Category: Terror War

According to AFP, Shannon Conley, a nineteen-year-old from Colorado was sentenced to four years in prison for “providing and attempting to provide material support and resources to IS fighters….”

Conley, who struck a plea bargain with prosecutors, had expressed a desire to wage violent jihad, or holy war, after meeting a man on the Internet who claimed to be an active member of IS in Syria.

The duo got engaged and worked together to have Conley travel to Syria to join her new fiance.

Before going, Conley trained to be able to fight and even joined the US Army Explorers (USAE) to learn about military tactics and firearms. She also had first-aid training.

We talked about her and the Army Explorer Scouts back in August and concluded that her Drill & Ceremony training would have really helped ISIS, so luckily she was stopped at that critical juncture. That Land Nav training will really help her in prison.

As we discussed yesterday, the Yemen government is being held hostage in the capitol by Shiite rebels, so the Senate, for some reason, think that we shouldn’t send graduates of our Guantanamo University back there when they complete their studies, according to the Associated Press;

Republican senators introduced legislation last week, citing the Paris and other terrorist attacks, as a reason to legally reinstate a ban on Yemeni transfers among other restrictions on Guantanamo transfers during Obama’s remaining two years in office.

“The last thing we should be doing is transferring detainees from Guantanamo to a country like Yemen,” New Hampshire Republican Sen. Kelly Ayotte said in a news conference to announce the bill. “We have not received assurances from the administration that they will not seek to transfer anyone to Yemen, despite the wild, wild West nature of what we’re facing when it comes to terrorism in Yemen.”

Administration officials say even if they will not send detainees to Yemen now, Obama will not officially reinstate the ban to maintain flexibility in case conditions improve. The officials say he does not want any further restrictions on his ability to close Guantanamo with so little time left to meet his goal of shuttering it.

Yeah, well, the administration, just last week released four graduates to Oman – you, know, the nation right next to Yemen on the Arab Peninsula, so how much difference does it make, really? By the way, the president promised to close Guantanamo by the end of 2009 and that goalpost has been passed by, so what’s the damn rush?

While everyone is focusing on the President’s big speech last night (that I completely ignored), one of our allies in the war against terror is struggling to survive the night. In Yemen, Shiite rebels have overrun the capitol and are shelling the executive residence, according to Fox News;

The Shiite rebels, known as Houthis, took over the capital Sanaa in September as part of a long power struggle with Hadi and effectively govern several other cities as well.

It was unclear whether they intend to seize power altogether or allow the internationally backed president to remain in office.

In a lengthy speech aired by the group’s TV network, rebel leader Abdel-Malek al-Houthi said that “all options are open” and that the escalation “has no ceiling” if Hadi does not speed up implementation of a U.N.-brokered peace deal.

That deal would grant the Houthis greater power over a commission that has been assigned to draft a new constitution and outline a new federal system. Critics of the Houthis say they are using the U.N. deal as a pretext to seize more power.

Reuters recounts President Obama’s words in September;

President Barack Obama cited Yemen as a terrorism success story in a September speech outlining his strategy against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, which involves targeted U.S. strikes on militants with the cooperation of a friendly ground force. Obama called it an approach “that we have successfully pursued in Yemen and Somalia for years.”

But 10 days after the president uttered those words, the Iran-backed Houthi militia swept into Yemen’s capital, Sanaa, seizing a share of power. On Tuesday, those same rebels seized the presidential palace and shelled the president’s residence, leading Yemeni officials to warn of a coup.

It’s like the kiss of death – every time the president talks about an ally and their successes, they run into trouble at home.

Of course, the folks who killed 13 Parisians last week claim they were supported by the local Yemeni al Qaeda branch, despite the fact that this White House has been droning the crap out of them.

According to CNN, things are pretty confusing there today;

One rebel unit with a tank stood guard outside President Abdu Rabu Mansour Hadi’s residence in Yemen’s capital on Wednesday, amid uncertainty over who is in control of the volatile nation after two days of turmoil.

One militiaman told CNN that “the people” are now president of Yemen.

Hadi is said to be inside the residence but it is unclear what is happening inside, or whether he has any loyal guards with him.

A senior leader of the Houthi resistance movement, Abdullah Shabaan, told CNN earlier that the “President’s personal security left him, which forced us to gather hundreds of fighters from our security to ensure he is safe.”

But don’t worry, the UN is on the job;

Members of the U.N. Security Council were briefed by the U.N. special adviser on Yemen, Jamal Benomar, and later issued a statement expressing their concern about the crisis.

I’m sure their concern will bear fruit in regards to the coup very soon. Any minute now.

The Associated Press reports that Canadian soldiers assisting the Iraqis in beating back the Islamic State came under fire from those ISIS forces yesterday while in a planning session with Kurdish and Iraqi commanders near the front;

[Brigadier General Michael Rouleau, commander of special operations command] said the Canadians used sniper fire and “neutralized” the machine gun and mortar without taking any casualties.

“My troops had completed a planning session with senior Iraqi leaders several kilometers behind the front lines,” Rouleau said. “When they moved forward to confirm the planning at the front lines in order to visualize what they had discussed over a map, they came under immediate and effective mortar and machine gun fire.”

The general said that while Canadian soldiers are not participating in active combat, they have the right to fire back if fired upon.

Funny how the enemy has a say in whether you have “boots on the ground” or not, isn’t it?

I guess that there’s still a war going on in the Middle East. AFP reports that Israelis killed an Iranian general during a strike against Hezbollah in the Golan Heights;

Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guards confirmed the death of one of their generals in a statement on their website.

“General Mohammad Ali Allahdadi and a number of fighters and Islamic Resistance (Hezbollah) forces were attacked by the Zionist regime’s helicopters,” it said.

Lay down with dogs and you wake up in pieces. John Kerry still thinks that we can negotiate with the Iranians, but here they are plotting against our allies. Rather openly, too.

In other news, the Saudis have issued “shoot on sight” orders to their border guards in regards to illegals crossing their frontiers with Iraq and Yemen after three of their border guards were killed earlier this month.

Senior commander General Odah al-Balawi was among the three border guards killed in the January 5 clash with four Saudi infiltrators, two of whom blew themselves up.

“After that, we will not negotiate with anyone,” [Major General Mohammed al-Ghamdi] said.

“We will shoot them directly without any warning, without any negotiation.”

Nice to see the Saudis joining in the war against terrorists even if it is only for their own good.

Meanwhile, Syrian Kurds are having some success in taking back Kobani/Kobane;

Kurdish fighters battling the Islamic State jihadist group in Syria’s Kobane have captured a strategic hilltop, giving them line of fire over the town, a monitor said Monday.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Kurdish People’s People Units (YPG) had seized the Mishtenur hilltop after fierce clashes overnight.

“The military operation led to the deaths of at least 11 Islamic State fighters, and the seizure of large quantities of weapons and ammunition,” the Observatory said.

It’s nice to see so much good news coming out of the region. I hope it lasts.