The White House website has censored a video of French Pres. Francois Hollande saying that “Islamist terrorism” is at the “roots of terrorism.”
The White House briefly pulled video of a press event on terrorism with Pres. Obama, and when it reappeared on the WhiteHouse.gov website and YouTube, the audio of Hollande’s translator goes silent, beginning with the words “Islamist terrorism,” then begins again at the end of his sentence.
Even the audio of Hollande saying the words “Islamist terrorism” in French have, apparently, been edited from the video.
According to the official White House transcript of Hollande’s remarks, Hollande refers to “Islamist terrorism.” The audio of the bold text in brackets is missing from the video – the only point in the video were the audio is absent:
“We are also making sure that between Europe and the United States there can be a very high level coordination.
“But we’re also well aware that the roots of terrorism, [Islamist terrorism, is in Syria and in Iraq. We therefore have to act both in Syria and in Iraq, and this is what we’re doing within the framework of the coalition.] And we note that Daesh is losing ground thanks to the strikes we’ve been able to launch with the coalition.”
WASHINGTON (AP) — The FBI said Monday it successfully used a mysterious technique without Apple Inc.’s help to hack into the iPhone used by a gunman in a mass shooting in California, effectively ending a pitched court battle between the Obama administration and one of the world’s leading technology companies.
The government asked a federal judge to vacate a disputed order forcing Apple to help the FBI break into the iPhone, saying it was no longer necessary. The court filing in U.S. District Court for the Central District of California provided no details about how the FBI did it or who showed it how. The FBI is reviewing the information on the iPhone, the Justice Department said in a statement.
Apple did not immediately comment on the development.
The brief court notice left important questions unanswered: Who showed the FBI how to break into iPhones? How did the government bypass the security features that Apple has invested millions of dollars to build into its flagship product? Are newer iPhones vulnerable to the same hacking technique? Will the FBI share its information with scores of state and local police agencies that said they also need to break into the iPhones of criminal suspects? Will the FBI reveal to Apple how it broke its security? Did the FBI find anything useful on the iPhone?
22:48, 23 MAR 2016
UPDATED 23:30, 23 MAR 2016
BY RUTH HALKON
Father Tom Uzhunnalil was seized when four armed militants stormed an old people’s home in Aden in Yemen on March 4, killing 16
Fears are growing for a priest believed to have been kidnapped by ISIS as sickening reports suggest he may be crucified on Good Friday.
Father Tom Uzhunnalil was seized when four armed militants stormed an old people’s home in Aden in Yemen on March 4.
The gunmen killed 16 people, including four nuns, in the brutal attack on the home run by the in a brutal raid which killed 16 people including four nuns.
No group has come forward to claim responsibility for the kidnap of the priest, who was a member of the Silesian order in of Bangalore, India, but a survivor said ISIS was to blame.
BY LORI HINNANT AND PAISLEY DODDS
ASSOCIATED PRESS
PARIS (AP) — The Islamic State group has trained at least 400 fighters to target Europe in deadly waves of attacks, deploying interlocking terror cells like the ones that struck Brussels and Paris with orders to choose the time, place and method for maximum chaos, officials have told The Associated Press.
The network of agile and semiautonomous cells shows the reach of the extremist group in Europe even as it loses ground in Syria and Iraq.
The officials, including European and Iraqi intelligence officials and a French lawmaker who follows the jihadi networks, described camps in Syria, Iraq and possibly the former Soviet bloc where attackers are trained to target the West. Before being killed in a police raid, the ringleader of the Nov. 13 Paris attacks claimed he had entered Europe in a multinational group of 90 fighters, who scattered “more or less everywhere.”
But the biggest break yet in the Paris attacks investigation – the arrest on Friday of fugitive Salah Abdeslam- did not thwart the multipronged attack just four days later on the Belgian capital’s airport and subway system that left 31 people dead and an estimated 270 wounded. Three suicide bombers also died.
Just as in Paris, Belgian authorities were searching for at least one fugitive in Tuesday’s attacks – this time for a man wearing a white jacket who was seen on airport security footage with the two suicide attackers. The fear is that the man, whose identity Belgian officials say is not known, will follow Abdeslam’s path.
After fleeing Paris immediately after the November attacks, Abdeslam forged a new network back in his childhood neighborhood of Molenbeek, long known as a haven for jihadis, and renewed plotting, according to Belgian officials.
“Not only did he drop out of sight, but he did so to organize another attack, with accomplices everywhere. With suicide belts. Two attacks organized just like in Paris. And his arrest, since they knew he was going to talk, it was a response: ‘So what if he was arrested? We’ll show you that it doesn’t change a thing,'” said French Senator Nathalie Goulet, co-head of a commission tracking jihadi networks.
Estimates range from 400 to 600 Islamic State fighters trained specifically for external attacks, according to the officials, including Goulet. Some 5,000 Europeans have gone to Syria.
“The reality is that if we knew exactly how many there were, it wouldn’t be happening,” she said.
Scott Mann, is a former Lt. Col and Green Beret. He is the CEO of Mission America and author of the best-selling novel “Game Changers”. He spent 23 years in the Army Special Forces Career involved in Foreign Internal Defense, Counter-insurgency, and Stability Missions. He served in the Special Operations for over 18 years and has been a Green Beret for over 15 years in combat deployments in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Panama, Iraq and Afghanistan. He is one of the only former Lt. Col’s that is actively still involved in the day-to-day transition of Green Berets from active duty into civilian life.
Brussels needs to be a wake up call for America as we get distracted by political antics here at home
Let’s not wait for Brussels to come to America!
The attack that killed 26 innocent civilians in Brussels Belgium is a stark reminder that ISIS and other Islamist violent extremist groups are very much on the march in free society.
The game has changed and these terror groups are not messing around.
Multiple explosions of this caliber with these kind of significant casualties indicate several things:
1- even before knowing many details, it is obvious this was a complex attack that required significant planning and support.
2-Generally complex attacks of this kind also indicate that there was an inside job. Said another way, this likely indicates internal support within Belgium to facilitate this kind of operation taking place. My professional opinion is that we will learn that there was inside support from operatives living in side Belgium. Complex attacks of this nature are just too difficult to pull off in an external fashion. Time will tell on this one.
-There is some speculation that this was an attack of retribution for the arrest of Salah Abdelsalam, who helped mastermind the Paris attacks.
-Other security analysts like KT McFarland think this is more of a traditional political statement. She cited on Fox news this morning all of the multiple political targets inside Belgium
As a career guerrilla warfare expert, who has fought and studied these groups for many years, I disagree… I believe this is about social control.
ISIS is a new breed of terror group who want to demonstrate their ability to conduct horrific violence at very local levels to achieve societal paralysis.
This paralysis cows community and citizen action and draws Western powers into an emotional response and deeper fight in Syria where we employ traditional forms of warfare that bogs down and feeds the I SI S prophecy and narrative that Islam is under attack by the west.
In other words, the attacks in Belgium, Paris, and the ones to come are much more than political statements… They are a bait and switch designed to draw us deeper into a much broader manufactured holy war.
We must not forget the prophetic motivation of ISIS to usher in the “end of days”. They believe this prophesy and they will conduct these horrific attacks across Western Europe and eventually the US in order to draw Western powers deeper into their trap.
Right now, everyone is in a reactionary mode. This is very typical of these types of attacks.
Everyone stops their life briefly to gasp and then shake your head sadly for a few minutes at a violent attack going across their news screen.
While we mourn the loss of innocence in Belgium, we must wake up here in America.
As Americans get drawn into the political antics of our 2016 election year, it would be well advised for us to remember that ISIS is very much on the march and their temporary silence in America, as we’ve just seen in Brussels, does not equal inactivity.
If we want to see what is coming our way in the United States regarding ISIS, we only need to look at events like this in Western Europe. The same open societal systems and borders that enabled extremists to conduct this horrific attack in Belgium and Paris also enabled to ISIS operatives to conduct the San Bernardino shootings which was the worst Islam asked terror shooting event in American history.
This violent reality is not going away.
Let’s remember that the San Bernardino shooters had multiple explosive devices in their apartment.
A responsible planning assumption by politicians and law-enforcement is that ISlS are actively preparing complex attacks of the Belgium caliber here in United States.
If we are going to protect our freedom and our children we must change how we fight ISIS and these other extremists abroad and at home. Here are three significant steps we should take:
1-we should get very serious about addressing the narrative of ISI S. Our politicians and policymakers don’t even talk how these monsters recruit children and draw them into their false utopia known as their caliphate and mobilize them for horrific acts of violence. We must compete with this narrative on the world stage.
2-we must defeat ISIS and Al Qaeda in their safe Havens in rough places like Iraq, Syria, rural Afghanistan, and even north Africa.. This requires much more than drone strikes and night raids. We must empower local citizens in these rough places that were under the oppression of ISIS to stand up on their own. This means getting our warriors out from behind fences and living and working in these areas – Lawrence of Arabia style.
Our current administration and Congress currently does not allow this.
3-we must address the watt vulnerabilities here in our homeland that will likely be exploited just as they have been in France, Belgium, and other places in Western Europe. These are realities we must deal with.
Scott Mann’s mission America is actively promoting a “contract to protect America”. This is a contract between the American people and our politicians to get serious about fighting ISIS.
If people are watching the Belgium attack and want to know what they can do at home to take a stand against ISIS and demand political action, they can go to contract to protectAmerica.org and make their voice heard.
Let’s not wait until Brussels comes to America.
LTC (Ret.) Scott Mann
Brussels explosions: Dozens killed and wounded in terrorist attacks on Zaventem airport and Metro system – live
Latest updates after wave of bomb blasts in Belgian capital – including suicide attack at international airport – that have killed an estimated 25 people
By Danny Boyle, and James Rothwell
11:02AM GMT 22 Mar 2016
Who are the likely terror suspects behind these attacks?
Two suspected terrorists named by Belgian police as accomplices to November’s Paris attacks are likely to be the focus of investigations as to who was responsible for the triple blasts at Brussel’s airports and metros.
Najim Laachraoui and Mohamed Abrini are still on the run following police raids that led to the capture of Salah Abdeslam, the lead Paris attacker, in Brussels on Friday.
Pictured: Dramatic moment world’s most wanted terrorist is caught as footage shows ISIS fugitive behind Paris massacre fleeing his Brussels hideout and trying to run past phalanx of armed police
Salah Abdeslam shot in the leg and captured alive by police commandos
He and four other suspects were arrested in siege, prosecutor confirmed
French President said terrorist will be extradited to France for punishment
Abdeslam believed to have played a key role in November’s Paris attacks
See more news on the Paris attacks at www.dailymail.co.uk/ParisAttacks
By JULIAN ROBINSON and JAY AKBAR and JENNIFER NEWTON FOR MAILONLINE
PUBLISHED: 08:32 EST, 18 March 2016 | UPDATED: 16:57 EST, 18 March 2016
Incredible images show one of the prime suspects behind the Paris terror attacks being wrestled to the ground by armed police following a raid on his Belgian hideout.
Salah Abdeslam, 26, was among the ISIS terror cell that massacred 130 at a rock concert, a football stadium and several cafes in November.
After evading French and Belgian authorities for four months, he was today arrested during a siege on his bolthole in the run down Molenbeek district of Brussels.
The scene is hypothetical, but it has to be taken seriously: A water fountain at busy Newark Liberty International Airport has been spiked with the nerve agent Sarin. Doctors at University Hospital try to puzzle what is happening as victims arrive, some dizzy, others vomiting.
Could it be food poisoning? Now one is dead and more people have become exposed before it becomes apparent that some sort of biological attack has taken place.
With terrorism an increasingly possible occurrence on U.S. soil, doctors and first responders need to be prepared, says the creator of a class now offered at Rutgers’ New Jersey Medical School. While there are courses in disaster medicine around the country, Rutgers claims its two-week elective is unique in the breadth and depth of its exploration of the topic.
“This type of training is standard fare in emergency medicine residency programs, but I’m not sure that it’s too common at the medical student level,” said Mike Baldyga, public relations manager for the American College of Emergency Physicians.
“New Jersey has good reason to be concerned about terrorism,” said the developer of the course, Dr. Leonard Cole, noting that the FBI has deemed the area around Newark — with its ports, chemical plants and population density — as one of the prime terror targets in the nation. “Part of what this course does is to alert these physicians that you’ve got to pay attention to this kind of threat.”
The fourth-year medical students taking the Terror Medicine elective this week participated in the mock exercise involving airport contamination and were asked to make decisions — through the whirring of air-filters attached to the masks they donned — in responding to the emergency
Dr. Miriam Kilkarni, an assistant professor of Emergency Medicine, asked the students where in the hospital they would find the antidote for Sarin. “The time to worry about the availability of Atropine is when you start dosing the first patient!”
Protective gear was needed, as were quarantines and communication with emergency personnel on the scene — all while triage and treatment of the victims proceeded in a chaotic environment.
The Republican head of the House Homeland Security Committee is warning that the Obama administration’s decision to lift sanctions as part of the Iran nuclear deal will bankroll terrorism at the expense of the United States and its allies.
Rep. Mike McCaul (R-Texas) has long hammered the nuclear deal as a misguided agreement with untrustworthy adversaries –– a universal sentiment of congressional Republicans. McCaul amplified those concerns on Sunday following the administration’s announcement that it has lifted financial penalties on Iran surrounding its nuclear program.
“I have said from the start that the Iran deal was little more than a negotiation with terrorists. And now with its implementation, we can see clearly one of the dangers it will bring to the free world,” McCaul said in a statement. “The administration is unfreezing billions of dollars for the Iranian government, which will enhance its bankrolling of terrorism, perpetuate its repression, and fuel its efforts to oppose America and our allies in the region and beyond.”
President Obama on Sunday defended the move to lift sanctions, saying Iran’s compliance with the nuclear deal has been “verified,” leading to the need for the United States to make good on its part of the bargain.
“Now that Iran’s actions have been verified, it can begin to receive relief from certain nuclear sanctions and gain access to its own money that had been frozen,” Obama said from the White House.
In the same breath, however, Obama announced that he’s installing new sanctions on Iran in response to a pair of ballistic missile tests conducted by Tehran late last year in defiance of United Nation’s resolutions. The dual moves highlight the sharp distinction the administration is making between Iran’s nuclear program and other actions undertaken by Tehran.
“We remain steadfast in opposing Iran’s destabilizing behavior elsewhere, including its threats against Israel and our Gulf partners, and its support for violent proxies in places like Syria and Yemen,” Obama said. “We still have sanctions on Iran for its violations of human rights, for its support of terrorism, and for its ballistic missile program. And we will continue to enforce these sanctions, vigorously.”
The ballistic missile testing “was a violation of its international obligations,” Obama added. “And as a result, the United States is imposing sanctions on individuals and companies working to advance Iran’s ballistic missile program. And we are going to remain vigilant about it.”
A Middle East on fire, as the Islamic State burns and slashes its way toward its goal of a global Caliphate.
A confident president, who believes that armed terrorist fighters “on the backs of pickup trucks” do not represent an existential threat to America.
A divided field of GOP presidential candidates, who debate the best method to confront the threat. Airstrikes. Economic damage. “Boots on the ground.”
The world waits for an answer.
One man has found it.
Oregon folk singer James Twyman plans to travel to Syria next week to confront the mass-murdering terrorist group — with songs of peace.
The Portland native and self-described “Peace Troubadour” will perform a concert at a venue in ISIS-controlled territory in Syria on January 31, according to Fox News. Armed with nothing more than a guitar and a prayer, Twyman believes that focusing on positivity can held put an end to the devastating bloodshed.
“It’s going to be pretty powerful,” the singer told Fox. “When people come together and focus on something in a positive way… there’s scientific evidence that it can change things for the better.”
Twyman reportedly plans to depart for Israel on January 20. From there, he’ll cross over the country’s northern border with Syria, and meet with contacts who are helping to plan the peace concert. Twyman says that Christian, Islamic and Jewish leaders — and more than 2,500 Tibetan monks — will join with him as he sings song infused with the traditional prayers of each of the three religions.
The singer is also simultaneously organizing a worldwide prayer vigil, to be conducted on the day he performs in Syria.
A woman, who came forward and told her story of being sexually assaulted in Cologne, Germany, on New Years Eve, was victimized a second time after an Internet video gave out her identity and suggested her account of the attack was anti-Muslim propaganda.
The 26-year-old woman named Selina withheld her full name when she gave an interviewto German television channel SWR Fernsehen last week. In the interview, she described her moment of terror being surrounded by dozens of men who looked at her like “free meat at the supermarket” and groped her repeatedly. She noted that her attackers spoke Arabic and did not seem to understand German. She described the group of men as “southern looking” with “darker skin.”
In a follow-up interview with SWR Fernsehen, Selina describes what happened to her after the interview aired. Someone posted a video containing a portion of her interview and suggesting all of the reports blaming Muslims for the Cologne sexual assaults were propaganda. Titles appear in the video which say, “Strange that Selina 1 day after this horror (3 days before this interview) on Insta still was happy.”
That’s apparently a reference to her Instagram account which the video creator found along with her Facebook page. The video not only suggests Selina is wrong about who attacked her but includes images of her full name and where she works from her Facebook page.
The video went viral and was viewed nearly a quarter of a million times. Selina eventually saw it on the Facebook page of an Islamic preacher who has been described as radical in the German media. She tells SWR Fernsehen she became frightened, wondering, “What if someone sees who believes it or has a radical background?” She began getting threatening calls at work and people were attacking her on Facebook as a racist and a right-winger.
After another ISIS-inspired shooting, Philadelphia’s mayor joins the chorus: It’s not about religion, no sir.
DOROTHY RABINOWITZ
Jan. 11, 2016 6:46 p.m. ET
It required only half a minute for the mayor of Philadelphia, Democrat Jim Kenney, to achieve national fame. On Friday, an already sensation-crowded day, it fell to the mayor to take part in the official pronouncements on the attempted murder of city police officerJesse Hartnett, shot and severely wounded as he sat in his patrol car when a would-be assassin emptied his gun at him—13 shots in all.
Police Commissioner Richard Ross Jr., appointed just three days earlier, delivered the details with noteworthy eloquence: The wounded officer, bleeding heavily from three wounds, one arm useless, had gotten himself out of the car, chased the attacker and shot him.
The drama of this recital needed no amplification, but there it was anyway: Clear security video images showed the assailant in his flowing white dishdasha—a robe favored by Muslim men—running toward the patrol car, shooting, sticking his hand in the window, and racing speedily away. Pictures too of the police officer lurching out of the car to give chase.
The wounded shooter, Commissioner Ross revealed, told police after his capture that he had mounted the attack in the name of Islam, that he believes that “the police defend laws that are contrary to Islam.” The man apparently wanted to talk only about his devotion to Islam.
Undaunted by anything he’d heard so far, Mayor Kenny then came to the microphone and declared: “In no way, shape or form does anybody in this room believe that Islam or the teaching of Islam” had anything to do with the attack. “This was a criminal with a stolen gun.”
Mr. Kenny’s tone was fervent. Out of this event—involving a murderous assault on a police officer, and a heroic response by that officer—the mayor, awash in excitation, had divined what was, for him, the most important concern of this day. Namely, persuading citizens that this attack had nothing to do with allegiance to Islam.
In the wake of horrifying tales of sexual assault perpetrated by potentially up to 1,000 men on New Year’s Eve, German officials have made two stunning decisions.
The first, from Cologne, Germany — where the attacks took place — was Mayor Henriette Reker telling women to adopt a “code of conduct” to prevent further sexual assaults, which crossed the line into “victim blaming.”
The second, from the broader German government, was to crack down hard — not on those responsible for the assaults, but for those criticizing the Muslim immigrants who may have perpetrated them.
Let’s take a step back and remember how all of this started. On New Year’s Eve, women celebrating in Cologne were reportedly groped, sexually assaulted and/or robbed as they walked the streets.
More than 100 criminal complaints have been filed, 75 percent of which were reports of sexual assault. Two women reported being raped by the men, who were allegedly of North African and Arab appearance. Women in Hamburg and Stuttgart also reported similar attacks.
So far several dozen have been identified, most of whom were asylum seekers.
But due to Germany’s desperation to prove not only that it’s the most tolerant country in Europe but also that letting in hundreds of thousands of immigrants would have no disastrous consequences, the female victims of the attacks were initially ignored by the political class. Had the alleged perpetrators been white members of a fraternity, the international response would have been completely different, as the Atlantic’s David Frum noted.
Suddenly the presumption that accusers of sexual assault must be automatically believed has gone out the window, the latest victim of European “multiculturalism” and Western political correctness.
Gone, too, are the demands that women receive no crime-prevention tips, since that amounts to blaming the victim, instead insisting we “teach men not to rape.”
ISIS Influence on Web Prompts Second Thoughts on First Amendment
By ERIK ECKHOLMDEC. 27, 2015
It is one of the most hallowed precepts in modern constitutional law: Freedom of speech may not be curbed unless it poses a “clear and present danger” — an actual, imminent threat, not the mere advocacy of harmful acts or ideas. But in response to the Islamic State’s success in grooming jihadists over the Internet, some legal scholars are asking whether it is time to reconsider that constitutional line.
Appeals for a tougher response to the Islamic State’s online recruiting efforts have, not surprisingly, emerged from the political realm. Donald J. Trump said the government should call on Bill Gates and others to somehow close off dangerous Internet sites, and called First Amendment concerns foolish.
Hillary Clinton said the government should work with host companies to shut jihadist websites and chat rooms. That would be constitutional if voluntary, legal experts say, but not if the government exerted pressure on private firms to cooperate in censorship.
Some security experts called on YouTube to ban videos of lectures by Anwar al-Awlaki, which helped radicalize the attackers in San Bernardino, Calif., and many others.
Recently, though, a few legal scholars, too, have engaged in what others call First Amendment heresy. What does clear and present danger mean when terrorists are provoking violence over the Internet? Should not the government have a way, they ask, to block messages that facilitate terrorist acts?
Vienna police said on Saturday a “friendly” intelligence service had warned European capitals of the possibility of a shooting or bomb attack before New Year, prompting police across the continent to increase security measures.
“Several possible names of potential attackers were mentioned, which were checked, and the investigation based on (these checks) has so far yielded no concrete results,” Vienna police said in a statement, some six weeks after 130 people were killed in Islamist bombing and shooting attacks in Paris.
“In the days before Christmas a warning was sent out by a friendly (intelligence) service to numerous European capitals, saying that it could come to an attack involving explosives or a shooting between Christmas and the New Year in crowded spaces.”
The police asked Austrians for their understanding of the need for more security controls.
Extra steps include surveillance in crowded spaces, “especially at events and traffic hubs” as well as intensive identity checks and higher alertness for objects which could carry explosives such as bags or “bicycle frames”, it said.
