Paris under attack

[kscarbel2]

Obama warns of small-scale ISIS attacks in the U.S.

Reuters  /  August 4, 2016

President Barack Obama on Thursday touted progress he said the United States and its allies had made in the military campaign against Islamic State, but warned that the militant group still can direct and inspire attacks.

The United States is leading a military coalition conducting air strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, where the group seized broad swathes of territory in 2014. It has succeeded in breaking Islamic State's grip on some towns, although it still controls its two de facto capitals, Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.

The president, criticized for suggesting Islamic State was made up of amateurs, presented a more measured assessment on Thursday.

He said the last two years of the U.S.-led air and ground campaign have proved that the extremist group can be beaten in conventional military fights but that it has shown the ability to carry out damaging, small-scale attacks.

"I am pleased with the progress that we've made on the ground in Iraq and Syria," said Obama, but he added: "We're far from freeing Mosul and Raqqa."

While the campaign against Islamic State in Iraq, Syria and now Libya is making significant gains, the group is adapting, reverting to high-profile attacks and using the internet to recruit and train, and to encourage "lone wolf" attacks.

"They've seen the degree of attention they can get with smaller-scale attacks using small arms or assault rifles," Obama said. "The possibility of either a lone actor or a small cell carrying out an attack that kills people is real."

The United States must do a better job of disrupting Islamic State networks that can carry out attacks far from the group's bases in the Middle East, Obama said.

"Those networks are more active in Europe than they are here, but we don't know what we don't know, and so it's conceivable that there are some networks here [in the U.S.] that could be activated," he said.

"How we react to this is as important as the efforts we take to destroy ISIS, prevent these networks from penetrating," he said, using an acronym for the group. "When societies get scared they can react in ways that undermine the fabric of our society."

COORDINATING WITH RUSSIA

In Syria, where the United States is [finally] exploring options to cooperate with Russia militarily to defeat Islamic State, Obama said Russia's and Syria's most recent actions have raised doubts about their commitment to a pause in the conflict.

This week, a Syrian rescue service operating in rebel-held territory said a helicopter dropped containers of toxic gas overnight on a town close to where a Russian military helicopter had been shot down hours earlier.

http://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/41827-syria/?page=3#comment-341272

The opposition Syrian National Coalition accused President Bashar al-Assad of being behind the attack. Assad has denied previous accusations of using chemical weapons.

The twin U.S. goals in Syria have been to end the violence that has claimed some 400,000 lives, according to United Nations estimates, and to seek a political process to replace Assad, whom Obama has said "must go."

Proposals for the United States and Russia to cooperate in Syria would have them share intelligence to coordinate air strikes and prohibit the Syrian air force from attacking rebel groups considered moderate.

But U.S. military and intelligence officials have called the plan naive and said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry risks falling into a trap that Russian President Vladimir Putin has laid to discredit the United States with moderate rebel groups and drive some of their fighters into the arms of Islamic State and other extremist groups.

"The U.S. remains prepared to work with Russia to try to reduce the violence and strengthen our efforts against ISIS and al Qaeda in Syria, but so far Russia has failed to take the necessary steps," Obama said, adding that he was not confident Russia or Putin could be trusted.

[kscarbel2]

Terrorist Suspects in Europe Got Welfare Benefits While Plotting Attacks

The Wall Street Journal  /  August 3, 2016

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

At least five of the alleged plotters in the Paris and Brussels terror attacks partly financed themselves with payments from Belgium’s generous social-welfare system, authorities have concluded.

In total they received more than €50,000, or about $56,000 at today’s rate.

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

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

The revelations raise a difficult conundrum for Europe.

On one hand, the modern welfare state is a primary tool for combating poverty as well as integrating immigrants. On the other, officials are working hard to find and stop potential sources of revenue for those bent on committing terrorist atrocities.

“We’ve identified that the benefit system is vulnerable to abuse for terrorist financing purposes,” said Tom Keatinge, director of the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London. “What are we going to do about that?”

European governments may want to give benefits in the form of vouchers, or re-examine their hands-off approach to how people spend their benefits, Mr. Keatinge said. “If you’re paying benefit to people in certain parts of Brussels, maybe you need to be a little more observant about who you’re paying to, and what they might be doing with it.”

All of the Paris and Brussels terror suspects known to have received welfare were EU citizens.

Philippe de Koster, director of Belgium’s Financial Intelligence Processing Unit, said security and welfare officials need better coordination to avoid benefits being paid to “people suspected of financing terrorist activities.”

That would require a change in law, because currently benefits can be cut only after a person is convicted of terrorism, or the suspect leaves the country.

Mr. de Koster, whose agency investigated the financial side of the Paris and Brussels attacks, said there is no evidence that welfare benefits were used by the alleged plotters to directly finance those attacks. But, he said, “social-welfare benefits provided them with livelihoods and indirect support for their terrorist activities.”

In some cases, Mr. de Koster said, suspects transferred welfare money onto prepaid debit cards that later were used in the twin attacks.  

Stemming terror financing has been a major goal of governments around the globe. While the focus has been on depriving Islamic State of oil revenue and other macro financing sources, officials also are trying to cut off local funding avenues for small-cell and lone-wolf attacks.

The task is difficult because the sums are so small. Officials have estimated it cost less than €30,000 to carry out the Paris attacks, and less than €3,000 for the Brussels attacks. The Tunisian immigrant who mowed down scores of people in Nice, France, paid €1,600 to rent the truck used in the attack, prosecutors said.

Government officials have identified student-loan fraud, insurance scams and robbery as among the money sources for terror suspects in the West.

Islamic State itself suggested welfare benefits as a financing source, in a 2015 manual called “How to Survive in the West: A Mujahid Guide.” In a section headed “Easy Money Ideas,” the manual suggested “if you can claim extra benefits from a government, then do so.”

European countries including Belgium, France, Netherlands and Denmark collectively have cut off hundreds of people from welfare after discovering they had traveled to Syria to fight with Islamic State.

Legislation pending in the Netherlands would make it easier to cut off suspected foreign terrorist fighters after a finding by intelligence services.

“We don’t want violent jihadist activities to be funded by Dutch taxpayers,” Minister of Social Affairs Lodewijk Asscher has said. People who return from Syria and are prosecuted won’t get benefits restored; those who aren’t prosecuted must reapply.

In Belgium, officials last fall found that seven suspected foreign fighters who had left the country and 15 returnees from Syria were receiving unemployment benefits. Five proven to be in Syria were cut off, officials said, but there were no legal grounds to suspend payments to the others.

Since the Brussels attacks in March, checks by officials have become more frequent, one Belgian official said. One in April by the National Employment Office, conducted after revelations by the public broadcaster, found that 14 terrorism detainees had received benefits while in prison.

Fred Cauderlier, the Belgian prime minister’s spokesman, said a law was changed following the Paris attacks to prevent people convicted of terrorism from receiving benefits while in jail.

He defended his country’s welfare system and said it would be an “offensive intellectual shortcut” to say that welfare benefits sponsored the Paris and Brussels attacks. “This is a democracy,” he said. “We have no tools to check how people spend their benefits.”

In Belgium, people exiting prison often receive social benefits to help reintegrate into society. This was the case with Khalid el-Bakraoui, who served two years in prison before blowing himself up in the Maelbeek subway station in Brussels in March.

Bakraoui was given jobless benefits in early 2014, after a stint in prison for armed robbery and carjacking. In total, he collected about €25,000 in unemployment, medical and other benefits, according to one of the people familiar with the case.

He wasn’t shut off until last December, when Belgian authorities issued a warrant for him in connection with the Paris attacks. He went underground, and using fake IDs rented several hide-outs used by the Paris and Brussels attackers. He later was glorified by Islamic State as one of the main organizers of the March massacre in the Belgian capital.

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[david wild]

Thought O crapo brains said the world is safer than it'e ever been, what happened he missed the boat again ????  

[kscarbel2]

Reuters  /  August 7, 2016

A machete-wielding radical Islamist man yelling “Allahu Akbar!” (God is Great) injured two female police officers before being shot outside the main police station in the southern Belgian city of Charleroi on Saturday. 

One of the female officers suffered significant "wounds to the face".

The attacker, who was shot by a third officer, subsequently died of his wounds. 

The attacks were claimed by the Islamic State jihadist group.

Prime Minister Charles Michel condemned the attack, while Interior Minister Jan Jambon called it cowardly.

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Web comments:

All this will continue until European and U.S. policies and methods change. The radicals, IS, ISIS, OR WHOEVER, are not more organized or dedicated than World War Two Nazi led Wermacht soldiers or those of the Imperial Japanese military. Muslim radicals are not better equipped, not more willing to die, and not more ruthless. Allied policy to defeat the Axis powers was to kill so many of their combatants and supporters that their war fighting ability simply ceased to exist. That policy did not wait for the enemy to DO anything but simply to identify with and support Axis goals. It is war....again.

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A barbarian, reared in a culture from another Century, perhaps 16th Century, is unable to integrate into 21st Century culture. He is wielding a sword injuring 2 unfortunate female police officers. Some will say this is no clash of cultures. They are entitled to their opinion. But for me, this is a primitive, from a primitive religion teaching that unbelievers are pigs to be slaughtered. So he sets about trying to slaughter them ! The Turks raged against the Germans in the 16th Century. Islam is still trying to rule the world by the sword.

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The Western Europeans have forsaken their culture, heritage and way of life by refusing to secure their borders. They will never again know the carefree security they once enjoyed in no small part due to the sacrifice of American lives and treasure. Their haughty and foolish leaders were dismissive of the hard lessons their ancestors learned at Tours, Lepanto, Malta, the Reconquesta, Constantinople, Vienna and countless other bloody encounters. Islamic culture is simply not compatible with the values, practices and institutions of the West. The very definition pf peace is different. They should also come to understand that it is not likely that Americans will again make major sacrifices to ensure for them what they themselves are not willing to defend. There are quite enough American military cemeteries in Europe.

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I think Aesop said it best all those centuries ago:

"A farmer picked up a viper that was half-dead from the cold. When the farmer had warmed the viper, the viper uncoiled and grabbed hold of the man's hand and with a fatal bite, he killed the man who had wanted to save him. As he was dying, the man spoke some words that are well worth remembering: 'Well, I got what I deserve for having shown kindness to a scoundrel!"

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Many people around the world have grievances with this country [the U.S.], therefore, they have grievances with the American people, we the people. When we do need immigration, we should be looking for immigrants that do not have a grievance. Importing immigrants with grievances is only destroying our country. This is common sense. If one has a grievance with this country, stay where you are at. Being an American means…being an American, means assimilating and respecting our institutions including the legal system. If one wants a special legal system of another country, then stay put. This failed experiment of trying to settle world grievances through immigration is a losing proposition.

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If people weren't being killed and hurt it would be hilarious. the authorities are dumbfounded. if only they could figure what ties all of these attacks together. if we only had some clue as to what it is about all of these people that makes them attack seemingly random people on the street without provocation. it is almost as if they are being directed to do it by some creed or organized belief system... but that would be criminal. any belief system that espoused such barbarism and violence surely would be considered a hate group and banned from society. at the highest levels of government and law enforcement the best and brightest are scratching their heads while furiously pacing back and forth desperately trying to make the connection. what could it be? what could possibly be driving these people to these outrageous acts of violence? we may never know. shrugs shoulders. sighs.

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That's why a new PewCenter study of the migrants streaming into Europe is so important — because it transports us beyond the daily drumbeat of sensational headlines to gaze upon the alarming demographic reality confronting the continent, and to extrapolate its likely political end point.

The study is filled with illuminating data — on the national origin of the migrants (the number of asylum seekers coming from Syria, Afghanistan, and Iraq more than quadrupled between 2013 and 2015); on the leading destinations of asylum seekers (Germany ranks first); on public attitudes toward the EU's asylum policies (overwhelmingly negative).

But the most ominous numbers can be found in a chart titled, "Young men make up 42 percent of all of Europe's asylum seekers in 2015." That's right: 42 percent of first-time asylum seekers in 2015 were men aged 18 to 34. And the percentage of asylum seekers who were women in that age cohort? Eleven percent.

That imbalance — much larger in some countries — points to a future in which considerable numbers of young men will find it extremely difficult to find spouses. And that's a serious problem. As a leading expert on the topic put it a few months ago in an important articlefor Politico:

Societies with extremely skewed sex ratios are more unstable even without jihadi ideologues in their midst. Numerous empirical studies have shown that sex ratios correlate significantly with violence and property crime — the higher the sex ratio, the worse the crime rate.

"Even without jihadi ideologues in their midst."

When such ideologues are around, offering those unmarried, sexually frustrated, economically and culturally alienated young men the prospect of lashing out in vengeance at the world around them in acts of spectacular violence that supposedly contribute to a noble cause — well, let's just say it's unlikely to end well.

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[kscarbel2]

German attackers directed by ISIS contacts in Saudi Arabia

The Financial Times  /  August 7, 2016

The two refugees who launched terror attacks in Germany last month were in contact with suspected members of the militant group ISIS, including one with a Saudi Arabia phone number.

Records of internet communication now in the hands of German investigators show both men, the Afghan teenager Riaz Khan Ahmadzai, and Mohammed Daleel, a 27-year-old Syrian, were advised and directed by ISIS, which provided tips on ensuring the maximum number of casualties. 

Ahmadzai was shot dead by police after going on the rampage with an axe and a knife near the Bavarian town of Würzburg on July 18, wounding five people, while Daleel died after blowing himself up outside a wine bar in Ansbach, also in Bavaria, six days later, injuring 15 people.

Germany is still reeling from the attacks, the first committed by Muslim refugees who were part of the big wave of migrants that has entered the country over the past few years. 

They have become a problem for Angela Merkel, Germany's long-serving chancellor, whose popularity has taken a big knock in the wake of the attacks.

A poll published by ARD-Deutschlandtrend on Thursday showed her approval rating dropped 12 percentage points to 47 per cent this month.

Merkel insists she will not deviate from her open-door refugee policy, despite repeated calls for a rethink from the CSU, sister party to her CDU. The ARD poll showed that about two-thirds of Germans are unsatisfied with the policy.

German media — including news magazine Der Spiegel and the Sueddeutsche Zeitung — said Ahmadzai had been in contact with an ISIS member shortly before he launched his attack aboard a train near Würzburg.

He had suggested the teenager drive a car into a crowd, much like Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel, the 31-year-old Tunisian who had killed 85 people in Nice four days earlier. But the teenager said he could not drive. His contact allegedly replied: "You should learn. The damage would be a lot greater". Instead, Ahmadzai said he would board a train and attack the first passengers he saw.

The Sueddeutsche said Daleel sent a picture of the site of the open air concert in Ansbach that he planned to attack to his Isis contact, who reportedly lives in Saudi Arabia, saying: "This area will be full of people." The contact replied: "Kill them all."

Sueddeutsche quoted from an analysis of the two attacks by the Bundeskriminalamt, Germany's Federal Criminal Office, which said they showed jihadi social networks were "not only capable of motivating volunteers through the use of general propaganda, but also of actually advising and instructing them".

The paper said Ahmadzai was in touch with his ISIS contact just before he launched his axe-and-knife attack, saying he was waiting for the train. The contact promised he would send a video the teenager had filmed of himself brandishing a knife and pledging to kill "infidels" to the "centre", and that Isis would claim responsibility for the attack. Ahmadzai had filmed footage a few days earlier in his foster home in the small Bavarian town of Ochsenfurt.

Meanwhile, Spiegel reported that investigators believe Daleel's death may have been an accident. He reportedly intended to leave his rucksack, packed with explosives, in a crowd of people at the music festival and detonate it remotely. Shortly before the bomb exploded, his handler had told him to film the blast and its aftermath and send the footage to Isis. But according to Spiegel the bomb exploded prematurely, killing Daleel and injuring 15 people. 

The magazine said Daleel clearly intended to carry out further attacks, since investigators found more bomb-making material in his flat. Also, in the video message claiming responsibility for Ansbach he appeared with his face covered.

[41chevy]

And Obama and Hillary both agree with their line the if we defeat ISIS/ ISL in the Middle East than they will be forced to come to Europa and North America to fight their terror war. . .

Are they not doing that already???

[kscarbel2]

The Italian border town of Ventimiglia where hundreds of unwanted (and unvetted) Sudanese, Eritrean and Ethiopian economic migrants have been trying to cross into France from Italy.

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Uninvited, unwanted and out of control.

 

[kscarbel2]

CNN  /  August 7, 2016

Australia is being "swamped by Asians", mosques need to have security cameras, halal-certified food is funding terrorism and "Communist China" shouldn't own Australia's electricity.

These are the words of the woman who is now one of Australia's most powerful politicians, newly-elected senator Pauline Hanson.

Hanson was confirmed elected to the Australian Senate last week, along with three other members of her One Nation party, according to the Australian Electoral Commission.

 

The surprise result makes hers the fourth largest party in the Senate, meaning the government will need her support to pass all legislation, unless they turn to the left-wing Labor and Greens parties.

 

With 78 overall in the Australian Senate, and 39 required to pass or block legislation, Hanson's four One Nation senators can join with the 35 Opposition and Green party members to stop any legislation.

 

Among the policies of Pauline Hanson's One Nation party are surveillance cameras in mosques, banning the burqa, stopping Muslim immigration to Australia and holding a national inquiry into Islam.

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[kscarbel2]

Charlie Hebdo suspect caught trying to join ISIS

Associated Press  /  August 7, 2016

A student who was cleared of being the ‘third man’ in the Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack in France has now been arrested for allegedly trying to join Islamic State.

Hamyd Mourad, 20, was originally thought to have been the getaway driver when two Al-Qaeda operatives massacred 12 people around the Paris offices of the satirical magazine in January 2015.

There was a huge campaign aimed at releasing Hamyd, who was then a teenager, with classmates eventually providing an alibi then led to him being released without charge.

But now, in what appears to be another huge failure by France’s security agencies, Mourad was intercepted in Turkey’ on July 28th as he tried to join the ISIS caliphate in Syria.

Mourad, who remained on a terrorist watch list in France, was deported to Bulgaria, where he remains in a detention centre awaiting his return to France.

Paris intelligence sources say material found in Mourad’s backpack, including a phone and laptop computer, made him a clear 'candidate for jihad’.

Anti-terrorism prosecutors in Paris have opened a judicial investigation in order to issue a European arrest warrant for Mourad.

Mourad was the brother-in-law of Cherif Kouachi, who carried out the murders at Charlie Hebdo with his brother Said Kouachi.

The pair used AK47s to assassinate writers and cartoonists whom they accused of insulting the Prophet Mohammed, before they themselves were later gunned down by police commandos.

In the hours after the attack, Hamyd’s name was released as a prime suspect and a manhunt was launched.

Hamyd handed himself into a police station in his home town of Charleville-Mezieres, some 160 miles from Paris, and was interrogated for several days.

The Charleville-Mezieres prosecutor said Mourad had been ‘reported missing’ by his family on July 25th.

Many of the terrorists involved in lethal attacks in France and Belgium since the Charlie Hebdo atrocity were on watch lists.

The two Isis affiliated teenagers who murdered a Roman Catholic priest in Normandy last month had both tried to join the ISIS caliphate via Turkey before being deported.

Back in France, one was electronically tagged for a few hours a day, but they were otherwise free to move about. 

 

[kscarbel2]

Why ISIS Fears Israel

The National Interest  /  August 8, 2016

IN THE wake of the Orlando and Istanbul attacks, President Obama reiterated his determination to “destroy” ISIS by executing a strategy that combines air strikes, American special-operations units and support for local ground forces. Both of the candidates campaigning to succeed him insist that the United States must do more: Donald Trump advocates that Washington “bomb the hell out of” the group, while Hillary Clinton promises to “smash the would-be caliphate.” All three, however, are in violent agreement on one point: the overriding objective must be to destroy ISIS.

The insistence on the “destruction” of ISIS has become such a reflexive linchpin of America’s counterterrorism project that few pause to consider its strategic merit. But the nation with arguably the most experience and success combatting terrorism has considered it—and found it wanting.

Israelis live much closer to ISIS than do Americans. ISIS has pledged to conquer the Jewish state and incorporate it into its core caliphate. Yet surprisingly, the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has rejected the option of taking the fight directly to ISIS. Instead, faced with an operational threat that could mean the death of hundreds of Israelis at any moment, it has embraced a strategy that has not even been on the U.S. policy menu. Adopting a page from the playbook the United States used to defeat revolutionary Soviet-led communism in the Cold War, Israel is preventing ISIS attacks through a strategy of patient, vigilant deterrence. Obviously, the United States cannot simply adopt the Israeli approach whole cloth. It operates in a different security environment than the Jewish state, which faces a multiplicity of terrorist threats on its borders. But there are important lessons that America can learn to enhance its national security.

Israel’s approach to ISIS is straightforward. Israel seeks to persuade ISIS not to attack it by credibly threatening to retaliate. If you attack us, the thinking goes, we will respond in ways that will impose pain that exceeds any gain you can hope to achieve. As Cold War strategists learned, making this work in practice is demanding. To be effective, deterrence requires three Cs: clarity, capability and credibility. Specifically, this means clarity about the red line that cannot be crossed, communicated in language the adversary understands; capability to impose costs that greatly exceed the benefits; and credibility about the willingness to do so. Failures occur when the deterrer falls short on any one of the three Cs. So, if I draw a red line, you cross it, and I respond with words rather than the decisive punishment threatened, I fail the third C. Whatever excuse I give for not executing my threat, and however earnest my claim that next time will be different, the blunt fact is that adversaries will find my threats less credible.

If that were not enough, as the great nuclear strategist Thomas Schelling taught us, successful deterrence requires more than just a threat. The flip side of the deterrence coin is an equivalent promise: if you refrain from the prohibited action, I will withhold the threatened punishment. If, for whatever reason, I decide to administer the specified punishment even though you have complied with my demands, I spend that coin—and can no longer use that threat to deter you. As the saying goes, if you’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t—you might as well do.

The suggestion that terrorists as vicious as ISIS could be deterred is routinely dismissed by most members of the U.S. policy community as silly or dangerously naïve. Some assert that terrorists just want to kill. Others argue that they are irrational and that, when facing adversaries who are prepared to die for their cause, threatening to kill them will have no effect. American strategists have also been traumatized by Al Qaeda’s attack on the World Trade Center and Pentagon. Imagine a responsible government knew that it was facing hostile terrorists who had the capability to conduct an attack that could kill hundreds. If it chose to counter that threat by attempting to deter, rather than preemptively attack, the adversary, how would that government justify itself to its citizens in the aftermath of another Paris-scale assault?

ISRAELI STRATEGISTS ask all of these questions—and struggle with uncomfortable solutions. They have concluded that, however imperfect, deterrence is the best option. Indeed, the IDF believes that it is successfully deterring adversaries along all azimuths: states (Iran, Lebanon and Syria), substates (Hezbollah and Hamas) and even terrorist organizations (ISIS, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and Al Qaeda–linked groups). Israeli strategists reject the consensus view in Washington that ISIS is an ominous threat to “the entire civilized world.” In contrast to President Obama’s argument that ISIS should be the “top priority” for the IDF, it is just one more terrorist group—one that does not even make the top half of Israel’s threat matrix. As former chief of military intelligence Amos Yadlin provocatively put it, “At the end of the day, we are talking about several thousand unrestrained terrorists riding pickup trucks and firing with Kalashnikovs and machine guns.”

The American counterterrorism debate has largely ignored Israeli calculus. Washington is generally averse to learning from others, and Israel’s security establishment, until recently, was reticent about revealing its thinking. That changed last August when, for the first time in the IDF’s history, Chief of General Staff Lt. Gen. Gadi Eizenkot published an unclassified version of the IDF defense doctrine. But because the document appeared only in Hebrew, it has remained largely unknown in the American strategic community. To make it accessible, Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs recently posted an English translation of the document.

The “IDF Strategy” document discusses in detail how to deter terrorist groups, specifically Hezbollah and Hamas. In the U.S. policy lexicon, Hezbollah and Hamas are labeled “terrorists.” The IDF calls them “substate organizations.” Substate actors have headquarters, hold territory and govern populations. Thus they present targets of value, making them vulnerable, like states, to a combination of “general deterrence” and “specific deterrence.” General deterrence is achieved by maintaining overwhelming military superiority and earning a reputation like that of the Godfather. The Godfather “takes everything personal.” As his consigliere observed, “If a bolt of lightning hit a friend of his the old man would take it personal. . . . Accidents don’t happen to people who take accidents as a personal insult.” In Eizenkot’s words, Israel must be seen as “an unpredictable enemy that can react in a very severe way.”

Specific deterrence is tailored to each enemy and focuses on particular actions. It requires “an ongoing analysis of the enemy’s characteristics, considerations, capabilities, identity, and decision making processes.” Israel seeks to influence the “calculations” of its enemies directly by persuading them of “the futility of continuing to fight” and reminding them of the “outcome of previous confrontations.”

The IDF constantly worries about whether its deterrent is sufficiently strong. It works daily to ensure that it meets each and every condition required for success. Red lines are clearly, publicly and repeatedly announced by top Israeli officials not only in Hebrew, but also in Arabic. Israel’s capability to enforce these red lines is demonstrated by “building a force that is partially visible to the enemy.” Credibility is enhanced by taking “limited offensive actions to signal that the ‘rules of the game’ have been broken.” And it is careful to withhold punishment otherwise. (Indeed, Israeli policymakers have occasionally chosen not only to avoid punishment but to reward good behavior, for example, in supporting the reconstruction of Gaza even though Hamas uses some of the material Israel supplies to build tunnels and rockets.)

Israel sees Hezbollah as the “most severe threat.” A proxy of Iran, it has assembled an arsenal of more than one hundred thousand missiles and rockets aimed at Israel—many of them precision-guided with the ability to hit strategic targets, including the equivalent of the Pentagon in Tel Aviv. Hamas, whose charter pledges to “raise the banner of Allah over every inch of Palestine” occupied by “warmongering Jews,” stands second among substates whose attacks must be deterred. It has fought three wars against Israel in the past decade. During the Second Intifada, Hamas perfected the suicide bomb and used it to kill hundreds of Israeli civilians. Today, the group has thousands of rockets and is burrowing tunnels into Israeli territory for future attacks. (Israel has discovered a number of tunnels in recent months, each buried one hundred feet underground.)

How does the IDF meet threats posed by these groups? Not by direct attacks to degrade them; not by all-out war to destroy them. Instead, it attempts to deter them. As Yadlin explained,

“Vis-a-vis Hamas and Hezbollah, we haven’t destroyed their capabilities, but we were able to establish deterrence. And this is basically because we hit them hard, and because the terrorists became . . . half-state entities. . . . The terrorists have discovered that when they are responsible for their economy, for education, for the life of their people, suddenly they are not that daring to use terror all day.”

Of course, deterrence is not the only strand in Israel’s strategy to counter its enemies. Full-spectrum prevention of terrorist attacks includes detection (deep penetration to identify threats), defense (such as the Iron Dome missile-defense system and secure walls or fences on all borders) and decisive defeat (when, despite best efforts, attackers succeed). While many states, including the United States, invest heavily in similar efforts, Israel is unique in its placing deterrence at the core of its counterterrorism strategy.

The IDF accepts the fact that this strategy sometimes fails. When it does, Israeli citizens die. But Israel’s national-security community still considers deterrence better than any feasible alternative for meeting threats posed by its substate adversaries. And after each conflict, the IDF has redoubled efforts to establish a new level of deterrence.

Israeli security professionals readily admit that they cannot successfully deter all terrorists. In particular, lone wolves who conduct terrorist attacks with little preparation remain a persistent, unsolved problem. Only days before the Orlando attack, Israel experienced its own lone-wolf attack in which two Palestinian cousins using homemade guns killed four civilians at an upscale shopping mall in Tel Aviv. Israel’s security establishment has tried to deter future lone-wolf terrorists by demolishing the attackers’ homes and taking other punitive actions against their families and communities. Nonetheless, Eizenkot noted recently, “I have to stress the fact that there is virtually no way to stop every terrorist planning a stabbing attack.”

TO MEET the threat of ISIS today, the IDF is following essentially the same script. Officials have been reticent about discussing details of the strategy in public, but its outlines are clear in the IDF doctrine, and senior Israeli military officials confirmed this reading of the strategy in recent off-the-record meetings.

In stark contrast with the United States, Israel sees ISIS as just one more armed group fighting in Syria alongside Al Qaeda and other terrorist affiliates. For each of these adversaries, as well as for state actors including Iran and Assad, Israel has conveyed three “red lines”: no attacks on Israel; no transfer of advanced conventional weapons (namely precision-guided missiles and rockets) to terrorist groups that threaten Israel; and no transfer of chemical weapons to terrorist groups. The “dozens” of Israeli airstrikes in Syria that Prime Minister Netanyahu recently acknowledged are calculated components of a strategy that reminds all adversaries of the cost of even minor violations of its rules. It was no accident that Israel reportedly killed a prominent Iranian general last year on the Syrian Golan Heights as he surveilled the Israeli border, planning strikes on Israel. Nor was it coincidental that Israel reportedly killed Hezbollah operations officer Samir Kuntar in December—after Israel discovered him plotting attacks on Israelis.

On its immediate border, Israel faces two ISIS affiliates: Wilayat Sinai (Sinai Province) on the Egyptian peninsula, and the Yarmouk Martyrs Brigade on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights. While both are small, their proximity and firepower concern Israeli military leaders. Despite their capability to attack at a moment’s notice, both have exercised restraint. Since declaring allegiance to ISIS in November 2014, Wilayat Sinai has focused primarily on fighting the Egyptian security forces, not Israel. Its most noteworthy success was the downing of a Russian airliner in the Sinai in October 2015, which did not kill or injure any Israelis. On the Golan, the Yarmouk Brigade controls a ten-square-kilometer area where some forty thousand civilians live. Despite the fact that the group stands, as one Israeli newspaper put it, “several hundred meters away from reaching Israeli school buses,” it has not conducted a single attack against Israel.

Israeli strategists emphasize relevant similarities between ISIS, Hamas and Hezbollah: each controls territory, attempts to govern a population and, therefore, has something to lose. Even though ISIS propaganda recently declared in flawless Hebrew that “soon there will not be one Jew left in Jerusalem,” the groups have largely refrained from attacking Israel. The reason, according to Eizenkot’s predecessor, Benny Gantz, is that “they would lose,” and in doing so risk their population and assets. ISIS leaders appear to have heard this message. As a German journalist who was embedded with ISIS in 2014 explained, “The only country ISIS fears is Israel. They told me they know the Israeli army is too strong for them.”

Could the United States deter ISIS? At least one of President Obama’s speechwriters thought so. At the National Counterterrorism Center in December, the president directed his remarks to ISIS leaders: “We’re sending a message: If you target Americans, you will have no safe haven.” If I were teaching Strategy 101 next semester, this statement would lead my weekly quiz. The assignment would simply reproduce the quote and say: “Assess.” Any student unable to explain why the president’s threat fails to satisfy the elementary requirements for successful deterrence would not receive a passing grade.

Obama made this threat just days after ISIS’s attack in Paris, which killed 130 people. His objective was to dissuade ISIS leaders from ordering a similar attack on the United States. If you attack us, the president warned, America will respond by attacking you. Students of deterrence would remind Obama that he is already conducting a campaign of air strikes and special-operations raids that he says aims to kill ISIS’s leaders and destroy the organization—before they attack the homeland. Moreover, he has argued at length why, he believes, the current campaign includes everything the United States can productively do to destroy ISIS. Thus, his attempt to deter ISIS by threatening more rings hollow.

A few months from now, a newly elected president will be thinking about how he—or she—will deal with ISIS. One can be sure that the president-elect will ask her/his national-security team to conduct a fundamental reassessment of the war against ISIS, Al Qaeda and the dozen related strains of Islamic jihadi terrorism. A serious review would begin with recognition of a brute fact: a decade and a half beyond the 9/11 attacks and President Bush’s declaration of a “War on Terrorism,” the United States undoubtedly faces more terrorists determined to do harm than when this effort began.

In anticipation of that review, the analytic community should be studying Israel’s playbook now. The United States is not Israel. Deterrence is not the only strand in Israel’s defense strategy. Not every strategy that works for Israel is appropriate for America. At this point in the fight against ISIS, it is hard to imagine a path back to a posture of containment and deterrence. But as America confronts the next ISIS, or indeed, the next dozen strains or mutations of this cancer, the United States is unlikely to have the resources and will to send even American drones and special-operations forces to every ungoverned space or valley ruled by a hostile terrorist group. Standing as they do on the front line confronting deadly threats 24/7, Israel offers what Eizenkot has called a “laboratory” of security. It is not too late to begin a debate about how lessons learned by Israel’s security community can enrich America’s conceptual arsenal for countering terrorism in what promises to be a very long war.

[kscarbel2]

'Clock boy' Ahmed Mohamed’s family to try milking his former Texas school

Associated Press  /  August 8, 2016

The family of a Muslim boy who was arrested after bringing a homemade clock [that looked like a briefcase bomb] to school have sued Texas school officials, saying they violated the 14-year-old boy's civil rights.

The lawsuit was filed Monday on behalf of Ahmed Mohamed. The teen was arrested at his suburban Dallas high school in September and charged with having a hoax bomb. 

He says he brought the homemade clock to school to show his teacher. The charge was later dropped, but he was still suspended.

The lawsuit names Irving Independent School District, the city of Irving and the school's principal. A district spokeswoman says the district would release a statement later Monday.

The family has since moved to Qatar, citing threats and a scholarship offered to Ahmed in the Persian Gulf country.

Ahmed spent this summer back in Texas, after spending eight months studying in Qatar.

During the school year, he says he visited the Islamic holy city of Mecca in Saudi Arabia with his family.  

He will return to Qatar next month to start 10th grade at Qatar Academy, a private school in Doha.  

Ahmed showed off the clock on Monday during a news conference with his parents and attorneys.

'For the safety of my family, I have to go back to Qatar, because right now it's not very safe for my family or for anyone who's a minority,' Ahmed said during Monday's news conference.

While in Texas, Ahmed said, he has to wear a hat, sunglasses and a hoodie. 

'I can't walk out of the house without being covered up because I might get shot because that happens here,' he said. 'I really love the States. It's my home. But I couldn't stay. I get death threats.'

He added: 'I have lost a lot of things. I lost my home, I lost my creativity because before I used to love building things but now I can't. I lost my security.'

The teen's parents, Mohamed Elhassan Mohamed and Muna Ibrahim, have not found work yet in Qatar, so the family of eight is living in government housing and on food vouchers, Mohamed said on Monday.  

Ahmed previously said he missed the diversity in America, and hoped his story could serve as a positive talking point about the challenges Muslims face.

'I want to help change Texas for a better state, and I hope that not just for Texas, but the entire world,' he said. 'People sometimes don't want to admit their mistakes, and sometimes the best thing to do is to help them change.'

The teenager received an outpouring of support on social media following his arrest, and President Barack Obama even invited him to the White House.

Ahmed said he built the clock in his bedroom in about 20 minutes using a circuit board, a digital display and several wires.

Ahmed said he first showed his invention to his engineering teacher, who gave him some advice.

'He was like, "That's really nice. I would advise you not to show that to other teachers."'

He kept the clock in his bag, but it started to beep later in the day during an English class. He showed his clock to the teacher who said it looked like a bomb.

He said he made the clock using a circuit board, a digital display and put it into a metal 'pencil box' [pencil box ???].

The teenager said he did not lock the box as he 'did not want it to look suspicious'. Instead he secured it with a cable.

Ahmed said the principal claimed his clock looked like a 'movie bomb' [uh......because it “did” look like a ‘movie bomb’].

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.

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[kscarbel2]

On 11/16/2015 at 9:24 AM, kscarbel2 said:

Obama calls for a “rejection by non-Muslims of the ignorance that equates Islam with terror.”

UN Summit on ISIS - September 29, 2015

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

(Not my list, but applicable to the topic)

The Paris attacks were Muslims
The Charlie Hebdo Attackers were Muslim
The Chattanooga Reserve Center Shooter was a Muslim
The Shoe Bomber was a Muslim
The Beltway Snipers were Muslims
The Fort Hood Shooter was a Muslim
The underwear Bomber was a Muslim
The U.S.S. Cole Bombers were Muslims
The Madrid Train Bombers were Muslims
The Bali Nightclub Bombers were Muslims
The London Subway Bombers were Muslims
The Moscow Theatre Attackers were Muslims
The Boston Marathon Bombers were Muslims
The Pan-Am flight #93 Bombers were Muslims
The Air France Entebbe Hijackers were Muslims
The Iranian Embassy Takeover, was by Muslims
The Beirut U.S. Embassy bombers were Muslims
The Libyan U.S. Embassy Attack was by Muslims
The Buenos Aires Suicide Bombers were Muslims
The Israeli Olympic Team Attackers were Muslims
The Kenyan U.S, Embassy Bombers were Muslims
The Saudi, Khobar Towers Bombers were Muslims
The Beirut Marine Barracks bombers were Muslims
The Besian Russian School Attackers were Muslims
The first World Trade Center Bombers were Muslims
The Bombay & Mumbai India Attackers were Muslims
The Achille Lauro Cruise Ship Hijackers were Muslims
The September 11th 2001 Airline Hijackers were Muslims

All Muslims are not not terrorist........but all terrorist are Muslims. You make the call.

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

The ISIS threat to America should not be taken lightly.

But having said that, to date, 99 percent of the murders in America were caused by.......non-Muslim Americans (Christians). For example: http://www.bigmacktrucks.com/index.php?/topic/40732-the-face-of-america-in-year-2015/

Stupidity has become the new normal.....is there still hope for our country? - http://news.yahoo.com/three-missouri-teens-charged-making-terrorist-threats-022916150.html

And then consider the vast number of students murdered in school by other students since the first instance at Columbine, plus the spike in domestic violence (e.g. Baltimore, Ferguson). http://news.yahoo.com/baltimore-homicides-top-300-worst-since-1999-011900066.html

And Detroit, well, the stratospheric level of crime there makes the Middle East almost appear peaceful.

Only a morally healthy and united America can successfully take on a serious global threat.

Terrorism has nothing to do with Islam

.

 

[david wild]

More jerk offs, how about when they get their heads cut off we just don't care,

[kscarbel2]

Canadian police kill radical Islamist

CBC News  /  August 10, 2016

A suspect being sought in connection with a terror threat, 24-year-old Aaron Driver, has been killed in a confrontation with police in Strathroy, Ontario.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) shot Driver after he detonated an explosive device that injured himself and another person. 

Police shot Driver after seeing he was going to detonate a second device.

The suspect planned to use a bomb to carry out a suicide bombing mission in a public area, but was killed in a police operation.

The RCMP were conducting an operation in a residential southwestern Ontario neighbourhood of Strathroy on Wednesday evening after it said credible information of a potential terrorist act was received earlier in the day.

"A suspect was identified and the proper course of action has been taken to ensure that there is no danger to the public's safety," the RCMP said.

Driver, a known ISIS supporter, agreed to the conditions of a peace bond in a Winnipeg court earlier this year after being arrested in June 2015. By agreeing to the peace bond, Driver was "consenting or acknowledging that there are reasonable grounds to fear that he may participate, contribute — directly or indirectly — in the activity of a terrorist group."

Driver caught the attention of CSIS, Canada's spy agency, in October 2014 when he was tweeting support for the militant group ISIS under the alias Harun Abdurahman. 

He also said the Parliament Hill attack in October of that year by Michael Zehaf-Bibeau was justified.

The Mounties planned to hold a news conference on Thursday to provide details.

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BBC  /  August 11, 2016

A man killed by police in the Canadian province of Ontario planned an attack within 72 hours, police said.

The United States FBI sent the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) a video appearing to show a person preparing for an attack.

Police quickly identified the suspect as Aaron Driver, 24, and apprehended him in a taxi in Strathroy, Ontario.

Driver, who was known to authorities for supporting ISIS, was killed by police.

Mike Cabana, RCMP deputy commissioner, said the FBI alerted Canadian authorities early on Wednesday about an "unknown individual that was clearly in the final stages of planning an attack using a homemade explosive device" in Canada.

"Obviously it was a race against time," Mr Cabana said.

"How quickly this was all established is actually a testament to the level of collaboration that exists between law enforcement agencies."

The tip included a "martyrdom" video showing a masked suspect, later identified as Driver, saying he planned to detonate an explosive device in an urban centre during morning or afternoon rush hour.

Police played the video at a news conference, showing a masked man denouncing Western "enemies of Islam," making reference to the attacks in Paris and Brussels and pledging his support to IS.

"You will pay for everything you brought against us," Driver said in the video.

Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS) first learned of Driver when he tweeted his support for IS under the alias Harun Abdurahman in October 2014.

Mr Cabana added that Driver had been in contact with a 15-year-old British boy who plotted to behead police officers at an Anzac Day parade in Australia.

Driver, who was arrested in Winnipeg last June for supporting IS on social media, was under a peace bond, or a court order restricting his movements.

Conditions of his peace bond included restricting access to a computer, cell phone, mobile device, social media and prohibiting him from having any contact with IS or other terrorist groups.

He was ordered to wear a GPS tracking device, but it was removed earlier this year.

Though his movements were restricted, RCMP officials said that he was not under constant surveillance.

Police said Driver detonated a device in the back of a taxi, injuring him before he was killed by police. The taxi driver was also hurt.

Driver was about to detonate a second device when police shot him.

.

[david wild]

Just another sicko that needed to be eliminated. congrats to the Mounties.

[kscarbel2]

Radical Islamist attack in Virginia

Associated Press  /  August 23, 2016

The FBI has launched a terrorism investigation after a radical Islamist attempted to behead a man and stabbed a woman outside an apartment complex in Virginia. 

The incident happened on Saturday night in Roanoke.

Witnesses say the suspect, 20-year-old Wasil Rafat Farooqui, shouted 'Allahu Akbar' (God is Great) while attempting to decapitate the male victim, who was able to fight off the armed assailant.

The man and woman suffered 'permanent impairment' following the random attack by he suspect who had previously tried to enter Syria for terrorist training. 

Police arrested Farooqui, a US-born citizen, when he walked into the same hospital as the two victims to seek medical treatment for his own injuries. 

The suspect has been charged with two counts of malicious wounding causing permanent impairment. He is being held without bond at the Western Virginia Regional Jail. 

Farooqui had previously traveled to Turkey intending to cross the border into Syria and joining ISIS.

A US intelligence source tells CBS News that Farooqui, who is believed to be self-radicalized, only got as far as Europe in his travels and returned home earlier this year. 

It was that aborted trip to Syria that made the FBI take notice of Farooqui.  

The incident in Virginia took place around 8pm at The Pines apartments in the 4300 block of Banbury Lane.

Adam Lee, special agent in charge of the FBI's Richmond Division, said: 'The FBI is working with the police department following the incident that occurred on Saturday evening.

'While I cannot discuss details of the investigation at this time, I do want to reassure the community that we are working to determine the nature of the incident.'

Police responded to emergency calls on Saturday saying that a male and a female were attacked as they attempted to enter The Pines apartment complex.

According to a statement released by police: “While officers were at the hospital with the victims, a male, subsequently identified as 20-year-old Wasil Farooqui of Roanoke County, came into the emergency room suffering from injuries of his own. He met the description of the suspect in the stabbing.”

Police say Farooqui “had no connection to the two victims”.

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[kscarbel2]

BBC  /  August 24, 2016

A 21-year-old British woman has died after she was attacked by a radical Islamist with a knife in front of 30 people at an Australian backpacker hostel.

A 30-year-old British man was also severely injured in the attack in Queensland state. He remains in Townsville Base Hospital in a critical condition with stab wounds.

A dog was also killed in the attack and a local man sustained minor injuries.

Police are investigating the possibility that the attacker was motivated by extremist views.

The 29-year-old French attacker yelled the Arabic phrase "Allahu akbar" (God is Great) during the attack.

"We are not ruling out any motivations at this early stage, whether they be political or criminal," said Queensland Police Deputy Commissioner Steve Gollschewski.

"Investigators will also consider whether mental health or drugs misuse factors are involved in this incident."

The stabbing took place at Shelley's Backpackers in Home Hill, a small town located about 100km south-east of Townsville that is a popular place for backpackers to pick up agricultural work.

Police said the French attacker was in Australia on a temporary visa and was not known to authorities.

[david wild]

I have cure for the problem, eat more pork, I call it Muslim repellant, or maybe elect Trump ??? or maybe let are Military do it's job, and not hamstring them with stupid restrictions, shoot to kill not scare.   

[HeavyGunner]

6 hours ago, david wild said:

I have cure for the problem, eat more pork, I call it Muslim repellant, or maybe elect Trump ??? or maybe let are Military do it's job, and not hamstring them with stupid restrictions, shoot to kill not scare.   

Yeah and this bozo media and "news" outlets crucified and twisted Trumps statement on putting a temporary moratorium on Muslim immigrants and securing our boarders. So tired of our crummy politicians and stupid poeple that pay no attention to what's really going on in the world and simply vote for handouts. 

[kscarbel2]

Associated Press  /  August 24, 2016

A Mississippi man who tried to travel to Syria with his fiancee to join ISIS was sentenced Wednesday to eight years in prison on federal terrorism charges.

US District Judge Sharion Aycock sentenced Muhammad Dakhlalla, 22, after he pleaded guilty in March to one count of conspiring to provide material support to a terrorist organization. He was also sentenced to 15 years of probation.

Dakhlalla faced up to 20 years in prison, $250,000 in fines and lifetime probation.

His fiancee, 20-year-old Jaelyn Young, was sentenced earlier this month to 12 years in prison and 15 years' probation, including mandatory mental health treatment.

Prosecutors say Young, who converted to Islam while studying at Mississippi State University, was the mastermind who talked Dakhlalla into going along. However, prosecutors said, Dakhlalla ultimately agreed to the plot.

Young and Dakhlalla attracted the FBI’s attention after making social media posts in support of ISIS.

The two were arrested in August 2015 before they could board a flight from Columbus, Mississippi, with tickets for Istanbul, Turkey. 

The couple had contacted undercover FBI agents posing as ISIS contacts in May, seeking online help in traveling to Syria.

Both have remained jailed in Oxford, Mississippi, since their arrests.

Dakhlalla is a 2015 psychology graduate of Mississippi State University who grew up in the college town of Starkville. His father, a native of Bethlehem, West Bank, is a prominent figure in the town's Muslim community and an occasional prayer leader at the mosque across the street from the family's house.

. 

[kscarbel2]

The Washington Post  /  August 24, 2016

A survivor of the 2007 Minneapolis bridge collapse that killed 13 people now faces terror charges.

Authorities say he traveled to Syria to join ISIS, departing the U.S. just a few weeks after collecting over $91,000 in settlement money for his injuries.

Mohamed Amiin Ali Roble, 20, was charged Wednesday with providing and conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

He was weeks shy of his 11th birthday when the school bus he was riding in plummeted about 30 feet as the bridge collapsed.

Roble, one of 145 people who were hurt, received the settlement funds on his 18th birthday.

Roble’s name first surfaced in May during the federal trial of three Minnesota men who were convicted of conspiring to join ISIS.

The bridge collapse wasn’t mentioned at trial, but The Associated Press made the connection using public records.

Court documents filed Wednesday show Roble received three court settlements when he turned 18 that totaled $91,654. That money included a $65,431 payment from the state’s settlement fund.

According to evidence presented in federal court in May, Roble flew to Istanbul in October 2014 as part of an itinerary that included a trip to China. He was due to return to the U.S. in June 2015, but never did, FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force Officer Joel Pajak testified.

“We received information that Mr. Roble ended up in Syria with his uncle, Abdi Nur,” Pajak testified.

The FBI affidavit says Roble withdrew more than $47,000 from his accounts over three months in 2014 while he was in Turkey.

“This large sum is consistent with previously mentioned CHS reports that Roble was financially supporting himself and other members of ISIS, including by purchasing vehicles to be used by members of ISIS,” the affidavit said. The “CHS” was a confidential informant working for the government.

Nur is among 10 men charged in the case and is believed to have joined ISIS. Nine others have been convicted on terror charges in Minnesota.

Prosecutors say the men were part of a group of friends in Minnesota’s Somali community who recruited and inspired each other to join ISIS.

The FBI says around twelve young men have left Minnesota to join militant groups in Syria in recent years.

The affidavit filed Wednesday says that Nur was last known to be living in Syria with ISIS.

Authorities say Roble and Nur accessed internet accounts from the same computer IP address within minutes of each other in May 2015, supporting that they were in the same location.

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[kscarbel2]

Radical Islamist handed 10-year jail term in Australia

The Guardian  /  September 4, 2016

A Melbourne teenager who plotted to behead a police officer in an Anzac Day terror attack will spend at least seven and a half years in prison.

Sevdet Ramadan Besim, now 19, pleaded guilty to a single terror-related charge over his 2015 plan to run down an officer and behead him in a rampage that would ultimately end in the teenager’s own death.

Besim was handed a 10-year jail sentence in the Victorian supreme court on Monday and must serve at least seven and a half before he is eligible for parole.

Justice Michael Croucher said Besim’s planned “putrid act” was aimed at advancing violent jihad, intimidating the government and striking fear into hearts of the wider community.

The murder plot would also terrify every law enforcement officer in the country and their loved ones, he said.

“To the vast majority of the community, it’s unfathomable an 18-year-old boy planned to kill a law enforcement officer, to crash into him with a car and then behead him with a knife,” Croucher said.

Besim chose Anzac Day to “make sure the dogs remember this as well as there fallen heros [sic]”.

He said he was “ready to fight these dogs on there [sic] doorstep”.

“I’d love to take out some cops,” Besim said in online chats with a UK teenager, where he discussed his deadly ideas. “I was gonna meet with them then take some heads ahaha.”

The court heard Besim was radicalised by older, influential extremists he met at the now defunct Al-Furqan Islamic Centre, including senior Islamic State recruiter Neil Prakash.

He was also greatly affected by the 2014 death of his friend Numan Haider and became alienated from mainstream society.

Haider, 18, was shot dead outside Endeavour Hills police station after stabbing two counter-terrorism officers. Besim was with him in the hours before the attack.

Corrections Victoria found a hand-drawn Islamic State flag in his jail cell last September as well as a collection of newspaper clippings about violent jihadis fighting overseas. One of the articles referred to Australian terrorist Khaled Sharrouf, who gained infamy after his young son was pictured holding a severed head.

Croucher said he was not persuaded Besim had rejected his radical beliefs, and protection of the community was an important consideration. “I’m not persuaded to accept ... he has in fact renounced violent jihadism.”

Besim pleaded guilty to one count of conspiring to do an act in preparation for or planning a terror act. The charge carries a sentence of life imprisonment.

Besim blew kisses to a large group of supporters as he was led from the dock.

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[kscarbel2]

An individual who needs to take a long walk down a short pier on the River Thames.

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Britain's Anjem Choudary jailed for ISIS support

CNN  /  September 6, 2016

Notorious hate preacher Anjem Choudary, who led a flag-burning demonstration outside the US embassy in London on the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks and voiced support for jihad, has been jailed for inviting support for ISIS [Why not expelled ?].

The former lawyer was sentenced to [a mere] five years and six months in prison.

His supporters shouted "Allahu Akhbar" as he was led away from the dock in London's Old Bailey court.

Choudary has courted controversy over two decades, skirting the edges of the law, backing extremism but with no proof of actually inciting violence. He earned the wrath of Britain's tabloid newspapers, making him - by his own admission -- the country's "most hated man."

In 2014, he pledged allegiance to ISIS and its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, bringing him under scrutiny and leading to his arrest.

British authorities say they were able to link him to the battlefields of Iraq and Syria; UK police say they don't know exactly how many of the 850 Britons who have traveled there were directly influenced by Choudary, but they say he is a "key" figure in ISIS's recruitment drive.

"These men have stayed just within the law for many years," Commander Dean Haydon, of the Metropolitan Police's Counter Terrorism Command, said when he was convicted.

"But there is no one within the counter terrorism world that has any doubts of the influence that they have had, the hate they have spread and the people that they have encouraged to join terrorist organizations."

ISIS pledge of allegiance

Despite his vocal support for the terrorist group, Choudary has previously insisted he is not a danger to the public. "I don't pose a threat to anyone in this country," he said in 2014."I pose an ideological or political threat, definitely."

But British authorities say Choudary has been linked to the radicalization of a string of the terrorists who have stood trial in the UK over the past 15 years [He’s an accessory to murder].

Together with Omar Bakri Muhammad, he founded the now outlawed radical Islamist organization Al-Muhajiroun. Bakri Muhammad was later banned from the UK over links to al Qaeda.

He was pictured at a protest with Michael Adebolajo, later convicted of the violent murder of British soldier Lee Rigby, and he was linked to Siddhartha Dhar, suspected by authorities of replacing Jihadi John as ISIS executioner.

But rather than traveling to Syria himself, he has stayed in Britain, where he was born and raised, and taken on the role of a vocal supporter for ISIS and radical Islam.

"Sometimes the propaganda and the verbal jihad is even stronger than the jihad of the sword," he says.

A jury at London's Old Bailey found Choudary (and his associate Mohammad Mizanur Rahman, 33) guilty of "inviting support for a proscribed organization" - a charge he had denied.

Who is Anjem Choudary?

Choudary used to party hard at university -- where, as a young law student, he was known as Andy -- but is now a hard-line Islamist, advocating the introduction of laws based on the teachings of the Quran.

"I believe that the Sharia is the best way of life," he says. "I believe that one day it will come to America and to the rest of the world."

If that comes to pass, he says: "of course, alcohol will be banned, drugs will be banned, pornography will be banned, gambling will be banned."

He is a vocal supporter of jihad

"I preach jihad everywhere in the world but how that manifests itself is different," he said while on bail in December 2015. "From here we can support the Muslims around the world. In other places Muslims are fighting."

In an earlier interview, he claimed: "The best death is one of martyrdom. I would love to die defending myself and my community, but of course death is in the hands of God; our life span will end when he decides."

Defending his own decision not to go to Syria, he explained: "My passport has been taken away ... I will continue to struggle, wherever I am."

He thinks the Islamic State is paradise

"There is peace. There's no corruption, there's no bribery, there's no usury, there's no alcohol, gambling -- all of the vices which you're used to in America and other parts of the world don't exist there."

"I believe that Abu Bakr Al Baghdadi -- may Allah protect him -- has brought in the dawn of a new era," he told CNN's Nima Elbagir while on bail awaiting trial in December 2015.

And that "moderate" Islam does not exist

"There is no such thing as a 'radical' or a 'moderate' form of Islam," he insists. "A woman is either pregnant or not pregnant.

"If you abide by Islam, you'll follow what is in the Quran and the traditions of the prophet."

He believes notorious acts of terrorism are justified

"What took place on 9/11 or 7/7, or on 3/7 in Madrid, I can see they have an Islamic justification," he says.

Choudary insists attackers from al Qaeda and ISIS are following the teachings of Islam - a viewpoint refuted by more moderate clerics.

"The Quran says, 'Whatever the prophet did, do it; whatever the prophet forbade, forbid it ... the prophet himself sent many people to assassinate others," he said in 2015.

In the wake of the Charlie Hebdo killings in Paris, he said the cartoonists who died had brought the attack on themselves by "dishonoring" the prophet Mohammed.

"I think the cause has an effect; if I need to condemn, I need to condemn the provocation ... I cannot condemn them [the killers] ... they have a juristic opinion which they are following."

He's an unapologetic propagandist for ISIS

"I am very proud and happy to lay the seeds of Islam in the hearts and minds of Muslim youths. There is nothing wrong with that," he insists.

"My love for Allah, his messenger, love for the sharia, love for the khilafah [caliphate], love for even jihad. This is part and parcel of Islam, however much people might demonize it."

.

[kscarbel2]

France: ‘Imminent’ attack thwarted

Reuters  /  September 8, 2016

Three radical Islamist women arrested on Thursday in connection with a car laden with gas cylinders found abandoned near Paris's Notre Dame cathedral were likely planning an imminent attack, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said.

One of the women had stabbed a police officer during the arrest before being shot and wounded. The attacker was the missing 19-year-old daughter of the car's owner.

The discovery on Saturday night of the Peugeot 607 loaded with seven gas cylinders, six of them full, prompted a counter-terrorism investigation.

No detonator had been found, though the vehicle also contained three jerry cans of diesel fuel, adding to concerns that there had been a plan to explode the car.

"These three women aged 39, 23 and 19 had been radicalised, were fanatics and were in all likelihood preparing an imminent, violent act," Cazeneuve said.

Seven people have now been detained since Tuesday in connection with the investigation.

The arrests took place in Boussy-Saint-Antoine, some 30 km (20 miles) south-east of Paris.

The Peugeot was found in the early hours of Sunday morning on a Seine riverside road, just meters from Notre Dame cathedral.

Documents with writing in Arabic were also found in the car, which had no registration plates and was left with its hazard lights flashing.

The car owner was taken into custody earlier this week but later released. He had gone to police on Sunday to report that his daughter had disappeared with his car.

His daughter, officials say, is known to police for wanting to leave for Syria, where scores of religiously radicalised people of French and other nationalities have joined the ranks of the Islamic State militant group.

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[kscarbel2]

The Sydney Morning Herald  /  September 11, 2016

Police in Australia have charged a 22-year-old man with committing a terrorist act and attempted murder in southwest Sydney.

They say he was inspired by ISIS.

The radical Islamist attacker, Ihsas Khan, 22, was charged at Parramatta local court with committing a terrorist attack and attempted murder after 59-year-old Wayne Greenhalg was stabbed multiple times in Minto, Sydney.

Khan repeatedly stabbed a 59-year-old Greenhalg in a suburban park, and then tried to stab a policeman.

A large knife has been seized from the accused, who will appear in court later on Sunday.

The victim, who was walking his dog in the park, suffered injuries to his body and hands, and remains in hospital in a serious condition.

Ihsas Khan, 22, allegedly stabbed a stranger in an Islamic State-inspired attack on Saturday afternoon, chasing his victim while repeatedly yelling "someone is going to die today," witnesses said.

Neighbours saw Khan waiting in a reserve on Ohlfsen Road for as long as 10 minutes before local man Wayne Greenhalgh, 59, came through the park on his daily walk.

Greenhalgh was then stabbed several times with a large knife, suffering near-fatal wounds to his hands and body. He had to run for his life into a neighbour's home before Khan tried to smash his way in through a glass door while shouting "Allah Akbar".

Deputy Commissioner Catherine Burn said it's possible that Mr Khan, who lives metres away from the site of the incident, attacked the stranger in an attempt to lure police and attack them.

When officers tried to arrest him outside the Ohlfsen Road home, Khan attempted to stab an officer through the window using a large knife.

Investigators have found information suggesting Khan had planned to commit an attack on Saturday that was inspired by ISIS.

"We know this person has strong extremist beliefs inspired by ISIS. What made him actually act yesterday we don't know," she said.

"There was clearly some planning yesterday that we do know about and that only came to light post the incident."

"This clearly was a very volatile, very violent situation that police and the members of the community were confronted with."

Police believe Khan, who also lives in Ohlfsen Road, didn't know his victim but Burn said he had "formed some views" about him in the immediate lead-up to the attack.

Greenhalgh's wife said Khan had approached them earlier in the day with a Koran in his hand.

"We thought he was going to ask us something and then he just turned around and went back home," she said.

Khan had come to the attention of police before. However, he was not on a terrorism watch list and was not considered "front and centre" of the authorities' growing list of major investigations.

Local police had been called on two occasions when Khan abused and threatened people in public for their non-Islamic behaviour.

He was also charged with maliciously damaging property when he destroyed an Australian flag in 2013, yet the matter was dealt with under the Mental Health Act.

Police say Khan is a hardline religious zealot and has serious mental health issues including schizophrenia.

When police searched his family home on Saturday night, they found an electronic copy of Islamic State's magazine Dabiq and evidence he had been searching for extremist YouTube videos.

In an interview with police, Khan said he knew the leader of ISIS and believed he was justified in killing people to protect and exact revenge for Sunni Muslims.

"He said he wanted to do the worst he could do," police said.

He told police he didn't know Greenhalgh but "disliked him" for reasons unknown.

The attack has underscored the challenges facing authorities as they grapple with rapidly radicalised lone wolves who are not on their radar until tragedy strikes.

"This is the new face of terrorism. This is the new face of what we deal with," Burn said. "There is an individual who is known to police for some matters and... for whatever reason becomes inspired to act. They are able to get some basic capability and act."

One resident on Ohlfsen Road said Khan had stood outside her home a few days ago yelling at her in Arabic.

Another resident said she saw him in the middle of the night pushing a wheel and axle and walking in and out of traffic.

"It could have been any of us," the resident said. "None of us can believe it."

The arrest comes two days after a teenage boy was charged with making threats at Sydney Opera House.