradition request.”

All this has put the United States in a tricky position. U.S. officials have offered to help Turkey investigate the attempted coup, while simultaneously warning its ally to live up to “democratic principles” in dealing with suspects.

Though the U.S. has not formally said who was to blame for the coup, two U.S. ambassadors to the country, including current ambassador John Bass, have made the connection to Gulen. Bass in a television interview last August referenced “the apparent involvement of a large number” of Gulen’s followers in the attempted takeover.

Experts say even if this is true, it remains possible that Gulen himself and his American followers were not directly involved in the failed takeover.

In September, after Turkey asked the U.S. to extradite Gulen back to Turkey, the Obama administration promised to consider it but did not move quickly.

Experts are uncertain where the new administration stands. Former Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, President Trump’s national security adviser, has called Gulen “shady” and his schools a “scam.”

State Department spokeswoman Pooja Jhunjhunwala said the agency had no update on the issue.

Meanwhile, the Turkey trips for state legislators have dried up amid the current political upheaval.

Fact-finding mission or junket?

Some lawmakers are bewildered that the groups that paid for their trips are now swept up in Turkey’s current political turmoil.

“I can’t imagine what they would have wanted out of the North Dakota state Legislature,” said former North Dakota state Rep. Ben Hanson, a Democrat who went on a trip sponsored by a Gulen group in 2013 with six other lawmakers from his state. North Dakota does not currently allow charter schools and has few ties to the Middle East.

“It seemed like their group was trying to educate people and trying to bridge relations, and that seemed like a positive thing in and of itself,” he added.

The Center for Public Integrity attempted to contact the legislators it identified as having gone on the trips. Of the 34 lawmakers willing to comment, most spoke of their trips positively. Many said their trips were packed with educational information and meetings with Turkish businessmen or officials and were not pleasure tours. While some, like Moxley in Kansas, defended Gulen’s followers, others said they didn’t know what to make of recent events in Turkey.

“That’s above my pay grade,” said Roger Katz, a Republican in the Maine Senate who traveled to Turkey.

Some said they had no idea the sponsors of the trips were even part of the Gulen movement. To be sure, many of the trips occurred before the movement became an enemy of the Turkish state.

“The people I was associated with were devout Muslims and, I thought, the nicest people,” said Harry Kennedy, a former Democratic state senator in Missouri who went to Turkey in 2008. “But we really didn’t talk much about international politics.”

Lawmakers who have gone on the trips also have praised the experience as a way to dispel myths about Muslims in a post-9/11 world. But not every trip participant walked away with the same conclusions. New Mexico state Sen. George Munoz said he left his trip early.

“I thought it was interesting to see another culture and government, but there were some things that were deeply wrong,” the Democrat said. “There’s a reason our country chose Christianity.”

Gulen-movement groups are not the only ones paying for foreign travel by state lawmakers who have no power over foreign affairs. The government of Taiwan has sponsored trips for state lawmakers, and various Jewish nonprofits have taken state legislators to Israel.

But the Gulen movement’s efforts are extensive. For years, Gulen’s followers have been making friends in the United States by offering receptions, awards dinners and the subsidized trips — and not just for state lawmakers.

A 2015 USA Today investigation found the Gulen movement organized 200 trips for members of Congress and their staff.

One Gulen movement member estimated that more than 7,000 Gulen-movement-sponsored trips for North Americans occurred between 2003 and 2010, at an estimated cost of $17.5 million. The trips included mayors, university professors, journalists and other community leaders from across the United States.

The Center for Public Integrity’s review of lawmakers’ disclosures show that the Gulen-movement groups shelled out between $1,000 and $7,047 per trip.

Some lawmakers’ spouses also came along for the subsidized journeys, which often included visits to major Turkish historical sites such as the Hagia Sophia, a cruise on the Bosphorus Strait, shopping, as well as tours of Gulen-linked institutions such as Zaman, a daily newspaper, or private schools run by the movement.

Though some lawmakers paid for the cost of their flights to the country, expenses such as hotels, meals and tours were frequently covered by Gulen-movement nonprofits, which run on generous donations from Gulen’s followers, experts said. In addition, local Turkish followers of Gulen often donated funds specifically for the trips and then hosted the travelers in their homes for dinners or joined them for tours.

While federal lawmakers’ trips are governed by strict rules and must be disclosed, state regulations and their interpretations vary. Many states that regulate lawmaker gifts and travel include exceptions for educational trips, and none ban subsidized travel for legislators outright, according to Ethan Wilson, an ethics expert at the National Conference of State Legislatures.

For example, Colorado bans gifts for lawmakers above $50, but the state’s ethics commission ruled that the Turkey trips fall under the definition of “fact-finding missions,” which are allowed.

And though some Kansas legislators reported their trips in financial disclosures, at least two did not. They told the Center for Public Integrity that the state ethics commission told them it wasn’t required, though the director of the commission said hotel stays worth more than $500 should be disclosed.

North Dakota does not have any rules barring such trips, nor does it even require them to be disclosed.

Still, lawmakers should scrutinize perks offered to them carefully, said Mike Palmer, an ethics consultant who has worked on ethics codes for municipalities and government agencies. Certain groups like federal contracting officers have strict bans on gifts for good reason, he said.

“There’s a balance there between receiving education and being lobbied,” Palmer said. “What one would ask is: ‘Why are they providing this? Why is this person taking me to lunch? What’s in it for them?’” Must read the full summary here from Public Integrity. (List of lawmakers that were paid to travel is included.)