Stop the “Diversity” Visa Lottery, Gateway for Jihadists

Posted November 2, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Diversity Visa Lottery
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Stop the “Diversity” Visa Lottery, Gateway for Jihadists, Gatestone Institute, Majid Rafizadeh, November 2, 2017

The mainstream media would doubtless prefer to hide from you that Saipov, an Uzbek national, came to the US thanks to Senator Chuck Schumer’s “Diversity Program,” and that there are many flaws in the US immigration system. The Diversity Visa lottery is high among them.

The program accepts 50,000 people a year, totally at random. Citizens from some countries that are US-friendly, such as Canada and the United Kingdom, are not even allowed to apply. Other countries, known to be epicenters of jihadists and Islamist ideologies, are permitted to participate. The applicant does not even need to have a high school education. Among the heaviest users of this lottery are people in countries known to have terrorism problems — specifically Middle Eastern, North African and Central Asian countries, including Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, Turkey, Yemen, and Uzbekistan.

When a foreign person wins the lottery, the US gives out visas to his or her family as well — no matter where they were born. As a result, the number of people that come into the US thanks to the lottery program is actually far larger than 50,000 a year.

In addition, applicants do not need to have skills, education, training, or even the ability to speak English — in total contrast to successful immigration policies in other advanced countries, where immigrants must score high regarding the required skills, talents, and language before they are admitted.

Instead of worrying about political correctness, let us focus on how to protect this nation. The terrorists, who share the goal of devastating everything we value, do not care about political correctness or what the true purpose of the lottery might be. They see only the opportunity to take advantage of a hole in our immigration security. Instead of standing by and letting this continue, let us start, as the president suggested, by stopping the absurd and obsolete Diversity Visa lottery. The program serves no humanitarian, political, or economic purpose for America. 

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Among the heaviest users of the US Diversity Visa lottery are people in countries known to have terrorism problems. Entering the Diversity Visa program, Islamists openly felt, was their opportunity to access the US and cause destruction to the country and its people, which they viewed as their enemy.

In this lottery, not just the winner gains access. When a foreign person wins the lottery, the US gives out visas to his or her family as well — no matter where they were born. As a result, the number of people that come into the US thanks to the lottery program is actually much larger than 50,000 a year.

The terrorists, who share the goal of devastating everything we value, do not care about political correctness, or what the true purpose of the lottery might be. They see only the opportunity to take advantage of a hole in our immigration security.

The US immigration system is significantly flawed; it paves the way for terrorists to enter the country. Since 9/11, no serious actions have been taken to address this fundamental problem. Mercifully, President Donald Trump announced yesterday that he wants the Diversity Visa Program terminated.

As the world now knows, on October 31, in a jihadi vehicular attack, a terrorist, Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, drove a rented pickup-truck onto a crowded bicycle path in lower Manhattan. He murdered at least eight innocent people — including students, school staff and tourists celebrating a reunion — and wounded eleven people. He celebrated by shouting “Allahu Akbar” (“Allah is the greatest”). After police stopped his rampage by shooting and wounding him, he asked for an ISIS flag to be brought to his hospital room.

While politicians avoid the truth that “lone wolves” among terrorists effectively do not exist and, along with many in the mainstream media, refuse to tackle the underlying cause of this terror act and refrain from fully reporting on terrorism, we all badly need an open discussion about it.

The mainstream media would doubtless prefer to hide from you that Saipov, an Uzbek national, came to the US thanks to Senator Chuck Schumer’s “Diversity Program,” and that there are many flaws in the US immigration system. The Diversity Visa lottery is high among them.

Sayfullo Saipov (left), the Uzbek terrorist who carried out the October 31 attack in Manhattan, moved to the US thanks to the Diversity Visa Program.

The program accepts 50,000 people a year, totally at random. Citizens from some countries that are US-friendly, such as Canada and the United Kingdom, are not even allowed to apply. Other countries, known to be epicenters of jihadists and Islamist ideologies, are permitted to participate. The applicant does not even need to have a high school education. Among the heaviest users of this lottery are people in countries known to have terrorism problems — specifically Middle Eastern, North African and Central Asian countries, including Afghanistan, Algeria, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Syria, Turkey, Yemen, and Uzbekistan.

If you had grown up, as I did, in Syria and Iran, you would have seen Islamists gathering in groups to further their goals. You would also have seen them encouraging and informing their affiliate groups through various means, including social media, to enter the US Diversity Visa program. This, they openly felt, was their opportunity to access the US and cause destruction to the country and its people, which they viewed as their enemy.

Worse in this lottery is, not just the winner gains access. When a foreign person wins the lottery, the US gives out visas to his or her family as well — no matter where they were born. As a result, the number of people that come into the US thanks to the lottery program is actually far larger than 50,000 a year.

In addition, applicants do not need to have skills, education, training, or even the ability to speak English — in total contrast to successful immigration policies in other advanced countries, where immigrants must score high regarding the required skills, talents, and language before they are admitted.

Other countries look for — and get — the best from other nations, and vet them carefully; the US just gives out green cards to anyone unreservedly.

The application can be easily completed on a website, and applying is free. If the applicant wins, he receives a permanent green card, paving the way for citizenship.

Furthermore, this is happening while many, far more qualified and hardworking people in the US, including skilled workers, taxpayers, doctors, engineers and CEOs, remain on temporary visas for years. Others wait and struggle interminably, to obtain a green card legally.

If even a few of the tens of thousands of Islamists who apply for the visa lottery every year kill “infidel” Americans and terrorize a whole nation, they have accomplished their goal.

While terrorist attacks are the most visible crimes committed as a result of this lottery, others go unnoticed. Even the lottery itself has become fraudulent. According to testimony from Stephen A. Edson before the House Judiciary Committee:

“In Bangladesh, for example, one agent is reported to have enrolled an entire phone book so that he could then either extort money from winning applicants who had never entered the program to begin with or sell their winning slots to others.”

The lottery program also poses health risks to Americans. If and when global epidemics occur, such as the Ebola virus, the lottery visa program does not stop. People with viruses and other serious infectious diseases can easily get into the country.

Even the screening and enforcement procedures are unreliable and pose a significant national security risk. As Janice Kephart, then National Security Fellow at the Center for Immigration Studies, testified before Congress in 2011:

“The Diversity Visa (DV) Program is an unfortunate blind spot in our immigration system that has outlived whatever purpose it might have had. The applicants for these 50,000 “visa lottery” immigration slots require few skills. Neither their qualifications nor identity can be properly vetted. The program does not know, really, who these applicants are or their true purpose in coming to the United States. The program is a national security vulnerability, and has been used by terrorists and organized criminals to not only enter the United States, but to bring others in as well.

According to unofficial statements from the State Department, the program is rife with fraud in part because application standards are so low”.

Regarding the flimsy requirements and enormous resources that the US waste for this program, Kephart added:

“The program claims to have strict eligibility requirements, but only calls for a high school education or its equivalent or two years of work experience within the past five years in an occupation requiring at least two years of training or experience. In most of the countries eligible for a diversity visa, neither education nor work experience can be verified, let alone identity. Consular officers in U.S. embassies abroad thus spend an inordinate amount of time attempting to determine if people are who they say they are and actually qualify for the program. Checking watch lists based on names or prior U.S. immigration histories thus often has little bearing on making a solid determination of identity, qualifications, or legitimate national security concerns.”

Even known civil rights activists, such as Barbara Jordan, have pointed out that the Diversity Visa lottery does not provide any benefits to this nation. Despite all of this, the Diversity Visa 2019 green card lottery registration is now open.

Instead of worrying about political correctness, let us focus on how to protect this nation. The terrorists, who share the goal of devastating everything we value, do not care about political correctness or what the true purpose of the lottery might be. They see only the opportunity to take advantage of a hole in our immigration security. Instead of standing by and letting this continue, let us start, as the president suggested, by stopping the absurd and obsolete Diversity Visa lottery. The program serves no humanitarian, political, or economic purpose for America. 

Imagine how much more devastation will occur if nothing is done.

Dr. Majid Rafizadeh, is a Harvard-educated scholar and political scientist, business advisor, board member of Harvard International Review, and president of the International American Council on the Middle East. He is the author of “Peaceful Reformation in Iran’s Islam“.

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Israel on high alert following reported IAF strike in Syria

Posted November 2, 2017 by Joseph Wouk
Categories: Uncategorized

Source: Israel on high alert following reported IAF strike in Syria – Israel Hayom

Arab media say IAF jets targeted a weapons factory south of Homs • Reports allege Syrian army fired missiles at the Israeli jets but missed • Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz: Israel’s position is clear: Smuggling arms to Hezbollah is a red line.

Lilach Shoval, Gadi Golan, Daniel Siryoti, Eli Leon, Reuters and Israel Hayom Staff

An Israeli airstrike targeted a weapons factory south of the Syrian city of Homs late Wednesday night, Syrian and Lebanese media reported, adding the Syrian army fired anti-aircraft missiles at the Israeli fighter jets but missed. The report was not corroborated by any official Israeli source.

According to Sky News, four Israeli raids targeted an ammunition manufacturing plant in the industrial area of Hissia, 35 kilometers (22 miles) south of Homs and 112 kilometers (70 miles) north of Damascus.

An unnamed Syrian military official was quoted by local media as saying the target was a copper factory, but the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based organization that reports on the civil war raging in the country, said the airstrike had targeted a military installation.

According to foreign media reports, the strike was the latest in a string of similar moves that have targeted Hezbollah-bound weapon shipments.

Israeli officials have expressed concern over Iran’s growing influence in Syria, where Tehran-backed groups have played a critical role fighting in support of President Bashar Assad during the conflict that erupted in 2011.

Intelligence Minister Yisrael Katz said Thursday that Israel would not allow weapon deliveries to Hezbollah.

“I can’t, of course, relate to reports about the IDF’s attack in Syria, but regardless, Israel’s position is clear: Smuggling arms to Hezbollah is a red line for us,” he told Army Radio.

“Israel has acted in the past and it will act in the future, according to available intelligence, to prevent arms smuggling to Hezbollah,” he said, adding that “I think the other side also understands this clearly, it understands that past strikes, for which we did take responsibility, were in line with this policy and these red lines.”

‘We’re ready for any scenario’

The strike has raised security tensions on Israel’s northern borders at a time when tensions on the Israel-Gaza Strip border are also climbing.

On Monday the Israeli military discovered and destroyed an Islamic Jihad terror tunnel dug from Gaza into Israel. The terrorist group vowed to avenge the nine operatives killed in the blast, and a senior official said the group’s forces have been instructed “to be on high alert. Any understandings with the Zionist enemy are revoked.”

A senior defense official with the IDF’s Southern Command said Wednesday that “this is still an ongoing operation and we still have decisions to make. Islamic Jihad was dealt a serious blow and it deserved it. We won’t apologize for it. We’re ready for any scenario.”

The official said that while no special instructions were issued to residents of the border-adjacent communities, the military was taking the Islamic Jihad’s threats seriously as “they’re struggling to contain this event because of the high number fatalities. Rockets or mortar shells can start flying here at any minute.

“Islamic Jihad has retaliation capabilities. They’re still not done recovering bodies from the rubble. Their dilemma is when and how to retaliate, but on the other hand, the further we move from the incident the greater the chance they won’t react,” he said.

According to the official, it was possible that the lack of immediate retaliation by Islamic Jihad over the tunnel’s destruction stemmed from Hamas’ strategic preference to prioritize the rapprochement with Fatah. Still, it is possible that Iran might try to sabotage the Palestinian unity deal by pushing Islamic Jihad to retaliate.

“We are prepared for multiple scenarios, including the possibility that they [Islamic Jihad] would target Judea and Samaria,” he said. “If they make a mistake and strike, they will be made to pay a price. Right now, they’re focused on how they can redeem their failures and that may prompt reckless actions.”

The IDF has elevated the alert level on the Gaza border, as well as in several other locations. As a precaution, it was also decided to limit troop movements in certain areas near the security fence.

The tunnel’s destruction has been hailed as a significant achievement by the Defense Ministry, IDF and the Israeli military industries, which together have developed tunnel-detection technologies that complement the defense establishment’s new operational perception.

“The discovery of the tunnel was not accidental. There’s a system in place, the consolidation of several capabilities into one system that we didn’t have before,” the official said. “We have significantly improved the ability to monitor depths of between 60 and 70 meters (200-230 feet) and it changed the situation on the ground. We’re making progress in neutralizing the tunnel threat. In the past, Hamas was more advanced than us, but we’ve narrowed the gaps and we’re on our way to circumvent the enemy.”

The official said that a team of experts – engineers, geologists and intelligence analysts – is involved in tunnel detection efforts. The team “decides whether there are suspicious developments underground. Anyone who is in the subterranean zone is endangering themselves. Anyone digging a tunnel in Gaza should know that they’re placing themselves at risk.”

Another defense official said, “We caught Hamas and Islamic Jihad with their pants down. They didn’t expect it, and the fact that we knew exactly where and how deep the tunnel was only proved that we’re on the right path to developing technology to eradicate tunnels.

“The strategy formulated to counter the tunnel threat includes a wall, technology and intelligence. The technology has proved itself to be effective because we reached the most accurate level possible to neutralize the tunnel.”

He stressed that the Islamic Jihad’s tunnel had yet to become operational, saying, “We know that the tunnel’s construction began months ago. It was not operational, it didn’t have an exit shaft on the Israeli side of the border, and it was not a threat to [border-adjacent] communities.”

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3 Things About the NY Attack You Might Not Be Hearing

Posted November 2, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: "Lone Wolf attacks", Islamic State, Mosque monitoring, NYC Police Dept., NYC terrorist attack
Tags: , , , ,

3 Things About the NY Attack You Might Not Be Hearing, Clarion Project, November 2, 2017

Hours after the terror attack on NYC, police secure the annual Halloween parade (Photo: Kena Betancur/Getty Images)

1.It Was Not a “Lone Wolf” Attack

In addition to a potential accomplice that has since been arrested, an image of an ISIS flag on a cellphone near the location of the terrorist attack in NY surfaced two months ago.

According to the police complaint against Sayfullo Habibullaevic Saipov, the 29-year-old began planning the attack close to a year ago. The complaint asserts that Saipov watched and was inspired by ISIS videos.

One of the two cellphones that were found in the truck had close to 90 violent ISIS propaganda videos on it, some with information on how to make a bomb.

John Miller, deputy New York police commissioner for intelligence, noted that Saipov “appears to have followed, almost exactly to a ‘T,’ the instructions that ISIS has put out.”

Two months before the attack, this picture taken near the site of the attack surfaced.

It is highly unlikely that Saipov was not communicating to other ISIS followers and leaders who most likely encouraged, supported and even aided him in carrying out the attack.

Terrorist “cells” do not necessarily have to be in physical proximity in the age of online communication.

As for an accomplice, the man the police were looking for was named as Mukhammadzoir Kadirov, a 32-year-old Uzbekistan national. “We have found him and I’ll leave it at that,” said William Sweeney, head of the New York FBI office.

2.His Mosque Was Under Surveillance

Saipov attended the Omar Mosque which was near his home in Paterson, N.J. It was one of the mosques and Islamic organizations that were being monitored by the NYPD in their now-defunct surveillance program.

The NYPD investigations, which began in the years after the 9/11 attacks, centered around whether or not extremists or potential terrorists might be attending the mosque, infiltrating and attempting to sway others to their line of thinking.

The Omar Mosque had been under surveillance since at least 2006 due to this possibility.

In 2011, the Associated Press began running a series of articles detailing and making public the NYPD surveillance program (articles for which they won a Pulitzer Prize). The articles set off a campaign of misinformation from Islamists and their allies aimed at smearing the department’s anti-terrorism efforts.

By 2014, under intensive pressure, the NYPD tanked the program. Islamist agitator Linda Sarsour was one of the activists prominent in this campaign to get the program cancelled, saying that the program “created psychological warfare in our community.”

The facts, however, consistently showed that the NYPD was not casting a wide net over Muslims in the hopes of nabbing a few terrorists. Its targets were chosen on concrete information. That is why the NYPD won bi-partisan praise at the time, with Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer endorsing then NYPD Commissioner Ray Kelly to lead the Department of Homeland Security.

A subsequent lawsuit against the department claiming damages from the investigations brought by a Muslim Brotherhood-founded group among others was dismissed by a district court judge in 2014.

The Islamists argued that the NYPD should pay them for damages resulting from its intelligence-gathering on them, however, according to the judge, the only reason these plaintiffs could allege that they were suffering was because the Associated Press detailed the NYPD operations to the public.

Perhaps if the program had not been cancelled, the latest terrorist attack might have been prevented.

3.The Attack Was Based on Ideology

In an interview by law enforcement officials, Saipov asked if he could display the ISIS flag in hospital room. According to the police complaint, he told the officials, “he felt good about what he had done.”

Investigators also recovered close to a dozen pieces of paper with Arabic writing on them praising ISIS. One said, “ISIS will endure.”

He said he would have liked to have continued the attack with his truck, killing more people, but couldn’t after he crashed into a school bus. Knives were also recovered at the scene.

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New Report Calls Hezbollah World’s “Most Powerful” Terrorist Organization on the Planet

Posted November 2, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Hezbollah and Iran, Hezbollah vs Israel, Israeli military, Israeli security
Tags: , , ,

New Report Calls Hezbollah World’s “Most Powerful” Terrorist Organization on the Planet, Iran News Update, November 1, 2017

INU -A report released this week by a group of former senior military officials and diplomats, many of them from NATO member states, concluded that Hezbollah, The Shia terrorist movement in Lebanon that is affiliated with Iran, has become the “most powerful non-state armed force on the planet.”

Members of the independent High-Level Military Group (HLMG) include Iraq war veteran US Lt. General Michael D. Barbero, General Klaus Dieter Neumann, former commander of the German armed forces, Lord Richard Dannatt, former commander of the British armed forces, and Lt. General Kamal Davar, the former head of India’s Defense Intelligence Agency. Their report asserted that Hezbollah now represents “a threat that few countries, much less sub-state organizations, on the globe can mount.”

The report warns that war with Israel is “inevitable,” and warned that it is certain to be “more violent and destructive” than previous conflicts. It has been reported that Hezbollah has been withdrawing its forces from Syria in recent weeks, and transferring them toward Israel’s borders on the Golan Heights.

“Israeli intelligence estimates put the number of projectiles in Hezbollah’s possession today at well over 100,000,” the report, titled “Hezbollah’s Terror Army: How To Prevent A Third Lebanon War,” said. “The majority of these are short-range rockets, but thousands have a much larger range, up to 150 miles and more.”

HLMG’s report points out that Hezbollah’s participation in the defense of the Iranian-backed Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad improved the organization’s “ability to maneuver and carry out relatively large-scale ground attacks at the scale of company or battalion level.”

Further, the report emphasized that Iran played a decisive role in strengthening Hezbollah’s capabilities. “The upgrade in Hezbollah capabilities is one discernible result of Iran and Hezbollah’s ongoing project to equip the latter with more accurate longer-range missiles, so as to be able to more effectively menace Israel,” it said, and continued, “Hezbollah embeds its military assets among the Lebanese civilians it claims to protect, holds Lebanese politics and questions of war and peace hostage to its Iranian-led regional military imperatives, and has infiltrated Lebanese state organs, including the army, to utilize them for its aims.”

However, the report explained that “the international environment has changed since the previous war, and a defensive assault on Hezbollah, a terror organization now strongly associated with Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria, will generate full support not only from the United States, but likely also from other Western countries, in addition to tacit but increasing support from the Sunni Arab world.”

The report concluded by saying, “Hezbollah’s strategic concept, coupled to the gains Iran has made regionally … mean that Israeli decision makers are firm in the belief that they will have to respond with overwhelming force and at great speed to any escalation forced upon them.”

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Ministers spar over ‘apologetic’ IDF statement on terror tunnel destruction 

Posted November 2, 2017 by Joseph Wouk
Categories: Uncategorized

Source: Ministers spar over ‘apologetic’ IDF statement on terror tunnel destruction – Israel Hayom

Education Minister Naftali Bennett blasts IDF statement clarifying Gaza terror tunnel detonation that killed seven was not targeted assassination • Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman condemns Bennett’s remarks as “serious blow” to Israel’s security, IDF.

Lilach Shoval, Yoav Limor, Mati Tuchfeld and Gideon Allon

Habayit Hayehudi leader Naftali Bennett was criticized on Tuesday after he slammed an IDF statement saying that the military did not intend to kill senior Islamic Jihad officials when on Monday it destroyed a terror tunneldug from the Gaza Strip into Israel.

“We must not apologize for the successful elimination of terrorists,” Bennett said. “Let me be clear: These are terrorists who were engaged in digging a terror tunnel inside Israeli territory that was meant to kill Israeli women and children. We are not looking for a [security] escalation, and as a member of the [Diplomatic-Security] Cabinet that has led [efforts] to thwart the tunnel threat since Operation Protective Edge, I give my full support to the operation. The IDF’s objective is to defeat the enemy and it must thus continue.”

On Monday, IDF Spokesman Brig. Gen. Ronen Manelis said the operation had been defensive and had taken place in Israeli territory. He also said most of the fatalities were from smoke inhalation, dust and landslides, and not the detonation itself.

“Only conventional measures were used,” he said. “The IDF used the same measures it uses regularly. The secondary damage underground resulted in fatalities. There was no intention to target any specific individual. The operation took place in our territory. Their people were killed in their territory.”

Bennett’s statement drew criticism from both the defense establishment and lawmakers.

Defense Minister Avigdor Lieberman blasted Bennett’s remarks, saying, “An IDF spokesman’s briefing must not serve as a pretext for a blatant attack on the IDF and its commanders. These types of remarks are a serious blow to Israel’s security and the entire IDF. We will continue to act with determination, force and responsibility for the sake of the security of Israel’s citizens.”

Another senior defense official said: “It would be best if instead of looking for prominence in the media, he [Bennett] would deal with the problems in his office.”

Yesh Atid MK Ofer Shelah accused Bennett of populist antics.

“Bennett apparently wants to be seen as a hero, no matter at whose expense,” He said, “The IDF spokesman did not apologize for the killing of terrorists. He briefed military reporters on what transpired yesterday in Gaza the way he was supposed to: accurately, reliably and clearly.”

Zionist Union MK Eyal Ben-Reuven said, “The IDF was right to clarify that the detonation of the tunnel was not a targeted assassination. The operation was completely justified. We must act forcefully against those who threaten the State of Israel with terror, but without fervor, without irresponsible words.”

In media briefings on Tuesday, Manelis did not apologize for the operation or the killing of Palestinians but stressed the legitimacy of and justification for the operation, after Israel’s sovereignty was violated by the digging of tunnels into its territory.

Manelis stressed the deaths of the operatives were not the premeditated outcome of the operation.

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Israeli jets reportedly drop 7 missiles near Homs as Putin ends talks in Tehran 

Posted November 2, 2017 by Joseph Wouk
Categories: Uncategorized

Source: Israeli jets reportedly drop 7 missiles near Homs as Putin ends talks in Tehran – DEBKAfile

  , , , , , 

Syrian and Lebanese sources continued Thursday, Nov. 2,  to provide details of an unconfirmed Israeli air strike over the Syrian town of Homs. They claimed Israel’s fighter jets fired seven missiles at the “industrial zone” 30km south of Homs. They added that the Syrian Air Defense Forces 72nd Brigade aimed “several”  S-2 and S-75 air defense system missiles “at the raiding warplanes.”

DEBKAfile: The SA-2 and SA-75 are ageing systems for targeting high-altitude flights.

DEBKAfile reported earlier:

Various reports coming from Lebanese sources Wednesday night, Nov. 1, at around 21.00 hours alternately described unusually heavy Israeli Air Force flights over Syria near the Lebanese border or an Israeli air attack on Al Qusay in the Qalamoun Mountains which straddle that border.

Then, at around 22:30, Lebanese and Syrian sources began claiming that Israeli planes flew over Baalbek in eastern Lebanon and struck Syrian military targets near Homs. Hizballah’s television station Mayadin added that the Israel air attack targeted the Hisya industrial complex in the countryside of Homs and the Syrian army fired one or more anti-air missiles in an attempt to down the Israeli planes. They also described huge explosions heard far away, indicating that the location under attack was a plant, depot or convoy packed with ammunition or weaponry of some kind.
No official sources in Israel, Syria or Lebanon have confirmed any of these reports.

DEBKAfile’s military sources: The reported Israeli air assault on a presumed military target in Syria, if confirmed, while President Vladimir Putin was in Tehran talking with supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, has special significance. Syria’s air defense command operates under the Russian command, and so the Russian officers on the spot would have given the green light for Syrian missile fire and briefed Putin on the course of events.
This would have been the second time in the past fortnight for a Russian-Syrian anti-air missile to be launched against Israeli warplanes. On Oct. 16, a Syrian SA-5 battery based east of Damascus released missiles in an attempt to intercept Israeli flights over Lebanon. Israel retaliated with an air strike that smashed the battery.

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Terror tunnel bingo

Posted November 1, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Hamas, IDF, Islamic Jihad, Israeli security, Terror tunnels
Tags: , , , ,

Terror tunnel bingo, Israel National News, Jack Engelhard, October 31, 2017

Will there be parades in Gaza and Ramallah for the terrorist who committed bloodshed in Manhattan today?

Only we regret. I get it, we’re Jewish. We are supposed to be different. We are supposed to be better.

Maybe, as I’ve written elsewhere, we should be worse once in a while, and then maybe they’d leave us alone.

[T]o borrow from Patton: 

“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

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A few days ago the Israelis found yet another terror tunnel leading into Israeli territory and thinking it was empty, blew it to smithereens. Turns out that there were people still inside busy as beavers, terrorists from Hamas and Islamic Jihad. So the blast, bingo, eliminated them too, about 20 of them, half sent directly to their 72 virgins, the other half injured. 

I get conflicting numbers between the naked and the dead, but within Israel there’s a larger conflict going on even as we speak.

First, the world’s leading Islamic terrorist, Mahmoud Abbas, left his EU and US- funded multi-million dollar bunker to proclaim his outrage.

The Israelis, he said with a straight face, have no right to use deadly force against terrorists. Jews have no right to protect themselves…and according to that line of depraved thinking, New Yorkers are likewise open season as we saw from Tuesday’s ramming and shooting attack in Manhattan.

That is not news. We expect that from the man behind the Klinghoffer and Munich Olympics massacres.

But it is news when the IDF seems to explain that it never intended to hurt anyone. This has sparked controversy as it amounts to an apology.

Since when do we – meaning any sovereign nation – apologize for killing the enemy?

In fact it is a command that when he comes to kill you – which is what these tunnels are all about – you are to get up early and kill him first. In every other country, that’s a good day when even by accident you’ve taken out your attackers. Lucky shot.

But this is Israel and Israel is Jewish and old habits die slowly. Jews always apologize.

Some may remember Tom Wolfe’s “Radical Chic” article in New York Magazine. That was about a group of Black Panther types who attended Leonard Bernstein’s big shindig to celebrate Black Power. The (Liberal) Jews at the same soiree were blamed for everything – and apologized for everything. Everything!

Never mind that from the start the Jews were at the forefront of the Civil Rights Movement.

So now there’s a flap within Benjamin Netanyahu’s cabinet. One says that the IDF was wrong to apologize; the other says, leave the IDF alone.

Criticism against the IDF will never come from me. But I must say this; the response comes across as pathetic…an uncalled for justification in the fog of war.

Sorry for what? Do they apologize to us? They give out candy and build statues to their murderers. They celebrate after they kill.

Sorry we got to them before they got to us?

Will there be parades in Gaza and Ramallah for the terrorist who committed bloodshed in Manhattan today?

Only we regret. I get it, we’re Jewish. We are supposed to be different. We are supposed to be better.

Maybe, as I’ve written elsewhere, we should be worse once in a while, and then maybe they’d leave us alone.

Or take it from our Book of Deuteronomy– “Your eye shall not pity them.”

Then came this British journalist who sprang this over coffee: “Must say, the Israelis have become awfully militaristic.”

The evidence, I explained, proves otherwise. But if so, it’s about damn time. I’ll take militaristic any day against 2,000 years of sitting-duck passivity.

Yes, I will take militaristic whenever it is between them and us.

Or to borrow from Patton:

“No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.”

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Why Don’t Media Treat Islamist Terror Attacks Like White Supremacist Terror Attacks?

Posted November 1, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Media and Islamist supremacists, Media and Islamist terror, Media and White supremacists, NYC terrorist attack
Tags: , , ,

Why Don’t Media Treat Islamist Terror Attacks Like White Supremacist Terror Attacks? Daily Wire, Ben Shapiro, October 31, 2017

(Islamist supremacist terrorists are a protected class. White supremacist terrorists no longer have that elevated status. — DM)

If we’re going to start attributing terrorist ideologies to broader movements, we’re going to have to abide by that rule across the board; if, by contrast, we’re going to distinguish terrorist ideologies from other ideologies, let’s do that across the board. But you can’t connect white supremacism to Ed Gillespie and Confederate flag-owners while adamantly disconnecting Islamism from Islam. That’s intellectually dishonest. Actually, it’s disparaging of non-Muslim Americans more generally, unless there’s a deeper connection between white supremacism and Confederate flag-owning or conservative voting than there is between Islamism and Islam. Which there isn’t.

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On Tuesday, an apparent Islamist terrorist rammed a truck into dozens of Americans on a bike path in New York City, killing eight and injuring over ten. He popped out of the truck shouting “Allahu Akhbar” before being captured by police.

Imagine that a white supremacist had driven a truck onto a bike path filled with minority innocents, killing eight of them. Imagine that the white supremacist had emerged from his truck carrying aloft a Confederate flag.

Imagine that the media had leapt to the defense of those flying the Confederate flag, explaining that only a tiny minority of those who did so had engaged in any sort of racist violence. Imagine that all of America’s major political leaders said the same, and told those who connected the terrorism with the Confederate flag that their viewpoints represented bigotry. Imagine, too, that CNN ran a chyron reading “WITNESSES: SUSPECT WAS CARRYING SOUTHERN VERSION OF AMERICAN FLAG,” and then hosted panels assuring audiences that the Confederate flag was simply a symbol of Southern pride.

Hard to imagine, isn’t it?

Yet that was precisely the chain of events that took place after yet another Islamist terror attack on American soil. Leftist media darling and terrorist-sympathizer Linda Sarsour tweeted, “Every believing Muslim says Allahu Akbar every day during prayers. We cannot criminalize ‘God is great.’ Prosecute the criminal not a faith.” The media did its typical rush to prevent cruel Americans from engaging in “Islamophobia,” expressing that radical Islamic terrorism had no connection to actual Islam. Most of America’s political leaders quickly agreed. CNN ran a chyron reading, “WITNESSES: SUSPECT WAS YELLING ‘GOD IS GREAT’ IN ARABIC.”

Precisely the reverse takes place after white supremacist terror attacks, of course. When white supremacist Dylann Storm Roof committed a massive terror attack on a black church, the media quickly uncovered photos of him with a Confederate flag, and led a month-long discussion on whether the Confederate flag ought to be banned from public places. When a white supremacist in Charlottesville murdered an innocent woman, the media held a month-long discussion on whether Confederate statues ought to be removed. This week, a Latino interest group ran an ad attempting to connect a Republican gubernatorial candidate with a white supremacist march he had openly condemned, and created an ad showing a Confederate flag-flying white supremacist with that candidate’s bumper sticker attempting to run down minority children.

Now, we can have solid discussions about Confederate monuments and the Confederate flag. Those discussions are worthwhile. But why is that we leap to discuss those issues when a white supremacist terrorist kills innocents, but we leap to defend Islam when an Islamist kills innocents? Why the difference? Isn’t radical Islam just as horrifying as white supremacism? And isn’t white supremacism just as statistically non-representative of Confederate flag-owners throughout the South as radical Islam is of observant Muslims across the country?

That’s nonsense. If we’re going to start attributing terrorist ideologies to broader movements, we’re going to have to abide by that rule across the board; if, by contrast, we’re going to distinguish terrorist ideologies from other ideologies, let’s do that across the board. But you can’t connect white supremacism to Ed Gillespie and Confederate flag-owners while adamantly disconnecting Islamism from Islam. That’s intellectually dishonest. Actually, it’s disparaging of non-Muslim Americans more generally, unless there’s a deeper connection between white supremacism and Confederate flag-owning or conservative voting than there is between Islamism and Islam. Which there isn’t.

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Reform Islam or Live the ‘New Normal’ Forever

Posted November 1, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Islamic reformation, Islamic terrorism, Travel ban, Travel restrictions
Tags: , , ,

Reform Islam or Live the ‘New Normal’ Forever, PJ Media, Roger L Simon, October 31, 2017

(What a great, original idea! It’s a shame that nobody thought of it before. But wait. Clarion Project has been promoting it for years, and so have reform groups as the American Islamic Forum for Democracy. I have also argued that there is no other solution to the Islamic terrorism problem in America. In the linked article I suggested a few ways in which an Islamic reformation could be encouraged. Nothing useful has been done, so I suppose we, like most Europeans, must be content with the “new normal.” — DM)

Boston Marathon US Muslims

Two of the more repugnant Americans today are the moral narcissist judges from Maryland (Theodore Chuang) and Hawaii (Derrick Watson) who tried to upend Donald Trump’s travel ban.  They have metaphorical blood on their robes, whether they know it or not.

The fact is the travel ban is insufficient, not illegal.  It’s only a meager beginning in dealing with a situation that has not changed in any real sense since 9/11, as the events in New York Tuesday testify. If we do not move even more seriously to prevent them, they will indeed become the “new normal.”  Globally, they already have.

The ISIS-loving psycho killer who murdered eight and crippled more, Sayfullo Saipov, is from Uzbekistan, which is not on the banned list.  Not only that, he was admitted to the U.S. via something called the Diversity (yes, that word again) Visa Program, a blind lottery system that seems more like Russian roulette for existing citizens.  Spin the wheel and admit a mass murderer for Allah.

Trump, none too soon, evidently wants to do away with this insanity, but what about the travel ban? If you were realistic, you would have to include places like France and Belgium, even the UK, that are presently loaded with Islamists chomping at the bit to serve their deranged cause. (Yes, I know, these countries supposedly vet their travelers, but events within their own borders give little confidence.)

All politics may be local, but New York is far from alone.  According to TheReligionofPeace website, there were 34 jihadist attacks in 13 countries over just six days this past week (Oct. 21-27), resulting in 444 killed and 114 injured.  That doesn’t include the horrific suicide bombing in Somalia on October 28 that took over two dozen lives — “including three children and a beheaded woman.”

What most of us know — those who are even faintly honest anyway — is that Islam has a gigantic problem, the basis of which is that the so-called “radical” Islamists are actually practicing the fundamental version of their religion. What they do is approved, even required, by their holy texts.   Many of our liberals and progressives don’t know this — or don’t want to — but it’s the reality.  It is also the reason Muslim protest is so tepid and often focused on non-existent Islamophobia.

And it is finally those beliefs that explain why people like ex-Uber driver Saipov can, as was reported, seem so friendly and pleasant, and then turn around and mow down as many people as he can in a jihadist orgy. He may be psychologically disturbed in our terms, but in his own, he’s a believer.  And his belief system can ultimately be a more powerful and enduring adversary than communism or Nazism, because it promises eternal life.  (This is why I have always thought calling jihadists “cowards,” as so many of our politicians do,  silly.  They are more than willing to die.  Indeed, they crave it.)

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The Left Has Blood on its Hands in Manhattan

Posted November 1, 2017 by danmillerinpanama
Categories: Law enforcement and Islamic terrorism, Media and Islam, Media and law enforcement, NYC Police Dept., NYC terrorist attack
Tags: , , ,

The Left Has Blood on its Hands in Manhattan, FrontPage Magazine, Daniel Greenfield, November 1, 2017

(Please see also, NYC Terrorist: Lone Wolf … or Not? — DM)

The New York media’s first response after the attack was to try and blame road rage. Before long, you will see it running the standardized “Muslims fear backlash” stories that are a staple of every effort to sweep the latest Islamic terrorist attack under the rug along with the blood and the bodies.

Islamic terrorists like Sayfullo Saipov are able to do what they do because they have a long list of collaborators like the ACLU, Democrat politicians, Federal judges and the mainstream media.

While law enforcement fights a desperate battle to stop the next Saipov, the men and women tracking the terrorists know that if they get their man, the media will make them the villains. Just ask the good people who brought down Ahmed Ferhani, James Cromitie, Shahawar Matin Siraj and so many others.

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Earlier this year, a final settlement was reached in the war on the NYPD’s counterterrorist Islamic surveillance. The Manhattan courtroom where the lawfare effort to dismantle the NYPD’s ability to stop terrorist attacks was heard is blocks away from the site of the latest Islamic terrorist attack in New York.

Walk two blocks down to City Hall. And then head down Chambers to the West Side Highway. That’s where the terrorist attack that killed eight people ended when an NYPD officer shot the terrorist. If he had kept going down the West Side Highway, instead of crashing into a school bus, he would have eventually been within attack range of the 9/11 Memorial. And maybe that was his original plan.

But his message was very clear. He shouted it as he left the truck with which he murdered 8 people.

“Allahu Akbar”. These were the last words on the Flight 93 flight recorder. Mohamed Atta had advised his fellow 9/11 hijackers to, “Shout, ‘Allahu Akbar,’ because it strikes fear in the hearts of the infidels.”

Sayfullo Saipov, the Muslim terrorist who carried out the latest attack, was just listening to Atta’s advice. The 16thanniversary of the attacks has passed, but the hatred of Allah’s killers burns as hot as ever.

And the attack carried clear echoes of 9/11.

Saipov had listed an address in Paterson, NJ. Paterson, known to the locals as ‘Paterstine’ for its sizable Islamic community, is where the PLO terror flag flies over City Hall and where Islamic terrorist sympathizers celebrated after their compatriots murdered thousands on 9/11.

Paterson is also where 6 of the 9/11 hijackers lived.

The terrorist reportedly rented the truck used in the attack in Jersey City. That’s where the terrorists who bombed the World Trade Center rented the van they used in the attack. And Jersey City was where some of the terrorists lived. And it’s where Muslims were caught celebrating the September 11 attacks.

The attack by the Muslim settler from Uzbekistan was almost identical to previous Car Jihad attacks in Europe. Right down to using a fake firearm. But New York City had avoided the non-stop terror wave that engulfed Paris and other European cities thanks to the hard work of the NYPD.

But every time the NYPD broke up an Islamic terror plot, the media and its leftist allies would howl that the racist police had entrapped another innocent mentally ill Muslim. When the Newburgh Four plotted to bomb synagogues in the Bronx, the media was in their corner. HBO even aired The Newburgh Sting, a piece of propaganda whitewashing the terrorists. The revisionist documentary played at the Tribeca Film Festival. And Tribeca is the site of the latest Islamic terrorist attack.

Linda Sarsour, the leading Islamic activist on the left, defended Ahmed Ferhani, who had also plotted to blow up a synagogue, and Shahawar Matin Siraj, who was convicted of plotting to blow up a Manhattan subway station, as victims of NYPD entrapment.

But it’s hard to think of a NYPD or FBI terror bust in New York that the media didn’t undermine. The Nation and the Guardian led the lynch mob. But soon CBS, The Atlantic and the New York Times joined in. All the Muslim terrorists that the NYPD had stopped were really immature and easily manipulated young men. The plots had been invented by paid informants. And it didn’t stop there.

For the last four years, the ACLU and other pro-terror groups had waged an effective lawfare campaign to cripple the NYPD’s counterterrorism. And they succeeded. The NYPD’s ability to send informants into mosques was handicapped. New York cops were now required to consider the “impact” of informants on mosques after Islamist groups claimed that their presence discouraged mosque attendance. The approvals required made it much harder to use one of the more effective terror prevention tools.

The Demographics Unit, one of the most important big picture intel tools for the NYPD, was shut down. But that wasn’t enough. Even when the NYPD agreed to a settlement, Judge Charles S. Haight Jr. insisted that it didn’t go far enough to protect “law-abiding Muslims and believers in Islam who live, move and have their being in this city.”

Sayfullo Saipov moved his being and the truck it was in over the bodies of New Yorkers leaving tire tracks over corpses. The Manhattan attack, like every Islamic attack before it, could have been stopped. But the NYPD’s hands had been tied. And the left had done the tying. It defended every Islamic terrorist that the NYPD had arrested. And prevented the NYPD from investigating mosques and radicalization.

Now it has what it really wanted. Dead Americans. And it has their blood on its manicured fingers.

The Uzbeki Islamic terrorist had listed an address in Paterson, New Jersey. The NYPD had come under attack for conducting surveillance in New Jersey. One of the targets was a mosque in Paterson. Other targets were in Jersey City. That was where Saipov allegedly rented the truck used in the attack. The Uzbeki Muslim terrorist also links back to Florida. The media has largely ignored or tried to cover up the string of Islamic terrorist attacks linked to Florida, from the Pulse Massacre in Orlando, to the latest Islamic terrorist plot to bomb the Dolphin Mall on Black Friday.

Sayfullo Saipov had come here in 2010. In that short amount of time he managed to amass criminal records in Pennsylvania and Missouri for traffic offenses. After stints in at least three other states, he went on a killing spree that took eight lives and wounded as well as traumatized countless others.

Dem leaders in New York are already rolling out the standard messages urging everyone to go back to life as usual. Mayor Bill de Blasio called the attack “cowardly”. But the attack wasn’t cowardly. It was vicious and murderous. It’s Bill de Blasio and the other politicians who crippled the NYPD because they were afraid of political pressure from Linda Sarsour and CAIR who are the real cowards.

They are cowards with blood on their hands.

The New York media’s first response after the attack was to try and blame road rage. Before long, you will see it running the standardized “Muslims fear backlash” stories that are a staple of every effort to sweep the latest Islamic terrorist attack under the rug along with the blood and the bodies.

Islamic terrorists like Sayfullo Saipov are able to do what they do because they have a long list of collaborators like the ACLU, Democrat politicians, Federal judges and the mainstream media.

While law enforcement fights a desperate battle to stop the next Saipov, the men and women tracking the terrorists know that if they get their man, the media will make them the villains. Just ask the good people who brought down Ahmed Ferhani, James Cromitie, Shahawar Matin Siraj and so many others.

Sane societies celebrate those who risk their lives to keep them safe. The leftist culture machine does everything it can to destroy them and to aid the Islamic butchers who run over pedestrians for Allah.

The way to stop the next Saipov is to untie the NYPD’s hands.

After every shooting, the left insists that anyone who opposes gun control wants people to die. But guns don’t hop off the shelf and shoot people. And trucks don’t run over pedestrians on their own.

Islamic terrorists drive them into crowds, over pedestrians and cyclists, in London, Nice, in Berlin, in Jerusalem and in New York City. And leftists who refuse to stop them might as well be behind the wheel.

Leftists who would rather control the police than the Islamic terrorists want people to die.

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