Category Archives: #StopIran

National Strategy to Win the War Against Islamist Terror

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Related reading: Foreign Terrorist Organizations, Bureau of Counterterrorism

Chairman McCaul Unveils Counterterrorism Strategy “A National Strategy to Win the War Against Islamist Terror”

Contains 100+ policy ideas and principles for fighting terrorism

WASHINGTON, D.C. – On the heels of Islamist terror attacks in the homeland this past weekend, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul (R-TX) today unveiled his counterterrorism strategy, entitled A National Strategy to Win the War Against Islamist Terror. Chairman McCaul’s nonpartisan strategy contains over 100 policy ideas, recommendations, and principles for fighting terrorism.

The ideas put forward in the McCaul strategy were developed in consultation with an array of national security experts on both sides of the aisle. They are not “Republican” or “Democrat” ideas, but rather common-sense solutions for better protecting Americans.

Chairman McCaul: “As radical Islamist terror continues to sweep the globe, it has become clear that we are not winning the overall fight against it. There are now more terrorist foot soldiers and safe havens than any time in modern history, and our enemies have alarming momentum. They are reaching deep into the heart of the Western world—including our own communities—to spread their hateful ideology and perpetrate violent acts. Just this weekend we saw again that our homeland remains a terrorist target, and they have attacked our allies in places like Paris, Brussels, Nice, and beyond. Yet in recent years our strategy and policies have failed to roll back the threat, let alone contain it. That is why I’ve produced a new, national counterterrorism strategy aimed at reversing the tide of terror and protecting our great nation. The eyes of the world are now upon us, and American leadership is needed to defeat this evil.  My plan is a guidepost—for Congress and the next president—to do what is needed to win this generational struggle.”

National Strategy Social Media Release_Report

 

Overview of the Strategy

The McCaul strategy contains 100+ policy ideas and principles for fighting terrorism. Some are new, while others are abandoned policies we need to revive in order to protect America and its interests overseas against the surging terror threat.

The document is built around clear objectives: defend the homeland, defeat terrorists, and deny extremists the opportunity to re-emerge. It presents nine counterterrorism priorities, or “means,” needed to achieve the “ends” described above, including:

  1. Thwart attacks and protect our communities
  2. Stop recruitment and radicalization at home
  3. Keep terrorists out of America
  4. Take the fight to the enemy
  5. Combat terrorist travel and cut off financial resources
  6. Deny jihadists access to weapons of mass destruction
  7. Block terrorists from returning to the battlefield
  8. Prevent the emergence of new networks and safe havens
  9. Win the battle of ideas

This counterterrorism strategy is different than those that came before it. President Bush released a strategy for combating terrorism in 2003, and President Obama released one in 2011. Both are now outdated.

  • This strategy is written to keep pace with an evolving enemy. It proposes ways to fight terrorist propaganda online; counter homegrown radicalization; deal with terrorists’ use of encryption; and help communities better protect against IEDs, active shooter plots, and other changing terror tactics.
  • This strategy aims to bring our homeland security policies into the digital age. It proposes to improve the screening of foreign visitors, immigrants, and refugees using new technologies and better intelligence—including social media—to keep terrorists from infiltrating our country.
  • This strategy focuses on breaking the Islamist terror movement—not just defeating one group. Our nation’s last official counterterrorism strategy focused almost exclusively on al Qaeda, leaving us blind to the rise of ISIS. This plan is designed to go after Islamist terrorists, regardless of location or branding.

The bottom line is this: we cannot accept Islamist terror attacks as “the new normal.” We must defeat the perpetrators. The McCaul strategy makes clear that we are facing a long, generational struggle, but we should wage it with the same resolve we showed in defeating other totalitarian ideologies, including communism and fascism.

The full strategy is available, here.

Russian/Assad Barbarity in Aleppo, Orders from IRGC

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Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, senior advisor to the commander in chief and former commander of the IRGC.

Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, senior advisor to the supreme leader and former commander of the IRGC.

Commander: IRGC supplies intelligence to Russia for airstrikes in Syria

A top Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander told Iranian media last week that the Guard and allies supply intelligence to Russia for airstrikes in Syria. Major General Yahya Rahim Safavi, who is senior advisor to the supreme leader and was IRGC chief commander from 1997 through 2007, made the remarks in a lengthy television interview on Sept. 22.

“The Russians are responsible for aerial support of ground units, meaning those who are fighting on the ground are the Syrian army, Syrian popular forces, and some advisory forces and/or Hezbollah forces. Russia largely plays the role of supporting these [forces] by air,” Safavi said.

“Many victories like the capture of Aleppo would not have been possible without movement on the ground and only with air support,” Safavi continued. “The Russian air support was of course effective, but the ground forces gave them the intelligence that, for example, [told them] which terrorists were in what area.”

There is a kernel of truth to these statements. The IRGC-led Shiite expeditionary forces, which are comprised of IRGC proxies from Iraq, Lebanon, Afghanistan and Pakistan, were instrumental in the encircling of the rebel-held eastern Aleppo city in late July, and the reimposition of the siege in early September after the coalition of Islamists, Salafists, and rebels broke the initial siege in early August. A relentless and intense Russian bombing campaign has been a crucial factor in the successes of the pro-regime coalition. [See LWJ report, Soleimani’s presence in Aleppo underscores strategy of crushing rebels.]

Safavi, however, overplays the role that the Syrian Arab Army and the IRGC-backed Syrian National Defense Forces, a pro-regime militia, have played in the recent battles for Aleppo in order to bury the extent to which Assad relies on foreign patrons as foot soldiers and planners in arguably the most important battle of the civil war yet.

The ground forces in Aleppo have been primarily led by Iranian military officers in coordination Russian and Syrian officers. The deaths of senior IRGC commanders attest to the their involvement.

Safavi says that units under the supervision of IRGC or Hezbollah operatives, which have had a more active presence in Syria in recent years, conduct on-the-ground intelligence collection. The main planning and target selection would be coordinated between the Iranians, Russians, and Syrians. The first two may take the lead.

Based on Safavi’s statements, collection for Russian sorties elsewhere in which Syrian forces have more presence may fall on them, under the direction of Russian officers.

The strategic command headquarters that oversees all operations includes Russians, Iranians, Syrians, and IRGC-backed proxy commanders. There is lingering tensions and mistrust in this alliance, particularly between the Iranians and Russians. For now, at least, they share intelligence towards the common objective of achieving military victory in Aleppo.

Amir Toumaj is a Research Analyst at Foundation for Defense of Democracies.

**** Why is this so important? The White Helmets and the Obama administration continues to ignore Russian barbarity in Syria for the sake of an already peace deal and or truce talks with Russia.

As noted here:

U.S. Was Warned of Attack on Aid Workers in Syria

The Obama administration, desperate to save a shattered Syrian ceasefire, seems to have ignored concrete intelligence of an atrocity to come.

Weiss: Two days prior to devastating aerial attacks, Michael Ratney, the U.S. special envoy to Syria, was told the Assad regime was planning to hit the Aleppo facilities of the Syrian Civil Defense, a volunteer rescue group.

Raed al-Saleh, the head of the organization, which is widely known as the White Helmets, was in Manhattan last week, where he told not only Ratney, but envoys from the Netherlands, Britain, and Canada. He said intercepted communications from military officers in the Assad regime signaled imminent plans to bomb several rescue centers, according to two sources who were in the room when al-Saleh was transmitting this intelligence.

“We just received a message from the spotters, just an hour ago, they detected messages from the regime radio that they will attack [Syrian Civil Defense] centers in northern Aleppo,” one of those sources jotted down during the meeting, quoting al-Saleh. “First with surface to surface to missiles and, if they miss, they will use spies on the ground to adjust coordinates and come back.”  Read more here from The Daily Beast.

Another $400 Million, Total is now $5.9 Billion to Syrians

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WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. State Department said on Tuesday it was providing an additional $364 million in humanitarian assistance to help Syrians caught up in the country’s civil war, bringing total U.S. humanitarian spending for Syria to about $5.9 billion.

Assistant Secretary of State for Population, Refugees and Migration Anne Richard said the funding would help provide food, shelter, safe drinking water, medical care and other support for millions of Syrian refugees and the communities that host them.

Richard told a State Department briefing about three-quarters of the additional funding would help people still inside Syria and the rest would assist Syrians who have fled the country.

She also said the United States had admitted some 85,000 refugees over the past fiscal year, which ends Sept. 30. That figure included about 12,500 Syrian refugees, exceeding the administration’s goal of 10,000, she said.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner said the push for additional humanitarian aid funds came in part because of deteriorating conditions in Aleppo after the collapse of a ceasefire sponsored by the United States and Russia.

The forces of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad have launched a massive push against rebel-held areas of the city, where some 250,000 civilians are believed to be trapped. Intensive bombing has killed hundreds of people, many of whom died in buildings collapsed by bunker-buster bombs.

“Until the past few weeks we felt like we were on a firm path towards a possible diplomatic resolution to this. We still believe that’s possible,” Toner told a briefing.

“That doesn’t mean we’re not mindful … of the tremendous humanitarian suffering that’s going on right now in Aleppo. And that’s why we’re working so hard to ramp up our assistance,” he added.

While saying the United States continued to seek a diplomatic resolution of the problem, he left the door open to other action.

“We’ll continue to weigh all options. Those discussions are ongoing. I don’t want to rule anything out, but right now we’re focused on the diplomatic one,” Toner said.

He noted the United States has warned that failure to achieve a ceasefire could lead to an escalation of the conflict.

“We cannot dictate what other countries … may or may not decide to do in terms of supporting certain groups within Syria,” Toner said. “You may have a further deterioration on either side … and by deterioration I mean more arming and more conflict between them, and intensification of the conflict.”

****

Jeh Johnson said in a Senate hearing that the government focuses on refugees for resettlement that are good for the country. The vetting in comprehensive and some of the standards to be met by applicants are classified. The concentration is on women and children.

From the DHS website:

U.S. Expands Initiatives To Address Central American Migration Challenges

Over the past year, the United States has taken a series of steps to address the ongoing humanitarian challenges in Central America, particularly for the many vulnerable individuals attempting to leave the region and come to the United States, while also promoting safe and orderly migration and border security. As part of this ongoing effort, the United States is announcing the following initiatives to help vulnerable families and individuals from El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras.

World Refugee Day: #RefugeesWelcome

Secretary Johnson smiling at the camera with his arm around 11 year old Turkish refugee JaafarSeveral months ago while I was in Turkey I met a 9-year-old refugee named Jaafar.  I was immediately impressed with this extraordinary little boy who spoke almost perfect English.

Readout of Secretary Johnson’s Trip To Turkey

Secretary Johnson visits a Turkish-government run Syrian refugee camp in Adana, TurkeyToday, Secretary of Homeland Security Jeh Johnson concluded a three-day trip to Turkey, where he visited a refugee camp, reviewed resettlement processing, spoke to a number of Syrian and Iraqi refugee families, met with government officials in Istanbul and Ankara to discuss a range of homeland security-related issues, and signed two bilateral accords to codify mutual commitment to deepen collaboration.

Readout Of Administration Call With Law Enforcement Officials On Refugee Screening

Senior Administration officials spoke by phone today with state and local law enforcement representatives from across the country to provide information on the U.S.’s stringent refugee admissions policies and security screening measures. Officials on the call included Deputy Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas; Department of State Bureau of Population, Refugees, and Migration Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary Simon Henshaw; U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) Commissioner R. Gil Kerlikowske; and FBI National Security Branch Executive Assistant Director John Giacalone.

Written testimony of USCIS for a Senate Judiciary Subcommittee on Immigration and the National Interest hearing titled “Oversight of the Administration’s FY 2016 Refugee Resettlement Program: Fiscal and Security Implications”

U.S. Citizenship and Immigrations Services (USCIS) Refugee, Asylum and International Operations Refugee Affairs Division Chief Barbara Strack and USCIS Fraud Detection & National Security Associate Director Matt Emrich address USCIS’s role in refugee resettlement, and the screening measures and safeguards developed by the U.S. Refugee Admissions Program.

7700 Terrorists at the Southern Border

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Oh….another leak and no word from the Department of Homeland Security….

Leaked FBI Data Reveal 7,700 Terrorist Encounters in USA in One Year; Border States Most Targeted

Breitbart: Leaked documents with sensitive FBI data exclusively obtained by Breitbart Texas reveal that 7,712 terrorist encounters occurred within the United States in one year and that many of those encounters occurred near the U.S.-Mexico border. The incidents are characterized as “Known or Suspected Terrorist Encounters.” Some of the encounters occurred near the U.S.-Mexico border at ports-of-entry and some occurred in between, indicating that persons known or reasonably suspected of being terrorists attempted to sneak into the U.S. across the border. In all, the encounters occurred in higher numbers in border states.

Some of the documents pertain to the entire U.S., while others focus specifically on the state of Arizona. The documents are labeled, “UNCLASSIFIED/LAW ENFORCEMENT SENSITIVE” and contain data from the FBI-administered Terrorist Screening Center, the organization maintaining the Terrorist Screening Database, also known as the “Terror Watch List.”

 CNN

The leaked FBI data are contained in a fusion center’s educational materials, specifically the Arizona Counter Terrorism Information Center’s (ACTIC) “Known or Suspected Terrorist (KST) Encounters Briefing” covering from July 20 2015 through July 20 2016. The leaked documents are composed of 10 individual pages, but Breitbart Texas chose to release only nine of them due to page 10 containing contact information for ACTIC.

Page Two of the documents contains a map of the entire U.S. with the numbers of encounters per state. The states with the highest encounters are all border states. Texas, California, and Arizona–all states with a shared border with Mexico–rank high in encounters.

Page Three shows a map of where the encounters occurred in the state of Arizona. The majority from this map occurred in Phoenix, a major destination point for people who illegally cross the U.S.-Mexico border. The map also shows that encounters occurred at ports-of-entry, likely from persons either walking up and asking for asylum or from Sinaloa cartel attempts to smuggle them into the U.S. in vehicles. Most significantly, the map shows that many of the encounters occurred near the border outside of ports-of-entry, indicating that persons were attempting to sneak into the U.S.

Page Six shows a pie chart indicating that the majority of encounters in Arizona were with Islamic known or suspected terrorists, both Sunni and Shi’a. Eighty-nine encounters were Sunni, 56 were Shi’a, 70 were “Other International Terrorist Groups or Affiliates,” and only 52 were with “Domestic Terrorism.”

Page 7 contains definitions to help understand the maps.

Breitbart Texas provides the leaked documents and data below: (Go here to see all pages)

Page 1 of 9 by Brandon Darby on Scribd

Related reading:

2012: Inside a secret U.S. Terrorist Screening Center

(CBS News) The Terrorist Screening Center is one of the U.S. government’s most secure buildings. It is home to the nation’s top secret terrorist databases.

For CBS to gain access, no sound could be recorded and only one agent could be identified, Tim Healy.

He is the FBI veteran who currently runs the center.

“We are the only country in the world that has a terrorist watch list.”

The center was founded in 2003 in response to the 9/11 attacks. Their job is to gather intelligence about possible terrorists both in the United States and abroad.

The watch list contains about 520,000 people world wide suspected of having ties to terrorism. Names on the list are added and subtracted daily, but who in on the list remains a secret.

“We don’t confirm anyone’s existence on the watch list,” said Healy.

In addition to the watch list, Healy oversees a second more critical list, the “No Fly List”.

“If you have information that the guy wants to blow up a plane, I can keep him off a plane,” said Healy. “If I’ve [got] information he wants to conduct a terrorist attack, I can keep him off a plane.”

There are about 20,000 people on the “No Fly List”. Seven-hundred of them are Americans and they are considered too much of a risk to allow onto an airplane.

Names on the various watch lists surface each day in calls to the center. For example, each time a police officer run someone’s ID through a computer, that person is checked against the lists.

“So if you are speeding, you get pulled over, they’ll query that name. And if they are encountering a known or suspected terrorist, it will pop up and say call the Terror Screening Center,” said Healy. “So now the officer on the street knows he may be dealing with a known or suspected terrorist.”

The center averages about 55 encounters a day from people who are known or suspected terrorists.

In most cases, according to Healy, the encounters do not produce arrests, but they do provide additional intelligence.

“[The] location of where the guy’s going. What he’s doing [and] additional associates that the subject is hanging around.”

Throughout the Terrorist Screening Center are placed artifacts from various terrorist attacks including Oklahoma City federal building, the USS Cole bombing, and the World Trade Centers. All sober reminders of how important their work is.

For Tim Healy and the workers of the Terrorist Screening Center, failure is not an option. They measure their success by what doesn’t happen.

*****

On September 16, 2003, the President signed Homeland Security Presidential Directive-6 (HSPD-6), requiring the establishment of an organization to “consolidate the Government’s approach to terrorism screening and provide for the appropriate and lawful use of Terrorist Information in screening processes.” Specifically, the Attorney General was directed to create a new organization to consolidate terrorist watch lists and provide 24-hour, 7-day a week operational support for federal, state, local, territorial, tribal, and foreign government as well as private sector screening across the country and around the world. As a result of this presidential directive, the Terrorist Screening Center (TSC) was created. As of the end of fiscal year (FY) 2004, the TSC was a $27 million organization with approximately 175 staff.

9/11: POTUS Vetoed JASTA, Ability to Sue Saudi Arabia

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House intel chairman threatens to subpoena bin Laden files

FNC: The Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee says he’s prepared to take what may be unprecedented action to get the remaining Usama bin Laden documents from the nation’s top military and intelligence agencies – and subpoena the files.

“If they don’t provide these documents to the committee by October 11th, then we’re going to have to subpoena them — which I don’t want to have to do but it appears like we’ve run out of all options,” Republican Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., told Fox News. “For the administration to basically mislead the American people for this many years is flat-out wrong.”

Nunes is seeking documents and relevant analysis, which is thought to comprise at least 50 reports. In a Sept. 22 letter to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, CIA Director John Brennan, and Defense Department Undersecretary for Intelligence Marcel Lettre, Nunes says the law required them to comply nearly two years ago based on Section 313 of the Intelligence Authorization ACT (IAA) for fiscal 2014. This section mandated a “complete declassification of the Abbottabad documents within 120 days.”  More here.

Meanwhile there appears to be enough votes to over-ride Obama’s veto on the ability to for the 9/11 families to sue Saudi Arabia.

FNC: With lawmakers eager to return home to campaign ahead of the November election, a vote could come as early as Tuesday. Even House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, an Obama ally, indicated support this week for an override, saying members believe the families “should have their day in court.”

Democratic New York Sen. Chuck Schumer called the veto a “disappointing decision that will be swiftly and soundly overturned in Congress.”

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s office said the Senate would take up the override “as soon as practicable in this work period.”

The Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act sailed through both chambers of Congress by voice vote, with final House passage coming just two days before Obama led the nation in marking the 15th anniversary of the attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania on Sept. 11, 2001. More here.

The passed legislation is known as JASTA, S.2040 – Justice Against Sponsors of Terrorism Act was introduced by Senator Cornyn of Texas. It was presented to Barack Obama and was due for final record by 9/23/2016 if Obama did not take his veto action which he did at the last moment during the week of the United Nations General Assembly.

Related reading: House Intel Cmte has Declassified/Released the 28 Pages

Additionally:

Deleted official report says Saudi key funder of Hillary Clinton campaign

#USA2016

MEE: Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman reportedly said Saudi has enthusiastically funded Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign

Saudi Arabia is a major funder of Hillary Clinton’s campaign to become the next president of the United States, according to a report published by Jordan’s official news agency.

The Petra News Agency published on Sunday what it described as exclusive comments from Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman which included a claim that Riyadh has provided 20 percent of the total funding to the prospective Democratic candidate’s campaign.