Richard Engel on Obama’s Strategy Against Islamic State: The Definition of Stupidity, Washington Free Beacon via You Tube, May 21, 2015
Archive for the ‘Islamic State’ category
Strategic Failures, the US and the Fall of Ramadi
May 21, 2015Strategic Failures, the US and the Fall of Ramadi, Clarion Project, Ryan Mauro, May 21, 2015
Islamic State fighters celebrate their take over of Ramadi with a victory ‘parade.’ (Photo: Islamic State social media)
The U.S. must correct its strategy by sidelining Iranian-backed militias and terrorists, leveraging influence with the Iraqi government and significantly increasing assistance to the Anbar tribes, Kurds, Iraqi government and to the persecuted Christian minority that is forming its own self-defense force.
Recent history has shown that the Iraqi government will choose the U.S. over Iran if compelled.
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The Islamic State (ISIS) has captured Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s Anbar Province, reportedly “terrifying” Iraqi officials who now foresee a “tsunami of international terror.” It is an important achievement for the terrorist group aimed at pre-empting a potential Sunni tribal uprising.
The Sunni tribes in Anbar Province were critical to the success of the 2007 “surge” that ousted the Islamic State’s predecessor, Al-Qaeda in Iraq. The deterioration in the relationship between these tribes and the central Iraqi government was likewise critical to the terrorists’ comeback in Iraq.
The Islamic State remembered these lessons and acted quickly as the Iraqi government began training tribal fighters and the U.S. defense budget allotted $179 million to Kurdish and Sunni tribal forces. The U.S. forgot these lessons and has long rejected Sunni and Kurdish pleas for direct aid to fight the Islamic State.
The Obama Administration is now planning to change course and directly arm and train the Iraqi Sunni tribes after the fall of Ramadi. The White House previously chose to work only through the central Iraqi government that has given the Kurds and Sunnis inadequate support.
A delegation of 11 Sunni tribal leaders, including Sheikh Ahmed Abu Risha, the President of the Anbar Awakening Council, flew to the U.S. on January 18 to plead for direct assistance. Former President George W. Bush called Abu Risha and listened to his complaints for 20 minutes and offered to help. Administration officials were less willing. One tribal official said, “I wouldn’t call it the ‘cold shoulder,’ but it certainly was a cool one.”
The Obama Administration told them that it would only work through the elected central government. Its viewpoint was that working with forces outside the government’s authority undermines the Iraqi leadership and threatens the country’s unity.
That standpoint ignores what was learned after the fall of Saddam Hussein. Nothing threatens Iraq’s unity and the government’s authority more than instability. Direct U.S. aid to the Sunni tribes helped save Iraq from disintegration into sectarian enclaves ruled by terrorists and militias.
The Islamic State struck Ramadi during a sandstorm that delayed American air support. Former U.S. Central Command advisor Ali Khedery says that a Kurdish member of parliament informed him that 6,000 Iraqi Security Forces fled when faced with a mere 150 Islamic State fighters. About 500 Iraqi security personnel and civilians died in two days. The Iraqi officials spoke straight forwardly and admitted that the current strategy is failing.
The Pentagon says it has finished training about 7,000 Iraqi Security Forces and another 3-4,000 are in the process of training, but training won’t solve the problem of collapsing Iraqi forces. The U.S. trained the Iraqis from 2003 until the withdrawal in 2011. The strategy of waiting for the Iraqi security forces to become strong enough to stabilize the country is the same strategy that failed before the surge.
Iraqi personnel flee because they don’t want to die for a lost cause or to fight for a replacement worse than the Islamic State.
The Iraqi Security Forces face a fundamental disadvantage when battling the Islamic State: They want to live and their enemies want to die. This disadvantage is further compounded by a lack of confidence. If given the choice to die fighting in a losing battle or to flee and perhaps regroup later with better chances of victory, they will choose the latter.
An Anbar official placed the blame on the Iraqi government, telling CNN, “If 10% of the government’s promises had been implemented, Ramadi would still in our hands and the Islamic State wouldn’t dare to be anywhere near the city.”
Iraqi Sunnis are faced with a terrible choice. The Iranian-backed Shiite militias are often nicknamed “Shiite ISIS” because their crimes are comparable to ISIS but are less known by the West because they aren’t broadcasted. However, the Anbar Provincial Council is officially welcoming them now out of desperation and perhaps an awareness that their opposition will be ignored anyway.
The Shiite militias should be expected to mistreat the local Sunnis the second after the Islamic State is expelled or even during the fighting. Tribal support is far from unanimous. The son of the largest tribe’s leader is in the U.S. asking for support right now and bluntly warned that sending the Shiite militias into Anbar Province “will cause a civil war.”
The New York Times has noticed the change in American attitude towards the Shiite militias. Pentagon spokesperson Col. Steve Warren said, “As long as they’re controlled by the central Iraqi government, there’s a place for them.” Yet, only two months ago, Central Command Commander General Austin said, “I will not—and I hope we will never—coordinate or cooperate with Shiite militias.”
The U.S. must correct its strategy by sidelining Iranian-backed militias and terrorists, leveraging influence with the Iraqi government and significantly increasing assistance to the Anbar tribes, Kurds, Iraqi government and to the persecuted Christian minority that is forming its own self-defense force.
Recent history has shown that the Iraqi government will choose the U.S. over Iran if compelled.
In March, the U.S. withheld support to Iraqi forces fighting the Islamic State in Tikrit because of the involvement of Iranian-backed militias and the Revolutionary Guards Corps. The Iranian proxies stalled and could move no further, displaying the value of U.S. air support. The Iraqis chose America and the Iranians were removed from the battle. U.S. aid delivered the victory that the Iranians could not.
The Iraqis had been asking for U.S. for more help including possibly advisors on the ground since October 2013. By March 2014, the Iraqis were asking for airstrikes on the Islamic State. The Islamic State blitz into Iraq began in June.
The Iraqi ambassador complained that the U.S. had denied requests for help including Apache helicopter sales, thereby putting Iraq “in an uncomfortable position in seeking support from whoever is available on the ground.” He emphasized that the “U.S. is our strategic partner of choice.”
Iran opposed the return of U.S. soldiers on the ground in Iraq as advisors. The Iranian-backed cleric Moqtada al-Sadr threatened to attack the advisors and two other Iranian-backed militias alsoforcefully opposed U.S. involvement. The Iraqi government went ahead anyway.
Even now, Iraqi Prime Minister Haider al-Abadi is in Russia and talking to China and Iran about delivering arms that the U.S. refuses to provide.
The U.S. needs to give the Iraqi government a clear choice: Iran or us.
The Iraqi government should be put on notice. If it is willing to restrain the Shiite militias and work with us to disband them, then we will provide all necessary aid. We will help negotiate with the Sunni tribes so their local forces operate within a national framework.
If the Iraqi government chooses Iran, then we will cut our aid and redirect it towards our Sunni, Kurdish and Christian partners while maintaining contact with friendly Shiites. We will not act as the air force for Iranian proxies. If necessary, we will talk about a role for the forthcoming Arab force led by Egypt to replace yours.
It is positive news that the Obama Administration is reversing its stance and will directly help the Sunni tribes, but the anti- Islamic State strategy requires an anti-Iran strategy.
Ramadi’s fall opens ISIS road to Baghdad. Jordan warns US air strikes won’t stop the terrorists’ advance
May 18, 2015Ramadi’s fall opens ISIS road to Baghdad. Jordan warns US air strikes won’t stop the terrorists’ advance, DEBKAfile, May 18, 2015
Jordan’s King Abdullah has warned the Obama administration in an urgent message that US air strikes alone won’t stop the Islamic State’s advances in Iraq and Syria and, what is more, they leave his kingdom next door exposed to the Islamist peril. ISIS would at present have no difficulty in invading southern Jordan, where the army is thin on the ground, and seizing local towns and villages whose inhabitants are already sympathetic to the extremist group. The bulk of the Jordanian army is concentrated in the north on the Syrian border. Even a limited Islamist incursion in the south would also pose a threat to northern Saudi Arabia, the king pointed out.
Abdullah offered the view that the US Delta Special Forces operation in eastern Syria Saturday was designed less to be an effective assault on ISIS’s core strength and more as a pallliative to minimize the Islamist peril facing Saudi Arabia, Jordan and the Gulf emirates.
DEBKAfile’s Washington sources report that US officials refused to heed Abdullah’s warning and tried to play it down, in the same way as Secretary John Kerry tried Monday, May 18, to de-emphasize to the ISIS conquest of Ramadi, the capital of Iraq’s largest province.
At a news conference in Seoul, Kerry dismissed the Islamists’ feat as a “target of opportunity” and expressed confidence that, in the coming days, the loss “can be reversed.”
The Secretary of State’s words were unlikely to scare the Islamists, who had caused more than 500 deaths in the battle for the town and witnessed panicky Iraqi soldiers fleeing Ramadi in Humvees and tanks.
Baghdad, only 110 km southeast of Ramadi, has more reason to be frightened, in the absence of any sizeable Iraqi military strength in the area for standing in the enemy’s path to the capital.
The Baghdad government tried announcing that substantial military reinforcements had been ordered to set out and halt the Islamists’ advance. This was just whistling in the dark. In the last two days, the remnants of the Iraqi army have gone to pieces – just like in the early days of the ISIS offensive, when the troops fled Mosul and Falujah. They are running away from any possible engagement with the Islamist enemy.
The Baghdad-sourced reports that Shiite paramilitaries were preparing to deploy to Iraq’s western province of Anbar after Islamic State militants overran Ramadi were likewise no more than an attempt to boost morale. Sending armed Shiites into the Ramadi area of Anbar would make no sense, because its overwhelmingly Sunni population would line up behind fellow-Sunni Islamist State conquerors rather than help the Shiite militias to fight them.
Iran’s Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan, who arrived precipitately in Baghdad Monday, shortly after Ramadi’s fall, faces this difficulty. Our military sources expect him to focus on a desperate effort to deploy Shiite militias as an obstacle in ISIS’s path to Baghdad, now that the road is clear of defenders all the way from Ramadi.
In Amman, King Abdullah Sunday made a clean sweep of senior security officials, firing the Minister of Interior, the head of internal security (Muhabarat) and a number of high police officers. They were accused officially of using excessive violence to disperse demonstrations in the southern town of Maan.
The real reason for their dismissal, DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources disclose, is the decline of these officials’ authority in the Maan district, in the face of the rising influence of extremist groups identified with Al Qaeda and ISIS, in particular.
First US ground operation in Syria kills ISIS oil chief – as Islamists advance on three new fronts
May 16, 2015First US ground operation in Syria kills ISIS oil chief – as Islamists advance on three new fronts, DEBKAfile, May 16, 2015
US Special Operations forces in Jordan.
America’s first ground operation in the five years of Syrian war was directed against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – ISIS. US sources report that Special Operations forces mounted a raid Saturday, May 16, on an ISIS convoy in the Deir a-Zour district of eastern Syria, and killed senior Islamist commander and oil and gas chief, Abu Sayyaf, when he resisted capture. His Iraqi wife, Umm Sayyaf, was taken to Iraq for interrogation by the US troops, all of whom returned safely.
Abu Sayyaf’s importance for the Islamist group cannot be overrated as the man in charge of its commandeered oil fields in Syria and Iraq. He also managed their overseas sales in a thriving black market, netting an estimated $5million a day for bankrolling the group’s wars.
Catching him alive was the preferred object of the raid. Under interrogation, he would have been a valuable source of information on the working of the group’s illicit oil and gas trade, how it was managed, the identities of its customers and routes of payment to the ISIS war chest.
DEBKAfile’s military sources report that the US raid was staged from Jordan, not Iraq. In normal circumstances, the Jordanians don’t permit US ground or air operations to be staged directly from their territory. However, a joint 10-day US-Jordanian war game, Eager Lion, was in progress in the Hashemite Kingdom. Some 10,000 troops from various countries, including the US, were practicing special operations against ISIS. And so the US unit was ready to hand a short distance from a high-value target at Deir a-Zour.
DEBKAfile adds that the operation came just two days after the Arab Gulf leaders’ summit convened by President Barack Obama ended at Camp David Thursday, May 14. The war on ISIS was a key item on their agenda.
Sources in Washington disclose that the order for the raid came directly from President Barack Obama on the advice of national security council heads in the White House. The troops landed in the middle of a hotbed of fighting between the Syrian army and ISIS. They were no doubt lifted in and out of the scene at speed by helicopter.
The Islamists are in full flight on three Syrian fronts (as well as the same number in Iraq). The group has overrun Al-Sina’a, Ar-Rusafa and Al-Omal in this district, as well as seizing Saker Island in the middle of the Euphrates River north of Deir a-Zour, from which it is shelling the largest Syrian air base in eastern Syria.
Islamist fighters are also advancing on Syria’s ancient city of Palmyra (Tadmor). This is a 2,000-old desert site with precious remains of antiquity, but also home to Bashar Assad’s infamous Tadmor prison, notorious for torture and summary executions.
ISIS targets near this ancient town are the biggest Syrian air base in central Syria and more oil fields. Most of the Iranian and Russian air transports delivering military equipment for the Syrian army and Hizballah land at this base.
The Islamists are additionally targeting Syrian military positions in eastern Homs.
Key Iraqi town of Ramadi falls to ISIS, along with Jubbah next door to US training base
May 15, 2015Key Iraqi town of Ramadi falls to ISIS, along with Jubbah next door to US training base, DEBKAfile, May 15, 2015
ISIS rolls into Iraqi town of Ramadi
In the current situation prevailing in western Iraq, the Americans and Iraqis might as well forget about their plans for retaking Iraq’s second city, Mosul, from ISIS control, this year.
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Ramadi, the provincial capital of western Iraqi Anbar, fell to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant Friday, May 15 after its inhabitants were put to mass flight. The town, 110 km west of Baghdad, controls the traffic on the Euphrates River. Small pockets of Iraqi troops are still stranded there after taking hundreds of casualties.
The jihadists are in mid-momentum of a fresh multi-pronged offensive, which they launched shortly after they lost Tikrit last month to the biggest counter-offensive they had faced since seizing large tracts of land in Iraq nearly a year ago.
This momentum has carried the Islamists across Anbar province which touches the Syrian and Jordanian borders to capture another key location – Jubba, next door to Iraq’s biggest air base at Al-Ansar. There, hundreds of US officers and soldiers are training Iraqi troops to fight ISIS and helping the Iraqi army manage the fighting in the province.
Parts of this base have already come under Islamist gun and mortar fire.
Not far from Ramadi, ISIS is threatening the oil-producing town of Baiji where a small Iraqi army force of no more than a few hundred soldiers is surrounded by the jihadists, with slim chances of holding out much longer before they are wiped out or forced to surrender.
Yet another ISIS arm is pushing east towards Baghdad, with the object of disabling the international airport by bringing its runways within mortar range.
To conquer Ramadi, ISIS used bulldozers to knock gaps in the sand earthworks built by the Iraqi army to defend the town, then sending half a dozen bomb cars through the gaps to the Iraqi military command centers where they detonated.
Some of those bomb cars were driven by Muslims from West Europe, who had traveled through Syria to join up with ISIS in Iraq. The jihadists named one of them as “Abu Musa al-Britani.”
Just Thursday, May 14, the British police revealed that more than 700 potential terror suspects had traveled to Syria from the U.K. to fight or support extremists, and about half are believed to have returned, primed for terrorist operations on home ground.
In response to the British police statement, ISIS released a video recording of a message delivered by its leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi calling on supporters around the world to join the fight in Syria and Iraq or to “take up arms wherever they live.”
It was Baghdadi’s first message since a number of media reports said he was killed or critically injured, and was intended to refute claims that he was no longer in active charge of the group.
DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources outline the common operational tactic, modus operandi, employed by the Islamist group in all its Iraq offensives.
After singling out a targeted location, their fighters first seize control of its environs. That way, they can block off in advance any incoming and outgoing movements of Iraqi troops – whether in retreat or for bringing up reinforcements. Next, their fighters storm into the core of the targeted location. Fleeing Iraqi soldiers and their local allies and civilians are summarily put to death.
This new ISIS impetus in Iraq has wiped out the military advantages the Iran-backed Shiite militias and US air force gained from the capture of the central Iraqi town of Tikrit in late March and early April. When the Shiie mlitias turned on the local Sunni populace for murder, burning and looting, the Obama administration turned to Tehran and Baghdad and demanded those militias be removed from the city.
Since the Iraqi army is incapable of recovering control and holding Tikrit after the Islamists were driven out, the town has sunk into anarchy with innumerable armed gangs battling each other for control of its quarters, some of them ISIS loyalists.
In the current situation prevailing in western Iraq, the Americans and Iraqis might as well forget about their plans for retaking Iraq’s second city, Mosul, from ISIS control, this year.
Schrödinger’s Jihad
May 14, 2015Schrödinger’s Jihad, Sultan Knish Blog, Daniel Greenfield, May 13, 2015
( A MUST read… Thank you, Dan. – JW )
Obama insists that talking about Islamic terrorism ‘summons’ them into being. By admitting the existence of Islamic terrorists, we ‘radicalize’ Muslims. Even the words ‘Islamic terrorism’ creates Islamic terrorists who otherwise wouldn’t exist.
The real threat is not from the terrorists, it’s from the truth.
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The great paradox of the War on Terror is that we are fighting an enemy that doesn’t exist. We are told incessantly that there is no such thing as a Muslim terrorist.
There may be a tiny minority of violent extremists, but they are only a tiny minority of no importance whatsoever. And yet we’ve been at war with this same infinitesimally tiny minority for decades.
This tiny minority has killed thousands of Americans. It has the support of entire governments in tiny countries like Pakistan (182 million), Iran (77 million) and Syria (22 million). We are told that this tiny minority is no way representative of the world’s billion Muslims, and yet it’s hard to find a Muslim country that doesn’t support or harbor a terrorist group.
We were told that the problems was their governments, but the Arab Spring showed us that democratic elections lead to governments that are even more supportive of tiny minority of extremists who are somehow taking over entire countries.
Everything we’ve been told is obviously a lie. And the best evidence comes from the liars themselves.
The media is howling that a bunch of cartoonists in Texas were irresponsible for sketching Islam’s dead warlord because they should have known that Muslim terrorists would come to kill them for it. But if the media is right and Islam is a religion of peace, then why should they have anticipated a terrorist attack?
And if Islam isn’t a religion of peace, then the media has been irresponsibly lying to us and the cartoonists have been risking their lives to warn us of that lie.
The talking heads on the television insist that the cartoon contest was irresponsible because there were bound to be “some crazies” who would “take the bait”. But if Islam is no more violent than any other religion, shouldn’t it be just as statistically likely that some Christian or Jewish crazies would attack one of the art exhibits, plays or musicals ridiculing and blaspheming against their religions?
Weren’t museums and galleries exhibiting “works of art” like Piss Christ or Shekhina provoking and baiting those Jewish and Christian crazies? And since there are more Christians than Muslims in America, isn’t it statistically far more likely that there should have been far more Christian terror attacks targeting blasphemous exhibits?
We can only conclude that there is a much higher proportion of “crazies” among Muslims than among Christians. How much higher? 78 percent of Americans identify as Christians. 0.6 percent claim to be Muslims. Only 0.3 percent appear to be Sunnis, who are responsible for ISIS and Al Qaeda attacks.
There is indeed a tiny minority of extremists in America. It’s known as Islam.
What keeps the lie alive is another paradox. Call it Schrödinger’s Jihad. The more famous Schrödinger’s Cat is a paradox in which a cat in a sealed box with poison that has a 50 percent chance of being released is in an indeterminate state. It is neither dead nor alive until someone opens the box.
In Schrödinger’s Jihad, the Muslim terrorist is in an indeterminate state until some Western observer opens the box, collapses his wave function and radicalizes him. The two Muslim Jihadists were in an indeterminate state until Pamela Geller and Bosch Fawstin and the other “provocateurs” suddenly turned them into terrorists in a matter of days or weeks. It didn’t matter that Elton Simpson, one of the Garland terrorists, had already been dragged into court for trying to link up with Jihadists in Africa.
Every Muslim is and isn’t a terrorist. He is both a peaceful spiritual person who is eager to embrace our way of life and a violent killer who can be set off by the slightest offense. Like the cat in the box that is neither dead nor alive, he is both violent and peaceful, moderate and extremist, a solid citizen and a terrorist. He does not choose which of these to be or to become; we decide what he will be.
The Jihadist paradox is that the Muslim terrorist is always defined by what we do, not by what he does.
Islamic terrorism does not exist independently of the Western observer. It is not a Jihad with deep historical and theological roots within Islam, but a reaction to our interactions with Muslims.
Obama insists that talking about Islamic terrorism ‘summons’ them into being. By admitting the existence of Islamic terrorists, we ‘radicalize’ Muslims. Even the words ‘Islamic terrorism’ creates Islamic terrorists who otherwise wouldn’t exist.
The real threat is not from the terrorists, it’s from the truth.
When we tell the truth, people die. The truth turns Muslims into terrorists while the lies soothe them back into non-existence. Underneath all the academic terminology is the dream logic of wishful thinking. If we believe that Islam is a religion of peace, it will be a peaceful religion, and if we accept the reality that it’s violent, then it will become violent. Islam does not define itself. We define it however we want. Our entire counterterrorism policy is based around the perverse ostrich belief that Islamic terrorism is a problem that we create by recognizing its existence. If we ignore it, it will go away.
The lies about Islam are sustained by a deep conviction among liberals that the “Other” minorities are not real people with real beliefs and cultures, but victims in a game of power played out in the West. Islamic terrorism, like gay marriage or Global Warming, is just another step in the progressive pilgrim’s progress. It’s a problem that we caused and need to atone for in our cosmic karmic journey.
Westerners are privileged observers who have power while those minorities they observe do not. The duel between the Western left and right is taking place outside the box to determine what will be in the box once it’s forced open, while the oppressed minorities are in a state of indeterminacy in the box.
The Schrödinger’s Jihad paradox has many other adjoining boxes. Some are filled with dictators and criminals. If the progressive observer can open the box and find the root cause, out comes a good person; if the right opens the box, then out will march the terrorists, drug dealers and warlords.
The other side of the rhetoric about oppression and colonization, of punching up and punching down is the conviction that those at the bottom do not have free will or agency. If the mugger chooses to mug, rather than being driven to it by poverty, if Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union gleefully chose conquest instead of being forced to it by Western imperialism, and if the Muslim terrorist is not a helpless victim, but an abuser, then the moral imperative of the left’s worldview collapses in a heap.
If Muslims are real people who are at least as capable of imperialism, racism, slavery and destroying the planet as any Westerner, and who have been doing all of these things a lot longer, then leftists would have to accept that they are tearing down the most progressive civilization on the planet on behalf of ridiculously reactionary civilizations. Not only would they no longer be the privileged observers in control of the future, but they would have to see themselves as destroyers of what is left of the future.
The left refuses to blame Islam or Muslims because that would mean admitting that they are people.
Schrödinger’s Jihad is a child’s toy box for overgrown children who view Muslims as social justice dolls and terrorist action figures instead of people as flawed and complicated as they are. The left refuses to take Islamic theology seriously because it is incapable of understanding different points of view.
It approaches Islam as a race, rather than a religion, because it refuses to delve into what its beliefs are. Instead it chooses to see Muslims as blank slates to be filled with its ideology, as indeterminate patterns that can be reshaped into whatever they want them to be. It does not want to know what it says in the Koran, because that ruins its wonderful fantasy of Muslims as an oppressed race, rather than a creed.
Lies that are based on what we want to be true are the hardest to disprove. A lie that is tied into identity cannot be touched without destroying the entire identity of an individual or a movement.
The lies about Islam run into the heart of what the left is. To the left, everything is indeterminate and everything can be reshaped. Existence flows from power and power is pitted against progress. By destroying that which exists, they can bring their dreams to life. The dream is stronger than reality.
The left doesn’t really believe that Muslim terrorists exist except when we bring them to life. The real animating force behind Al Qaeda was George W. Bush or Dick Cheney. The true power behind ISIS is Pamela Geller or the Pentagon. The Westerner opens the box and the Muslim terrorist comes out. When Western civilization as we know it is destroyed, then the left believes Muslim terrorism will end. Kill the observer and the cat never existed. Destroy the dreamer and the nightmare dies with him.
The truth is more dangerous than the terrorists. Terrorists can kill the body, but truth can kill the dream.
Saudi Islamist Preacher: The Jews Poison Muslim Hearts and Minds with WhatsApp, Twitter, Facebook
May 10, 2015The Texas ISIS attack was not averted owing to US “human intelligence” deficit
May 5, 2015The Texas ISIS attack was not averted owing to US “human intelligence” deficit, DEBKAfile, May 5, 2015
Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, Texas
(“Racial” profiling? Why hasn’t anyone thought of that before? Oh. Wait. That would offend Islamists. — DM)
That Simpson and Soofi were permitted to get so far is best explained by a certain weakness in the human intelligence capabilities of US and Western intelligence, the shortage of undercover agents able to mingle in communities and populations with the potential for producing radical elements capable of committing terrorist murder and suicide in the name of their faith. These agents must be able to pass unnoticed in mosques, bazaars and cafes, and have an ear for local dialects, street talk and inflections, so as to catch onto dangers through innuendo.
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The two American gunmen who Sunday, May 3, tried – and failed – to shoot up an exhibit of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammad at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, northeast of Dallas, sounded a wakeup call for US intelligence and counter-terrorism agencies – even before the Islamic State warned that this first attack on US soil would not be its last. The two homegrown terrorists, Elton Simpson, a Christian who converted to Islam, and Nadir Soofi, son of a Pakistani father and American mother, carried submachine guns and explosives and wore body armor – attesting to the existence of an organization behind the attack.
That organization is believed to be made up of small sleeper cells of two to three terrorists each, ready to spring into action on orders from distant controllers.
Both were young men in their mid-twenties. The half-Pakistani Muslim Soofi scraped a living from cleaning carpets, while Simpson was out of work. They failed to perpetrate mass murder because they made every possible mistake. And so after inflicting a scratch on one of the unarmed guards, both were shot dead by local police officers securing the “Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest” at the Curtis Culwell Center, which offered a $10,000 prize for the best artwork or cartoon depicting the Prophet.
For the past two years, Simpson and Soofi have been running posts and images on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram extolling the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) and all its works, threatening American Christians with revenge and declaring that terrorist attacks were coming.
Shortly before the Dallas event opened, an explicit threat to mete out punishment to those insulting the Prophet Mohammad in Texas, like in Denmark and Paris, appeared on a Twitter account (since de-activated) belonging to AbuHussainAlBritani, known to security services as an ISIS platform.
Simpson had been known as an FBI target since 2010. Then, he made no secret of his plans to travel to Somalia, take advanced studies in Islam and die as a martyr. He was arrested , convicted only of making a false statement to the forces of the law and released on probation. After that, a double agent persuaded him to talk for hundreds of hours on tape, candidly admitting that he intended one day in the future to take part in a deadly terrorist operation.
Yet Simpson was not detained, or even placed under extra surveillance.
Data flowing from Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) is critical in the war on terror: social networks like Twitter and Facebook serve terrorists around the world widely for passing information, arranging rendezvous, filling in the gaps of operational directives and, above all, disseminating their messages.
The US National Security Agency, as well as European and other agencies, maintain blanket surveillance of the social networks, transferring their content in almost real time to giant computers at agency headquarters for filtering and analysis. It is hard to understand how the radical online messages and outspoken tweets by Soofi and Simpson, which left no room to doubt their intentions, escaped interface by those computers with their past records and views.
The pair was therefore free to drive from Arizona to Texas in late April, in a car registered in one of their names, and armed with machine guns.
They pulled up at the Curtis Culwelll center, where the Mohammed cartoon exhibit opened in the presence of Pamela Geller, president of the American Freedom Defense Initiative (AFDI), which has sponsored anti-Islamic advertising campaigns across the country, and Geert Wilders, a Dutch politician and anti-Islamic campaigner who is on an al Qaeda hit list. When they reached their destination, they were not stopped until they actually started shooting – and only then thanks to the fast reflexes of a police guard on the spot.
That Simpson and Soofi were permitted to get so far is best explained by a certain weakness in the human intelligence capabilities of US and Western intelligence, the shortage of undercover agents able to mingle in communities and populations with the potential for producing radical elements capable of committing terrorist murder and suicide in the name of their faith. These agents must be able to pass unnoticed in mosques, bazaars and cafes, and have an ear for local dialects, street talk and inflections, so as to catch onto dangers through innuendo.
Digital intelligence, however extensive, is no substitute for human intelligence. It takes an undercover human agent on the ground to pick up on terrorist threats in time to thwart attacks.
Large-scale Egyptian army massed for operation to capture eastern Libya from ISIS
April 26, 2015Large-scale Egyptian army massed for operation to capture eastern Libya from ISIS, DEBKAfile, April 26, 2015
ISIS in occupation of Libyan town of Derna
Brennan leaned hard on the Egyptian president to follow Washington’s line, but El-Sisi refused.
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The Middle East is on the brink of its fourth war (after Syria, Iraq and Yemen). DEBKAfile’s military and intelligence sources report that Egypt is massing large-scale ground and air forces in the Western Desert along the Libyan border, in preparation for a military campaign to capture eastern Libya – Cyrenaica – from the Islamist State of Syria and Iraq – ISIS – occupation.
The substantial naval and marine forces assembling at Egypt’s Mediterranean ports indicate the possible launching of the offensive by dropping Egyptian marines on the Libyan coast around Derna (pop: 100,000), which ISIS has made its provincial capital. They may be accompanied by simultaneous landings of paratroops from the air.
For President Abdel-Fatteh El-Sisi, ISIS’s presence in eastern Libya (as well as Sinai) poses an unacceptable peril to his country. He has been warned in a number of intelligence reports that the Islamic State’s terrorists have already penetrated some Egyptian towns and even infiltrated certain army units.
To counter the Egyptian plan of campaign, ISIS is rushing reinforcements to eastern Libya from Syria and Iraq. From Syria, they are traveling by air or sea through the Mediterranean; from Iraq, through the Sinai Peninsula, whence oil and drug rings smuggle them across the Suez Canal and Egypt.
DEBKAfile’s sources reveal that Egypt’s projected invasion of Libya was high on the agenda of American CIA Director John Brennan’s unannounced visit to Cairo on April 19 for a meeting with the president.
In reply to his visitor’s demand for precise information on Egypt’s Libyan campaign. President El-Sisi offered an assurance that he had no intention of keeping the Egyptian army in Libya. He would pull the troops out after defeating and disarming the jihadis and hand power to the Libyan government, which has established its seat in the eastern town of Tobruk near the Egyptian border and home to Libyan military bases and oil terminals.
The Tobruk government was set up by Libyan members of parliament who fled the capital Tripoli when it was overrun by a group of extremist Islamist militias, known as the Libyan Dawn, which included elements associated with Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb – AQIM.
The head of the this government is Abdullah al-Thinni, who is recognized by the United States and most Western governments as the legitimate prime minister of Libya.
President El-Sisi was not surprised to hear from the CIA director that the Obama administration objects to a direct Egyptian invasion of Libya, but would not oppose Cairo acting through local Libyan militias. Brennan put forward the name of Gen. Khalifa Hifter, a Libyan-American, who set up a militia in the eastern Libyan town of Benghazi to fight the Islamists, aided by Libyan army units based in the region.
On March 2, Prime Minister al-Thinni and the Tobruk parliament appointed Gen. Hifter commander-in-chief of the Libyan army, promoting him to the rank of lieutenant general. He was entrusted with two missions: To liberate Libya from the clutches of the Islamic militias and to rebuild the national army.
DEBKAfile’s military sources disclose that, for the past six months, the Egyptian president has given Hifter his support and even supplied him with weapons. But he does not see him as a sufficiently powerful and emblematic figure to unify the Libyan nation.
Brennan leaned hard on the Egyptian president to follow Washington’s line, but El-Sisi refused.
Their differences on the Libyan campaign were reflected by omission in the joint communiqué they issued after their conversation: After discussing “regional issues, terrorism and ways of enhancing bilateral relations, the two sides agreed to continue consultation and coordination on issues of mutual interest.”
Interestingly, Egypt is ready to throw ground, sea and air forces into its offensive in Libya, while at the same time abstaining from deploying air or ground power in the Yemeni conflict, although it is a member of the Saudi-led coalition fighting Iran-backed rebels.
Egypt is already fighting the Islamic State’s branch in Sinai. It is now gearing up to tackle the Islamist peril on its western border.
Off topic|Bordering On Catastrophe: ISIS Camp on US Border?
April 17, 2015Bordering On Catastrophe: ISIS Camp on US Border? Front Page Magazine,
The bottom line is that both Mexico and parts of the United States are providing safe-havens for terrorists who have made it clear that they have placed our country and our citizens in their cross-hairs.
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Time and again reports have surfaced from various sources along the U.S./Mexican border that is supposed to separate the United States from Mexico. On April 14, 2015 Judicial Watch posted a chilling report, “ISIS Camp a Few Miles from Texas, Mexican Authorities Confirm” that was purportedly based on information provided to Judicial Watch by a “Mexican Army field grade officer” and a Mexican Federal Police Inspector.
This is the report as posted by Judicial Watch:
ISIS is operating a camp just a few miles from El Paso, Texas, according to Judicial Watch sources that include a Mexican Army field grade officer and a Mexican Federal Police Inspector.
The exact location where the terrorist group has established its base is around eight miles from the U.S. border in an area known as “Anapra” situated just west of Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Another ISIS cell to the west of Ciudad Juárez, in Puerto Palomas, targets the New Mexico towns of Columbus and Deming for easy access to the United States, the same knowledgeable sources confirm.
During the course of a joint operation last week, Mexican Army and federal law enforcement officials discovered documents in Arabic and Urdu, as well as “plans” of Fort Bliss – the sprawling military installation that houses the US Army’s 1st Armored Division. Muslim prayer rugs were recovered with the documents during the operation.
Law enforcement and intelligence sources report the area around Anapra is dominated by the Vicente Carrillo Fuentes Cartel (“Juárez Cartel”), La Línea (the enforcement arm of the cartel) and the Barrio Azteca (a gang originally formed in the jails of El Paso). Cartel control of the Anapra area make it an extremely dangerous and hostile operating environment for Mexican Army and Federal Police operations.
According to these same sources, “coyotes” engaged in human smuggling – and working for Juárez Cartel – help move ISIS terrorists through the desert and across the border between Santa Teresa and Sunland Park, New Mexico. To the east of El Paso and Ciudad Juárez, cartel-backed “coyotes” are also smuggling ISIS terrorists through the porous border between Acala and Fort Hancock, Texas. These specific areas were targeted for exploitation by ISIS because of their understaffed municipal and county police forces, and the relative safe-havens the areas provide for the unchecked large-scale drug smuggling that was already ongoing.
Mexican intelligence sources report that ISIS intends to exploit the railways and airport facilities in the vicinity of Santa Teresa, NM (a US port-of-entry). The sources also say that ISIS has “spotters” located in the East Potrillo Mountains of New Mexico (largely managed by the Bureau of Land Management) to assist with terrorist border crossing operations. ISIS is conducting reconnaissance of regional universities; the White Sands Missile Range; government facilities in Alamogordo, NM; Ft. Bliss; and the electrical power facilities near Anapra and Chaparral, NM.
Clearly the lawlessness found along America’s southwest border represents a major vulnerability to the United States. That military bases and other important facilities are within striking distance of those ISIS camps constitute a serious threat — and not just to those important facilities and locations along our southwest border that appear to have been targeted by ISIS, but to our entire nation as well.
Furthermore, when massive numbers of illegal aliens, including the torrents of unaccompanied minors, flood our border, Border Patrol agents become mired in dealing with this onslaught, further exacerbating the lack of resources to secure that dangerous border and overloading the already dysfunctional immigration system — ranging from a lack of an adequate number of immigration judges, detention space, attorneys and funding, leading to chaos for the entire immigration system.
Consequently, while it may be easy to make the presumption that this lack of security along the U.S. Mexican border is only of concern to residents of the supposed “four border states,” the reality is that, as I have noted on many, many occasions, the United States has 50 border states.
Consider that any state that has an international airport, access to the tens of thousands of America’s meandering coastline or lies along the northern or southern borders are all border states because they provide access to people and cargo entering the United States. This was the premise for my FrontPage Magazine article, “Border Security and the Immigration Colander” in which I not only discussed the ways that aliens might enter the United States in violation of law, but the many components to the immigration system that include the enforcement of our immigration laws from within the interior of the United States and the way that the adjudication of applications for immigration benefits for aliens is conducted with precious little integrity.
When aliens run our borders they do not emulate Neil Armstrong or the other Apollo astronauts who landed on the moon, planted a flag, did a bit of research, grabbed some rocks and promptly returned to the Earth. These aliens do not remain along the border for long. Their goal is to head for the rest of the United States. There are, in point of fact, very large communities of illegal aliens living in states across the U.S. who entered the United States by evading the inspections process that is supposed to prevent the entry of terrorists, criminals and other foreign nationals whose presence in the United States would be problematic. It would be incredibly naïve to think that terrorists from ISIS and other terrorist organizations have not already made their way to towns and cities around the United States.
Once in the United States, aliens who seek to engage in criminal or terrorist activities next need to find a way to hide in plain sight or, in the words of the 9/11 Commission, embed themselves in communities around the country.
I addressed the way that so-called “Sanctuary Cities” provide all too many opportunities to those who are determined to attack us to embed themselves in towns and cities across the United Stats in my September 24, 2014 FrontPage Magazine article, “‘Sanctuary Cities’ or ‘Safe Havens’ for Terrorists?”
In my commentary I noted that both President George W. Bush and Barack Obama said that they would deny sanctuary to terrorists anywhere in the world. Meanwhile, mayors and governors who declare their cities and states to be “sanctuaries” for illegal aliens are providing sanctuary to millions of foreign nationals whose identities (including their countries of citizenship) are unknown and not readily determinable. There is, therefore, no way to know if among those millions of trespassers are aliens who are fugitives from justice, members of transnational criminal organizations or international terrorists — perhaps, indeed, members of ISIS.
That is a clear example of what you don’t know can hurt you.
Yet neither the Bush administration nor the Obama administration sought to prosecute and/or punish “sanctuary cities” that are acting in violation of federal immigration law, Title 8, United States Code, Section 1324 that deems it a felony to aid, abet, encourage or induce aliens to enter the United States in violation of law or to harbor or shield illegal aliens from detection federal immigration enforcement officers.
Here is an excerpt from that section of law:
Title 8, U.S.C. § 1324(a) Offenses
Title 8, U.S.C. § 1324(a) defines several distinct offenses related to aliens. Subsection 1324(a)(1)(i)-(v) prohibits alien smuggling, domestic transportation of unauthorized aliens, concealing or harboring unauthorized aliens, encouraging or inducing unauthorized aliens to enter the United States, and engaging in a conspiracy or aiding and abetting any of the preceding acts. Subsection 1324(a)(2) prohibits bringing or attempting to bring unauthorized aliens to the United States in any manner whatsoever, even at a designated port of entry. Subsection 1324(a)(3).
Harboring — Subsection 1324(a)(1)(A)(iii) makes it an offense for any person who — knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that an alien has come to, entered, or remains in the United States in violation of law, conceals harbors, shields from detection, or attempts to conceal, harbor, or shield from detection, such alien in any place, including any building or any means of transportation.
Encouraging/Inducing — Subsection 1324(a)(1)(A)(iv) makes it an offense for any person who — encourages or induces an alien to come to, enter, or reside in the United States, knowing or in reckless disregard of the fact that such coming to, entry, or residence is or will be in violation of law.
Conspiracy/Aiding or Abetting — Subsection 1324(a)(1)(A)(v) expressly makes it an offense to engage in a conspiracy to commit or aid or abet the commission of the foregoing offenses.
Now add to all of the foregoing the fact that as was noted at the end of the fifth paragraph of the report by Judicial Watch:
These specific areas were targeted for exploitation by ISIS because of their understaffed municipal and county police forces, and the relative safe-havens the areas provide for the unchecked large-scale drug smuggling that was already ongoing.
The bottom line is that both Mexico and parts of the United States are providing safe-havens for terrorists who have made it clear that they have placed our country and our citizens in their cross-hairs.
Yet those politicians who bear responsibility for creating those havens face no consequences. Of course while this is disturbing, if not infuriating, it should not surprise anyone. After all it is the federal government and the administration’s policies and actions, as well as its lack of actions, that make our federal government the most reponsible for the ability of illegal aliens, terrorists and criminals to not only enter the United States but successfully embed themselves in communities from border to border and coast to coast.
Our porous borders, the ever increasing Visa Waiver Program and failures to enforce our nation’s immigration laws on the federal level from within the interior of the United States, coupled with sanctuary policies of cities and states and their willingness to not only ignore violations of our immigration laws, but provide driver’s licenses and in some instances, municipal identity documents to aliens who evaded the inspections process, all work against our national security and facilitate the ability of international terrorists and transnational criminals to enter the United States and embed themselves in our country.
I appear in a Tea Party Patriots hard-hitting documentary, “The Border States of America.” The subtitle of this film makes the importance and relevance of the immigration crisis clear to all Americans irrespective of where they may live: “Every State is Now a Border State.”
This film dispels the propaganda that our U.S./Mexican border is secure. Among those interviewed for this film were Alabama Senator Jeff Sessions, Iowa Congressman Steve King, Texas Congressman Louie Gohmert, sheriffs, Border Patrol agents, ranchers and others living along the southern border of the United States.
My good friend Mark Hager, a history professor from North Carolina, went to the border with an amazing team to conduct the interviews and film the parts of the border for the documentary that the administration would undoubtedly not want anyone to see.
The notion that it is reasonable to ignore violations of our borders and our immigration laws ignores commonsense and the findings and recommendations of the 9/11 Commission.
On December 19, 2014 Californians for Population Stabilization (CAPS) posted my extensive article: “Obama’s ‘Gift’ to International Terrorists: Immigration Executive Action.”
On January 23, 2015 FrontPage Magazine published my article: “Sleeper Cells: The Immigration Component of the Threat.”
On February 25, 2015, The Daily Caller published my commentary on the lack of integrity to the process by which political asylum applications are adjudicated creates vulnerabilities for America and Americans. The title of my commentary was, “Political Asylum: How America’s Compassion Creates National Security Nightmares” which was predicated on a February 12, 2015 ABC News report, “U.S. Officials Admit Concern Over Syrian Refugee Effort.”
This is hardly the first time I have written or discussed the vulnerabilities created by the failures of the immigration system especially where the process by which applications for immigration benefits are adjudicated.
Back on February 8, 2014 I was interviewed by Tucker Carlson when I was a guest on Fox & Friends to discuss how the administration had unilaterally decided to eliminate the bar against providing political asylum to aliens who may have had incidental contacts with terrorists or terror organizations.
Tucker is not only one of the hosts on Fox & Friends but is also the editor-in-chief of The Daily Caller.
As I noted during my interview with Carlson last year, I am particularly sensitive to the need for our nation to treat people with compassion and protect those who are vulnerable and are at risk inasmuch as my grandmother (my mother’s mother) for whom I was named, was slaughtered in Poland during the Holocaust. However, it is clear that failures of the vetting process and a lack of integrity to the immigration system have provided all too many aliens with criminal and terror intentions to enter the United States, thereby undermining public safety and national security.
Permitting America’s compassion and kindness to be turned against our nation and our citizens is unacceptable. The video of my interview was posted on the Fox News website under the title, “New immigration exemptions putting US at risk?” — “‘Loose’ terror ties allowed for asylum.”
Terrorists must never see in America’s kindness and compassion weakness that can be exploited.
Failures of the immigration system have permitted millions of illegal aliens to enter our country and acquire lawful status in the United States thereby undermining national security, public safety and a host of issues and challenges that confront our nation and our citizens today. Conversely, our immigration laws, if effectively harnessed, could become a most effective weapon in combatting international terrorism, transnational criminals organizations and other serious threats and challenges.
What would be needed is a commitment from our elected politicians to live up to their oaths of office and demonstrate real integrity.
The reason that the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) has immigration agents assigned to that task force is because of just how significant our immigration laws are.
In the face of the threats posed by ISIS- the time has come for our leaders to put American lives and the security of our nation at the top of their list of priorities- the stakes are way to high for them to not finally do what is essential.
To borrow a phrase and mind-set most of us were raised with as kids: “Safety first!”
WarSclerotic 
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