Bomb-sniffing dog discovers 2 Hellfire missiles bound for Portland

Associated Press - MARCH 13, 2016

BELGRADE, Serbia — Serbia's authorities are investigating reports that a cargo package bound for Portland contained two missiles with explosive warheads on a passenger flight from Lebanon.

N1 television said the package with two guided armor-piercing missiles was discovered Saturday by a sniffer dog after an Air Serbia flight from Beirut landed at a Belgrade airport.

Serbian media say documents listed the final destination for the AGM-114 Hellfire missiles as Portland. The American-made projectiles can be fired from air, sea or ground platforms against multiple targets.

The Serbian state news agency Tanjug reported that the missiles had been packed in wooden coffins and unloaded at the Belgrade Nikola Tesla Airport, where they were inspected by bomb-sniffing dogs.

This type of missile was originally designed to be fired from a helicopter and was named Helicopter Launched, Fire and Forget Missile -- later shortened to Hellfire.

The AGM-114 model is manufactured by Lockheed Martin, Boeing and Northrup Grumman. It weighs about 100 pounds and costs about $110,000 apiece. Most models use laser to home in on their targets, although one version of the AGM-114 relies on radar.

The FBI in Portland said it is looking into the reports.

"We don't have any information on that yet," Jennifer Adams, an FBI spokeswoman, said Sunday afternoon.

N1 reported Sunday that Air Serbia is helping in the investigation. The Serbian flag carrier says "security and safety are the main priorities for Air Serbia."

-- Staff and wire reports

CIA director says IS group has used, can make chem weapons

AFP | February 12, 2016

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.

Feds: Dearborn Hts. man supports ISIS, planned attack

Detroit News | Mark Hicks | February 6, 2016

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.

OBAMA SETTING UP AN INVASION HAVEN

Jon Bowne | Infowars | FEBRUARY 5, 2016

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.

CODE 291: SWEDISH POLICE COVER-UP THOUSANDS OF CRIMES INVOLVING “REFUGEES”

Paul Joseph Watson | Infowars | FEBRUARY 5, 2016

IMAGE SOURCE: INFOWARS

Swedish police have covered up thousands of crimes involving migrants over the past four months, all of which have been classified under a secret ‘291 refugee code’ designation, it has been revealed.

According to a report in Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, around 5,000 incidents have been kept secret, including 559 cases of violence, 194 assaults, two terror threats and four rapes.

The article explains that the incidents have been covered-up because of a directive from the National Operational Department that any information pertaining to the behavior of “refugees” be censored.

Official sources blamed the violence on “traumatized people” being kept in “overcrowded places,” with NOA commander Thomas Wallberg adding that it was “sad” the information wasn’t made available to the public.

Wallberg also “told the newspaper that there are even more incidents than the Swedish newspaper has (not) been given access to,” reports Speisa.

Police have also been ordered not to reveal how much resources they have used to deal with refugees entering Sweden, with one officer telling Dagens Nyheter that the secret code was “absolutely ridiculous”.

Last month, Svenska Dagbladet also reported on a directive that police were not to give descriptions of refugee criminals involved in “everything from minor traffic accidents to serious crimes like robbery, abuse and murder” so as not to appear “racist”.

However, accusations of Swedish police covering up crimes linked to migrants stretch back further, with details of the molestation of women by Muslim migrants at a music concert in Stockholm last summer being kept under wraps so as to “avoid an anti-immigrant backlash”.

Authorities have been caught hiding crimes committed by migrants from the public in several other European countries, including Germany, where details of the New Years Eve sex attacks on hundreds of women in Cologne were initially buried.

Police in Detmold also refused to divulge details about the rape of a 13-year-old girl at a migrant camp because they did not want to “give legitimacy to critics of mass migration”.

Germany’s top broadcaster ZDF is also refusing to run crime stories about Muslim rape suspects because, in the words of Editor in chief Ina-Maria Reize-Wildemann, “We don’t want to inflame the situation and spread the bad mood. [The migrants] don’t deserve it.”

Earlier this week, former head of ZDF Bonn Dr. Wolfgang Herles revealedthat the station takes orders from the government on what to report and that journalists are, “not allowed to say anything negative about the refugees”.

As we highlighted back in October, police in Finland were also ordered by the country’s national police board not to publicly identify migrants as criminal suspects over concerns that doing so would encourage a ‘racist’ backlash against the wave of asylum seekers entering Scandinavia.

German spy chief: ISIS is sending terrorists to Europe disguised as refugees

Reuters - FEBRUARY 5, 2016

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)

German police arrest three 'Islamist terrorists' during raids at buildings including asylum seeker centres after tip-off of planned 'severe acts of violence'

Allan Hall, Simon Tomlinson | Daily Mail - FEBRUARY 4, 2016

IMAGE CREDITS: FLICKR, SYRIAFREEDOM.

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.

Border agent: 'We might as well abolish our immigration laws altogether'

Washington Examiner | By PAUL BEDARD (@SECRETSBEDARD) | 2/4/16 10:40 AM

(AP Photo/Russell Contreras)

In a shocking reversal of policy, U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents are being told to release illegal immigrants and no longer order them to appear at deportation hearings, essentially a license to stay in the United States, a key agent testified Thursday.

What's more, the stand down order includes a requirement that the whereabouts of illegals released are not to be tracked.

"We might as well abolish our immigration laws altogether,"suggested agent Brandon Judd, president of the National Border Patrol Council.

Testifying on the two-year border surge of immigrant youths, Judd said the policy shift was prompted by Obama administration "embarrassment" that just over half of illegals ordered to appear in court actually do.

"The willful failure to show up for court appearances by persons that were arrested and released by the Border Patrol has become an extreme embarrassment for the Department of Homeland Security. It has been so embarrassing that DHS and the U.S. Attorney's office has come up with a new policy," he testified before the immigration subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee.

The biggest change: Undocumented immigrants are no longer given a "notice to appear" order, because they simply ignore them. Judd said that Border agents jokingly refer to the NTAs as "notices to disappear."

He said the the new policy "makes mandatory the release, without an NTA, of any person arrested by the Border Patrol for being in the country illegally, as long as they do not have a previous felony arrest conviction and as long as they claim to have been continuously in the United States since January of 2014. The operative word in this policy is 'claim.' The policy does not require the person to prove they have been here which is the same burden placed on them during deportation proceedings. Instead, it simply requires them to claim to have been here since January of 2014."

But even then, he added, the agency has been told not to track the illegals.

"Not only do we release these individuals that by law are subject to removal proceedings, we do it without any means of tracking their whereabouts. Agents believe this exploitable policy was set in place because DHS was embarrassed at the sheer number of those who choose not to follow the law by showing up for their court appearances. In essence, we pull these persons out of the shadows and into the light just to release them right back to those same shadows from whence they came," he said.

The go free policy, he said, has prompted thousands of Latinos to cross the border, and among them are hundreds of criminal foot soldiers, according to other testimony.

"Immigration laws today appear to be mere suggestions. There are little or no consequences for

breaking the laws and that fact is well known in other countries. If government agencies like

DHS or CBP are allowed to bypass Congress by legislating through policy, we might as well abolish our immigration laws altogether," Judd concluded.

Paul Bedard, the Washington Examiner's "Washington Secrets" columnist, can be contacted at pbedard@washingtonexaminer.com.

U.S. eyes ways to toughen fight against domestic extremists

Reuters | By Julia Harte, Julia Edwards and Andy Sullivan | February 4, 2016

Department of Justice

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. Justice Department is considering legal changes to combat what it sees as a rising threat from domestic anti-government extremists, senior officials told Reuters, even as it steps up efforts to stop Islamic State-inspired attacks at home.

Extremist groups motivated by a range of U.S.-born philosophies present a "clear and present danger," John Carlin, the Justice Department's chief of national security, told Reuters in an interview. “Based on recent reports and the cases we are seeing, it seems like we’re in a heightened environment.”

Over the past year, the Justice Department has brought charges against domestic extremist suspects accused of attempting to bomb U.S. military bases, kill police officers and fire bomb a school and other buildings in a predominantly Muslim town in New York state.

But federal prosecutors tackling domestic extremists still lack an important legal tool they have used extensively in dozens of prosecutions against Islamic State-inspired suspects: a law that prohibits supporting designated terrorist groups.

Carlin and other Justice Department officials declined to say if they would ask Congress for a comparable domestic extremist statute, or comment on what other changes they might pursue to toughen the fight against anti-government extremists.

The U.S. State Department designates international terrorist organizations to which it is illegal to provide "material support." No domestic groups have that designation, helping to create a disparity in charges faced by international extremist suspects compared to domestic ones.

A Reuters analysis of more than 100 federal cases found that domestic terrorism suspects collectively have faced less severe charges than those accused of acting on behalf of Islamic State since prosecutors began targeting that group in early 2014.

Over the past two years, 27 defendants have been charged with plotting or inciting attacks within the United States in the name of Islamic State. They have faced charges that carried a median prison sentence of 53 years - half of the defendants faced more, and half faced less.

In the same period, 27 adherents of U.S.-based anti-government ideologies have been charged with similar activity. They faced charges that carried a median prison sentence of 20 years.

Carlin said his counter-terrorism team, including a recently hired counsel, is taking a “thoughtful look at the nature and scope of the domestic terrorism threat” and helping to analyze “potential legal improvements and enhancements to better combat those threats.”

The counsel, who was appointed last October and has not been named publicly, will identify cases being prosecuted at the state level that “could arguably meet the federal definition of domestic terrorism," a Justice Department official said.

That would give the department a direct role in more domestic extremism cases.

Recognizing that domestic threats were “rapidly evolving, and had the potential to grow,” the department in March 2015 rated disrupting such terrorists as a key component of its broader counter-terrorism efforts, officials said.

THE THREAT PENDULUM

The Justice Department aggressively pursued domestic extremists after Timothy McVeigh bombed a federal building in Oklahoma City in 1995, killing 168 people.

The government shifted its focus to international terrorism after al Qaeda killed nearly 3,000 Americans on Sept. 11, 2001.

But in recent years anti-government activists, like those who occupied a wildlife preserve in eastern Oregon last month, have regained prominence.

As law enforcement experts confront domestic militia groups, "sovereign citizens" who do not recognize government authority, and other anti-government extremists, they also face a heightened threat from Islamic extremists like the couple who carried out the Dec. 2 shootings in San Bernardino, California.

"A new development we're seeing is that when it comes to ISIL investigations, the flash-to-bang time from radicalization to action appears to be happening faster than with other types of terrorists," said Michael Steinbach, the head of the FBI’s Counterterrorism Division.

As a result, government agents are quick to investigate people who appear sympathetic toward Islamic State, current and former officials say. But some say the government has been overzealous in its pursuit of Islamic State suspects.

Similar actions by extremist suspects have yielded sharply disparate sentences.

Eight Islamic State-related defendants have been sentenced so far, to prison terms that range from three to 20 years, the Reuters review found. Over the same period, 18 domestic extremists have been sentenced to terms from one day to 12 years.

Prosecutors say Harlem Suarez, 23, of Key West, Florida, tried to buy a bomb last year from an undercover FBI agent as he plotted attacks on behalf of Islamic State. He faces a possible sentence of life in prison and has pleaded not guilty.

Michael Sibley, 67, left two unexploded pipe bombs and a Koran in a park in Roswell, Georgia in 2014 in what he later told police was an attempt to highlight the danger of Islamic terrorism. He pleaded guilty and faces a maximum of five years in prison.

"A different standard is being applied to Muslims than to other people," said Daryl Johnson, a former counterterrorism expert at the Department of Homeland Security who now works as a law enforcement consultant.

"SPRING-LOADED"

Steinbach said that the FBI can never open up any type of investigation “just on the basis of race, creed, or religion,”

But he added that federal agents are "spring-loaded" to open investigations into Americans who support groups on the State Department list of designated terrorist organizations.

The maximum penalty for supporting one of these groups has been raised from 10 years to 20 years in prison since 2001.

It has been applied in 58 of the government's 79 Islamic State cases since 2014 against defendants who engaged in a wide range of activity, from traveling to Syria to fight alongside Islamic State to raising money for a friend who wished to do so.

Judges usually issue sentences below the maximum, but some charges trigger sentencing "enhancements" that raise the baseline sentence a judge can issue – and the material support charge raises it more than most.

Domestic groups enjoy greater constitutional protections because being a member of those groups, no matter how extreme their rhetoric, is not a crime.

Prosecutors can bring “material support” terrorism charges against defendants who aren't linked to groups on the State Department's list, but they have only done so twice against non-jihadist suspects since the law was enacted in 1994. The law, which prohibits supporting people who have been deemed to be terrorists by their actions, carries a maximum sentence of 15 years in prison.

Current and former federal prosecutors say they rarely consider that statute in domestic terrorism cases because it is often hard to convince a jury that someone who is not affiliated with a foreign group can be guilty of terrorism.

William Wilmoth, a former federal prosecutor who invoked that law in a 1996 case against a West Virginia militia member, said he was surprised to hear that it isn't used more often.

"These guys have every right to have off-center political views," he said. "But when they made affirmative steps to blow up an actual federal facility... we thought it was an important place for us to go and prosecute."



(Reporting by Julia Harte, Julia Edwards and Andy Sullivan; editing by Stuart Grudgings)

So it begins here: U.S. city 'overrun' with criminal refugees

WND News | LEO HOHMANN | FEBRUARY 3, 2016

IMAGE CREDITS: FLICKR, SYRIAFREEDOM.

More than 120 people braved the snow and ice Monday to rally in front of the Missoula County Courthouse, protesting an effort by the Obama administration and its army of community organizers to plant foreign “refugees” into small cities in western Montana.

One of the speakers was a woman who moved recently to Montana from Amarillo, Texas, which has been inundated with thousands of refugees over the past 15 years.

“Amarillo is overrun with refugees,” said Karen Sherman, who stood and spoke to the crowd amid blowing wind and falling snowflakes. Sherman just moved to Missoula, a college town that serves as home to the University of Montana.

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It’s a far cry from Amarillo, which she described as a city of rampant crime and cracking social fabric, thanks to the heavy influx of refugees sent there by the U.S. State Department in cooperation with the United Nations.

“Our city is failing because of the refugees. We have 22 different languages spoken in our schools. We’ve got 42 languages being fielded by our 9-1-1 call centers, and crime is just through the roof. We need to exercise caution, especially for the sake of our children,” she said.

The protesters carried signs that read, “Christian Refugees 2 Christian Nations, Muslim Refugees 2 Muslim Nations, That’s Only Fair,” and “Refugee Resettlement Means Big $$$ – No Accountability.”

Sherman said Amarillo, a city of just more than 200,000 people, has gang violence that has surpassed that of much larger Texas cities such as Fort Worth. She fears U.S. cities like Amarillo and Minneapolis, Minnesota, could be in line to become the next Rotherham, England, or Cologne, Germany, or Stockholm, Sweden, where mass rapes by Muslim men have gained much attention in Europe.

Touching off a rape epidemic

Amarillo was recently named the fifth most dangerous city in Texas, according to FBI crime statistics, up from sixth last year. And it has been nationally recognized as having one of the highest rates of rape in the nation.

That’s a dubious distinction that Sherman believes is tied to the high number of Muslim refugees shipped there by the U.S. government.

“The rape epidemic in this world is becoming pandemic. It’s not confined to one location. Fifteen years ago in Norway, rape was unheard of. Now it’s an epidemic,” Sherman said. “The perpetrators are 100 percent Muslim males. In Sweden, rape has gone up by 500 percent. Stockholm recently had the dubious honor of opening their very first rape center for men and boys.”

In the northern U.K. city of Rotherham, more than 1,400 children have been beaten, raped and trafficked in a well-documented turn of events that has gone largely unreported in the U.S.

“It was covered up by the local government for fear of being viewed as racist. This only came to light because a journalist decided we needed to know about that, not the government,” she said, referring to the rape scandal that unraveled in England in 2014, when it was revealed by media that gangs of mostly Pakistani men had been sexually assaulting English girls for years while police covered it up for fear of being perceived as “anti-Muslim.”

“You can have female equality, or you can have refugees. You cannot have both,” Sherman said.

Pamela Geller wrote the field manual for activists seeking to protect their community from Islamic supremacy encroachment in “Stop the Islamization of America: A Practical Guide to the Resistance.”

Too late to save Texas?

Texas Gov. Greg Abbot has called for a stop to the influx of refugees, but it’s too late, she said. The program continues unabated because, if even one refugee is present in the U.S., he is entitled under current law to bring in his entire extended family.

“It’s called family reunification,” Sherman said.

Texas’ GOP Gov. Greg Abbott has tried to turn off the refugee spigot but it may be too late.

She said America, founded on Judeo-Christian principles of tolerance and respect for one’s fellow man, should not expect people from Third World cultures to share those values.

“If people don’t choose to follow the law, you cannot hire enough police officers,” she said.

“Whether you believe (in the Judeo-Christian God) or not, your values and your principles were influenced by that. Now we’re asking that these people come here, who have been taught for thousands of years of violence and hatred, and we’re expecting them to come here and assimilate to our way of life,” Sherman told the crowd gathered in Missoula. “This is a dangerous and foolish expectation.”

Watch video of Karen Sherman describing the life she left behind in Amarillo, Texas.

Amarillo has received 5,251 foreign refugees since January 2002, according to the federal refugee database. That's more than half of the nearly 8,000 refugees sent to Texas during that period.

President Obama has increased the number of foreign refugees bound for American soil in fiscal 2016 to 85,000. That's a 20 percent increase over the previous year, and 10,000 will come from the jihadist hotbed of Syria.

WND reported last week that two groups are working to resettle Syrian refugees in Montana. One group, WorldMontana, is working in Helena and the other, Soft Landing Missoula, is working in Missoula.

Caroline Solomon drove more than 100 miles to Missoula Monday from her home in Big Fork, Montana, to participate in the rally.

"About four people (from her group) didn't make it because of weather, but we think there were about 125 people on our side and about six with signs calling us 'racists,'" she said.

Softening up the soil

Soft Landing Missoula is working with city and county officials to bring Third World refugees to Montana while the state's Act For America chapter and other activists are trying to stop that from happening. Soft Landing, like most of the non-governmental organizations working with the government to plant refugees into U.S. cities, is working with churches and faith-based groups behind the scenes to create an atmosphere that is more "welcoming" of refugees.

David Lubell of Welcoming America works closely with the White House to soften up the soil in cities targeted to receive an influx Muslim refugees.

Many of the community organizers have received training or consultation from David Lubell's Welcoming America organization, which was started with seed money from billionaire George Soros. Lubell is a close adviser to President Obama's "New Americans" initiative, which seeks to convert millions of refugees and recent immigrants into U.S. citizens with full voting privileges.

The modus operandi used by resettlement agencies usually involves sending a handful of refugees at first and then gradually increasing the influx to hundreds per year.

Mary Poole, who represents Soft Landing, Missoula, told KGVO News Radio that many immigrants have settled in Missoula over the past 30 years. She compared the mostly Middle Eastern migrants from Muslim countries like Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq to the Hmong refugees fleeing communist Vietnam in the late 1970s and early '80s.

"We’ve successfully resettled a Hmong community, as well as Belorussians and Ukrainians, who are now members of our community and part of the fabric of Missoula," Poole told KGVO. "We’re just working on revamping the infrastructure that has already existed here."

But according to the federal database, the state of Montana has not received any refugees since 2008, and only 61 have been sent there since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

Montana resistance follows backlash in Idaho

Other small towns in the West have similarly struggled to oppose the plans of urban elites to import what they see as the problems of the Third World into their communities.

In Sandpoint, Idaho, City Council members voted last Wednesday to withdraw a resolution supporting refugee resettlement, bringing an end to a heated, month-long debate over whether that was a wise move. It had the full backing of Sandpoint Mayor Shelby Rognstad.

Cheers erupted from the audience when the newly elected Sandpoint mayor capitulated, asking the council to withdraw his resolution from consideration. His resolution was meant to counter statements from county commissioners and the local sheriff opposing the refugees. Rognstad said his resolution was intended to restate Sandpoint's commitments to "human rights."

"This resolution has only served to divide us and this community,” said Rognstad, as he requested the withdrawal. "That saddens me."

But others see the situation in reverse. They see nonprofits and NGOs, often flush with government grant money, coming in and stirring up controversy within their once-peaceful communities.

In Twin Falls, Idaho, Chobani opened the world's largest yogurt factory and gave 30 percent of the 600 jobs to foreign refugees, and the federal government has plans to send 300 more refugees, this time from Syria, to the Twin Falls area. That touched off a backlash from a group called 3 Percent of Idaho, which organized a protest at the Idaho Statehouse in late November that attracted more than 1,000 people from both sides of the issue.

If the past record is any indication, the groups seeking to bring Third World refugees to small town America will not be easily chased off by people with signs.

In fact, the pro-refugee Hebrew Immigrant Aid Society, put together a field manual in 2013 on how to deal with "pockets of resistance" in the American heartland. One of the strategies in that manual is to research the backgrounds of resistors and identify them as "anti-Muslim" racists.

A WND report from May 2015 exposed the HIAS strategy to deride and intimidate any politician or activist who opposes the refuge industry's agenda to change the demographics of a town.

The HIAS report, titled “Resettlement at Risk: Meeting Emerging Challenges to Refugee Resettlement in Local Communities," calls for "new tools to fight back against a determined legislator or governor who has decided to challenge resettlement for political or other reasons."

Russia Releases Video Of Turkey Shelling "Syrian Civilian Settlements", Demands "Immediate Explanation"

Zero Hedge - FEBRUARY 1, 2016

Last week, tempers flared anew between Ankara and Moscow after Turkey accused Russia of violating its airspace near the Syrian border.

This time around, Turkey summoned the Russian ambassador – a much more prudent course of action than shooting down a Russian warplane, which is what Ankara decided to do back in November.

Of course every geopolitical action has an equal and opposite reaction. Russia’s response to the downing of its Su-24 by Turkish F-16s was to tarnish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s international image by linking his government to Islamic State’s illicit crude trade. The Kremlin’s anti-Erdogan PR campaign came complete with dozens of videos depicting oil tankers barreling across Turkey’s border with Syria unimpeded and the Russian Defense Ministry delighted in broadcasting footage of airstrikes that turned hundreds of the tankers to dust.

Now, Russia is hitting back at Turkey after the latest spat over Moscow’s alleged incursion into Ankara’s airspace and once again, The Kremlin is breaking out the videos.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Turkey is shelling civilian areas in Syria from a border outpost. Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov showed video footage depicting the attacks at a press conference.

“This facility is a Turkish border outpost, which did not have any firing points a few months ago,” he said, adding that “This is called fact. This is irrefutable proof that the Turkish Armed Forces are shelling settlements on the Syrian border from heavy artillery systems.”

So why is Turkey shelling Syria you ask? Well that’s an open question but there are two rather obvious possibilities. First, Ankara could be hitting the YPG, who Erdogan deeply distrusts and equates with the PKK.

It’s also possible Turkey is attempting to assist the opposition as Russia and Iran bear down on the rebels and militants. Sputnik said on Monday that one Syrian soldier was killed in shelling from Turkey in norther Latakia. “At present, it is the region where the Syrian Armed Forces are carrying out an offensive against the Nusra Front militants and a number of other extremists,” Sputnik notes. “The jihadists aim to establish full control over the Turkish border, through which they regularly receive reinforcements such as equipment and fighters.”

So Turkey, it would appear, is now actively involved in the ground battle – on the side of the terrorists.

“We expect an immediate reaction and explanations of the actions of Turkish military by NATO and the Pentagon,” Gen. Konashenkov says.

Good luck with that.

As Feds Plan to Cut Border Monitoring, Texas Officials Ask Why

The Texas Tribune | by Julián Aguilar | Feb. 1, 2016

A Customs and Border Protection vehicle patrols on the Texas border near the Rio Grande, Thursday, July 24, 2014, in Mission, Texas. Texas is spending $1.3 million a week for a bigger DPS presence along the border.

Gov. Greg Abbott and U.S. Rep. Henry Cuellar, a Laredo Democrat, pressed the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on Monday to explain why the agency plans to reduce its aerial surveillance on the Texas-Mexico border.

In a letter to DHS Secretary Jeh Johnson, the lawmakers said the cut to a requested 3,850 hours of aerial detection and monitoring in 2016 amounts to 50 percent less coverage than recent years.

“Given the recent surge of migrants from Central America and Cuba along the southern border, we believe DHS should request more surveillance and security resources, not fewer,” Abbott and Cuellar wrote in a letter.

The pair also reminded Johnson that in September, Abbott’s office asked the DHS for more aerial resources and U.S. Border Patrol agents but that the request was never acknowledged.

A DHS spokesperson said the agency would respond "directly" to the governor and the congressman.

Monday’s request comes as CBP is reporting a new surge in the number of undocumented immigrants crossing the Rio Grande. From October to December of 2015, about 10,560 unaccompanied minors entered Texas illegally through the Rio Grande Valley sector of the U.S. Border Patrol. That marks a 115 percent increase over the same time frame in 2014. The amount of family units, defined as at least one child and adult guardian or parent, has increased by 170 percent to 14,336 in the Rio Grande Valley.

The El Paso sector also saw 1,030 unaccompanied minors, an increase of almost 300 percent.

In Monday’s letter, the pair also requested a detailed breakdown of how the DHS determined the reduction in aerial surveillance was warranted and information on how staffing and operation levels would be affected.

While Abbott has spoken extensively about illegal immigration from Mexico and Central America, the letter marked the first time Abbott has referenced a recent surge of Cubans coming into Texas.

Abbott visited the island nation last year to explore expanding trade between Cuba and Texas. During that trip, he spoke about the current trade embargo but not the migrant issue.

During the 2015 fiscal year, about 28,400 Cubans entered Texas through U.S. Customs and Border Protection's Laredo field office, which extends from Del Rio to Brownsville. That’s compared to about 15,600 in 2014.

The surge came after the Obama administration announced in 2014 its plans to re-establish ties with Cuba, leaving many Cubans fearing they will lose a special designation that allows them to apply for legal residency status, or a “green card,” after living in the country for a year. Cuellar and U.S. Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, have called for the repeal of that designation.

WHY IS OBAMA FLOODING SMALL TOWNS IN THE MOST CONSERVATIVE PARTS OF AMERICA WITH REFUGEES?

Michael Snyder | Economic Collapse | FEBRUARY 1, 2016

IMAGE CREDIT : INFOWARS.COM

Why are small towns in conservative states being specifically targeted for refugee resettlement? 

Of course the Obama administration will never publicly admit that this is happening, but it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what is going on. Just look at the uproar that refugee resettlement is now causing in small communities in Idaho, Montana, North Dakota and Kansas. The Obama administration has deemed large cities such as Washington D.C. to be “too expensive” for the refugees, and so large numbers of them are being dispersed throughout smaller communities all over the nation. If you drop a few hundred refugees into a major city of several million people, it isn’t going to make much of a difference. But if you drop a few hundred refugees into a small town that has only a few thousand people living there, you can start to fundamentally alter the character of the whole area. Could it be possible that this is yet another way that Barack Obama is attempting to “fundamentally transform” America?

You would think that there would be more employment opportunities, cultural attractions and government services available for refugees in major metropolitan areas. So it would seem natural to resettle them in those areas. But instead, there seems to be a major push to resettle large numbers of them in small towns.


Needless to say, this is creating a huge uproar in many areas. In fact, on Monday there is a major protest planned in Missoula, Montana. The following comes from Leo Hohmann of WND…

Another big battle is brewing over Syrian “refugees” sweeping into small-town America.

Rural folks in Montana are pushing back against plans by urban elites to plant hundreds of Muslims from the Third World into Helena and Missoula. They plan a protest rally at 10 a.m. Monday in front of the county courthouse in Missoula. And if the pattern holds of similar rallies in Twin Falls, Idaho, and Fargo, North Dakota, a contingent of pro-refugee people will show up to counter protest.

Well funded pro-immigrant NGOs have been searching out local politicians that are willing to work with them to invite the Obama administration to resettle large numbers of Islamic refugees in their areas. Unfortunately for residents of Missoula, politicians there seem quite willing to open the door…

Here in “Big Sky Country” local politicians in Missoula, working with pro-immigrant NGOs, are inviting the federal government to begin sending Syrians, comparing them to the Hmong refugees who fled Vietnam’s communists in the late 1970s. They have not been deterred by the fact that 98 percent of Syrian refugees are Sunni Muslims, the vast majority of whom FBI Director James Comey admits are impossible to vet for ties to terrorism.
Despite Comey’s warnings, the Missoula Board of County Commissioners sent a letter on Jan. 13 to the U.S. State Department requesting Syrian refuges. “We look forward to seeing approximately 100 refugees per year resettled in Missoula,” the letter states.
“Missoula is an ideal city for resettling refugees,” the letter continues. “Our community enjoys good schools, incredible natural beauty, and a low unemployment rate, among other factors.”

We have all seen the chaos that has erupted in Europe as massive waves of Islamic immigrants have been allowed in and resettled in large numbers in small communities. Just a few weeks ago, I wrote about the epidemic of rape that is sweeping across formerly peaceful countries like Norway and Sweden.

And I am sure most of you have already read about the extremely alarming sexual crimes that Germany is dealing with now. But many of us don’t seem to be connecting the dots. What is happening over there could someday happen to our own wives and daughters.

Fortunately, there are some communities that are still willing to step up and take a stand against what the social engineers in Washington D.C. are trying to do. One of those communities is Sandpoint, Idaho…

Sandpoint City Council members voted Wednesday night to withdraw a resolution supporting refugee resettlement, bringing an end to a heated, month-long controversy.
Cheers erupted from the audience when newly elected Sandpoint Mayor Shelby Rognstad asked the council to withdraw the resolution from consideration. A measure meant to counter statements from Bonner County commissioners and Sheriff Darryl Wheeler opposing the resettlement of refugees, the resolution was intended to restate Sandpoint’s commitments to human rights, according to Rognstad.
“This resolution has only served to divide us and this community,” said Rognstad, as he requested the withdrawal. “That saddens me.”

Once again, anti-refugee activists turned out in force to oppose the resolution and, once again, the council meeting procedure was punctured by applause and shouts. When Rognstad called for order, the crowd responded with catcalls.

But other small communities in Idaho are not so fortunate.

Just consider what is happening in Twin Falls…

Beginning the next fiscal year (October 1), some 300 Muslim refugees, primarily from Syria, will arrive in Twin Falls, Idaho, the Twin Falls Times reports.
But this miniature exodus from the Middle East to the small southern Idaho town of 45,000 people is believed to be just the tip of the iceberg, according to WND, which indicates that many more refugees from Iraq, Syria, the Democratic Republic of Congo, and likely Syria, are on their way. The conservative news site received reports that community leaders were told at a recent Boise State University conference held for “stakeholders” — including church groups and social service providers — that a couple thousand refugees are planned to a arrive statewide soon.

Look, I am all for assisting people that need our help.

In particular, I would love for our country to take in Christians from Iraq and Syria. The things that ISIS has been doing to those that believe in Jesus Christ are almost too horrible to put into words, and yet Barack Obama has been almost totally silent on the matter.

Instead of taking in persecuted Christians, it has been estimated that well over 90 percent of the refugees from Syria are Sunni Muslims, and surveys have found that a significant percentage of them actually have a favorable view of ISIS.

In the mainstream media, we are told quite often that the number of refugees being brought in is 10,000 a year. But that simply is not accurate. In a previous article, I documented the fact that the White House has admitted that the number of refugees being resettled in this country has been increased to 100,000 per year. The following is a message that was tweeted by the official White House Twitter account on September 28th…



I don’t see how there could be any confusion. Barack Obama himself says that we are bringing in 100,000 refugees a year for the next two years.

Not all of these refugees are coming from Syria, but the vast majority of them are coming from countries where a radical version of Sunni Islam is practiced as a way of life.

When large numbers of refugees are injected into a small community, the character of that community can be fundamentally altered. And at this point, it appears that there is a concentrated effort to funnel large numbers of these refugees into small towns in some of the most conservative states in the country.

If you are concerned about what is going on in places like Missoula, Sandpoint and Twin Falls, you might want to check on what your own local politicians are doing.

An insidious agenda is at work, and I have a feeling that this is just the tip of the iceberg.

Is a secret sniper killing off Isil's high command in Libya?

The Telegraph | By Colin Freeman | 3:08PM GMT 29 Jan 2016

Mystery gunman credited with shooting three of the terror group's leaders in their new "Caliphate" in Colonel Gaddafi's home city of Sirte

As befits all the best practitioners of his shadowy trade, no-one is quite sure whether he is one man or many, or even simply an urban legend.

But after a string of assassinations of its local henchmen, the Islamic State's new "Caliphate" in the Libyan city of Sirte is abuzz with talk that an anti-Isil sniper is at work.

In recent weeks, no fewer than three Isil commanders in Sirte have been shot dead from long range, according to local media.

The killings - reported to be the work of a sniper who honed his skills in Libya’s uprising against Colonel Gaddafi - are said to have sowed panic among Isil's forces in the city, who have carried a string of arrests and executions in a bid to track down the culprit.

The Sirte assassin's most recent casualty, according to social media reports from Sirte, was Abdullah Hamad Al-Ansari, an Isil commander from the southern Libyan city of Sirte, who was shot dead on January 23 as he left a city centre mosque.

The birthplace of Libya's late Colonel Gaddafi, Sirte has been under Islamic State control since last summer, Libyan intelligence officials estimating that there may now be up to 2,000 jihadist fighters now based there.

The port city’s new masters have made brutal examples of opponents, via a regime of floggings and beheadings enforced by black-masked religious police.

But while the group's leaders now enjoy unchallenged rule on the streets, that does not appear to have left them immune to long-range attack from Sirte's many battle-scarred buildings.

Tales of the mystery marksman are believed to have found a ready audience among the city's population, few of whom actively support the city's new hardline rulers.

The morale-raising effect of his exploits has echoes of the 2001 film 'Enemy at the Gates', in which Jude Law plays the Soviet Union's top sniper against Hitler's armies in the Battle of Stalingrad.

The film has since gained large fan club among fighting men in the Arab world, and such is its hero's warrior allure that one Syrian rebel group fighting President Bashar al-Assad named their top sharpshooter "Sniper Moscow" in his honour.

Jude Law in Enemy at the Gates Photo: REX FEATURES

In similar fashion, locals in Sirte apparently relished the panic caused in Isil’s ranks when Hamad Abdel Hady, a Sudanese official in Isil's newly-convened Sharia court, was felled by a sniper's bullet outside a hospital earlier this month.

One eye witness told the al-Wasat website: "A state of terror prevailed among the Isil ranks after his death. They randomly shot in the air to scare inhabitants, while searching for the sniper."

The identity of the mystery marksman - if indeed it is just one - is now the subject of frenzied online discussion. Many believe he may be a militiaman from the neighbouring city of Misrata, whose security forces fought Isil for control of Sirte in the early part of last year but eventually pulled out.

Misratan commanders say they still maintain networks of informants and agents in the city, despite Isil subjecting all spies to crucifixion.

Adding to the sense of intrigue is speculation that the sniper might be a American special forces soldier, some of whom are thought to be operating in the region to gather intelligence on the Isil presence.

However, in a city where little reliable information is currently available, there is a more mundane possibility - namely that reports of the sniper and his exploits may be simply the product of wishful thinking among Sirte's unhappy residents.

The Mystery of ISIS’ Toyota Army Solved

Tony Cartalucci | New Eastern Outlook - JANUARY 28, 2016

IMAGE SOURCE: INFOWARS.COM

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.

ABC News in their article, “US Officials Ask How ISIS Got So Many Toyota Trucks,” reports:

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.”

US foundation-funded Public Radio International (PRI) reported in a 2014 article titled, “This one Toyota pickup truck is at the top of the shopping list for the Free Syrian Army — and the Taliban,” that:


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.

Hundreds of DHS badges, guns, cell phones lost or stolen since 2012

By Adam Shaw | Published January 27, 2016 | Fox News

Feb. 20, 2014: A U.S. Customs and Border Protection arm patch and badge is seen at Los Angeles International Airport, California. (Reuters)

Hundreds of badges, credentials, cell phones and guns belonging to Department of Homeland Security employees have been lost or stolen in recent years -- raising serious security concerns about the potential damage these missing items could do in the wrong hands.

Inventory reports, obtained by the news site Complete Colorado and shared with FoxNews.com, show that over 1,300 badges, 165 firearms and 589 cell phones were lost or stolen over the span of 31 months between 2012 and 2015.

The majority of the credentials belonged to employees of Customs and Border Protection (CBP), while others belonged to Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) employees.

The lost or stolen guns also mostly belonged to CBP employees, though others were cited as belonging to TSA and ICE workers. The agencies all fall under DHS.

The missing badges and guns suggest a shocking lack of security from federal law enforcement officers and represent a significant security risk, experts say.

“It’s scary that you’d have that number of credentials out there that someone could manipulate,” Tim Miller, a retired Secret Service special agent, told FoxNews.com.

While Miller said the phones are likely to have enough protocols in place to prevent them from being used for nefarious purposes, the badges and credentials are an entirely different matter and could allow access to sensitive areas such as cargo.

“The thing that’s particularly concerning is that if you get real credentials, it’s very easy to manipulate them, and you’ve got someone else’s picture on what law enforcement would see as valid," Miller said. "Then you factor in terrorism, it’s a significant concern that people would run around with authentic credentials and be able to access areas they wouldn’t otherwise be able to access.”

When reached for comment, DHS did not dispute the inventory report data -- which Complete Colorado, a Colorado-based online news site, had obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request. The reporter who obtained the data also works with Denver-based free-market think tank the Independence Institute.

In a statement to FoxNews.com, a DHS spokesman said they strive to be “good stewards of government resources” and have improved oversight and reduced the number of lost or stolen items over the past few years.

“If a credential holder loses or has their credentials stolen, the holder must report the incident to their supervisor and credential issuance office immediately,” spokesman Justin Greenberg said. “Once the incident has been reported, this information is entered into appropriate DHS and law enforcement databases, which disables use of the lost or stolen item.”

He also noted that DHS encrypts all mobile devices, laptops and tablets.

Miller said officials need to be doing more, considering the sheer number of guns and badges that have been lost or stolen.

Lawmakers also have expressed concern about the safety of DHS property in the past. In December, the Senate Commerce, Science, and Transportation Committee approved legislation that would tighten screening of TSA workers, review security protocols and increase fines and enforcement requirements related to missing credentials.

The legislation was put forward after members of the committee wrote to TSA officials in March expressing concern about reports of unaccounted TSA badges, and the reported use of badges to bypass security checkpoints.

“Officials entrusted with protecting the American public cannot consider the loss of sensitive items normal or routine," Sen. John Thune, R-S.D., chairman of the committee, told FoxNews.com.

"When the Commerce Committee looked at lost and missing airport security credentials, we discovered that existing rules weren’t being effectively enforced. Mistakes happen, but if we don’t work to eliminate them and insist on accountability, then we’re left with unacceptable risk,” Thune said.

VIDEO: SENATOR WARNS AUMF BILL IS “DECLARATION OF INTERNATIONAL MARTIAL LAW”

Adan Salazar | Infowars - JANUARY 26, 2016

IMAGE SOURCE: Wikipedia Commons

A new bill making its way through Congress contains “dangerous and unprecedented” language that could be considered a “declaration of international martial law,” a US senator warned last Thursday.

“This resolution is a total rewrite of the War Powers clause of the Constitution. Let’s be clear about that,” Democrat Senator Chris Murphy said on the Senate floor last week in regards to S.J. Res. 29, a bill purporting to give the sitting US president the power to declare war on ISIS.

“It is essentially a declaration of international martial law,” Murphy said.

Speaking out against the fast-track authorization for the use of military force bill proposed by Republican Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, Murphy explained the resolution would permanently hand over war-making authority to the office of the president.

“A sweeping transfer of military power to the president that will allow him or her to send US troops almost anywhere in the world for any reason with absolutely no limitations,” Sen. Murphy described, adding that Article I, Section 8, Clause 11 of the Constitution “vests in Congress the responsibility to declare war.”

“While the ink is still wet on this resolution… it’s safe to say that this resolution is the wrong way to authorize war against ISIS,” Murphy said. “The language of this resolution is dangerous and it is unprecedented.”

“[The American people] certainly don’t want Congress to hand over the power to the president to send our troops into any country anywhere in the world for almost any reason. And that’s what this resolution would do.”

Murphy went on: “It gives the power to the president without consulting Congress to deploy US forces in anyone of the 61 countries where ISIS has a single sympathizer.”

The Senator from Connecticut also warned the bill could possibly give the president the power to deploy troops on US soil:

“Well as we’ve seen here in the United States, the threat of ISIS is present in virtually every corner in the world. Thus this resolution would give the president total absolute carte blanche to send our young soldiers to any corner of the world without consulting Congress.”

Senator Murphy’s comments were echoed on Sunday by former Congressman Ron Paul, who said the new resolution would make the “Iraq War authorization of 2002 look like a walk in the park.”

“Let’s be clear: If Senate Majority Leader McConnell succeeds in passing this open-ended war authorization, the US Constitution will be all but a dead letter,” Dr. Paul wrote.

The bill currently has four co-sponsors, Sen. Daniel Coats, Sen. Joni Ernst, Sen. Lindsey Graham and Sen Orrin Hatch.

Watch: Alex Jones warns about SJ Res 29: