Posted tagged ‘Islamic terrorism’

« WarSclerotic home page
« Older Entries
Newer Entries »

Omar Mateen Worked for Company that Provides Security to Federal Buildings

June 12, 2016

Omar Mateen Worked for Company that Provides Security to Federal Buildings, Power Line, John Hinderaker, June 12, 2016

(Feel safer now? — DM)

Ponder this: G4S, a major, nationally known security firm, has confirmed that Omar Mateen had been employed by them since 2007.

G4S’s web site says:

For more than 50 years, G4S has partnered with government agencies – from the Department of State to the Department of Homeland Security among several others – in many capacities that include:

* Systems integration services that deliver world-class electronic and physical security solutions for critical infrastructure and government facilities

* Security management products, including access control, video management and facility management software
State-of-the-art security software, risk management, incident reporting and facility management technology

* Security personnel who are consistently ranked the best in the security business

Mateen had a security license, and I take it that he was one of those “security personnel.” Then there is this:

Ensuring the safety of travelers and the efficiency of the international transport system

In the global economy, international trade and travel is reliant upon the security of our vast network of ports and airports.

At G4S, we know that the key to releasing wider benefits for our clients is to always look at the overall picture to consider solutions that transform performance.

G4S works with clients to understand the specific security issues they face. We design solutions to meet those issues, bringing together our expertise in logistics, technology, project management and managing the world’s biggest security personnel work force.

Our solutions and capabilities include:

* Design and build automated video surveillance systems to improve security and enable facility operators to detect and monitor threats

* Perimeter security enhancements that include lighting, thermal imaging cameras, CCTV and motion-detecting systems

* Video analytics, wireless communications links and vessel traffic monitoring systems

And this:

Nuclear Facility Security

High-risk facilities need a partner with the experience and capability to deliver comprehensive security solutions

As the security solutions pioneer for the high-level critical infrastructure industry, G4S has an outstanding reputation, strong historical commitment and unsurpassed expertise for our clients.

* G4S has partnered with more than 90 percent of U.S. nuclear facilities

* Our force-on-force prep has sites earning a 100 percent passing rate

* Our engineering team has performed design work for more than 80 percent of U.S. nuclear facilities

* Our technology has systems in more than 70 percent of U.S. nuclear facilities

In the wake of Mateen’s terrorist attack, liberals have already begun blathering about guns. Bernie Sanders, for example:

I gotta tell you over 25 years ago, I believed that in this country we should not be selling automatic weapons which are designed to kill people. We have got to do everything that we can on top of that to make sure that guns do not fall into the hands of people who should not have them, criminals, people who are mentally ill. So that struggle continues.

Mateen didn’t use an automatic weapon. He used a semiautomatic rifle and a handgun that presumably was also semiautomatic. A large majority of the handguns sold in the U.S. are semiautomatics, and, while I haven’t seen statistics on rifles, the most popular rifle in the U.S. is the AR-15. Many millions have been sold, and many other rifles are also semiautomatics. And, news flash, Bernie: every firearm is “designed to kill people.”

Everyone would agree that it is desirable to keep guns out of “the hands of people who should not have them.” In fact, that is tautological. But Omar Mateen wasn’t mentally ill, and until yesterday he wasn’t a criminal. He evidently passed whatever background check was necessary to work for a well-respected security firm. While we don’t yet know where he obtained his firearms, it is reasonable to assume that he bought them legally, and would have been able to buy them legally under any regime that liberals have proposed, other than a ban on semiautomatic rifles.

Rather than talking about keeping guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them, how about a narrower focus on how we can insure that jihadists are not hired to provide security at federal buildings, airports and nuclear power plants?

 

Categories: Gun control, Islamic terrorism, National secuity, Orlando massacre
Tags: , , ,

Comments: 1 Comment

Two Terrorists Open Fire in Tel Aviv Cafe :video

June 9, 2016

Arutz Sheva TV

Published on Jun 8, 2016

http://www.israelnationalnews.com

Uncle of Sarona terrorists murdered four in 2002

http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/213474#.V1lwkjUbJ6k

Sarona Market terrorists: 21-year-old Hamas members from Yatta

http://www.jerusalemonline.com/news/in-israel/local/sarona-market-terrorists-21-year-old-hamas-terrorists-21599

Categories: Uncategorized
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Taliban Surpasses Islamic State as World’s Most Prolific Terrorist Group

June 7, 2016

Taliban Surpasses Islamic State as World’s Most Prolific Terrorist Group, Breitbart, Edwin Mora, June 6, 2016

taliban-fighters-afghanistan-associated-press-640x480AP Photos/Allauddin Khan

Taliban jihadists replaced their Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) counterparts as the world’s chief perpetrators of terrorist attacks last year, with 1,093 individual attacks, according to the U.S. Department of State’s Country Reports on Terrorism 2015.

However, ISIS’s 931 terrorist attacks in 2015 wTaliban jihadists replaced their Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) counterparts as the world’s chief perpetrators of terrorist attacks last year, with 1,093 individual attacks, according to the U.S. Department of State’s Country Reports on Terrorism 2015.ere reportedly much deadlier than those carried out by the Taliban, resulting in 6,050 deaths compared to the 4,512 fatalities linked to the Taliban, notes the State Department’s annual reports, a congressionally mandated analytical and statistical review of global terrorism.

ISIS replaced the Nigeria-based Boko Haram as the terrorist group responsible for the most fatalities in 2015. Boko Haram was responsible for 491 terrorist attacks last year resulting in 5,450 deaths. Boko Haram is treated as a separate terrorist group as its logistics are independent of ISIS, despite the group pledging allegiance to Islamic State caliph Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi last year.

In 2015, ISIS was also responsible for causing more injuries (6,010) and taking more hostages (4,759) than any other terrorist group.

On Sunday, three Taliban jihadists attacked an Afghan court, killing seven people including “a number of prosecutors and judges,” the terrorist group announced, according to CNN.

“The attack triggered a shootout with Afghan security forces that lasted 1 1/2 hours,” adds the news network. “At least 23 people were wounded.”

The Taliban has stepped up an increasingly violent insurgency since President Obama and NATO ended their combat mission in Afghanistan in December 2014. Afghan civilians and security forces have since suffered a record number of casualties at the hands of the terrorist group.

Five terrorist groups were identified by the State Department as being responsible for the most terrorist attacks in 2015: the Taliban (1,093); ISIS (931); Boko Haram (491); the Communist Party of India-Maoist (343); and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, PKK, (238).

“A total of 270 groups and organizations were identified as perpetrators of terrorist attacks, including 78 organizations that had not previously been identified as perpetrators in the Global Terrorism Database,” reports the State Department. “The number of newly identified perpetrator organizations declined in 2015 from more than 100 in 2014.”

“The biggest surprise was the removal of the Somali group al-Shabaab from the top-five list of perpetrators, that outfit having been responsible for the third-most attacks in 2014,” notes The Atlantic magazine. “The new addition to the 2015 list was the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has re-committed to the use of political violence in a significant way, increasing the number of attacks from 47 to 38 and noncombatants killed from 12 to 287.”

Iraq was the location of the highest numbers of total attacks, deaths, and people injured and kidnapped.

Overall, “the number of attacks in which victims were kidnapped or taken hostage declined in 2015; however, the number of kidnapping victims and hostages increased,” notes the Department of State (DOS) assessment. “This was primarily due to an increase in the number of attacks involving exceptionally large numbers of victims.”

The total number of terrorist attacks across the globe last year dropped by 13 percent, from 13,482 in 2014 to 11,774, and total fatalities by 14 percent, from 32,763 to 28,328.

“This was largely due to fewer attacks and deaths in Iraq, Pakistan, and Nigeria. This represents the first decline in total terrorist attacks and deaths worldwide since 2012,” notes DOS evaluation, adding, “In several countries, including Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Egypt, the Philippines, Syria, and Turkey, terrorist attacks and total deaths increased in 2015.”

There was also a slight decrease in the number of countries where terrorist attacks took place, from 95 in 2014 to 92 last year.

“Although terrorist attacks took place in 92 countries in 2015, they were heavily concentrated geographically,” declares DOS. “More than 55% of all attacks took place in five countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India, and Nigeria), and 74% of all deaths due to terrorist attacks took place in five countries (Iraq, Afghanistan, Nigeria, Syria, and Pakistan).”

“Of the 28,328 people killed in terrorist attacks in 2015, 6,924 (24%) were perpetrators of terrorist attacks,” it adds. “Perpetrators were killed intentionally in suicide attacks, accidentally while attempting to carry out attacks, or by security forces or victims responding to attacks. This is an 11% increase in the number of perpetrator deaths, compared to 2014.”

Categories: Department of State, Islamic jihad, Islamic State, Islamic terrorism, Taliban
Tags: , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

State Dept.: Hezbollah, Islamic State Maintain Presence in Latin America

June 7, 2016

State Dept.: Hezbollah, Islamic State Maintain Presence in Latin America, Breitbart, Edwin Mora, June 6, 2016

Hezbollah-Getty-640x480Getty Images

WASHINGTON, D.C. —The U.S. Department of State (DOS) has determined that Venezuela, which has refused to cooperate with the United States’ antiterrorism efforts in Latin America for nearly a decade, remains a “permissive environment” that promotes ideological and financial support for terrorist organizations, namely Iran’s Lebanese proxy Hezbollah.

Although the “primary threats” to the Western Hemisphere stem from left-wing guerrillas known as the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN), the Islamic extremist groups Shiite Hezbollah, also spelled Hizballah, and Sunni Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) also maintain a presence across the region, according to DOS’ Country Reports on Terrorism 2015, a congressionally mandated assessment of terrorism activities across the world authored by DOS.

The assessment declares:

South America and the Caribbean also served as areas of financial and ideological support for ISIL and other terrorist groups in the Middle East and South Asia. In addition, Hizballah continued to maintain a presence in the region, with members, facilitators, and supporters engaging in activity in support of the organization. This included efforts to build Hizballah’s infrastructure in South America and fundraising, both through licit and illicit means.

[…]

There were credible reports that Venezuela maintained a permissive environment that allowed for support of activities that benefited known terrorist groups… [including] Hizballah supporters and sympathizers.

Moreover, the DOS evaluation highlights the Tri-Border Area (TBA) between Paraguay, Brazil, and Argentina, in addition to Peru, as regions where Hezbollah was operating last year.

“Illicit activities within the TBA remained potential funding sources for terrorist organizations, most notably Hizballah,” it says, adding, “The Tri-Border Areas of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay remained an important regional nexus of arms, narcotics, pirated goods, human smuggling, counterfeiting, and money laundering — all potential funding sources for terrorist organizations.”

The TBA border region has long been a hotbed for Hezbollah members.

In its terrorism reports, the DOS also points out that Peruvian authorities in 2014 arrested a Lebanese national and his wife, a U.S-Peruvian citizen, for suspected links to Hezbollah, adding that “there were residue and traces of explosives” in their apartment.

Hezbollah, along with other terrorists and criminals in Latin America, are known to use networks that support illicit activities, such as trafficking drugs, wildlife, bulk cash, weapons, humans, in addition to illegal logging and mining.

The DOS released its assessment Thursday, a day after the U.S. military declared the region’s illicit trafficking networks as one of the greatest security threats facing the United States.

Gen. John Kelly – former commander of U.S. Southern Command (SOUTHCOM), which oversees military activities in Latin America and the Caribbean – warned last year that jihadist groups like ISIS could exploit the illicit networks in the region to infiltrate the United States, adding that Hezbollah is already using known routes to traffic drugs and other contraband.

Although Hezbollah is believed to be the most prominent jihadist group in Latin America and the Caribbean due to Iran’s enduring presence in the region, Gen. Kelly warned in March 2015 that a small number of Sunni extremists are actively “radicalizing  converts and other Muslims in the region and also provide financial and logistical support to designated terrorist organizations within and outside Latin America.”

Pentagon and DOS have recently revealed that between 100 and 150 people from Latin America and the Caribbean have traveled to the Middle East to engage in jihad on behalf of ISIS, without specifying the names of any of the countries in the region.

According to the Department of State, some people from Trinidad and Tobago, as well as Argentina, are believed to have joined ISIS in the Middle East.

“More than 70 nationals of Trinidad and Tobago are believed be fighting with ISIL in Syria,” reports DOS, adding, “It is possible small numbers of Argentine citizens may have sought to travel to Syria and Iraq to join ISIL,” without providing any specific figures.

DOS also mentioned an ISIS-related arrest in Brazil involving a money laundering group accused of moving $10 million-plus and having social media ties to the jihadist group.

Iran’s growing presence in Latin America is believed to be facilitated by Venezuela.

“The International Development Bank, a subsidiary of the Development and Export Bank of Iran, continued to operate in Venezuela [in 2015] despite its designation in 2008 by the U.S. Treasury Department under E.O. [Executive Order] 13382 (‘Blocking Property of Weapons of Mass Destruction Proliferators and their Supporters’),” mentions the DOS assessment.

Justin Siberell, acting coordinator for counterterrorism at the State Department, briefed reporters Thursday about the 2015 Country Reports on Terrorism, stressing that the enduring presence in the region of leading state sponsor of terror Iran continues to trouble the United States.

“I think Iran’s presence in the Western Hemisphere and its support for groups that might be engaged in facilitation or operational planning is a continued concern,” Siberell told reporters.

Nevertheless, he added, “I don’t think we’ve seen an increase in 2015 in Iran’s activity in the Western Hemisphere, but it remains a high priority for us.”

Categories: Department of State, Hezbollah, Islamic terrorism, Latin America
Tags: , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Ramadan: Month of Jihad

June 7, 2016

Ramadan: Month of Jihad, Front Page Magazine, Robert Spencer, June 7, 2016

(Please see also, Obama on Ramadan: Reject ‘Voices That Seek to Limit Our Religious Freedom’. — DM)

terrorist (1)

Another Ramadan is upon us, and no less an authority on Islam than Barack Hussein Obama has assured us that “for many, this month is an opportunity to focus on reflection and spiritual growth, forgiveness, patience and resilience, compassion for those less fortunate, and unity across communities.” Meanwhile, a Muslim whom Obama would disparage as a “violent extremist” who has hijacked the religion of peace, Islamic State spokesman Abu Mohammad al-Adnani, called on Muslims to use this Ramadan to “get prepared, be ready … to make it a month of calamity everywhere for nonbelievers…especially for the fighters and supporters of the caliphate in Europe and America.”

Ramadan 2016 began with the news that a group of Muslims in Jordan were so filled with pious fervor that they murdered five Jordanian intelligence officers in an attack on a security office. The perpetrators may have been acting upon the understanding of Ramadan that a jihad group enunciated back in 2012: “The month of Ramadan is a month of holy war and death for Allah. It is a month for fighting the enemies of Allah and God’s messenger, the Jews and their American facilitators. One of our groups aided by Allah managed to bomb a bus full of Jewish tourists, plunderers of holy lands, after careful tracking. The holy war is not confined to a particular arena and we shall fight the Jews and the Americans until they leave the land of Islam.”

So which is it? Is Ramadan a time to “an opportunity to focus on reflection and spiritual growth, forgiveness, patience and resilience, compassion for those less fortunate, and unity across communities,” or is it “a month of calamity everywhere for nonbelievers”?

In fact, it’s both. During Ramadan, Muslims are exhorted to renew and deepen their devotion to Allah. Hence it is a time when they’re supposed to grow more generous and kind toward their fellow Muslims. However, the Qur’an says: “Muhammad is the Messenger of Allah, and those who are with him are severe against disbelievers, and merciful among themselves” (48:29). If the Ramadan imperative is to become more devout, the Muslim who applies himself diligently to the Ramadan observance will simultaneously become more both merciful to his fellow Muslims and more severe against the unbelievers.

Murdering infidels thus doesn’t contradict the spirit of Ramadan; it embodies it. The Kavkaz Center, a website operated by Chechen jihadists, explained in a 2010 article that the idea of Ramadan as a time for warfare against infidels went back to Muhammad’s time: “The month of Ramadan in the life of the Prophet (pbuh) and the righteous ancestors was a month of forthcoming. The greatest battles during the lifetime of the Prophet (pbuh) occurred in this blessed month, the month of jihad, zeal and enthusiasm.”

Obama is, true to form, severely misleading the American people when he focuses exclusively upon Ramadan’s exhortation to charity (the part of the Qur’an verse about being “merciful” to one’s fellow Muslims) without mentioning its imperative to terrorize infidels (the other part, about being “severe” toward the unbelievers). But as we have seen already in Jordan, all too many Muslims around the world are fully aware of that part of the Ramadan observance, and are ready to carry it out.

It is folly to pretend that the aspect of Ramadan that makes it a more dangerous time for non-Muslims doesn’t exist: dangerous, suicidal folly. But the fact that no one in the public square even thinks to question Obama’s Ramadan congratulations, which roll around every year in the same form, shows how widespread that folly is. Obama’s Ramadan message for this year concluded: “I can think of no better way to mark my Administration’s last celebration of Ramadan as President than to honor the contributions of Muslims in America and across the world for Eid. Ramadan Kareem.”

What contributions of Muslims in America? He has alluded to them before, but once again he didn’t bother to list any, and of course no one asked. That Muslims have made great contributions to America (beyond spurring tremendous developments in airline security, that is) is simply an unquestionable dogma of our silly and stupid age; no one needs ask the President for examples, because those contributions are taken as axiomatic, with only “Islamophobes” questioning them. That there aren’t any actual such contributions is an inconvenient fact, to be sure, but one so thoroughly obscured by propaganda that everyone feels it can be safely ignored.

The cognitive dissonance here equals that about Ramadan itself. And as our Ramadan follies and willful blindness continue, more Infidels will die.

Categories: Islamic terrorism, Obama and Islam, Ramadan
Tags: , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Islamic Extremism in Ireland (Part I): Brotherhood Thriving

June 6, 2016

Islamic Extremism in Ireland (Part I): Brotherhood Thriving, Clarion Project, Leslie Shaw, June 6, 2016

Ali-Selim-Ireland-HP

The Muslim population of Ireland increased 10-fold from just under 4,000 or 0.1% of the total population in 1991 to 1.1% in 2011 (just under 50,000). Dr. Ali Selim is one of its leading figures. RTE, the national television and radio station, has just turned down a request he made for the broadcasting of a daily call to prayer to mark the end of the 2016 Ramadan fasting period.

Ramadan, which runs from June 6 to July 7, requires Muslims not to eat or drink between sunrise and sunset. RTE turned down the request because TV schedules are fixed, whereas the end of Ramadan varies from day to day. Selim reacted to the decision by declaring that “in Muslim countries the commencement of the period of fasting and its end is marked with a prayer call chanted through loudspeakers placed on the top of the minarets. It is also aired through radio and TV channels.” He seems to ignore the salient fact that Ireland is not a Muslim country.

While Selim is an outspoken and uncompromising advocate for the Irish Muslim constituency, he is less eloquent when it comes to condemning Islamic terrorism. In a 2003 interview, Irish talk-show host Pat Kenny put the following question to him:

“So there is no justification for September 11th?”

Selim replied, “This is another political issue I do not want to touch.”

In response to this refusal, Kenny retorted:

“Why not? I mean if you cannot condemn September 11th, people will draw the conclusion that you are in favor of it.”

Ali Selim came to Ireland from Egypt in 1999 and studied at Trinity College Dublin, where he obtained the degrees of M.A. and Ph.D. He lectures on Islam at the Mater Dei Institute, affiliated to Dublin City University and also teaches Arabic at Trinity College. Aside from his academic posts he serves as private secretary to the Imam at the Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland and as Secretary General of the Irish Council of Imams.

In another TV interview in 2006, Selim refused to judge Osama Bin Laden when pressed, saying he did not know him personally.

In his 2014 book Islam and Education in Ireland, he called for radical change in the Irish educational system to accommodate the Islamic beliefs of the 65,000 Muslims living in Ireland, 20,000 of whom he claimed were under 18 years of age. This would include modifications to the national curriculum relating to physical education, relationship and sexuality education, music, drama and the practice of Islamic rituals during school hours.

He complained that Muslim girls were being “obliged to take off their headscarves for physical education classes” and demanded that schools “employ a female PE teacher and provide students with a sports hall not accessible to men during times when girls are at play. They should also not be visible to men while at play.”

After the Charlie Hebdo attack in January 2015, Selim threatened to sue any Irish media outlet that reproduced the offending cartoon of Mohammed.

Selim appears to be the Irish propagandist for the Muslim Brotherhood‘s Salafist interpretation of Islam and has entrenched himself in the Muslim community, assuming a leadership role and acting as a self-proclaimed spokesman. Mosques, social and educational initiatives are the instruments of this strategy and are financed by the Al Maktoum foundation in Dubai as well as Saudi Arabia and Qatar.

The Islamic Cultural Centre of Ireland is located in the same complex as the Clonskeagh mosque in south Dublin. Built and funded by Al Maktoum foundation, analysts claim it is a front for the Muslim Brotherhood. In 2007 the mosque hosted two extremist speakers. One was Saudi cleric Salman Al Awda, one of the 26 Saudi scholars who issued the 2004 fatwa calling for jihad against the Americans in Iraq. The second was Egyptian cleric Wagdy Ghoneim, who supports suicide bombing against Jews. He is banned from the UK and Canada, where he is said to be a member of Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood. This did not pose a problem for his visits to Ireland in 2006 and 2007.

While it already boasted one of Europe’s major mosques in Clonskeagh, in 2013, Dublin City Council granted a building permit to the Dublin Welfare Society and Muslim Centre of Ireland for an even bigger development in Clongriffin, north Dublin that was to be the largest in Europe.

The six-acre project in north Dublin included a three-storey, domed mosque with two minarets as well as apartments, shops, a kindergarten, elementary school, high school, cultural center, prayer hall, meeting rooms, creche and a 60,000 sq. ft. library with the estimated $45 million investment funded by Qatar. Two years after the permit was granted the developer, Gannon Homes, announced that the project would not be going ahead due to a lack of funding by the proposers.

Back in 2006, US Ambassador to Ireland James C. Kenny reported in a cable to the State Department that the ICCI had close links to Islamic extremists and hired as a religious teacher Abderrahmane Katrani, an Afghanistan veteran and Moroccan national wanted by Moroccan authorities for the 2003 Casablanca bombings. The head of ICCI’s European Council for Fatwa and Research Sheikh Yusuf al-Qaradawi was banned from entry to the US in 1999. According to Kenny’s cable the Muslim Brotherhood is stronger in Ireland than anywhere in the world outside Qatar.

A fact that gives a whole new meaning to the term Emerald Isle.

Categories: Ireland, Islam and human rights, Islamic invasion, Islamic radicalization, Islamic terrorism, Islamisation, Islamism, Muslim Brotherhood
Tags: , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

No Refuge for the Victims of Jihadist Genocide

June 3, 2016

No Refuge for the Victims of Jihadist Genocide, Front Page Magazine, Joseph Klein, June 3, 2016

christian-syrian-refugee-900

President Obama sharply criticized the suggestion that persecuted Christians be given preference for admission as refugees.   He said that “when I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which person who’s fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted… that’s shameful.”  Obama added: “That’s not American, it’s not who we are.” 

The Obama-Trudeau policy of opening doors widely to Muslim refugees, while allowing hardly a crack to open for the Christian and Yazidi victims of jihadi-inspired genocide, is risky, to be sure. It is also immoral.

*********************

The Obama administration is rapidly accelerating its admission and resettlement of Syrian refugees.  The administration is well on its way to meeting its target of taking 10,000 Syrians into the country by the end of the current fiscal year on September 30th.  In the first five months of 2016, 2,099 Syrian refugees have been admitted, compared with 2,192 for the whole of 2015, according to a report by CNS News. However, only a very tiny percentage are Christians, a beleaguered minority who are facing genocide in their home country. The Obama administration is immorally discriminating against Christian Syrian refugees.

“Out of the 2,099 Syrian refugees admitted so far this year, six (0.28 percent) are Christians,” CNS reported.  Ten (0.3 percent) are Yazidis. Over 99 percent are Muslims. And the trend line is worsening as the year progresses.  Last month, only two Christians (0.19 percent) were admitted compared to 1,035 Muslims.

Christians are estimated to have made up approximately ten percent of the total Syrian population at the outset of the conflict in Syria, according to the CIA Factbook. As Christians have come under attack by both the regime and jihadist groups, including ISIS, the Christian population in Syria has declined.

Patrick Sookhdeo, the founder and international director of the charity group the Barnabas Fund, which has worked to rescue Syrian Christians, said: “In Aleppo, to give you one illustration, there used to be 400,000 Christians four years ago. Today there may be between 45,000 and 65,000.”

Yet, according to data compiled by the U.S. State Department Refugee Processing Center, only 47 Syrian Christians have been admitted to the United States in all that time – slightly over 1 percent of the total number of Syrian refugees admitted. The current rate of Christian admissions is running far below even that miniscule level.

The UN Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide defines the crime of genocide as “acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnic, racial or religious group.”

After receiving significant pressure, the Obama administration finally yielded to the obvious. Secretary of State John Kerry declared last March that the Islamic State has been committing genocide against Christians, Yazidis and other minorities in the Middle East.

Note that while Kerry included Shiite Muslims on his list of ISIS’s genocide victims, Sunni Muslims were not included. Nor should they be, considering the fact that ISIS jihadists are themselves Sunni Muslims. Al Qaeda jihadists are Sunni Muslims. The ideology of Wahhabism fueling the jihadists’ reign of terror, exported by Saudi Arabia, is of Sunni Muslim origin.

Therefore, one would think that Christians and other targeted minorities would receive preference for refugee status in the United States, not Sunni Muslims. Think again. Since the beginning of the Syrian conflict, approximately 96% of the Syrian refugees admitted to the United States by the Obama administration have been Sunni Muslims.

President Obama sharply criticized the suggestion that persecuted Christians be given preference for admission as refugees.   He said that “when I hear political leaders suggesting that there would be a religious test for which person who’s fleeing from a war-torn country is admitted… that’s shameful.”  Obama added: “That’s not American, it’s not who we are.”

It is President Obama’s Syrian refugee policy that is both “shameful” and “not American.” It has amounted to what is in effect a “religious test,” vastly favoring the one group of migrants from Syria who needs refugee protection the least– Sunni Muslims. Moreover, some of these Sunni Muslims are bringing their Wahhabi jihadist ideology with them.

Whatever self-righteous statements Obama, Pope Francis and United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-moon make regarding the moral responsibility of Western nations to admit many more refugees, there is no moral imperative to commit cultural suicide. That is perhaps why the Dali Lama warned a German newspaper this week that “too many” refugees from the Middle East and North Africa are heading into Europe. He knows of the problems Buddhists have been having with their own Muslim populations. He is also aware of the history of many Buddhist countries that were converted to Islam, including Afghanistan where invading Muslims overran the native Buddhist and Hindu populations.

We don’t even have to look as far as Europe to see what can happen to a culture under the increasing influence of Islamization. For example, the Muslim population in Canada is growing faster than that of any other religion. A majority of Muslims already living in Canada have favored being able to live under some form of sharia law, and a number of local governments have made accommodations in that direction.

Now enters the Barack Obama of Canada, Justin Trudeau, as Canada’s new prime minister. His Liberal government is hoping to admit 50,000 Syrian refugees by the end of 2016. 25,000 Syrian refugees have been admitted in just four months.  Trudeau also appointed Member of Parliament and senior adviser Omar Alghabra, a sharia law supporter who has denied that Hamas is a terrorist group, as Parliamentary Secretary for Foreign Affairs. Alghabra was born in Saudi Arabia, but emigrated to Canada from Syria several decades ago.

While Trudeau’s predecessor Stephen Harper had prioritized the admission of persecuted Christians, Yazidis and Kurds, Trudeau said that he will “absolutely not” continue that practice. He and Obama are in sync that saving persecuted Christians from an ongoing genocide is less important than reaching out to Muslim refugees as proof of the country’s diversity and inclusiveness. When the two leaders met at the White House last March, they were effusive in mutual admiration for each other’s compassion towards the refugees. However, they are oblivious to the enhanced security risk to both countries they have created.

For example, some of the recently arrived refugees in Canada were welcomed last February with a call for jihad by the Imam of a Muslim congregation in Edmonton, Alberta, who was previously a “scholar” at al-Azhar theological school in Egypt:

“O Allah! Strengthen the mujahideen [jihad fighters in the path of Allah] everywhere, make their hearts firm and strong, let them hit their targets, give them victory over their enemies.

“O Allah! Destroy the oppressors.

“O Allah! Destroy your enemies, the enemies of religion (Islam).”

The Obama-Trudeau policy of opening doors widely to Muslim refugees, while allowing hardly a crack to open for the Christian and Yazidi victims of jihadi-inspired genocide, is risky, to be sure. It is also immoral.

Categories: Islam and Christianity, Islamic immigration, Islamic integration, Islamic supremacy, Islamic terrorism, Islamists in America, Islamists in Canada, Kurds, Obama and Christians, Obama and Islam, Obama and Islamic terrorism, Obama's America, Yazidis
Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Across the Border

June 3, 2016

Across the Border, Power Line, Scott Johnson, June 3, 2016

(Somehow, Mr. Johnson seems to have missed this information from the Washington Times:

The group of six men nabbed inside the U.S. — the Afghan and five men identified as Pakistanis — all made asylum claims when they were eventually caught by the Border Patrol. Mr. Hunter said his understanding is that the five men from Pakistan were released based on those claims and have disappeared.

— DM)

At the Washington Times Stephen Dinan has a timely scoop that highlights the national security implications of our porous border with Mexico. Dinan reports:

A smuggling network has managed to sneak illegal immigrants from Middle Eastern terrorism hotbeds straight to the doorstep of the U.S., including helping one Afghan who authorities say was part of an attack plot in North America.

Immigration officials have identified at least a dozen Middle Eastern men smuggled into the Western Hemisphere by a Brazilian-based network that connected them with Mexicans who guided them to the U.S. border, according to internal government documents reviewed by The Washington Times.

Those smuggled included Palestinians, Pakistanis and the Afghan man who Homeland Security officials said had family ties to the Taliban and was “involved in a plot to conduct an attack in the U.S. and/or Canada.” He is in custody, but The Times is withholding his name at the request of law enforcement to protect investigations.

Some of the men handled by the smuggling network were nabbed before they reached the U.S., but others made it into the country. The Afghan man was part of a group of six from “special-interest countries.”

Rep. Duncan Hunter appears to have given Dinan a hand with his story:

The group, guided by two Mexicans employed by the smuggling network, crawled under the border fence in Arizona late last year and made it about 15 miles north before being detected by border surveillance, according to the documents, which were obtained by Rep. Duncan Hunter, California Republican.

As the Obama administration imports a wave of immigrants from Syria and forces them down our throats at locations unknown around the country, Dinan also adds this timely note:

[T]he documents obtained by Mr. Hunter confirm fears of a pipeline that can get would-be illegal immigrants from terrorist hotbeds to the threshold of the U.S.

Just as troubling, the Border Patrol didn’t immediately spot the Afghan man’s terrorist ties because the database that agents first checked didn’t list him. It wasn’t until agents checked an FBI database that they learned the Afghan may be a danger, the documents say.

Dinan’s current scoop follows up on his December 2015 story “Agents nab Pakistanis with terrorist connections crossing U.S. border.” At Politifact (!), Joshua Gillin has a useful roundup of such stories.

Do you suppose that others fitting the profile Dinan sketches have made it across the border undetected? I do. And that porous border with Mexico — President Obama means for us to keep it that way.

Categories: Islamic State, Islamic terrorism, Obama and uncontrolled immigration, Obama's America, US Southern border
Tags: , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Europe Braces for More Jihadist Attacks

June 2, 2016

Europe Braces for More Jihadist Attacks, Gatestone Institute, Soeren Kern, June 2, 2016

♦ Sports stadiums and big music events are especially vulnerable: “This is where you put a small town into a small area for a couple of hours.” — Neil Basu, deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, London.

♦  “We know that the Islamic State has the European Championship in its sights.” — Hans-Georg Maaßen, head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency.

♦  According to Patrick Calvar, head of the France’s domestic intelligence agency, at least 645 French nationals or residents, including 245 women, are currently with the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq. Another 200 individuals are “in transit,” either on their way to Syria or returning to France. Around 244 jihadists have already returned to France.

♦British police chiefs are struggling to recruit enough officers who are willing to carry a firearm, because many fear they will be treated as criminal suspects if they use their weapon in the line of duty.

European security officials are bracing for potential jihadist attacks at public venues across Europe this summer.

In France, officials are preparing for possible attacks against the European Football Championships. The games, which start on June 10, comprise 51 matches involving 24 teams playing in 10 host cities across the country.

Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve said that more than 90,000 security personnel will be on hand to protect the 2.5 million spectators expected to attend the games, as well as the hundreds of thousands more who will watch the matches on big screens in so-called “fan zones” in major cities.

Patrick Calvar, the head of the France’s domestic intelligence agency (Direction générale de la sécurité intérieure, DGSI), warned: “We know that the Islamic State is planning new attacks in France.” He added:

“We risk being confronted with a new form of attack: a terrorist campaign characterized by placing explosive devices in places where large crowds are gathered, and repeating this type of action to create a climate of panic.”

According to Calvar, at least 645 French nationals or residents, including 245 women, are currently with the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria and Iraq. Another 200 individuals are “in transit,” either on their way to the Middle East or returning to France. Around 244 jihadists have already returned to France, and another 818 people have “demonstrated their intention to go to Syria.”

1636The Stade de France, located in a Paris suburb, was attacked by three Islamic State suicide bombers in November 2015. The stadium will be hosting games during the UEFA Euro 2016 football championships (June 10 – July 10, 2016), and French officials are preparing for possible jihadist attacks. (Image source: Wikimedia Commons/Liondartois)

Calvar’s concerns have been echoed by Hans-Georg Maaßen, the head of Germany’s domestic intelligence agency (Bundesamt für Verfassungsschutz, BfV). In an interview with Rheinische Post, Maaßen said: “We know that the Islamic State has the European Championship in its sights.”

On May 29, British media quoted Belgian security sources as saying they had discovered an Islamic State plot to attack British football fans in the southern French city of Marseille when England plays Russia on June 11. The plans were reportedly discovered on a laptop used by Salah Abdeslam, a Belgian-born French national of Moroccan descent who is thought to be the mastermind of the November 2015 terrorist attacks on Paris which left 130 dead.

The laptop is said to have contained information about a plot to kill large numbers of British fans using assault rifles, suicide bombers and possibly even drones armed with chemical weapons. The laptop contained photos and references to Marseille’s historic Old Port, where tens of thousands of football fans are expected to gather at the many bars and restaurants in the area.

Meanwhile, French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve also announced that more than 23,000 police will be deployed to protect the Tour de France, the world’s premier bicycle race, which takes place from July 2 to 24.

Teams of special operations forces (Groupe d’intervention de la Gendarmerie Nationale, GIGN) will guard riders and an estimated 12 million spectators along a route that covers 3,500 kilometers (2,180 miles). “Everyone understands that this year the Tour de France is taking place in a particular context,” Cazeneuve said. He added: “The terrorist threat remains very high.”

In Poland, officials are preparing for possible jihadist attacks against the Catholic Church’s World Youth Day, which is expected to draw 2.5 million to Krakow from July 26 to 31. Poland will impose border controls at all of its national borders from July 4 to August 2.

In Britain, music festivals, big sports venues and nightclubs have been placed on “high alert” for potential jihadist attacks, according to a senior anti-terrorism officer interviewed by the Sunday Times.

Neil Basu, the deputy assistant commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, said that crowded places — including Glastonbury, billed as the world’s largest music festival, which will draw 135,000 people to Somerset from June 22 to 26 — are a major concern for police this summer. Basu warned:

“These people are perfectly happy to target civilians with the maximum terror impact. Crowded places were always a concern for us, but now they are right at the top of the agenda.”

Basu said that sports stadiums and big music events are especially vulnerable: “This is where you put a small town into a small area for a couple of hours.”

Police in rural communities in Britain that host large summer festivals are warning that they could be “sitting ducks” in the face of a jihadist attack as they wait for armed backup to arrive from many miles away.

In an interview with the BBC, John Apter, the head of the Hampshire and Isle of Wight Police Federation, said:

“Being realistic, if a firearms unit was coming from the middle of the county you are still talking about 30 miles away — you are not talking about a few minutes. There would be an understandable delay. If a firearms unit is the other side of the county they could be 70 miles away so you are talking a significant distance. So the only officers that you have available are unarmed and vulnerable officers and they are the officers that are saying to me that in a terrorist situation they would be sitting ducks.”

Most police in Britain are unarmed. According to Deputy Chief Constable Simon Chesterman, the UK’s top firearms officer, British police chiefs are struggling to recruit enough officers who are willing to carry a firearm, because many fear they will be treated as criminal suspects if they use their weapon in the line of duty.

Senior British security officials estimate that the UK needs an extra 1,500 armed officers to tackle jihadist attacks such as those carried out in Paris. Because half of the recruits will not make it through the rigorous training, however, 3,000 volunteers are needed to come forward.

Che Donald of the Police Federation — which represents the 5,647 officers throughout Britain who currently carry firearms — told the Guardian that while major cities such as London are sufficiently protected, other large towns and cities are not: “Currently there are not enough firearms officers who could deal with an incident in quite a lot of areas of Britain.”

In Brussels, Manuel Navarrete Paniagua, the head of the European Counter Terrorism Centre at the European police agency Europol, warned Members of the European Parliament that terrorist cells in Europe are stockpiling weapons and explosives for future attacks:

“We have some information reported by the member states that terrorists groups are trying to establish large clandestine stockpiles of explosives in the European Union to be used eventually in large scale home attacks.”

Paniagua added that police had foiled more than 200 terrorist attacks in the EU in 2015. A total of 151 people were killed and more than 360 injured during terrorist attacks in the EU in 2015. More than 1,000 people were arrested for terrorist-related crimes.

In an interview with Time magazine, Europol director Rob Wainwright revealed that “several hundred” battle-trained European jihadists are probably plotting new attacks. He said that his agency is working on 50 ongoing terrorist investigations:

“This is the highest terrorist threat we have faced in Europe since the days of 9/11. We have 5,000 Europeans who have been radicalized by the Islamic State and have traveled to Syria and Iraq and engaged in conflict experience. We suspect that about one-third of them have come back: That is our best guess. We don’t know for sure…

“Our real concern is that there are other networks, either in Europe already, or who are being trained in Syria for further action. We know that the Islamic State last year took a strategic decision to establish an external operations command, a division to plan exactly the kind of attacks we have now seen. We think that they are still active and planning to do that. The threat is alive and current. Another attempted attack is almost certain. Whether it gets through depends of course. I am concerned about the Islamic State’s clearly expressed desire for the spectacular.”

On May 31, the U.S. State Department issued a travel alert for Europe this summer:

“We are alerting U.S. citizens to the risk of potential terrorist attacks throughout Europe, targeting major events, tourist sites, restaurants, commercial centers and transportation. The large number of tourists visiting Europe in the summer months will present greater targets for terrorists planning attacks in public locations, especially at large events.”

The travel alert urges vigilance when in public places or using mass transportation, and avoiding crowded places.

Categories: Europe, Guns, Islamic integration, Islamic invasion, Islamic State, Islamic terrorism, Islamisation
Tags: , , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

Antwerp Terror Arrests Underscore Growing Threat to Europe and America

June 1, 2016

Antwerp Terror Arrests Underscore Growing Threat to Europe and America, Investigative Project on Terrorism, Abigail R. Esman, June 1, 2016

768

Last Wednesday, just two years and a day after the deadly terrorist attack on the Jewish Museum in Brussels, and barely more than two months after the twin attacks on the Brussels airport and metro, Belgian police arrested a group of Muslim youth planning yet another attack, this time in Antwerp. Aiming “to kill as many kufar,” or non-Muslims, as possible, the group is believed to have been planning to bomb Antwerp’s Central Station. The group also is believed to have made previous plans to assassinate right-wing politician Filip Dewinter, the leader of the Vlaams Belang party. Those plans were put on hold, however, in favor of a larger-scale attack.

The suspects were members of a group of radicalized Muslim teens believed to have kept contact with Antwerp native Hicham Chaib, who is now a high-ranking leader of the Islamic State. It was Chaib who informed the public that the March 22 attacks on Belgium’s Zaventem airport and Maelbeek metro station “were just a taste of what’s to come.” And it is Chaib, the former second-in-command of Shariah4Belgium who left Antwerp for Syria in 2012, who now actively recruits other Antwerp-based youth to join ISIS or to execute terrorist attacks in their homeland.

The four arrests followed a series of raids by Antwerp police into the homes of several suspects in the Borgerhout district. Two suspects have been released, but other members of the group, some arrested previously, remain in custody. All suspects are said to be between the ages of 16 and 19, confirming earlier Dutch reports that European Muslims under the age of 20 are increasingly becoming involved in Islamic State activities and jihadist plots.

According to some accounts, the Antwerp group is comprised of nine youths, at least five of whom are minors. At least two members tried to join the Islamic State in Raqqa in March, but were stopped by officials en route and sent back to Belgium.

With security and counter-terror investigations heightened in Brussels after the March 22 attacks there, it is unsurprising that jihadists might be moving their activities and focus to nearby Antwerp. The city has a long history of Muslim unrest, with riots as early as 2002 and the founding, by Hizballah-linked Lebanese immigrant Dyab Abou Jahjah, of the Arab European League (AEL) in 2000. An organization with pan-Arab aspirations, the AEL aimed to create what Jahjah called a “sharocracy” – a kind of combination of democracy and sharia – that would eventually become European law.

More recently, Antwerp native Fouad Belkacem founded the notorious Sharia4Belgium, alleged to have organized most of the recruiting for ISIS in Belgium, with some outreach to neighboring countries such as France and The Netherlands. And, of the estimated 500 Belgian Muslims who have joined terrorist groups in Syria, more than 100 come from Antwerp.

But the indication of heightened new activity in Antwerp also suggests possible changes in strategy for Europe-based jihadists and recruiters. While French-speaking Brussels maintains close ties to France (several of the terrorists involved in the two attacks in Paris last year were based or were born in Brussels), Flemish-speaking Antwerp holds a stronger relationship to The Netherlands. Antwerp is also a mere 30 minutes from Rotterdam by high-speed train, offering easy access to Europe’s largest and busiest port. The Rotterdam Port is also the launching point for the vast majority of European exports to America, Europe’s largest external trading partner.

This matters. According to the National Institute of Justice, “Few would dispute that, if terrorists used a cargo container to conceal a weapon of mass destruction and detonated it on arrival at a U.S. port, the impact on global trade and the world economy could be immediate and devastating.” And the New York Times further observed, “The cargo containers arriving on ships from foreign ports offer terrorists a Trojan horse for a devastating attack on the United States. As the Harvard political scientist Graham T. Allison has put it, a nuclear attack is ‘far more likely to arrive in a cargo container than on the tip of a missile.'”

The good news, however, is that The Netherlands’ intelligence and counter-terrorism agencies are well-recognized for their research, acuity, and effectiveness. And Rotterdam takes an especially hard line on Islamic extremism: its Essalam Mosque, Holland’s largest, served as the site for anti-extremist protests. Last year, the mosque dismissed all foreign Arabs from its board of directors. And following the January 2015 attacks in Paris, Ahmed Aboutaleb, Rotterdam’s Muslim mayor, famously invited any Dutch Muslim wishing to join the jihad in Syria to make the trip and never try to return. More, his fierce response to youth who dislike Dutch values was even more direct: he told them to “f*** off.”

Perhaps, then, even as these latest arrests demonstrate just how much Europe’s radical Muslim problem threatens to become America’s radical Muslim problem, we should consider making some of Europe’s more radical solutions America’s solutions, too.

Categories: Belgium, Europe, Islamic integration, Islamic State, Islamic terrorism, Mosques
Tags: , , , , ,

Comments: Be the first to comment

« Older Entries
Newer Entries »