Category: Terror War

Bobo sends a link to The Daily Mail which reports that a group called “Islamic Ghosts of the Caliphate” claim that they’ve hacked into State Department and Defense Department computers and have a list of employees to whose homes they are sending “lone wolves” according to their video.

As scenes of war, bombings and terror attacks flash up, the voice continues: ‘You will pay a price as you walk along your streets fearing Muslims. We will attack your homeland – you will not even feel secure in your bedrooms.’

The video then brings up a message in English and Arabic reading: ‘We were able to hack sensitive sites of the US Army, the Interior Ministry, the State Department, and other government sites, and we were able to get thousands of your confidential information’.

I wish. It would justify my ammo stores and my “large capacity” magazines.

It was just a few weeks ago that they threatened their hack, so that was quick work.

I don’t know how the Caliphate have their wifi hooked up since they’re mostly living in caves in northern Syria these days, but, hey, good luck with that.

Of course, it’s just their attempt to terrorize us, not realizing that we can only hope that they’d show up at our homes.

A link from Al Arabiya English reports that Yemeni Houthi rebels have fired another Iran-supplied missile at Riyadh, the Saudi capital. A Saudi Patriot missile battery successfully downed the missile which rained shrapnel down harmlessly on the city.

The Houthi militia continue to target Saudi Arabian cities with ballistic missiles, but their attempts remain futile against the kingdom’s defense system.

Last November, another ballistic missile was intercepted by the Saudi Air Force near King Khaled International Airport in Riyadh. The missile was fired by Houthis in Yemen.

Houthis have been firing more and more missiles towards Saudi residential areas, specifically in the capital, as Iran continues to supply the militia with more launching platforms for these kinds of missiles.

If I remember correctly, one of the provisions of the Iran nuclear deal was that Iran would end lethal supplies to their proxies, the Houthis.

In the pages of the New York Times, Ross Douthat writes about the media ignoring the fact that the Trump Administration actually put ISIS out of business in Syria and Iraq without getting in a shooting war with the Russians and that they did it in record time.

But this is also a press failure, a case where the media is not adequately reporting an important success because it does not fit into the narrative of Trumpian disaster in which our journalistic entities are all invested.

I include myself in this indictment. Foreign policy is the place where the risks of electing Trump seemed to me particularly unacceptable, and I’ve tended to focus on narratives that fit that fear, from the risk of regional war in Middle East to the perils in our North Korean brinksmanship.

Yeah, the media is unhappy that Trump unleashed the military forces from the politicians’ collar of ineffective rules of engagement for the troops and they helped regional forces crush ISIS and the forces of evil are relegated to a few caves in Syria.

But if you had told me in late 2016 that almost a year into the Trump era the caliphate would be all-but-beaten without something far worse happening in the Middle East, I would have been surprised and gratified. So very provisionally, credit belongs where it’s due — to our soldiers and diplomats, yes, but to our president as well.

Curses. Foiled again.

According to Associated Press, Russian President Vladimir Putin thanked President Trump for the tip to Russian Intelligence agencies that thwarted a bombing attack by terrorists in St Petersburg.

Russian TV stations have aired footage daily since Friday of the suspects in the foiled attacks being apprehended and questioned. One segment showed FSB operatives outside a St. Petersburg apartment building detaining a suspect, who appeared later saying he was told to prepare homemade bombs rigged with shrapnel.

“My job was to make explosives, put it in bottles and attach pieces of shrapnel,” the suspect, identified by Russian media as 18-year old Yevgeny Yefimov, said in the footage released by the FSB.

Several other suspects came from mostly Muslim regions in Russia’s volatile North Caucasus, and one man was from the ex-Soviet nation of Tajikistan that borders Afghanistan.

According to the article, Putin assured Trump that the Russians would return the favor if roles are ever reversed. The attack was planned for Saturday according to BBC.