ISIS Terror Attacks on the West

Posted on March 22, 2016March 22, 2016 by Denise Simon

ISIS in America

The report, ISIS in America: From Retweets to Raqqa consists of two parts. The first examines all cases of U.S. persons arrested, indicted, or convicted in the United States for ISIS-related activities. A wide array of legal documents related to these cases provides empirical evidence for identifying several demographic factors related to the arrested individuals. This section also looks at the cases of other Americans who, while not in the legal system, are known to have engaged in ISIS-inspired behavior.

The second part of the report examines various aspects of the ISIS-related mobilization in America. Here the report analyzes the individual motivations of ISIS supporters; the role of the Internet and, in particular, social media, in their radicalization and recruitment processes; whether their radicalization took place in isolation or with other, like-minded individuals; and the degree of their tangible links to ISIS. It concludes with recommendations to combat ISIS recruitment.

Full Report

Brussels Is Latest Target in Islamic State’s Assault on West

By KAREN YOURISH, DEREK WATKINS and TOM GIRATIKANON UPDATED March 22, 2016

NYT: The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the explosions in Brussels on Tuesday that killed dozens of people at the main airport and a subway station. “We are promising the Crusader nations which have aligned themselves against the Islamic State that dark days are coming,” the militants said in their announcement.

For more charts and dates go here.

The Brussels explosions are the latest attacks to demonstrate a significant leap in the Islamic State’s ability to coordinate operations against the West. In October, the Islamic State downed a Russian passenger jet, killing all 224 people on board. Two weeks later, an assault across Paris killed more than 100 people.

The Islamic State has also inspired people to carry out attacks. In December, a woman in San Bernardino, Calif., posted her “bayat,” or oath of allegiance, to the Islamic State on a Facebook page moments before she and her husband opened fire in a conference room, killing 14 people.

The couple did not appear to have been directed by the Islamic State, but seemed to have been inspired by the group’s instructions for supporters to attack Western targets.

Whether inspired or coordinated, these attacks have drawn attention to the growing number of civilian deaths caused by the group outside of Iraq and Syria. The Islamic State has a history of attacking mosques, hotels, busy city streets and other civilian targets in mostly non-Western countries. The civilian death toll outside Iraq and Syria has risen to more than 1,000 since January 2015.

Major events: Attacks directed by/linked to ISIS Attacks inspired by ISIS

The Islamic State has been expanding beyond its base in Iraq and Syria since it declared a caliphate, or Islamic state, in June 2014. The group is focused on three parallel tracks, according to Harleen Gambhir, an analyst at the Institute for the Study of War:

* inciting regional conflict with attacks in Iraq and Syria;

* building relationships with jihadist groups that can carry out military operations across the Middle East and North Africa;

* and inspiring, and sometimes helping, ISIS sympathizers to conduct attacks in the West.

ISIS Declares Provinces Across the Region

Countries where ISIS has declared provinces

“The goal,” Ms. Gambhir said, “is that through these regional affiliates and through efforts to create chaos in the wider world, the organization will be able to expand, and perhaps incite a global apocalyptic war.”

Major ISIS Attacks

Attacks directed by/linked to ISIS Attacks inspired by ISIS

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Descriptions of the Major Attacks

Date	Location	Details
Mar. 22, 2016 Belgium	Belgium	A series of deadly terrorist attacks struck Brussels, with two explosions at the city’s main international airport and a third in a subway station at the heart of the city, near the headquarters complex of the European Union. More »
Mar. 19, 2016 Turkey	Turkey	A suicide bombing on Istanbul’s busiest thoroughfare killed three Israeli citizens and an Iranian. Two of the Israelis held dual Israeli-American citizenship. More »
Mar. 4, 2016 Yemen	Yemen	Gunmen killed 18 people at a nursing home founded by Mother Teresa and run by Christian nuns. More »
Jan. 29, 2016 Yemen	Yemen	A bomb-packed car driven by a suicide attacker exploded at a checkpoint near the presidential palace in the southern city of Aden, killing at least eight people. More »
Jan. 14, 2016 Indonesia	Indonesia	ISIS claimed responsibility for explosions and gunfire that rocked central Jakarta, killing at least two civilians. More »
Jan. 12, 2016 Turkey	Turkey	A Syrian suicide bomber set off an explosion in the historic central districtof Istanbul, killing 10 people and wounding at least 15 others, in an attack the Turkish government attributed to ISIS. More »
Jan. 11, 2016 France	France	A teenager attacked a Jewish teacher with a machete in Marseille, and afterward told the police that he had carried out the attack in the name of God and the Islamic State.
Jan. 8, 2016 Egypt	Egypt	Gunmen reportedly carrying an ISIS flag opened fire at a Red Sea resort, injuring at least two tourists. More »
Jan. 7, 2016 Egypt	Egypt	ISIS claimed responsibility for an attack on a hotel in Cairo near the Giza Pyramids. No one was hurt. More »
Jan. 7, 2016 Pennsylvania	Pennsylvania	A man shot and wounded a Philadelphia police officer sitting in a patrol car in the name of Islam and the Islamic State, police said. More »
Jan. 4, 2016 Libya	Libya	Islamic State militants attempted to capture an oil port along Libya’s coast, in fighting that left at least seven people dead.
Dec. 7, 2015 Yemen	Yemen	The Islamic State claimed responsibility for a car bomb that killed a provincial governor and eight of his body guards. More »
Dec. 2, 2015 California	California	A married couple shot and killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif. The FBI is investigating the shooting as an act of terrorism inspired by ISIS. More »
Nov. 26, 2015 Bangladesh	Bangladesh	ISIS claimed responsiblity for an attack on a Shiite mosque during evening prayer in which gunmen opened fire on worshipers with machine guns, killing one man and injuring three others. More »
Nov. 24, 2015 Egypt	Egypt	ISIS militants attacked a hotel in the northern Sinai Peninsula, killing at least seven people.
Nov. 18, 2015 France	France	A teacher at a Jewish school in Marseille was stabbed by three people who appeared to profess support for ISIS. More »
Nov. 13, 2015 France	France	President François Hollande blamed the Islamic State for terrorist attacks across Paris that killed more than 100 people. The Islamic State claimed responsiblity. More »
Nov. 12, 2015 Lebanon	Lebanon	ISIS claimed responsiblity for a double suicide bombing that ripped through a busy shopping district at rush hour, killing at least 43 people. More »
Nov. 4, 2015 Egypt	Egypt	ISIS’s Sinai affiliate claimed responsiblity for a suicide bombing that killed at least four police officers. More »
Nov. 4, 2015 Bangladesh	Bangladesh	ISIS claimed responsibility for a stabbing and shooting that left one police officer dead and another wounded. More »
Oct. 31, 2015 Egypt	Egypt	An ISIS affiliate in Sinai claimed responsiblity for the downing of a Russian passenger jet that killed all 224 people on board. More »
Oct. 30 Turkey	Turkey	ISIS militants killed two Syrian anti-ISIS activists.
Oct. 24, 2015 Bangladesh	Bangladesh	ISIS claimed responsiblity for bombings that killed one person and wounded dozens more during a procession commemorating a Shiite Muslim holiday. More »
Oct. 10, 2015 Turkey	Turkey	Two explosions killed more than 100 people who had gathered for a peace rally in Turkey’s capital. Turkish officials believe ISIS is responsible. More »
Oct. 6, 2015 Yemen	Yemen	A series of bombings in Yemen’s two largest cities killed at least 25 people. More »
Oct. 3, 2015 Bangladesh	Bangladesh	ISIS claimed responsibilty for the shooting death of a Japanese man riding a rickshaw. More »
Sep. 28, 2015 Bangladesh	Bangladesh	ISIS claimed responsiblity for the shooting death of an Italian aid worker. More »
Sep. 24, 2015 Yemen	Yemen	At least 25 people were killed when two bombs went off outside a mosque during prayers to commemorate Eid al-Adha, a major Muslim holiday. More »
Sep. 18, 2015 Libya	Libya	Militants loyal to the Islamic State attacked a prison inside a Tripoli air base. More »
Sep. 17, 2015 Germany	Germany	An Iraqi man was shot dead after he stabbed a policewoman in Berlin.
Sep. 2, 2015 Yemen	Yemen	Yemen’s ISIS affiliate claimed responsibility for two bombings at a mosque that killed at least 20 people. More »
Aug. 26, 2015 Egypt	Egypt	The Sinai Province of the Islamic State group claimed responsibility for three gunmen who shot and killed two police officers.
Aug. 21, 2015 France	France	A gunman opened fire aboard a packed high-speed train traveling from Amsterdam to Paris, wounding several passengers before he was tackled and subdued by three Americans.
Aug. 20, 2015 Egypt	Egypt	An ISIS affiliate claimed responsibility for bombing a branch of the Egyptian security agency. More »
Aug. 12, 2015 Egypt	Egypt	An ISIS affiliate said it had beheaded a Croatian expatriate worker because of Croatia’s “participation in the war against the Islamic State.” More »
Aug. 7, 2015 Saudi Arabia	Saudi Arabia	ISIS claimed responsibility for a suicide bombing at a mosque that killed at least 15 people, including 12 members of a Saudi police force. More »
Jul. 20, 2015 Turkey	Turkey	A Turkish citizen believed to have had ties to ISIS killed at least 32 people at a cultural center. More »
Jul. 16, 2015 Egypt	Egypt	In what appeared to be the first attack on a naval vessel claimed by Sinai Province, the ISIS affiliate said it destroyed an Egyptian naval vessel and posted photographs on social media of a missile exploding in a ball of fire as it slammed into the vessel. More »
Jul. 11, 2015 Egypt	Egypt	ISIS claimed responsibility for an explosion outside the Italian Consulate’s compound in downtown Cairo that killed one person. More »
Jul. 1, 2015 Egypt	Egypt	Militants affiliated with the Islamic State killed dozens of soldiers in simultaneous attacks on Egyptian Army checkpoints and other security installations in Egypt’s northern Sinai Peninsula. More »
Jun. 26, 2015 Tunisia	Tunisia	At least one gunman disguised as a vacationer attacked a Mediterranean resort, killing at least 38 people at a beachfront hotel — most of them British tourists — before he was shot to death by the security forces. More »
Jun. 26, 2015 Kuwait	Kuwait	A suicide bomber detonated explosives at one of the largest Shiite mosques in Kuwait City during Friday Prayer. More »
Jun. 17, 2015 Yemen	Yemen	An ISIS branch claimed responsibilty for a series of car bombings in Sana, the capital, that killed at least 30 people. More »
Jun. 9, 2015 Egypt	Egypt	ISIS’s Sinai province claimed responsibility for firing rockets toward an air base used by an international peacekeeping force.
Jun. 5, 2015 Turkey	Turkey	An explosion at a political rally in the predominantly Kurdish city of Diyarbakir killed two people and wounded more than 100. Turkish officials have said ISIS was behind the attack. More »
Jun. 5, 2015 Turkey	Turkey	Two bombs killed three people at a rally for the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, or H.D.P.
Jun. 3, 2015 Afghanistan	Afghanistan	ISIS is suspected of beheading 10 members of the Taliban. More »
May. 31, 2015 Libya	Libya	A suicide bomber from an ISIS affiliate killed at least four Libyan fighters at a checkpoint. More »
May. 29, 2015 Saudi Arabia	Saudi Arabia	One week after a similar attack in the same region, a suicide bomber dressed in women’s clothing detonated an explosive belt near the entrance to a Shiite mosque, killing three people. More »
May. 22, 2015 Yemen	Yemen	ISIS claimed responsibility for a bomb attack on a Shiite mosque that injured at least 13 worshipers.
May. 22, 2015 Saudi Arabia	Saudi Arabia	In what appeared to be ISIS’s first official claim of an attack in Saudi Arabia, a suicide bomber detonated an explosive at a Shiite mosque during midday prayer, killing at least 21 and injuring 120. More »
May 18 Turkey	Turkey	A bomb detonated at the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, or H.D.P.
May. 18, 2015 Turkey	Turkey	Militants detonated a bomb at office of the pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party, or H.D.P.
May. 3, 2015 Texas	Texas	Two men who reportedly supported ISIS and were later acknowledged by ISIS as “soldiers of the caliphate” opened fire in a Dallas suburb outside a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest. More »
Apr. 30, 2015 Yemen	Yemen	One of ISIS’s Yemen affiliates released a video showing the killing of 15 Yemeni soldiers.
Apr. 27, 2015 Bosnia and Herzegovina	Bosnia and Herzegovina	A gunman attacked a police station.
Apr. 19, 2015 Libya	Libya	ISIS released a video of militants from two of its Libya affiliates killing dozens of Ethiopian Christians, some by beheading and others by shooting.
Apr. 12, 2015 Libya	Libya	ISIS’s Tripoli affiliate claimed credit for a bomb that exploded outside the Moroccan Embassy.
Apr. 12, 2015 Egypt	Egypt	ISIS militants killed at least 12 people in three separate attacks on Egyptian security forces. More »
Apr. 12, 2015 Libya	Libya	ISIS’s Tripoli affiliate claimed responsibility for an attack on the South Korean Embassy that killed two local police officers. More »
Apr. 8, 2015 Saudi Arabia	Saudi Arabia	Gunmen opened fire on a police patrol, killing two officers.
Apr. 5, 2015 Libya	Libya	ISIS killed at least four people in an attack on a security checkpoint.
Apr. 4, 2015 Afghanistan	Afghanistan	The Afghan vice president accused ISIS of kidnapping 31 civilians in February.
Apr. 2, 2015 Egypt	Egypt	Sinai’s ISIS affiliate killed 13 people with simultaneous car bombs at military checkpoints. More »
Apr. 1, 2015 Turkey	Turkey	Militants killed a Syrian teacher in Turkey.
Mar. 20, 2015 Yemen	Yemen	An ISIS affiliate claimed responsibility for coordinated suicide strikes on Zaydi Shiite mosques that killed more than 130 people during Friday Prayer. More »
Mar. 18, 2015 Tunisia	Tunisia	ISIS claimed responsibility for an attack on a museum that killed 22 people, almost all European tourists. More »
Feb. 20, 2015 Libya	Libya	ISIS’s Derna affiliate claimed responsibility for three car bombs that killed at least 40 people. More »
Feb. 15, 2015 Libya	Libya	ISIS released a video that appeared to show its militants in Libya beheading a group of Egyptian Christians who had been kidnapped in January. More »
Feb. 15, 2015 Denmark	Denmark	A Danish-born gunman who was inspired by ISIS went on a violent rampage in Copenhagen, killing two strangers and wounding five police officers. More »
Feb. 3, 2015 Libya	Libya	ISIS militants were suspected of killing 12 people, including four foreigners, in an attack on an oil field. More »
Jan. 29, 2015 Egypt	Egypt	ISIS’s Sinai affiliate claimed responsibility for coordinated bombings that killed 24 soldiers, six police officers and 14 civilians. More »
Jan. 27, 2015 Libya	Libya	ISIS’s Tripoli affiliate claimed credit for an armed assault on a luxury hotel that killed at least eight people. It was the deadliest attack on Western interests in Libya since the assault on the American diplomatic mission in Benghazi. More »
Jan. 23, 2015 Lebanon	Lebanon	ISIS attacked an outpost of the Lebanese Armed Forces.
Jan. 16, 2015 Bosnia and Herzegovina	Bosnia and Herzegovina	An attacker killed an imam at a mosque.
Jan. 12, 2015 Libya	Libya	ISIS’s Tripoli affiliate said they were holding 21 Egyptian Christians captive. More »
Jan. 11, 2015 France	France	A video surfaced of Amedy Coulibaly, one of three gunmen who attacked the newspaper Charlie Hebdo, declaring allegiance to ISIS. More »
Jan. 6, 2015 Turkey	Turkey	Suicide bomber injured two people at a police station.
Dec. 22, 2014 France	France	A van plowed into an outdoor Christmas market in Nantes. More »
Dec. 21, 2014 France	France	A French citizen of Algerian and Moroccan descent drove into pedestrians in Dijon, wounding 13 people. More »
Dec. 15, 2014 Australia	Australia	A gunman who said he was acting on ISIS’s behalf seized 17 hostages in a Sydney cafe. More »
Nov. 22, 2014 Saudi Arabia	Saudi Arabia	A Danish executive was shot in his car. A group of ISIS supporters later claimed responsibility.
Oct. 23, 2014 New York	New York	A hatchet-wielding man charged at four police officers in Queens. ISIS said the attack was the “direct result” of its September call to action. More »
Oct. 22, 2014 Canada	Canada	An Islamic convert shot and killed a soldier who was guarding the National War Memorial in Ottawa, stormed Canada’s parliament and fired multiple times before being shot and killed. More »
Oct. 20, 2014 Canada	Canada	A 25-year-old man who had recently adopted radical Islam ran over two soldiers near Montreal, killing one. More »
Sep. 24, 2014 Algeria	Algeria	Militants kidnapped and beheaded a French tourist shortly after the Islamic State called on supporters around the world to harm Europeans in retaliation for airstrikes in Iraq and Syria. More »
Sep. 23, 2014 Australia	Australia	An 18-year-old ISIS sympathizer was shot dead after stabbing two counterterrorism officers outside a Melbourne police station. More »

U.S. Govt Cyber Attacks in 2015 Spike

Posted on March 22, 2016March 22, 2016 by Denise Simon

In his annual budget request, President Barack Obama asked for $19bn for cyber security funding, $5bn more than last year.

Last year, a study from Juniper Research, ‘The Future of Cybercrime & Security: Financial and Corporate Threats and Mitigation’, estimated that by 2019 the cost of data breaches will reach $2.1 trillion – four times the total expected for 2015. The average cost of a data breach is expected to exceed $150 million by 2020 as more business infrastructure is connected.

Number of U.S. government ‘cyber incidents’ jumps in 2015

Reuters: The U.S. government was hit by more than 77,000 “cyber incidents” like data thefts or other security breaches in fiscal year 2015, a 10 percent increase over the previous year, according to a White House audit.

Part of the uptick stems from federal agencies improving their ability to identify and detect incidents, the annual performance review from the Office and Management and Budget said.

The report, released on Friday, defines cyber incidents broadly as “a violation or imminent threat of violation of computer security policies, acceptable use policies, or standard computer security practices.” Only a small number of the incidents would be considered as significant data breaches.

National security and intelligence officials have long warned that cyber attacks are among the most serious threats facing the United States. President Barack Obama asked Congress last month for $19 billion for cyber security funding across the government in his annual budget request, an increase of $5 billion over the previous year.

The government’s Office of Personnel Management was victim of a massive hack that began in 2014 and was detected last year. Some 22 million current and former federal employees and contractors in addition to family members had their Social Security numbers, birthdays, addresses and other personal data pilfered in the breach.

That event prompted the government to launch a 30-day “cyber security sprint” to boost cyber security within each federal agency by encouraging adoption of multiple-factor authentication and addressing other vulnerabilities.

“Despite unprecedented improvements in securing federal information resources … malicious actors continue to gain unauthorized access to, and compromise, federal networks, information systems, and data,” the report said.

***** Depth of hacking illustration:

U.S. Charges 3 As It Chases Syrian Electronic Army — $100,000 Bounties On Hackers’ Heads

Firas Dardar Syrian Electronic Army FBI Most Wanted

Firas Dardar, now on the FBI’s Cyber Most Wanted list for his part in the Syrian Electronic Army. He is also accused of extorting targets.

Forbes: Syrian Electronic Army has caused all sorts of trouble since its emergence at the turn of this decade (including an attack on FORBES, amongst many other major publications). Having largely operated under the radar, the U.S. today filed official charges against three individuals it believes were key in perpetrating SEA’s attacks. Two of the three men – Ahmad Umar Agha (commonly known as Th3 Pr0) and Firas Dardar (also known as The Shadow) – have also been placed on the FBI’s Cyber Most Wanted list with $100,000 rewards on offer for anyone who helps catch them. The third suspect is German-based Peter Romar.

The three have been charged with a range of offences, from hacking, to engaging in a hoax regarding a terrorist attack, to attempting to cause a mutiny within the U.S. armed forces. Throughout the last five years, the SEA were proficient in tricking organization – often media bodies such as the BBC, the Guardian, CNN and FORBES – into handing over login details to Facebook FB +0.38% and Twitter TWTR -0.18% accounts. They would then use that access to send out messages in support of Bashar al-Assad, who remains the Syrian president, despite the chaos of civil war that has engulfed the country.

Its most effective attack came after a compromise of the Associated Press Twitter account. After a tweet that claimed a bomb had exploded at the White House and injured President Obama, $90 billion was wiped off the U.S. stock market. In other successful campaign, the hackers defaced a recruiting website for the U.S. Marine Corps, using the site to urge marines to “refuse [their] orders.”

Accused Syrian Electronic Army hacker Ahmad Umar Agha.

According to one of two complaints released today, other victims included Harvard University, the Washington Post, the White House, Reuters, Human Rights Watch, NPR, CNN, The Onion, NBC Universal, USA Today, the New York Post, NASA (which assisted on the investigation), and Microsoft. FORBES was not named as one of the victims of the trio’s attacks.

All three alleged SEA operatives were using Google Gmail and Facebook to coordinate and pass around stolen data. U.S. law enforcement were able to track their activity after acquiring court orders to search their online accounts.

Nation state hackers demanding ransom

According to the Department of Justice, Dardar and Romar (also known as Pierre Romar) have also been accused of typical cybercrime, hacking into target’s machines and demanding a ransom be paid, threatening to delete data or sell personal information. Dardar was thought to be operating out of Homs, Syria, Romar from Waltershausen, Germany. The ransoms would then be handed to SEA members in Syria, a complaint read. Dardar demanded in total more than $500,000 from 14 victims, though the filings did not specify how much they actually received.

“While some of the activity sought to harm the economic and national security of the United States in the name of Syria, these detailed allegations reveal that the members also used extortion to try to line their own pockets at the expense of law-abiding people all over the world,” said Assistant Attorney General John Carlin. “The allegations in the complaint demonstrate that the line between ordinary criminal hackers and potential national security threats is increasingly blurry.”

If the complaints released by the U.S. are accurate, Dardar and Romar are two of a handful of hackers known to be working for their government and carrying out extortion. Suspicions of governments using ransomware – malware that locks users’ files by encrypting them, only decrypting when the victim hands the hackers money – have proven unfounded. But researchers from security firm FireEye told FORBES they have seen a handful of examples where nation states have perpetrated extortion campaigns like the SEA suspects. But, the researchers said, it’s unlikely they ever want funds.

“We don’t believe that their intention was to get a ransom,” said Charles Carmakal, managing director of Mandiant, a FireEye-owned firm, speaking with FORBES last week. “I can say we’ve seen it but our case load isn’t that high.”

The hack of Sony Pictures, which the U.S. accused the North Korean government of sponsoring, included such a ransom demand once hackers had broken in. Sony didn’t pay and the hackers wiped the film studio’s machines before publishing vast tranches of company emails and files for all and sundry to pick through.

2 Days After Benghazi, Back to Fundraising

Posted on March 22, 2016March 22, 2016 by Denise Simon

Judicial Watch: New Clinton Documents Raise Questions on Benghazi, Clinton Foundation

Two days after Benghazi attack, Libyan president sought meeting with Bill Clinton through Clinton Foundation event

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch today released 276 pages of internal State Department documents revealing that within two days of the deadly terrorist attack on Benghazi, Mohamed Yusuf al-Magariaf, the president of Libya’s National Congress, asked to participate in a Clinton Global Initiative function and “meet President Clinton.” The meeting between the Libyan president and Bill Clinton had not previously been disclosed. The documents also show Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s staff coordinated with the Clinton Foundation’s staff to have her thank Clinton Global Initiative project sponsors for their “commitments” during a Foundation speech on September 25, 2009.

The Judicial Watch documents were obtained as a result of a federal court order in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit filed against the State Department on May 28, 2013, (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:13-cv-00772)).

In September 13, 2012, al-Magariaf advisor Dr. Fathi Nuah wrote to the Clinton Foundation’s Director of Foreign Policy Amitabh Desai: “Dr. Almagariaf will be addressing the United Nations this September in New York as the Libyan Head of State, and he expressed a wish to meet President Clinton and to participate at the Clinton Global Initiative meeting for New York as well.”

Four hours later, Desai emailed Hillary Clinton’s Chief of Staff Cheryl Mills asking, “Would USG [U.S. Government] have concerns about Libyan President being invited to CGI [Clinton Global Initiative]? Odd timing, I know.” Mills emailed back: “We would not have issues.”

Four days later, on September 17, Desai emailed Mills again, saying, The Libyan president is “asking for a meeting with WJC [William Jefferson Clinton] next week.” Desai asked, “Would you recommend accepting or declining the WJC meeting request?”

The State Department apparently had no objection to the meeting, because on September 26, Desai emailed Mills, “He had a v good meeting with Libya …” Hillary Clinton and al-Magariaf did not have a meeting until September 24.

An August 2009 email chain including Hillary Clinton’s then- Chief of Staff Huma Abedin, Mills, then-Deputy Chief of Staff for Policy Jake Sullivan shows that the State Department coordinated with Clinton Foundation staff on how Mrs. Clinton to thank Foundation supporters/partners for their “commitments.” Mills asks Desai for a “list of commitments during whole session so she can reference more than those just around her speech.”

Caitlin Klevorick, Senior Advisor to the Counselor and Chief of Staff to the Secretary of State who previously worked at the Foundation, notes: “one question is if we want to see if there is a decent mass of fs [funds] related commitments to announce together at closing as a ‘mega’ commitment.”

The State Department material includes background information made by Clinton Foundation partners, which include Foundation donors Nduna Foundation, Grupo ABCA, and Britannia Industries. Other CGI partners noted in the State Department documents include a federal agency (the Centers for Disease Control) and various United Nations entities, which also receive U.S. taxpayer funds.

The transcript of Hillary Clinton’s speech on the State Department Internet site confirms that then-Secretary of State did thank those making “exceptional commitments” to her husband’s foundation:

And so I congratulate all who helped to put on this (inaudible) CGI [Clinton Global Initiative]. I especially thank you for having a separate track on girls and women, which I think was well received for all the obvious reasons. (Applause.) And this is an exceptional gathering of people who have made exceptional commitments to bettering our world.

The documents also point to a chain of emails that show Haim Saban, a top Clinton donor, sought to entice Bill Clinton into to travelling to Damascus in 2009 to meet with a high-level Syrian delegation. The meetings were part of the Saban Forum. Evidently, the trip never took place.

As previously reported, a June 2012 email chain discusses a “firm invitation for President Clinton” to speak at a Congo conference, hosted in part by the controversial Joseph Kabila. Bill Clinton is offered $650,000 in fees and expenses, concerning which, as Desai emails Mills and others, “WJC wants to know that state [sic] thinks of it if he took it 100% for the foundation.”

This lawsuit had previously forced the disclosure of documents that provided a road map for over 200 conflict-of-interest rulings that led to at least $48 million in speaking fees for the Clintons during Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State. Previously disclosed documents in this lawsuit, for example, raise questions about funds Clinton accepted from entities linked to Saudi Arabia, China and Iran, among others.

Judicial Watch’s litigation to obtain these conflict of interest records is ongoing. The State Department has also yet to explain why it failed to conduct a proper, timely search in the 20 months between when it received Judicial Watch’s request on May 2, 2011, and the February 1, 2013, date Secretary Clinton left office.

“These new State Department documents show Hillary Clinton and her State aides were involved in fundraising for the Clinton Foundation. It is also incredible that the Libyan president would call and meet Bill Clinton through the Clinton Foundation before meeting Hillary Clinton about Benghazi,” said Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton. “Secretary of State Hillary Clinton worked hand in glove with the Clinton Foundation on fundraising and foreign policy. Despite the law and her promises to the contrary, Hillary Clinton turned the State Department into the DC office of the Clinton Foundation.”

Judicial Watch’s FOIA lawsuit has become particularly noteworthy because it has been reported that the Clinton Foundation, now known as the Bill, Hillary, & Chelsea Clinton Foundation, accepted millions of dollars from at least seven foreign governments while Mrs. Clinton served as Secretary of State. The Clinton Foundation has acknowledged that a $500,000 donation it received from the government of Algeria while Mrs. Clinton served as Secretary of State violated a 2008 ethics agreement between the foundation and the Obama administration. Some of the foreign governments that have made donations to the Clinton Foundation include Algeria, Kuwait, Qatar, and Oman, have questionable human rights records.

Links to the full production of documents can be found here.

Meanwhile, Back in Cuba

Posted on March 22, 2016March 22, 2016 by Denise Simon

BREAKING: Group of FARC rebels including top leader was at Cuba-U.S. baseball game attended by Obama: FARC negotiator.

A contingent of 40 members of Colombia’s FARC rebels including their leader Rodrigo Londono were at a baseball game in Havana on Tuesday that was also attended by U.S. President Barack Obama at the end of his historic trip to the Communist-led island.

FARC negotiator Pastor Alape confirmed their attendance and said the game between the Tampa Bay Rays and a Cuban team was a “symbol of peace.” A Reuters witness also spotted the rebels there.

The representatives of the Marxist-led Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia are in Cuba for peace talks with the Colombian government.

U.S. Secretary of John Kerry met on Monday with the FARC negotiators and the team representing the Colombian government at the talks.

INJO: During an occasionally awkward press conference this afternoon in Havana, Cuban President Raoul Castro was flummoxed by questions about human rights.

Asked by CNN’s Jim Acosta why Cuba has political prisoners, Castro appeared indignant:

“Give me a list and I’ll release them,” said Castro, adding, “If we have those political prisoners they will be released before tonight ends.”

Many journalists and human rights’ advocates quickly tweeted lists of dozens of prisoner names.

Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation says it has a list of “Forgotten 51” political prisoners in Cuba. pic.twitter.com/xv0B4aY0gz

Later in the press conference, which took place after President Obama met privately with Castro to discuss matters, such as human rights, NBC News’ Andrea Mitchell again took a stab at getting Castro to talk about dissidents.

Castro deflected, pointing instead to issues he feels his country does well, like healthcare and education and equal pay—claiming those were more important than human rights.

He argued that not only does he not know of any political prisoners, he didn’t like the idea that an American journalist would broach the topic:

“It’s not right to ask me about political prisoners in general, please give me the name of a political prisoner.”

Shortly thereafter, the press conference came to an end, with this awkward misstep. Castro went for the hand-hold; Obama went for the the back slap.

ChicagoTribune in part: Capping his remarkable visit to Cuba, President Barack Obama on Tuesday declared an end to the “last remnant of the Cold War in the Americas” and openly urged the Cuban people to pursue a more democratic future for this communist nation 90 miles from Miami.

With Cuban President Raul Castro watching from a balcony, Obama said the government should not fear citizens who speak freely and vote for their own leaders. And with Cubans watching on tightly controlled state television, Obama said they would be the ones to determine their country’s future, not the United States.

“Many suggested that I come here and ask the people of Cuba to tear something down,” Obama said. “But I’m appealing to the young people of Cuba who will lift something up, build something new.”

On the streets of Havana, the president’s address sparked extraordinarily rare public discussions about democracy, and some anger with Cuba’s leaders. Cubans are used to complaining bitterly about economic matters but rarely speak publicly about any desire for political change, particularly in conversations with foreign journalists.

How Bad is it in Europe with Militant Jihad?

Posted on March 22, 2016March 22, 2016 by Denise Simon

suicide bombers Brussels

Perspective:

Islamic State operatives and sympathizers deploy guerilla warfare beyond the borders of Iraq and Syria. The military in Belgium deploys on the streets.

Amaq Agency for ISIS Say that ISIS claim responsibility for Brussels attacks.

From airport security camera.

The known suicide bombers in Brussels above.

Brussels terror attacks: David Cameron calls emergency Cobra meeting to determine UK response to explosions

Security heightened at Heathrow and Gatwick airports as all flights to and from the Belgian capital are cancelled

At Least 31 Dead in Brussels Terror Attacks; Belgium Raises Terror Alert to Highest Level

Allowing 77 million Turks on a Visa Free with porous Syria borders makes Brexit an imperatice for National Security measures in Brussels and all corners in Europe. Further, the United States has a 37 country visa free waiver system including most countries in Europe.

Even the United Nations has a dispatch explaining the concerns.

Nearly 600 EU personnel are deployed to train Mali’s security forces. Their headquarters in Bamako came under attack. “Gunmen on Monday attacked a hotel in Mali’s capital, Bamako, that had been converted into the headquarters of a European Union military training operation, but there no casualties among the mission’s personnel. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack, which began at around 6:30 p.m. local time (1830 GMT), but Mali and neighboring West African countries have increasingly been the target of Islamist militants, some of them affiliated with al Qaeda. One of the assailants was killed and two suspects were arrested and were being interrogated, the country’s internal security minister said. A witness said the attack targeted Bamako’s Nord-Sud Hotel, headquarters for the mission of nearly 600 EU personnel deployed to Mali to train its security forces.” (Reuters http://reut.rs/1Se6q9i)

A Landmark ICC Ruling…”War crimes judges Monday found former Congolese vice president Jean-Pierre Bemba guilty of a deliberate campaign of widespread rapes and killings by his private army in Central African Republic over a decade ago. In a landmark verdict, the judges from the International Criminal Court (ICC) found Bemba guilty on five charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity, saying he had retained “effective command and control” over the forces sent in to CAR to quell an attempted coup against the then president. It was the first case before the ICC to focus on sexual violence as a weapon of war, as well as to find a military commander to blame for the atrocities carried out by his forces even though he did not order them.” (AFP http://yhoo.it/1pFCNoj)

EU deal not slowing down migrant flow…More than 1,600 migrants have landed in Greece since a landmark EU-Turkish deal on curbing the influx took effect, officials said Monday, highlighting the challenges still facing efforts to tackle the crisis. (AFP http://yhoo.it/1LBveZn) And Greece made an appeal for help dealing with migrant influx. (Reuters http://yhoo.it/1LBvbwG)

*** Because of the European coalition and that of the United States taking more aggressive actions in Mosul in recent weeks and other targets in Iraq, the jihadis are watching this carefully and responding by attacks such as that at the Brussels airport and on the Metro system.

Brussels Terror Attacks Bring Guerrilla War to the Heart of Europe

Coordinated attacks on Brussels this morning may signal the start of an ISIS-led guerrilla warfare campaign in the West.

DailyBeast: PARIS — As explosions rocked the airport and the metro in Brussels this morning, fears grew that the threat of terrorism is morphing into the threat of guerrilla war in Europe.

The attacks, which killed more than 20 people, came four days after the arrest in Brussels of Salah Abdeslam, a member of the terrorist cell that attacked Paris cafés, a sports stadium, and a concert hall in November, slaughtering 130 people. On Sunday, the Belgian foreign minister warned that Abdeslam was planning a new attack.

Emmanuel Dunand/Getty

Some reports suggest that this attack, clearly coordinated in the style of the Paris carnage, was what was in the works, and went ahead without Abdeslam. It was known that at least two of his associates were still on the run.

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls said it was clear Europe was no longer simply the victim of a series of isolated terror attacks. “We have been subjected for the last few months in Europe to acts of war,” he said. “We are at war.”

As French scholar Gilles Kepel has pointed out, the so-called Islamic State, or ISIS, which carried out the Paris attacks and which presumably was involved in today’s bombings, is following a playbook written more than a decade ago: The Call for an International Islamic Resistance by Abu Musab al Suri, a Syrian jihadist.

Suri knew Europe well. He had lived for a while in Britain, in the community of Arab and Muslim exiles there. His core idea was that Muslims in the West, though increasingly numerous, felt themselves isolated and under pressure, and this could be exploited to create a breakdown of society, develop insurgency, and launch a civil war where the forces of Islam eventually would be victorious.

Acts of terror, dubbed “resistance,” would heighten the already existing “Islamophobia,” and “exacerbate the contradictions,” as communist revolutionaries used to say, until hatred and suspicion ran high and integration became impossible.

Since the Nov. 13 atrocity, that process has been taking shape, with increased resentment and fear linked to the coincidental mass influx of refugees from the Middle East. Indeed, the impact of these atrocities has reached the United States political scene and has been exploited extensively by presidential candidate Donald Trump.

Today’s attack began near the check-in desks at Brussels Airport. Two explosions in the departure hall killed at least 13 people and injured more than 30 others. The public prosecutor in Brussels has confirmed that one of those two blasts was detonated by a suicide bomber.

Video footage from the scene showed chaos as survivors scrambled to safety. Zach Mouzoun, who had just arrived at the airport on a flight, told local television that the second explosion cracked pipes, mixing water with victims’ blood as the ceiling fell in. “It was atrocious. The ceilings collapsed,” he said. “There was blood everywhere, injured people, bags everywhere.”

“We were walking in the debris. It was a war scene,” he said.

Soon after, a bomb blast interrupted the morning commute at Maalbeek metro station, which is close to the headquarters of the European Union and NATO. Belgian subway officials said 15 people were killed and another 55 injured in the subterranean attack.

Brussels shut down public access to its entire rail and air transport networks and raised the terror threat level to its highest. “What we feared has happened, we were hit by blind attacks,” said the Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel.

Multiple U.S. and European officials in Brussels last weekend said they had been warned by their security and intelligence teams of the possibility of a follow-on attack in retaliation for the arrest of Paris attack fugitive Salah Abdesalam.

Officials were in town for the German Marshall Fund’s Brussels forum where Foreign Minister Didier Reynders said they’d discovered Abdesalam had stockpiled weapons and built a new network to launch potential violence, news that chilled the already tense city even as officials there celebrated capturing the terror suspect alive after a four-month manhunt.

“He was ready to start something from Brussels,” Reynders told officials and diplomats on Sunday.

“We found a lot of weapons, heavy weapons in the first investigations, and we have seen a new network of people around him in Brussels,” the minister said, adding that they’d been searching for 10 people, but found more than 30 people connected to the Paris attacks.

While there had been security throughout the city, both visible police and military presence, a Daily Beast reporter noticed little or no security at the main terminal of the airport yesterday morning.

Whether or not it was directly linked to Abdesalam’s arrest, U.S. intelligence officials said that early signs pointed to ISIS as being the likely culprit of the attacks.

The bombings “bear all the hallmarks of an ISIS-inspired, or ISIS-coordinated, attack,” Rep. Adam Schiff, the senior Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a statement. “Europe is facing a real threat from the thousands who have traveled abroad to Syria and Iraq to train with ISIS, and have returned home. It is enormously difficult to track all of them, or defend soft targets like those attacked in Brussels and previously in Paris,” Schiff said.

A senior U.S. intelligence official, speaking on background, said that “the intelligence community continues to assess the situation in Brussels and is staying in close contact with our Belgian and European partners.”

Bombs at the Brussels airport were apparently set off in the departures terminal prior to security screening. Marsha Catron, the spokesperson for the Homeland Security Department, which oversees airport security in the U.S., said the department “will not hesitate to adjust our security posture, as appropriate, to protect the American people.” Catron said that the department “is closely monitoring the unfolding events in Brussels and we remain in contact with our counterparts in the region.”