Gunman in Pulse nightclub shooting identified as Omar Mateen; 50 dead
By Daniel Dahm , Michelle Dendy
Posted: 4:03 AM, June 12, 2016Updated: 6:21 PM, June 12, 2016
ORLANDO, Fla. – Sen. Bill Nelson says that ISIS has taken credit for the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando and police say that the gunman called 911 declaring allegiance to the Islamic State.
Police said the gunman, identified as 29-year-old Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, opened fire early Sunday morning at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, killing 50 people and injuring at least 53 more in what is the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.
Mateen called 911 around the time of the attack to pledge his allegiance to ISIS and he mentioned the Boston bombers, according to the FBI.
News 6 was on scene Sunday afternoon as local and federal bomb squad personnel were entering Mateen’s Fort Pierce apartment. It’s not clear what they found. Mateen, an American citizen born in New York, has been on law enforcement radar since 2013.
Officials said Mateen made the 911 call more than 20 minutes into the attack and had legally purchased two of the firearms, a handgun and a long gun, used in the shooting within the last week in Florida.
Mateen had been previously investigated by the FBI as possibly having ties to Islamic extremism. The investigations didn’t find evidence to charge Mateen with anything, officials said.
Donald Trump wasted little time seeking political advantage in the massacre at a Florida nightclub, taking credit for “being right on radical Islamic terrorism” in the wake of the worst mass shooting in American history.
The suspect in the attack, identified by authorities as a U.S. citizen of Afghan descent named Omar Saddiqui Mateen, killed 50 people and injured another 53 during a rampage through a gay dance club in Orlando. He died in a gunfight with SWAT officers after initially firing shots into the club and later taking hostages.
“Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic terrorism, I don’t want congrats, I want toughness & vigilance. We must be smart!” the presumptive Republican presidential nominee tweeted.
Trump followed up that tweet with a statement expressing “My deepest sympathy and support goes out to the victims, the wounded, and their families.”
But he also attacked President Barack Obama, whom he said “disgracefully refused to even say the words ‘Radical Islam'” during his comments on Sunday afternoon. “For that reason alone, he should step down.
Obama condemned the attack as “an act of terror and an act of hate,” but declined to identify a motive.
There is new information on the horrific terror attack in Orlando last night that has killed at least 50 and wounded more than 100 in the largest mass shooting in American history.
Sources are telling the Daily Beast that suspected killer Omar Mateen hadpreviously been investigated by the FBI in 2013 and 2014, making this yet another “known wolf” terror attack:
Omar Mateen of Port Saint Lucie, Florida, came to the attention of federal authorities twice prior to being identified as the gunman in the Orlando nightclub mass shooting, a senior law enforcement source told The Daily Beast.
Mateen 53 people and shot more than 100 in total at the Pulse gay nightclub early Sunday morning, in the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.
The senior law enforcement source reports that Mateen became a person of interest in 2013 and again in 2014. The Federal Bureau of Investigation at one point opened an investigation into Mateen but subsequently closed the case when it produced nothing that appeared to warrant further investigation.
“He’s a known quantity,” the source said. “He’s been on the radar before.”
Mateen was a U.S. citizen; his parents are from Afghanistan, CBS News reports.
The jihadi who slaughtered at least 50 at a gay nightclub in Florida last night was known to law enforcement. More of their “Muslim outreach,” I’m sure.
“Omar Mateen, Terrorist Who Attacked Orlando Gay Club, Had Been Investigated by FBI,” Daily Beast:
Mateen was a ‘known quantity’ to federal law enforcement before he killed 53 people in the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.
Mateen came to the attention of federal authorities twice prior to being identified as the gunman in the Orlando nightclub mass shooting, a senior law enforcement source told The Daily Beast.
The source reports that Mateen became a person of interest in 2013 and again in 2014. The Federal Bureau of Investigation at one point opened an investigation of him, but subsequently closed the case when it produced nothing that appeared to warrant further investigation.
“He’s a known quantity,” the source said. “He’s been on the radar before.”
The gunman is said by the source to have been born in New York and to have been married for a time to a woman from New Jersey. His father, Seddique Mateen, appears to reside in Florida, but is said to be presently running for office in Afghanistan.
Seddique told NBC News that the sight of two men kissing angered his son.
“We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident. We weren’t aware of any action he is taking,” Seddique said. “We are in shock like the whole country.” Seddique added that the attack “has nothing to do with religion.”
His father’s first response is, the massacre “had nothing to do with religion.” The bodies are still warm and the first response of the father of a mass murderer is protect Islam.
And if this has nothing to do with Islam, why is there an imam at the press conference?
When it comes to John McAfee @OfficialMcAfee saying if he couldn’t get into the San Bernardino terrorists iPhone he would ‘eat his shoe’ – many iPhone users thought he was crazy. How could anyone break into a secure, password protected and encrypted iPhone. Well, as I’m going to show you, John would never have to eat his leather shoe and was 100% correct that it could easily be done.
Watch John McAfee on CNBC (used under the fair use provision of US Copyright law) discuss this situation.
Many think the @Apple iOS operating system is one of the most secure in the world for any smartphone or tablet. That may be true as iOS offers full disk encryption with built-in hardened encryption (device KEY, file KEY, Keychain API, Data Protection API, etc). In fact, the iOS currently boots with a low-level boot loader then verifies iBoot. Apple defends well against native code exploits using both address space layout randomization (ASLR) and XN bit (which stands for eXecute Never). The ASLR randomizes memory location of program executable, data, heap and stack every time it is launched. To block cross application memory attacks the XN bit allows the OS to mark segments of a program’s memory such as heap and stack as unexecutable. In addition, Jailbreaking does not allow you to disable the ios sandbox, only to run apps outside of it. Does all this make it impenetrable? Of course not, it makes it more fun to hack because hackers and cyber criminals love two things – 1) a challenge and 2) something well deployed. With nearly 1/2 Billion iOS devices in the market, this is a prime target for hackers.
Early exploits were even able to avoid Jailbreak Detection. Smart malware developers can create jailbreak detection bypasses that fake replies to function calls to make it look like the device is not jailbroken, when it still is. What about the Apple iTunes Review Process? Serious hackers create apps that are Bridging the webkit – so you access native iOS API’s via JavaScript. Some have done Dynamic patching – just look at InstaStock for example by Charlie Miller. What about intentionally exploitable vulnerabilities – write code with a buffer overflow that when triggered causes unseen code to execute – see Jekyll by Georgia Tech. So, yes, there are creative ways to accept the challenge and find ways around the well done system hardening of iOS. Do you remember the Handy Flashlight app? This Flashlight app secretly let users enable iPhone tethering. Handy Light wasn’t actually a flashlight app at all — it was a sneakily disguised tethering utility that let users share their iPhone’s Internet connection with their laptop.
Some have asked if Apple has a secret key or special back door that they just didn’t want to share with the @FBI because Apple is riding the ‘privacy wave’. The latest version of the iPhones and iOS, are using an Elliptical Encryption Key Exchange, augmented by the onboard Cryptography Chip. Therefore, THERE IS NO MASTER KEY. End-user PINs are resolved via the Cryptographic Chip. 10 tries and the iPhone is ‘bricked’. Any changes to this system, would require hardware and software changes, weakening the system and leaving it vulnerable to hackers. However, as Cellebrite of Israel has proven, an external keyboard/usb vulnerability is exploitable in a way that avoids this security feature, ie, infinite password tries could be done without bricking and actually, you only need a few hours of brute force attacks to get in, see: Their exploit tool is called UFED – Universal Forensic Extraction Device and runs less than $700. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AUgmnYChT48– So if you have possession of the device, you can physically exploit it. I’ve met teenagers working at Radio Shack who claim to have regularly used the device to help customers get back into their iPhone and also to transfer data such as contacts, photos and other media files to another device.
Watch Gary Miliefsky on Hardline Discussing Apple vs FBI Case
What about remote access? It’s all about having background permissions and network access. Apple manages all multi-tasking in specially managed threads. Except Keyboard, Audio Player, Alarm Clock and VPN Client, most processes are not allowed to run in the background. With these four exploit vectors, it’s easy to understand that the free Emoji keyboards and free VPNs are not so free, after all. By placing a network monitor on all egress traffic, you’ll be surprised with what you will find out of these two free apps in particular. Just pick one of the 500+ available on iTunes and you’ll start to understand the gravity of the situation. VPNs have control over all of your network traffic. This is a great exploit to access lots of data passed over the tunnel. In addition, products like Web Watcher are called iPhone Monitoring software (and there are at least a dozen vendors) – once installed, track Text messages, Photos, Call and Web-history.
Nothing like a free Keylogger disguised as your Emoji Keyboard
Alarm Clocks and Audio Players have special permission to run in background
VPN’s manage traffic flow which means they see all your network traffic
In any case, these techniques are just the tip of the iceberg as to why the FBI or any government agency for that matter, doesn’t need to weaken the iPhone encryption to get into an iPhone.
“I’ve argued for years, that weakening encryption and creating “Secret Keys and Backdoors” would be a huge mistake and dangerous to national security.”
Let me name a few breaches and see if you can guess what they all have in common:
• OPM.gov Breach = 22 Million Records Stolen by the Chinese government’s cyber army putting in field agents lives in jeopardy. • Sony Pictures Entertainment = 4 movies leaked, employee records lost, over a terabyte of data stolen by the DPRK’s cyber army. • Anthem.com breach = 80,000,000 records now in the hands of the Chinese Government (along with the OPM records which can be cross correlated). • Whitehouse.gov Breach? State.gov Breach? And many more in the news and found athttps://www.privacyrights.org.
Name any other recent breach over the past 3-5 years. What do these all have in common? There was NO ENCRYPTION setup to protect the data. With STRONG ENCRYPTION, none of these breaches would have happened. Lives are now in jeopardy over the OPM.gov breach so without encryption, yes, lives can be lost. Who has cyber armies drooling over our critical infrastructure, network equipment, iot, airplane, car, computer and smartphone vulnerabilities? China, Russia, North Korea, Iran and many cyber criminals!
Cyber-crime, cyber-espionage and cyber-terrorism all exploit: VULNERABILITIES and WEAK (or no) ENCRYPTION!
What would the legal ramifications be for Apple to be forced to weaken their iPhone encryption and not fix all the vulnerabilities I’ve listed above? Writing (STRONG) Computer Code is a form of FREE SPEECH. 1st Amendment guaranteed right. Apple or any other company coders in the USA have the right to unfettered or manipulated speech.
So, forcing programmers to create a backdoor is a 5th Amendment violation because they have the right to NOT SPEAK which could easily be construed as ‘self-incrimination’ (weakening code) or forced ‘decryption’.
In addition, almost by chance, the US Government passed a very intelligent law called the Cyber Security Information Sharing Act of 2015 (aka CISA 2015). So, if any Federal Agency (FBI or other) finds a VULNERABILITY in any kind of computer or internet equipment (iPhone, for example), they must disclose this hole to the manufacturer (Apple, in this case) so that they may close the hole and HARDEN they SYSTEM against FUTURE EXPLOITATION.
What this says is less VULNERABILITIES and strong ENCRYPTION will make America strong. Encryption is a good thing, it powers the e-tail/retail economy and online banking. Backdooring encryption is a bad thing, it empowers not just ‘trusted’ agencies like NSA and FBI but also any cybercriminal who can find the back door, and they look for them daily. Once criminals know of back doors, they move on to other platforms like silent circle, or video game chat networks or tor – they will always find a way to have a covert conversation. Root cause analysis says find the bad guys at the source, not when it’s too late, so finding them after the fact and hacking their phones is reactive not proactive. Let’s all stand together for VULNERABILITY sharing like the National Vulnerability Database https://nvd.nist.gov which rides off the Common Vulnerabilities and Exposures program (see: https://cve.mitre.org) where we all agree that less vulnerabilities is a good thing. Let’s also stand up for strong encryption, see:https://www.savecrypto.org
We could look beyond the iPhone into the vulnerabilities of cars, as exploited for Wired magazine, causing a Jeep to go off the road, or the new Boeing 777 that was launched with vulnerabilities that allow someone in a passenger seat to exploit the avionics. What’s missing in both cases? strong ENCRYPTION. National Security is truly at risk without strong ENCRYPTION. If you are old enough to remember the 1976 Ford Pinto story, you get my point. What ever happened to Made in America with Pride?
One of the less discussed but deeper reasons I believe that Apple is standing up for strong encryption in their devices, is that they are betting on the future of mobile commerce via ApplePay. If they can guarantee to the banks that transactions are safer coming from their devices than our wallets and purses, it will open up an entire ecosphere that thrives off Apple. This could be worth billions in the long haul. One weak security key to ApplePay and cyber criminals will make it painful for retail, which has now made the transition to e-tail, to continue on it’s path to m-tail or ‘mobile commerce’. This is a big bet and a backdoor for the FBI would ruin Apple’s future in this green field.
In the bigger picture, even beyond Apple, less vulnerable products with strong encryption will result in higher taxable GDP in America because we’ll have more quality products to sell internationally, we’ll lose less to cyber theft, leaving more money in our bank accounts to grow our businesses. There will be more international revenues and exports as other countries and international companies will once again trust that Made in America means made well and strong. This will create more jobs in America and there will be less successful Cybercrime against the US. It will dramatically reduce the chance of cyber-terrorism in America and oh by the way to my friend John McAfee and all fellow privacy advocates, as a side effect of being smart about hardened products and strong encryption, yes, the Citizens get the reclaim their privacy, a sovereign right in our great Nation.
To those who will only get this message through visuals, I’ve put these four videos up for your enjoyment:https://tinyurl.com/woes4star
I’m placing my bets on hardened systems, strong encryption and the value of privacy here at SnoopWall as is John McAfee in his new public company, (NYSEMKT: MGT) folding in an array of privacy products and services. Please watch us to see how it pays out.
About the Author
Gary is the CEO of SnoopWall, Inc. and a co-inventor of the company’s innovative breach prevention technologies. He is a cyber-security expert and a frequent invited guest on national and international media commenting on mobile privacy, cyber security, cyber crime and cyber terrorism, also covered in both Forbes and Fortune Magazines. He has been extremely active in the INFOSEC arena, most recently as the Editor of Cyber Defense Magazine. Miliefsky is a Founding Member of the US Department of Homeland Security (https://www.DHS.gov), the National Information Security Group (https://www.NAISG.org) and the OVAL advisory board of MITRE responsible for the CVE Program (https://CVE.mitre.org). He also assisted the National Infrastructure Advisory Council (NIAC), which operates within the U.S. Department of Homeland Security, in their development of The National Strategy to Secure Cyberspace as well as the Center for the Study of Counter-Terrorism and Cyber Crime at Norwich University. In his earlier career he sold and licensed technology that he invented to Hexis Cyber, a division of KeyW, Intel/McAfee, IBM, Computer Associates and BlackBox Corporation. Gary is a member of ISC2.org and is a CISSP®. Email him at [email protected] and visit him online athttps://www.snoopwall.com.
Suspected Islamic extremist opened fire inside Pulse gay club in Orlando in the early hours of this morning He shot more than 40 people – killing about 20 – and took party-goers hostage before being killed by police Shooter, believed to be in his 20s, was carrying a suspicious device, possibly a suicide vest, when he attacked Police used an explosive device to distract the gunman and rescue around 30 people who had been taken hostage Police engaged in gunfire with the man and an officer was shot in the head, but he was saved by his helmet FBI says gunman may have ‘leanings to radical Islamic terrorism’ and it is being investigated as ‘an act of terrorism’ Took place four miles from where The Voice singer Christina Grimmie, 22, was shot dead at The Plaza Live on Friday
By MATT HUNTER FOR MAILONLINE and JENNY STANTON FOR DAILYMAIL.COM
PUBLISHED: 03:08 EST, 12 June 2016 | UPDATED: 08:01 EST, 12 June 2016
A suspected Islamic extremist wielding an assault rifle and a handgun has killed about 20 people after taking party-goers hostage inside a gay club in Orlando.
The gunman was carrying a suspicious device, possibly a suicide vest, when he opened fire on the dance floor inside Pulse in the early hours of this morning.
Orlando Police Chief John Mina said authorities have not determined the exact number of people killed, but that ‘approximately 20’ have died. Another 42 people were taken to hospital.
An FBI spokesman said the mass shooting is being investigated as an act of terrorism, adding that they are looking into whether this was an act of domestic or international terror, and if the shooter was a lone wolf.
Police said the gunman, who was shot dead by officers, was believed to be in his 20s was not a local man, while the FBI believe he may have ‘leanings to radical Islamic terrorism’.
The killings took place less than four miles from where The Voice singer and YouTube star Christina Grimmie, 22, was shot dead at The Plaza Live in Orlando on Friday.
The secret ‘28 pages’ are just the start. The FBI has another 80,000 classified documents, many of which deal with Saudi connections to the 9/11 terror plot. What’s the Bureau got?
The Obama administration may soon release 28 classified pages from a congressional investigation that allegedly links Saudis in the United States to the 9/11 attackers. A former Republican member of the 9/11 Commission alleged Thursday that there was“clear evidence” of support for the hijackers from Saudi officials.
But in Florida, a federal judge is weighing whether to declassify portions of some 80,000 classified pages that could reveal far more about the hijackers’ Saudis connections and their activities in the weeks preceding the worst attack on U.S. soil.
The still-secret files speak to one of the strangest and most enduring mysteries of the 9/11 attacks. Why did the Saudi occupants of a posh house in gated community in Sarasota, Florida, suddenly vanish in the two weeks prior to the attacks? And had they been in touch with the leader of the operation, Mohamed Atta, and two of his co-conspirators?
You might expect a group of teenagers to say they’d stand up to the Islamic State and refuse to convert. But what would you do if push came to shove?
BY DAVID HARRIS
Thu, April 21, 2016
So here’s the scenario.
A teacher in Italy taught her class of 13-year olds all about the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL). At the end of the project she asked her 25 students what they would do if the Islamic State took over their town. All but two reportedly said they would convert to Islam.
It’s somewhat tragic that a mix of classroom education and possibly some media exposure to ISIS barbarism would suck the bravado out of all the kids, other than two die-hard Catholics. But that’s the effect of the threats and actions of ISIS.
In every generation, there are the brave few who stand up to fight against one evil scourge or another, despite the likely great personal sacrifice.
In the Massacre of Verden in 782, Charlemagne is said to have killed 4,500 captive Saxons who rebelled against forced conversion to Roman Catholicism.
Legend has it that the Souliot women in the village of Zalongo in 1803 in Epirus danced and sang as they killed their own babies before committing suicide rather than facing capture by Ottoman-Albanian ruler Ali Pasha and all that would have followed.
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?
BY NICHOLAS PUGLIESE AND ABBOTT KOLOFF
STAFF WRITERS |
THE RECORD
As she waited for a flight out of Brussels, Wyckoff native Ashley Bruggemann saw people suddenly rushing toward her on Tuesday morning, and thought they were trying to catch a plane.
“Then a whole lot of people started running,” Bruggemann, 25, said in a telephone interview Tuesday afternoon. “They were panicked. A few people were crying.”
Another New Jersey native live-tweeted his evacuation from a Brussels subway train and wrote that there was smoke in the tunnel as he and others walked in darkness to the nearest safe station, with a child heard crying on a video he posted.
New Jersey residents with Belgian roots received text messages from relatives letting them know they were safe, and expressed shock at the terrorist attacks in Brussels at the airport and a train station that left at least 34 people dead and scores injured.
“People cannot get their minds around something like this,” said Wim Vanraes, a Hillsborough resident who grew up in Belgium and was an editor of a Belgian-American newspaper based in Michigan. He said some people in his native country have been expecting a terrorist attack for “a long time” but that others have been “in denial.”
Valerie Blouin-Hunter of Oakland, whose mother came from Belgium, said she received text messages from aunts and cousins Tuesday morning letting her know they were safe. She said she thought about the possibility of a terrorist attack in her mother’s homeland after the Paris attacks last year but put it out of her mind. After Tuesday, she said, “I am very concerned for my family.”
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican presidential front-runner Donald Trump renewed a call for tougher U.S. border security following Tuesday’s deadly attacks in Brussels, and suggested torture could be an effective technique to gain information to thwart future attacks.
Trump’s comments, in an interview on NBC’s “Today” program, came a day after he expressed skepticism about the U.S. role in the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and said the United States should significantly cut spending on the defense alliance.
“As president … I would be very, very tough on the borders, and I would be not allowing certain people to come into this country without absolute perfect documentation,” Trump said.
The billionaire businessman said waterboarding would be a “fine” way to gather information in an effort to prevent such attacks if it was legalized.
“If they could expand the laws, I would do a lot more than waterboarding. You have to get the information from these people,” he told NBC.
Waterboarding is the practice of pouring water over
someone’s face to simulate drowning as an interrogation tactic.
Critics say it is torture, and President Barack Obama banned use of the method days after taking office in 2009.
Democratic presidential front-runner Hillary Clinton acknowledged Americans have a right to be frightened after a spate of recent attacks but said military leaders have found techniques like waterboarding are not effective.
“We’ve got to work this through consistent with our values,” she said on NBC, adding officials “do not need to resort to torture, but they are going to need more help.”
Thirty-four people were killed in attacks on Brussels airport and a rush-hour metro train in the Belgian capital, according to public broadcaster VRT, triggering security alerts across Europe and bringing some cross-border traffic to a halt.
Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the U.S. House of Representatives Intelligence Committee, said the attacks “bear all the hallmarks of an ISIS-inspired, or ISIS-coordinated attack,” using an acronym for Islamic State.
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.
SAN FRANCISCO — Apple said on Wednesday that it would oppose and challenge a federal court order to help the F.B.I. unlock an iPhone used by one of the two attackers who killed 14 people in San Bernardino, Calif., in December.
On Tuesday, in a significant victory for the government, Magistrate JudgeSheri Pym of the Federal District Court for the District of Central Californiaordered Apple to bypass security functions on an iPhone 5c used by Syed Rizwan Farook, who was killed by the police along with his wife, Tashfeen Malik, after they attacked Mr. Farook’s co-workers at a holiday gathering.
Judge Pym ordered Apple to build special software that would essentially act as a skeleton key capable of unlocking the phone.
But hours later, in a statement by its chief executive, Timothy D. Cook, Apple announced its refusal to comply. The move sets up a legal showdown between the company, which says it is eager to protect the privacy of its customers, and the law enforcement authorities, who say that new encryption technologies hamper their ability to prevent and solve crime.
