Former Gitmo Detainees Arrested, Linked to Brussels Attack

Former Gitmo Detainee Arrested, Charged With Being Top ISIS Recruiter

FoxInsider: The same week that President Obama released 15 Guantanamo Bay detainees, a former prisoner was arrested and charged with being a top recruiter for ISIS.

Abu Nassim was arrested in Libya just days after the State Department claimed that very few Gitmo detainees ever return to terror.

Nassim, whose full name is Moez Ben Abdulgader Ben Ahmed Al Fezzani, was reportedly trying to travel to Tunisia, where he is an ISIS commander and most-wanted terrorist.

He was arrested along with approximately 20 other ISIS supporters between the Libyan towns of Rigdaleen and Al-Jmail.

Nassim is considered a top jihadist recruiter in Italy.

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ForeignNewsDesk: Zintani forces loyal to the internationally-recognized Libyan National Army arrested Moez Ben Abdulgader Ben Ahmed Fezzani 47, known by his nom de guerre Abu Nassim, last week as he was trying to flee Sirte, Libya for Tunisia.

A commander of ISIS militants in Libya since 2014, Fezzani had been sought by Tunisian authorities in connection with the March 2015 Bardo Museum attack in Tunis.

Twenty-two people including 17 foreigners were killed in the attack later claimed by the Islamic State.

Fezzani, along with 20 Islamic State operatives, was arrested by a police patrol while travelling between the towns of Rigdaleen and Al-Jmail.

News of his purported arrest comes just days after Libyan authorities warned their Italian counterparts about the possibility of an Islamic State cell in Milan with connections to the wanted militant.

Following the capture of ISIS’ headquarters in Sirte last week, officials discovered a cache of documents linking the Italian cell to Fezzani.

Fezzani, who arrived in Italy in the late 80’s, disappeared in 1997 after authorities suspected him of involvement in jihadi activities, later resurfacing in Pakistan before joining Osama Bin Laden’s war in Afghanistan.

Arrested by the U.S. in 2001, Fezzani was held at Bagram’s detention facility before the Obama administration approved his transfer to Italy in 2009.

Fezzani stood trial in Italy for his earlier terror offenses, cooperating in terror activities in Bosnia in 1995, but was acquitted.

Upon appeal, he was sentenced to six years in jail, but by this time had already fled; first to Tunisia where he joined Al Qaeda’s Ansar Al Sharia and then to Syria joining the terror group’s Al Nusra affiliate.

In 2014, he transferred allegiances to ISIS’ Caliph Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi, before moving to Libya where he was reportedly appointed a leader of Katibat al-Battar, described as ISIS’ special operations unit in the volatile country.

“If the information on Fezzani proves to be true, it is very disturbing. Just like the head of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, this was a man we had in our detention facility and let go,” terrorism analyst Dr. Sebastian Gorka told The Investigative Project on Terror in March about Fezzani’s ISIS appointment.

There has been no confirmation of his arrest from Tunisian authorities, but Fezzani’s capture comes just days after the Obama administration announced its biggest release of Guantanamo Bay detainees as the President attempts to fulfil his pledge to close the detention camp.

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MENASTREAM ID is MENASTREAM’s new project where we provide information on terrorists with personal information, background and graphics

The Tunisian Ministry of Interior issued a search warrant on Monday February 8, 2016 for Moez Ben Abdelkader Ben Ahmed Fezzani also known as ‘Abu Nassim’ born 23/03/1969, son of Fatma Chihaoui, from Ezzahrouni, Tunis. The Ministry of Interior classified Moez Fezzani as a dangerous terrorist in its statement:

في إطار تعاون المواطنين مع الوحدات الأمنية بوزارة الداخلية وتوقيا من الأعمال الإرهابيّة، تطلب وزارة الدّاخلية الإبلاغ ال…

Location of the Ezzahrouni neighborhood in Tunis

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An older picture of Fezzani

moez ben abdelkader ben ahmed fezzani

Photo provided by the Ministry of Interior of Tunisia in the search warrant for Fezzani

Moez Fezzani’s has a long history within the sphere of global terrorism that stretches back to both the Bosnian war and the war in Afghanistan. Afghanistan, jailed for 7 years at the ‘Baghram Prison’. Fezzani’s journey brings him to Italy where he’s is tried together with another Tunisian and former Guantanamo prisoner Riadh Nasri for providing logistical support in 2007 to a terrorist cell in Italy linked to the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC), which evolved into Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb. He was acquitted from charges of terrorism in 2011, but Tunisian authorities demanded his deportation, although Italian autorities already considered him a security threat. The first time his deportation was supposed to be carried out he managed to escape and went into hiding in Varese, Lombardy, to be cought once again and deported to Tunisia.

Fezzani joined Ansar al-Sharia Tunisia (AST) in 2012 and was reportedly active in various confrontations, in 2013 Fezzani left for Syria where he joined Jabhat al-Nusra and later ISIS. He reportedly moved to Libya in 2014 as a leader for Katibat al-Battar and according to sources he now holds a key role in Sirte. Fezzani is suspected for being the mastermind and supervisor of the planning processes behind the high-profile attacks against the Bardo Museum and Sousse.

The search warrant for Fezzani by the Ministry of Interior comes at a critical time when Libya facing the threat of foreign intervention, an intervention which will have significant consequences for Tunisia. We can not exclude that the MOI tacticly issued this warrant to raise public awareness facing both the terrorist threat and additional consequences linked to an eventual Libya intervention, we can also assume that MOI on purpose issued this warrant knowing Fezzani is in Libya, thus framing him as a high-profile target for the international coalition.

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Trump’s Campaign Chair, Manafort with Podesta and Fraud

More continues to bubble to the surface with regard to Paul Manafort and Ukraine. For context, the Podesta Group is a functioning liberal organization run by two brothers. One, John Podesta has both worked for Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton. John is presently Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman. The collusion advances and has history.

Image result for paul manafort ukraine russia

It is also important to add in two related items:

  1. RNC platform included full military and diplomatic support for Ukraine and it was the Trump campaign that removed this party plank.
  2. Two weeks ago, Ukraine went on a full war footing against the aggression and insurgency of Russia.
  3. Gen. Flynn, Trump’s military advisor dismisses Russian/Ukraine connections

Related reading: Ukraine prosecutor confirms Paul Manafort’s name appears in secret cash ledger

Trump advisers waged covert influence campaign

WASHINGTON (AP) — A firm run by Donald Trump’s campaign chairman directly orchestrated a covert Washington lobbying operation on behalf of Ukraine’s ruling political party, attempting to sway American public opinion in favor of the country’s pro-Russian government, emails obtained by The Associated Press show. Paul Manafort and his deputy, Rick Gates, never disclosed their work as foreign agents as required under federal law.

The lobbying included attempts to gain positive press coverage of Ukrainian officials in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press. Another goal: undercutting American public sympathy for the imprisoned rival of Ukraine’s then-president. At the time, European and American leaders were pressuring Ukraine to free her.

Gates personally directed the work of two prominent Washington lobbying firms in the matter, the emails show. He worked for Manafort’s political consulting firm at the time.

Manafort and Gates’ activities carry outsized importance, since they have steered Trump’s campaign since April. The pair also played a formative role building out Trump’s campaign operation after pushing out an early rival. Trump shook up his campaign’s organization again this week, but Manafort and Gates retain their titles and much of their influence. The new disclosures about their work come as Trump faces criticism for his friendly overtures to Russian President Vladimir Putin.

Trump said Thursday night that, if elected, he will ask senior officials in his administration not to accept speaking fees, for five years after leaving office, from corporations that lobby “or from any entity tied to a foreign government.” He said it was among his efforts to “restore honor to government.”

Manafort and Gates have previously said they were not doing work that required them to register as foreign agents. Neither commented when reached by the AP on Thursday.

The emails show Gates personally directed two Washington lobbying firms, Mercury LLC and the Podesta Group Inc., between 2012 and 2014 to set up meetings between a top Ukrainian official and senators and congressmen on influential committees involving Ukrainian interests. Gates noted in the emails that the official, Ukraine’s foreign minister, did not want to use his own embassy in the United States to help coordinate the visits.

Gates also directed the firms to gather information in the U.S. on a rival lobbying operation, including a review of its public lobbying disclosures, to determine who was behind that effort, the emails show.

And Gates directed efforts to undercut sympathy for Yulia Tymoshenko, an imprisoned rival of then-President Viktor Yanukovych. The Ukrainian leader eventually fled the country in February 2014 during a popular revolt prompted in part by his government’s crackdown on protesters and close ties to Russia.

The emails do not describe details about the role of Manafort, who was Gates’ boss at the firm, DMP International LLC. Current and former employees at Mercury and the Podesta Group, some of whom spoke on condition of anonymity because they are subject to non-disclosure agreements, told the AP that Manafort oversaw the lobbying efforts and spoke by phone about them. Gates was directing actions and seeking information during the project using an email address at DMP International, which he still uses.

Manafort did not return phone and email messages Thursday from the AP to discuss the project. After the AP reported earlier this week that Manafort helped the Ukrainian political party secretly route at least $2.2 million to the two Washington lobbying firms, Manafort told Yahoo News that the AP’s account was wrong. “I was not involved in any payment plans,” Manafort said.

Gates said Thursday he was busy with Trump campaign focus groups and promised to review the AP’s questions in writing, then did not respond.

Manafort also said in a statement earlier this week that he never performed work for the governments of Ukraine or Russia. Gates previously told the AP, “At no time did our firm or members provide any direct lobbying support.”

Under the U.S. Foreign Agents Registration Act, people who lobby on behalf of foreign political leaders or political parties must provide detailed reports about their actions to the Justice Department. A violation is a felony and can result in up to five years in prison and a fine of up to $250,000.

The emails illustrate how Gates worked with Mercury and the Podesta Group on behalf of Ukrainian political leaders. None of the firms, nor Manafort or Gates, disclosed their work to the Justice Department counterespionage division responsible for tracking the lobbying of foreign governments.

“There is no question that Gates and Manafort should have registered along with the lobbying firms,” said Joseph Sandler of Sandler Reiff Lamb Rosenstein & Birkenstock, a Democratic-leaning Washington law firm that advises Republican and Democratic lobbyists.

Manafort and Gates have said that they did not disclose their activities to the Justice Department because they did not oversee lobbying efforts and merely introduced the Washington firms to a Brussels-based nonprofit, the European Center for a Modern Ukraine, which they said ran the project. The center paid Mercury and the Podesta Group a combined $2.2 million over roughly two years.

The emails appear to contradict the assertion that the nonprofit’s lobbying campaign operated independently from Manafort’s firm.

In papers filed in the U.S. Senate, Mercury and the Podesta Group listed the European nonprofit as an independent, nonpolitical client. The firms said the center stated in writing that it was not aligned with any foreign political entity.

The 1938 U.S. foreign agents law is intended to track efforts of foreign government’s unofficial operatives in the United States.

Political consultants are generally leery of registering under it, because their reputations can suffer once they are on record as accepting money to advocate the interests of foreign governments — especially if those interests conflict with America’s. Moreover, registering under the law would have required Gates, Manafort or the lobbying firms to disclose the specifics of their lobbying work and their efforts to sway public opinion through media outreach.

Ina Kirsch, who runs the European nonprofit, has said the group’s work was independent and its goal was to bring Ukraine into the fold of Europe. The center has declined for years to reveal specific sources of its funding.

Gates confirmed to the AP previously that he was working for Ukraine’s ruling party, the Party of Regions, at the time.

The chairman of the Podesta Group, Tony Podesta — the brother of Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta — said his firm believed Gates was working for the nonprofit. Podesta said he was unaware of the firm’s work for the Ukraine’s Party of Regions, led by Yanukovych. On Thursday, his firm said it had nothing new to add.

Mercury’s founder, Vin Weber, an influential Republican and former congressman, told the AP that his firm was aware of Manafort’s and Gates’ affiliation with Ukraine’s political party and said Gates never participated in Mercury’s lobbying work. Weber did not respond to questions after the AP said it had obtained emails contradicting this.

 

That $1.3 Billion to Iran was Paid, How? Classified…

How was it delivered? Classified. How do you put $1.3 billion on pallets and shrink wrap it and get it to Iran? Classified. We thought the $400 million was for ransom but now it appears it was ALL of it, $1.7 billion and Iran along with Russia coupled with the Iranian militia and Hezbollah will enjoy it all.

Related reading: United States is Buying Nuclear Material from Iran

US paid Iran $1.3 billion in cash to settle old dispute

NYP: WASHINGTON — The Obama administration’s $400 million payoff to Iran was followed by a second transfer of $1.3 billion, it was reported Tuesday.

President Obama took considerable flak for the first payment, which coincided with the release in January of four Americans being held by Tehran.

Critics charged that the move smacked of ransom, which the US has pledged never to pay.

The $400 million was the first installment of a $1.7 billion settlement with Iran to resolve a dispute over a failed arms deal signed before the 1979 fall of the shah.

But there was no word about what happened to the rest of the debt — $1.3 billion.

On Tuesday, The Weekly Standard reported that the second payment was also quietly delivered.

Assistant Secretary of State for Legislative Affairs Julia Frifield sent a letter to Congress on March 17, 2016, stating, “Iran received the balance of $400 million in the Trust Fund as well as roughly $1.3 billion representing a compromise on the interest,” according to the magazine.

This payment was likely made in cash, since the US has no banking relationship with Tehran.

Wooden pallets stacked with euros, Swiss francs and other currencies were flown into Iran in an unmarked cargo plane to cover the first $400 million.

“The reason that we had to give them cash is precisely because we are so strict in maintaining sanctions — and we don’t have a banking relationship with Iran — that we couldn’t send them a check,” Obama said in an Aug. 4 press conference.

Although he insisted there was no connection to the hostages, one of them described waiting for “another plane” to land before being freed from Iran.

“I just remember the night at the airport sitting for hours and hours there, and I asked police, ‘Why are you not letting us go?’” former hostage Pastor Saeed Abedini told Fox Business.

“He said, ‘We are waiting for another plane, so if that plane doesn’t come, we never let [you] go.’”

In part from Reuters:

The White House announced on Jan. 17, a day after the prisoner exchange, it was releasing $400 million in funds frozen since 1981, plus $1.3 billion in interest owed to Iran. The remaining interest has since been fully paid from the U.S. Treasury-administered Judgment Fund, according to a U.S. official.

The funds were part of a trust fund Iran used before its 1979 Islamic Revolution to buy U.S. military equipment that was tied up for decades in litigation at the tribunal.

The Treasury Judgment Fund?

The Judgment Fund was established to pay court judgments and Justice Department compromise settlements of actual or imminent lawsuits against the government.

It is administered by the Judgment Fund Branch, which is a part of the United States Department of the Treasury, Bureau of the Fiscal Service. The Judgment Fund Internet Claims System (JFICS) is the application used to process all Judgment Fund claims.

The Judgment Fund is a permanent, indefinite appropriation available to pay judicially and administratively ordered monetary awards against the United States. The Judgment Fund is also available to pay amounts owed under compromise agreements negotiated by the U.S. Department of Justice in settlement of claims arising under actual or imminent litigation, if a judgment on the merits would be payable from the Judgment Fund. The statutory authority for the Judgment Fund is 31 U.S.C. 1304.

If funds for paying an award are otherwise provided for in the appropriations of the defendant agency, the Judgment Fund may not pay an award. A federal agency may request that payment of an award be made on its behalf from the Judgment Fund only in those instances where funds are not legally available to pay the award from the agency’s own appropriations.

Amounts paid vary significantly from year-to-year. Federal agencies are not required to reimburse the Judgment Fund except when cases are filed under the Contract Disputes Act (CDA) or the No FEAR Act (Notification and Federal Employee Antidiscrimination and Retaliation Act).

 

The Authority of the Internet is Turned Over in 2 Months

This is surrender of the one place in the world where there is some freedom, the internet. The transfer date is September 30, 2016. Is this a big deal? Yes…..China and Russia don’t have a 1st amendment and it appears only one senator is waging the war to stop the transfer, Ted Cruz.

“From the very first days of the internet, the American government has maintained domain names and ensured equal access to everyone with no censorship whatsoever,” Cruz says in the video. “Obama wants to give that power away.”

That move poses a “great threat” to national security, Cruz said. Starting on the transfer date of Sept. 30, ICANN control could allow foreign governments to prohibit speech that they don’t agree with, he added.

Cruz has added an amendment to the Senate’s Highway Bill that would require an up-or-down vote on the administration’s plan to give ICANN control over names and numbers. And Cruz’s Protecting Internet Freedom Act, proposed with Republican Rep. Sean Duffy (Wis.), would prevent the transfer of authority to the global group. More from The Blaze.

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Twenty-five advocacy groups and some individuals have told leaders in the Senate and the House of Representatives that key issues about the transition are “not expected to be fully resolved until summer 2017.”

“Without robust safeguards, Internet governance could fall under the sway of governments hostile to freedoms protected by the First Amendment,” wrote the groups, which include TechFreedom, Heritage Action for America and Taxpayers Protection Alliance. “Ominously, governments will gain a formal voting role in ICANN for the first time when the new bylaws are implemented.” Read more here from PCWorld.

America to hand off Internet in under two months

WashingtonExaminer: The Department of Commerce is set to hand off the final vestiges of American control over the Internet to international authorities in less than two months, officials have confirmed.

The department will finalize the transition effective October 1, Assistant Secretary Lawrence Strickling wrote on Tuesday, barring what he called “any significant impediment.”

The move means the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority, which is responsible for interpreting numerical addresses on the Web to a readable language, will move from U.S. control to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers, a multistakeholder body that includes countries like China and Russia.

Critics of the move, most prominently Texas Republican Sen. Ted Cruz, have pointed out the agency could be used by totalitarian governments to shut down the Web around the globe, either in whole or in part.

Opponents similarly made the case that Congress has passed legislation to prohibit the federal government from using tax dollars to allow the transition, and pointed out that the feds are constitutionally prohibited from transferring federal property without approval from Congress. A coalition of 25 advocacy groups like Americans for Tax Reform, the Competitive Enterprise Institute, and Heritage Action sent a letter to Congress making those points last week.

While those issues could, in theory, lead to a legal challenge being filed in the days following the transfer, the administration has expressed a desire to finish it before the president leaves office, a position that Strickling reiterated.

“This multistakeholder model is the key reason why the Internet has grown and thrived as a dynamic platform for innovation, economic growth and free expression,” Strickling wrote. “We appreciate the hard work and dedication of all the stakeholders involved in this effort and look forward to their continuing engagement.”

The Larger Covert Actions by Soros, Access, Policy, Chaos

Go here for communications regarding the United StatesGo here for global actions by Soros.
The manipulation is epic as is his influence on policy, money and mandates. His access to powerbrokers can never fully be known or understood. Bottom-line is chaos. Below should help.