This ain't Hell, but you can see it from here

Category: Terror War

  • Pentagon; no mustard gas attack on US troops

    Pentagon; no mustard gas attack on US troops

    Last week, we talked about a supposed chemical attack on US troops at Qayyara air base in Iraq. USAToday reports that the Pentagon has backed off of that claim now;

    A rocket fired last week at an Iraqi base where American troops are present did not contain a chemical agent despite earlier suspicions, the U.S. military reported Tuesday.

    Extensive laboratory tests concluded that the munition did not contain mustard agent, Air Force Col. John Dorrian, a U.S. military spokesman, said.

    […]

    Marine Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Congress last week the military assessed the munition contained sulfur mustard agent. His assessment was based on the information available at that time, the Pentagon said.

    Well, that’s good news. But the bad news;

    Islamic State militants will likely try to use chemical weapons as Iraqi forces launch an offensive to retake Mosul, Navy Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman, said.

    “They’re dead set on it. They would love to be able to use chemical weapons against us, against the Iraqis, as they move forward,” he said.

  • Border Security “Overemphasized”? Hardly.

    Many people claim that the US is wasting money on border security operations.  In fact, some go so far as to say that we should have open borders, advocating an utterly ridiculous and nonexistent “right to migrate” – and thus don’t need to control our border at all.

    Others say the threat from terrorism is “overemphasized”.  In fact, some people openly proclaim both of these (no need for border security and the threat from terrorism being overemphasized) to be true.

    Well, “Riddle me this, Batman”:  just how many encounters were there in the US with known and suspected terrorists during the one-year period ending 20 July 2016?

    If you guessed more than 7,700  – or an average of more than 21 every day  – give yourself a gold star.

    I’m not joking. 

    I’m normally a bit hesitant to use Breitbart as a primary source.  But here, the author at Breitbart seems to have gotten access to bona fide documentation of his claims – documentation, as in an official briefing prepared by the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Center.  The 7,700+ figure comes from the FBI briefing.

    No, all of those known/suspected terrorists weren’t radical Islamists.  And yes, some of the reports were doubtless false alarms.

    But in the one state for which the FBI gave detailed figures, over half were assessed to be Islamic radicals.  And even if only 10% of the reports nationwide are accurate, that still means we have somewhere over 700 terrorists running around loose.  Recent news (the San Bernardino massacre, the Pulse nightclub shooting, the NYC bombings, and possibly the WA mall shooting) certainly proves the number isn’t zero.

    And if you’re wondering how this ties to border security:  from looking over the sketchy data available, it certainly appears that a helluva lot of the foreign terrorists currently in the US likely came into the country by crossing the US border illegally.  It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see that preventing such illegal crossings makes getting terrorists into the US significantly more difficult.

    The biggest issue with US border security is not that it’s a waste of time.  Rather, the biggest problem is that we’re still in denial.  We’re still not taking it seriously enough.

    And I’m wondering how many more attacks – and dead US citizens – it will take until we do.

  • Mustard gas fired at US troops

    CNN reports that US troops were on the receiving end of a chemical agent attack at Qayyara air base in Iraq Tuesday, supposedly the attack came from ISIS.

    No US troops were hurt or have displayed symptoms of exposure to mustard agent.

    One official said the agent had “low purity” and was “poorly weaponized.” A second official called it “ineffective.”

    A US defense official said troops had gone out to look at the ordnance after it landed. Based on seeing what they thought was a suspect substance, two field tests were conducted.

    The first test was positive and the second was negative, the official said. The substance is now being sent to a lab for further examination.

    Yeah, well, any other commander would take the gloves off, but not with this administration. We’ll just wait until the thugs can get it weaponized properly and cause some casualties until John Kerry sends ISIS a strongly worded letter.

  • Hasan Edmonds; ex-National Guardsman sentenced

    Hasan Edmonds; ex-National Guardsman sentenced

    hasan edmonds1

    The Associated Press reports that Hasan Edmonds, a former Illinois National Guardsman who plotted with his cousin to kill as many guardsmen as he could at a nearby armory, was sentenced to 30 years in prison along with that cousin who got 21 years.

    Hasan Edmonds devised a plan to travel to the Middle East while Jonas Edmonds attacked the National Guard armory in Joliet, about 45 miles (70 kilometers) southwest of Chicago, according to prosecutors. The goal, prosecutors say, was to kill as many as 150 people at the facility.

    Jonas Edmonds said he dropped Hasan Edmonds at the airport to travel to the Middle East to join Islamic State fighters. But Jonas Edmonds denied he would have attacked the military armory.

    We wrote about the Edmonds last year when they were arrested. Apparently, they were caught because they briefed an FBI informant throughout their plan. Hasan was arrested at the airport and Jonas was picked up when he picked up some uniforms he had planned to use to infiltrate the armory.

    Under plea agreements, Hasan Edmonds pleaded guilty to two counts of conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization. Jonas Edmonds pleaded guilty to conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and lying to federal agents.

  • Immigration Fraud? DHS: “Not necessarily.”

    We already knew that DHS has some real problems managing immigration.  Just look at some of the issues found with in connection with the foreign-born spouse involved in the San Bernardino shooting (here and here and here and here), along with issues relating to Syrian “refugee” immigration (here and here and here and here).

    But you’d think they could get at least the “common stuff” right. Like run-of-the-mill, everyday immigration.

    Unfortunately, you’d be wrong.  From a recent news report (emphasis added):

    The U.S. government has mistakenly granted citizenship to at least 858 immigrants from countries of concern to national security or with high rates of immigration fraud who had pending deportation orders, according to an internal Homeland Security audit released Monday.

    The Homeland Security Department’s inspector general found that the immigrants used different names or birth dates to apply for citizenship with U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services and such discrepancies weren’t caught because their fingerprints were missing from government databases.

    DHS said in an emailed statement that an initial review of these cases suggest that some of the individuals may have ultimately qualified for citizenship, and that the lack of digital fingerprint records does not necessarily mean they committed fraud.

    The report does not identify any of the immigrants by name, but Inspector General John Roth’s auditors said they were all from “special interest countries” — those that present a national security concern for the United States — or neighboring countries with high rates of immigration fraud. The report did not identify those countries.

    Yeah, no need to worry.  The DHS IG says that even though the individuals used an alias or other false data during application, that that “does not necessarily mean they committed fraud”.

    Really, Mr. IG?  Can I come visit the planet on which you’re living?

    So, ICE is going after these folks – right?  They’re being tracked down and prosecuted for fraud, then stripped of their ill-gotten US citizenship – right?

    Hardly.  Two have been.  Prosecutors declined to prosecute another 26.  32 remain under investigation by ICE; they’ve closed 90 investigations.  The status of the remaining, oh, 700+?  Damned if I know.

    Oh, and this might be just the tip of the iceberg with respect to the problem.  The DHS report that found the above issue indicates that digital fingerprints are missing from Federal databases for 315,000 immigrants having final deportation orders on file.  I’m guessing some of those either have or will “slip through the cracks” soon.

    Yahoo News has an article on the subject; it’s worth a read.  Don’t read it if you’re already angry or having a crappy day.

    Unfortunately, I’m guessing if you read it and weren’t already having a crappy day . . . you’ll be having one afterwards.

    Trump’s gotten a lot of grief on various issues, including immigration.  And I can’t say I necessarily like all of his positions or public statements.

    But his recent calls for increased scrutiny of those asking to immigrate to the US certainly seem to me to be on the mark.

  • Mission creep angers Pentagon

    Mission creep angers Pentagon

    The Military Times reports that “mission creep” in Syria has “pissed off” military commanders involved in the war against ISIS;

    [The deal for U.S. military cooperation with Russia] forged by Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart could, for the first time, broaden the American-led air campaign’s target list to include al Nusra, the notorious al Qaida-linked group that is a major actor in the multi-sided Syrian civil war. Until now, the two-year-old U.S. air campaign in Syria has been limited to ISIS.

    “This could be massive mission creep,” said Josh Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma. “The military is pissed off because they’re being asked to do two jobs now. They were asked to do one job, which is kill ISIS. Now John Kerry is asking them to do another job, which is cooperate with Russia and kill al Nusra.”

    The Russians are worried that al-Nusra is a danger to the Syrian President Assad, so they want help from the US to blunt that danger. But that’s in contradiction to the US over-arching strategy to replace the Assad government. Commanders are worried that assets better used against ISIS will be redirected to assist the Russians in their overarching strategy to keep Assad in charge.

    But, you know, that’s what we’ve come to expect from John Kerry making deals with folks – he doesn’t want to clear up issues apparently, he just muddies the water making things more difficult for folks on the ground, the people most directly affected by his “successes”.

    All of this could have been avoided if this administration hadn’t added troops by drips and drabs. Like Desert Storm, we didn’t attack Hussein in Kuwait and Iraq until we had a force to do it in the theater. But this administration doesn’t want to look like it’s going to war, you know, Nobel Peace Prize winners that they are.

  • Jason Falconer; “hero cop” stopped jihadist in Minnesota

    Jason Falconer

    Jason Falconer, the former police chief of Albany, Minnesota was shopping at Crossroads Mall in Saint Cloud, Minnesota the other night when a jihadist began stabbing folks while referencing Allah, whoever that is. When the attacker confronted Falconer, the off-duty, part time cop put an end to the jihad;

    Kleis said the end of the attack and the final confrontation could be seen on video from the Macy’s store. Describing the video, which did not have audio, Kleis said the suspect clearly had a knife in hand, and lunged at Falconer, who fired at him. The suspect fell, then got back up three times before the fatal shot.

    “None of us ever want to have to do that,” said St. Cloud Police Chief Wm. Blair Anderson, “but that’s what we’re here for, and Officer Falconer’s actions were swift and direct, and in my opinion appropriate.”

    Eight others went to the hospital for their injuries.

  • Ahmad Khan Raham manhunt (Updated)

    Ahmad Khan Raham manhunt (Updated)

    Ahmad Khan Raham

    Fox News reports that the FBI has a person of interest in the New York City bombing. His name is Ahmad Khan Raham, a good Irish name, probably a Catholic choirboy.

    “Today I believe we’re going to find out that [the bombing] was influenced by foreign sources,” Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Monday on”Fox & Friends.”

    The search for Rahami comes hours after federal authorities on Sunday night conducted a traffic stop in Brooklyn of a “vehicle of interest” in the Chelsea bombing. A law enforcement source told Fox News that a “number of individuals” who are possibly connected to the explosion were taken into custody.

    Law enforcement officials told the Associated Press that at least five men were being questioned after the Brooklyn traffic stop.

    Ahmad Khan Raham is Afghan by birth and a naturalized US citizen from Elizabeth, New Jersey. According to Fox, the FBI raided a home in Elizabeth and they found five more explosive devices, one of which detonated when they tried to disarm it.

    But the real story about all of this is that Donald Trump told a crowd that it was a bomb that caused the explosion before it had been confirmed.

    Ahmad Khan Raham1

    UPDATE: Busted;

    Ahmad Khan Raham2

    Two police officers were injured in the gun fight, but both are expected to recover. One took a round to his vest, the other, a wound to his hand.