ISIS and the Three Day Ultimatum, I.S. Islam via You Tube, April 8, 2016
Archive for April 8, 2016
ISIS and the Three Day Ultimatum
April 8, 2016Obama: ‘Mr. Trump is not succeeding me’
April 8, 2016Obama: ‘Mr. Trump is not succeeding me’ Politico, Nolan D. McCaskill, April 8, 2016
(Did Obama just “endorse” Trump and/or Cruz? Perhaps they should thank him.– DM)
President Barack Obama is confident that Donald Trump won’t succeed him as president in 2017. | AP Photo
Democrats should thank Trump and Cruz for their honesty, Obama remarked, while also expressing that their rhetoric provides a look into what’s at stake in this election — which he said is about more than why Democrats can take America in a better direction than Republicans.
*******************
President Barack Obama in his most emphatic terms yet disputed the idea that Donald Trump will win this presidential election.
“I recognize that there is a deep obsession right now about Mr. Trump,” Obama told attendees of a Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee fundraiser Thursday evening in Santa Monica, California. “And one of you pulled me aside and squeezed me hard and said, ‘Tell me that Mr. Trump is not succeeding you.’ And I said, ‘Mr. Trump is not succeeding me.’”
Obama credited Trump and his primary rival, Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, for exposing “some of the nonsense that we’ve been dealing with in Congress on a daily basis.”
“People act as if these folks are outliers. But they’re not,” Obama said, pointing to what Republicans in general say during interviews, on talk radio and in town halls. “They’re saying stuff that’s just as wacky as what we’re hearing out of the presidential candidates. It’s just nobody was paying attention.”
Democrats should thank Trump and Cruz for their honesty, Obama remarked, while also expressing that their rhetoric provides a look into what’s at stake in this election — which he said is about more than why Democrats can take America in a better direction than Republicans.
Obama recalled that during trips in Democratic circles he’s praised for his work the last seven-plus years but told that people aren’t that excited about this election.
“And I say I have no patience for that. I say thank you very much, first,” Obama said. “But then I say to folks, we cannot be complacent, and we cannot be cynical, because the stakes are too high. And we should take pride in what we’ve accomplished over the last seven and a half years, not because every problem was fixed, but because it showed the steady progress that happens when people who love this country decide to change it.”
“And that should be a spur, a call to action,” he added. “And it starts not just at the presidential level, but in us recognizing the enormous power of Congress and the difference between a Nancy Pelosi being speaker of the House and a Paul Ryan being speaker of the House.”
Islamic University of Minnesota a Hotbed of Extremism
April 8, 2016Islamic University of Minnesota a Hotbed of Extremism, Investigative Project on Terrorism, John Rossomando, April 8, 2016
(But, but only an Islamophobe would object to this. –DM)
The Minneapolis-based Islamic University of Minnesota (IUM) has an extremism problem.
It is run by a man who used a recent sermon to invoke a Hadith commonly espoused by Muslim terrorists to kill Jews for causing “corruption in the land.” Waleed Idris al-Meneesey also has written that Muslims should place sharia law above “man-made” law.
During a November sermon, al-Meneesy referred to the Hadith, a saying from Islam’s prophet Muhammad, describing how Jews had been punished by God repeatedly for “corruption.”
“When the Children of Israel returned to cause corruption in the time of our Prophet Muhammad,” al-Meneesy said in a translation by the Investigative Project on Terrorism, “and they disbelieved him, God destroyed him at his hand. In any case, God Almighty has promised them destruction whenever they cause corruption.”
History will repeat itself, he said.
“The Prophet related that in the Last Days his Umma [people] would fight the Jews, the Muslims East of the Jordan River, and they [the Jews] west of [the Jordan River] … Even trees and stones will say: O Muslim, this is a Jew behind me, kill him, except for Gharqad trees, the trees of the Jews. Because of this they plant many of them…”
Jerusalem “remained in the hands of the Muslims until it fell into the hands of the Jews in 1387 AH [1967 AD], and has been a prisoner in their hands for 34 years [sic], but the victory of God is coming inevitably.”
Al-Meneesy, the IUM’s president and chancellor, also serves as an imam at a Bloomington, Minn. mosque where at least five young men left the United States to fight with terrorist groups al-Shabaab and ISIS.
IUM opened in 2007, claiming 160 students registered for classes, which cost $150 each. Current enrollment figures could not be found. IUM’s website describes programs ranging from two year associates degrees to full doctorates. A bachelor’s program helps students “acquire all essential Islamic knowledge.” The Ph.D. program costs $3,000, including thesis review, and is structured “along the lines of Universities in the Middle East and Africa.”
The university’s website cites recognition by Holy Quran University in the Sudan,founded in 1990 by the regime of Sudanese war criminal and President Omar al-Bashir. Holy Quran University’s leaders signed a 2002 declaration saying it was forbidden for Muslims to buy American and Israeli goods.
IUM also professes to serve as the official representative of Sunni Islam’s most important institution – Al-Azhar University, which has grown increasingly radical – in the U.S. and Canada. Al-Azhar officials have refused to condemn the Islamic State (ISIS) as apostates and heretics. According to Egypt’s Youm 7, IUM’s curriculum, offered to American students, endorses many practices used by ISIS. These include: “[K]illing a Muslim who does not pray, one who leaves Islam, prisoners and infidels within Islam [those who do not have a clearly specified creed or sect]. [It also allows] gouging their eyes and chopping off their hands and feet, as well as banning the construction of churches and discriminating between Muslims and Ahl al-Kitab [Christians and Jews], and insulting them at times.”
Al-Meneesy’s extremism goes further back than his anti-Semitic sermon. In 2007, he authored a paper for the Assembly of Muslim Jurists Association of America (AMJA), where he sits on the fatwa committee. Muslims should refrain from participating in non-Islamic courts that do not follow Islamic shariah law, particularly those in the West guided by “man-made” law, al-Meneesey wrote.
“The authority to legislate rests with Allah alone,” al-Meneesey wrote.
Anyone who uses law other than shariah, such as civil law, is a “corrupt tyrant,” the paper said. Judging by something other than shariah equals disbelief in Allah, injustice and sinfulness, he wrote.
Muslims should be forbidden from serving as judges in non-Muslim countries, except if they are able to rule “according to the judgments of Allah,” al-Meneesey wrote. Muslims who adhere to secular law and refuse to follow the shariah are infidels. Classical interpretations of the shariah say that apostates should be killed.
In 2008, the AMJA issued a declaration telling Muslims not to cooperate with law enforcement “in countries which do not rule by Allah’s dictates.” That includes the FBI. The declaration invoked many of the same arguments as al-Meneesey’s 2007 paper.
Meanwhile, al-Meneesey’s own Dar al-Farooq Islamic Center and Al-Farooq Youth & Family Center have produced at least five young members who left to fight for ISIS or al-Shabaab in Somalia. They include:
- Abdirizak Mohamed Warsame, 20, of Eagan, Minn. (He was the reputed leader of many ISIS recruits from Minnesota.);
- Abdi Nur of Minneapolis;
- Mohamed Abdihamid Farah of Minneapolis;
- Abdullahi Yusuf of Burnsville, Minn.;
- Yusra Ismail of Minneapolis;
It does not appear that al-Meneesy has addressed these cases publicly.
His radical views are not aberrations at IUM.
Instructor Sheikh Jamel Ben Ameur refused to denounce ISIS in the fall of 2014 amid stories about its brutality because news reports were “confusing” and “complicated,” the website MinnPost reported.
“We don’t need to accuse people of something we don’t know about. We don’t have to jump into judgment,” Ben Ameur told about 100 congregants at his Masjid al-Tawba in Eden Prairie, Minn.
Ben Ameur disputed the authenticity of the ISIS propaganda videos showing the beheadings of American journalists Steven Sotloff and James Foley, suggesting he didn’t know whether ISIS was responsible or not.
Another IUM instructor, Hasan Ali Mohamud, offered condolences after Israel killed Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin in 2004.
Writing under the name Sheikh Xasan Jaamici on the Minneapolis Somali community news website SomaliTalk, Mohamud said that Yassin had achieved martyrdom and that the “Hamas mujahideen” were fighting for the liberation of the Al-Aqsa mosque from Israeli control. His Facebook page suggests that Jaamici is his middle name.
Jews will face Muhammad’s wrath. Muslims who adhere to civil law over Islamic sharia are infidels. These are ideas supported by Waleed Idris al-Meneesey, who is responsible for a “university” teaching Muslims about their faith. Where will Islamic University of Minnesota students get a more modern and accepting education?
Israelis again advised to leave Turkey without delay
April 8, 2016Israelis again advised to leave Turkey without delay, DEBKAfile, April 8, 2016
The counterterrorism bureau in Jerusalem has again warned Israelis visiting Turkey of an “imminent, concrete threat” of a terror attack in Turkey and urged them to leave the country without delay. Meanwhile, they are advised to avoid crowd centers and tourist sites. People with relatives traveling in Turkey should call them to convey this warning.
Iran Continues Needling U.S. Over Navy Boat Seizure
April 8, 2016Iran Continues Needling U.S. Over Navy Boat Seizure, Front Page Magazine, Ari Lieberman, April 8, 2016
Pentagon remains mute.
On January 12, at approximately 9:23 a.m., a pair American navy riverine command boats or RCBs, set sail south from Kuwait to Bahrain, headquarters of the U.S. 5th Fleet. At 2:10 p.m., the navy received a report that the RCBs had been intercepted by the Iranians. At 2:45 p.m., the military reported that all communication with the RCB flotilla was severed. At 6:15 p.m., the U.S. Navy cruiser USS Anzio received a communication from the Iranians that the sailors were being detained. Coincidentally, their detention coincided with Obama’s scheduled State of the Union Address, which predictably, made absolutely no mention of the event.
The Pentagon claimed that the RCBs strayed into Iranian territorial waters as a result of a “navigation error” and thereafter, one of the RCBs experienced engine trouble. They were then greeted by a pair of Iranian speed boats. Photos and video of the incident released by the Iranians show that the Iranian boats were armed with nothing more than forward mounted Russian 14.5mm DShK machine guns of Korean War vintage.
At gunpoint, the Iranians transferred the boats and their crew to Farsi Island where they maintain a military base. The boats and crew members were released some 16 hours later during which time, the Iranians thoroughly inspected the RCBs. Two satellite phone sim cards were stolen by the Iranians and the Pentagon has not divulged what, if any, information they contained. The groveling John Kerry thanked his Iranian counterpart profusely for releasing the illegally detained sailors.
Aside from these bare facts, the Pentagon has not released any new information concerning the embarrassing incident, a humiliation unparalleled in modern U. S. naval history. As I previously noted, several troubling questions still remain unanswered.
First, how did an experienced naval crew, equipped with sophisticated navigational equipment and traveling a well-charted, straight forward path, encounter a “navigational error” that led them into the territorial waters of an extremely hostile entity? In the absence of additional information, the Pentagon’s explanation makes absolutely no sense.
There has been speculation that the Iranians employed a device that spoofed or tricked the RCB’s on-board GPS devices with fake signals, leading the sailors into believing that they were on a correct course when they had in fact, substantially deviated. If the Iranians had in fact employed such a device, it would not have been the first time. In 2011, they reportedly misdirected a U.S. drone operating in Afghanistan by hacking into its GPS. The drone and all of its technology fell into Iranian hands relatively intact. The Pentagon has not issued any comment on this theory and notably, has not issued any denial of this troublesome scenario.
Second, and even more troubling, is how did 10 American sailors surrender their heavily armed and armored RCBs to a vastly inferior Iranian force without firing a single shot? Why weren’t readily available military assets immediately deployed and dispatched after the military was notified of the hostile encounter? Who gave the commander the order to surrender and was the decision to surrender influenced by political considerations, notably Obama’s State of the Union Address?
While the Pentagon continues to remain mute on these and other crucial issues surrounding the seizure of the RCBs, the Iranians have been extremely talkative, missing no opportunity to humiliate the “Great Satan.” The list of outrages includes the following:
- The sailors were forced to kneel at gunpoint with their hands interlocked behind their heads. The display was videotaped.
- The commander was forced to apologize and acknowledge his “navigational error” and the graciousness of his Iranian captors on Iranian TV.
- The Iranians reenacted the surrender spectacle during one of their annual “Death to America” demonstrations.
- The sailors were subjected to rather intense interrogation.
- Iranian TV aired footage purporting to show an American sailor crying.
- A female sailor endured further humiliation and was forced into Sharia compliance by being made to wear a head covering.
- Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, publicly issued the Iranians responsible for capturing the RCB sailors with “medals of conquest.”
- Approximately two weeks after the sailors were freed; Iran released footage of one its drones shadowing the U.S. aircraft carrier Harry S. Truman. The drone incident occurred on the very day the sailors were captured. A U.S. Navy spokesman called the flyover “abnormal and unprofessional.”
- As noted, two satellite phone sim cards, likely containing classified information, were stolen by the Iranians.
- In mid-March, naval commander Gen. Ali Razmjou of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards announced that Iran had retrieved thousands of pages of information from laptops, GPS devices and maps used by U.S. Navy sailors.
It is likely that we have not heard the last from the Iranians on this humiliating saga. In fact, Razmjou said that the IRG will publish a book about the incident. The Iranian bombast stands in marked contrast to the Pentagon’s demurred, almost docile stance. The reasons for the Pentagon’s silence are not hard to fathom. Something happened in the Arabian Gulf on January 12 that if revealed, would likely cause considerable embarrassment to the Obama administration.
In mid-February, Sen. John McCain threatened to subpoena the sailors if the Pentagon was not more forthcoming about the details surrounding the incident. He correctly noted that it did not take that long to debrief the sailors, accused the administration of “dragging [its] feet” and gave the administration a deadline of March 1 to present more information. That deadline has come and gone but the public still remains in the dark thanks to the Obama administration’s attempts to obfuscate.
In the meantime, Iran continues to test ballistic missiles in defiance of UNSC resolution 2231 and flush with $150 billion, continues to operate as a malignant regional influence by providing sophisticated weapons to Hezbollah, the Houthi rebels and other assorted terrorist organizations. More ominously, Iran and its proxy Hezbollah have constructed a ballistic missile base in Syria near the Israeli border, greatly magnifying an already explosive situation.
Obama will ignore these and other Iranian transgressions because he recognizes that the JCPOA, his crowning foreign policy achievement, is on thin ice. For the very same reason, he will continue to order the Pentagon to obfuscate and remain silent on the circumstances surrounding the seizure of U.S. personnel in the Arabian Gulf because it will likely embarrass the administration and add to further congressional calls to toughen sanctions against the Islamic Republic.
Jordanian MP Whose Son Carried Out An ISIS Suicide Bombing Joins Fight Against Extremism
April 8, 2016Jordanian MP Whose Son Carried Out An ISIS Suicide Bombing Joins Fight Against Extremism, MEMRI, April 8, 2016
Muhammad Al-Dala’een, a 23-year-old medical student and the son of Jordanian MP Mazen Al-Dala’een, joined ISIS in July 2015[1] and carried out a suicide operation three months later in the city of Mosul, Iraq.[2] After learning that his son had become a member of ISIS, Mazen Al-Dala’een joined the fight against extremist ideologies and became active in preventing young Jordanians from joining ISIS and in returning those who have already joined. In an interview with a television channel associated with the Syrian opposition, he said that before his son’s death, he had even asked ISIS-affiliated elements to kill his son so that he would not carry out a suicide operation.[3]
It should be noted that Muhammad Al-Dala’een is not the first son of a Jordanian MP to join a terrorist organization. In January 2015 it was reported that the 25-year-old son of MP Falah Al-‘Abadi, a dentist by training, had been killed in Aleppo, Syria while fighting in the ranks of Jabhat Al-Nusra.[4]
In a December 16, 2015 interview with the online newspaper Arabi21, Mazen Al-Dala’een spoke of his son, of ISIS’s recruitment methods, and of his activity to prevent young people from joining this organization in Syria and Iraq. He criticized the media for not taking an active role in fighting extremism, and called to eliminate the rhetoric of radical religious organizations.
ISIS member Muhammad Al-Dala’een (above) and his father, Jordanian MP Mazen Al-Dala’een (Twitter.com/inbry19, December 6, 2015)
The following are excerpts from the interview:[5]
My Son Was No Extremist; He Even Opposed ISIS
Q: “Let us start with Muhammad’s story. How did he join ISIS?”
A: “At the beginning, Muhammad was not an extremist. After the death last year of the Jordanian pilot Mu’adh Al-Kasasbeh [whom ISIS burned alive], Muhammad [even] carried his picture at a protest in Al-Karak Governorate, and condemned the barbaric murder. He would always talk to me about how [ISIS] is a terrorist organization with no connection to the religion.
“However, when Muhammad travelled to the Ukraine, ISIS contacted him via his foreign wife, a recent convert to Islam. A group of people, including a resident of Azerbaijan, a Chechen woman, and a Tunisian man, convinced his wife that jihad was a duty and that they had to emigrate from the lands of unbelief to the lands of ‘the Islamic caliphate,’ taking advantage of her ignorance of Islam and persuading her that she would reach Paradise [if they did this]. She then convinced her husband [to adopt] this ideology, and thus they shared the same beliefs.
“On the night that Muhammad and his wife travelled to Turkey, and from there on to Syria and Mosul, I visited their home in the Kharkiv area in Ukraine. Had I even the slightest suspicion that he intended to join ISIS, I would have delayed them at the airport and taken the necessary steps to stop him from joining this criminal organization.
“I remember that Muhammad and I argued that night about ISIS, and two days later I was shocked [to discover] that he had joined the organization, travelling to Turkey and from there on to Syria and Mosul. [Later I was also shocked to discover] that he had carried out an attack, as they [ISIS] claim. Their claims might all be false, because I truly do not believe their stories, which could all be a deception. Even the claim that he detonated a car bomb could be false, since when people join such organizations, they fall completely under their control and lose [their own] free will.
“I have heard stories from young Jordanians who returned from the ranks of this organization and said that ISIS members held a gun to their heads when they spoke to their families on the phone, forcing them to say that the caliphate state is the state of true and proper Islam. This is a truly criminal terrorist organization, which has deviated from the foundations of our Islamic shari’a. The principles they use deviate from all the laws of Allah.”
I Work To Prevent Extremism; Media And Society Must Take A More Active Role In Combatting It
Q: “Have you seen the latest [ISIS] video featuring Muhammad titled ‘Al-Walaa Wal-Baraa?” [6]
A: “Yes, I have seen it – that was why they released it, because when I returned from the airport in Turkey, I was bringing back a young Jordanian woman from Al-Karak who had been recruited by ISIS, and that angered them. In fact, I managed to bring back two young women whom I intercepted there, not just that one – there is another young woman about whom no one is talking, in order to protect her family. In addition, I helped bring back a young Jordanian man from the Irbid area, after he fled from Syria to Turkey, and I coordinated [this matter] with the Jordanian Embassy in Ankara. [I did] all this in order to protect this generation, so that they are not led astray like my son was.
“I tell you that the threats in the video will not dissuade me. This video appeared on the organization’s websites nine weeks after [my son’s] death, and its message was clearly aimed at me. It will not dissuade me, since I am [a member] of parliament, and since it is part of my national duty to raise awareness among the young people [regarding the dangers of ISIS].
“Therefore, I have initiated [some] lectures to raise the awareness of this generation, which could be led astray by this criminal organization, and I hope this initiative will continue at all the universities. I think my message has been fully delivered.
“I also spoke in the media, but Jordanian media unfortunately operates by mobilizing momentarily for a specific cause [and then dropping it]. Our media should play a more active role in these difficult times, in order to distance this generation from extremist and terrorist thought.
“Furthermore, we must not leave the religious discourse as it was in the past, but must take steps to generate constant dialogue on prayer, fasting, alms, etc. [to prevent ISIS from monopolizing the discourse on them]. We must [eliminate] this social disease – this cancer, I call it – and change the nature of religious discourse. We must [deal with the problem] on the ground and come up with a strategy. [At present,] when there is a problem, everyone raises an outcry for a day or two and then [forgets] about it. We must deal with this extremist ideology – which could infiltrate into every home because social media are found in every home and because there are no limits on them, and [therefore] anyone can be exposed to [the danger of] joining this organization.”
Q: “Did Muhammad’s mother also see the ‘Al-Walaa Wal-Baraa video?”
A: “Yes, she saw it, and Allah helped her [to cope with it]. She is hurt and pained to this day. She still mourns him every day, [finding comfort] in writing [about him].”
Social Media Are ISIS’s Main Means Of Recruitment – And Via Them The Group Promises Rewards In Paradise
Q: “You said that you had managed to rescue young men and women recruited by ISIS. How were they recruited?”
A: “Social media play a central role in recruiting these young people, who visit the pages of the terrorist organization ISIS, which exploits social hardships – whether poverty or unemployment – in order to convince these young people that it will take care of them and provide for all their needs in life, including housing and money. [ISIS] specifically targets young people with certain religious tendencies, and shows them jihadi videos. It convinces them that they will reach Paradise, that their actions are in line with the shari’a, and that the jihad operations that they carry out will bring them the reward of the black-eyed virgins [in Paradise], and so on. This persuasion does not happen overnight; it takes many months, maybe four or five months, even a year, depending on the person and how inclined he is to accept the ideology that [ISIS] offers on social media.
“One case I encountered was that of a 24-year-old medical student at the Islamic Studies University – he was an intellectual. ISIS targets educated and enlightened people such as doctors, engineers, and lawyers. It looks to these fields in order to show the world that its members are not just unemployed crooks, as others tend to think, but rather the opposite.”
Q: “Are ISIS sleeper cells recruiting in Jordan?”
A: “This organization is not only in Jordan, it has sleeper cells around the world – in Syria, Iraq, Turkey, Egypt, and Libya. They recruit using liaisons, who could be ISIS members in Jordan using assumed names on social media – as happened with the young woman recruited in Al-Karak. A short time after they join [the organization] via the liaisons, they swear an oath of fealty to the caliph [Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi], which… means mostly that they [the young people] are now committed to the organization and must carry out its orders – to the extent that they are distanced from their families and often even ordered to kill a relative.”
Q: “How do those who return from the ranks of the organization depict [it]?”
A: “I heard the story of the young woman who returned from Turkey, and it was the complete opposite of the one to which the organization pretends. She said that the organization attaches no importance to the religion, regardless of what it presents in [its] jihadi videos. As soon as they enter Al-Raqqa [ISIS’s Syrian stronghold], the young people are cut off from their families, and the organization controls all aspects of their lives, monitors their movements, and enrolls them in shari’a classes, because it is trying to brainwash them. Anyone who objects is sent on a suicide operation, she told me.
“There is also the story of the family of the young man from Al-Salt, who went to Al-Raqqa and discovered that this group [ISIS] is indecent and is distant from Islam. He tried to leave, but the organization’s members discovered it, and wanted to execute him, putting the orange jumpsuit on him. However, he begged the prison guards not to kill him, saying that he was an only child; he bribed them with $3,000, fled to Turkey, returned to Jordan, and is now in prison.”
There Are 3,000 Jordanians In ISIS And Other Groups Like It
Q: “Have you any information on the number of Jordanians in the ranks of ISIS?”
A: “There are no official numbers, but experts estimate that some 3,000 Jordanians are members of ISIS and [other] extremist organizations, and that some 420 have been killed. About 10 people from Al-Karak governorate have been killed, and the number of Jordanians who joined ISIS from the city of Al-Karak is over 50; most of them are in Syria.”
__________________________
[1] Arabi21.com, July 9, 2015.
[2] Al-Rai (Jordan), October 3, 2015.
[3] Alaan.tv, November 8, 2016.
[4] Al-Sabil (Jordan), January 29, 2015.
[5] Arabi21.com, December 16, 2015.
[6] See MEMRI JTTM report In ISIS Video, Son Of Jordanian MP Turned Suicide Bomber Threatens Jordanian King, MPs, December 7, 2015. Al-Walaa wal-baraa is the Islamic concept of loyalty to Muslims and rejection of non-Muslims, which is a fundamental principle of Salafi-jihadi doctrine.
Rising Threats: Shrinking Military
April 8, 2016Report: Hamas taps over 1,000 terror operatives to dig Gaza tunnels
April 8, 2016Report: Hamas taps over 1,000 terror operatives to dig Gaza tunnels, Jerusalem Post, Staff, April 7, 2016
A Palestinian fighter from the Izz el-Deen al-Qassam Brigades, the armed wing of the Hamas movement, gestures inside an underground tunnel in Gaza August 18, 2014. A rare tour that Hamas granted to a Reuters reporter, photographer and cameraman appeared to be an attempt to dispute Israel’s claim that it had demolished all of the Islamist group’s border infiltration tunnels in the Gaza war. Picture taken August 18, 2014. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem
Hamas employs more than 1,000 operatives to excavate underground tunnels in the Gaza Strip, Israel Radio reported Thursday.
According to the report, the terrorist organization invests hundreds of thousands of dollars each month in the digging activities, paying each operative engaged in the process some 300 to 400 dollars a month.
Hamas also heavily invests in smuggling building materials, including raw materials and excavation machinery from Egypt and Israel.
To prepare for a possible future incursion with Israel, the Palestinian terrorist organization’s elite ‘Nukhbah’ unit carries out drills practicing different scenarios simulating offenses in the tunnels near the border fence with Israel. Several of the members of the unit have been killed in recent months in tunnel collapses in the coastal Palestinian enclave, according to the Israel Radio report.
The report cited Israeli officials as saying that the funds Hamas uses to invest in rebuilding its network of underground passageways could instead be used to construct full neighborhoods in the Strip.
Earlier this week, Israel temporarily suspended the delivery of cement to Gaza’s private sector after it discovered that Hamas was siphoning the material, which is intended to rebuild destroyed houses.
The Office of the Coordinator of Government Activities in the Territories (COGAT) monitors the flow of cement into Gaza to ensure that Hamas has not used it to construct tunnels to attack Israel.
On Friday, COGAT posted on its Arabic Facebook page that it suspended the transfer of cement to Gaza because some deliveries had been diverted by Imad Elbaz, the deputy director-general for Hamas’s economics office.
The Hamas deputy political bureau chief, Ismail Haniyeh, vowed in February that his group will never stop digging tunnels and upgrading rockets in preparation for any possible confrontation with Israel.
During the Operation Protective Edge in 2014, the IDF said it had destroyed all the known terror and infiltration tunnels in Hamas’s vast subterranean network .
In March, The Jerusalem Post learned from Palestinian sources that some of the terror operatives digging the tunnels believed Israel was involved in at least some of the various recent tunnel collapses that claimed the lives of several Hamas men.
Official reports from Gaza described the various collapses in recent months as “work accidents” or being caused by flooding from heavy rains; however there are many who believe Israel is responsible.
DHS: Airport Workers Suspected of Terror Ties have All been Vetted
April 8, 2016DHS: Airport Workers Suspected of Terror Ties have All been Vetted, Front Page Magazine, Robert Spencer, April 8, 2016
Relax. After reports surfaced last month that dozens of private airline employees may have had terror ties, Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson this week set the record straight: “It’s not that they’re suspected terrorists. It’s that they hadn’t been vetted through all available databases. We have since corrected that problem and the cases have been resolved.” There is just one problem: this is not really a problem that can be corrected.
This came after the Cox Washington News Bureau reported that there were no fewer than 73 airport workers with possible terror ties, working at airports including Sea-Tac Airport in Seattle, Hartsfield-Jackson Airport in Atlanta, Logan Airport in Boston, Orlando International Airport in Florida, Memphis International Airport in Tennessee, and others. But Johnson boasted: “We’re doing a better job of consulting all of the right databases when it comes to airport security and a host of other things.”
Is that so? How reassuring. Presumably Johnson and his team have consulted their extensive database of card-carrying Islamic State members, and have diligently compared it to their list of airport employees, and have removed those who appeared on both lists. The only problem with this scenario, of course, is that there is no such database, or anything comparable to it. There is simply no database that Johnson could consult that would enable the Department of Homeland Security to remove everyone with terror ties from airport jobs.
The impossibility of doing this is compounded by the fact that the Islamic State deliberately recruits people who have no criminal records, and instructs its operatives to blend in with the larger society, not wearing caftans or carrying around Qur’ans or even going to mosque – in other words, to obscure any possible information that might show up on DHS databases.
Compounding the impossibility of screening out people with terror ties from airport jobs is the fact that the Obama administration is bound as a matter of policy to ignore and deny the terrorists’ motivating ideology – so how can it vet for it? This goes back to October 19, 2011, Farhana Khera of Muslim Advocates, wrote a letter to John Brennan, who was then the Assistant to the President on National Security for Homeland Security and Counter Terrorism. The letter was signed not just by Khera, but by the leaders of virtually all the significant Islamic groups in the United States: 57 Muslim, Arab, and South Asian organizations, many with ties to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood, including the CAIR, ISNA, MAS, the Islamic Circle of North America (ICNA), Islamic Relief USA; and MPAC.
The letter denounced what it characterized as U.S. government agencies’ “use of biased, false and highly offensive training materials about Muslims and Islam,” and emphasized that this was an issue of the utmost importance: “The seriousness of this issue cannot be overstated, and we request that the White House immediately create an interagency task force to address this problem, with a fair and transparent mechanism for input from the Muslim, Arab, and South Asian communities, including civil rights lawyers, religious leaders, and law enforcement experts.”
The task force was needed because “while recent news reports have highlighted the FBI’s use of biased experts and training materials, we have learned that this problem extends far beyond the FBI and has infected other government agencies, including the U.S. Attorney’s Anti-Terrorism Advisory Councils, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, and the U.S. Army. Furthermore, by the FBI’s own admission, the use of bigoted and distorted materials in its trainings has not been an isolated occurrence. Since last year, reports have surfaced that the FBI, and other federal agencies, are using or supporting the use of biased trainers and materials in presentations to law enforcement officials.”
Khera complained that my books could be found in “the FBI’s library at the FBI training academy in Quantico, Virginia”; that a reading list accompanying a powerpoint presentation by the FBI’s Law Enforcement Communications Unit recommended my book The Truth About Muhammad; and that in July 2010 I “presented a two-hour seminar on ‘the belief system of Islamic jihadists’ to the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) in Tidewater, Virginia,” and “presented a similar lecture to the U.S. Attorney’s Anti-Terrorism Advisory Council, which is co-hosted by the FBI’s Norfolk Field Office.”
These were supposed to be terrible things because I was bigoted and hateful. But many of the examples Khera adduced of “bigoted and distorted materials” involved statements that were not actually bigoted and distorted at all, but simply accurate. What was distorted was Khera’s representation of them. For instance, Khera stated,
A 2006 FBI intelligence report stating that individuals who convert to Islam are on the path to becoming “Homegrown Islamic Extremists,” if they exhibit any of the following behavior:
- “Wearing traditional Muslim attire”
- “Growing facial hair”
- “Frequent attendance at a mosque or a prayer group”
- “Travel to a Muslim country”
- “Increased activity in a pro-Muslim social group or political cause”
But the FBI intelligence report Khera purported to be describing didn’t actually say that converts to Islam were necessarily “on the path” to becoming “extremists” if they wore traditional Muslim attire, grew facial hair, and frequently attended a mosque; it simply included these behaviors among a list of fourteen indicators to “identify an individual going through the radicalization process.” Others included “travel without obvious source of funds’; “suspicious purchases of bomb making paraphernalia or weapons”; “large transfer of funds, from or to overseas”; and “formation of operational cells.” Khera selectively quoted and misrepresented the list to give the impression that the FBI was saying that devout observance of Islam led inevitably and in every case to “extremism.”
Despite the factual accuracy of the material about which they were complaining, the Muslim groups signing the letter demanded that the task force “purge all federal government training materials of biased materials”; “implement a mandatory re-training program for FBI agents, U.S. Army officers, and all federal, state and local law enforcement who have been subjected to biased training”; and more—to ensure that all that law enforcement officials would learn about Islam and jihad would be what the signatories wanted them to learn.
Brennan seemed amenable to that. He took Khera’s complaints as his marching orders. In a November 3, 2011, letter to Khera, that—significantly—was written on White House stationery, Brennan made no attempt to defend counter-terror materials and procedures, but instead accepted Khera’s criticisms without a murmur of protest and assured her of his readiness to comply. “Please allow me to share with you the specific steps we are taking,” Brennan wrote to Khera, “to ensure that federal officials and state, local and tribal partners receive accurate, evidence-based information in these crucial areas.”
“I am aware,” Brennan went on, “of recent unfortunate incidents that have highlighted substandard and offensive training that some United States Government elements have either sponsored or delivered. Any and all such training runs completely counter to our values, our commitment to strong partnerships with communities across the country, our specific approach to countering violent extremist recruitment and radicalization, and our broader counterterrorism (CT) efforts. Our National Strategy for Empowering Local Partners to Prevent Violent Extremism in the United States highlights competent training as an area of primary focus and states that ‘misinformation about the threat and dynamics of radicalization to violence can harm our security by sending local stakeholders in the wrong direction and unnecessarily creating tensions with potential community partners.’ It also emphasizes that our security is ‘inextricably linked to our values,’ including ‘the promotion of an inclusive society.’”
Brennan assured Khera that all her demands would be met: “Your letter requests that ‘the White House immediately create an interagency task force to address this problem,’ and we agree that this is necessary.” He then detailed other specific actions being undertaken, including “collecting all training materials that contain cultural or religious content, including information related to Islam or Muslims.” In reality this material wouldn’t just be “collected”; it would be purged of anything that Farhana Khera and others like her found offensive—that is, any honest discussion of how Islamic jihadists use Islamic teachings to justify violence. Brennan assured Khera that he saw the problem just as she did, and that remedies were being implemented quickly: “We share your concern over these recent unfortunate incidents, and are moving forward to ensure problems are addressed with a keen sense of urgency. They do not reflect the vision that the President has put forward, nor do they represent the kind of approach that builds the partnerships that are necessary to counter violent extremism, and to protect our young people and our homeland. America’s greatest strength is its values, and we are committed to pursuing policies and approaches that draw strength from our values and our people irrespective of their race, religion or ethnic background.”
The alacrity with which Brennan complied was unfortunate on many levels. Numerous books and presentations that gave a perfectly accurate view of Islam and jihad were purged — and the Assistant to the President on National Security for Homeland Security and Counter Terrorism was complying with demands from quarters that could hardly be considered authentically moderate. Now, four and a half years later, this entrenched policy of the U.S. government ensures that people with potential terror ties simply cannot be vetted, since the administration is bound as a matter of policy to ignore what in saner times would be taken as warning signs.
Johnson’s soothing words are thus null and void. There could be jihadis working in airports all over the U.S. – and no one will know until they strike.
Trump’s new convention manager speaks out
April 8, 2016Trump’s new convention manager speaks out, CNN via You Tube, April 8, 2016
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