Tag Archives: ISIS

TOM DELAY: OBAMA PARALYZED BY MUSLIM SYMPATHIES

15 Oct

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NEW YORK – President Obama’s left-leaning political ideology combined with sympathies for Islam acquired from being raised by a Muslim stepfather paralyze him as he faces the threat posed by the Islamic jihadist group ISIS, former House Majority Leader Tom DeLay told WND in an interview.

googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display(‘div-gpt-ad-story160LeftSide’); }); “In defending America against radical Islamic terrorism, Barack Obama cannot be trusted,” DeLay said.

“Barack Obama was raised a Muslim, and he claims he is a Christian, and I can’t say for sure whether he’s a Christian or not, but he has shown over the last few years that he has great sympathies with Islam,” DeLay explained.

“You combine that with Obama’s political orientation that is far to the left,” he continued, “and you get a president who hates war, hates the military, and you have a formula for military inaction when it comes to combating radical Islamic terrorists like we are seeing in ISIS.”

DeLay’s indictment of Obama did not end there.

“You add to mix that Barack Obama is incompetent, way over his head as president, and the whole combination produces a worldview that makes Obama detached and reluctant to take the type of the military action against ISIS that would be effective,” he said

DeLay concluded Obama “does not want to face the reality of the danger and threat represented to the United States by ISIS, and he does not want to admit the connections between al-Qaida and ISIS, because he refuses to understand that we are in a war against radical Islamic terrorism.”

Congressional resolve

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He said if he were leading Republicans in the House of Representatives, he would rally Congress around a resolution calling on Obama to take immediate military action against ISIS.

DeLay acknowledged that a congressional resolution “can’t force Obama to take effective military action, because he’s still commander-in-chief.”

“But a properly drafted congressional resolution passed with bipartisan support could communicate to the president the will of the people is that he must take effective action and he must take it now,” DeLay said.

“Obama does not understand that there is no alternative but to destroy ISIS,” he said.

DeLay said the U.S. needs “to go into Iraq and Syria with effective military action, and we can’t stop until we destroy ISIS.”

“The truth is that ISIS is a huge threat to the United States and the whole world. But the problem is that under Obama, radical Islamic terrorism is growing in strength every day,” he said.

Words and action

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DeLay discounted Vice President Joe Biden’s charge in a speech Wednesday in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, after the video release of the beheading of another American journalist by ISIS, that the U.S. will “follow ISIS to the gates of hell.”

“Biden’s speech didn’t impress me,” DeLay explained, “because the words Obama and Biden speak about going after ISIS do not match with the Obama administration inaction.”

DeLay compared Obama to British Prime Minister David Cameron.

“I read carefully as Barack Obama and David Cameron joined together co-authoring a column in The Times in London that published very tough words attacking ISIS,” DeLay commented. “Cameron has great rhetoric but no power, while Obama has horrible rhetoric and all the power.”

DeLay said the step Obama should be taking at the upcoming NATO meeting in Wales is to form a “coalition of the willing” like President George H. W. Bush did in the run-up to the Gulf War in 1991.

Instead, DeLay said, Obama is leaving the border with Mexico wide open, with no measures to block Islamic terrorists from mixing in with the invasion from Central American of “unaccompanied minors,” many of whom are teenagers in the prime gang-recruitment years, including some with criminal records in their home countries.

“It’s like the pre-911 environment,” DeLay lamented. “For all I know there are radical Islamic terrorists taking flying lessons again in the United States, and all the Obama administration would look the other way, just like the Obama administration does on stopping illegal immigration.”

DeLay referenced recent news reports that some 11 airliners were missing from the airport in Tripoli after radical Islamic terrorists overran it.

He joined with Reps. Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., and Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., in criticizing the Obama administration for trying to lift a ban on Libyans coming to the U.S. to attend flight school or to study nuclear science.

“We have something like 6,000 foreign student visas where the Department of Homeland Security cannot find where the students are today,” DeLay commented. “It would be just the same letting Muslims come back into the country to learn how to be airline pilots. The Obama administration would probably just look the other way.”

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Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/09/tom-delay-obama-paralyzed-by-muslim-sympathies/#7UBqWduK7dqJRMA5.99

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James Baker: Iran May Be ‘Quietly’ Helping US Against ISIS

13 Oct

Could the stars be aligning for Iran’s hatred of the U.S.???

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Sunday, 12 Oct 2014 12:57 PM

By Greg Richter – Newmax

Iranian help would be tricky, partly because of the history between the two countries. Fifty-two Americans were held hostage in Iran for 444 days between 1979 and 1981, and the United States later backed Iraq in the Iran-Iraq war. The United States currently is leading negotiations with Iran over its nuclear program, which critics in the United States say is an effort to acquire a nuclear weapons arsenal. That said, Iran sees ISIS as a threat and has an interest in seeing it defeated. A senior Iranian official told the Associated Press over the weekend that Iran and the United States have exchanged messages over ISIS.

It’s the “religious component” that makes Iran an antagonist, he said. Baker said he is optimistic about the situation, and also thinks the United States will be able to re-establish ties with Russia. “I think that we will be able to handle ISIS,” Baker said.

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White House national security adviser Susan Rice, appearing live set, denied any such talks. “We’re not in coordination or direct consultation with the Iranians about any aspect of the fight against ISIL,” said Rice, using the acronym preferred by the administration. Former Secretary of State Henry Kissinger also was part of the interview with Baker and Brokaw. “As long as Iran is ruled by the ayatollahs and places itself on a sectarian philosophy, we have to be careful,” Kissinger told Brokaw. But, he added, “as a country, Iran is a natural ally of the United States.”

Despite longstanding divisions between the countries, Iran may be helping the United States in its fight against the Islamic State (ISIS), says former Secretary of State James Baker. “I wouldn’t be surprised if Iran is not helping us quietly,” Baker said in an interview with Tom Brokaw aired Sunday on “Meet the Press.” 

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OBAMA’S PLAN IS FAILIING TO DEGRADE OR DESTROY ISIS.

12 Oct

WE ARE LOSING THE WAR ON RADICAL ISLAM

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America’s plans to fight Islamic State are in ruins as the militant group’s fighters come close to capturing Kobani and have inflicted a heavy defeat on the Iraqi army west of Baghdad.

The US-led air attacks launched against Islamic State (also known as Isis) on 8 August in Iraq and 23 September in Syria have not worked. President Obama’s plan to “degrade and destroy” Islamic State has not even begun to achieve success. In both Syria and Iraq, Isis is expanding its control rather than contracting.

Isis reinforcements have been rushing towards Kobani in the past few days to ensure that they win a decisive victory over the Syrian Kurdish town’s remaining defenders. The group is willing to take heavy casualties in street fighting and from air attacks in order to add to the string of victories it has won in the four months since its forces captured Mosul, the second-largest city in Iraq, on 10 June. Part of the strength of the fundamentalist movement is a sense that there is something inevitable and divinely inspired about its victories, whether it is against superior numbers in Mosul or US airpower at Kobani.

In the face of a likely Isis victory at Kobani, senior US officials have been trying to explain away the failure to save the Syrian Kurds in the town, probably Isis’s toughest opponents in Syria. “Our focus in Syria is in degrading the capacity of [Isis] at its core to project power, to command itself, to sustain itself, to resource itself,” said US Deputy National Security Adviser Tony Blinken, in a typical piece of waffle designed to mask defeat. “The tragic reality is that in the course of doing that there are going to be places like Kobani where we may or may not be able to fight effectively.”

Unfortunately for the US, Kobani isn’t the only place air strikes are failing to stop Isis. In an offensive in Iraq launched on 2 October but little reported in the outside world, Isis has captured almost all the cities and towns it did not already hold in Anbar province, a vast area in western Iraq that makes up a quarter of the country. It has captured Hit, Kubaisa and Ramadi, the provincial capital, which it had long fought for. Other cities, towns and bases on or close to the Euphrates River west of Baghdad fell in a few days, often after little resistance by the Iraqi Army which showed itself to be as dysfunctional as in the past, even when backed by US air strikes.

MILITARY AIR

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ISIS Isn’t Alone: Khorasan Group May Pose Bigger Threat to U.S.

25 Sep

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Pentagon: Khorasan Group in ‘Final Stages’ of Plots on ‘Western Targets’

Little is known about those militants — dubbed the “Khorasan group.” But in the week since their name hit the international stage, they’ve been billed as potentially an even bigger threat to the U.S. than ISIS. Here’s a look at what we know about the group whose existence was not publicly acknowledged until last week.

Where did they come from?

Intelligence analysts say Khorasan refers to battle-hardened al Qaeda fighters who have travelled from Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere to Syria. Beyond that, accounts differ.

U.S. Central Command said the group was using civil war-ravaged Syria as a haven from which to plot attacks, build and test roadside bombs and recruit Westerners to carry out operations.

While Khorasan has been in operating in Syria for over a year, their attention has been focused beyond that country’s borders.

“They’re in Syria but they’re not really fighting in Syria,” said Michael Leiter, the former director of the National Counterterrorism Center and now an NBC News analyst. “They’re using it as a place to find Western recruits.”

Obama: Coalition Airstrikes a Sign World Is Against ISIS

The core group is believed to be small – probably no more than 100, according to Leiter. They have one main mission: To attack Western targets.

But isn’t there already an al Qaeda affiliate in Syria?

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Al Qaeda’s recognized affiliate in Syria is Jabhat al-Nusra – but that doesn’t mean there’s not room for Khorasan. Khorasan’s motivations are “very much in line” with traditional al Qaeda and it maintains close relations with Nusra, according to Leiter.

Intelligence analysts acknowledge disagreement over how separate or linked Nusra is to Khorasan. Still, the relationship appears to be symbiotic — Nusra focuses on internal operations within Syria, while Khorasan plans for external operations.

Why is the U.S. worried?

Director of National Intelligence James Klapper last week said that Khorasan poses a threat to the U.S. equal to that of ISIS, according to The Associated Press.

“Khorasan is less of a threat to the region and more of a threat to the U.S. homeland than ISIS,” Leiter said. “Unlike ISIS, the Khorasan group’s focus is not on overthrowing the Assad regime. These are core al Qaeda operatives who … are taking advantage of the Syrian conflict to advance attacks against Western interests.”

How could that happen?

Khorasan has been actively recruiting Westerners for plots against American and European interests, according to intelligence officials.

“They want to get Western recruits, with Western passports, to attack the West,” Leiter explained.

Fears are high that the group could exploit and capitalize on ties to al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) – and that affiliate’s sophisticated bomb makers.

Khorasan militants have been working with bomb makers from al Qaeda’s Yemen affiliate to test new ways to slip explosives past airport security, The Associated Press recently reported, citing classified U.S. intelligence assessments.

The AP said that the recent Transportation Security Administration ban on uncharged cellphones arose because of information that al Qaeda was working with Khorasan.

Who is leading the charge?

Muhsin al-Fadhli

A number of al Qaeda all-stars are believed to have migrated to Syria and put down Khorasan’s roots – but one name stands out: Muhsin al-Fadhli, a designated terrorist and apparent 9/11 insider.

The U.S. has a $7 million bounty on Al-Fadhli’s head – just shy of the $10 million offered for the capture of ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghadi.

Al-Fadhli “was among the few trusted al Qaeda leaders who received advance notification that terrorists would strike the United States on September 11, 2001,” according to the State Department. It describes al-Fadhli as a veteran al Qaeda operative “who has been active for years.” Al-Fadhli is a wanted man in Kuwait and also on Saudi Arabia’s most-wanted list in connection with a series of terror attacks, according to the State Department.

Muhsin al-Fadhli, who is believed to play a role in the Khorasan group.

Born in Kuwait, al-Fadhli was first designated a terrorist by the U.S. Treasury Department in 2005 – deemed an al Qaeda leader in the Gulf and accused of supporting Iraq-based fighters in attacks against U.S. forces there. The State Department has later called al-Fadhli as “facilitator and financier” for al Qaeda who moved fighters and funds through Iran on behalf of the terrorist organization. Specifically, the State Department said he works to move fighters and funds through Turkey to back al Qaeda-linked groups in Syria – plus leverages his “extensive network of Kuwaiti jihadist donors” to send money to Syria.

Al-Fadhli also allegedly has helped moved fighters to North Africa and Europe, according to the State Department — underscoring the concern of European nations that foreign fighters will mount attacks on their home soil.

– Cassandra Vinograd

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President should not ignore military advisors

25 Sep

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Sep. 25, 2014 @ 06:55 AM

MARK CASERTA

President Obama has certainly given the world plenty of reason to question his ability to address the war on terror.

Even as the administration received congressional backing for its strategy to arm and train Syrian opposition forces and has begun its expanded air strikes to “degrade and defeat” the Islamic State, military leaders have been critical of the president’s approach which has included rejecting advice from his top military commander in the Middle East.

Quoting two U.S. military officials, the Washington Post reported last week that Army Gen. Lloyd Austin, commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM), said “that his best military advice was to send a modest contingent of American troops, principally Special Operations forces, to advise and assist Iraqi army units in fighting the militants.” Austin’s recommendation was taken to the White House by the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Martin Dempsey. But the White House rejected CENTCOM’s “advise and assist” contingent due to the president’s concerns about placing U.S. ground forces in a frontline role.

Retired Marine Gen. James Mattis, who served under Obama until last year, told the House Intelligence Committee that a blanket prohibition on ground combat was tying the military’s hands. “Half-hearted or tentative efforts, or airstrikes alone, can backfire on us and actually strengthen our foes’ credibility,” he said. “We may not wish to reassure our enemies in advance that they will not see American boots on the ground.” Given Barack Obama’s unimpressive background, it’s unfathomable he could ignore the recommendations of tenured, military minds in such a volatile situation. Such poor judgment sets our military up for failure. And as the threat of terror looms nearer our borders, failure is not an option nor something on which to vacillate.

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In a chilling report on “The Kelly File” on Fox News, Trace Gallagher described an intelligence bulletin from the Central Florida Intelligence Exchange warning Islamic extremists are encouraging “lone wolf” terrorists to carry out random attacks on individuals on American soil. These attacks would be spontaneous, ambush-style attacks, similar to the machete attack of a British soldier in 2013.

In light of the ISIS savagery, Americans are worried the government isn’t doing enough to protect the homeland. A recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll revealed nearly half of Americans believe our nation is less safe than it was before September 2001.

This president’s sluggish approach to the war on terror has emboldened Islamic jihadists to the point they may be compelled to bring their brutal style of cowardly attacks into theU.S. Andforathreatthat Obama’s advisors say is greater than that posed by al-Qaeda after 2001, his military strategy of “leading from behind” falls dangerously short in comparison to the “shock and awe” of the Bush administration when his surge strategy, led by Generals Petraeus and Odierno, defeated al Qaeda in Iraq.

Obama lacks the qualifications to ignore advice from his military commanders. His smug defiance, designed to placate Americans, is instead endangering them.

A President of the United States must take a frontline role in protecting U.S. citizens.

Mark Caserta is a conservative blogger, a Cabell County resident and a regular contributor to The Herald-Dispatch editorial page.

MILITARY AIR

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New ISIS Recording Urges Muslims to Kill Civilians in US-Led Coalition Countries

22 Sep

 Sep 22, 2014, 6:24 AM ET

By BRIAN ROSS and ANTHONY CASTELLANO

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A 42-minute audio recording by an ISIS spokesman was released on social media Sunday, in which the group calls on Muslims to kill civilians in countries that belong to the anti-ISIS, U.S.-led coalition.

“If you can kill a disbelieving American or European, especially the spiteful and filthy French, or an Australian, or a Canadian or any other disbeliever, then rely upon Allah, and kill him in any manner or way however it may be,” an ISIS spokesman says.

This latest threat comes as the Islamic State group posts new pictures of some of its British recruits, and President Obama heads to the UN to seek an international effort to stop such ISIS fighters from traveling unimpeded to spread their war of terror.

But U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power Sunday told George Stephanopoulos on “This Week,” stopping the threat from ISIS and its fighters won’t happen anytime soon.

“We think again the strategy can succeed, and most importantly that we have the greatest military in the world, they believe that,” Power said. “I think the president has said it will be over several years.”

U.S. and British authorities this morning are also bracing for word on the fate of ISIS hostage Alan Henning.

The White House declined to comment on the new recording today.

Over the weekend there were new pleas for mercy from his wife and from leaders of the Muslim community, even al Qaeda, that he be spared because the one time British taxi driver only went to Syria as a driver for an Islamic relief mission.

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U.S. Confirms ISIS Planning Infiltration of U.S. Southern Border

10 Sep

 

President’s “strategy” may not be enough…

Militants from the al Qaeda-inspired Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) removing part of the soil barrier on the Iraq-Syria borders and moving through it / AP

Washington Free Beacon,

A senior Homeland Security (DHS) official confirmed to Congress on Wednesday that militants associated with the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL or ISIS) are planning to enter the United States via the porous southern border.

Francis Taylor, under secretary for intelligence and analysis at DHS, told senators during a hearing that ISIL supporters are known to be plotting ways to infiltrate the United States through the border.

“There have been Twitter, social media exchanges among ISIL adherents across the globe speaking about that as a possibility,” Taylor told Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.) in response to a question about “recent reports on Twitter and Facebook of messages that would urge infiltration into the U.S. across our southwestern border.”

“Certainly any infiltration across our border would be a threat,” Taylor said, explaining that border security agents are working to tighten measures that would prevent this from taking place.

“I’m satisfied we have the intelligence and the capability on our border that would prevent that activity,” Taylor said.

However, McCain was dubious, referring to recent videos released by activist James O’Keefe showing him crossing the border while wearing an Osama bin Laden mask.

Asked by McCain why agents did not stop O’Keefe, Taylor could not provide an answer.

“You can’t answer it because they weren’t there to stop him,” McCain responded.

“The fact is there are thousands of people who are coming across our border who are undetected and not identified, and for you to sit there and tell me that we have the capability or now have the proper protections of our southwest border, particularly in light of the urgings over Facebook and Twitter [by ISIL] for people to come across our southwestern border, is a great concern to the citizens of my state.”

Taylor admitted that more must be done to shore up border security in light of ongoing threats.

“The security at the southwestern border is of great concern to the department and I certainly understand the concerns of the citizens of your state,” he told McCain. “If I gave you the impression I thought the border security was what it needed to be to protect against all the risks coming across the state that’s not what I meant to say.”

There is little evidence to prove that ISIL militants or other terror actors would be stopped if they attempt to cross the border, McCain said.

“I don’t think there’s any doubt, I don’t see when you look at ISIS and the growth and influence of ISIS that it would be logical [to claim they would be stopped], as they’re saying on Facebook and Twitter, to come across our southwest border because they can get across,” he said.

Other U.S. officials have warned ahead of President Obama’s speech this evening that ISIL is growing in strength and seeking the capability to attack America directly.

“We remain mindful of the possibility that an ISIL-sympathizer—perhaps motivated by online propaganda—could conduct a limited, self-directed attack here at home with no warning,” Matthew Olsen, director of the U.S. National Counterterrorism Center, said in a recent speech.

“We have seen ISIL use a range of media to tout its military capabilities, executions of captured soldiers, and consecutive battlefield victories,” Olsen said. “More recently, the group’s supporters have sustained this momentum on social media by encouraging attacks in the U.S. and against U.S. interests in retaliation for our airstrikes. ISIL has used this propaganda campaign to draw foreign fighters to the group, including many from Western countries.”

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NEW YORK TIMES : A President Whose Assurances Have Come Back to Haunt Him

9 Sep

 ISLAMIC STATE IN BLACK

WASHINGTON — When President Obama addresses the nation on Wednesday to explain his plan to defeat Islamic extremists in Iraq and Syria, it is a fair bet he will not call them the “JV team.”

Nor does he seem likely to describe Iraq as “sovereign, stable and self-reliant” with a “representative government.” And presumably he will not assert after more than a decade of conflict that “the tide of war is receding.”

As he seeks to rally Americans behind a new military campaign in the Middle East, Mr. Obama finds his own past statements coming back to haunt him. Time and again, he has expressed assessments of the world that in the harsh glare of hindsight look out of kilter with the changed reality he now confronts.

To Mr. Obama’s critics, the disparity between the president’s previous statements and today’s reality reflects not simply poorly chosen words but a fundamentally misguided view of the world. Rather than clearly see the persistent dangers as the United States approaches the 13th anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, they said, Mr. Obama perpetually imagines a world as he wishes it were.

“I don’t think it is just loose talk, I think it’s actually revealing talk,” said Peter H. Wehner, a former adviser to President George W. Bush now at the Ethics and Public Policy Center. “Sometimes words are mistakes; they’re just poorly put. But sometimes they’re a manifestation of one’s deep belief in the world and that’s what you really get with President Obama.” .

White House officials said the president’s opponents distorted what he said to score political points or hold him responsible for evolving events that were not foreseen. They also say Mr. Obama’s past statements are hardly on a scale of Mr. Bush’s unfounded assertions about Saddam Hussein’s weapons of mass destruction, not to mention Mr. Bush’s May 2003 speech in front of a banner that said “Mission Accomplished,” meant to signal an end to the major combat in Iraq.

“There is context or facts that explain what the president meant at the time, or things change over the course of time,” said Dan Pfeiffer, a senior adviser to Mr. Obama. “The people who try to beat us up over these things will continue to do so.”

The comment that has caused Mr. Obama the most grief in recent days was his judgment about groups like ISIS. In an interview last winter with David Remnick of The New Yorker, Mr. Obama sought to make the point that not every terrorist group is a threat like Al Qaeda, requiring extraordinary American action.

“The analogy we use around here sometimes, and I think is accurate, is if a JV team puts on Lakers uniforms, that doesn’t make them Kobe Bryant,” Mr. Obama told Mr. Remnick. He drew a distinction between Al Qaeda and “jihadists who are engaged in various local power struggles and disputes, often sectarian.”

Asked about that by Chuck Todd on “Meet the Press” last weekend, Mr. Obama denied that he necessarily meant ISIS. “Keep in mind I wasn’t specifically referring to ISIL,” he said, using an alternate acronym for the group.

“I’ve said that regionally, there were a whole series of organizations that were focused primarily locally — weren’t focused on homeland, because I think a lot of us, when we think about terrorism, the model is Osama bin Laden and 9/11,” Mr. Obama said. And some groups evolve, he noted. “They’re not a JV team,” he added of ISIS.

But the transcript of the New Yorker interview showed that Mr. Obama made his JV team comment directly after being asked about terrorists in Iraq, Syria and Africa, which would include ISIS. After Mr. Obama’s initial answer, Mr. Remnick pointed out that “that JV team just took over Fallujah,” a city in western Iraq seized by ISIS. Mr. Obama replied that terrorism in many places around the world was not necessarily “a direct threat to us or something that we have to wade into.”

OBAMA FOREIGN POLICY

Journalistic organizations like PolitiFact, Factcheck.org and The Washington Post’s Fact Checker all rejected the contention that Mr. Obama was not referring to ISIS when he made his comment about JV teams.

Other statements by Mr. Obama look different today as well. When the president pulled American troops out of Iraq near the end of 2011 against the urging of some Republicans, he said the armed forces were “leaving behind a sovereign, stable and self-reliant Iraq with a representative government.”

Aides defended the conclusion, saying that was the president’s hope and it was up to the Iraqis to make good on that promise, an opportunity they squandered, leading to the emergence of ISIS as a major threat.

Just a few months before that, Mr. Obama told the United Nations that “the tide of war is receding.” Aides said that statement had to be viewed in the context of two wars fought with hundreds of thousands of American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last 13 years. Even with new airstrikes in Iraq and potentially in Syria, they noted, just a fraction of those troops were still overseas.

Other statements that have come under fire lately include Mr. Obama’s comment setting a “red line” if the government of President Bashar al-Assad used chemical weapons against his people, which he eventually did. Mr. Obama vowed to retaliate but instead accepted a deal to remove and destroy Mr. Assad’s chemical weapons.

Just a month ago, Mr. Obama told Thomas L. Friedman, an op-ed columnist for The New York Times, that it had “always been a fantasy” to think that arming moderate rebels in Syria a few years ago would have made a difference in Syria. But now his emerging strategy for combating ISIS in Syria involves bolstering those same rebels rather than using American ground troops. Aides said Mr. Obama was referring to the rebels as they were three years ago, arguing that they have developed a lot since then.

Either way, Aaron David Miller, author of the forthcoming “The End of Greatness: Why America Can’t Have (and Doesn’t Want) Another Great President,” said Mr. Obama would have a real challenge selling his new approach to the public on Wednesday.

“Presidents rarely persuade through speeches, unless the words are rooted in context that seems real and credible,” Mr. Miller said. “Obama has a problem in this regard because his rhetoric has often gone beyond his capacity to deliver, especially on Syria.”

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RADICAL ISLAMISTS IN SYRIA COULD BRING FIGHT TO U.S.

2 Sep

BY Yochi Dreazen

Yochi Dreazen is managing editor for news for Foreign Policy, overseeing a team of reporters covering national security, foreign policy, energy, diplomacy, and the global economy. He is also writer-in-residence at the Center for a New American Security, where he is working on a book about military suicide that will be published by Random House’s Crown division this October. The book, The Invisible Front: Love and Loss in the Era of Endless War, was the finalist for the J. Anthony Lukas Work-in-Progress Award, jointly awarded by the Columbia Journalism School and Harvard’s Nieman Foundation for Journalism.

 

 

Matthew Olsen, the director of the National Counterterrorism Center, told an audience at the Aspen Security Forum that the ranks of foreigners taking part in the war against Syrian strongman Bashar al-Assad now number at least 12,000, up from 7,000 a few months ago, including at least 1,000 Europeans and at least 100 Americans. Olsen said those estimates likely understate the actual numbers.

“The numbers are growing as the conflict there continues,” said Olsen, who has run the counterterrorism center for three years and is slated to step down later this year. “It remains a magnet for extremists around the world.”

Former FBI Director Robert Mueller, speaking on the same panel, said the intensifying conflict in the Gaza Strip threatened to further “fuel” the ranks of foreign fighters inside Syria. “It may contribute to the number of individuals who feel that they want to become part of the fight, but not necessarily in Gaza,” Mueller said.

Neither conflict shows any signs of slowing. Last week included the bloodiest 48-hour period to date in the three-year-old Syrian civil war, with an NGO monitoring the conflict estimating that more than 700 Syrians were killed on Thursday and Friday. More than 170,000 people have died in the conflict since it began in March 2011. Elsewhere in the region, violence flared in the West Bank Friday for the first time since the conflict between Israel and Hamas began in Gaza on July 8. At least five people were killed, pushing the Palestinian death toll to more 800. Israel has lost 35 people, including 33 soldiers.

For the moment, Syria poses the far greater threat to the United States. The Western fighters there on European and American passports could return home to carry out strikes far more easily than other militants could. Olsen said some of those 100 Americans have already come back to the United States, though he emphasized that the FBI is monitoring and tracking many of them.

The counterterrorism chief said that the U.S. intelligence community’s persistent difficulty in collecting detailed information about the fighting in Syria made it hard to trace the American and European militants once they made it to the battlefield.

Those challenges continue when the fighters return home. Olsen said it was difficult to identify and track those militants because they included both Syrians living in the United States and fighters from other ethnicities and nationalities. He said the Islamic State, which is leading the fighting in Syria, runs sophisticated English-language websites designed to help radicalize even larger numbers of Westerners and potentially convince them to join the battle.

Olsen said that once there, the militants would find a growing swath of territory inside both Syria and Iraq that is rapidly turning into a safe haven for militants interested in launching attacks both there and elsewhere in the world. He said there were senior al Qaeda leaders in Syria training foreign fighters and taking advantage of their ability to plan attacks elsewhere with little interference.

Syria, Olsen said, was providing safe havens that were starting “to be reminiscent of what we faced before 9/11 in Afghanistan.”

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Al Qaeda Calls for ‘preemptive jihad’ against USA…

31 Aug

August 29, 2014 9:00 PM

 

 President Obama may not have a strategy for defeating the Islamic State, but the Islamic State has a strategy for the U.S. In fact, that strategy is set out, in part, in an al-Qaeda manual recently translated for the benefit of the U.S. military.

A guerrilla war proceeds in phases, according to Abd al-Aziz al-Muqrin’s A Practical Course for Guerrilla War, a strategic and tactical guide to mujahideen intent on establishing “a pure Islamic system free from defects and infidel elements.” It was written after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The first phase is “attrition (strategic defense),” the time for carrying out attacks, “spectacular operations, which will create a positive impact.” The terrorists use the attacks as a recruitment tool and a morale boost for potential jihadis.

Phase two is the time of “relative strategic balance,” when the jihadis build an army to hold territory that has been wrested from the incumbent regime. “There the mujahidin will set up base camps, hospitals, sharia courts, and broadcasting stations, as well as a jumping-off point for military and political actions,” al-Muqrin writes.

The third phase, a time of internal discord and political upheaval for the “collaborationist” regime, is “decisive.” The terrorists use their conventional army to launch dramatic assaults.

“By means of these mujahadin conventional forces, the mujahidin will begin to attack smaller cities and exploit in the media their successes and victories in order to raise the morale of the mujahidin and the people in general and to demoralize the enemy,” al-Muqrin writes in a passage that brings to mind the Islamic State’s rampage across northern Iraq. “The reason for the mujahidin’s treating of smaller cities is that when the enemy’s forces see the fall of cities into the mujahidin’s hands with such ease their morale will collapse and they will become convinced that they are incapable of dealing with the mujahidin.”

Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel told reporters that the Islamic State “is beyond anything that we’ve seen.” That’s true insofar as al-Qaeda did not build a conventional army or declare itself a state. He shouldn’t be so surprised, though. The U.S. national-security apparatus has been following this jihadist ambition for years.

The manual, translated in 2008 by a research fellow at the Marine Corps University, shows how the Islamic State’s efforts to build an army and establish a caliphate reflect a longstanding goal. An Islamic caliphate has been al-Qaeda’s dream from the beginning. Using principles and tactics similar to al-Qaeda’s, the Islamic State has come closer to realizing that dream.

Al-Muqrin’s primary concern was to explain how al-Qaeda could wage war against the Saudi Arabian regime, but the text was intended as an education tool for jihadis in other areas as well. Discussing the book during an interview with National Review Online, Mary Habeck of the American Enterprise Institute noted a Reuters report (of July 8) on a notebook found at a former al-Qaeda “leadership camp” in Yemen. It’s almost certain that the al-Qaeda student who took those notes was being taught al-Muqrin’s ideas.

“This notebook has word for word” a paragraph from al-Muqrin’s book, “slightly differently translated by the two Arabic interpreters,” Habeck pointed out. Many of these terrorists, she explains, “have their intellectual and military roots in al-Qaeda, and this is what al-Qaeda is attempting to do.” The translator, Norman Cigar, wrote that al-​Muqrin’s ideas were disseminated to Iraqi insurgents as early as 2005.

The Islamic State “has a long history and an origin dating back to AQI, al-Qaeda in Iraq,” White House deputy national-security adviser Ben Rhodes reminded reporters. Obviously, Islamic State terrorists are not constantly referring to al-Muqrin’s book for their next move. Regardless, the manual itself warns, “One must be careful that these characteristics not become a rigid template or a ‘school solution,’ but rather, that they remain adaptable to circumstances in the region.”

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