Category Archives: Terror

Terrorists Financially Supported by Welfare

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Deceased ISIS Terrorist Was On Maine’s Welfare Rolls

DailyCaller: Adnan Fazeli lived in Freeport, Maine with his wife and children. An Iranian refugee, he worked several jobs between 2009 and 2013, before boarding a plane to Turkey without his family.

 Photo: Circa

He never returned. Documents released earlier this month show he became an ISIS fighter and was killed by Lebanese forces in January 2015. And during his four years, he and his family used federal and state welfare programs that The Boston Herald reports allowed him the time to self-radicalize over the Internet.

Maine Governor Paul LePage reacted strongly to the news. “I’m having [the Maine Department of Health and Human Services] look at our welfare rolls closer,” he said last week. “All the other states should look at the eligibility, too.”

According to LePage, the federal government is at fault for letting Fazeli in the country. “If people need to eat, I’ll feed them. But I want to keep Americans safe,” LePage said. “This is very embarrassing to the state of Maine, and I point the finger at the president and say, ‘How did this happen?’ If the federal government doesn’t do their job we don’t know what we’re getting.”

LePage’s comments drew criticism from Maine’s branch of the ACLU. The group’s executive director, Alison Beyea, accused him of violating federal laws requiring the privacy of welfare recipients after the Herald reported a LePage administration source disclosed the receipts.

“The LePage administration reportedly exposed a family’s private information in order to further its anti-welfare agenda. Who knows whom the next target will be – the elderly, people with disabilities,” said Beyea. “No one should have to worry about their personal lives being leaked to the press anytime the administration wants to score political points. But if it happened to one family, it could happen to any of us.”

A LePage spokesperson says that the governor’s office did not disclose the information to the newspaper. “The reporters [at the Boston Herald] already had the information when the governor spoke with them,” said the spokesperson.

Steve Robinson, the Executive Director of the Howie Carr show who previously worked at the Maine Heritage Policy Center, told TheDC, “This so-called ‘Freeport Man’ should not have been in the country. Cursory vetting would have flagged him as a risk.”

“Maine’s sanctuary policies and easy-money welfare system allowed him to spend his free time watching Anwar Al-Awlaki propaganda videos rather than working,” continued Robinson, who said that “LePage has been extraordinarily successful reforming Maine’s welfare system despite stubborn opposition from left-wingers in Augusta. The reforms he has implemented are helping Mainers move from welfare to work and reducing fraud throughout the system.”

The Portland Press Herald reported that 105 welfare fraud cases were sent to the state Attorney General’s office. A total of 36 convictions came from those cases, all against U.S. citizens, and restitution totaling $467,300 was ordered, according to a spokesperson for the Attorney General’s office.

The Herald also examined Maine state records and found that “there were 35 non-citizen families out of a total of 4,854 families receiving TANF benefits, and 361 non-citizen families out of a total of 100,648 families receiving food stamps.”

Fazeli is not the first suspected or proven terrorist to have used government welfare funds. At Conservative Review, Ben Johnson highlighted several prominent examples, including the Tsarnaev brothers who committed the Boston Marathon bombing in 2013.

“The most conspicuous example are the Tsarnaev brothers,” writes Johnson, “who collectively received in excess of $100,000 in welfare payments from food stamps and Section 8 housing. Tamerlan Tsarnaev, a onetime Golden Gloves boxer, remained on food stamps until his family income — earned primarily by his wife — exceeded the amount Massachusetts allows for food stamp beneficiaries.”

Johnson also highlighted recently convicted terrorist supporter Anjem Choudary, who in Britain received “£8,000 pounds more on public assistance than soldiers fighting the Taliban,” according to Johnson. Likewise, 9/11 conspirator Zacarious Moussaoui received welfare in Britain.

According to recordings released in 2013, Choudary preached that jihadists should work as little as possible, and “take money from the kuffar [non-believers]” so they can be “be busy with jihad and things like that.”

A nephew of Fazeli says the deceased terrorist’s wife and children, as well as Fazeli’s extended family, were unaware of his radicalization. The family was taken off of welfare rolls after Fazeli left the country.

In Europe also:

Terrorist Suspects in Europe Got Welfare Benefits While Plotting Attacks

SofRep: Belgian financial investigators looking into recent terror plots have discovered a disturbing trend: Some of the suspects were collecting welfare benefits until shortly before they carried out their attacks.

At least five of the alleged plotters in the Paris and Brussels terror attacks partly financed themselves with payments from Belgium’s generous social-welfare system, authorities have concluded. In total they received more than €50,000, or about $56,000 at today’s rate.

The main surviving Paris suspect, Salah Abdeslam, collected unemployment benefits until three weeks before the November attacks—€19,000 in all, according to people familiar with the case. At the time, he was manager and part-owner of a bar, which Belgian officials say should have made him ineligible.

Many of the participants in a disrupted Belgian terror plot also had been on the dole, according to the judge who sentenced more than a dozen people in the so-called Verviers cell last month. Police thwarted the plot early last year, finding explosives, weapons and police uniforms after a shootout that killed two people.

The revelations raise a difficult conundrum for Europe.

Read More- The Wall Street Journal

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Anjem Choudary sentenced to prison

‘Claim jobseeker’s allowance and plan holy war’: Hate preacher pocketing £25,000 a year in benefits calls on fanatics to live off the state

  • Anjem Choudary called benefits ‘Jihadseeker’s allowance’
  • The extremist told followers they must hate democracy and freedom
  • Also listed bizarre sharia laws, including ‘not riding cats and sheep’
  • Later said he had been ‘joking’ and his words were misconstrued
  • He called Osama bin Laden his ‘hero’    Full story here from DailyMail

 

 

 

Abu Zabaydah Wants out of Gitmo

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And for the first time, he is getting a hearing. So who is he? 61 remain now and 20 are approved for transfer…where is undetermined.

 Photo: Newsweek

Primer:

“Bodies Will Pile Up in Sacks”

On November 30, 1999, Jordanian intelligence intercepted a telephone call

between Abu Zubaydah, a longtime ally of Bin Ladin, and Khadr Abu Hoshar,

a Palestinian extremist.Abu Zubaydah said, “The time for training is over.”

One of the 16, Raed Hijazi, had been born in California to Palestinian parents; after spending his childhood in the Middle East, he had returned to northern California, taken refuge in extremist Islamist beliefs, and then made his way to Abu Zubaydah’s Khaldan camp in Afghanistan,where he learned the fundamentals of guerrilla warfare. He and his younger brother had been recruited by Abu Hoshar into a loosely knit plot to attack Jewish and American targets in Jordan. More here.

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LWJ: The US government has released an unclassified profile of the jihadist known as Abu Zubaydah, who is held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility. Abu Zubaydah’s case is currently being evaluated by the Periodic Review Board (PRB), which was established in 2011 “to review whether continued detention of particular individuals held at Guantanamo remains necessary to protect against a continuing significant threat to the security of the United States.”

Abu Zubaydah has been at the center of controversy for years. He was one of the first detainees subjected to the CIA’s so-called enhanced interrogation techniques, including waterboarding, in 2002.

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Some argue that he was not really a senior al Qaeda operative at the time of his capture and that his importance was exaggerated by the US intelligence community during the Bush administration. One version of Abu Zubaydah’s story, citing excerpts from his diary and other fragmentary evidence, holds that he never swore bayat (oath of allegiance) to Osama bin Laden and was merely an independent jihadist facilitator.

The US government’s unclassified summary tells a different story, citing several key pieces of evidence that tie Abu Zubaydah to al Qaeda’s senior leaders and the terror group’s global operations. Abu Zubaydah allegedly “played a key role in al Qaeda’s communications,” “closely interacted” with Osama bin Laden’s “second-in-command,” enlisted al Qaeda operatives in planned attacks against Israel, worked with 9/11 planner Khalid Shaykh Mohammed in 2002, and may have had foreknowledge of al Qaeda’s three most successful attacks between August 1998 and September 2001. The PRB summary also notes that he has been convicted in absentia in Jordan for his well-known role in the so-called millennium terror plots.

Abu Zubaydah “possibly had some advanced knowledge of the bombings of the US Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998 and the USS Cole bombing in 2000,” according to the government’s PRB summary. He was also “generally aware of the impending 9/11 attacks and possibly coordinated the training at Khaldan camp of two of the hijackers.”

The 1998 US Embassy Bombings and the attack on the USS Cole in 2000 were al Qaeda’s two most effective operations prior to 9/11. It is doubtful that a truly independent actor could have had “some knowledge” of these plots, as well as be “generally aware” of the 9/11 attacks beforehand, given al Qaeda’s penchant for secrecy and compartmentalized planning.

In addition, the two future 9/11 hijackers were not the only al Qaeda operatives thought to have trained at Khaldan camp, which Abu Zubaydah helped oversee.

According to declassified and leaked files prepared by Joint Task Force – Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO), as well as other reports, numerous al Qaeda operatives trained at Khaldan. Trainees at Khaldan included: Ramzi Yousef (the nephew of Khalid Shaykh Mohammed and also the chief bomb maker for the 1993 World Trade Center attack, as well as the point man for a plot to bring down airliners in 1995), Mohamed al-‘Owhali (convicted for his role in the 1998 US Embassy Bombings), Zacarias Moussaoui (who was slated to take part in the 9/11 hijackings, or a follow-on al Qaeda plot, prior to his arrest in Aug. 2001), and Richard Reid (al Qaeda’s would-be shoe bomber in December 2001), among others. Abu Zubaydah would later argue before a tribunal at Guantanamo that he taught “defensive jihad,” as opposed to “offensive jihad,” and was not hostile to the US and its partners. The dossiers of Khaldan’s graduates, as well as many other facts, undermine this argument.

According to the summary presented to the PRB, Abu Zubaydah “played a key role in al Qaeda’s communications with supporters and operatives abroad and closely interacted with al Qaeda’s second-in-command at the time, Abu Hafs al Masri.”

The 9/11 Commission described Abu Hafs al Masri, who was killed in an American airstrike in late 2001, as bin Laden’s “chief of operations” prior to 9/11. Bin Laden and Abu Hafs “occupied undisputed leadership positions atop al Qaeda’s organizational structure.” The 9/11 Commission continued: “Within this structure, al Qaeda’s worldwide terrorist operations relied heavily on the ideas and work of enterprising and strong-willed field commanders who enjoyed considerable autonomy.” Therefore, a senior jihadist could be part of al Qaeda’s organization and still maintain “considerable autonomy” – a detail worth remembering when evaluating Abu Zubaydah’s dossier.

The 9/11 Commission cited the career of Khalid Shaykh Mohammed (KSM), the chief organizer of the 9/11 hijackings, as an example of how al Qaeda’s hierarchy worked. Although KSM didn’t swear bayat to bin Laden (or so KSM claimed after being captured), he still planned the 9/11 attacks under the watchful eye al Qaeda’s most senior officials. Unlike Abu Zubaydah, no one seriously disputes KSM’s al Qaeda role. According to multiple reports, Abu Zubaydah divulged during his first days in US custody that one of KSM’s aliases was “Mukhtar.” Zubaydah also told FBI officials that KSM played a key role in the 9/11 hijackings. Again, we are left to wonder how someone supposedly outside of al Qaeda’s orbit could have known such important details concerning the secretive group’s inner workings.

In fact, according to the PRB summary and other files, Abu Zubaydah worked directly with KSM.

“Following 9/11,” the PRB summary reads, “[Abu Zubaydah] took a more active role in attack preparations, sending operatives to al Qaeda senior member Khalid Shaykh Muhammad…to discuss the feasibility of exploding a radiological device in the United States, and supporting remote-controlled bomb attacks against US and Coalition Forces in Afghanistan.”

The first part of the sentence refers to Abu Zubaydah’s involvement with Jose Padilla and Binyam Mohamed. They conceived a far-fetched plan to use a dirty bomb inside the US. KSM allegedly thought that their idea was foolish and so he directed one or both of them to consider setting fire to high rise buildings using natural gas instead. Zubaydah reportedly revealed details about Padilla and Mohamed while in US custody. Padilla was arrested in Chicago in May 2002 and eventually convicted on terrorism charges. Mohamed was detained in Pakistan and then held elsewhere before being sent to Guantanamo. Mohamed was transferred to the UK in 2009.

It is telling that Abu Zubaydah was able to seamlessly pass Padilla and Mohamed on to KSM, who was attempting to strike the US again just months after the 9/11 hijackings.

The second part of the sentence above from the PRB’s summary (“supporting remote-controlled bomb attacks” in Afghanistan) is a reference to Abu Zubaydah’s “Martyrs Brigade.” According to leaked JTF-GTMO files, the “Martyrs Brigade” was jointly created by Abu Zubaydah and Abdul Hadi al Iraqi, a top al Qaeda military commander who answered directly to Osama bin Laden. Known al Qaeda members joined the team, which was planning to travel back to Afghanistan to fight US and Coalition forces.

The PRB file notes that Abu Zubaydah “most actively plotted attacks against Israel, enlisting operatives from various militant groups, including al Qaeda, to conduct operations in Israel and against Israeli interests abroad.”

A brief biography released by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) in 2006 contained additional allegations regarding his anti-Israeli plotting. According to that biography, Abu Zubaydah had “enlisted” the help of Abu Musab al Zarqawi, who would go on to establish al Qaeda in Iraq, to find “a smuggling route into Israel for moving persons and materials.” Abu Zubaydah had previously helped Zarqawi and dozens of others escape from Afghanistan into Iran in late 2001. Abu Zubaydah raised $50,000 from Saudi donors for his planned attacks in Israel. The money was passed to senior al Qaeda leadership, according to the ODNI’s biography, and may have even been repurposed for the 9/11 plot.

The millennium plots

Abu Zubaydah’s role in various planned terrorist attacks in late 1999 and early 2000 is well known. Khaldan’s graduates were directly responsible for some of the plots.

Abu Zubaydah “was convicted in absentia by the Jordanian Government for his role in planning attacks against Israeli, Jordanian, and Western targets during the Millennium time frame in Jordan,” the newly released PRB file reads.

The 9/11 Commission discussed the millennium plots in Jordan at length in its final report. Jordanian authorities unraveled the plans beginning on Nov. 30, 1999, when they intercepted a telephone call from Abu Zubaydah to an operative known as Abu Hoshar.

“The time for training is over,” Abu Zubaydah said.

The Jordanians suspected, according to the 9/11 Commission, “that this was a signal for Abu Hoshar to commence a terrorist operation.” Jordanian police then arrested 16 jihadists, including Abu Hoshar and his comrade Raed Hijazi. [See LWJ report, Jordan rearrests millennium bombings plotter.]

By late 1998, Abu Hoshar and Hijazi had begun planning to attack multiple sites frequented by Western tourists. “Hijazi and Abu Hoshar cased the intended targets and sent reports to Abu Zubaydah, who approved their plan,” according to the 9/11 Commission. Hijazi stockpiled the ingredients necessary to make the bombs their plan required.

Hijazi and Abu Hoshar contacted another alleged al Qaeda operative, Khalid Deek, in early 1999. They acquired a copy of the Encyclopedia of Jihad, a terrorist manual authored by Deek. The 9/11 Commission reported what happened next. In June 1999, “with help from Deek, Abu Hoshar arranged with Abu Zubaydah for Hijazi and three others to go to Afghanistan for added training in explosives.”

Then, in late November 1999, “Hijazi reportedly swore before Abu Zubaydah the bayat [oath of allegiance] to Bin Laden, committing himself to do anything Bin Laden ordered.”

How could Abu Zubaydah accept Hijazi’s blood oath to Osama bin Laden if he wasn’t really part of al Qaeda? This is one of many details that doesn’t make sense if Abu Zubaydah remained apart from al Qaeda.

Another one of the plots extended all the way into the US.

Ahmed Ressam, who was trained at the Khaldan camp, traveled from Canada to the US in late 1999 with the intent to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport (LAX). Ressam was arrested on Dec. 14, 1999 after customs officials discovered that his vehicle contained hidden explosives.

Ressam would later explain Abu Zubaydah’s role to the FBI. Ressam’s testimony was included in the Aug. 6, 2001 Presidential Daily Brief (PDB) delivered to President George W. Bush.

“The millennium plotting in Canada in 1999 may have been part of Bin Laden’s first serious attempt to implement a terrorist strike in the US,” the PDB read. “Convicted plotter Ahmed Ressam has told the FBI that he conceived the idea to attack the Los Angeles International Airport himself, but that Bin Laden lieutenant Abu Zubaydah encouraged him and helped facilitate the operation.” Ressam added that Bin Laden “was aware of the Los Angeles operation” and Abu Zubaydah “was planning his own US attack” as early as 1998.

An extensive dossier

The unclassified PRB file deals with just some of the known or suspected details of Abu Zubaydah’s career. There is much additional evidence tying him to al Qaeda’s global enterprise. At a minimum, however, the file indicates that the officials representing the US government in the PRB process continue to view Abu Zubaydah as well-placed figure in al Qaeda’s network. This is true whether Abu Zubaydah swore his allegiance to Osama bin Laden or not, as the intelligence shows that he consistently worked with al Qaeda’s most senior operatives.

Note: The spelling of al Qaeda has been made consistent throughout this article and therefore differs from how it is spelled in some of the US government’s files.

Iran vs. U.S. Navy in Persian Gulf, More Aggression

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NYT: The Nitze was accompanied by the U.S.S. Mason during the episode, which Commander Raines said had taken place near the Strait of Hormuz, the entry to the Persian Gulf and a strategically vital shipping route.

Unsure of Iranian intentions, the Nitze changed course several times during the encounter to try to keep a safe distance from offshore oil rigs in the area, the commander said.

Responding on Thursday to the Pentagon complaint, Iran essentially rejected the American version of events. The country’s defense minister, Brig. Gen. Hossein Dehghan, said in remarks quoted by state news media that the Iranian boats patrolled only Iran’s territorial waters and had a mission to “counter any unintentional or aggressive intrusion.”

Iranian naval forces, General Dehqan said, “warn any foreign vessel that enters the country’s waters and take action if the intrusion is deemed aggressive.” More here.

Three More Naval Incidents Reported in Persian Gulf

WASHINGTON — Three more close encounters have been reported between US Navy warships and vessels operated by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps navy (IRGCN). In one instance, a US warship fired warning shots at an Iranian vessel.

The latest incidents took place Wednesday in the northern Persian Gulf, US defense officials reported today. They follow Tuesday’s incident near the Strait of Hormuz when high-speed vessels approached two US Navy destroyers.

 

In the first incident, as reported by US defense officials, the US patrol coastal ships Tempest and Squall were patrolling in international waters in the northern Gulf. Three IRGCN vessels approached at high speed and crossed the bow of the Tempest at 600 yards on three separate occasions. Tempest sounded five short blasts from the ship’s whistle, indicating the maneuvers were unsafe, and attempted to establish radio communications, apparently without success.

Later that same day Tempest and Squall were harassed by an Iranian Naser-class patrol boat, of a type known to be operated by the Guards. That vessel approached Tempest head-on to within 200 yards, said Cmdr. Bill Urban, a spokesman for the US Navy’s Central Command (NAVCENT) in Bahrain.

“This situation presented a drastically increased risk of collision,” Urban said, “and the Iranian vessel refused to safely maneuver in accordance with internationally recognized maritime rules of the road, despite several request and warnings via radio, and visual and audible warnings from both US ships.”

During the encounter Tempest fired three warning flares in the direction of the vessel, Urban said, while also attempting radio communications and sounding loud audible warnings via loudspeaker.

Squall fired three warning shots from a .50-caliber gun and that caused the Iranian vessel to turn away.

The shots “were fired well in advance of the vessels,” Urban said, adding that Squall took efforts to make sure the shots were fired clear of both the Iranian vessel and civilian traffic. “No one was injured or hit by the warning shots,” he said.

In a third event, the destroyer Stout was underway in the northern Gulf when, Urban said, the same Naser vessel conducted an “unsafe intercept,” crossing the bow of Stout three times “at close range.” The destroyer, capable of much higher speeds than the Naser, maneuvered away from the vessel to avoid collision and, Urban added, “employed devices to discourage the IRGCN vessel from continuing their approach towards Stout.”

NAVCENT, Urban said, “assessed all of these interactions as unsafe and unprofessional due to the Iranian vessels not abiding by international law and maritime standards, including the 1972 Convention on the International Regulations for Preventing Collisions at Sea (COLREGS) maritime ‘Rules of the Road.’

“The Iranian high-rate-of-speed approaches towards three Unites States ships operating in international waters in accordance with international law along with multiple bow crossings at short range and the disregard of multiple warning attempts created a dangerous, harassing situation that could have led to further escalation,” Urban said.

US officials noted the most recent series of incidents all have involved the Revolutionary Guards and not the Iranian navy. Navy-to-navy relations between the US and Iran, while by no means warm, are generally categorized by the US as professional. The Guards, also known as the Pasdaran, generally operate outside of Iran’s military hierarchy.

The latest series of incidents follow another encounter that took place Tuesday at the southeastern end of the Gulf near the Strait of Hormuz, where four high-speed IRCGN craft approached the US destroyers Nitze and Mason. Two of the Iranian craft approached to within 300 yards of Nitze before the destroyers increased to high speed and pulled away.

Protests have not been filed over these incidents, said Cmdr. Bill Urban, a spokesman for the US Navy’s Central Command (NAVCENT) command in Bahrain.

“The nature of this incident would have led NAVCENT recommend a diplomatic message of protest if this interaction had been with a country with which the United States had an official diplomatic relationship,” Urban said, noting that the US has no official relations with Iran.  Defense News

Ben Rhodes, WH NSC Advisor an Employee of Iran Lobby?

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Primer:

A U.S. Navy coastal patrol ship fired three warning shots at an Iranian ship that sailed within 200 yards in the Northern Persian Gulf Wednesday after one of four close calls this week involving U.S. and Iranian vessels, a U.S. official confirmed to Fox News on Thursday.

The USS Squall fired the shots, according to the official.

On Tuesday, four Iranian small boats “harassed” the USS Nitze, sailing near the guided missile destroyer in the narrow Strait of Hormuz, a U.S. Navy official told Fox News.

and….

Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei warned government officials not to trust the U.S. after alleged shortcomings in the nuclear deal’s implementation.

Khamenei criticized America’s “misconduct” in implementing the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) during a meeting with President Hassan Rouhani and his cabinet on August 24. Khamenei warned, “This experience teaches us that one cannot trust the promises of any administration in America.” As in his past criticisms of the nuclear deal, Khamenei fell short of calling for Iran to abandon the accord, however. More here.

Benjamin “Ben” Rhodes is President Obama’s Deputy National Security Advisor for Strategic Communications and Speechwriting. From the beginning of his career, Rhodes has made a mark in policy, international relations, and writing. He worked as an assistant to Lee Hamilton at the Wilson Center, and then went on to the Iraq Study Group Report and the 9/11 Commission’s recommendations. He then went on to become President Obama’s foreign policy advisor during the 2008 Presidential Elections. He has worked with President Obama’s negotiating team for the JCPOA agreement and his outreach to the Iranian people, such as the President’s Nowruz Message in 2012.

Rhodes is a speaker at this conference.

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A Trifecta of Military and Diplomatic Causes for Biden in Turkey

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Groveling to an off the rails NATO member, Vice President Biden has a big agenda meeting with Turkish officials. Should Biden even be the point person for all of this as noted below? Hardly.

The matter of the Kurds has required high attention for Turkey and Biden.

The vice president also offered a stern warning to Kurdish forces on the ground in Syria that they would lose U.S. support if they don’t retreat to the eastern bank of the Euphrates, immediately to the east of Jarabulus.

“We have made it absolutely clear that they [pro-Kurdish forces] must go back across the [Euphrates] River. They cannot and will not, under no circumstances, get American support if they do not keep that commitment,” Biden said, according to Kurdish newspaper Hurriyet Daily News. 

Kurdish involvement in the two-year-old U.S.-led war against the Islamic State group has become a major sticking point between the NATO partners – Kurdish fighters in Iraq and Syria have proven one of the most capable and effective combat forces on the ground, for a conflict to which President Barack Obama has declined to deploy large formations of American ground troops. The Turks, however, fear empowering Kurdish fighters in neighboring Syria and Iraq could further embolden separatist sentiments among the Kurdish population in Turkey.  More here.

Due to the coup attempt, Erdogan wants Fettulah Gulen returned to Turkey. Biden?

He said it would be an impeachable offence for US President Barack Obama to order the extradition of a foreign national.

“We have no reason other than to cooperate with you (Turkey)… It always takes time… It is never understood why the wheels of justice move deliberately and slowly. It is totally understandable why the people of Turkey are angry,” he said.

Turkish officials have warned that if Pennsylvania-based Gulen is not extradited, relations will suffer further and anti-American sentiment will deepen in the country.

A senior US official said Wednesday Turkey has submitted four extradition requests for Gulen but offered no evidence tying him to last month’s failed coup. More here.

Turkey open to Russian planes at US Incirlik hub

Stripes: STUTTGART, Germany — Could U.S. warplanes soon be sharing the runway at Turkey’s Incirlik Air Base with Russian bombers?

That’s up to Moscow, according to a top Turkish official, whose comments on possibly opening the strategic Turkish facility to Russian personnel comes ahead of a damage control visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden on Wednesday.

When asked on Saturday whether Russia could use Incirlik for airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Syria, Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim answered in the affirmative. “If necessary, the Incirlik base can be used (by the Russians),” Yildirim told reporters.

The prospect of opening Incirlik to Russia, a move that would likely infuriate NATO allies, would put the U.S. military in the awkward position of working and possibly living side by side with an adversary. In addition to being home to about 2,500 U.S. troops, Incirlik houses about 50 U.S. nuclear weapons, according to various watchdog groups.

For Russia, Incirlik is unlikely to offer much tactical value, since its fighter-bombers and attack helicopters already operate from bases in Syria closer to the actual battlefields, and Yildirim made clear that Moscow hadn’t requested use of the air base. Still, a move into Incirlik could offer Russia an opportunity to chip at NATO unity.

Whether Yildirim was serious about the Incirlik offer to Moscow or floating the idea as a sign of leverage against the United States isn’t clear. But what has become apparent in recent weeks is that inside Turkey, where conspiracies abound about the U.S. having covertly backed the attempted July coup attempt, there is growing frustration with the Washington.

In the aftermath of the attempted mutiny by elements of the Turkish military, U.S. officials have publicly backed the government of President Recep Tayyip Erodgan, but also voiced concern about a sweeping purge in Turkey that has resulted in the detention of thousands of military officers, academics and political opposition figures. Such criticisms from America and its NATO allies have prompted a furious response from Erdogan’s supporters, including from pro-government news outlets that have interpreted such criticisms as a sure sign of U.S. sympathy for the mutineers.

The Obama administration has firmly rejected such charges. Still, Ankara also has lashed out at Washington, which it accuses of foot-dragging on a demand that Fethullah Gulen, a cleric who lives in Pennsylvania, be extradited in connection with Turkish allegations he masterminded the coup plot, something the Gulen has denied.

The U.S. has sought to reassure Turkey of its political and military standing inside NATO, and two of the U.S. military’s top generals have made recent visits to Ankara. On Monday, U.S. European Command’s Gen. Curtis M. Scaparrotti praised Turkey, saying it has a unique standing within the military alliance.

“It sits at the crossroads of the many challenges we face in Europe, from the refugee crisis, to terrorism, to human trafficking,” said Scaparrotti, in a statement after his Monday stop in Ankara for talks. “We are thankful for their leadership and contributions in each of these areas, and for access they have granted us to their bases, which are critical to our operations.”

Still, Turkey has sought closer ties with Russia since the coup, patching up a relationship with Moscow that was deeply damaged after Turkey shot down a Russian bomber around its southern border in November. At the time, Russian took a tough stance, severing many diplomatic and economic ties. Since then, Turkey has apologized for the incident with Erdogan making a formal visit to Russia to meet President Vladimir Putin earlier this month.

With relations on the mend, there could be an opportunity for Moscow to play Turkey off the West in an attempt to sow divisions in institutions such as NATO and the European Union, some analysts warn.

“Will Russia’s long game of undermining the EU’s cohesion, the U.S. status as the major superpower, or the role of NATO find fertile ground in post-coup Turkey? One hypothesis is that Russia may go for a long-term game-changing move and lure Turkey away from the West as part of a broader geopolitical reconfiguration,” wrote Marc Pierini, a scholar with the Carnegie Europe think tank and former EU ambassador to Turkey.

For the U.S. and its NATO allies, Incirlik during the past year has emerged as a primary hub for airstrikes against the Islamic State group in Syria and Iraq.

It also has been a place of upheaval.

In March, EUCOM ordered military family members off the post, where dependents have been a presence for decades amid security concerns. The move forced schools to close and likely marked the end of Incirlik as an accompanied tour destination for the Air Force for the foreseeable future. Some experts have questioned the long-term viability of Incirlik as a hub for U.S. Air Force personnel, given the political tensions with Ankara.

The Washington-based Stimson Center also has said the U.S. should consider moving its nuclear weapons out of Turkey, citing possible security concerns in the wake of the attempted coup, which resulted in power being cut off at the base for nearly a week as Turkish authorities sought to regain control. The U.S. was forced to rely on generators to carry out its mission.

“Whether the US could have maintained control of the weapons in the event of a protracted civil conflict in Turkey is an unanswerable question,” said the Stimson report, which examined various ways to reform the U.S. nuclear program.

EUCOM, which as a matter of policy doesn’t comment on locations of nuclear weapons, nonetheless said that during the attempted coup no U.S. personnel or assets were ever threatened.

“We do not discuss the location of strategic assets,” said EUCOM spokesman Capt. Danny Hernandez. “Broadly, we continue to take appropriate security steps to maintain the safety and security of our personnel, our civilian and military personnel, their families and facilities.”