Category Archives: Presidential campaign

ISIS Built Their Network in Front of Europe’s Face

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How ISIS built the machinery of terror under Europe’s gaze

TimesofIndia: The day he left Syria with instructions to carry out a terrorist attack in France, Reda Hame, 29, a computer technician from Paris, had been a member of the Islamic State for just over a week.

His French passport and his background in information technology made him an ideal recruit for a rapidly expanding group within ISIS that was dedicated to terrorizing Europe. Over just a few days, he was rushed to a park, shown how to fire an assault rifle, handed a grenade and told to hurl it at a human silhouette. His accelerated course included how to use an encryption program called TrueCrypt, the first step in a process intended to mask communications with his ISIS handler back in Syria.

The handler, code-named Dad, drove Hame to the Turkish border and sent him off with advice to pick an easy target, shoot as many civilians as possible and hold hostages until the security forces made a martyr of him.

“Be brave,” Dad said, embracing him.

Hame was sent out by a body inside the Islamic State that was obsessed with striking Europe for at least two years before the deadly assaults in Paris last November and in Brussels this month. In that time, the group dispatched a string of operatives trained in Syria, aiming to carry out small attacks meant to test and stretch Europe’s security apparatus even as the most deadly assaults were in the works, according to court proceedings, interrogation transcripts and records of European wiretaps obtained by The New York Times.

Related reading: Terror in Europe: Safeguarding U.S. Citizens At Home And Abroad
Officials now say the signs of this focused terrorist machine were readable in Europe as far back as early 2014. Yet local authorities repeatedly discounted each successive plot, describing them as isolated or random acts, the connection to the Islamic State either overlooked or played down.

“This didn’t all of a sudden pop up in the last six months,” said Michael T Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general who ran the Defense Intelligence Agency from 2012 to 2014. “They have been contemplating external attacks ever since the group moved into Syria in 2012.”

Hame was arrested in Paris last August, before he could strike, one of at least 21 trained operatives who succeeded in slipping back into Europe. Their interrogation records offer a window into the origins and evolution of an Islamic State branch responsible for killing hundreds of people in Paris, Brussels and beyond.

European officials now know that Dad, Hame’s handler, was none other than Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the Belgian operative who selected and trained fighters for plots in Europe and who returned himself to oversee the Paris attack, the deadliest terrorist strike on European soil in over a decade.

 

The people in Abaaoud’s external operations branch were also behind the Brussels attacks, as well as a foiled attack in a suburb of Paris last week, and others are urgently being sought, Belgian and French officials say.

“It’s a factory over there,” Hame warned his interlocutors from France’s intelligence service after his arrest. “They are doing everything possible to strike France, or else Europe.”

For much of 2012 and 2013, the jihadi group that eventually became the Islamic State was putting down roots in Syria. Even as the group began aggressively recruiting foreigners, especially Europeans, policymakers in the United States and Europe continued to see it as a lower-profile branch of al-Qaida that was mostly interested in gaining and governing territory.

One of the first clues that the Islamic State was getting into the business of international terrorism came at 12:10 p.m. on Jan. 3, 2014, when the Greek police pulled over a taxi in the town of Orestiada, less than four miles from the Turkish border. Inside was a 23-year-old French citizen named Ibrahim Boudina, who was returning from Syria. In his luggage, the officers found 1,500 euros, or almost $1,700, and a French document titled “How to Make Artisanal Bombs  in the Name of Allah.”

But there was no warrant for his arrest in Europe, so the Greeks let him go, according to court records detailing the French investigation.

Boudina was already on France’s watch list, part of a cell of 22 men radicalized at a mosque in the resort city of Cannes. When French officials were notified about the Greek traffic stop, they were already wiretapping his friends and relatives. Several weeks later, Boudina’s mother received a call from a number in Syria. Before hanging up, the unknown caller informed her that her son had been “sent on a mission,” according to a partial transcript of the call.

The police set up a perimeter around the family’s apartment near Cannes, arresting Boudina on February 11, 2014.

In a utility closet in the same building, they found three Red Bull soda cans filled with 600 grams of TATP, the temperamental peroxide-based explosive that would later be used to deadly effect in Paris and Brussels.

It was not until nearly two years later, on Page 278 of a 359-page sealed court filing, that investigators revealed an important detail: Boudina’s Facebook chats placed him in Syria in late 2013, at the scene of a major battle fought by a group calling itself the “Islamic State in Iraq and Syria.”

According to a brief by France’s domestic intelligence agency, he was the first European citizen known to have traveled to Syria, joined the Islamic State and returned with the aim of committing terrorism. Yet his ties to the group were buried in French paperwork and went unconnected to later cases.

Including Boudina, at least 21 fighters trained by the Islamic State in Syria have been dispatched back to Europe with the intention of causing mass murder, according to a Times count based on records from France’s domestic intelligence agency. The fighters arrived in a steady trickle, returning alone or in pairs at the rate of one every two to three months throughout 2014 and the first part of 2015.

Like the killers in Paris and Brussels, all of these earlier operatives were French speakers — mostly French and Belgian citizens, alongside a handful of immigrants from former French colonies, including Morocco.

They were arrested in Italy, Spain, Belgium, France, Greece, Turkey and Lebanon with plans to attack Jewish businesses, police stations and a carnival parade. They attempted to open fire on packed train cars and on church congregations. In their possession were box cutters and automatic weapons, walkie-talkies and disposable cellphones, as well as the chemicals to make TATP.

Most of them failed. And in each instance, officials failed to catch — or at least to flag to colleagues — the men’s ties to the nascent Islamic State.
In one of the highest-profile instances, Mehdi Nemmouche returned from Syria via Frankfurt, Germany, and made his way by car to Brussels, where on May 24, 2014, he opened fire inside the Jewish Museum of Belgium, killing four people. Even when the police found a video in his possession, in which he claims responsibility for the attack next to a flag bearing the words “Islamic State of Iraq and Syria,” Belgium’s deputy prosecutor, Ine Van Wymersch, dismissed any connection.

“He probably acted alone,” she told reporters at the time.
Among the clearest signs of the Islamic State’s growing capacity for terrorist attacks is its progress in making and deploying bombs containing triacetone triperoxide, or TATP.

 

 

Yup, He Commuted Another 111 Sentences

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Obama Commutes Sentences Of 111 Federal Inmates Convicted Of Non-Violent Drug Charges

 

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Barack Obama has cut short the sentences of 111 federal inmates in another round of commutations for those convicted of nonviolent drug offenses

Obama has long called for phasing out strict sentences for drug offenses, arguing they lead to excessive punishment and incarceration rates unseen in other developed countries.

White House Counsel Neil Eggleston says the commutations underscore the president’s commitment to using his clemency authority to give deserving individuals a second chance.

He says that Obama has granted a total of 673 commutations, more than the previous 10 presidents combined. More than a third of the recipients were serving life sentences.

Eggleston says he expects Obama to continue granting commutations through the end of his administration, but only legislation can ensure the federal sentencing system operates more fairly.

Prisoner applications are being reviewed by more than 1,000 attorneys at 323 law firms and organizations nationwide, pro bono. In the meantime, more than 35,000 inmates — about 16 percent of the federal prison population — have applied to have their sentences shortened under the Justice Department-led initiative. More her from the WashingtonPost.

This the program began under Eric Holder.

Obama has enacted his own SAFE Act, legislation that has not advanced, so he is using his pen and phone instead. Note the title ‘SAFE’….safe for who exactly?

The Safe, Accountable, Fair, and Effective (SAFE) Justice Act Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner and Rep. Bobby Scott

States Lead the Way in Corrections Reform

Since 1980, Congress has steadily increased the size and scope of the federal criminal code and with it the federal prison population. In that period, the federal government has added an estimated 2,000 new crimes to the books, while the federal imprisonment rate has grown by an astounding 518 percent. During the same period, annual spending on the federal prison system rose 595 percent, from $970 million to more than $6.7 billion, after adjusting for inflation.

Like the federal government, states also recorded sharp increases in imprisonment and associated costs over the past 30 years. During the past decade, however, the states have responded by reducing their imprisonment rate by 4 percent while the federal imprisonment rate jumped 15 percent. The state drop was driven in large part by comprehensive reform efforts in more than two dozen states designed to protect public safety while containing costs and preventing further growth in government programs.

These state reforms have returned dividends to taxpayers many times over: from Texas and Wisconsin to Rhode Island, from Georgia and South Carolina to New York, 32 states have reduced both their crime and imprisonment rates over the past five years. Cumulative cost savings in a subset of these states exceed $4.6 billion, and millions have been reinvested in prison alternatives better at breaking the cycle of recidivism.

The Safe, Accountable, Fair, and Effective (SAFE) Justice Act

The SAFE Justice Act is bipartisan legislation that puts lessons learned in the states to work at the federal level. The legislation protects public safety and reins in escalating corrections costs by –

Curtailing overcriminalization – requires public disclosure of regulatory criminal offenses; allows victims of regulatory over-criminalization to contact the inspector general; restores discretion to judges to determine to what extent manipulated conduct that results from fictitious law enforcement “stings” may be considered in court; protects against wrongful convictions; creates procedures to simplify charging and safely reduce pre-trial detention; and eliminates federal criminal penalties for simple drug possession in state jurisdictions.

Increasing use of evidence-based sentencing alternatives – expands eligibility for pre-judgment probation; promotes greater use of probation for lower-level offenders; and encourages judicial districts to open drug, veteran, mental health and other problem solving courts.

Concentrating prison space on violent and career criminals – clarifies original Congressional intent by examining the role an offender plays in a drug offense and targeting higher-level traffickers for mandatory minimums and recidivist enhancements; applies life sentences for drug trafficking only in the most egregious cases; allows eligible offenders to petition for resentencing under new trafficking laws; modestly expands the drug trafficking safety valve; clarifies that mandatory minimum gun sentences can only run consecutively when the offender is a true recidivist; and expands compassionate release for lower-risk geriatric and terminally-ill offenders.

Reducing recidivism – expands earned time to encourage more inmates to participate in individualized case plans designed to reduce their likelihood of reoffending; seeks to boost success rates of offenders on probation and post-prison supervision by mandating swift, certain and graduated sanctions for violations and offering credits for those who are compliant; creates a performance-incentive funding program; creates mental health and de-escalation training programs for prison personnel; and mandates the use of performance-based contracting for half-way houses.

Increasing government transparency and accountability – requires fiscal impact statements for sentencing and corrections bills; requires sentencing cost analyses to be disclosed in pre-sentencing reports; adds a non-voting federal defender rep. on the U.S. Sentencing Commission; requires the calculation of good time as Congress intended; requires federal agencies to report on corrections populations and recidivism rates, among other indicators; reauthorizes the Innocence Protection Act and directs the Attorney General to develop best practices to reduce wrongful convictions; and encourages prison savings to be invested in strengthening safety measures for law enforcement.

The Research Foundation for the SAFE Justice Act

The SAFE Justice Act, like the comprehensive corrections reforms enacted in many states, draws from the large and growing body of research about what works to reduce recidivism, including the following principles:

To deter offending, use swift and certain responses – Research demonstrates that delayed, unpredictable, and severe responses are less effective than swift, certain, and fair sanctions. Swift and certain responses—both punishments and rewards—are more effective because they help offenders see the response as a direct consequence of their behavior and because offenders heavily discount uncertain and distant responses.

States that have implemented swift and certain responses include Washington, Georgia, and West Virginia.

Earned time policies can reduce recidivism – Research demonstrates that rewards and incentives can work to change offending behavior and reduce recidivism. The benefits of earned time policies for inmates and earned compliance credits for offenders under probation or post-release supervision include lower costs (through accelerated release) and lower recidivism (by shifting correctional resources to those offenders who continue to violate rules and break laws).

States that have built earned time into their prison systems include Kentucky, Maryland, and Louisiana. States that have built earned time into their supervision systems include South Dakota, Mississippi, and Arkansas.

For drug offenders, sentence strategically – The most vicious, predatory and high-level drug offenders warrant prison cells to avert the harm they cause to individuals and communities, but research shows that long terms of incarceration for the vast majority of mid-level couriers, distributors and dealers has little impact on public safety. While imprisonment may temporarily disrupt a drug market, the “replacement effect”—whereby new recruits quickly replace those imprisoned for mid-level roles—negates the impact of incarceration on drug price, availability, or related crime. Instead, prison time should be focused on violent or kingpin drug traffickers who are controlling the marketplace.

States that have recalibrated their drug sentencing systems to differentiate higher-level from lower-level offenders include South Dakota, Georgia, and South Carolina.

Focus on high-risk offenders – For many lower-level offenders, especially those whose criminal conduct is driven largely by substance abuse, alternatives like drug and mental health courts, treatment programs, and intensive supervision both hold offenders accountable and work better to reduce recidivism. In fact, research suggests that for many lower-risk and less serious offenders a prison sentence may actually be responsible for an increase in recidivism by encouraging anti-social ties and breaking bonds at home.

States that have encouraged diversion of lower-level offenders to prison alternatives include Mississippi, California, and Illinois.

Age matters – Research has long shown that age is one of the most significant predictors of criminality, with criminal or delinquent activity peaking in late adolescence and decreasing significantly with time. As a result, imprisonment of offenders into their 50s, 60s and 70s provides diminishing and often negligible public safety returns. Implementing smart, targeted geriatric release programs can ensure heinous offenders remain behind bars while cutting down on costs and maintaining public safety.

States that have implemented geriatric or compassionate release programs include Alabama, Colorado, and Montana.

 

Russia Moves Air Defense, MiGs, bombers to Crimea

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Russian Anti-Access and Area Denial (A2AD) Range: August 2016

ISW: Russia has altered the security balance in the Black Sea, Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East by establishing large anti-access/area-denial (A2AD) exclusion zones. Russia’s power projection in these regions has been further extended by the deployment of the S-400 air defense system to Crimea in August 2016 and to Syria in November 2015. Advanced air defense systems create A2AD “bubbles” that prevent Russia’s opponents from establishing air supremacy in strategically significant theaters. The Baltic States, much of Ukraine and the Black Sea, northern Poland, Syria and parts of Turkey fall under Russian A2AD bubbles created by S-300 and S-400 air defense systems. Russia operates advanced air defense not only within its own territory, but from sites in Syria and occupied Crimea, as well as cooperatively through the Joint Air Defense Network in Belarus and Armenia. Russia can use these systems to impede the ability of the U.S. to defend its NATO allies by disrupting the ability of US air forces to access conflict zones in the event of a crisis.

DefenseWorld: Russian advanced bombers and jet fighters have been shifted to bolster Aerospace Forces Fleet in Crimea.

The Su-34 bombers have been moved to Crimean Peninsula as a part of snap combat readiness inspection, whereas MiG-39 and MiG-31 fighter jets have been relocated to mainland Russia.

The MiG-29SMT and MiG-31BM have been relocated to bases in Krasnodar Krai and Rostov Oblast, Western military district spokesman Igor Muginov said.

The Aerospace forces of Central and Western military districts have been relocated to bases in Southern military district as a part of snap combat readiness inspection, Russian Defense Ministry’s report was quoted by Sputnik News Saturday.

Fighter jets and bomber aircraft, as well as military transport and attack helicopters will perform a flight over a distance of 500 to 2,500 kilometers.

Snap combat readiness inspections are running across Russia’s Southern, Western and Central military districts, as well as the Northern Fleet, Aerospace Forces and Airborne Troops on August 25-31 on order of Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu.

The inspection also includes military exercises of Russian fleets in Black and Caspian Seas, relocation of airborne troops and marines and maneuvers of S-300 and S-400 air defense systems.

This large-scale snap inspection does not pose threat to anyone and is being conducted in line with the country’s international obligations, Russian Envoy to NATO said.

“It the inspection can not threaten anyone by any means. I will stress that NATO is familiar with this practice. For our country, with its size, it is one of the most optimal ways to ensure the battle readiness of the army,” Grushko said.

London Police on Islamic Payroll?

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Brian: Given the events in recent years where militant and radical Islamists in the UK are a protected class over Brits, a very chilling condition is real. Islam has won the battles-space in England. What you say?

The host of this website has interviewed several times Tommy Robinson and the leaders of Britain First. Both are fighting a cultural war to preserve the history and dignity of Britain and sadly appear to be losing the war due to some kind of mandate of the police. Arrest the Englishmen and ban them from moving about the country freely.

Perhaps it is time that Americans standup for keeping Britain …British and beware of the same at home in America.

   

Cant make this up.

Related reading: Keeping America, America? Britain First Action

Related reading: Germany/Britain Banning Free Speech

Tommy Robinson Thrown Out Of Cambridge And Why You Should Worry

Europe’s struggle with belligerent parts of their Muslim populations is exactly the same as Israel’s. In this we are tied together even if very few people see it yet.

Over the weekend I put up a video which has gone viral. It’s about Tommy Robinson in the UK. If you want a full background on who he is, my review of his book goes into a lot of detail.

What happened this Saturday is another chapter. The short story is Tommy, along with two adult male friends, his three children (all under 10) and four other kids travelled from Luton to Cambridge in the UK to watch Luton FC play Cambridge Untied. The whole party spent a fun day in Cambridge, peacefully went to the match in the afternoon and enjoyed Luton beating Cambridge 3-0. After the match they went into a couple of pubs (family friendly ones) and ended up watching Manchester United on TV.

At this point a large squad of policemen came into the pub and told Tommy and his party to leave threatening him with a “Section 35” dispersal notice and (if he failed to comply) arrest and criminal charges. Tommy broadcast most of this live including the walk to the train station with his kids crying and being followed by at least four threatening policemen. Breitbart has a more detailed write-up of the story. The security staff of the pub even pleaded with the Police to let them stay saying they’d been no trouble at all.

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There is a bigger picture to this harassment. On September 19th Tommy is scheduled to appear in court related to a “Football Banning Order”. The Police and the Crown Prosecution Services are trying to get Tommy banned from Luton FC and all football matches for five years. If they succeed, however, they will also prevent him from walking in large parts of his home town of Luton. They’ve essentially decided, for Tommy, there are no-go areas of Luton. It probably won’t shock you to learn those no-go areas correspond to areas where large numbers of Muslims live.

The pretext for this latest arrest and trial stems from the summer. Tommy Robinson travelled to France to watch a few Euro 2016 matches and was pictured holding a flag saying “F**k ISIS”. This statement by his lawyer was put out in June:

The mainstay of the application by Bedfordshire Police is that Tommy Robinson, while in France was pictured wearing an Anti ISIS T Shirt, and holding up an English Saint George Cross flag with ‘Fuck ISIS’ written across it, and that this was aimed at inciting racial hatred against muslims. Both I and my client are very concerned that the Chief Constable of Bedfordshire Police and the UK Football Policing Unit have equated Tommy Robinson’s demonstration against a banned extremist terrorist organisation as being the same as showing hatred towards people of the muslim faith. The Prime Minister David Cameron in his House of Commons speech on 2nd December 2015 refered to the ‘Evil’ of ISIS, and that British Muslims were appalled by ISIS. He further said that the attacks in Syria by the British Military were “far from an attack on Islam, we are engaging in the defence of Islam…failing to act would betray British Muslims”. It now appears that both Bedfordshire Police and the UK Football Policing Unit are linking ISIS to the general muslim people and population, because it suits their purpose of the campaign of harassment against Tommy Robinson.

It’s hard to see how saying “F**k ISIS” constitutes an insult to those Muslims who claim to be as horrified by ISIS as non-Muslims are. ISIS are a “banned extremist terrorist organisation”, they’re not representative of mainstream British Islam.

Tommy recorded this explanatory video before the incident in Cambridge:

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When I put all this together I get the inescapable feeling that the Police in Cambridge this weekend wanted to provoke Tommy Robinson into lashing out. They made his kids cry! They know Tommy’s history, they know he has (or at least had) a short temper. Hat’s off to him for keeping it down to a bit of shouting (which of course the Cambridge newspaper managed to focus on). My personal option: the goal was to get him to hit a policeman: that would send him back to prison for a long time and, judging by what happened to him last time, have a good chance of getting him killed.

As he mentions in that video, all this follows the banning of a group called “Britain First” from Luton. As Tommy explains in the video, Britain First felt forced to accept these terms because of the sheer expense of fighting against them.

What is going on in the UK is something I’ve referred to as “Proleptic Dhimmitude”:

Submission to the rules of Islam by non-Muslims before one is actually living under a Muslim ruler. For instance judging that insulting the prophet of Islam or desecrating one of Islam’s holy texts should be illegal so as to avoid “unpleasant consequences”. That is “proleptic dhimmitude”.

Tommy holds and expresses opinions about Sharia which are blasphemous when judged ONLY by Islamic Sharia law. That is undeniable. Many people do. I do. It doesn’t mean we are bigoted against individual Muslims, many of whom live good and peaceful lives. It just means we hope fervently Muslims themselves can discuss what it is about Islam that seems to lead to such high numbers of violent acts today.

It is hard to believe a majority of the Muslim population in Luton is really demanding Tommy be physically banned from entering parts of a town he grew up in. Whether they are demanding it or not, that is what the UK government seems to want to give them. Protection from any challenge to the ideas of their religion: ideas which are hard to separate from the actions of violent Jihadis all over the world including ISIS.

We have the same here in Israel. The hate filled minor “journalist” Abby Martin has recently visited the ancient Jewish city of Hebron to see how evil “settler Jews” are. Ironically she took a picture of the very sign, at the entrance to his ancient city which includes the site of the burial of the patriarchs of Judaism. Read more here if you dare.

 

Cyber Intrusions on U.S. Voter Databases Point to Russia

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Read the 4 page report here: Russia hacks Voter Databases

NextGov: The FBI warned election officials to enhance the security of systems after it found evidence foreign hackers penetrated databases in two state systems, Yahoo reports.

An Aug. 18 bulletin from the FBI’s Cyber Division stated hackers were able to exploit a Structured Query Language injection vulnerability to exfiltrate data from one state’s Board of Election website in July and attempted intrusions on another’s in August. The FBI alert lists eight IP addresses for the perpetrators and one used in both incidents, indicating the attacks could be linked.

The methods, tools and a previously flagged IP address resemble other suspect Russian state-sponsored attacks, an expert told Yahoo News.

Election security has been a hot-button issue a series of suspected Russian-sponsored attacks compromised the Democratic Party and media organizations allegedly to sway voter opinion. Earlier this month, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson suggested the federal government label elections systems as critical infrastructure.

The FBI issued the bulletin three days after Johnson had a call with representatives from National Association of Secretaries of State and U.S. Election Assistance Commission to offer DHS assistance addressing cybersecurity risks within each state’s election systems.

At the time of the call, per Johnson, DHS was not aware of any credible cyberthreats related to 2016 general election systems. Some swing states declined DHS’ assistance, including Georgia and Pennsylvania, stating they will rely on in-house security crews.

The FBI bulletin asks states and election boards to review activity logs for similar tools and techniques, and report them to local FBI field offices.

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Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson has promised state election officials his department’s assistance addressing cybersecurity risks within each state’s election systems.

Johnson made the remarks in a conference call with representatives from National Association of Secretaries of State, U.S. Election Assistance Commission and representatives from various federal agencies, including the Justice Department and the National Institute of Standards and Technology.

In an Aug. 15 readout of the call published by DHS, Johnson encouraged state election officials to implement recommendations from NIST and other bodies, such as ensuring electronic voting machines are disconnected from the internet during voting. Johnson said DHS has been exploring whether to designate electoral systems as critical infrastructure—and thus elevating its priority for protecting—in its discussions.