Paris under attack

[kscarbel2]

Associated Press  /  November 15, 2016

A Minnesota man has been sentenced to 10 years in prison for conspiring to join ISIS in Syria after telling the judge: 'I am a terrorist, your honor'. 

Hanad Musse, 21, is one of nine friends in Minnesota's large Somali community who are being sentenced this week for conspiring to join the militant group. 

Earlier Tuesday, one of his co-defendants, Hamza Ahmed, received 15 years on charges connected to the plot.

Before he was sentenced on Tuesday, Musse apologized for lying to his family and acknowledged that he committed a serious offense. 

The judge asked Musse directly whether he was a terrorist, and Musse replied: 'I am a terrorist, your honor.'

Musse, Ahmed and two other men took a Greyhound bus from Minneapolis to New York in November 2014 and were stopped by federal agents as they tried to travel overseas from JFK Airport.

Prosecutors said they were part of a group of friends who began inspiring and recruiting each other to join the Islamic State group in the spring of 2014. Some of their friends made it to Syria, but the nine who were prosecuted did not.

Three men were sentenced Monday; two who cooperated were given lighter sentences, but another who didn't help prosecutors was sentenced to 10 years [why not deported to Somalia?]. 

Musse and Ahmed are among group members who pleaded guilty but did NOT cooperate with prosecutors.

Four others await sentencing, including three who went to trial and were also convicted on a charge of conspiracy to commit murder outside the U.S., which carries a possible life sentence, though prosecutors are seeking sentences of 30 or 40 years.

When the judge asked Musse why he didn't cooperate with the government, he replied that he felt he would have lost the support of the community.

U.S. District Judge Michael Davis, who has handled all of Minnesota's terror conspiracy cases, had the six defendants who pleaded guilty evaluated by a German expert on deradicalization and is taking those findings into consideration.

The sentencings cap a long case that shined a light on terrorism recruitment in Minnesota, the state with the largest concentration of Somali immigrants in the U.S. 

The FBI has said about a dozen people have left Minnesota to join militant groups in Syria in recent years.

.

[david wild]

And they are not white ???????

[kscarbel2]

BBC  /  November 17, 2016

The radical Islamist behind a bombing in New York which wounded 31 people in September has pleaded not guilty to terrorism-related charges.

Ahmad Khan Rahimi was charged with eight offences, including use of a weapon of mass destruction, bombing and use of a destructive device.

Rahimi is accused of being behind explosions in Manhattan and New Jersey.

Investigators say Rahimi planted two bombs in Chelsea but one failed to detonate. Another bomb exploded in a New Jersey seaside town earlier on the same day but no-one was hurt.

He is also accused of leaving explosives in a discarded rucksack in a rubbish bin in Elizabeth, New Jersey.

Assistant US Attorney Nicholas Lewin said the government had video clips of Rahimi's movements on the day of the bombings, internet records showing he bought bomb-making materials and proof his DNA was on the explosive devices.

Police also found a handwritten journal in which Rahimi praised Osama bin Laden and criticized US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"Rahimi's goal was to bring fear and destruction to innocent people", said New York FBI office head William Sweeney.

[kscarbel2]

Associated Press  /  November 28, 2016

A Somali-born radical Islamist Ohio State University student plowed his car into a group of pedestrians on campus and then got out and began stabbing people with a butcher knife Monday before he was shot to death by an officer.

Eleven people were hurt, one critically.

The attacker was identified as Abdul Razak Ali Artan. He was born in Somalia and was a legal permanent U.S. resident.

The details emerged after a morning of confusion and conflicting reports, created in part by a series of tweets from the university warning that there was an "active shooter" on campus and that students should "run, hide, fight." The warning was prompted by what turned out to be police gunfire.

Ohio State Police Chief Craig Stone said that the assailant deliberately drove his gray Honda over a curb outside an engineering classroom building and then began knifing people.

A campus officer, 28-year-old Alan Horujko, who happened to be nearby because of a gas leak arrived on the scene and shot the driver in less than a minute, Stone said.

Most of the injured were hurt by the car, and at least two were stabbed, officials said. One had a fractured skull.

.

[david wild]

Well BLM will be up in arms, another black has been shot by a cop, never mind the fact that he was breaking the law, and I call for all cars to outlawed because they can be used as a weapon much the same as gun, sounds stupid ?? well that is what the anti gun BS sounds like to any normal person,  And another out of the country smuck who should not have been here anyway has caused more grief,  but yo he is black and I'm sure Ocrapo will defend his every action, you see, dead white people have no value, so don't fret it, just move on, nothing to see. just move on. 

[kscarbel2]

The Washington Post  /  December 21, 2016

The radical Islamist sought in the deadly attack on a Berlin Christmas market — a 24-year-old Tunisian migrant — was the subject of a terrorism probe in Germany earlier this year and was not deported even though his asylum bid was rejected.

The attacker,  identified as Anis Amri, became the subject of a national manhunt after investigators discovered a wallet with his identity documents in the truck used in Monday’s attack that left 12 dead. 

Meanwhile, a clearer portrait took shape of the suspect, including accusations that he had contact with a prominent ISIS recruiter in Germany.

German authorities issued a 100,000 euro ($105,000) reward for information leading to his capture, warning citizens not to approach the 5-foot-8, 165-pound Amri, whom they described as “violent and armed.”

His record, however, further deepened the political fallout from Monday’s bloodshed — pointing to flaws in the German deportation system and putting a harsh light on Chancellor Angela Merkel’s humanitarian bid to open the nation’s doors to nearly 1 million asylum seekers last year.

Dozens of terrorism suspects have slipped into Germany and neighboring nations posing as migrants.

Amri came to Germany last year via Italy, where he had entered in 2012. He applied for German asylum but was rejected in June and later faced deportation.

Amri was the subject of a terrorism probe on suspicion of “preparing a serious act of violent subversion,” and he had known links to Islamist extremists.

Why a failed asylum seeker with such links and no passport was walking German streets is “the question 82 million Germans probably want an answer to,” said Rainer Wendt, Chairman of the German Police Union.

He added: “How many more ticking time bombs are roaming around here? . . . We saw how much damage one person can do with a truck.”

The dragnet for Amri is focused on the German state of North Rhine-Westphalia as well as Berlin, both places where the Tunisian suspect once lived. Police units had been due to stage raids Wednesday, but they remained mysteriously on hold.

The interior minister in North Rhine-Westphalia, Ralf Jäger, said the Tunisian man had bounced around Germany since arriving in July 2015, living in the southern city of Freiburg and later in Berlin. 

Although authorities have sought to accelerate the deportation of rejected asylum seekers this year, there is still a backlog in Germany of tens of thousands, many of whom are able to resist because their countries of origin refuse to take them back. Amri was one of them. 

[One doesn’t “ask” their origin countries to please take them back. Rather, you simply dump them back over the fence.]

Amri had not been deported because — like many asylum seekers in Germany — he did not have a passport. The Tunisian government initially denied that he was a national and delayed issuing his passport. Pending his deportation, Amri had received a “toleration” status from the government. 

Amri’s new Tunisian passport finally arrived Wednesday.

Authorities knew that Amri had “interacted” with Abu Walaa, a 32-year-old of Iraqi descent arrested in November on charges of recruiting and sending fighters from Germany to the Islamic State. Key evidence in Walaa’s case came from an Islamic State defector who had returned to Germany and accused Walaa of helping to recruit him and arrange his travel to Syria.

“Anis Amri was engaging with extremist salafist circles in Germany,” a German security official said.

Amri had also been under police surveillance for several months until September of this year, because he was suspected of planning a burglary in Berlin to finance the purchase of  weapons. The suspicion wasn’t confirmed. He was found only to be a small-time drug dealer.

Investigators discovered Amri’s documents in the cabin of the truck that barreled into the market.

President-elect Donald Trump on Wednesday stood by his plans to establish a registry for Muslims and temporarily ban Muslim immigrants from the United States.

When asked by a reporter whether he was rethinking or reevaluating them in the wake of a fresh terrorist attack in Berlin, Trump replied, “You know my plans.”

 Trump said the attack on a Berlin Christmas market had vindicated him.

“All along, I’ve been proven to be right. One hundred percent correct,” Trump said. “What’s happening is disgraceful.”

Amri had several aliases and was apparently born in the southern Tunisian desert town of Tataouine in 1992.

Witnesses described one man fleeing the scene after the truck — packed with a cargo of steel — roared into revelers at a traditional Christmas market.

One suspect, a Pakistani asylum seeker, was arrested Monday night, but authorities later released him because of a lack of evidence.

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The Wall Street Journal  /  January 5, 2017

At a regional parliamentary hearing Thursday, it was revealed that top German federal and regional security officials met seven times to discuss the potential danger posed by Tunisian [economic] migrant and radical Islamist Anis Amri in the year before he attacked a Berlin Christmas market, the latest revelation in a string of mishaps that failed to prevent the attack.

Despite extensive surveillance, efforts to detain him repeatedly faltered because police and prosecutors believed they didn’t have evidence that would stand up in court.

The emerging affair is raising questions about the ability of Germany, which was struck four times by Islamist terrorists last year, to prevent future attacks. It is also increasing pressure on Chancellor Angela Merkel amid accusations that her decision to accept hundreds of thousands of mostly Muslim migrants in 2015 might have put the country at risk.

A surveillance-camera screenshot released this week by Belgian police shows Anis Amri at a Brussels train station on Dec. 21, two days after the attack in Berlin.

“Does one have to sit in a truck before the state can act?” asked Social Democrat Andreas Bialas at the parliamentary hearing of North Rhine-Westphalia.

“Nobody understands how a known extremist was able to walk around freely in this country,” said Gregor Golland, a regional lawmaker from the Christian Democratic Union.

The illegal Tunisian immigrant—his asylum request was rejected in June 2016—rammed a truck into Christmas market in central Berlin on Dec. 19, leaving 12 people dead and dozens more injured. He escaped after German police first arrested the wrong man and then missed crucial evidence identifying Amri in a first sweep of the truck. Amri trekked across Europe and was eventually shot by Italian police four days later.

The new details show that Amri tricked German authorities from the moment he entered the country in the summer of 2015, taking advantage of the administrative chaos amid a surge of asylum seekers that year and the lack of central database about the new arrivals to register himself across different states, using 14 different identities, sometimes leaving just a day between registrations.

Authorities were first alerted to his radical Islamist tendencies in October that year. A roommate of Amri warned authorities that he had spotted photos on Amri’s cellphone showing people dressed in black and carrying weapons. An undercover agent infiltrated in the radical Islamist scene also reported Amri appeared to be serving as a messenger for a local Islamist network.

In December 2015, having started to monitor him, authorities became aware that Amri had been expressing the desire to stage an attack in Germany and had searched online for instructions about how to build bombs. They were also tipped off that he was planning a robbery in Berlin to fund the purchase of weapons.

Shortly thereafter, state and federal security officials gathered for the first time to discuss his case. In February, Amri was placed on a list of dangerous radical Islamists. That month alone, officials from the joint counterterrorism center in Berlin, an umbrella body for 40 federal and regional security agencies, discussed Amri’s case at three separate meetings.

Four more meetings follow in April, in June and a last one in November, a month before the attack.

Authorities concluded Amri didn’t pose an acute risk, officials testified Thursday.

Undercover agents learned in February that Amri had moved to Berlin and was, again, speaking about wanting to die in the name of Allah and seeking other people to help him plan and conduct an attack.

On the back of this latest information, federal prosecutors opened an fresh undercover investigation, monitoring his communications for six months through September. But after this failed to yield actionable evidence, investigators suspended their electronic surveillance.

As recently as July, authorities discussed targeting Amri with a new legal provision that fast-tracks the deportation of someone seen as a particular terror risk. In a discussion involving a representative from the general prosecutor’s office, they decided against using the measure because they didn’t believe they could prove in court that Amri presented an acute danger, state Interior Ministry official Burkhard Schnieder said.

In any case, officials said, a deportation effort using that legal provision in the summer wouldn’t have worked because Tunisian officials only confirmed Amri’s status as a Tunisian citizen in October.

In September and October last year, police in North Rhine-Westphalia received tips from Tunisian and Moroccan security agencies that Amri supported Islamic State, had contact with Islamic State sympathizers in Berlin, and “wanted to carry out a project” in Germany, Dieter Schürmann, head of North Rhine-Westphalia’s criminal investigative agency LKA told lawmakers.

But the warnings were too abstract to justify an arrest, he added. On a scale of one to eight, with one representing the strongest risk, Amri ranked five, Mr. Schürmann said.

German security officials use the scale, which is based on an analysis of evidence against a suspect, to assess the threat posed by a suspect. But because authorities never had proof that he was putting in motion any intent or plan to attack, Amri didn’t register a higher score.

In other words, what appeared like a mountain of evidence documenting Amri’s intention, officials said, didn’t satisfy German courts’ requirements to detain him on suspicion of planning an attack or even being a passive member of a foreign terrorist organization—a criminal offense under German law.

“What authorities knew was hearsay. That isn’t enough to arrest someone. You need to convince a judge,” Mr. Jäger said. He said many of the 548 potentially dangerous radical Islamists on German authorities’ official list of potential attackers have been known “to make such threats or even just brag about wanting to do an attack” without acting on them.

[kscarbel2]

The Washington Post  /  December 23, 2016

A routine request for ID papers outside a deserted train station in Milan at 3 a.m. Friday led to a police shootout that killed the Tunisian fugitive radical Islamist wanted in the deadly Christmas market attack in Berlin.

Amri traveled from Germany through France and into Italy after Monday night’s truck rampage in Berlin, and at least some of his journey was by rail.

French officials refused to comment on his passage through France, which has increased surveillance on trains after recent attacks in France and Germany.

Amri was caught seemingly by chance after eluding police for more than three days.

“He was a ghost,” Milan police chief Antoio de Iesu said, adding that Amri was stopped because of basic police work, intensified surveillance “and a little luck.”

Like other cities, Milan has been on heightened alert, with increased surveillance and police patrols. The two young officers who stopped Amri didn’t suspect he was the Berlin attacker, but rather grew suspicious because he was a North African man, alone outside a deserted train station in the dead of night.

Amri, who had spent time in prison in Italy, was confronted by the officers in the Sesto San Giovanni neighborhood of Milan. He pulled a gun from his backpack after being asked to show his ID and was killed in an ensuing shootout.

One of the officers, Christian Movio, 35, was shot in the right shoulder. His 29-year-old partner, Luca Scata, fatally shot Amri in the chest and is now a national hero.

Amri had no ID or cellphone and carried only a pocket knife and the loaded .22-caliber pistol he used to shoot Movio. He was identified with fingerprints supplied by Germany.

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The Washington Post  /  December 23, 2016

On a drab, graffiti-sprayed square on the outskirts of Milan, two Italian police officers — one of them a trainee — spotted a suspicious young man with a backpack. It was 3:15 a.m. Friday. A thief? Possibly. They pulled him aside for an identity check.

The officers did not know that the man had already fled hundreds of miles across the heart of Europe, evading an international dragnet. They confronted the 24-year old, who — using street slang Italian picked up in Sicilian jails — insisted that he was a traveler from Italy’s deep south.

They told him to empty his backpack. Instead, Italian officials say, he pulled a gun.

Anis Amri, a self-proclaimed ISIS soldier, rapidly shot one officer in the shoulder before ducking behind a car.

“Poliziotti bastardi!” — police bastards! — Amri shouted.

The second patrolman — trainee Luca Scatà, now an instant national hero — fired back, killing the suspect.

Hours after the shootout, the Islamic State’s Amaq news agency released a video of Amri that was tauntingly filmed only 1.5 miles from the German Chancellery in Berlin. He seemed calm, yet certain in a black-hooded windbreaker on an iron bridge as he called on Muslims in Europe to rise up and strike at “crusaders.”

“God willing, we will slaughter you like pigs,” he said in the video.

He added: “To my brothers everywhere, fight for the sake of Allah. Protect our religion. Everyone can do this in their own way. People who can fight should fight, even in Europe.”

[kscarbel2]

The Washington Post  /  December 22, 2016

When Anis Amri washed up on European shores in a migrant boat in April 2011, he landed on the windswept Italian island of Lampedusa already a fugitive. Sought in his native Tunisia for hijacking a van with a gang of thieves, the frustrated Italians would jail him for arson and violent assault at his migrant reception center for minors on the isle of Sicily.

There, his family says, the boy who once drank alcohol — and never went to mosque — suddenly got religion.

He began to pray, asking his family to send him religious books. The Italian Bureau of Prisons submitted a report to a government ­anti-terrorism commission on Amri’s rapid radicalization, warning that he was embracing dangerous ideas of Islamist ­extremism and had threatened Christian inmates.

The Italians tried to deport Amri but couldn’t. They sent his fingerprints and photo to the Tunisian consulate, but the authorities there refused to recognize Amri as a citizen. The Italians could not even establish his true identity. Italy’s solution: After four years in jail, they released him anyway — giving him seven days to leave the country.

On Monday, Amri, now 24 and with previously known links to Islamist extremists, drove a truck into a crowded Berlin Christmas market, killing 12 and wounding dozens.

Germany had tried to deport Amri, too, though Tunisia long refused to take him back.

His case suggests two critical realities of modern terrorism that present major new challenges, especially in Europe. The cumbersome and flawed system of deportation and asylum — mixed with open borders — has made it exceedingly easy for radicalized Islamists to operate on the continent.

Yet Amri is also the latest suspect to have emerged from a disconcerting counterterrorism gap in both Europe and the United States.

In case after case — including that of the German Christmas market attack — authorities have come forward after the fact to say that they had enough cause to place the suspect under surveillance well before the violence. But never enough to move in for an arrest.

This has been true of the majority of lone-wolf terrorism plots over the past several years. The Orlando shooter, Omar Mateen, had been under FBI investigation for 10 months.

The bureau had also tracked but had been unable to build a case against the Boston Marathon bombers or the plotters who targeted a contest to draw cartoons of the prophet Muhammad.

The same was true with Amri.

Several months ago, during a surveillance operation monitoring radical Islamic preachers, German authorities intercepted a communication, which, in retrospect, appeared to forecast Amri’s violent intent. They would not disclose the precise wording, but German officials said the intercept was not straightforward enough to directly indicate an imminent threat.

“He never made such a clear statement during this interaction, which could have led to the conclusion that he would become a martyr,” an official said.

Amri fell into a dangerous gray zone — he was on the U.S. no-fly list a month ago, and Germans had linked him to a radical network led by Abu ­Walaa, a 32-year-old of Iraqi descent arrested in November on charges of recruiting and sending fighters from Germany to the Islamic State.

Amri had also been under police surveillance for several months until September of this year, because he was suspected of planning a burglary in Berlin to finance the purchase of weapons. The suspicion wasn’t confirmed, however, and authorities found him guilty only of being a small-time drug dealer.

“This kind of super-low-tech, improvised thing is hard,” said Rafael Bossong, research associate at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. “The guy didn’t buy any weapons. He didn’t give off absolutely clear signals. The question is, how do you definitely prevent that?”

Amri appears to have attempted to manipulate the German asylum system — an inundated bureaucracy clogged with a backlog of more than 400,000 cases following the arrival of 1.2 million asylum seekers over the course of the past two years.

Amri claimed to be Egyptian and to have suffered persecution there when applying for asylum in Germany in April. When officials questioned him, he could not answer basic questions about his alleged home country. They checked their data system and found that he had been registered under several aliases and birthdays. By July, his asylum request was rejected.

And yet, they could not deport him, because Tunisia initially refused to take him — issuing him a passport only last Monday, the same day as the attack.

The way the system is designed, even had Amri fully cooperated, however, the Germans would not have had access to his criminal record in Italy. The computer databases used in Europe to vet migrants in the first instance does not include such data.

[kscarbel2]

Syrian refugee who asked ISIS for €180,000 for bombings in Europe arrested in Germany

RT  /  January 2, 2017

A Syrian asylum seeker has been detained in Germany on suspicion of asking ISIS for money to buy and booby trap cars to kill a large number of "non-Muslim" people in “Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.”

The 38-year old man was detained early Saturday by German special forces in his flat in the city of Saarbrucken in the Federal State of Saarland. He was arrested after Saarland police received a tip off from the Federal Criminal police.

According to the Prosecutor’s office, the man in custody contacted Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) terrorist group’s contact person in December “who he knew was in a position to obtain IS money for terror financing.” The asylum seeker apparently “asked him [IS contact person] to provide €180,000 so he [the suspect] can use the money to buy vehicles, which he planned to bobby trap with explosives,” a statement by the Prosecutor’s office reads. 

The Syrian asylum seeker planned to buy eight cars - €22,500 each - booby trap the vehicles and drive them into the crowds to “kill a large number of non-Muslim people.” He reportedly said 400 to 500 kilograms (882 to 1,100 pounds) of explosives would be placed in each car.

According to a separate statement by police in Saarland, the suspect asked for the IS money to finance an “unspecified terrorist attack” in “Germany, France, Belgium and the Netherlands.” 

Hugo Muller, Deputy Commissioner for the Saarland police said that the Syrian man planned to repaint the vehicles as police cars. "In his respective communications with contacts linked to IS, he [the suspect] offered or suggested to repaint cars to make them look similar to police cars, load them with explosives, position them in a crowd of people and then detonate them," Muller said.

The 38-year old entered Germany in 2014 and after applying for asylum and was a granted a temporary residence permit.

[kscarbel2]

Virginia man charged with trying to support ISIS wanted shootout with FBI

Associated Press  /  January 4, 2017

A self-proclaimed supporter of ISIS living in Suffolk, Virginia told FBI agents last month after his arrest they were lucky they picked him up outside his home, according to a federal prosecutor.

Lionel Nelson Williams, who had a loaded AK-47 and 9 mm handgun inside the house, said he would have been happy to shoot it out with the agents.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Joseph DePadilla revealed more of the government's case Wednesday during a detention hearing in U.S. District Court in Norfolk.

Williams confessed to the FBI after his Dec. 21 arrest that he supported the Islamic State terror group and that he told an undercover federal agent during a nine-month investigation he wanted to martyr himself in Hampton Roads.

"It's the only way," Williams told the undercover agent.

Assistant Federal Public Defender Keith Kimball argued that the FBI entrapped his client. He said the First Amendment allows Williams to express support for ISIS, and he questioned whether his client started talking about martyrdom only because the FBI led him that way.

"Entrapment is flowing throughout this case," Kimball said.

[Why are your tax dollars paying to defend a confessed supporter of ISIS?]

In light of the defendant's interest in martyring himself, Magistrate Judge Lawrence Leonard ordered Williams – also known as Harun Ash-Shababi – to stay incarcerated pending his trial.

Williams, 26, was arrested last month and indicted Wednesday on one charge of attempting to provide material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of 20 years.

According to court documents, a former associate of Williams contacted the FBI in March to report that Williams had been posting statements on Facebook that indicated his support for ISIS. The associate said Williams had recently acquired an AK-47 rifle.

The report prompted the FBI to check Williams’ publicly viewable Facebook page. The agency then secretly reached out to him in April, posing online as someone connected to ISIS.

Following several online conversations and at least one in-person meeting, Williams contacted a man he believed was an ISIS financier. He provided that person, who was actually with the FBI, account information for a $200 prepaid cash card. 

Williams later provided the agent another $50.

Before accepting the money, the undercover FBI agent went so far as tell Williams the money was "going to kill people.”

In November, Williams told the FBI he feared he was not “pure” enough to carry out an attack in the United States. In December, however, he said he felt he was ready to "go forth.”

Williams told the FBI he was working to acquire "tools." Williams said he would soon see his fiancee – a Muslim woman from Brazil he'd met online – in heaven.

Two days later, the FBI moved in – securing a search warrant for Williams’ home and arresting him outside.

Williams' uncle, who lives on the same property as Williams, works at Norfolk Naval Shipyard and has a security clearance. 

Leonard said he could not release Williams. He argued Williams didn't need a gun to carry out an attack on U.S. soil, noting recent terrorist incidents in France and Germany that involved trucks. The risk, he said, was too great.

"This is more than speech," the judge said.

[kscarbel2]

Radical Islamist? kills 5 in Melbourne

ABC News  /  January 20, 2017

A young child is among five people who were killed when a car was deliberately driven into pedestrians in Melbourne's Bourke Street Mall.

Police shot the 26-year-old driver, James "Jimmy" Gargasoulas, who had stabbed his brother in the arm early Friday morning. He is under police guard in hospital.

At least 24 people were injured with five understood to be in a critical condition.

The injured were taken to The Alfred, St Vincent's, Royal Melbourne and Royal Children's hospitals.

A 10-year-old girl, a 25-year-old man and a 32-year-old woman died at the scene, while a 33-year-old man died in hospital on Friday night. A three-month-old died after being rushed to the hospital in a police car, and a two-year-old is in intensive care.

Commissioner Ashton said at 1:45pm the vehicle entered the city driving erratically and did "burnouts" on the corner of Swanston and Flinders streets.

"The vehicle proceeded up Swanston Street, then turned left into Bourke Street and entered the mall," he said.

"We suspect that [the driver was] intentionally hitting pedestrians. Travelling at speed right through the mall.

"It has then continued along Bourke Street, continuing over the intersection of Elizabeth Street and it has made its way up to approximately 501, or thereabouts outside the RACV Club in Bourke Street.

"At that time, police intercepted the vehicle, as I understand it, they rammed the vehicle."

Police said they believed the man was involved in a stabbing at 2:15am in Windsor, where he attacked his brother.

Commissioner Ashton said the suspect was known to police and was also charged over an incident last weekend.

"There is an extensive family violence history involved. He has come to our attention on many occasions in the past. We have mental health and drug-related issues in the background of this particular person," he said.

"He has been coming to our attention more recently over recent days in relation to assaults, family violence-related assaults."

He said they attempted to intercept the vehicle this morning but he was driving so erratically they called off the pursuit and called in the air wing.

Commissioner Ashton said there was a woman in the car with the man as he travelled over the Bolte Bridge towards the city from Yarraville. She got out of the car on the bridge.

He said investigators were trying to determine why she was in the car, or if she was being held hostage.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

James "Jimmy" Gargasoulas, 26, the man who mowed down two dozen people in Melbourne's CBD on Friday, killing three and injuring 20 others, has a history of drug use, violence and psychological problems.

Gargasoulas stayed with his mother in a public housing flat in Windsor, where he allegedly stabbed his brother, Angelo, in the early hours of Friday morning.

Neighbours regularly heard arguing inside the Raleigh Street unit.

The car Gargasoulas used to run down pedestrians belonged to 76-year-old Gavin Wilson, who lives at the housing commission flats.

Wilson said Gargasoulas was a "nice kid", but on Wednesday night he became violent.

He said he came into his flat with a Bible, sat down and started burning it before throwing the burning book into his face.

"I flicked it onto the floor then he stood up and punched me," Wilson said.

Gargasoulas then attacked him. "Give me your keys or I'll gouge your eyes out," Gargasoulas demanded. 

Gargasoulas' erratic behaviour dramatically escalated on Friday morning.

In the early hours, Jess Bergin said she heard screaming outside her flat on the other side of road and looked out the window.

"He had a knife and he was hacking at either a guy or a girl, I don't know," she said.

They got into a waiting a car, except for the knife-wielding man, who began hacking at the car, she said.

Gargasoulas, who also goes by the name Dimitrios, is currently on bail after being charged with family violence offences last weekend.

He is known to police for drug related issues, family violence assaults and has "an extensive family violence history".

Police began pursuing Gargasoulas on Friday in a maroon-coloured sedan after he took a woman hostage, who later escaped on the Bolte Bridge.

Police called off the pursuit over concerns of public safety, just outside the CBD.

The car was next seen doing "burnouts" and driving erratically at the intersection in front of Flinders Street Station. Gargasoulas was filmed hanging out the driver's window and abusing passerby.

He then sped north towards Bourke Street, where he ploughed through the crowded shopping strip, killing three people and injuring 20.

Police shot Gargasoulas in the arm further west on Bourke Street, dragging him from the sedan and making an arrest. He is being treated in hospital with non-life threatening injuries.

A relative said Gargasoulas has had a drug problem and has been in and out of jail for car theft and drug offences.

"Jimmy has always been a bad person," she said. "I knew it was him. I saw it on TV ... the picture of him sticking his head out when he was doing burnouts.

"I saw a picture and I thought 'Oh My God, that's Jimmy.' I'm shaking. I knew it, as soon as I saw that picture I had this feeling. I can't believe this.

"I bawled out crying when they announced that baby died. I'm shaking."

.

 

[6v71]

Why is this A hole still alive?  Shot in the arm?  Are you kidding me?  Should have been drug from the car and shot in the head on the spot.

[kscarbel2]

59 minutes ago, 6v71 said:

Why is this A hole still alive?  Shot in the arm?  Are you kidding me?  Should have been drug from the car and shot in the head on the spot.

In the case of murder, if guilt is in doubt, I am a believer in due process.

That said, if guilt is inarguable, as in this case for example with witnesses and cameras, the attacker(s) should be terminated immediately, if not within 24 hours. THAT will send out a loud and clear message to the likes of him.

 

[kscarbel2]

“While in the United States, some of the September 11 hijackers were in contact with, and received support or assistance from, individuals who may be [are] connected to the Saudi government”

Congress of the United States

January 29, 2003

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[kscarbel2]

 

[kscarbel2]

Muslim woman pays no mind to the London terror attack, casually walks by a dying man while checking phone.

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[kscarbel2]

Eight people killed in New York 'act of terror' after truck drives on to bike path

The Guardian  /  October 31, 2017

Eight people were killed and more than a dozen injured after a man drove a truck nearly a mile down a bike path in Manhattan on Tuesday afternoon, striking pedestrians, cyclists and a school bus.

New York City mayor Bill de Blasio said the incident was being treated as an act of terror.

The suspect was yelling "Allahu Akbar" as he got out of the truck.

Saipov reportedly left a note in the truck saying he carried out the attack on behalf of ISIS.

De Blasio said a police officer assigned to the area stopped the attacker by shooting him in the stomach (abdomen).

After smashing into the school bus, injuring two adults and two children, the 29-year-old suspect exited the truck displaying “imitation firearms” and was shot by police. The suspect was in custody, and a paintball gun and a pellet gun were recovered at the scene.

The truck drove south after entering a pedestrian and bicycle path, where it struck multiple people.

Six men were pronounced dead at the scene on the cycle lane and two other people were dead on arrival at the hospital.

The suspect is 29-year-old male Uber driver Sayfullo Saipov, an Uzbekistan national. He entered the US in 2010 and lived in Ohio, Florida and recently Paterson, New Jersey.

"I have just ordered Homeland Security to step up our already Extreme Vetting Program. Being politically correct is fine, but not for this! We must not allow ISIS to return, or enter, our country after defeating them in the Middle East and elsewhere. Enough!” Trump tweeted Tuesday night around 9pm ET.

Inside the truck, police found a stun gun and two cell phones with 90 videos of propaganda about the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and 3,800 images related to the terrorist group.

Saipov is charged with providing material support to a terrorist organization and using a vehicle to cause violence.

Saipov rented the truck from a Home Depot in New Jersey before driving into Manhattan to carry out the attack. He traveled for nearly a mile down a bike lane next to the West Side Highway, coming to a stop only after he slammed into a schoolbus. He then exited the vehicle carrying a black bag, a pellet gun and a paintball gun, yelling "God is great" in Arabic. Saipov was soon shot by a police officer and arrested.

Inside a black bag that Saipov dropped after being shot, officers found three knives and a wallet containing a Florida driver's license.

A note was discovered 10 feet from the truck with English and Arabic writing stating "No God but God and Muhammed is his Prophet" and "Islamic Supplication. It will endure."

The FBI obtained a search warrant to search the two cellphones found inside the truck [why was that necessary, given events???].

A woman from Cincinnati, Ohio, who identified herself as Dilfuza Iskhakova, said that Saipov had stayed at her home there for several months about six years ago, after arriving in the US from Uzbekistan.

“He seemed like a nice guy, but he didn’t talk much,” said Iskhakova. “He only went to work and came back. He used to work at a warehouse.”

Iskhakova said Saipov had been applying for a green card when she knew him. Ohio state records show he registered a business involving vehicles to her home in May 2011. Iskhakova thought Saipov had moved from Ohio to Florida, and then to the New York region, and that he now had a wife and two young daughters.

She said she did not know if Saipov was religious.

“He’s from my country,” Iskhakova said. “His father knows my husband, and sent Sayfullo here because he didn’t know anyone.”

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[kscarbel2]

The Advertising for Immigrants Show

Newsweek & ABC News New York  /  October 31, 2017

Sayfullo Saipov, a 29-year-old Uzbekistan native, was awarded a permanent resident visa in 2010 under the Diversity Immigrant Program (aka. Green Card Lottery).

The [taxpayer funded] program is meant to increase the number of immigrants from countries with low rates of U.S. immigration [Why???].

The program awards 55,000 green cards a year, a majority of which go to people in African and Eastern European nations, according to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services.

To qualify, applicants must prove that they have a clean criminal record [impossible to verify], have a high school diploma or its equivalent, or have at least two years of work experience within the past five years. It takes two years of vetting to get a visa [Breaking News - Vetting failed].

The Immigration Act of 1990, also known as the Schumer program, after its sponsor Chuck Schumer (D-NY), established the current and permanent Diversity Visa program.

Congress has tried to end the Diversity Visa lottery program five times since 2007.

The program's future most recently came into question when the Reforming American Immigration for a Strong Economy (RAISE) Act, sponsored by Senator Tom Cotton (R-Ark.), called for its elimination as part of a wider reduction in legal immigration. 

In its statement supporting the bill, the White House called the Diversity Visa lottery program “outdated,” adding that it “serves questionable economic and humanitarian interests.”

Saipov applied for the program in 2008 and was granted a Diversity Visa two years later.

According to government records, there were 153,661 applicants for a DV-10 visa from Uzbekistan in fiscal year 2008. In 2010, 3,356 Uzbeks received a visa, meaning Saipov had a 2.1 percent chance of succeeding.

From its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991 until last year, Uzbekistan was ruled by Islam Abduganiyevich Karimov, whose authoritarian rule pushed many of its residents to emigrate. ISIS also has a presence in Uzbekistan and recruits militants from there.

[david wild]

Dedumbo is a terrorist, and Scummer is a idiot and all liberals have some brain defect and it's to bad that they only shot this scum bag in the tummy, now he can recover, stand trial, tell all about his  problems, go to jail, eat special muslim food and get out in a few years so he can spread more of his crap. meanwhile  8 more Americans have died so we can be nice to people who will never ever like us, somehow the only thing I see needed to be a leader in this country is to be a idiot, even the republicans are fighting Trump on draining the swamp, that means they too have become part of the problem, funny how are leaders are so fast to sell out. They have no spine and are bad as those they claim they are better than. I hope the snowflakes and the liberals enjoy the world they building.

[HeavyGunner]

It’s sad when we aren’t even allowed to protect our own country. Profiling which works very well (just ask the Israelis) isn’t allowed or at the very least frowned on and then the 24hr “news” channels chastise the people for protecting us using profiling. We are publicly shamed if we say enough immigrants and refugees for now. We have plenty of people and there’s no sense letting possible terrorists or any other people who will need public assistance when they get here instead of taking care of our vets and our retirees. We are supposed to let the little fat man from North Korea threaten to nuke us and say nothing. Even when he’s launching missiles over and around our allies. If we do say something our own media turns on our leaders and anyone who agrees with them. We’re not supposed to think China or Russia as bad people even though historically they were and still are a threat to all free countries. My rant is just the tip of this over the top pc bs that this country has become and unfortunately we are so tied up in that bs culture we are going to continue to let this crap happen until all the allies (all of us) get together next clean this mess up. 

[41chevy]

1 hour ago, HeavyGunner said:

It’s sad when we aren’t even allowed to protect our own country. Profiling which works very well (just ask the Israelis) isn’t allowed or at the very least frowned on and then the 24hr “news” channels chastise the people for protecting us using profiling. We are publicly shamed if we say enough immigrants and refugees for now. We have plenty of people and there’s no sense letting possible terrorists or any other people who will need public assistance when they get here instead of taking care of our vets and our retirees. We are supposed to let the little fat man from North Korea threaten to nuke us and say nothing. Even when he’s launching missiles over and around our allies. If we do say something our own media turns on our leaders and anyone who agrees with them. We’re not supposed to think China or Russia as bad people even though historically they were and still are a threat to all free countries. My rant is just the tip of this over the top pc bs that this country has become and unfortunately we are so tied up in that bs culture we are going to continue to let this crap happen until all the allies (all of us) get together next clean this mess up. 

So far most of the BIG news today I've seen is Blassio and the other moron   Cummo are saying they won't politicize it and than blather on that the President Trump hasn't even bothered to call them.

Edited November 1, 2017 by 41chevy

[david wild]

They (liberals) defend their immigration policy by saying that bringing in these people makes for a more diverse society, well who needs diversity ? kinda funny I like my own kind of people, not a bunch of people who want to change the way I live and make me change to their way of thinking, stay where they are we don't need them.

[Mack Technician]

7 hours ago, david wild said:

Dedumbo is a terrorist, and Scummer is a idiot and all liberals have some brain defect and it's to bad that they only shot this scum bag in the tummy, now he can recover, stand trial, tell all about his  problems, go to jail, eat special muslim food and get out in a few years so he can spread more of his crap. meanwhile  8 more Americans have died so we can be nice to people who will never ever like us, somehow the only thing I see needed to be a leader in this country is to be a idiot, even the republicans are fighting Trump on draining the swamp, that means they too have become part of the problem, funny how are leaders are so fast to sell out. They have no spine and are bad as those they claim they are better than. I hope the snowflakes and the liberals enjoy the world they building.

Roger that D.W.

Muslim terrorists have great success recruiting in prisons, best to kill them before the Miranda rights kick in. If you tell a fellow criminal that murder, control and rape is the path to heaven they are much more enthused than via the Christian version.

 

 

 

Guessing Jr was gut shot cause the suspicion is that this was planned and he is going to have body armor.

You may see a few more pistol bearing cops using an alternative gut/pelvis hit and the swat with Ftlbs. of fire energy using center mass. 

After that cop fires the first round it is game on. If the turd in question has body armor then he is going to counter engage. If Ishmael has a couple 10MM bile holes leaking into his guts it is more debilitating than a useless square-body hit to Kevlar. 

Looks like it is going to be a colostomy bag instead of 40 virgins.............aw Shuckers.

  

Edited November 1, 2017 by Mack Technician

[david wild]

Why do the police keep referring to this scum bag as a suspect, cop saw him get out of truck and shot him. he is not a suspect, he is the perp. end of story, now let's get on with his death sentence, I'm thinkin 2 55 gallon barrels welded on top of each other, stick scum bag inside, couple holes in the sides, small oxygen bottle and deep six him off the coast, that way he think about what he did while he either runs out of air or is crushed by the water when he goes off the side of the trench. either way we won't ever see him again, whereas he goes to prison and 10 years from now he gets a parole hearing.  

[HeavyGunner]

37 minutes ago, david wild said:

Why do the police keep referring to this scum bag as a suspect, cop saw him get out of truck and shot him. he is not a suspect, he is the perp. end of story, now let's get on with his death sentence, I'm thinkin 2 55 gallon barrels welded on top of each other, stick scum bag inside, couple holes in the sides, small oxygen bottle and deep six him off the coast, that way he think about what he did while he either runs out of air or is crushed by the water when he goes off the side of the trench. either way we won't ever see him again, whereas he goes to prison and 10 years from now he gets a parole hearing.  

Where have you been the last 20 years David?! Didn't you know that any criminal can be rehabilitated and turned loose into society with out any problems? 😀