Category: Terror War

According to the Justice Department, Samy Mohamed Hamzeh a twenty-three-year-old Milwaukee man was arrested after he plotted with FBI informants to shoot up a Masonic Lodge with automatic firearms. Originally, Hamzeh had planned to go to Syria and shoot up the joint, but, he decided to attack a US target instead. CS-1 and CS-2 are the confidential informants.

On January 19, 2016, Hamzeh, CS-1 and CS-2 took a guided tour of the Masonic temple, during which they learned meeting schedules and where people would be located during meetings. In a recorded conversation after they left the temple, Hamzeh, discussed his plans with CS-1 and CS-2. In that conversation, Hamzeh reaffirmed his intention to commit an armed attack on the temple and discussed in further detail how they would carry out the attack.

Hamzeh said that they would need two machineguns so that they each would have one (Hamzeh indicated that one CS already had a machinegun), and also said that they would need three silencers:

“We want two machineguns, you now have one, so we want two more, and we need three silencers, that’s it.Find out how much all together these will cost, and then we will march.”

“We want two, like the machinegun you have. . . . And we need silencers. . . . Three, yes three silencers, and that’s it.”

“. . . each one has a weapon, each one has a silencer gun, the operation will be one hundred percent successful.I am telling you, to go without silencer gun, you will be exposed from the beginning.”

So Hamzeh made plans to buy a couple of automatic weapons from FBI agents and they arrested him when he took possession of the firearms and a silencer. Well, that’s one out of how many thousands?

CNN reports that Secretary of State John Kerry admitted to CNBC that he knows that some of the money that we returned to Iran will ultimately fund terrorism;

When asked about whether some the $150 billion in sanctions relief to Iran would go to terrorist groups, Kerry reiterated that, after settling debts, Iran would receive closer to $55 billion. He conceded some of that could go to groups considered terrorists, saying there was nothing the U.S. could do to prevent that.

“I think that some of it will end up in the hands of the IRGC or other entities, some of which are labeled terrorists,” he said in the interview in Davos, referring to Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps. “You know, to some degree, I’m not going to sit here and tell you that every component of that can be prevented.”

But, we can rest assured, according to Kerry, that in the short term, the Iranian government will do only good stuff with their money, that the terrorist funds will be spent on that endeavor later – you know, after there’s a new administration in the White House. “Nothing the U.S. could do to prevent that” is a pansy statement. Of course there’s something that we can do to prevent the money being spent on terrorism. Things like wiping out Iranian-funded terrorists. Or, by putting the fear of God into the Iranians who certainly aren’t concerned about a US retaliation at this point.

SSG E sends us a link to the news that ISIS has destroyed a 1400-year-old Christian monastery in Mosul, Iraq. SSG E says that he attended services in the historic building at one point during his tour of Iraq;

AP has confirmed that the 1,400-year-old St. Elijah’s Monastery of Mosul has been completely destroyed by the group.

U.S. personnel who had served in Mosul and attempted to preserve the historic site are deeply saddened by the destruction.

An army reservist who was deployed there during the Iraq War, Col. Mary Prophit, says she “would imagine that many people are feeling like, ‘What were the last 10 years for if these guys can go in and destroy everything?’”

But, you know, this isn’t a war about religion, we’re told.

US troops visit the monastery;

ISIS troops visit the monastery;

I remember the heady days of the Iraq War when the hippies told us that as soon as the US troops left, the killing in Iraq would end. That was our presence there that fueled the killing of civilians. That Americans were killing the Iraqis. Well, we’ve been gone for years now, so how’s that working for the poor, innocent civilians? According to the United Nations Human Rights Commission, not so well;

A UN report released today details the severe and extensive impact on civilians of the ongoing conflict in Iraq, with at least 18,802 civilians killed and another 36,245 wounded between 1 January 2014 and 31 October 2015. Another 3.2 million people have been internally displaced since January 2014, including more than a million children of school age.

Of the total number of casualties, at least 3,855 civilians were killed and 7,056 wounded between 1 May and 31 October last year – the period covered by the report, although the actual figures could be much higher than those documented. About half of these deaths took place in Baghdad.
– See more at: http://www.ohchr.org/EN/NewsEvents/Pages/DisplayNews.aspx?NewsID=16964&LangID=E#sthash.7oLCrsHU.dpuf

[…]

The report details numerous examples of killings by ISIL in gruesome public spectacles, including by shooting, beheading, bulldozing, burning alive and throwing people off the top of buildings. There are also reports of the murder of child soldiers who fled fighting on the frontlines in Anbar. Information received and verified suggests that between 800 and 900 children in Mosul had been abducted by ISIL for religious education and military training.

“ISIL continued to subject women and children to sexual violence, particularly in the form of sexual slavery,” the report states.

There is also some reports of abuse by Iraqi national troops and peshmerga, but it’s negligible compared to ISIS.