The 278-page report includes lists of crimes against Christians
“‘How is the life there in Iraq?’”
That’s what people ask, said Father Douglas al-Bazi, a priest at the Mar Elia refugee camp in Erbil, Iraq.
“Actually, the easy answer is, there are no life in Iraq.”
Al-Bazi, a former ISIS hostage, talked about his own treatment at the hands of ISIS. He said he saw his church and car blow up in front of him. He was shot by an AK-47 in his leg, he said, and his captors broke his teeth, nose, and back with a hammer.
“I still keep my shirt when they kidnapped me, and still I look to my blood every day and I remember, and this is what happen even to my people every day,” he said.
With Turkey on the brink of going to war with Russia and, implicitly, Iran, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is looking for an excuse to invade Syria.
The rebels Turkey and Saudi Arabia back are staging what amounts to a last stand at Aleppo and the Kurdish YPG is moving to cut the Azaz corridor, which would effectively mean that Turkey has no way of resupplying the insurgency.
For the past five days, Ankara has been shelling the YPG in a futile attempt to stop their advance.
The only thing that can save the rebellion against Bashar al-Assad is an outright ground operation by the rebels' Sunni benefactors, including Turkey.
All Erdogan needs is a pretext and he may have just gotten one as reports indicate there's been a huge explosion in Ankara near parliament and at least 5 people are dead.
Early indications are that military barracks were targeted. A "large number of casulaties" are rumored. Expect this to be pinned on either ISIS or the PKK. If it's the latter, Ankara will once again claim that the group is working in concert with the YPG and that will be all the evidence Erdogan needs to march across the border.
EXPLOSION REPORTED IN TURKISH CAPITAL ANKARA, AHABER SAYS
ANKARA EXPLOSION OCCURRED NEAR MILITARY RESIDENCES: OFFICIAL
5 PEOPLE KILLED IN ANKARA BLAST: T24 CITES ANKARA GOVERNOR
ANKARA BLAST WAS SUSPECTED CAR BOMB: CNN-TURK CITES GOVERNOR
The government has admitted 605 Syrian refugees for resettlement in the United States since last November’s Paris terrorist attack, two of whom are Christians.
The rest are 589 Sunni Muslims, 10 Shia Muslims, three other Muslims, and one refugee identified in State Department Refugee Processing Center data as “other religion.”
At the same time, the proportion of Christians among the total cohort of Syrian refugees admitted into the U.S. since the conflict began five years ago has now dropped below two percent.
Just 55 Christians (1.9 percent) are among the 2,769 Syrian refugees admitted since March 2011, while a large majority – 2,594 (93.6 percent) – has been Sunni Muslims.
Christians accounted for about 10 percent of Syria’s population when the civil war began and Sunni Muslims for an estimated 74 percent.
Christians and other non-Muslim minorities have been targeted specifically by ISIS and other radical groups, and monitoring group estimate that more than 700,000 Christians have fled Syria since then.
Other non-Muslims among the Syrian refugees admitted to the U.S. since the war began include small numbers of Baha’i (2), Yazidis (1), Jehovah’s Witnesses (8), Zoroastrians (6), atheists (3) and Syrians who have self-identified as having no religion (7).
The administration has rejected calls by some Republican lawmakers, andsome GOP presidential candidates, for Syrian Christians to be prioritized in the refugee admission process.
The ISIS terrorist attack in Paris on November 13 fueled concerns that the terrorist group was exploiting the flow of refugees and migrants as cover to send jihadists into the West to carry out attacks.
French authorities said two of the attackers had been carrying fake Syrian passports and warned European Union partners that “some terrorists are trying to get into our countries and commit criminal acts by mixing in with the flow of migrants and refugees.”
Last Tuesday, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper affirmed during a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing that ISIS has done so.
“Isn’t it already proven that Mr. Baghdadi is sending people with this flow of refugees that are terrorists that – in order to inflict further attacks on Europe and the United States?” Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) asked him, referring to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
“That’s correct,” Clapper replied. “That’s one technique they’ve used is taking advantage of the torrent of migrants to insert operatives into that flow.”
In addition, he continued, ISIS has become “pretty skilled at [producing] phony passports, so they can travel ostensibly as legitimate travelers as well.”
In December, House Homeland Security Committee chairman Rep. Michael McCaul (R-Texas) said the U.S. intelligence community “has identified already individuals tied to terrorist organizations in Syria that want to exploit and get into the United States through the refugee process.”
CIA director John Brennan testifies before the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on worldwide threats to America and its allies, in Washington, DC on February 9, 2016 (AFP Photo/Molly Riley)
Washington (AFP) - CIA director John Brennan has said that Islamic State fighters have used chemical weapons and have the capability to make small quantities of chlorine and mustard gas, CBS News reported.
"We have a number of instances where ISIL has used chemical munitions on the battlefield," Brennan told CBS News, which released excerpts of an interview to air in full on the "60 Minutes" news program on Sunday.
The network added that he told "60 Minutes" the CIA believes that the IS group has the ability to make small amounts of mustard or chlorine gas for weapons.
"There are reports that ISIS has access to chemical precursors and munitions that they can use," Brennan said.
Brennan also warned of the possibility that the Islamic State group could seek to export the weapons to the West for financial gain.
"I think there's always the potential for that. This is why it's so important to cut off the various transportation routes and smuggling routes that they have used," he said.
When asked if there were "American assets on the ground" searching for possible chemical weapons caches or labs, Brennan replied: "US intelligence is actively involved in being a part of the efforts to destroy ISIL and to get as much insight into what they have on the ground inside of Syria and Iraq."
- 'Toxic chemicals in Iraq, Syria' -
The release of the interview excerpts comes two days after similar comments from spy chief James Clapper before a congressional committee.
"ISIL has also used toxic chemicals in Iraq and Syria, including the blister agent sulfur mustard," Clapper, the director of national intelligence, told lawmakers on Tuesday.
He said it was the first time an extremist group had produced and used a chemical warfare agent in an attack since Japan's Aum Supreme Truth cult carried out a deadly sarin attack during rush hour in the Tokyo subway in 1995.
President Bashar al-Assad's regime and rebel forces have accused each other of using chemical agents in the nearly five-year war that has killed more than 250,000 people.
After an August 2013 sarin attack outside Damascus that much of the international community blamed on Assad's government, the regime agreed to turn over its chemical arsenal.
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) -- which oversaw the dangerous removal and elimination of Syria's avowed stockpile -- now says that declared arsenal has been completely destroyed.
But the global arms watchdog has still warned of the continued use of mustard, sarin and chlorine gas in the conflict, without blaming the regime, the rebels or the IS group for use of the weapons, which are banned under international law.
Last year, officials in the autonomous Iraqi region of Kurdistan said blood tests had shown that IS fighters used mustard agent in an attack on Kurdish peshmerga forces in August.
Thirty-five peshmerga fighters were exposed and some taken abroad for treatment, officials said.
At the time of the attack, The Wall Street Journal cited US officials as saying they believed IS had used mustard agent.
Practicing Christians are now a minority in Britain much like the persecuted Roman Catholic minority after the reformation, two senior clerics said yesterday.
The Anglican Bishop of London, Richard Chartres, and the Catholic Archbishop of Westminster, Vincent Cardinal Nichols, said their respective Churches must put aside their differences and recognise their “common agenda” as society becomes increasingly secularised.
The clerics were speaking after a historic meeting at Hampton Court Palace, home of Henry VIII, where the Chapel Royal celebrated Catholic Vespers for the first time in more than 450 years.
The service was designed to highlight the palace’s musical history as it approaches its 500th anniversary.
According to The Telegraph, Cardinal Nichols, who is de facto leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, said that after being severely persecuted in previous centuries, Catholics now contribute to British life as a “significant minority”, to which Bishop Chartres replied: “We are all minorities now.”
Cardinal Nichols continued, adding that traditional Christian values that people “used to take for granted” are now widely questioned.
Last month, Breitbart London reported how attendance at Church of England services had dropped below one million per week for the first time ever, with only 1.4 per cent of the population now attending England’s established church.
The figures mark a two-thirds decrease since the 1960s, with Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby warning that Britain is becoming increasingly anti-Christian:
“In some parts of the [Anglican] Communion decline in numbers has been a pattern for many years. In England our numbers have been falling at about one per cent every year since world war two…
“The culture [is] becoming anti-Christian, whether it is on matters of sexual morality, or the care for people at the beginning or the end of life. It is easy to paint a very gloomy picture.”
Christians, homosexuals and women are fleeing asylum centres in Germany in ever growing numbers due to acts of violence, intolerance and crime perpetrated by Muslim men.
According to German newspaper Die Welt, the violence toward ethnic minorities, religious minorities and women continues to skyrocket across German asylum centres. Muslim men tear up Bibles and assault Christians, sexually abuse women and children, and beat up homosexuals. The news has led to calls from human rights campaigners to say enough is enough.
In Stuttgart a case of abuse toward an Assyrian Christian by a Muslim roommate led to a petition for separate housing that was signed by over 17,000 people online. The petition, organised by the Central Oriental Christians, asked the City of Stuttgart to, “please accommodate the displaced Christians in Stuttgart-Neugereut and keep them from further distress and persecution to which they are exposed in a decentralised accommodation.”
The matter was brought to the city and a separate asylum centre for 30 Christians was approved by the council. Spokesman for Stuttgart Sven Matis told the paper that after speaking to the district assistant they would be able to approve accommodation for the 30 Christians in Neugereut by the end of April.
Martin Lessenthin, CEO of the International Society for Human Rights also commented on the systematic persecutions of Christians all across German asylum homes. He said it was common to see both Christians and Yazidis subject to torment and beatings and while it is not desirable to accommodate migrants separately, it may be inevitable for the safety of the minorities.
Separation of migrants has been a policy when it comes to extremely vulnerable minorities. Yazidi girls who were used as sex slaves by the Islamic State are housed in secret locations in Germany so as not to attract unwanted attention from migrants sympathetic to the Islamic State or Muslims who view them as nothing more than sexual objects. A purported 1,100 of these women live in various special shelters across Germany.
One victim of sexual abuse is said to have been only eight years old at the time of her abuse by ISIS. Another girl had to be treated by specialist burn victim doctors because the constant sexual torment drove her to try and light herself on fire in a failed attempt at suicide.
In Freibeurg, some 200 women live in secret. The head of the Baden-Wurttemberg state chancellery Klaus-Peter Murawski warns that ISIS militants may be actively monitoring the project in hopes of getting revenge against the women. This warning was proven accurate when an ISIS commander was found at an asylum home earlier this week.
Breitbart London has reported on migrant violence within asylum homes with cases of Christians, homosexuals and others being beaten in asylum centres across Germany,reports of asylum centres as breeding grounds for extremism, and even young children being brutally raped by fellow migrants.
In today’s Guardian newspaper, columnist Owen Jones blames the “far right” for instability across Europe, lumping thousands of criminal migrants sparking a crime wave across the continent with Jews who fled Nazi Germany. He writes: “And who is waiting, preparing and consolidating? Europe’s far right, already feeding off the despair of economic crisis and a backlash against refugees fleeing violence from the Middle East. Where once the principal target was Jews, now it’s Muslim”.
CNN’s Arabic division in Dubai reports Saudi Arabia is planning to invade Syria and has mobilized 150,000 troops in the kingdom.
Two sources cited by CNN say “trainees” preparing for the effort are from Egypt, Sudan, Jordan, Morocco, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Qatar and Turkey. Malaysia, Indonesia and Brunei will also participate.
The invasion scheduled for March will be led by the Saudis and Turks and will originate in Turkey, according to CNN.
Last week the US Defense boss Ash Carter said he welcomed a Saudi offer to participate in ground operations. “That kind of news is very welcome,” he told reporters while on a visit to Nellis Air Force Base in Nevada.
Carter will meet in Brussels this week with the Saudis. The Saudis confirmed they will also be in Brussels to discuss details of the invasion.
Last week Saudi Brig. Gen. Ahmad Asiri told the United States his country is willing to send troops into Syria. On Friday Saudi officials announced the formation of the Sunni coalition and said military exercises will be held in preparation for an invasion.
Iran mocked the Saudi plan. “They claim they will send troops (to Syria), but I don’t think they will dare do so,” Maj. Gen. Ali Jafari told reporters in Tehran, according to Iran’s semiofficial Fars news agency. “They have a classic army and history tells us such armies stand no chance in fighting irregular resistance forces.”
Middle East experts believe the move by Saudi Arabia is not about defeating the Islamic State but confronting Iran.
Iranian security and intelligence services are advising and assisting Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad in his fight against US and Gulf Emirate proxies. In addition to sending the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps and Quds Force to fight on the ground in Syria, Lebanese Hezbollah has taken on a direct combat role. Iraqi Shi‘a brigades are also involved in the fighting.
“Saudi Arabia’s strategic goals in Syria are very different from ours. And any new introduction of foreign ground troops into Syria would be greatly complicating efforts to focus attention on ISIS as the threat,” Stephen Kinzer, a senior fellow at Brown University’s Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs, told US News & World Report. “The Saudis know what their goal is. They want to overthrow Assad. Period.”
“I would consider any introduction of foreign ground troops [into Syria] to be destabilizing. You’re pushing Saudi Arabian power closer and closer to Iran,” Kinzer added. “That kind of ground deployment would certainly undermine the already weak efforts toward peaceful resolution of this conflict.”
Last week UN Special Envoy for Syria Staffan de Mistura postponed Syria peace talks brokered by the internationalist organization. The State Department has blamed Russia “in part” for the failure of the talks.
The proxy forces have refused to participate in talks unless the al-Assad government stops attempting to regain territory overtaken by al-Nusra, IS and other jihadist groups.
Federal authorities are accusing a Dearborn Heights man of supporting Islamic State extremists and planning to “shoot up” a Detroit church.
Khalil Abu-Rayyan, 21, hasn’t been charged with terrorism-related crimes but faces federal charges of illegally having a firearm while using a controlled substance.
But a complaint unsealed Thursday in U.S. District Court reveals the FBI has been investigating him since May “regarding increasingly violent threats he has made to others about committing acts of terror and martyrdom — including brutal acts against police officers, churchgoers and others — on behalf of the foreign terrorist organization Islamic State of Iraq and Levant.”
Besides allegedly using Twitter to express support for the terror group — often referred to as ISIS or ISIL — Abu-Rayyan reportedly told an undercover FBI employee about a plot to target a church.
“I tried to shoot up a church one day,” Abu-Rayyan is quoted as saying in court records. “I don’t know the name of it, but it’s close to my job. It’s one of the biggest ones in Detroit. Ya, I had it planned out. I bought a bunch of bullets. I practiced a lot with it. I practiced reloading and unloading. But my dad searched my car one day, and he found everything. He found the gun and the bullets and a mask I was going to wear.”
Investigators didn’t name the church Abu-Rayyan allegedly eyed, but claim the property covers about two blocks less than half a mile from his work and can accommodate up to 6,000 members. He allegedly purchased a gun and told an undercover FBI employee that attacking a church would be “easy.”
“A lot of people go there. Plus people are not allowed to carry guns in church,” the affidavit quotes him as saying. “Plus it would make the news. Everybody would’ve heard. Honestly I regret not doing it. (If I) can’t go do jihad at the Middle East, I would do my jihad over here.”
Abu-Rayyan appeared in federal court Thursday and was detained pending a hearing on Monday, said Gina Balaya, public information officer for the U.S. Attorney’s Office in Detroit.
Court records show he was assigned a federal defender, who did not immediately respond to a request for comment Friday night. Messages left for those listed as his relatives were not returned.
“If the allegations are true, then they’re extremely troublesome,” said Dawud Walid, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations’ Michigan chapter.
He said the group is urging caution “and encouraging the broader community to also reserve judgment regarding this matter.”
The court document claims Abu-Rayyan used Twitter for “retweeting, liking and commenting” on IS propaganda since late 2014. According to the affidavit, the posts included “video of a Jordanian fighter pilot being burned alive, men being thrown from a high rise building to execute them, the beheading of Christians in Egypt and news of ISIL victories.”
In December, he communicated with an undercover FBI employee through social media; during conversations over several weeks, “Abu-Rayyan consistently expressed support for ISIL and repeatedly expressed his desire to commit a martyrdom operation,” the document read. He also said he had an AK-47 with a 40-round magazine like other extremist fighters.
The affidavit says Abu-Rayyan told the undercover FBI employee a firearm he bought in October wasn’t suitable “because it only held six shots and he would have to keep reloading.”
The next month, he “tweeted photos of himself firing an AK-47 type and AR-15 type rifles at a local firing range”; one was captioned “Sahwat hunting,” which authorities said “is a term for Iraqis who oppose ISIL.”
Federal officials said Abu-Rayyan bought a .22 caliber revolver in October from a Dearborn Heights sporting goods store but lacked a concealed pistol license. On Oct. 7, Detroit police pulled him over for speeding; inside the 2001 Buick Century, officers found marijuana. Arrested for toting the drug and carrying a concealed weapon, Abu-Rayyan was later released on bond.
On Nov. 15, the same day the pending case denied him the chance to buy another pistol, Abu-Rayyan rented a firearm at the firing range pictured on Twitter later that month, according to the affidavit.
Wayne County prosecutors charged him for the gun and marijuana; he pleaded guilty to the drug possession Jan. 15 and was scheduled for trial Feb. 16 on the weapon charge, authorities said.
Soon after he pleaded guilty, Abu-Rayyan told the undercover person he “wanted to kill the officer who arrested him.” Since the officer’s heart attack delayed a trial, Abu-Rayyan “wanted to do a martyrdom operation at the hospital, killing the police officer in the process,” according to court documents. The next day, he told the undercover FBI employee about carrying a “large knife or sword in his car” in case of a fight and said “it is my dream to behead someone,” documents allege.
The case coincides with Muslims in Michigan and nationwide facing tensions amid fears about rising extremism in the wake of the recent Paris and California attacks.
“We advise people not to jump to conclusions about what happened and wait for all of the facts to come in,” said Muzammil Ahmed, board chairman for the Michigan Muslim Community Council. “Our thoughts are with our Christian friends and congregation that were threatened. We think that isolated acts like this, if they are indeed true, are an anomaly in this area.”
The U.S. House of Representatives overwhelmingly approved GOP legislation that erected fresh hurdles for Syrian and Iraqi refugees trying to enter the United States. Gov. Rick Snyder suspended efforts to open Michigan to Syrians fleeing their country’s civil war, joining other governors in asking the federal government to examine and toughen security screenings of refugee applicants.
Soon after the shootings in San Bernardino, California, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump called for a ban on all Muslims entering the U.S. — a call that drew rebukes from many, yet found support among others.
CAIR’s national chapter noted that in his visit to a Baltimore-area mosque this week, President Barack Obama rejected “inexcusable political rhetoric” targeting Muslims.
Recently, Obama stirred the pot of intolerance at a Baltimore Mosque.
The Obama administration would have us all believe his speech is a needed effort to assure Muslim Americans that they will not be subjected to bigotry, while he shepherds in Syrian refugees into small towns to fuel sharia no go areas akin to the rape and murder invasion being waged on Europe.
Islamic State militants have slipped into Europe disguised as refugees, the head of Germany's domestic intelligence agency (BfV) said on Friday, a day after security forces thwarted a potential IS attack in Berlin.
Hans-Georg Maassen said the terrorist attacks in Paris last November had shown that Islamic State was deliberately planting terrorists among the refugees flowing into Europe.
"Then we have repeatedly seen that terrorists ... have slipped in camouflaged or disguised as refugees. This is a fact that the security agencies are facing," Maassen told ZDF television.
"We are trying to recognize and identify whether there are still more IS fighters or terrorists from IS that have slipped in," he added.
The Berliner Zeitung newspaper cited Maassen on Friday as saying that the BfV had received more than 100 tip-offs that there were Islamic State fighters among the refugees currently staying in Germany.
German fears about an attack have risen since the Paris killings. On Thursday, German forces arrested two men suspected of links to Islamic State militants preparing an attack in the German capital.
Authorities also canceled a friendly international soccer match in Hanover last year and closed stations in Munich at New Year due to security concerns.
Maassen, however, warned against alarm.
"We are in a serious situation and there is a high risk that there could be an attack. But the security agencies, the intelligence services and the police authorities are very alert and our goal is to minimize the risk as best we can," he said.
(Reporting by Caroline Copley; Editing by Tom Heneghan)
Massive raids against suspected Islamist militants were carried out by hundreds of officers in Germany today, including two refugee homes.
The raids were carried out to prevent 'severe acts of violence', according to police.
Experts say Germany is long overdue a terrorist attack by jihadists because of its support for military operations against the group in Iraq and Syria.
Two of the addresses searched were an asylum seeker's centre in Hanover and another in Attendorn in the Sauerland region.
Hunted down: Police officers escort an Islamist terror suspect from a flat during a raid in Berlin. German police have carried out raids as part of an investigation into four Algerian men suspected of planning attacks
Police said four Algerians were being sought for their suspected links with ISIS terrorists in Syria
A suspect is detained by plain-clothes police during a raid at a house in the Kreuzberg district of Berlin
A view of an apartment building where police arrested a man during a morning raid in Berlin
One of the arrested men in Berlin had registered his address as an asylum seeker's residence.
Critics have long argued that Chancellor Merkel's open door policy towards refugees could allow terrorists to come into Germany posing as refugees from war and terror.
If the suspects registered in the centres are indeed ISIS sympathisers or supporters, the pressure on her to reverse her policies will only increase.
Berlin was the centre of the operation where police swooped on four apartments and two business premises.
Police spokesman Stefan Redlich said four Algerians were being sought for their suspected links with ISIS terrorists in Syria.
Berlin police said the four 'from the jihad scene are under investigation over suspicions that they are planning a serious act threatening the security of the state.'
German anti-terror police officers leave an apartment following a raid in Hanover, Germany, as part of an investigation into four Algerian men suspected of planning attacks in Germany and having ties to ISIS
Police walk out after a raid on a flat in Hanover. German police have arrested two Algerians they suspect of links to the Islamic State group and are hunting for two others in operations in Berlin and other regions
A woman and two Algerian men for whom there were existing arrest warrants, have been taken into custody.
One of the men arrested is wanted for belonging to ISIS by the Algerian authorities who say he was trained at a terror camp in Syria.
'Investigations show that he has been trained militarily in Syria,' police said in a statement.
The second Algerian was arrested for having falsified identity documents.
During the searches computers, mobile phones and records were seized.
A total of 450 police officers were deployed in the operation.
German police enter an apartment building in Hanover. Experts say Germany is long overdue a terrorist attack by jihadists because of its support for military operations against the group in Iraq and Syria
Apartments in the heavily immigrant areas of Kreuzberg, Tempelhof and Berlin-Mitte were ransacked in the hunt for clues tying the suspects to ISIS.
'Before we can draw more conclusions, we have to wait for the investigation of the public prosecutor's office and the evaluation of the seized objects', said Berlin's interior senator Frank Henkel.
'We have still every reason to be vigilant and careful.'
Since the November Paris attacks in which IS gunmen and suicide bombers attacked Paris nightspots, killing 130 people, German authorities have issued terrorism alerts on several occasions.
In November, a Germany-Netherlands football match was called off and on New Year's Eve, several Munich subway stations were closed over such threats.
But Obama allowed the word “Allah” to be widely displayed during his first speech at a US Islamic Center.
Barack Obama at Islamic Society of Baltimore
If there was one word which could describe President Obama’s Presidency (aside from failure, Progressive hell, and nightmare) it would be anti-Christian.
From declaring that the United States is no longer a Christian nation todenying Syrian Christians entry into the country President Obama’s distaste for the followers of Jesus are as obvious as the nose on your face. But with less than a year left in his Presidency Obama hasn’t given up on dissing Christians at every opportunity.
For example, President Obama gave a speech at a mosque in the Islamic Society of Baltimore on Wednesday. While standing in front of a glass wall where the word “Allah” was written 99 times in Arabic calligraphy, the President took a stab at Republican Presidential hopeful Donald Trump by stating there was “inexcusable anti-Islamic rhetoric in the political sphere.” The White House staff were even gifted Qurans at the event.
What makes this entire event a slap in the face to Christians is that while giving a speech at Georgetown University in 2012 the White House told the Catholic school to cover up all religious signs and symbols, including the small letters IHS displayed inside the triangular pediment directly behind and above where the President would stand since the 3 letters signify the name of Jesus Christ (pictured top left).
So it should now be obvious to everyone that President Obama does indeed have a double standard when it comes to religions. Because if you’re a Christian organization you better cover up anything referring to Christ, even if it’s just 3 small letters, if you want the President to give a speech. But if you’re of the Muslim faith it’s ok to have a word wall with “Allah” written 99 times in large Arabic symbols directly behind where President is speaking.
The US Treasury has recently opened an inquiry about the so-called “Islamic State’s” (ISIS/ISIL) use of large numbers of brand-new Toyota trucks. The issue has arisen in the wake of Russia’s air operations over Syria and growing global suspicion that the US itself has played a key role in arming, funding, and intentionally perpetuating the terrorist army across Syria and Iraq.
U.S. counter-terror officials have asked Toyota, the world’s second largest auto maker, to help them determine how ISIS has managed to acquire the large number of Toyota pick-up trucks and SUVs seen prominently in the terror group’s propaganda videos in Iraq, Syria and Libya, ABC News has learned.
Toyota says it does not know how ISIS obtained the vehicles and is “supporting” the inquiry led by the Terror Financing unit of the Treasury Department — part of a broad U.S. effort to prevent Western-made goods from ending up in the hands of the terror group.
The report went on to cite Iraqi Ambassador to the US, Lukman Faily:
“This is a question we’ve been asking our neighbors,” Faily said. “How could these brand new trucks… these four wheel drives, hundreds of them — where are they coming from?”
Not surprisingly, it appears the US Treasury is asking the wrong party. Instead of Toyota, the US Treasury’s inquiry should have started next door at the US State Department.
Mystery Solved
Just last year it was reported that the US State Department had been sending in fleets of specifically Toyota-brand trucks into Syria to whom they claimed was the “Free Syrian Army.”
Recently, when the US State Department resumed sending non-lethal aid to Syrian rebels, the delivery list included 43 Toyota trucks.
Hiluxes were on the Free Syrian Army’s wish list. Oubai Shahbander, a Washington-based advisor to the Syrian National Coalition, is a fan of the truck. “Specific equipment like the Toyota Hiluxes are what we refer to as force enablers for the moderate opposition forces on the ground,” he adds. Shahbander says the US-supplied pickups will be delivering troops and supplies into battle. Some of the fleet will even become battlefield weapons.
The British government has also admittedly supplied a number of vehicles to terrorists fighting inside of Syria. The British Independent’s 2013 article titled, “Revealed: What the West has given Syria’s rebels,” reported that (emphasis added):
So far the UK has sent around £8m of “non-lethal” aid, according to official papers seen by The Independent, comprising five 4×4 vehicles with ballistic protection; 20 sets of body armour; four trucks (three 25 tonne, one 20 tonne); six 4×4 SUVs; five non-armoured pick-ups; one recovery vehicle; four fork-lifts; three advanced “resilience kits” for region hubs, designed to rescue people in emergencies; 130 solar powered batteries; around 400 radios; water purification and rubbish collection kits; laptops; VSATs (small satellite systems for data communications) and printers.
It’s fair to say that whatever pipeline the US State Department and the British government used to supply terrorists in Syria with these trucks was likely used to send additional vehicles before and after these reports were made public.
The mystery of how hundreds of identical, brand-new ISIS-owned Toyota trucks have made it into Syria is solved. Not only has the US and British government admitted in the past to supplying them, their military forces and intelligence agencies ply the borders of Turkey, Jordan, and even Iraq where these fleets of trucks must have surely passed on their way to Syria – even if other regional actors supplied them. While previous admissions to supplying the vehicles implicates the West directly, that nothing resembling interdiction operations have been set up along any of these borders implicates the West as complicit with other parties also supplying vehicles to terrorists inside of Syria.
What Mystery?
Of course, much of this is not new information. So the question remains – why is the US Treasury just now carrying on with this transparent charade? Perhaps those in Washington believe that if the US government is the one asking this obvious question of how ISIS has managed to field such an impressive mechanized army in the middle of the Syrian desert, no one will suspect they had a role in it.
Of course, the trucks didn’t materialize in Syria. They originated outside of Syria and were brought in, and in great numbers, with the explicit knowledge and/or direct complicity of the US and its regional allies. Asking Toyota where the US State Department’s own trucks came from is another indication of just how lost US foreign policy, legitimacy, and credibility has become.
Russia’s intervention, and what should become a widely supported anti-terror coalition must keep in mind the criminality of the US and its partners when choosing its own partners in efforts to restore security and order across the Middle East and North Africa.
December 17, 2015 ought to be a date which will live in infamy, as that was the day that some of the leading Democrats in the House of Representatives came out in favor of the destruction of the First Amendment.
Catholic clergy lamented the destruction of Iraq's oldest Christian monastery, St. Elijah, and urged the international community to do more to stop such assaults.
"I had the same emotional and perhaps spiritual experience as I did when I was standing over the bodies of fallen soldiers," Fr. Jeffrey Whorton told Catholic News Service after seeing pictures of the monastery's destruction.
Whorton served as a Catholic chaplain for the U.S. military in Iraq and holds the rank of major, was instrumental along with others in seeing a preservation initiative mounted on the 1,400-old structure. Whorton said he believed he was the last priest in 2009 to "offer Mass on that altar before it was destroyed."
The last recorded church service in recent years to take place inside the monastery's walls was the Easter Vigil in 2010, but that was held in the courtyard rather than the altar area.
Reading of the destruction "was that profound and surprisingly strong emotion because of my connection with the monastery," Whorton, who now works at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, told CNS by telephone. "It was a kind of a grief that was like a loss of life almost."
The Associated Press confirmed the news that the ancient monastery on the outskirts of Mosul had been turned into a field of rubble, with exclusive satellite images published early Jan. 20. Islamic State militants claimed responsibility.
Whorton said the chance to both worship and give informal tours of the monastery during his tour of duty in Iraq "was probably the highlight of my entire priesthood."
"I was able to offer Mass there three or four times on that altar. I was made very aware of the great cloud of witnesses," said Whorton, explaining his sense of those ancient Christians who had worshipped over the centuries at St. Elijah.
"In the forefront of my mind was the reality that in 1700s, 150 or so [monks] had been martyred there," the American priest said. "So I knew I was in a sacred place offering the holy sacrifice of the Mass. I felt extremely unworthy standing at the venerable altar. That, along with celebrating with the Holy Father, was the highlight of my entire priesthood."
People were forced to bend down physically to enter the monastery. It was a "humble acquiescence of bending low for this great space that you are entering," the priest said.
Whorton said another unusual feature was a piece of wood shaped like a yoke that stood above the entrance to the nave.
"For me, there was a kind of putting on the yoke of Christ and to bend low into that space where my fallen brothers and sisters had died [centuries ago]. It was extremely emotional and a spiritually palpable event for me," he said of his experience ministering in the ancient monastery.
"God became present once again on that ancient altar as he has done thousands and thousands of time throughout the 1,400 years of its existence. That's the weight of glory," Whorton said.
Many had voiced concern about the fate of the monastery after Islamic State militants swept into the area in June 2014 and had cut off most communication there. Hundreds of thousands of Christians were forced to flee rather than convert to Islam, pay a protection tax or be killed.
Whorton said the finality of ancient monastery's fate has weighed heavy on him.
"I did not realize until I saw the pictures of the destruction that I would be one of the ones to literally close the door on this ancient church," he said.
"I hope that I closed it with all the necessary decorum that is due to such a venerable place," he added.
Assyrian Fr. Emanuel Youkhana, who heads the Christian Aid Program Northern Iraq, CAPNI, denounced the attack as yet another assault once again on Christians and their heritage in their ancient homeland.
"Dozens and dozens of scientific, philosophic, historical and other books were written or translated in such monasteries. This is a memory of Iraq which has been cut off," he told CNS.
"When they damage my 2,000 years of Christianity and 5,000 years of Assyrian heritage as the indigenous people of this country, my question is this: If my history is being damaged, my present is being threatened, is there any future?" the cleric asked.
He cited examples of the Islamic State's bulldozing the Assyrian city of Nimrod, where the Tower of Babel is believed to have existed. The United Nations called its destruction cultural cleansing and a war crime.
Youkhana also drew attention to the destruction of archaeological sites in Ninevah along with the forced displacement of Christians and other religious minorities long present in Iraq from their historic area.
He renewed a call for the international community to do more to preserve the Christian presence in their ancient homeland, saying it pained him to see many Christians escaping for safety to the West.
"What will be the future of Oriental Christianity if we don't protect or give future chances for Christians to survive and to build a future," he said. "We have to keep this mosaic and diversity, not give up."
If Russian and Western airstrikes are “degrading and defeating” Islamic State, someone forgot to tell al-Hayat Media Center, the brain trust for a sprawling network of discrete propaganda production units that are spread across nearly a dozen countries.
While the group’s operational capabilities may be dwindling, its propaganda arm is apparently no worse for wear having released dozens of clips this month, including a brand new video out Sunday featuring the Paris attackers.
Over the course of 17 minutes, the group celebrates the November attacks with a montage of clips taken from the Western media’s coverage of the massacre. The video also shows each attacker including alleged ringleader Abdelhamid Abaaoud whose voice is can be heard throughout. “It allegedly features one of the Bataclan theater attackers and a suicide bomber Omar Ismail Mostefai, named in the video as Abu Rayyan Al-Faransi,” RT notes.
Of course there's the obligatory execution footage including beheadings and firing squads and near the end, French President Francois Hollande’s face is superimposed over the severed head of a prisoner.
The group also threatens British PM David Cameron who appears with a red bullseye on his face.
"We are in the process of examining this latest propaganda video which is another move from an appalling terrorist group that's clearly in decline and in retreat," Cameron's spokeswoman told Reuters on Monday.
"The following are the final messages of the nine lions of the khilafah who were mobilized from their dens to bring an entire country -- France -- to her knees," the video reads, after which each attacker records their "final message" to the world prior to the suicide mission.
Hours after the video was released, Europol said ISIS is planning "large scale attacks" in Europe.
"A report coinciding with the opening of a new counterterror centre in the Hague shows how the so-called Islamic State had developed a new combat style capability to carry out a campaign of large-scale terrorist attacks on a global stage -- with a particular focus in Europe," the chief of the EU police agency told reporters today.
What shouldn't get lost here is that ISIS conducts near daily attacks across the globe, but those tragedies are generally relegated to the back pages because they occur outside of the "civilized" world. If and when the group does strike Europe again, you can bet that will be the last straw for voters exasperated with the flood of asylum seekers flooding across the bloc's porous borders. In other words, Schengen is one suicide bomb away from being officially dismantled, which means that the next time someone dies in a suicide attack in Europe, Europe itself will die with them.
The U.S. government harbors a number of exiled political groups, some self-styled “governments-in-exile,” some banned opposition groups and parties, and other groups that have carried out terrorist attacks.
Some of the latter groups have close links to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), otherwise known as the “Islamic State.”
Some Republican presidential candidates and both Republican and Democratic lawmakers in Congress have criticized the recent nuclear and sanctions relief deal with Iran because they claim that Iran harbors terrorist groups.
These opponents of closer U.S.-Iranian relations are referring to Iran’s support for Hamas, Lebanese Hezbollah, and the Houthis of Yemen, all of whom have legitimate grievances against Israel, Israel and Saudi Arabia, and Saudi Arabia and its proxy government in Yemen, respectively.
The United States has aided and abetted two Iranian exile groups, one of which, the Mojahedin-e-Khalq (MEK), which has coordinated attacks against the Iraqi and Iranian governments with ISIL.
The MEK, aside from maintaining its support offices in the United States, has received the support of such U.S. politicians as former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, former CIA directors James Woolsey and Porter Goss, former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge, former FBI director Louis Freeh, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, former Attorney General Michael Muksaey, former Pennsylvania governor Ed Rendell, and former Vermont governor and Democratic National Committee chairman Howard Dean.
All of these and other supporters of the MEK, by default, provide assistance to the MEK’s on-the-ground partner in Iraq, ISIL. The MEK also coordinates terrorist attacks in Iran with the Pakistan-based Iranian Baluchi separatist group, Jundallah.
In 2004, the United States dropped the MEK from its list of foreign terrorist organizations and changed its status to a “protected organization.”
Although the MEK and its two leaders, the husband-wife team of Massoud and Maryam Rajavi, some former MEK members consider the Rajavis to be “cult leaders,” the Jim and Tammy Fay Bakker of terrorism, if you will.
Although the MEK and its umbrella organization, the National Council of Resistance of Iran, are based in Paris, the group maintains a number of fronts in the United States.
The MEK also works closely with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The MEK has also maintained links to the National Council of Iran, headed up by the son of the deposed Shah of Iran, “Crown Prince” Reza Pahlavi. Pahlavi maintains his headquarters in Potomac, Maryland, a wealthy Washington suburb.
In 2015, the MEK opened an office on Pennsylvania Avenue in downtown Washington, just a block from the White House.
Former Obama national security adviser General Jim Jones and former Bush ambassador to the UN John Bolton attended the grand opening of the office.
Bolton has appeared on television recently decrying the nuclear deal and prisoner swap with Iran. The MEK also maintains a presence in New York from which it lobbies against Iran at the United Nations, often in concert with American Jewish groups.
Ironically, during the Shah’s reign, the Shah and MEK were bitter enemies. In those days, the MEK received support from the Communist bloc.
The U.S. government provides sanctuary to the East Turkestan government-in-exile that helps provide Uighur child soldiers to ISIL forces in Syria and Iraq via Turkey.
Another government-in-exile supported by Washington is that of the rival pretender to the Iranian throne, Mohammed Hassan Mirza II, the leader of the Qajar dynasty, which was exiled from Iran by the rival Pahlavi dynasty in 1923. The Qajar dynasty has its headquarters in Dallas.
In 2014, Razak Abdul A’imma al-Haidari, an Iraqi MP from the Badr Parliamentary bloc, charged that the MEK and ISIL were coordinating their terrorist activities in Iraq.
The U.S. continues to provide the MEK with security at the “Temporary Transit Location” at the former Camp Liberty (Camp Ashraf) U.S. base.
In 2014, the MEK hailed ISIL as “part of a popular revolution against the Maliki regime” in Iraq. Later, the MEK tried to hide its past support for ISIL by claiming that ISIL was a creation of Iran. In fact, ISIL and Iran are bitter enemies and Iranian troops have engaged ISIL in battle in northern Iraq near the Iranian border.
The United States also provides sanctuary to leaders of the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, which has direct links to the ISIL-affiliated and anti-Russian Caucasus Emirate. Ruslan Tsarni (Tsarnaev), the uncle of Boston Marathon bombing figures Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, had links to the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria. Ichkeria leaders are found mainly in the Boston, Washington, and New York areas.
The East Turkestan “government-of-exile” is based in Washington, DC. It has helped to provide mercenaries from China’s predominantly Muslim Uighur Xinjiang province, including child soldiers, to ISIL in Syria and Iraq. Some of these children have carried out war crimes by executing hostages. China considers the East Turkestan groups to be terrorist organizations.
The Royal Lao Government-in-exile, which has been involved in clandestine guerrilla warfare against the Lao government in coordination with the Hmongs, has its headquarters in Gresham, Oregon.
The so-called “Federal Republic of Vietnam,” the successor to the U.S.-supported South Vietnamese government and which is said to have been involved in anti-Hanoi guerrilla activities in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam, has its headquarters in Missouri City, Texas.
Southern Florida has been the home of exiled right-wing groups from Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Venezuela, Bolivia, and Ecuador. Many of these groups have been supported by the CIA.
Wayne Madsen is an investigative journalist who consistently exposes cover-ups from deep within the government. Want to be the first to learn the latest scandal? Go to WayneMadsenReport.com subscribe today!
A former marketing executive for textbook publishing giant Pearson Education reveals the anti-American agenda behind Common Core and the Advanced Placement U.S. History framework in the third video of a series produced by Project Veritas and focused on the corporate cronyism behind the education reform known as Common Core.
Kim Koerber, a former Pearson executive who now works as a sales consultant for National Geographic – another Gates Foundation-funded Common Core publisher – tells the Project Veritas undercover journalist that “conservative voters are afraid of everything,” and proceeds to say why Common Core is important in her view.
She explains that those behind Common Core and the new AP U.S. History framework have attempted to minimize the Constitution and remove Christianity from the core concepts, while they also stress the importance of teaching about Islam:
“The dead white guys did not create this country,” Koerber says. “They [presumably conservatives] want to talk about those dead white guys.”
Koerber continues that Common Core is necessary because “it needs to be come cohesion between the states.” She expresses frustration, however, that “Texas keeps screwing it up over and over again.”
“People who say they want to teach the Constitution, only want to teach the part of the Constitution that they like,” she tells the journalist, who then asks her about the Second Amendment.
“But yet they don’t want to teach all of it,” she replies. “Damn the Second Amendment.”
The discussion continues:
Kim Koerber (KK): People that are not educated, Fox TV viewers think that Common Core comes from the educated liberal groups and that’s why they are against it. They don’t know anything about it. They think it’s liberal so they’re against it. That’s what I think it is. It’s a knee jerk reaction. My mother, oh my God, she’s a Fox person. If I could remove Fox from my television set, I would…
I did a big presentation yesterday for AP US History and the AP US History agenda was set, until Texas got upset about it and they wanted to have their founders – they wanted founders in it. And it’s like – come on. The dead white guys did not create this country. It was a whole bunch of different kinds of people. And yes there were women, and yes there were people of color, and yes…you need to talk about them too. But they want to talk about those dead white guys.
And that’s the problem. You’re getting pushback, because there’s a bunch of Republican people, conservatives that don’t like being told what to do by people they don’t agree with. For example, in AP U.S. History a long time ago, Texas wanted to have U.S. History books, right? Pearson made them. And it talked about the Wild West and how there were prostitutes, right. And Texas was really upset. They didn’t want to mention…I’m like…You’re too young to… Did you watch Gun Smoke? It was a TV show, and you had Marshall Dillon and Ms. Kitty was his friend. She owned a bar and she was a prostitute. They never mentioned it but that’s what she was. It’s like who was Ms. Kitty? Who were these people who went out and serviced these men that went out in the world? That was real. The Wild West was not a nice place. And our kids need to know that that’s what it was like, you know.
Project Veritas Journalist (PV): But these people in Texas are really upset that the Constitution is not being covered.
KK: It is being covered, but not the way they…cause they’re idiots and they don’t know what’s in it.
PV: Is it covered as much as it would have been?
KK: In 12th grade government it certainly is, and in 5th grade it is. Yes.
PV: “It’s not a necessity for the kids.”
KK: You should know a little bit about it, you shouldn’t have to memorize the thing.
Republicans want to get in there and talk about stuff and change things about school stuff because they want to, they want to influence what is being taught. Common core doesn’t put up with that.
PV: Yeah. And, so it’s not really being… A lot of these complaints about it are not so much about the content yeah…
KK: They’re misunderstanding; they are people that don’t really know what they are talking about.
I…I can’t stand it. If they talk to me one more time about…climate change not being real, I’m just gonna scream.
PV: I am really glad I’m here in California, whatever religious affiliation you want to take is fine, but in Texas they want to push the Christianity.
KK: Because they think it’s the only one.
PV: They do, and I see that.
KK: That’s why it’s so offensive to have these prayers in the school board.
PV: Christianity is totally out of the common core?
KK: Yes it is. Totally. It’s not a core concept at all.
PV: But then there is a mention of other religions like Islam.
KK: Yeah well you have to because …
PV: So how did Islam get worked in?
KK: Islam…they said you have to talk about Islam, you have to talk about Judaism and you have to talk about Christianity and they wanted to make it big about Christianity; no it’s like, everybody needs to know about everything else…
PV: Is that one of the complaints, that common core does have a liberal bias?
KK: Yes, they feel like we’d be educating their kids to the world which they don’t want to do that. They want their kids to only know this… It’s like birth control. They don’t want their kids to know about it, yet Chlamydia is huge in Texas. So it’s like, you know…In the schools that have kids that, because the kids don’t learn about anything about what they’re doing and they’re messing around and they get in trouble because they didn’t get educated. So, I think the progressive bias is the more educated you are, the better you are, and the conservative bias is the less they know the better they are going to be. Yeah.
PV: What is it that they don’t agree with?
KK: They don’t agree with Islam, so they don’t want their kids to be taught it. They don’t agree with birth control so they don’t want their kids to talk about it. They don’t agree with math because they don’t understand it. It’s not the same math they did in high school. So they don’t want their kids to know about it.
It’s conservative push back, that, they are afraid. So these conservative, these conservative voters are afraid of everything.
PV: I’m just wondering why Common Core specifically…before Common Core kids were learning about math and science.
KK: Because it’s the government telling me what to do.
People who say they want to teach the Constitution, only want to teach the part of the Constitution that they like.
PV: Second Amendment?
KK: But yet they don’t want to teach all of it. Damn the Second Amendment. I don’t think personal handguns need to be on anyone except the government, the police. What is the purpose of having a gun?
The separation of church and state they don’t understand.
They don’t like that. They don’t like equal rights between all groups. The voter suppression that is going on in the south is just unbelievably awful.
People who are not educated are easy flim flam. And that they react by fear instead of by knowledge.
The Project Veritas journalist asks Koerber about the profits for textbook publishers with the Common Core reform.
KK: Anytime anybody changes something in a textbook its profitable for the textbook companies. So the textbooks have to change and the school district has to adopt the new ones, that’s profitable.
PV: Say that again.
KK: Anytime a change happens that has to be put in a textbook suddenly the school district has to adopt new books.
The video also includes footage of Project Veritas president James O’Keefe at the South Carolina Tea Party convention, during which Republican 2016 frontrunner Donald Trump told his audience Common Core is a “disaster,” and that no candidate can win who is in favor of Common Core.
“We spend more than anybody else and to a large extent that’s Common Core, because these people in Washington – the bureaucrats – are making a fortune,” Trump said. “They don’t give a damn about your kids in South Carolina.”
O’Keefe asked Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) about the corporate cronyism behind Common Core.
“I’ll tell you this, as President, I will instruct the Department of Education to end Common Core on day one,” Cruz said.
Former Sen. Rick Santorum also asserted, “I am very much against Common Core, against any kind of federal intervention into our schools. That’s the big problem.”
Asked about the major issues surrounding Common Core, Santorum replied:
The elites in our culture who want to indoctrinate our young people into a certain way to think, a certain belief structure, and it’s all spread out through Common Core. I believe the best and safest way to maintain our values in this country is to leave it up to the people at the grass roots level.
“It doesn’t matter if it’s corporate cronyism or liberal ideology, if you are slipping your agenda into our education system, we are going to expose you, one by one, until the whole rotten system is revealed,” O’Keefe tells Breitbart News about his project on Common Core and education. “Corporate cronyism and underhanded political deals have contributed to Common Core’s massive disruption and the unraveling of America’s educational fabric.
