Category Archives: Terror

Why Obama Chose Qatar Over Congress

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Today, al Thani is visiting the White House again. Question is why?

Qatari officials have positioned themselves as mediators and interlocutors in a number of regional conflicts in recent years. Qatar’s deployment of military aircraft to support NATO-led operations in Libya and U.S.-led operations against the Islamic State in Syria signaled a new assertiveness, as has reported Qatari support for armed elements of the Syrian opposition. Some of Qatar’s positions have drawn U.S. scrutiny and raised the ire of its Gulf Arab neighbors, including its leaders’ willingness to engage Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood, and the Taliban and allegations of Qatari support for extremists in Syria. It remains unclear whether Qatar’s active and—for the United States—at times vexing policies may change under Emir Tamim. To date, the Obama Administration has remained committed to military and counterterrorism cooperation with the ambitious leaders of this wealthy, strategically located country.
The United States opened its embassy in Doha in 1973, but U.S. relations with Qatar did not blossom until after the 1991 Persian Gulf War. In the late 1980s, the United States and Qatar engaged in a prolonged diplomatic dispute regarding Qatar’s black market procurement of U.S.- made Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.7 The dispute froze planned economic and military cooperation, and Congress approved a ban on arms sales to Qatar (§566(d), P.L. 100-461) until the months leading up to the 1991 Gulf War, when Qatar allowed coalition forces to operate from Qatari territory and agreed to destroy the missiles in question.8 In January 1991, Qatari armored forces helped coalition troops repel an Iraqi attack on the Saudi Arabian town of Kafji, on the coastal road leading south from Kuwait into Saudi Arabia’s oil-rich Eastern Province.9 In June 1992, Qatar signed a defense cooperation agreement with the United States, opening a period of close coordination in military affairs that has continued to the present. The United States promptly recognized the assumption of power by Shaykh Hamad in June 1995 and welcomed Qatar’s defense cooperation, as well as Shaykh Hamad’s modest political, economic, and educational reform efforts. President Obama congratulated Emir Tamim upon his accession to the throne in June 2013, and Qatari-U.S. relations remain close, amid some differences over regional security questions. Qatari-U.S. defense relations have expanded to include cooperative defense exercises, equipment pre-positioning, and base access agreements. U.S. concerns regarding alleged material support for terrorist groups by some Qataris, including reported past support by a prominent member of the royal family, have been balanced over time by Qatar’s counterterrorism efforts and its broader, long-term commitment to host and support U.S. military forces active in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the rest of the CENTCOM area of responsibility. In December 2013, U.S. Secretary of Defense Chuck Hagel visited Doha, met with Emir Tamim, and signed a new 10-year defense cooperation agreement, followed in July 2014 by agreements for $11 billion in advanced arms sales.

The United States has provided limited counterterrorism assistance to Qatar to support the development of its domestic security forces, and the Export-Import Bank has provided over $2 billion in loan guarantees to support various natural gas development projects in Qatar since 1996. The Obama Administration has phased out U.S. foreign assistance and has not requested military construction funds for facilities in Qatar since FY2012. Qatar donated $100 million to victims of Hurricane Katrina in the U.S. Gulf states, and Qatari state entities and private individuals continue to make large investments in the United States. Several prominent U.S. universities have established satellite campuses in Doha at Qatar’s Education City, where Qatari, American, and other students pursue undergraduate and graduate coursework across a broad range of subjects.
In Congress, legislative action related to Qatar remains relatively limited with the exception of appropriations and authorization legislation that affects U.S. defense programs and congressional review of proposed foreign military sales to the Qatari military. Qatar’s foreign and domestic policies are monitored by congressional foreign affairs, defense, and intelligence committees, while Qatar’s resource wealth and associated economic clout fuels congressional interest in U.S.- Qatari trade and investment ties. (1)
*** The collusion continues:
Qatar’s Ties to Militants Strain Alliance

DOHA, Qatar—During President Barack Obama ’s first term, some members of his National Security Council lobbied to pull a U.S. fighter squadron out of an air base in Qatar to protest the emirate’s support of militant groups in the Mideast.

The Pentagon pushed back, according to former U.S. officials involved in the discussion, saying a regional military command the U.S. maintains at the base was vital to American operations in the region. The issue was decided in late 2013 when the U.S. extended its lease on the base and didn’t pull out any planes.

The episode, not previously reported, reflects long-standing divisions within the Obama administration over America’s widening alliance with Qatar. The problem is that the very traits making the Persian Gulf emirate a valuable ally are also a source of worry: Qatar’s relationships with Islamist groups.

Secretary of State John Kerry has formed a tight partnership with Qatari diplomats, using them as conduits for messages to Hamas in the Palestinian territories, to Afghanistan’s Taliban and to jihadist rebel groups in Syria and Libya, according to State Department officials. Mr. Kerry has lauded Qatar’s role in seeking to negotiate an end to Israeli-Hamas fighting last summer.

U.S. officials also have praised Qatar for using its channels to broker the release of Westerners held hostage, including U.S. Army Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, who was swapped last year for five captured Taliban commanders.

Champions of the U.S.-Qatar alliance, especially in the Defense and State departments, say Qatar is indispensable to the struggle against Islamic State, the group also called ISIS or ISIL. U.S. airstrikes against Islamic State often launch from the air base in Qatar, al-Udeid, said American officials, who added that Qatar’s air force has provided surveillance and logistical support.

But Qatar also has given financial or diplomatic support to Mideast rebel groups, including some that seek to establish Islamic law or have ties to al Qaeda, according to U.S. and Arab officials as well as Western diplomats in the region. The support includes providing sanctuary to leaders of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, which Qatar acknowledges.

For years, Islamist rebel fighters from Libya and Syria traveled to Qatar and returned with suitcases full of money, according to rebels who were interviewed and to Persian Gulf government officials. American officials said the U.S. has uncovered Qatari connections—such as involvement by members of the emirate’s elite business, religious and academic circles—in financing for Hamas, al Qaeda and Islamic State.

In September, the U.S. Treasury Department said publicly that an Islamic State commander had received $2 million in cash from an unnamed Qatari businessman. The following month, a Treasury official publicly criticized Qatar for failing to act against what he called terrorist financiers living in the emirate.

Last week, Qatar protested when Egypt bombed Islamic State forces in Libya who had beheaded 21 Egyptian Christians. An Egyptian diplomat responded by publicly accusing Qatar of supporting terrorism, which Qatar denied.

Visit from the emir

A chance to air these issues comes Tuesday as Qatar’s emir, Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani, meets with President Obama at the White House.

In interviews, senior Qatari officials denied their government funds or has funded terrorist organizations. They said Qatar has a right to have diplomatic ties with Hamas, the Muslim Brotherhood and other Islamist movements that they said have broad support in the Arab public. (The U.S. lists Hamas as a terrorist organization but not the Brotherhood.)

“We are not a bloc-mentality-belonging country. We create platforms for dialogue,” said Qatar’s foreign minister, Khalid bin Mohammad al-Attiyah. “If this approach allows us to bring long-lasting peace and security in our region, we will not be affected by any criticism.”

Washington’s ambassador to Qatar, Dana Shell Smith, said the U.S. relationship with the emirate “is a fundamentally good one, and we share a number of important interests. We don’t agree on everything, but we are always frank with each other about‎ where we disagree and why.”

U.S. and Arab officials say there are signs Qatar has begun paring back support for the most extreme militant groups following repeated warnings from Washington and certain Arab states. Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates pulled their ambassadors from Doha in March 2014 to protest Qatar’s foreign policy, but have since returned the diplomats to their posts.

Washington and the American oil industry played leading roles in Qatar’s emergence on the global stage. Qatar was among the less wealthy Gulf states in the 1980s, before the export of its plentiful natural gas was made possible by technologies developed by U.S. oil companies that later became Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips .

“The American companies were really the ones who took a big bet on Qatar when others wouldn’t,” said Mr. Attiyah. “That’s part of the core of our special relationship.”

Qatar now has the world’s highest per capita income, says the International Monetary Fund. Several U.S. universities, including Georgetown, Northwestern and Cornell, have opened campuses in Doha.

In 2003, the Pentagon moved the regional headquarters of the U.S. Central Command to Qatar’s al-Udeid air base, a move that gave the emirate a sense of security from potentially hostile neighbors.

Qatar also invests in the U.S. Last month, Qatar’s finance minister said his government would invest $35 billion in the U.S. over five years, in areas such as technology and infrastructure.

The “Arab Spring” protests of late 2010 and 2011 deepened Washington’s alliance with Qatar but also exposed divisions in the two countries’ visions for the Mideast. Qatar began promoting a brand of pro-Islamist foreign policy that confused Washington and alienated some Arab allies.

One Gulf-region government official described a Sheraton hotel in Doha as a hangout for Islamists from Libya, Syria, Egypt and the Palestinian territories. A spokesman for Sheraton owner Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide Inc. noted that the hotel hosts hundreds of international travelers daily and said, “We do not do business with terrorists nor condone or facilitate any activity that is antithetical to our company values.” He said the firm works with law enforcement, including retaining passport information for all guests.

Nusra Front

According to U.S. and regional Arab government officials, commanders of the Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s arm in Syria, began visiting Doha in 2012 for meetings with senior Qatari military officials and financiers. Nusra is fighting to overthrow Syria’s Bashar al-Assad regime, a regional rival of Qatar.

Syrian rebels and Persian Gulf government officials said Qatar cultivates a relationship with Nusra in part to maintain the emirate’s role in negotiations to free hostages held by militants in Syria and Lebanon. Over the past year, Qatar has gained the release of hostages including United Nationspeacekeepers, Greek Orthodox nuns and a U.S. freelance journalist. Arab and U.N. officials have said the releases involve ransoms, which Qatar denies.

Some Qatari officials view Nusra as a crucial fighting force against the Syrian regime and don’t consider it terrorist.

The U.S. in 2012 tipped off Lebanese officials that a Qatari sheik, Abd al-Aziz bin Khalifa al-Attiyah, was visiting Beirut to pass funds to Nusra, according to Lebanese and U.S. officials. A Lebanese official said that on one trip, Sheik Attiyah, who is a cousin of Qatar’s current foreign minister, was driven to the Lebanon-Syria border town of Aarsal and there distributed money for Syrian rebel fighters.

Lebanese security forces arrested Sheik Attiyah on terrorism charges in 2012, but he was freed after a Qatari protest, Lebanese and Qatari officials said. This past June, a Beirut military court sentenced him in absentia to seven years in prison on the charges.

A London attorney for Sheik Attiyah, Cameron Doley, called the charges “completely and utterly untrue.” Qatari government officials also said Mr. Attiyah wasn’t involved in terrorism and described his arrest as political. Officials of the Lebanese government and the security directorate that carried out the arrest declined to comment.

U.S. officials have been pressing Qatar to arrest a former Qatari central-bank official who was sanctioned by the U.S. and the U.N. for an alleged role as a terrorism financier and as a lieutenant of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the mastermind of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Qatar detained the official, Khalifa Muhammad Turki al-Subaiy, in 2008 for six months after a Bahrain court convicted him on terrorism charges. He was released later that year, drawing a string of inquiries from the U.S. ambassador, according to State Department cables released by WikiLeaks.

Mr. Subaiy couldn’t be reached for comment. In September, the Treasury alleged that two Jordanians with Qatari IDs had worked with Mr. Subaiy to transfer cash to al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan. The Jordanians couldn’t be reached for comment.

In October, the Treasury’s top counterterrorism official publicly criticized Qatar for inaction on Mr. Subaiy and a second alleged al Qaeda financier, Abd al-Rahman al-Nuaymi. “There are U.S.- and U.N.-designated terrorist financiers in Qatar that have not been acted against under Qatari law,” said David Cohen , then a Treasury undersecretary.

Mr. Nuaymi, who also couldn’t be reached for comment, has in the past denied funding terrorism and called charges against him politically motivated.

Living in Doha

Qatari officials confirmed that Messrs. Subaiy and Nuaymi remain free in Doha but said they are under surveillance and their bank accounts are frozen. “We know that there is a problem, and we are building a case to take those involved to court,” said Qatar’s ambassador to Washington, Mohammad al-Kuwari. “We’re committed to working with the U.S. on these cases.”

The idea of pulling some U.S. fighter planes out of Qatar’s al-Udeid to signal displeasure with Qatar’s foreign policy—a proposal made several years ago by some National Security Council members—prompted a wrenching internal debate pitting U.S. ideals against pragmatism. One senior defense official at the time opposed the idea, saying it threatened to undermine a key Mideast relationship while having little effect on Qatar’s policy.

A senior administration official said, “Whether or not that was a view expressed or considered by an individual in the past, it was never a serious policy consideration in a broader context.”

In recent months, U.S. and Qatari officials said there has been an uptick in Qatari moves against alleged terrorist financiers. They said the emirate has expelled a Jordanian associate of Mr. Nuaymi and shut a social-media website the U.S. believed was used in raising money for al-Qaeda-linked militants in Syria.

Qatar has moved to mend its ties with Saudi Arabia, the U.A.E. and other Gulf countries. In November, Qatar’s emir met in Jidda with Saudi Arabia’s late King Abdullah and other regional monarchs, agreeing to end their feud and work to stabilize the region, said Arab officials.

But Qatar has resisted pressure from the U.S. and Saudi Arabia to evict Hamas’s top leadership, according to U.S. and Arab diplomats. U.S. officials believe that many of the Qatari nationals involved in fundraising for Syrian rebels remain active. Mr. Kerry regularly raises his concerns about Qatar’s ties to extremist groups in his meeting with Doha’s diplomats, a U.S. official said.

“The Qataris need to know they can’t have it both ways,” said Dennis Ross, who was Mr. Obama’s top Mideast adviser in his first term. “But so far, they see that they can.”

—Julian E. Barnes contributed to this article.

(1) http://fas.org/sgp/crs/mideast/RL31718.pdf

Mall of America Under Terror Threat

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A new video from Al Shabaab purportedly shows the terror group calling for an attack on Mall of America, in Bloomington, Minn.

According to Fox 9, the mall is one of three similar targets the terror group specifically names, including West Edmonton Mall in Canada and the Oxford Street shopping area in London.

The video purportedly shows 6 minutes of graphic images and the terrorists celebrating the 2013 Westgate Mall attack in Nairobi, Kenya, that killed more than 60 people.

The narrator, his face wrapped in a black-and-white kaffiyeh-type scarf and wearing a camouflage jacket, spoke with a British accent and appeared to be of Somali origin. He accused Kenyan troops in Somalia of committing abuses against Somali Muslims.

He ended the video by calling on Muslim men to attack other shopping malls in Western countries. ***

To be an armed shopper or no? The Mall has signs that say NO.

Minnesota state Rep. Tony Cornish says the al-Shabaab threat against the Mall of America should be enough to motivate mall owners to drop their “no guns” policy so citizens can protect themselves.

Mr. Cornish, a Republican who also chairs the House Public Safety Committee, said the Mall of America has interpreted state concealed carry laws incorrectly, and he’s intent on challenging them for it, a local CBS affiliate reported.

“This is completely ridiculous. The complete opposite of what they should be doing,” he said. “If we’re threatened with an attack, the last thing you want to do is disarm citizens.”

The Republican’s comments come after a tweet sent from the Mall of America’s Twitter account said, “The mall bans all guns from the premises, you’ll note this clearly at each entrance door.” *** So how did we get to this condition in Minnesota? ***

(CNSNews.com) – The sheriff of Hennepin County, Minn., told the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism and Homeland Security on Wednesday about the threat of Somali gangs in his jurisdiction.

“I have been asked to testify today about the specific emergence of Somali gang-related issues we are having in my county,” Rich Stanek said in his prepared testimony.

Stanek represented the National Sheriffs’ Association at the hearing on “America’s Evolving Gang Threat.” He also serves on the U.S. Department of Homeland Security’s inter-agency Threat Assessment and Coordination Group and is president of the Major County Sheriffs’ Association.

Stanek said Minnesota is a “designated U.S. Refugee Resettlement Area,” with a Somali population ranging from 80,000 to 125,000 in the state. As a result, Stanek said, while the African population in the U.S. as a whole is about four percent, 18 percent of the Minnesota population is African because of the large Somali presence.

Stanek said he wanted to “state for the record” that most Somalis are “law-abiding citizens” who contribute to the community, but those who have joined gangs are committing crimes across the state.

“Somali gangs are unique in that they are not necessarily based on the narcotics trade as are other traditional gangs,” Stanek said, adding that “turf” is also not a motivating factor in Somali gang criminal activities.

“Gang members will often congregate in certain areas, but commit their criminal acts elsewhere,” Stanek said. “Criminal acts are often done in a wide geographic area that stretches outside of the Twin Cities seven county metro area.

“Their mobility has made them difficult to track,” Stanek said.

Stanek listed five “typical crimes” committed by Somali gang members, including credit card fraud, cell phone and gun store burglaries, and witness intimidation. The fifth type of criminal activity is tied to international terrorism, Stanek said.

“In 2007, the local Somali community started to report that some of the youth in the area had essentially disappeared without warning,” Stanek said. “It was later learned that 20 young men had left Minneapolis to travel to Somalia to receive training and fight as members of al- Shabaab.  “One individual had moved to Minneapolis as a teenager in 1993,” Stanek said. Following a shoplifting arrest, he fell into the violent street gang called the ‘Somali Hot Boyz.’ After a short period of time, he emerged as a recruiter for al-Shabaab, which eventually led him to leave Minneapolis for the Horn of Africa in 2008.

“Later, it was learned this individual was killed in fighting between al-Shabaab and Somali government forces,” Stanek said.

“We are clearly faced with a challenge that requires an innovative approach including new investigative tools and focused resources,” Stanek said.

According to the Health and Human Services’ Administration for Children and Families’ Office of Refugee and Resettlement, refugee programs and resettlement sites exist in 49 states and the District of Columbia and are operated through partnerships between the federal government and faith-based and other non-governmental refugee support organizations in those states and the District.

A spokesperson for the office told CNSNews.com that the United States admits on average about 70,000 refugees a year, with each required to be designated as individuals who face danger in their homeland. Every refugee has to be cleared by the Department of Homeland Security before being allowed to resettle in the United States, the spokesperson said.

A wide range of considerations about where to relocate individuals is considered, including family ties, language and available resources, the spokesperson said. But once they are living in the United States, refugees are free to live anywhere in the country.

Rep. James Sensenbrenner (R-Wis.), chairman of the subcommittee, opened the hearing with statistics on the gang threat in the United States.

“According to the 2011 National Gang Threat Assessment there are approximately 1.4 million gang members belonging to more than 33,000 gangs in the United States,” Sensenbrenner said. “It has been reported that the number of gang members in the U.S. has increased by 40 percent since 2009.”

 

Tucson Military Recruiters Ran Cocaine

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Back in 2002 there was an FBI sting mission called Operation Lively Green. There are some real additional questions that need to be asked given the sentencing imposed below. Here is a condition that goes unknown or forgotten.

A small number of undocumented immigrants in the U.S. will have an opportunity to join the military for the first time in decades under a new Department of Defense policy unveiled Thursday.

The new rules will expand an existing program allowing recruiters to target foreign nationals with high-demand skills, mostly rare foreign language expertise or specialized health care training.

For the first time, the program — known as Military Accessions in the National Interest, or MAVNI — will be open to immigrants without a proper visa if they came to the U.S. with their parents before age 16. More specifically, they must be approved under a 2012 Obama administration policy known as Deferred Action for Child Arrivals, or DACA.

The new Pentagon policy may be the first phase of a broader government-wide effort to ease pressure on immigrants and create new paths to citizenship. President Barack Obama, frustrated with the failure of Congress to pass any substantial immigration reform, has vowed to aggressively use his presidential authority to change the way immigration policies are carried out.

The Pentagon program is capped at 1,500 recruits per year. Officials say it’s unclear how many of those might be unlawful DACA status immigrants as opposed to others who are also eligible for military service under MAVNI, including those with legal, nonpermanent visas such as students or tourists.

WASHINGTON—A former member of the Arizona Army National Guard was sentenced today to 52 months in prison for his role in a scheme to accept bribes from purported drug traffickers in exchange for using his military position to protect shipments of cocaine during transportation, announced Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice Department’s Criminal Division.

Raul Portillo, 42, of Phoenix, Arizona, pleaded guilty on Nov. 21, 2014, to one count of conspiracy to commit bribery and interfere with commerce by attempted extortion. U.S. District Judge James A. Soto of the District of Arizona imposed the sentence.

According to admissions made in connection with his guilty plea, Portillo, a sergeant in the Arizona Army National Guard, conspired with others from the Arizona Army National Guard to accept cash bribes to protect narcotics traffickers who were purportedly transporting and distributing cocaine from Arizona to other locations in the southwestern United States. Unbeknownst to Portillo and the other co-conspirators, however, the supposed narcotics traffickers were actually undercover FBI agents.

Specifically, Portillo admitted that he wore his official uniform, carried official forms of identification, used official vehicles and used his official authority, where necessary, to prevent police stops and searches as he drove cocaine shipments through checkpoints manned by the U.S. Border Patrol, the Arizona Department of Public Safety, and Nevada law enforcement officers. Portillo admitted that he took bribe payments totaling $12,000 for transporting cocaine on two separate occasions. Portillo also admitted that he accepted a $2,000 cash payment in exchange for recruiting an Immigration and Customs Enforcement inspector into the conspiracy.

Although Portillo was identified by the FBI as a suspect, he mysteriously was never charged and he allegedly fled to Mexico. “In the case of Portillo, as well as other soldiers and sailors involved in criminal enterprises, the Defense Department and law enforcement agencies appear to be complicit in covering up the crime and misconduct cases involving enlisted ‘undocumented immigrants,'” said former NYPD police officer Iris Aquino. “If they’re undocumented, how do you know they’re not criminals or terrorists signing up to serve in the U.S. military?” she asked.

*** Hatip B

Once the November elections were over, President Barack Obama’s program appeared to be replacing American citizens, who are being terminated from their military units with illegal aliens in all branches of the U.S. Armed Forces, and the Pentagon is once again seeking to attract so-called undocumented recruits in the next several weeks, according to Military Times. Yet, neither the White House nor the Justice Department will acknowledge how many of the up to 58 National Guard troops arrested are immigrants.

According to his confession, Portillo admitted that he wore his official uniform, carried official forms of identification and weapons, used official military vehicles, in addition to using his official authority to bypass police stops and searches. He also drove through law enforcement checkpoints manned by agents from U.S. Border Patrol, officers from the Arizona Department of Public Safety, and Nevada law enforcement officers.

Portillo also confessed to taking payments totaling $12,000 for his transport and protection services for two large cocaine shipments. Portillo also shocked those hearing his allocution when he told the sentencing judge that he was paid a bonus of $2,000 by a Mexican drug gang for his success in recruiting an Immigration and Customs Enforcement inspector. To date, 58 defendants have been convicted and sentenced for charges stemming from this investigation and it’s believed they will be more arrests and convictions.

Palestinian authorities to blame for terror attacks

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NEW YORK (AP) — The Palestine Liberation Organization and the Palestinian Authority were the catalysts for a series of terrorist attacks in the early 2000s in Israel that killed or wounded several Americans, a U.S. jury found Monday at a high-stakes civil trial.

In finding the Palestinian authorities liable in the attacks, jurors awarded the victims $218.5 million in damages for the bloodshed. The U.S. Anti-Terrorism Act could allow for that to be tripled.

The case in Manhattan and another in Brooklyn have been viewed as the most notable attempts by American victims of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict to use U.S. courts to seek damages that could reach into the billions of dollars.

The PLO and Palestinian Authority had no immediate comment. None of the victims was in the courtroom Monday for the verdict.

In closing arguments, plaintiff attorney Kent Yalowitz had urged the Manhattan jury to order the PLO and Palestinian Authority to pay $350 million for providing material support to terrorists involved in six bombings and shootings from 2002 to 2004.

No amount could make up for the human toll, he said. “But if the only thing you can give them is money, then money has to stand in as compensation for the unspeakable loss,” he added.

Defense attorney Mark Rochon had argued there was no proof Palestinian authorities sanctioned the attacks as alleged in a 2004 lawsuit brought by 10 American families, even though members of their security forces were convicted in Israeli courts on charges they were involved.

“What they did, they did for their own reasons … not the Palestinian Authority’s,” he said in federal court in Manhattan.

The suit against the PLO and Palestinian Authority and the other against the Jordan-based Arab Bank had languished for years as the defendants challenged the American courts’ jurisdiction. Recent rulings found that they should go forward under the Anti-Terrorism Act, a more than 2-decade-old law that allows victims of U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations to seek compensation for pain and suffering, loss of earnings and other hardship.

Jurors heard dramatic testimony from family members of people killed in the attacks and survivors who never fully recovered. One, Rena Sokolov, described how a family vacation to Israel in 2002 turned to tragedy with a bomb blast outside a Jerusalem shoe store.

The Long Island woman testified that she felt like she “was in a washing machine,” and blood flowed so quickly from a broken leg she thought she would die.

“I looked to my right and saw a severed head of a woman about 3 feet from me,” she said.

The plaintiffs also relied on internal records showing the Palestinian Authority continued to pay the salaries of employees who were put behind bars in terror cases and paid benefits to families of suicide bombers and gunmen who died committing the attacks.

“Where are the documents punishing employees for killing people?” Yalowitz asked. “We don’t have anything like that in this case. … They didn’t roll that way.”

He also put up a photo of Yasser Arafat on a video screen, telling the jury that the Palestinian leader had approved martyrdom payments and incited the violence with anti-Israeli propaganda.

“The big dog was Yasser Arafat,” he said. “Yasser Arafat was in charge.”

Rochon argued that it was illogical to conclude that payments made after the attacks motivated the attackers in the first place.

“You know a lot about prisoner payments and martyr payments,” he said. “Do you have any evidence that they caused these attacks? No.”

Last year, a Brooklyn jury decided that Arab Bank should be held responsible for a wave of Hamas-orchestrated suicide bombings that left Americans dead or wounded based on claims the financial institution knowingly did business with the terror group.

A separate phase of the Brooklyn trial dealing with damages, set to begin in May, will feature testimony from victims.

***

From the New York Times:

The Palestinian Authority and the Palestine Liberation Organization were found liable on Monday by a jury in Manhattan for their role in knowingly supporting six terrorist attacks in Israel between 2002 and 2004 in which Americans were killed and injured.

The jury in Federal District Court in Manhattan awarded $218.5 million in damages, a number that is automatically tripled to $655.5 million under the special terrorism law under which the case was brought.

The verdict ended a decade-long legal battle to hold the Palestinian organizations responsible for the terrorist acts. And while the decision was a huge victory for the dozens of plaintiffs, it also could serve to strengthen the Israeli claim that the supposedly more moderate Palestinian forces are directly tied to terrorism.

The financial implications of the verdict for the defendants were not immediately clear. The Palestinian Authority, led by Mahmoud Abbas, had serious financial troubles even before Israel, as punishment for the Palestinians’ move in December to join the International Criminal Court, began withholding more than $100 million a month in tax revenue it collects on the Palestinians’ behalf.

The verdict came in the seventh week of a civil trial in which the jury had heard emotional testimony from survivors of suicide bombings and other attacks in Jerusalem, in which a total of 33 people were killed and more than 450 were injured.

“Money is oxygen for terrorism,” Kent A. Yalowitz, a lawyer for the families, said in a closing argument on Thursday, noting that the antiterrorism law “hits those who send terrorists where it hurts them most: in the wallet.”

The case was brought under the Anti-Terrorism Act, which allows American nationals who are victims of international terrorism to sue in the United States courts. The law was used last September by a Brooklyn jury to find Arab Bank liable for supporting terrorism by Hamas. Damages in that case, filed by about 300 victims of 24 terrorist attacks, are to be decided in a second trial, which has not yet been held.

In the Palestinian case, the plaintiffs included 10 families, comprising about three dozen members, eight of whom had been physically injured in the attacks while the others had been left with deep psychological scars, testimony showed.

The plaintiffs also included the estates of four victims who had been killed in the attacks, which occurred on the street and at a crowded bus stop, inside a bus, and in a cafeteria on the campus of Hebrew University.

“It was a terrible thing to see,” one plaintiff, Robert Coulter Sr., 78, testified as he described watching a Fox TV news report about the cafeteria bombing and realizing his 36-year-old daughter, a New Yorker on a business trip, was one of the victims.

“They brought a body bag out on the TV station, right on it, and went right down to where she was laying and I knew it was a girl, had blond hair,” Mr. Coulter recalled. “I said, ‘Oh, my goodness, that’s Janis.’”

The defense had argued that their clients had nothing to do with the attacks. Mark J. Rochon, a defense lawyer, told the jury on Thursday that he did not want “the bad guys, the killers, the people who did this, to get away while the Palestinian Authority or the P.L.O. pay for something they did not do.”

Hanan Ashrawi, a member of the P.L.O.’s executive committee who testified for the defense, told the jury, “We tried to prevent violence from all sides.”

But citing testimony, payroll records and other documents, the plaintiffs showed that many of those involved in the planning and carrying out of the attacks had been employees of the Palestinian Authority, and that the authority had paid salaries to terrorists imprisoned in Israel and made martyr payments to the families of suicide bombers.

Feds on the Move to Counter Judge’s Immigration Stay

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Recently, Judge Hanon issued a temporary stay order against the Obama regime to stop the White House DAPA order on immigration. Now the Feds are on the move.

HOUSTON (CN) – The 5th Circuit on Monday will be asked to decide whether the Obama administration’s deferred deportation programs for immigrants who were brought to the United States as children are permissible because of prosecutorial discretion.
The Justice Department on Friday said it will ask the 5th Circuit today to stay an injunction that prevented hundreds of thousands of undocumented immigrants from applying for amnesty.
Twenty-six Republican-led states sued Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson and other top immigration officials late last year, claiming Obama’s executive actions are unconstitutional.
U.S. District Judge Andrew Hanen, granted an injunction against the programs last week. Critics claim that the Republican states forum-shopped to sue in Hanen’s court. Hanen, a George W. Bush appointee, was well known as a critic of Obama’s immigration policies.


Hanen did not rule that Obama’s programs are unconstitutional, but that they cannot take effect until legal questions are settled.
The Texas-led plaintiffs claim that because Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) and Deferred Action for Parental Accountability (DAPA) would allow qualifying immigrants to apply for work permits and driver’s licenses, the states will be stuck with the cost of processing them.
The U.S. Citizenship and Immigrations Services already has the authority to grant undocumented immigrants work permits, Immigration and Customs Enforcement spokesman Greg Palmore said. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and USCIS both are branches of the Department of Homeland Security.
Obama’s programs are simply an element of the process of prosecutorial discretion, which immigration officials use to decide who should be deported, according to Palmore.
“Under the deferred action process, and prosecutorial discretion as a whole, ICE is screening every alien we encounter, including those in custody,” Palmore said Friday.
“Decisions are based on the merits of each case, the factual information provided to the agency and the totality of the circumstances,” Palmore said.
“ICE is focused on smart and effective immigration enforcement that prioritizes the removal of convicted criminal aliens, recent border-crossers and immigration fugitives who have failed to comply with final orders of removal issued by the nation’s immigration courts.”
Palmore said ICE would not discuss how it handles a particular case without the immigrant’s consent, as that information is protected by the Privacy Act.
The American Center for Law & Justice, a Christian conservative law firm based in Washington, D.C., joined 27 Republican congressmen in an amicus brief supporting the states’ lawsuit.
It claims Obama’s amnesty offer goes beyond the powers held by immigration agencies.
“As the judge indicated, there is no express or implied statutory authority to create entire new legal programs that go well beyond individualized discretion or resource-based priority determinations and extend into new, large-scale entitlements that actually contradict Congress’s expressed intent,” the firm said Friday in a statement.

DEFENDANTS’ EMERGENCY EXPEDITED MOTION TO STAY THE COURT’S

FEBRUARY 16, 2015 ORDER PENDING APPEAL AND SUPPORTING

MEMORANDUM

INTRODUCTION AND SUMMARY OF THE ARGUMENT

Defendants respectfully move for a stay, pending appeal, of the preliminary injunction entered in this case on February 16, 2015 [ECF No. 144], concerning the November 20, 2014, memorandum issued by the Secretary of Homeland Security (“Secretary”), setting forth guidelines for the consideration of deferred action for the parents of U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents (“DAPA”) and modifying existing guidelines for the consideration of deferred action for certain individuals who came to the United States as children (“modified DACA”) (collectively, “Deferred Action Guidance” or “Guidance”). Defendants have filed a Notice of Appeal [ECF No. 149] from the Court’s February 16, 2015 Opinion and Orders granting Plaintiffs’ Motion for Preliminary Injunction [ECF Nos. 144 & 145].

A stay pending appeal is necessary to ensure that the Department of Homeland Security (“DHS” or “Department”) is able to most effectively protect national security, public safety, and the integrity of the border. Specifically, the Deferred Action Guidance enjoined by this Court is an integral part of the Department’s comprehensive effort to set and effectuate immigration enforcement priorities that focus on the removal of threats to public safety, national security risks, and recent border crossers, thereby best securing the Homeland in the face of limited resources.

Absent a stay, DHS will sustain irreparable harm—harm that would not be cured, even if Defendants ultimately prevail on that appeal. Allowing the preliminary injunction to remain in place pending appeal would also harm the interests of the public and of third parties, who will be deprived of the significant law enforcement and humanitarian benefits of prompt implementation of the Guidance. When these harms are weighed against the financial injuries claimed by Plaintiffs (and found by the Court only as to Texas), the balance of hardships tips Case 1:14-cv-00254 Document 150 Filed in TXSD on 02/23/15 Page 5 of 24 decidedly in favor of a stay; the harms claimed by Plaintiffs are not imminent and are fully within their power to avoid.

A stay is also warranted in view of Defendant’s substantial case that the preliminary injunction was issued in error—all that Defendants must establish concerning a likelihood of success in order to warrant the requested stay. Defendants’ case is substantial indeed: the Court lacked authority to issue the preliminary injunction, both because Plaintiffs lack standing and because the Deferred Action Guidance is an exercise of prosecutorial discretion by the Secretary that is neither subject to challenge by the States, nor required to be issued through notice-and comment rulemaking. That the Court’s reasoning on standing and the merits has been rejected by other district courts further underscores the fact that Defendants have a substantial case on appeal.

Read the entire Federal appeal here that was filed today.

DHS was to begin accepting requests for modified DACA on February 18, 2015. On February 16, 2015, the Court granted Plaintiffs’ Motion and preliminarily enjoined Defendants from “implementing any and all aspects or phases” of DAPA and modified DACA, as set forth in the Guidance. Order of Temporary Inj. (“Order”) at 1-2 [ECF No. 144]. The Court found that “at least” Texas has standing to sue, stating that Texas would be required under the existing terms of state law to expend funds to provide driver’s licenses to individuals who receive DAPA and modified DACA at some point in the future. Mem. Op. & Order (“Op.”) at 22-36 [ECF No. 145].