Showing posts with label Bill Gertz. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bill Gertz. Show all posts

Friday, June 5, 2015

In Secret?!?

June 05, 2015 Bill Gertz , Muslim Brotherhood 0 Comments
Muslim Brotherhood Has Obama's Secret Support 

By Bill Gertz, June 3, 2015, Washington Times

President Obama and his administration continue to support the global Islamist militant group known the Muslim Brotherhood. A White House strategy document regards the group as a moderate alternative to more violent Islamist groups like al Qaeda and the Islamic State.

The policy of backing the Muslim Brotherhood is outlined in a secret directive called Presidential Study Directive-11, or PSD-11. The directive was produced in 2011 and outlines administration support for political reform in the Middle East and North Africa, according to officials familiar with the classified study.

Efforts to force the administration to release the directive or portions of it under the Freedom of Information Act have been unsuccessful.

Read the full story: www.washingtontimes.com

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Thursday, June 4, 2015

Oh, that!

June 04, 2015 Bill Gertz , Iran 0 Comments
Pentagon: Iran Continuing Work On Nuclear Systems

By Bill Gertz, Jun. 3, 2015, Free Beacon

Iran is continuing to develop missiles capable of delivering nuclear weapons despite an interim agreement on its nuclear programs, according to a Pentagon report.

“Although Iran has paused progress in some areas of its nuclear program and fulfilled its obligations under the Joint Plan of Action (JPOA), it continues to develop technological capabilities that also could be applicable to nuclear weapons, including ballistic missile development,” a one-page unclassified summary of the report says.

A copy of the report was obtained by the Washington Free Beacon.

The report was due to Congress in January but was not sent to the Armed Services Committee as required by law until this month. Analysts said the delay appeared designed to avoid upsetting Tehran and the nuclear talks.

Disclosure of the continuing development of nuclear delivery capabilities comes amid reports that Iran increased the amount of nuclear material that could potentially be used to build nuclear weapons despite the JPOA.

The State Department sought to challenge International Atomic Energy Agency reports on the increase in Iranian nuclear material, despite President Obama’s claim that the nuclear agreement had halted Iran’s nuclear program.

Read the full story: www.freebeacon.com

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Friday, December 19, 2014

Requires a response

December 19, 2014 Bill Gertz , Defense Intelligence Agency 0 Comments
DIA: North Korea Planned Attacks On US Nuclear Plants

Bill Gertz, Dec. 18, 2014, Washington Free Beacon

North Korea dispatched covert commando teams to the United States in the 1990s to attack nuclear power plants and major cities in a conflict, according to a declassified Defense Intelligence Agency report.

The DIA report, dated Sept. 13, 2004, reveals that five units of covert commandos were trained for the attacks inside the country.

Read more: www.freebeacon.com

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Thursday, December 18, 2014

Not Obama's concern

December 18, 2014 Bill Gertz , Cuba 0 Comments
Intel Concerns About Russia-Cuba Ties Preceded Obama’s Deal To Dismantle Sanctions


Bill Gertz, Dec. 17, 2014, Washington Times

The Russia-Cuba agreement was announced May 16 when a memorandum was signed in Moscow establishing a joint working group between Russia’s Security Council and the Cuban Commission for National Security and Defense.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu stated Nov. 12 that Russia would begin sending long-range bombers to the Gulf. “We have to maintain [Russia’s] military presence in the western Atlantic and eastern Pacific, as well as the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico,” he said, noting strategic bombers would be dispatched to the region for “drills.”

Read more: www.washingtontimes.com

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Friday, September 12, 2014

Counterterrorism officials concerned

September 12, 2014 Beheading , Bill Gertz 1 Comments
An Imminent Beheading?

By Bill Gertz, September 12, 2014, Washingtontimes.com

Counterterrorism officials are concerned that the Islamic State will behead a British hostage next week, noting consistencies in the terrorist group’s decapitations of two American journalists.

Analysts say the video releases of the beheadings of James Foley and Steven Sotloff took place two weeks apart and both were made public on a Tuesday evening.

If the timing was calculated, officials are concerned that the Islamic State will similarly murder British hostage David Haines on Tuesday.

Mr. Haines, a worker for a French non-governmental organization, was shown at the end of the Sotloff video dressed in an orange jumpsuit. The terrorist who spoke on the video said Mr. Haines would be the group’s next victim.

The videos of the Foley and Sotloff beheadings showed a masked, British-accented jihadist cutting off the American journalists’ heads, sparking global outrage and prompting calls for U.S. intervention against the Islamic State.

The first video was released Aug. 19 on an official Islamic State account on the small-scale social networking service called Diaspora.

The second video was released almost exactly two weeks later on an Islamic State account on the Russian social media service Vkontackte — the new outlet for the al Qaeda offshoot following the shutdown of official accounts on Twitter and Diaspora.

Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert outlined the Navy’s role in the so-called pivot to Asia this week, stating that the shift to the region has three elements: “forces, capabilities and understanding.”

In a speech Monday to a think tank, Adm. Greenert said there are no plans to end U.S. surveillance flights of China, despite pressure from Beijing to do so.

As part of the shift, the Navy will move its most advanced forces to the region, including two new Aegis-equipped destroyers to Japan, another attack submarine to Guam, and four littoral combat ships to Singapore — a modest increase in firepower that reflects the service’s problems resulting from the Obama administration’s sharp cuts in defense spending.

Enhanced naval capabilities in the Pacific, the four-star admiral said, include better electronic warfare, undersea warfare, advanced anti-aircraft warfare and cyber warfare capacities.

The “understanding” element involves creating closer “relations and exchanges” with allies and partners in Asia and bolstering security assurances, Adm. Greenert said in a speech at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.

Read the full story:  www.washingtontimes.com

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Wednesday, August 27, 2014

National Security Correspondent: China, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Israel--Oh, My!

National Security Correspondent: China, Syria, Iraq, Ukraine, Israel--Oh, My!

August 27, 2014 Bill Gertz , China 0 Comments

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Saturday, June 28, 2014

Official Al Qaeda Rebel Unit In Syria Joins ISIL --Merger a sign ultra-violent wing of al Qaeda gaining strength

June 28, 2014 al Qaeda , Bill Gertz 0 Comments
ISIL militants capture a tank
By Bill Gertz, Jun. 27, 2014, Freebeacon.com

A Syrian rebel group closely aligned with al Qaeda’s official central leadership has switched sides and is now supporting an ultra-violent offshoot, following the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant’s blitzkrieg attack on Iraq, according to U.S. officials and reports from the region.

A local unit of the Al Nusra Front—the official rebel group of al Qaeda in Syria—agreed to back the ISIL on Wednesday.

The merger of one portion of al Nusra with ISIL is being viewed by government intelligence analysts and others as a troubling indicator that the inner battle between the two groups may be shifting in ISIL’s favor.

Sebastian Gorka, a counterterrorism specialist and military theorist at the Marine Corps University, said the defection of the Nusra group to ISIL, also known as ISIS, is very significant.

“ISIS and al Nusra have fought each other in the past,” Gorka said. Nusra’s swearing loyalty to ISIL “is a clear sign that ISIS is now more important than the original al Qaeda,” he said.

“With this act, in theory all al Nusra territory is now under ISIS control,” Gorka said. “This makes the de facto establishment of a proto-caliphate territory straddling Iraq and Syria a real possibility and underlines the absurdity of the Obama administration’s push to fund and train the rebels in Syria.”

President Obama acknowledged Thursday that ISIL attacks in Iraq are one sign that, contrary to his earlier remarks, international terrorists are gaining strength.

“They’re gaining strength in some places, but we’ve also got a lot better at protecting ourselves,” Obama told ABC News.

Obama campaigned for reelection in 2012 declaring al Qaeda was on the “path to defeat” and asserting the United States would end the war on terrorism launched after the 2001 attacks.

ISIL, a fanatical terrorist group led by Abu Bakr al Baghdadi, now controls large sections of central Iraq. The group has declared that its goal is the creation of an Islamic caliphate throughout the region.

It initially set up al Nusra but broke off ties in February. Its numbers are not known, but estimates range from 5,000 to 10,000 fighters.

The Nusra-ISIL joining took place June 25 at the Syrian border town of Albu Kamal, a central location on ISIL’s link between its forces in Syria and Iraq.

The merger also is a boost to ISIL’s efforts to gain control of eastern Syria, an area that has seen widespread fighting between the two al Qaeda-linked groups.

ISIL is continuing to move captured weapons and military vehicles from Iraq to Syria following the military operation against central Iraq that began in early June.

The ISIL, an ultra-violent Islamist group that has conducted mass executions and beheadings while imposing Islamic law, is using its newfound power to gain greater support in both Syria and Iraq and elsewhere in the region.

The group is seeking to create an Islamic state throughout the region that would impose harsh Sharia law. Al Qaeda central has sought to take a slightly less extreme stance as a way to attract more supporters. Both groups are designated foreign terrorist organizations by the State Department.

The Britain-based Syrian opposition figure Rami Abdulrahman told reporters June 25 that the Nusra group in Albu Kamal had “pledged loyalty” to ISIL.

“They are rivals, but both groups are jihadist and extremists,” he said. “This move will create tension now with other rebel groups, including Islamists, in the area.”

ISIL also posted a photo on one of its short-lived Twitter accounts showing the commander of the local Nusra Front group shaking hands with an ISIL leader.

Syrian airstrikes against ISIL positions along the Iraqi border were carried out this week in an effort to try and weaken the group.

Bill Roggio, a terrorism analyst with the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, said there is no question that the ISIL incursion into Iraq, and its subsequent gains of both territory and equipment, have helped it gain traction among jihadists throughout the region.

However, Roggio cautioned that the gains in support made by ISIL from its lightning strikes in Iraq has not altered the fundamental divide between the group and central al Qaeda.

Read the full story:  www.freebeacon.com

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