The Most Reverend Justin Welby describes Islamic extremists “a Herod of today” in his Christmas Day sermon.
Christianity is facing “elimination” in the Middle East at the hands of an Islamic State “apocalypse”, the Archbishop of Cantebury has warned.
The Most Reverend Justin Welby used his Christmas Day sermon at Canterbury Cathedral to say IS is “igniting a trail of fear, violence, hatred and determined oppression”.
He branded the Islamic extremists as “a Herod of today” – a reference to the Biblical despotic king of Judea at the time of Jesus’s birth.
“Confident that these are the last days, using force and indescribable cruelty, they (IS) seem to welcome all opposition, certain that the warfare unleashed confirms that these are indeed the end times,” he said.
DECEMBER 24, 2015, 10:16 PM LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, DECEMBER 24, 2015, 10:22 PM
BY CAROL MORELLO AND FRANCES STEAD SELLERS
THE WASHINGTON POST |
WIRE SERVICE
Compensation for American Embassy personnel held hostage for 444 days in Iran more than three decades ago was hailed on Thursday by the former captives and the lawyers who for years fought Tehran and Washington to get a measure of vindication.
A provision buried in a spending bill signed by President Obama last week will give up to $4.4 million to each of the 37 surviving hostages or the estates of 16 others who died in the years since their release. The sum works out to $10,000 for each day of their captivity and will come, in part, from a $9 billion penalty paid by the French bank BNP Paribas for violating sanctions against Iran, Cuba and Sudan.
“Iran is not paying the money, but it’s as close as you can get,” said Thomas Lankford, an attorney who represented the former hostages and their families in a lengthy battle that continued even after the courts and the U.S. government repeatedly denied their requests for restitution. Lankford called the restitution “gratifying after a long, long time.”
The financial settlement also provides potential benefits for victims of other terrorist attacks, including the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in East Africa and for first responders to the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.
By Mark Mueller | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
on December 21, 2015 at 6:00 AM, updated December 21, 2015 at 7:33 AM
In the weeks since Donald Trump ignited a firestorm by claiming “thousands and thousands” of Muslims in Jersey City cheered the fall of the twin towers on 9/11, elected officials, religious leaders and a former state attorney general denied the existence of celebrations in the city that day.
Media outlets, after scouring archived news stories and video footage, could not find verified accounts of Jersey City Muslims rejoicing.
In the weeks since Donald Trump ignited a firestorm by claiming “thousands and thousands” of Muslims in Jersey City cheered the fall of the twin towers on 9/11, elected officials, religious leaders and a former state attorney general denied the existence of celebrations in the city that day.
Media outlets, after scouring archived news stories and video footage, could not find verified accounts of Jersey City Muslims rejoicing.
But in a new examination by NJ Advance Media, a police officer who worked on 9/11 and residents on the outskirts of Journal Square say they witnessed small pockets of people celebrating before the groups dispersed or were broken up by authorities.
The NJ Advance Media inquiry, encompassing more than two dozen interviews conducted since Nov. 25, found Trump’s broad assertion that thousands of people cheered to be baseless. At the same time, the inquiry provides the first credible indication of at least two modest celebrations, as described by on-the-record sources who say they witnessed the behavior.
“When I saw they were happy, I was pissed,” said Ron Knight, 56, a Tonnele Avenue resident who said he heard cries of “Allahu Akbar” as he shouldered his way through a crowd of 15 to 20 people on John F. Kennedy Boulevard that morning.
Collectively, the gatherings amounted to dozens of people at the two locations, the witnesses said. Callers also flooded the 911 system with accounts of jubilant Muslims on a rooftop at a third location, three police officers said, but a reporter was unable to find witnesses there 14 years later.
Ridgewood Nj, What’s the best tool to defeat ISIS? Tuesday night’s candidates in the Republican debate kept citing the same tired approach: “Bomb the hell out of them” “Boots on the ground” Former Lt. Col Scott Mann says, “These are the same tired responses that have put us in danger at home”. The best tool to defeat ISIS is to fight them deep in their own safe haven by leveraging tribes against them.
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.He has been quoted frequently and seen on MSNBC with Alex Witt, Fox News, Fox News Radio, among other high profile media appearances. As a reminder, he is based in Tampa and can come in via Satellite or Skype.
Lt. Col Mann spoke immediately after the GOP debate, along his thoughts on whether shutting down the LA school district was the right move in response to ‘threats’ and what if any solution is there to win the war on ISIS.
His positioning is below:
Recent Gallup poll indicates that Americans are more worried about terrorism than any other issue and more than any time in the last ten years. The San Bernardino shooter and the LA school district closure heightens this concern.
As ISIS taunts the closure on Twitter, there are more attacks to come and they will be ugly.
Tuesday night’s 2016 political debate candidates needed to show some skill in understanding these terrorists threat.
An informed populous on new terror realities will be key to national security in 2016.
The school scare is a reminder of how serious the ISIS threat is here at home.
Every day we spend dabbling in political correctness and equivocating attacks as lone wolf and not that big of a deal gives our enemy to plot violence against our schools, communities and work sites.
We need informed citizens who are leaning forward to better understand how ISIS operates abroad and at home.
Only then can we demand the same of our politicians.
18:39, 14 DEC 2015
UPDATED 14:37, 15 DEC 2015
BY JASPER HAMILL
Teenage computer experts unveil astonishing web of unpublicised interactions linking extremist social media mouthpieces to the British
government
Hackers have claimed that a number of Islamic State supporters’ social media accounts are being run from internet addresses linked to the
Department of Work and Pensions.
A group of four young computer experts who call themselves VandaSec have unearthed evidence indicating that at least three ISIS-supporting
accounts can be traced back to the DWP’s London offices.
Every computer and mobile phone logs onto the internet using an IP address, which is a type of identification number.
Update: British government admits it can’t stop ISIS extremists using
internet addresses
The hacking collective showed Mirror Online details of the IP addresses used by a trio of separate digital jihadis to access Twitter
accounts, which were then used to carry out online recruitment and propaganda campaigns.
At first glance, the IP addresses seem to be based in Saudi Arabia, but upon further inspection using specialist tools they appeared to
link back to the DWP.
The recent terrorist attacks in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif., have vaulted terrorism and national security to become the American public’s top concern, and they’ve helped drive President Barack Obama’s job rating to 43 percent — its lowest level in more than a year, according to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll.
What’s more, seven-in-10 Americans believe the country is headed in the wrong direction — the highest percentage here since Aug. 2014.
And 71 percent say the shootings and random acts of violence that have taken place this year — from Charleston, S.C., Oregon and Colorado, to the terrorist shootings in San Bernardino, Calif. — are now are now a permanent part of American life.
“For most of 2015, the country’s mood, and thus the presidential election, was defined by anger and the unevenness of the economic recovery,” says Democratic pollster Fred Yang of Hart Research Associates, which conducted this survey with Republican pollster Bill McInturff of Public Opinion Strategies. “Now that has abruptly changed to fear.”
That kind focus on security and terrorism “is a very different campaign than the one we thought we’d be running,” McInturff adds, referring to the 2016 presidential race.
I know this is not my usual position. But this is a war. Therefore I have come to believe there should be no immigration or visa waivers until the U.S. adopts a completely new system to stop radical Islamic terrorists from entering the country. A wartime lockdown. And a big change in my thinking. ISIS and related Islamic terrorists are already here. More are coming. We must stop them. Until FBI director James Comey gives us the green light, I say seal the borders.
Here’s what we must do: Completely reform the vetting process for immigrants and foreign visitors. Change the screening process. Come up with a new visa-application review process. Stop this nonsense of marriage-visa fraud. And in the meantime, seal the borders. I agree with Jessica Vaughn, director of policy studies at the Center for Immigration Studies, who argued many of these points in excellent detail on the National Review website on Friday. Again, why am I taking this hardline position? In the past I have been an immigration reformer, not a restrictionist. But we are at war. That changes everything. Let me emphasize that my support for wartime immigration restrictions is not based on religion.
I think Donald Trump made a big mistake here. Instead, I agree with this Rupert Murdoch tweet: “Complete refugee pause to fix vetting makes sense.”
By MATT APUZZO, MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and JULIA PRESTONDEC. 12, 2015
WASHINGTON — Tashfeen Malik, who with her husband carried out the massacre in San Bernardino, Calif., passed three background checks by American immigration officials as she moved to the United States from Pakistan. But none uncovered what Ms. Malik had made little effort to hide — that she talked openly on social media about her views on violent jihad.
She said she supported it. And she said she wanted to be a part of it.
American law enforcement officials said they recently discovered those old — and previously unreported — postings as they pieced together the lives of Ms. Malik and her husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, trying to understand how they pulled off the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil since Sept. 11, 2001.
Had the authorities found the posts years ago, they might have kept her out of the country. But immigration officials do not routinely review social media as part of their background checks, and there is a debate inside the Department of Homeland Security over whether it is even appropriate to do so.
Washington (CNN)A new intelligence report shared with law enforcement warns of ISIS’ ability to create passports utilizing seized Syrian government assets, according to a law enforcement official with direct knowledge of the intelligence report’s contents.
The report warned that, based on U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s intelligence sources, ISIS has access to passport printing machines and blank passport books, raising the possibility the documents could be faked, according to the source.
The source noted that, beyond the report, there’s concern that this capability coupled with ISIS access to government buildings in Syria that contain valid biographical data and fingerprint info on Syrian citizens give rise to the threat of identity theft.
State Department spokesman John Kirby said government officials are “mindful” that terrorists could be making false passports.
Scandal: The administration says there just wasn’t enough time to send military help for the four Americans murdered by terrorists in the Benghazi attacks. Newly released emails show that’s another lie.
Former Defense Secretary Leon Panetta swore during congressional testimony in 2013 that “without an adequate warning, there was not enough time given the speed of the attack for armed military assets to respond” to Benghazi.
Killed by terrorists in the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks were U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, U.S. Foreign Service Information Management Officer Sean Smith, and CIA contractors Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty.
In a televised interview, also in 2013, Panetta, who served as the Obama defense secretary for nearly two years, said “you cannot just simply call and expect within two minutes to have a team in place. It takes time.”
So the administration’s official line has been that no help was sent because events happened too quickly.
But the facts are catching up with the story. Emails released this week by Judicial Watch show that a Defense official offered armed intervention that could in the official’s opinion have provided help. “We have identified the forces that could move to Benghazi,” chief of staff Jeremy Bash said in an email sent to State Department leadership. “They are spinning up as we speak.”
Read More At Investor’s Business Daily: https://news.investors.com/ibd-editorials/121015-784759-military-support-offered-in-benghazi-but-administration-did-not-want-it.htm#ixzz3u3bHtfoY
By IAN LOVETT, JACK HEALY, MICHAEL S. SCHMIDT and JULIE TURKEWITZDEC. 11, 2015
RIVERSIDE, Calif. — The regulars did not take it seriously when Enrique Marquez mused about terrorism at Morgan’s Tavern, a dank dive bar where Mr. Marquez hauled ice, cleaned bathrooms and checked IDs at the door. After a few drinks, he would just start talking — about his money woes, trying to lose weight, wanting to join the Navy. News reports about terrorism were just fodder for more bar talk.
“He would say stuff like: ‘There’s so much going on. There’s so many sleeper cells, so many people just waiting. When it happens, it’s going to be big. Watch,’ ” said Nick Rodriguez, a frequent patron who had known Mr. Marquez on and off for the past two years. “We took it as a joke. When you look at the kid and talk to him, no one would take him seriously about that.”
But nine days after a husband and wife slaughtered 14 people in a terrorist attack at a county health department meeting, Mr. Marquez, 24, a childhood friend of the husband, Syed Rizwan Farook, has become a crucial if unlikely figure in the investigation of the attack — which was just the kind he discussed when terrorism news reports flashed onto the tavern’s television.
Customs and Border Patrol analyst Phil Haney tracked members of the Islamist Deobandi movement with which Sayed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, were affiliated. But the Department of Homeland Security deleted the records, then disciplined and retaliated against him when he blew the whistle, he says.
Haney said he worked in Passenger Analysis Units at the Department of Homeland Security in Atlanta and at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s National Targeting Center, where he performed research into people and groups that might be linked to terrorism. He identified members of al-Huda and Tablighi Jamaat, subgroups of the Deobandi Movement, a century-old fundamentalist Islamic group originating in Pakistan, as they traveled into and out of the United States. An association with Tablighi Jamaat has been documented by the French in an estimated80% of terrorism cases. Dar Al Uloom Mosque, frequented by Sayed Farook, is linked with the Deobandi Movement. Tashfeen Malik studied with Al-Huda in Pakistan.
Haney was given an agency award for his work identifying potential terrorists and he was asked to become part of the National Targeting Center, which works to connect the dots between radical figures and groups, he said. After more than six months tracking the Deobandi movement, Homeland Security halted the investigation at the urging of the State Department’s Office of Civil Rights, Haney said.
NEWARK, N.J. (CBSNewYork/AP) — A 20-year-old New Jersey man has admitted conspiring to provide material support to the Islamic State group by planning to travel to Syria and join them.
Nader Saadeh of Rutherford pleaded guilty Thursday in U.S. District Court to conspiring with others to provide material support to the Islamic State group.
He remains detained without bail.
Saadeh is the last of three New Jersey defendants, including his brother, to admit guilt in the case, which came to light in August when he was arrested by the FBI.
He acknowledged a co-defendant showed him diagrams for making homemade bombs and discussed plans to use them in Times Square, the World Trade Center and Vaughn College of Aeronautics and Technology in Queens.
The feds received a tip from a roommate in the spring that Saadeh’s behavior had changed dramatically and he had become obsessed with ISIS.
Saadeh said that ISIS’ execution of a captured Jordanian Air Force pilot and the attack on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo in Paris earlier this year were justified, according to authorities.
In May, Saadeh flew to Jordan from John F. Kennedy International Airport, telling some of his friends that he was going to Iraq or Syria to join ISIS, authorities said. Investigators intercepted emails from his family begging him not to, according to a criminal complaint.
“True Muslims know that the ruthless violence of so called Islamic Jihadists goes against the very tenets of our religion,” said boxing legendMuhammad Ali.
Muhammad Ali seeks understanding of Islam
December 09, 2015, 06:59 pm
By Bradford Richardson
Muhammad Ali called Wednesday for political leaders to use their positions to bring about a better understanding of Islam, which he said had been distorted by terrorist groups.
“I am a Muslim and there is nothing Islamic about killing innocent people in Paris, San Bernardino, or anywhere else in the world,” Ali said in a statement to NBC News “regarding presidential candidates proposing to ban Muslim immigration to the US.”
“True Muslims know that the ruthless violence of so called Islamic Jihadists goes against the very tenets of our religion,” Ali added.
“Speaking as someone who has never been accused of political correctness, I believe that our political leaders should use their position to bring understanding about the religion of Islam and clarify that these misguided murderers have perverted people’s views on what Islam really is,” Ali said.
Why were Tashfeen Malik, and Syed Rizwan Farook not on any kind of a watch list ?
Evidence Continues to pile up that they were Radicalized for some time , where was the NSA, FBI, DHS and so on?
Welcome to America: New Photo Shows San Bernardino Terror Couple Entering US
By BRIAN ROSS
MATTHEW MOSK
MICHELE MCPHEE
MEGAN CHRISTIE
JOSH MARGOLIN
Dec 7, 2015, 6:55 AM ET
Federal officials around the world today are urgently trying to track the backgrounds and contacts of the newly-married parents of a baby girl who killed 14 people in California last week in a suspected ISIS-inspired attack, as a new photograph emerged showing the future terrorists entering the U.S. together for the first time last year.
The image, apparently taken as the couple moved through customs in Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport on July 27, 2014 and obtained exclusively by ABC News, shows Tashfeen Malik clad in all black looking directly into the camera as the taller Syed Rizwan Farook stands behind her, black bearded and with a blank expression. It is the most recent photograph of the two to be made public.
U.S. officials previously said that Farook, a U.S. citizen originally from Chicago, traveled to Saudi Arabia in July 2014 and returned less than two weeks later with Malik in tow. Malik, a Pakistani who officials said spent much of her life in Saudi Arabia, entered the U.S. on a so-called “fiancé” visa, which allowed Farook to petition for her entry ahead of marriage. The two were married in the eyes of U.S. law in California just a month after their arrival, although some officials have said they could have been married earlier abroad.
