Canadian Intelligence Sees AQ to Shift to Smaller Attacks

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THE CALM BEFORE THE JIHADI STORM

Once limited to Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, thanks to U.S. policies, has metastasized around the world, and is in the consolidation/training phase for the new jihad.

Once limited to Afghanistan, al-Qaeda, thanks to U.S. policies, has metastasized around the world, and is in the consolidation/training phase for the new jihad.

By Raymond Ibrahim:

Americans pay attention to terrorists when they blow up battleships, skyscrapers, and embassies.  But if history has taught us anything, it’s that the real threat lies in the calm before the storm.

The last ten years have been relatively secure in the U.S. Since 9/11 there have been no major terrorist attacks executed on our soil before Boston, and no large loss of American lives. This has lulled Americans into a false sense of security.

But our government should know better.

In fact, the very same U.S. policies that created al-Qaeda in Afghanistan in the 1980s—leading to the horrific attacks of 9/11—are today allowing al-Qaeda to metastasize all around the Muslim world. As in the 80s, these new terrorist cells are quietly gathering strength now, and are sure to deliver future terror strikes that will make 9/11 seem like child’s play.

To understand this dire prediction, we must first examine the United States’ history  of empowering Islamic jihadis—only to be attacked by those same jihadis many years later—and the chronic shortsightedness of American policymakers, whose policies are based on their brief tenure, not America’s long-term wellbeing.

In the 1980s, the U.S. supported Afghani rebels—among them the jihadis—to repel the Soviets.  Osama bin Laden, Ayman Zawahiri, and countless foreign jihadis journeyed to Afghanistan to form a base of training and planning—the first prerequisite of the jihad, as delineated in Sayyid Qutb’s Milestones.

Al-Qaeda—which tellingly means “the base”—was born.

The U.S. supported al-Qaeda, they defeated the Soviets, shook hands with Reagan, Afghanistan became ruled by the Taliban, and for many years all seemed well.

But it wasn’t.  For over a decade al-Qaeda, unfettered in Afghanistan, trained and plotted.  Then came the strikes of 9/11, which were portrayed by the talking heads as a great and unexpected surprise: “What happened? Who knew?  Why do they hate us?”

Had al-Qaeda not secured a base of operations, 9/11 would not have occurred.

But if Reagan helped create the first al-Qaeda cell in relatively unimportant Afghanistan, Obama is helping to create numerous, more emboldened, al-Qaeda cells in some of the most important Islamic nations.

He is doing this by helping get rid of Arab autocrats who were effective at suppressing jihadis (even if for selfish reasons), while empowering some of the most radical jihadis who were formerly imprisoned or in hiding.

And all in the name of  the “Arab Spring” and “democracy.”

Read more at The Blaze

Al Qaeda weapons expert: U.S. ambassador to Libya killed by lethal injection

us-libya-attacks_reps_s640x440By Bill Gertz:

An al Qaeda terrorist stated in a recent online posting that U.S. Ambassador to Libya J. Christopher Stevens was killed by lethal injection after plans to kidnap him during the Sept. 11 attacks in Benghazi went bad.

The veracity of the claim by Abdallah Dhu-al-Bajadin, who was identified by U.S. officials as a weapons expert for al Qaeda, could not be determined. However, U.S. officials have not dismissed the terrorist’s assertion.

An FBI spokeswoman indicated that the bureau is aware of the claim but declined to comment because of the FBI’s ongoing investigation into the Benghazi attacks.

“While there is a great deal of information in the media and on the Internet about the attack in Benghazi, the FBI is not in a position at this time to comment on anything specific with regard to the investigation,” spokeswoman Kathy Wright said.

A State Department spokesman had no comment.

The FBI is investigating the deaths of Stevens, State Department information officer Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty. They were killed in attacks that U.S. officials say was carried out by an al Qaeda-linked group known as Ansar al-Sharia.

A State Department Accountability Review Board report and an interim House Republican report on the attacks gave no cause of death for Stevens, whose body was recovered by Libyans in the early hours of Sept. 12.

The House report, “Interim Progress Report for the House Republican Conference,” said that “Libyan doctors tried unsuccessfully to resuscitate Ambassador Stevens upon his arrival at the hospital.”

To date, no official cause of death for Stevens has been made public, although it was reported that a Libyan doctor who examined Stevens said he died from apparent smoke inhalation and related asphyxiation.

Video and photos of Stevens being handled by a mob in Benghazi were posted on the Internet. It is not clear from the images whether he was dead or alive at the time.

According to a March 14 posting on an al Qaeda-linked website, Dhu-al-Bajadin stated that Stevens was given a lethal injection that was overlooked during the autopsy.

The “plan was based on abduction and exchange of high-level prisoners,” the terrorist wrote on the prominent jihadist Web forum Ansar al-Mujahideen Network. “However, the operation took another turn, for a reason God only knows, when one of the members of the jihadist cell improvised and followed Plan B.”

Dhu-al-Bajadin’s claim of assassination also was copied to the Ansar al-Mujahidin website from the al Qaeda-accredited website Shumukh al-Islam. That site is open only to members, and the claim initially was posted for Dhu-al-Bajadin by a member identified as Adnan Shukri.

The reference to Shumukh al-Islam has boosted the credibility of the claim among some U.S. intelligence analysts. A Western intelligence official said Dhu-al-Bajadin is a well-known jihadist and a key figure behind a magazine called Al Qaeda Airlines.

According to this official, intelligence analysts believe Dhu-al-Bajadin’s claim of assassination by lethal injection appears aimed, in part, at pressuring the U.S. government on its handling of the Benghazi attacks.

The article did not say what substance was used in the lethal injection. It also stated that the State Department had come under criticism for not providing adequate security in Benghazi before the attacks.

Dhu-al-Bajadin said he had more details about the attacks and the assassination, but would not reveal them in the posting.

Read more at Washington Times

A Green Light for Iran’s New Terrorist War

NYC Terrorby REZA KAHLILI:

Iranian leaders have given the go-ahead to a coalition of terrorists to attack American soil, in effect all but declaring war on the United States.

As I reported recently and according to a source in the Islamic regime’s intelligence apparatus, Iran created the Coalition of Muslim Soldiers to wreak havoc on the United States and its allies. The goal is to change the field of battle from the Middle East to the American homeland, and the opening salvos – if indeed the Boston bombing wasn’t the first – are due imminently unless U.S. authorities can short-circuit Tehran’s plans.

The source said the regime views the Boston bombing as a successful terrorist attack in which fear was created, U.S. intelligence was questioned and a sense of security was diminished. No link has been established yet to any group or nation for the Boston tragedy, which is the aim of this coalition of terrorists, formed by units of Lebanon‘s Hezbollahal Qaeda and Iran‘s Quds Forces.

In a 2010 meeting, Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Quds ForcesSeif Adel, the operational head of al Qaeda; and Mustafa Badr al-Din, the operational head of Hezbollah, devised a plan for continued terrorist operations against America under a new coalition, dubbed the Coalition of Muslim Soldiers. It includes al-Shabab, an al Qaeda offshoot based in Somalia, and has its central command in the Iranian city of Kerman.

After the assassination of Iranian nuclear scientists in recent years and again with the increase in sanctions, the Islamic regime’s supreme leader warned that the country’s strategy had changed to face “threats with threats,” a subliminal message that the regime will go on the offensive with terrorist covert operations. More recently, a senior commander of the Islamic regime had warned that terrorism was coming to America.

“If the people of America and Europe do not confront the aggressive policies of their governments, they cannot then remain far from the possible future [terrorist attacks],” Brig. Gen. Masoud Jazayeri, the regime’s armed forces deputy chief of staff, said in a Feb. 23 interview with Fars News AgencyGen. Jazayeri, objecting to U.S. involvement in the Syrian civil war, warned that explosions similar to those in Syria would take place in other countries.

Read more: Family Security Matters

And yet the State Department maintains there were “no known operational cells” of Al Qaeda or Hezbollah in the Western Hemisphere during the year 2012. Could it be they don’t want to let the reality of the terror threat interfere with the “amnesty-first, border security-whenever” immigration bill? This sounds a lot like “the Benghazi syndrome”. Deny the threat so you don’t have to provide security. Only this denial could lead to a terror catastrophe on our Homeland.

Frank Gaffney interviews John Rosenthal, author of the Jihadist Plot

 

769446463JOHN ROSENTHAL, author of the book “The Jihadist Plot: The Untold Story of Al-Qaeda and the Libyan Rebellion” joins Frank for a special one-hour show to celebrate the release of his newest book.  During the hour, John discusses many of the topics covered in his latest publication, including the true background story of the Libyan Rebellion and how Al-Qadea played a part in the uprisings. He also discusses the implications that have been and still are emerging from the Obama Administration’s and other officials within the government’s refusal to recognize the true threat Jihad poses.

Listen to the interview here —-> Secure Freedom Radio

 

Al Qaeda affiliate’s grave new warning: Inflicting mass casualties on U.S. a top priority

AQAP_Malahim_Rimi_Americans_2Jun2013REL_ICDV03056_STILL_01.1By Shaun Waterman:

The military commander of al Qaeda’s affiliate in Yemen is threatening new attacks against America, saying its people will never be safe until the U.S. government stops “attacking and oppressing” Muslim countries.

The six minute Arabic-language audio statement by Qasim al-Rimi, entitled “Message to the American Nation” was released on the Internet with English subtitles by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), which U.S. officials rank as one of the most dangerous affiliates of the terror network.

“Your security is not achieved by despoiling other nations’ security or by attacking and oppressing them,” al-Rimi says, according to excerpts published by IntelCenter, a private firm that tracks extremist messaging for clients including U.S. military and government agencies.

“Your security is achieved by stopping the foolish, who rule you, from oppression and aggression. Know that oppression and aggression rebound on the throats of the perpetrators,” said al-Rimi, who was listed as AQAP’s senior military commander and a terrorist by the U.S. government and the UN Security Council in 2010.

“Your leaders are assaultive, oppressive and tyrannical, and you stand behind them cheering, supporting and voting for them,” he added.

The message “supports a justification for mass casualty attacks targeting civilians as it shifts responsibility” for the U.S. military’s actions from the government to the American people, said Ben Venzke, CEO of IntelCenter.

He added that such warnings — required by Islamic jurisprudence to allow Americans to mend their ways before being attacked — typically opened a “threat window” before an attack of uncertain duration.

“While [the attack] could be in the near-term, historical patterns have shown the threat window to extend as far out as a year or longer between warning and attack,” he said.
Read more at Washington Times

 

More details —–> IntelCenter:

Attack Warning for Americans

al-Qaeda Arabian Peninsula’s (AQAP)
Qasim al-Rimi Video
Indicator of Upcoming Attack
Against Americans

11th Issue Of Inspire Magazine Praises And Takes Credit For Motivating Boston Bombing

images (64)MEMRI:

On May 30, 2013, jihad supporters on Twitter disseminated the eleventh issue of Inspire, the English-language jihadi magazine produced by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). In the issue, which includes threats to the American people by the group’s military commander Qassem Al-Rimi, AQAP makes an effort to capitalize on the Boston and London attacks to incite further attacks.

For the first time, the link to this latest issue – unlike the previous ones, which were published on Al-Qaeda affiliated jihadi forums – was released via Twitter. The first downloadable link was posted on a Twitter account belonging to “Muhammad Al-Shammary,” who said he had received an email with English and Arabic copies of the magazine. Al-Shammary, who uses the handle @muhammad115599 and about whom very little is known, then posted the password needed to unlock the link. Prior to Al-Shammary’s tweets, Yemeni journalist ‘Abd Al-Razzaq Al-Jamal, who is associated with the group, had posted links to the two copies; however, they did not in fact contain the magazine. Al-Jamal was the first to break the news about the magazine’s release, when he posted excerpts and pictures from the latest issue onto his Facebook page. He attributed his failed attempts to release the entire magazine to power outages in Yemen, where he lives.

The relatively small size of the issue as compared to previous ones, and the sloppy translation and editing, indicate that AQAP has not found an adequate replacement for magazine founders Anwar Al-Awlaki, the American-born cleric, and Samir Khan, another American.

Most of the articles in this issue focus on the Boston Marathon bombing. Inspire‘s publishers clearly believe that they deserve credit for providing the perpetrators with the motivation and operational know-how for the attack. More importantly, AQAP uses the current issue to incite Muslims in the West to carry out similar attacks, by emulating the Tsarnaev brothers and the Woolwich attackers. Thus, one prominent feature in the issue is a message from AQAP’s military commander, Qassem Al-Rimi, who warns the American people that such attacks will continue, and that their government is unable to stop them.

MEMRI will be sending out a full review and analysis of the 11th issue of Inspire magazine. The following are the first reports that MEMRI is releasing on Inspire’s 11th issue:

Al Qaeda Re-emerging

jihad_9By Matthew Ernst:

While the U.S. has undoubtedly had many successes fighting Al Qaeda (AQ), AQ is re-emerging due to a wide array of regional alliances. Much in the way that private businesses adapt to changing social trends and government regulations, AQ has adapted to its transformed political and strategic landscape. The “War on Terrorism” is far from over. In fact, it may just be getting started.

Al Qaeda has developed a number of regional affiliates including Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), Al-Qaeda in Iraq (AQI), and Al-Qaeda in the Lands of the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM). Other groups that have pledged their allegiance to, or strengthened their relationship with AQ include:

1.   Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan
2.   The Islamic Jihad Union,
3.   Lashkar i Jhangvi,
4.   Harakat ul-Mujahadin
5.   Jemaah Islamiya
6.   Pakistan Taliban (TTP)
7.   Al-Shabab
8.   Boko Haram
9.   Afghan Taliban
10. Abu Sayaf
11. Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LT)
12. Haqqani Network

Through these alliances AQ has spread its influence around the globe, and its desire to stage attacks has not diminished. Just last week, an Uzbekistan national living in Boise, ID was arrested on terrorism charges for incidents in Boise and Salt Lake City, UT. The suspect, Fazliddin Kurbanov, is accused of providing material support to The Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan.

AQI, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), originally evolved in 2004 to pressure Western militaries to leave Iraq. However, we now know that AQI has spread its interests throughout the Middle East, North Africa, Europe, and South Asia. We also know that both AQ and AQI have recently allied with Jabhat al Nusra (JN), which is a Syrian terrorist group that is currently fighting the Assad regime in Syria.

AQI/JN also has a presence in the U.S. In 2011, two AQI members living in Bowling Green, KY were arrested on terrorism-related charges. Just a few weeks ago, an Illinois teenager was arrested at Chicago’s O’Hare airport as he prepared to board a plane to Turkey. The teen, Abdella Ahmad Tounisi, was on his way to Syria to fight for JN.

The Syrian Conflict

There are two important factors that must be understood about the Syrian conflict:

1. Numerous rebel groups within Syria all share the goal of trying to overthrow the Assad regime. But most of those groups are fighting with the purpose of trying to establish a democratic government. JN, however, is also fighting in Syria in order to establish an Islamist government.

2. AQ has been instrumental in organizing JN. AQ leader Ayman al-Zawahiri approved the merger of AQI and JN. This revelation dramatically increases the likelihood that the Syrian conflict will become influenced by AQ’s goals, as opposed to being about the establishment of a democratic government.

To help accomplish the goal of establishing an Islamist government in Syria, jihadists from various Middle Eastern nations are now traveling to Syria to fight. But it must be remembered, once the Assad regime falls, the fighting will continue because each of the rebel groups have different long-term goals for how Syria should be governed. We need to look no further than Iraq to see the same scenario.

Read more at American Thinker

Related articles

The New, Improved Axis of Jihad

images (58)by Clare M. Lopez:

Two years into the seismic shift that brought the forces of Islamic jihad and Sharia law to power in country after country in the Middle East and North Africa — with the astonishing and extensive assistance from the U.S. — Iran, Hizballah and al-Qa’eda apparently judge that the U.S. and its Western allies still need another nudge to ensure their complete retreat from “Muslim” lands. That nudge, according to independent, reliable and mutually-corroborating sources, has now been prepared by this Axis.

Indicators and warnings continue to grow concerning the resurgence of an “Axis of Jihad” comprised of Iran, Hizballah, and al-Qa’eda. This axis is not new: its three actors, both national and sub-national, have been working together in an operational terror alliance for over two decades. Still, so many seem unaware not just of this alliance, but of the ideological bonds that brought them together in Khartoum, Sudan, in the early 1990s and have kept them together to the current day. The bond is as old as Islam, and includes the commitment to jihad [war in the name of Islam] and Islamic Shariah law; the threat is to all free and democratic societies which stand in the way of global Islamic government and the forcible application of Islamic Shariah Law.

Foundation of the Axis of Jihad

This modern-day Axis of Jihad was formed in the Sudan under the aegis of the Muslim Brotherhood regime of Omar al-Bashir and his sometime political ally, National Congress Party chairman Hassan al-Turabi. Al-Qa’eda as such had not yet taken its current form, but after the end of the 1980s Afghan war against the Soviet Union, Usama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri had found safe haven in the Sudan. Al-Bashir and Turabi are pan-Islamists, meaning they see the world in terms of the Dar al-Islam (House of Islam, where Shariah is enforced) versus the Dar al-Harb (everywhere that is not under Islamic Law). Such a worldview chooses to disregard the ancient intra-Islamic schism between Sunni and Shi’a and instead to unify the entire Islamic world in jihad against the “infidel.”
So it was that al-Bashir and Turabi invited the Iranian regime leadership and its Hizballah terror proxies to Khartoum in late 1990 to meet with the future leadership of al-Qa’eda. Then-Iranian president (and once again a 2013 candidate for the office) Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani, intelligence director Ali Fallahian, Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) commander Mohsen Reza’i and other top Iranian leadership figures accepted al-Bashir’s invitation and traveled to Khartoum, along with Islamic jihadis from around the region.

There, and in subsequent meetings that took place in Khartoum throughout the early 1990s, the alliance was formed among Iran, Hizballah, and what soon would be known as al-Qa’eda. Usama bin Laden was especially interested in the explosives expertise coupled with a “martyrdom” mentality he had seen demonstrated by Hizballah with such deadly effect against Western targets. It was arranged that Imad Mughniyeh, Hizballah’s top terror operative, would commit to training Usama bin Laden’s growing cadre of terrorists in explosives techniques, especially those involving suicide truck bombings that could bring down large buildings. Training camps were set up in Sudan, Lebanon, and elsewhere where al-Qa’eda’s would-be shahid recruits could learn this craft. The attacks at Khobar Towers, the U.S. East Africa Embassies in Dar Es-Salaam and Nairobi, against the USS Cole, and eventually the 9/11 attacks themselves were all the result of this terror alliance.

Read more at Gatestone Institute

US smuggling weapons to Syrian rebels: The real Benghazi story

By Daya Gamage:

Washington, D.C. 16 May (Asiantribune.com):

There is a ‘side story’ going on in the American media – both the electronic and print about the Islamist jihadists lethal attack on the American ‘post’ in Benghazi, Libya last September 11 which killed American ambassador Christopher Steven and three others; The emphasis and the debate is on why the event was twisted by the Obama administration to conceal a terrorist attack on eve of the presidential election.

US Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens killed in attack on 11 September 2012

With the killing of Osama bin Larden on May 2 last year the administration, which was approaching the re-election of Mr. Obama in November, wants to convince the American people that the al Qaeda was now annihilated for good.

When the Islamist jihadist group affiliated to al Qaeda lethally attacked the American ‘post’ in Benghazi the Obama administration twisted the events to convince that a anti-Islamic video produced by someone in California was the cause of the attack.

These days the highlights and debate is about why the ‘talking points’ were changed twelve times to give that different picture.

As Obama rightfully said a couple of days ago about this debate, mostly spearheaded by the Republicans, was a ‘side show.’

The ‘real show’ is in fact buried. And the ‘real show’ is that the United States, Ambassador Steven playing a major role, was in the process of shipping arms to Syrian rebels to topple Basher el-Assad’s regime.

It was on October 25 last year that FoxNews.com broke the story that a mysterious Libyan ship was reportedly carrying weapons and bound for Syrian rebels would have had some link to the September 11 terror attack on the U.S. ‘post’ in Benghazi.

Why do we use the term ‘post’ in this report? Because when changes were made to the Benghazi attack story by the Obama administration it changed from ‘American Consulate’ to ‘American Post’. The reason: Benghazi operation was entirely a CIA operation.

Through shipping records, Fox News has confirmed that the Libyan-flagged vessel Al Entisar, which means “The Victory,” was received in the Turkish port of Iskenderun — 35 miles from the Syrian border — on Sept. 6, just five days before Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other American officers were killed during an extended assault by more than 100 Islamist militants.

On the night of Sept. 11, in what would become his last known public meeting, Stevens met with the Turkish Consul General Ali Sait Akin, and escorted him out of the ‘posts’ front gate one hour before the assault began.

Although what was discussed at the meeting is not public, a source told Fox News that Stevens was in Benghazi to negotiate a weapons transfer, an effort to get SA-7 missiles out of the hands of Libya-based extremists. And although the negotiation said to have taken place may have had nothing to do with the attack on the consulate later that night or the Libyan mystery ship, it could explain why Stevens was travelling in such a volatile region on the 11th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

When asked to comment, a State Department spokeswoman dismissed the idea, saying Stevens was there for diplomatic meetings, and to attend the opening of a cultural center.

According to an initial Sept. 14 report by the Times of London, Al Entisar was carrying 400 tons of cargo. Some of it was humanitarian, but also reportedly weapons, described by the report as the largest consignment of weapons headed for Syria’s rebels on the frontlines.

The cargo reportedly included surface-to-air anti-aircraft missiles, RPG’s and Russian-designed shoulder-launched missiles known as MANPADS.

In March 2011 Stevens became the official U.S. liaison to the al-Qaeda-linked Libyan opposition, working directly with Abdelhakim Belhadj of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group—a group that has now disbanded, with some fighters reportedly participating in the attack that took Stevens’ life.

In November 2011 The Telegraph reported that Belhadj, acting as head of the Tripoli Military Council, “met with Free Syrian Army [FSA] leaders in Istanbul and on the border with Turkey” in an effort by the new Libyan government to provide money and weapons to the growing insurgency in Syria.

The Internet Media reported at that time that Ambassador Stevens had only one person—Belhadj—between himself and the Benghazi man who brought heavy weapons to Syria.

The Asian Tribune has also found that the Internet Media further reported that if the new Libyan government was sending seasoned Islamic fighters and 400 tons of heavy weapons to Syria through a port in southern Turkey—a deal brokered by Stevens’ primary Libyan contact during the Libyan revolution—then the governments of Turkey and the U.S. surely knew about it.

Furthermore there was a CIA post in Benghazi, located 1.2 miles from the U.S. consulate, used as “a base for, among other things, collecting information on the proliferation of weaponry looted from Libyan government arsenals, including surface-to-air missiles” … and that its security features “were more advanced than those at rented villa where Stevens died.”

As noted earlier, the Obama administration has since described the American facility in Benghazi not as a ‘Consulate’ but as a ‘Post’.

The U.S. Republican Senator Rand Paul, who is expected to run for his party presidential nomination in the year 2016, was the only American lawmaker who disclosed about this ‘arms deal’ which he connects to Ambassador Steven’s brutal muder in the hands of the Islamist Jihadists.

In an interview aired on CNN May 9 evening, Sen. Paul said he hasn’t ruled out the possibility that last year’s attack unfolded as a result of a secret arms trade. The confusion in the immediate aftermath of the event — including unfounded admissions from America’s United Nations envoy Susan Rice that contradicted what is known today about the attack — could actually be a cover-up, the senator said.

The Obama administration sent its ambassador to UN Susan Rice on the following Sunday talk shows to say that the offending Islamic video was the cause of the attack in Benghazi.

“I’ve actually always suspected that, although I have no evidence, that maybe we were facilitating arms leaving Libya going through Turkey into Syria,” he said.

Read more