Showing posts with label al-Qaeda. Show all posts
Showing posts with label al-Qaeda. Show all posts

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Al-Qaeda, ISIS Compete For Recruits In War-Torn Yemen

August 09, 2016 al-Qaeda , ISIS Compete For Recruits In War-Torn Yemen 0 Comments


By RT, Aug 05, 2016 

Yemen’s Houthi rebels used civilians as human shields, Saudi-led coalition bombed civilian sites, Islamic State and Al-Qaeda are strengthening and competing for recruits, says the latest UN report on the conflict in the country, Reuters reports.

The 105-page report to the UN Security Council covering the past six months in Yemen was seen by the agency on Thursday. The data was collected remotely, the UN expert panel said in the report, as they couldn’t go to the country.

Read More: https://www.rt.com

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Saturday, July 18, 2015

"Hey, Maybe It Was 'Workplace Violence'"

July 18, 2015 al-Qaeda , Chattanooga Shooter 0 Comments

No, The Chattanooga Shooter Really Does Appear To Be A Jihadist

By Andrew C. McCarthy, July 18, 2015 National Review.

n the immediate aftermath of Mohammod Youssuf Abdulazeez’s killing of four Marines and wounding of at least three other people, there was a noticeable effort to portray the jihadist as an all-American boy from small-town Tennessee. With just a bit of digging, however, a different picture is emerging. The New York Times reported Friday morning that Abdulazeez had spent about seven months in Jordan last year.

As is their wont in cases where Muslims kill Americans, investigators hastened to point out that overseas stays in a region rife with Islamic radicalism are not necessarily suggestive of terror ties . . . even if the traveler, on his stateside return, promptly shoots up military installations while the Islamic State and al-Qaeda urge Muslims to shoot up military installations.

Read More: http://www.nationalreview.com




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Wednesday, May 13, 2015

Dead Or Alive?

May 13, 2015 Al-Monitor , al-Qaeda 0 Comments
Al-Qaeda Emir's Silence Prompts Suspicion

Al-Qaeda representative Ayman al-Zawahri
By Bruce Riedel, Columnist for Al-Monitor, May 12, 2015, Al-Monitor

Ayman al-Zawahri, the emir of al-Qaeda since 2011, has not spoken publicly since September. This is his longest absence from the public stage since the fall of Kabul in 2001. It is likely he is biding his time for a special purpose.

The 63-year old Egyptian has been a jihadist fighter and plotter since 1981 when he was part of the conspiracy that assassinated Egyptian President Anwar Sadat. He has been a brutally tortured prisoner, a fugitive for decades wanted by dozens of intelligence services and a prolific writer of books about the global jihad. Zawahri has been a constant on al-Qaeda's al-Sahab propaganda media arm for a dozen years, through scores of taped messages.

On Sept. 4, Zawahri announced the formation of a new al-Qaeda branch, al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent (AQIS). He said it had been in development for years and would seek to intensify jihadist activity in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Burma and the Maldives.

Read the full story:  www.usnews.com

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Monday, October 27, 2014

Seven thousand!!!

October 27, 2014 al-Qaeda , Crime 0 Comments
Germany Could Be Home To 7,000 Muslim Extremist By Christmas

By Taboola, Oct. 25, 2014, RT.com

German authorities fear there could be as many as 7,000 Muslim extremists in the country by the end of the year. Disenfranchised youths are particularly vulnerable to being recruited, while there are around 450 German extremists in Syria and Iraq.

The extremists all follow the strict interpretation of Islam known as Salafism and believe that jihad is a legitimate tool in their fight against the West, which they believe is an enemy of Islam. Hans-Georg Maassen, who is the head of Germany’s BfV domestic intelligence agency,told rbb-Inforadi that there are currently around 6,300 Islamic extremists in Germany, but this figure could rise to as many as 7,000 by the end of the year, AP reports.

There has been a steep rise in the number of Germans attracted to fundamentalist Islam. Three years ago there were only in the region of 3,800 followers of Salafism in the country, which then rose to 4,500 in 2012.

Read the full story:  www.rt.com

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Saturday, September 27, 2014

Name invented by WH?

September 27, 2014 al-Qaeda , Andrew C. McCarthy 0 Comments
National Review: The Khorosan Group Does Not Exist

By Andrew C. McCarthy, Sept. 27, 2014, Nationalreview.com

We’re being had. Again.

For six years, President Obama has endeavored to will the country into accepting two pillars of his alternative national-security reality. First, he claims to have dealt decisively with the terrorist threat, rendering it a disparate series of ragtag jayvees. Second, he asserts that the threat is unrelated to Islam, which is innately peaceful, moderate, and opposed to the wanton “violent extremists” who purport to act in its name.

Now, the president has been compelled to act against a jihad that has neither ended nor been “decimated.” The jihad, in fact, has inevitably intensified under his counterfactual worldview, which holds that empowering Islamic supremacists is the path to security and stability. Yet even as war intensifies in Iraq and Syria — even as jihadists continue advancing, continue killing and capturing hapless opposition forces on the ground despite Obama’s futile air raids — the president won’t let go of the charade.

Hence, Obama gives us the Khorosan Group.

The who?

There is a reason that no one had heard of such a group until a nanosecond ago, when the “Khorosan Group” suddenly went from anonymity to the “imminent threat” that became the rationale for an emergency air war there was supposedly no time to ask Congress to authorize.

You haven’t heard of the Khorosan Group because there isn’t one. It is a name the administration came up with, calculating that Khorosan — the –Iranian–​Afghan border region — had sufficient connection to jihadist lore that no one would call the president on it.

The “Khorosan Group” is al-Qaeda. It is simply a faction within the global terror network’s Syrian franchise, “Jabhat al-Nusra.” Its leader, Mushin al-Fadhli (believed to have been killed in this week’s U.S.-led air strikes), was an intimate of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the emir of al-Qaeda who dispatched him to the jihad in Syria. Except that if you listen to administration officials long enough, you come away thinking that Zawahiri is not really al-Qaeda, either. Instead, he’s something the administration is at pains to call “core al-Qaeda.”

“Core al-Qaeda,” you are to understand, is different from “Jabhat al-Nusra,” which in turn is distinct from “al-Qaeda in Iraq” (formerly “al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia,” now the “Islamic State” al-Qaeda spin-off that is, itself, formerly “al-Qaeda in Iraq and al-Sham” or “al-Qaeda in Iraq and the Levant”). That al-Qaeda, don’t you know, is a different outfit from al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula . . . which, of course, should never be mistaken for “al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb,” “Boko Haram,” “Ansar al-Sharia,” or the latest entry, “al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent.”

Coming soon, “al-Qaeda on Hollywood and Vine.” In fact, it wouldn’t surprise me if, come 2015, Obama issued an executive order decreeing twelve new jihad jayvees stretching from al-Qaeda in January through al-Qaeda in December.

Read the full story:  www.m.nationalreview.com

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Friday, September 26, 2014

No longer "on the run"?

No longer "on the run"?

September 26, 2014 al-Qaeda , Greg Miller 0 Comments
WaPo: U.S. Takes On ISIS, Al-Qaeda Remains Degraded But Not Defeated

By Greg Miller and Kevin Sieff, Sept. 36, 2014, Washingtonpost.com


As the United States mobilized against new Islamist enemies this month, the voice of an aging adversary echoed in the distance.

Ayman al-Zawahiri, one of al-Qaeda’s founders and its leader for the past three years, released a video announcing the formation of a new affiliate in India and lamenting the turmoil being caused by the rival Islamic State in Syria.

“Oh mujahideen, unite and reject differences and discord,” he said in a pleading tone that seemed to underscore the declining relevance of al-Qaeda’s core, the
Pakistan-based group that orchestrated the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

But Zawahiri was silent on a far more sensitive project — the creation of a cell in Syria dedicated to plots against the United States — that once again made predictions of the demise of al-Qaeda’s core seem premature.

The Khorasan group, which was struck but not destroyed by a barrage of U.S. cruise missiles this week, came into public view like the contents of an al-Qaeda time capsule. It is led by all-but-forgotten operatives who knew Osama bin Laden before the Sept. 11 attacks and, according to U.S. officials, was assembled under the instruction of an al-Qaeda leader approaching retirement age.

 Read the full story:  www.washingtonpost.com

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Tuesday, September 23, 2014

News will calm Obama anti-war critics

September 23, 2014 al-Qaeda , Iraq 0 Comments
Al-Qaida Group Was In 'Final Stages' Of Planning Attacks Against West 

USS Arleigh Burke / /U.S. Navy via Getty Images
By Marina Koren, Sept. 23, 2014, Nationaljournal.com

The U.S. launched eight airstrikes Monday night against a little-known, al-Qaida-affiliated militant group in Syria.

The United States Central Command said Tuesday morning that American forces hit the Khorasan Group near Aleppo to stop "imminent attack-planning against the United States and Western interests." At a Pentagon press briefing shortly after, defense officials explained just how imminent such an attack may have been.

"The intelligence reports indicated that the Khorasan Group was in the final stages of plans to execute major attacks against Western targets and potentially the U.S. homeland," said Lt. Gen. William Mayville, the director of operations for the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

U.S. strikes hit the group's "training camps, an explosives and munitions production facility, a communications building, and command and control facilities," according to a Pentagon statement released Tuesday morning.

Little is known about the Khorasan Group, which the Pentagon said has "established a safe haven in Syria to develop external attacks, construct and test improvised explosive devices, and recruit Westerners to conduct operations." As The Washington Post's Terrence McCoyexplained Tuesday:

Read the full story:  www.nationaljournal.com

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Monday, June 16, 2014

GOP: Iraq Disintegration Because Of U.S. Withdrawal --You think?

June 16, 2014 al-Qaeda , Iraq 0 Comments
This image posted on a militant website on Saturday, June 14, 2014, 
appears to show militants from the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant 
with alleged Iraqi soldiers wearing plain clothes and captured after the 
militants took over a base in Tikrit, Iraq. - AP
By Jake Miller, Jun. 15, 2014, Cbsnews.com

As Iraq continues to unravel, gripped by a bloody fight between the government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki and militants with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), Republicans said Sunday that President Obama's failure to secure an American troop presence in Iraq after the war is partly to blame for the escalating violence.

2012 Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney said he made it "very clear" during his campaign that he thought the president should have pushed harder for a "status of forces" agreement with the Iraqi government to allow a residual U.S. force to remain in the country after the majority of troops withdrew in 2011.

"Not a massive military presence, but 10,000 or 20,000 troops, to provide the training and the intelligence resources that Iraq would need to keep things like this from happening," Romney told NBC. "The president said he wanted to get that done, and he didn't. And his failure to achieve that is one of the things that has led to the kind of crisis we're seeing today."

Romney clarified that the Iraqis "have to take primary responsibility for the failures of the Maliki government," but he said the president must share in the blame.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., agreed.

"We withdraw our forces in 2011, so the security environment falls apart," he said Sunday on "Face the Nation." "What is so heartbreaking is that we had this place in a good spot. They were playing politics, rather than killing each other. The decision to withdraw U.S. forces created a vacuum."

And in withdrawing, Graham told CNN, the president got exactly what he wanted.

"The Obama administration wanted to say: I ended the war in Iraq. I'm going to end the war in Afghanistan," he said. "This was as predictable as the sun rising in the east. I blame President Obama mightily for a hands-off policy when it comes to Iraq."

House Homeland Security Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, similarly told ABC the president's "inability to negotiate a status-of-forces agreement ... has put us in this situation we're in today."

The administration and other Democrats pushed back, though, saying the president tried mightily to secure a status-of-forces agreement ahead of the U.S withdrawal. When that push was foiled by internal Iraqi politics, they said, the president was legally required to remove U.S. forces in the absence of an agreement for them to stay.

Read the full story:  www.cbsnews.com

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Sunday, June 15, 2014

FLASHBACK (2009): Does Iraq Make Bush a ‘Failed President’? By Larry Elder --Suppose Saddam had remained in power?

June 15, 2014 al-Qaeda , Articles by Larry Elder 0 Comments
Saddam Hussein
By Larry Elder, Jan. 15, 2009

In his final press conference, President George W. Bush called failing to find WMD in Iraq a "disappointment."

For many historians — not allowing a little history to pass before rendering judgment — this makes him a "failed president." In a 2006 survey of 744 history professors, 82 percent rated President Bush either below average or a failure. Last April, in an informal poll of 109 historians by George Mason University, 98 percent considered him a failed president, and 61 percent judged him one of the worst in American history.

His "crime"? For most of these historians, Bush led the country into an "unnecessary war."

Return to the bad old days immediately following Sept. 11, 2001, when terror attacks killed 3,000 on American soil. Eighty to 90 percent of Americans expected another attack — on American soil — within six months to a year. Critics called Bush asleep at the wheel, that he failed to "connect the dots." Never mind that the 9/11 Commission said that former President Bill Clinton blew several opportunities to kill or capture Osama bin Laden.

Let us recall Saddam Hussein, the "Butcher of Baghdad."

Under President Clinton, Congress voted for — and he signed — the Iraq Liberation Act, calling for "regime change." Saddam Hussein stood in defiance of several United Nations resolutions calling for him to fully account for his weapons of mass destruction. He certainly possessed WMD, having used them against his enemies and his own people. He continually fired at the American and British planes patrolling the southern and northern "no-fly zones" set up to prevent genocide against fellow Iraqis. In addition to stealing billions from the "oil-for-food" program (to what end?), he sent $25,000 apiece to families of homicide bombers who attacked Israelis. Following Saddam's 1990 invasion of Kuwait and the U.S.-led coalition's subsequent expulsion of him, we found Saddam much closer to developing a nuclear weapon than our intelligence community assumed. He later attempted to assassinate former President George H.W. Bush. Estimates vary, but Saddam killed, during his 25-year reign, between 300,000 and 1 million Iraqis.

In the October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate, all 16 U.S. intelligence departments concluded — with the highest possible level of certainty — that Saddam still possessed stockpiles of chemical and biological WMD. British intel reached the same conclusion. According to former CENTCOM commander Gen. Tommy Franks, officials in Egypt and Jordan told him that they believed the dictator still possessed WMD.

Bush retained the same CIA director, George Tenet, who served under Clinton. Tenet described the case for assuming the dictator possessed WMD a "slam-dunk." After the invasion of Iraq, Clinton publicly said he thought Saddam still had the weapons. A few months after the Iraq invasion, the former president visited Portuguese Prime Minister Jose Manuel Durao Barroso, who later said, "When Clinton was here recently, he told me he was absolutely convinced, given his years in the White House and the access to privileged information which he had, that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction until the end of the Saddam regime."

True, "weapons hunter" David Kay, sent to Iraq to find the stockpiles, found no WMD. But Kay said that Saddam retained the capacity and the intent to restart his program.

Now let's play suppose.

Bush ignores the nearly unanimous intelligence community. He takes no action against Saddam. The dictator remains in power. The sanctions end. He restarts his WMD program. We experience another 9/11 or worse on American soil. Our intel traces the attack back to Saddam. Congress demands investigations for Bush's "failure to heed the clear consensus of the intelligence community and to take appropriate action." Democrats and many Republicans push for impeachment, based on negligence and malfeasance.

Angry members of Congress quote the February 1998 words of the secretary of State under Clinton, Madeleine Albright: "Iraq is a long way from (here), but what happens there matters a great deal here. For the risks that the leaders of a rogue state will use nuclear, chemical or biological weapons against us or our allies is the greatest security threat we face."

What if we had known before we got there that he possessed no stockpiles of WMD? Would we have invaded? A better question is as follows: Given what the President reasonably thought and the consequences of doing nothing, did he do the right thing?

Osama bin Laden called Iraq the "central front in the war" against the infidels. Gen. Franks said: "The global war on terrorism will be a long fight. But make no mistake about it. We are going to fight the terrorists. The question is: Do we fight them over there, or do we fight them here?"

Support for homicide bombing has fallen dramatically from 2002 to 2007 in seven of eight Muslim countries surveyed — as much as 74 to 34 percent in Lebanon, and 33 to 9 percent in Pakistan. And support for the extreme "Islamist" parties in Muslim countries, with some exceptions, has also declined. Iraq — alone among Muslim Middle Eastern countries — now has a fledgling democracy.

One more thing. We haven't been attacked on American soil since 9/11.

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FLASHBACK: NYT Denies It But Iraq IS Inspiring Freedom In Iran By Larry Elder

June 15, 2014 al-Qaeda , Articles by Larry Elder 0 Comments
via www.townhall.com
Larry Elder, Dec. 31, 2009

Did Saddam Hussein's fall and the formation of a fledging democracy in Iraq encourage and embolden regime-threatening dissent in Iran?

The anti-Iraq War crowd, many of whom suffer from Give-George-W.-Bush-No Credit-for-Anything Disease, says, "No, of course not." How dare anyone even suggest that the former President was correct, if not about the rightfulness of the war itself, then about his argument that a "free and peaceful" Iraq would provide a "dramatic and inspiring example" to the Middle East and the Muslim world. Good Lord!

The Iraq War-achieved-zero crowd begrudged Bush nothing even after the democratic Cedar Revolution in Lebanon. Never mind that Walid Jumblatt, a Lebanese Druze Muslim leader, said: "It's strange for me to say it, but this process of change has started because of the American invasion of Iraq. I was cynical about Iraq. But when I saw the Iraqi people voting (in 2005), 8 million of them, it was the start of a new Arab world."

As to Iran, The New York Times quoted a pundit-blogger who, when protests began this past summer, wrote, "(N)o Iranian ... has mentioned Iraq as an inspiration for the demonstrations, nor has any leader of their opposition cited their Iraqi neighbors as a model or a source of guidance."

None?

Meet Mohsen Kadivar. In May 2004, Time magazine profiled this Iranian intellectual in a flattering article called "The Critical Cleric -- Reclaiming Islam for a New World." Newsweek called him a global leader "to watch in 2005." His criticism of the Iranian regime landed him in jail. He now teaches at Duke University, and PBS's Charlie Rose interviewed him in July.

What does this cleric says about Iraq's possible influence on his native country? In February 2005, he said: "I think the Iraqis can make what we wanted to create but were unsuccessful: a real Islamic Republic. By that I mean a republic with Islamic values, democracy with Islamic values ... (where) the clergy has no special rights. If they have a good government with Islamic democracy and without any special or divine rights for the clergy, the Iranian government won't be able to justify its situation to the Iranian citizens."

Meet Mashallah Shamsolvaezin. In 2000, this Iranian journalist received an International Press Freedom Award but could not attend the formal dinner honoring him. Shamsolvaezin was then sitting in a Tehran prison for the crime of "insulting Islamic values." The authorities shut down several publications that he edited. Just days ago, he and several other journalists were arrested in Iran.

What did he say about Iraq's possible influence on Iran? "The Shi'as in Iraq have accepted the notion of having a secular government, and they are slowly moving toward the democratization of their country -- free elections, democratic institutions, a free press. All of this in and of itself will have an impact on the situation in Iran."

Meet Mohsen Sazegara. This Revolutionary Guard co-founder and former Islamic Republic supporter became a critic. He attempted to run for president of Iran, but authorities denied his application. He spent three months in jail for opposing the regime. He now lives in the United States and faces more prison time should he return to his country.

What did he say about Iraq's possible influence on Iran? "I personally hope that Iraq's (transition to democracy) will be completed successfully so that it can also help our nation. For sure, neighbors with democratic governments are much better for us than dictators such as Saddam Hussein or backward groups such as the Taliban ... . Our young generation in particular has shown ... that it has a strong desire for democracy, human rights and civil society, and a strong desire to join the international (community). And when democratic changes take place in our neighboring and brother country Iraq, with its many ties to us, it encourages our youth, and emboldens our young people to ask for change in our current constitution."

In truth, the anti-Iraq War/Bush-hating left despises the former President far more than do the Iranians.

Almost two years after we entered Iraq, Iranians, according to a 2004 BBC poll, preferred Bush (52 percent) over John Kerry (42 percent) in the U.S. presidential elections. When asked whether the U.S. should get out of the Middle East, only 20 percent of Iranians said yes.

In May 2004, New York Times columnist Nicholas D. Kristof traveled to Iran. He wrote: "Everywhere I've gone in Iran ... people have been exceptionally friendly and fulsome in their praise for the United States, and often for President Bush as well. ... Indeed, many Iranians seem convinced that the U.S. military ventures in Afghanistan and Iraq are going great, and they say this with more conviction than your average White House spokesman."

The Iraq War and fledging democracy continue to pay dividends. It helped convince Libya's strongman to surrender his WMD. It helped inspire a democratic movement in Lebanon. And it may, just may, help to bring down an Islamofascist government that is the leading exporter of terrorism -- before it gets a nuclear bomb.

Just as the "neo-cons" had hoped.

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FLASHBACK: Obama Reaffirms Iraq Withdrawal Timeline --"Political tensions rising...insurgency...not yet...defeated."

June 15, 2014 al-Qaeda , Iraq 0 Comments
By Kathleen Hennessey and Liz Sly, Aug. 3, 2010, The Los Angeles Times

Reporting from Atlanta and Baghdad — President Obama affirmed Monday that U.S. combat troops would leave Iraq by the end of August — "as promised and on schedule" — in a speech aimed at highlighting a foreign policy bright spot and rebuilding support for the struggling mission in Afghanistan.

"Make no mistake: Our commitment in Iraq is changing — from a military effort led by our troops to a civilian effort led by our diplomats," Obama told a group of disabled veterans in Atlanta.

There are currently 65,000 troops in Iraq. The president gave assurances that the U.S. force would drop to 50,000 by the end of the month — a reduction of 94,000 since he took office 18 1/2 months ago. The remaining troops will form a transitional force until a final U.S. withdrawal from the country at the end of 2011, he said.

During his campaign, Obama pledged to bring a swift and orderly end to a war he said he would not have waged, but the departure has not been as quick as he had initially promised. Shortly after taking office, the president revised a 16-month withdrawal timeframe and set the Aug. 31 deadline.

U.S. officials say the withdrawal will make little practical difference in Iraq. It is rare these days to see a U.S. military vehicle on the streets — and even the withdrawal is taking place stealthily, at night.

Many Iraqis who might otherwise have welcomed the drawdown as a step toward sovereignty are instead apprehensive. Political tensions are rising among the country's divided factions, and the insurgency has not yet been defeated.

Still, for a White House beleaguered on other fronts — from the Gulf of Mexico oil spill to increasing violence in Afghanistan — Iraq is seen as a success story the administration intends to tell. Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and other administration officials will emphasize progress in Iraq in a series of speeches in the coming weeks, the White House said.

On Monday, Obama addressed a convention of the Disabled American Veterans before speaking at a high-dollar fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee.

Read the full story:  www.articles.latimes.com

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NBC Minimizes Iraq Pullout As Contributing To Islamist Advance --Obama/Biden praised Iraq "stability"--pulled out

NBC Minimizes Iraq Pullout As Contributing To Islamist Advance --Obama/Biden praised Iraq "stability"--pulled out

June 15, 2014 al-Qaeda , Iraq 0 Comments


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FLASHBACK: Joe Biden "Iraq Will Be One Of The Great Achievements Of This Administration"

June 15, 2014 al-Qaeda , CNN 0 Comments


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FLASHBACK (12-12-11): Obama: "I Have No Doubt Iraq Can Succeed" --No status of force agreement=Bush's fault?

June 15, 2014 al-Qaeda , Iraq 0 Comments


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'It Would Be Worse If We Hadn't Invaded Iraq,' Claims Tony Blair --W silent

June 15, 2014 al-Qaeda , Independent 4 Comments
Tony Blair
By Jane Merrick, Jun. 15, 2014, Independent.co.uk

Tony Blair last night accused critics of the war in Iraq of trying to "wilfully" claim the current crisis in the country is a result of the original invasion.

In a 3,000-word essay, Mr Blair rejected claims that he was to blame, saying that if the West had not rid Iraq of Saddam Hussein, the crisis in the Middle East would be worse.

"We have to liberate ourselves from the notion that 'we' have caused this. We haven't. We can argue as to whether our policies at points have helped or not; and whether action or inaction is the best policy and there is a lot to be said on both sides. But the fundamental cause of the crisis lies within the region not outside it," he wrote. Mr Blair added that it is a "bizarre reading of the cauldron that is the Middle East today, to claim that but for the removal of Saddam, we would not have a crisis".

READ MORE: TONY BLAIR IRAQ ESSAY FULL TEXT

He wrote: "Because some of the commentary has gone immediately to claim that but for that decision, Iraq would not be facing this challenge; or even more extraordinary, implying that but for the decision, the Middle East would be at peace right now; it is necessary that certain points are made forcefully before putting forward a solution to what is happening now.

Read the full story:  www.independent.co.uk

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Saturday, June 14, 2014

W Stays Silent --Obama rules out sending troops back into in Iraq, but promises to review military options

June 14, 2014 al-Qaeda , Dailymail.com 0 Comments
President Barack Obama
By David Martosko, Jun. 13, 2014, Dailymail.com

Barack Obama said Friday that his national security team will soon provide him with a list of 'selective actions by our military' to help push back a terrorist horde marching through Iraq, but insisted that 'we will not be sending U.S. troops back into combat' there.

He will be 'reviewing options in the days ahead,' the U.S. president said in a hastily scheduled statement on the South Lawn of the White House, before boarding Marine One en route to Bismarck, North Dakota.

The murderous Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), formerly known as Al-Qaeda in Iraq, 'poses a danger to Iraq and its people,' Obama said, 'and given the nature of these terrorists, it could pose a threat to America and its interests as well.'

But he emphasized that Iraq's government should 'solve their own problems.'

The United States, Obama insisted, will not get involved in a protracted military campaign in the absence of work toward a political solution in the nation that Saddam Hussein once ruled with an iron fist.

Former President George W. Bush, his predecessor who sent U.S. servicemen and women into Iraq by the tens of thousands, is determined to hold his tongue.

Susan Rice, Obama's national security adviser, is not traveling with him to North Dakota, Deputy Press Secretary Joshua Earnest told reporters aboard Air Force One.

Earnest said that military options under consideration 'do not include ... putting combat boots on the ground in Iraq.'

They also exclude, he added, a Bush-style open-ended military commitment on behalf of the United States.'

Instead, the White House is conditioning 'any commitment of military resources or a military operation' on an agreement from Iraqi leaders to commit 'to pursue an inclusive, political agenda' with Sunni Islamists who are terrorizing their cities.

Former President George W. Bush has been reluctant to weigh in on the latest developments in the region where he spent years deploying military assets that Obama would later pull back.

A request for comment from the former president was met with a non-response from his communications director Freddy Ford, who told MailOnline: 'I don’t have a comment for you. When he left office President Bush decided not to criticize his successor.'

Meanwhile, a senior Air Force official in Afghanistan told MailOnline on Friday that his forces, along with others in the Middle East, have been told to expect briefings on contingency plans in the next 72 hours.

Those contingency plans could include a wide range of military and nonmilitary options, he cautioned, but said he expects that anything the president might order would focus principally on air bases closer to the Persian Gulf.

The prospect of U.S. forces as far away as Kabul being put on alert, however, lends credence to an all-hands-on-deck airstrike scenario designed to cripple ISIS's forces.

Read the full story:  www.dailymail.co.uk

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Friday, June 13, 2014

Barbara Boxer Blames George W. Bush For Current Crisis In Iraq --Of course she does

June 13, 2014 al-Qaeda , Examiner 0 Comments
Sen. Barbara Boxer
Joe Newby, Jun. 13, 2014, Examiner.com

It's become standard operating procedure for many on the left. Whenever something bad happens, blame George W. Bush. Such was the case Thursday when Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., a member of the Foreign Relations Committee, blamed the former president for the current crisis in Iraq, Talking Points Memo reported.

She also hammered Republicans who supported the war in Iraq but now criticize Barack Obama's handling of the situation as part of the "blame-America-first crowd."

"Some of the biggest GOP cheerleaders for the disastrous war in Iraq are now joining the blame-America-first crowd rather than working with our Commander-in-Chief to confront this crisis," she said.

Boxer also said the current mess in Iraq "has its roots in an ill-conceived war," and said that while the U.S. should "go after" ISIS, the Sunni organization taking over parts of Iraq, "any U.S. action must be well-considered and well-executed in coordination with our allies and the Iraqi government and military, which we helped train and arm."

Boxer, TPM added, was one of 23 senators who voted against the resolution authorizing use of force in Iraq in 2002.

But it seems the real root of the current problem may lie in the fact that the Obama administration released the man who now runs ISIS in 2009.

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the new leader of ISIS, is called the "driving force behind al-Qaeda’s resurgence throughout Syria and Iraq, putting it at the forefront of the war to topple President Bashar al-Assad and starting a fresh campaign of mayhem against the Western-backed government in Baghdad."

He was arrested by U.S. forces in 2005 and held at Camp Bucca where, the Telegraph added, other al Qaeda leaders were held. He was released in 2009. According to the Telegraph, he may have been one of thousands of suspected insurgents "granted amnesty as the US began its draw down in Iraq."

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Decapitated Heads Of Policemen And Soldiers Line The Streets Of Mosul As ISIS Imposes Sharia --W's fault, right?

June 13, 2014 al-Qaeda , Jihad Watch 0 Comments
via Daily Mail
By Robert Spencer, Jun. 12, 2014, Jihadwatch.com

“So when you meet those who disbelieve, strike necks…” (Qur’an 47:4) But of course any Muslim who takes such a verse at face value is misunderstander of Islam, unduly influenced by greasy Islamophobes. Somehow this aggressive organization of misunderstanders of Islam has been able to gain sufficient support and power to wreak havoc in Iraq.


“‘They lined the streets with the decapitated heads of police and soldiers’: Iraqi refugee reveals the horrors of the jihadi takeover as Baghdad vows to fight back,” by Jill Reilly and Kieran Corcoran, Daily Mail, June 12, 2014:
The decapitated heads of policeman and soldiers are lining the streets of Iraq’s second biggest city, a displaced Iraqi woman has revealed today. 
Speaking from a refugee camp to which she fled after jihadists from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (also known as ISIS) invaded the northern city of Mosul on Tuesday, the woman told of the horrific treatment meted out to those who do not bow to their rapidly expanding rule. 
It would appear the occupation of Mosul was made easier by the fact a reported 30,000 soldiers fled, leaving behind tanks and firearms as just 800 fighters approached. 
Less than 24 hours later the oil-rich city of Tikrit was captured by the militants, who then turned their attentions to the capital as it pushes ahead with its aim to overthrow the western-backed government as part of its goal to create an Islamic emirate spanning both sides of the Iraq-Syria border. 
As jihadists now march on Baghdad after capturing swathes of northern Iraq male supporters of the government turned out today to enlist. 
The recruits will expect to fight back against the ISIS militants, who impose a brutal brand of Islamic law in their territory, characterised by amputations, beheadings and crucifixions. The refugee woman, speaking to the BBC, told how decapitated victims’ heads were in placed in rows – a trademark, trophy-style execution which ISIS favours. 
Government forces have so far managed to stall the militants’ remarkably rapid advance near Samarra – a city 110km (68 miles) north of Baghdad – and are now bombing insurgent positions in and around Mosul. Some 500,000 residents are estimated to have fled, which still leaves a civilian population of 1.3million behind….
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200 U.S. Contractors Surrounded By Jihadists In Iraq --Now what?

June 13, 2014 al-Qaeda , Balad Air Force Base 0 Comments
Balad Air Force Base
By Jerome R. Corsi, Jun. 13, 2014, Wnd.com

NEW YORK – About 200 Americans under contract with the Department of Defense at Balad Air Force Base in Iraq are trapped by the al-Qaida-inspired jihadists who have seized control of two cities and are now threatening Baghdad, according to WND sources.

The sources, private contractors who have recently returned to the U.S. from Iraq, said Friday their former colleagues effectively have been abandoned by the U.S. military and are fighting for their lives against an army of jihadists surrounding the base who belong to the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.

The U.S. contractors are at Balad to help the Pentagon prepare the facilities for the delivery of the F-16 aircraft the Obama administration has agreed to provide the Iraqi government.

The surrounded Americans said they currently are under ISIS fire from small arms, AK47s, and rocket propelled grenades, or RPGs.

The contractors so far have been able to hold the base, but those on the scene reported it was only a matter of time before the ISIS terrorists succeeded in breaking through the perimeter. The sources confirmed the contractors were still under siege, despite an Associated Press report Thursday, citing U.S. officials, that three planeloads of Americans were being evacuated from Balad.

WND has learned from sources that the jihadists have closed down escape routes, and the U.S. Air Force is in a stand-down position. U.S. forces are not assisting even with air cover so a private extradition flight could land for a rescue, the sources said.

Privately scheduled exit flights have fallen through, sources said, as several private pilots originally scheduled to make the flights have quit.

The sources contend the U.S. military could provide the necessary air cover to protect C-130s or other air transport craft sufficient to make the evacuation, but so far officials have refused to get involved.

Balad Air Force Base has been under attack since Wednesday, when ISIS rebels seized the nearby town of Tikrit, the birthplace of Saddam Hussein.

The attacking ISIS forces approached Balad Air Force Base in trucks and called through loudspeakers for all private security forces and Iraqi special military to leave immediately or die.

The U.S. private contractors in touch with WND reported that after hearing the broadcast, the private security forces and the Iraqi military defending the base dropped their weapons and ran.

The American contractors collected the weapons left behind and were able to hold off further immediate advances.

More to come …

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Thursday, May 1, 2014

White House E-mails On Benghazi Stoke More Questions No, same ones. What's the truth?

May 01, 2014 al-Qaeda , Benghazi 0 Comments
Credit:  Susan Walsh / AP
Oren Dorell, Apr. 30, 2014, Usatoday.com

The White House should "come clean" and release all of its e-mails related to the crafting of former U.N. ambassador Susan Rice's message on the Benghazi attack, including ones redacted for supposed national security purposes, says the GOP.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, a member of a House committee investigating the attack, made the demand a day after the release of an e-mail showing that White House aide Ben Rhodes wanted to blame the 2012 assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, on a protest that never happened there.

Referring to Benghazi and Middle East unrest, he said that she should "underscore that these protests are rooted in an Internet video, and not a broader failure of policy."

Chaffetz told USA TODAY that the White House has turned over e-mails with much of the content blocked out.

"There were other e-mails that went to Susan Rice. We got them with heavy redactions," Chaffetz told USA TODAY. "The White House needs to come clean on what they said."

White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Wednesday that Rhodes' e-mail had been misconstrued because it was referring to protests happening across the Muslim world at the time.

"The e-mail and the talking points were not about Benghazi. They were about the general situation in the Muslim world," Carney said.

But the White House had provided the emails to House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform based on a request for communications on Benghazi. And portions on Rhodes' email that were blocked out pertained to Benghazi.

The emails came to light only after a watchdog group sued for the unblocked emails under a Freedom of Information Request.

Carney's claim is "laughable," Chaffetz said. "Susan Rice was asked about Benghazi and she repeated exactly what Ben Rhodes wanted her to say."

Susan Rice used her TV appearances to deny that the Benghazi attack was a terrorist plot and to blame it on a non-existent protest that turned violent. U.S. ambassador to Libya Christopher Stevens and three State Department employees were killed in the attack, which the White House later acknowledged was a planned terrorist attack and not preceded by a protest.

Republican lawmakers have accused the White House of seeking to minimize the role of terrorism in the attack while President Obama was seeking re-election and claiming that al-Qaeda was in retreat.

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