Security concerns after 500 pounds of still-missing explosives stolen from federal bunker

Fox News

Around the same time the nation was transfixed on the hunt for the Boston Marathon bombers last month, thieves on the other side of the country pulled off a little-noticed heist -- swiping 559 pounds of explosives from a federal storage facility in Montana.
As of Friday, not one ounce of it has been found.
The incident, federal officials believe, was not terrorism-related. But it's the latest to raise security concerns in an age when authorities are warning about the desire of violence-bent terrorists to inflict mass casualties with bombs.
Rep. Steve Daines, Montana's only congressman, told FoxNews.com he's "deeply concerned" about the theft in his state and will be "closely monitoring" the investigation.
The explosives were stolen from a locked U.S. Forest Service bunker near Billings. Thieves took off with various emulsion-type explosives, cast boosters and detonating cord.
Federal officials weren't able to point to why the explosives were taken and have downplayed what could happen if they fall into the wrong hands. Some in the area -- who did not want to be named publicly -- believe the facility might have been looted by local miners or by private forestry-related companies that want to bypass buying the explosives legally.

The types of items that were taken are often used in mines, to clear rockslides and construction trails, and to blow up animal carcasses. Strapping sticks of dynamite to a dead animal is a common method used in the region to dispose of the bodies. When animals -- like elk or horses -- start decomposing, the scent attracts bigger animals like bears to populated areas.
Carbon County Sheriff Thomas Rieger told FoxNews.com his office is working with federal authorities to find the culprit but admits it's disturbing to think that someone walked off with hundreds of pounds of bomb-making material.
"We still don't have any idea who done it," Rieger said, adding, "It's under a full investigation."
Daines, a member of the Homeland Security Committee, said he's looking into the investigation and it's "critical that the USFS, ATF and local law enforcement find answers about how the security of this site was breached and work to strengthen the security measures for these storage sites to ensure that a theft like this does not happen again."
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives spokesman Brad Beyersdorf said the agency is offering a $5,000 reward for information on the incident. Stealing explosives and possession of stolen explosives is punishable by up to 10 years in prison. To date, there have been no arrests made in connection to the case, though the Billings Gazette reports that the ATF is chasing some recent leads.
While Beyersdorf stressed that security at ATF-affiliated facilities in the country is tight, there have been an alarming amount of explosives lost from private sites over the past decade.
On Aug. 11, 2011, Travis McQueen broke into storage units at the Buckley Powder Company in Cass County, Neb., and stole 100 pounds of blasting agents, two cases of boosters and 3,000 feet of detonating cord. Authorities in the eastern Nebraska area put up flyers asking residents for help in cracking the case. An anonymous caller led federal agents to McQueen. Soon thereafter, authorities arrested Christopher Bousman in connection to the crime.
According to court records, McQueen stole the explosives and asked Bousman to help get rid of them. The two dumped the bulk of the stolen property into the Missouri and Platte rivers. McQueen was sentenced to 63 months in prison. On Monday, an Omaha federal judge sentenced Bousman to 18 months behind bars followed by three years of supervised release, Criminal Chief Jan Sharp told FoxNews.com.
Not much of the blasting agent was recovered after it was thrown into the river, Sharp said. The incident is the only sizeable theft of this nature in Nebraska.
In 2005, massive amounts of stolen explosives were also found after they went missing from the Cherry Engineering storage site near Albuquerque, N.M. ATF agents recovered 150 pounds of C-4 explosives, 250 pounds of sheet explosives, 20,000 feet of detonator cord and 2,500 blasting caps.
Federal authorities at the time said they didn't know what the thieves planned to do with the material but did say the amount that went missing was enough to flatten a large building. Most of the explosives eventually turned up in Bloomfield and Ignacio.
The problem of stolen dynamite isn't just a domestic one.
Missing explosives and other weapons made in the U.S. or under the guard of U.S. security forces, have mysteriously disappeared from multiple locations across the world -- most recently in Kuwait. The Interior Ministry said last month thieves broke into an unguarded warehouse and took 20,000 U.S.-origin M-16 assault rifles. Also lifted were 15,000 rounds of ammunition for 9mm pistols. According to Middle East Newsline, thieves broke down three doors before clearing out all the contents in the warehouse.  

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/10/500-pounds-still-missing-explosives-highlights-federal-security-flaws/#ixzz2SuB0B9Ac

Is This The Reasion Why The White House Will Not Release The Benghazi Emails?

War News Updates

Acting U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Elizabeth Jones told Libya's president one day after the Benghazi attack that Islamic terrorists had killed the U.S. Ambassador and reduced the compound to a burnt-out shell

Secret Email Reveals Top Official Told Libya's U.S. Abmassador That Terrorists Were Behind Benghazi Attack - Four Days BEFORE U.S. Ambassador To UN Said It Was A Spontaneous Attack -- Daily Mail

Sept. 11: Terrorists attack the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya
Sept. 12: State Dept. Assistant Secretary for Near Eastern Affairs tells Libya's President that Ansar al-Sharia was responsible
Sept. 13: CIA writes candid talking points for members of Congress
Sept. 15: White House deputies edit the talking points, removing all references to Islamic terrorism
Sept. 16: UN Ambassador Susan Rice, in five television interviews, blames the attack on a spontaneous mob angered by an anti-Islam YouTube video

A top State Department appointee told Libya's ambassador to the United States one day after the military-style assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi that the terror group Ansar al-Shariah was responsible.

But four days later, the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations said on television that it was the product of a spontaneous protest.

During a fiery and emotional congressional hearing on the 2012 attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Rep. Trey Gowdy read aloud from an email dated Sept. 12, 2012 to senior State Department officers, from Elizabeth Jones, the acting Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs.

Read more >>

Boehner calls for release of Benghazi emails as pressure grows on administration

Fox News

Pressure on the Obama administration to release more information about the Benghazi attack grew Thursday, as House Speaker John Boehner demanded officials turn over emails pertaining to the controversial "talking points" and another top Republican appealed for more whistle-blowers to come forward.
On the heels of a dramatic hearing where three whistle-blowers testified, Fox News has learned that former Vice President Dick Cheney on Thursday, on the Hill for a meeting with House Republicans, also told lawmakers: "I think Hillary (Clinton) should be subpoenaed if necessary."
The comments and developments signal that Republicans will continue to press for answers on the deadly Sept. 11 attack. Despite arguments from Democrats that the hearing was not nearly as shocking as Republicans made it out to be, GOP lawmakers said it raised troubling questions that need to be investigated.
"The truth shouldn't be hidden from the American people behind a White House firewall," Boehner said Thursday. "Four Americans lost their lives in this terrorist attack. Congress will continue to investigate this issue, using all of the resources at our disposal."
Boehner specifically urged the Obama administration to make public a set of internal emails that some lawmakers had been able to review but not keep.
One of the emails apparently showed a top State Department official saying a group affiliated with Islamic terrorists was responsible for the strike. Separate emails, though, allegedly depict the White House and State Department pressing lower-level officials to remove references to terrorism in talking points about the attacks.
Based on those talking points, U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice would go on five Sunday talk shows shortly after the attacks to claim they were triggered by protests over an anti-Islam film. Top officials would later claim the flawed assessment was based on the best intelligence at the time, but the testimony from whistle-blowers Wednesday indicated that those on the ground knew the attack was terrorism.
"The YouTube video was a non-event in Libya," Greg Hicks, deputy chief of mission in Libya, testified Wednesday.
After the hearing, Republican Rep. Darrell Issa said he will continue to seek whistle-blowers to "come forward."
"Candidly, as quickly as possible, we simply want to have the whistleblowers that are still out there, in fact witnesses that are still out there to come forward, tell us their story. We will get it out and we will close up this investigation," he told Fox News.
Issa, R-Calif., is chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which held the hearing.
The wide-ranging and dramatic testimony Wednesday raised several fresh questions about the attack. Witnesses questioned why security had not been tightened in Benghazi in the months leading up to the assault and why U.S. military assets did not respond sooner that night, with one alleging a military team was not given permission to fly from Tripoli to Benghazi the next morning.
Further, they raised serious concerns about the administration's initial decision to describe the attack as a protest gone awry despite evidence on the ground to the contrary.
In startling testimony, Hicks also claimed the State Department retaliated against him after he raised questions about that decision. He claimed that Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs Elizabeth Jones delivered a "blistering critique" of his management style after he criticized Rice's initial claim that the attack was tied to anger over an anti-Islam film. He also claimed that he was counseled to avoid personally discussing the attack with Republican Rep. Jason Chaffetz and was "effectively demoted" to a desk officer in the end.
Issa, in a written statement after Wednesday's hearing, called the alleged retaliation and intimidation "perhaps most troubling."
Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Md., top Democrat on the committee, vowed to protect the whistle-blowers while criticizing his Republican colleagues for allegedly trying to politicize the tragedy. He claimed afterward that the testimony only served to undercut Republican allegations.
"What should have been a bipartisan investigation involving our national security was another sorry example of Republicans promising explosive new facts but delivering only a press spectacle," he said in a statement.
The committee may move to hear testimony next from at least one leader of the State Department's internal review of the Benghazi attack. Though the leaders, former Joints Chiefs of Staff Adm. Mike Mullen and former Ambassador Thomas Pickering, apparently declined to testify, Pickering told MSNBC on Wednesday that he is willing to speak.
Issa spokesman Frederick Hill on Thursday noted the "change of heart" -- but also said neither Pickering nor the administration has contacted the committee about possible testimony.
Several claims from Wednesday's hearing could open up new lines of inquiry on the attack and its aftermath. Among them, Hicks claimed that Rice's faulty claims about the nature of the attack hurt the FBI investigation.
Hicks argued that Rice's comments so insulted the Libyan president -- since they contradicted his Sept. 16 claims that the attack was premeditated -- that it slowed the FBI's investigation.
"President Magariaf was insulted in front of his own people, in front of the world. His credibility was reduced," Hicks said, adding that the president was apparently "still steamed" two weeks later.
This bad blood, he claimed, contributed to the FBI team being stuck in Tripoli for about 17-18 days.
"I definitely believe that it negatively affected our ability to get the FBI team quickly to Benghazi," he said, adding that the U.S. could not even get the Libyans to secure the crime scene during that time.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/09/issa-seeks-more-whistle-blowers-after-dramatic-benghazi-hearing/#ixzz2Sp6u0oH4

Boston police chief says feds never shared warnings about bomber

Fox News

Boston and Massachusetts law enforcement officials confirmed Thursday that federal agents left them in the dark on the growing warning signs about Tamerlan Tsarnaev in the run-up to the Boston Marathon bombing.
Boston Police Commissioner Edward Davis, in testimony on Capitol Hill, said his officers on a joint terrorism task force were never told about an explicit warning from the Russian government or about Tsarnaev's travel to the Chechnya region last year. Davis said he would have liked to have known about that activity, and that it "absolutely" would have merited a second look at Tsarnaev.
Davis and Massachusetts homeland security official Kurt Schwartz testified that their officers were not looped in on Tsarnaev until after the bombing.
"At no time prior to the bombings did any member of the Massachusetts State Police or the fusion center have any information or knowledge about the Tsarnaev brothers," Schwartz said.
Current and former lawmakers at the committee hearing Thursday expressed disbelief at the lack of information-sharing.
"The idea that the feds have this information and it's not shared with the state and locals defies why we create the Department of Homeland Security in the first place," said Rep. Michael McCaul, R-Texas, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.
Former Sen. Joseph Lieberman, a witness at Thursday's hearing, called the failure to tell Boston police about the brothers "a serious and aggravating omission."
"This may be one of the most significant and painful takeaway lessons," he said.
Officials continue to question what warning signs were missed about the Tsarnaev brothers. Attention has been drawn to a 2011 warning from the Russian government to the FBI about Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The FBI has revealed it was told Tsarnaev was a "follower of radical Islam" and was preparing to travel overseas. The FBI says it interviewed Tsarnaev and found no evidence of terrorist involvement.
Tsarnaev ended up traveling to Russia for six months in early 2012.
Even in the federal government, information may not have traveled across all relevant agencies. Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano has said the government's internal system "pinged" when Tsarnaev left the country in 2012, though a Republican senator has said the FBI claimed they were not aware of that trip.
Davis said Thursday his department was not told of any of those developments, and repeatedly said he would have liked to know.
"We were not aware of Tamerlan's activities," he said. Davis said he can't say he would have reached a different conclusion than the FBI, but the developments would have prompted another look.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/09/boston-police-chief-says-feds-never-shared-warnings-about-bomber/#ixzz2Sp4VVs5X

Diplomats criticize Benghazi response in GOP-led probe

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Linkage Between Boston Marathon Bombers And Prominent Islamist In Russia

War News Updates

Magomed Kartashov/ world.time.com

Exclusive: Dagestani Relative of Tamerlan Tsarnaev Is A Prominent Islamist -- Simon Shuster, Time

Last year, when Tamerlan Tsarnaev spent six months in the Russian region of Dagestan, he had a guide with an unusually deep knowledge of the local Islamist community: a distant cousin named Magomed Kartashov. Six years older than Tsarnaev, Kartashov is a former police officer and freestyle wrestler—and one of the region’s most prominent Islamists.

In 2011 Kartashov founded and became the leader of an organization called the Union of the Just, whose members campaign for sharia law and pan-Islamic unity in Dagestan, often speaking out against U.S. policies across the Muslim world. The group publicly renounces violence. But some of its members have close links to militants; others have served time in prison for weapons possession and abetting terrorism—charges they say were based on fabricated evidence. For Tsarnaev, these men formed a community of pious young Muslims with whom he could discuss his ideas of jihad. Tsarnaev’s mother, Zubeidat, confirmed that her son is Kartashov’s third cousin. The two met for the first time in Dagestan, she said, and “became very close.”

Read more >>

Canada pulls plug on funding program to retrain ex-Soviet scientists

Macleans.ca

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird

OTTAWA – Canada is pulling out of two international programs aimed at ensuring ex-Soviet scientists don’t end up working for terrorist groups.

The programs, one in Moscow and the other in Ukraine, were set up in the early 1990s as a means to give weapons experts a place to work following the collapse of the Soviet Union.

But the work of both centres was given greater heft by G8 nations at the 2002 summit in Alberta, when the international body agreed to spend $20 billion on a ten-year program to combat the spread of weapons of mass destruction.

One of the four key pillars of the so-called global partnership was scientist engagement, via the redirection of former weapons scientists.

Since then, Canada has contributed some $60 million to International Science and Technology Center Moscow and the Science and Technology Center in Ukraine.

The need for the centres has passed, Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird said Tuesday.

“This is an organization which was established as the Cold War was ending to finance support in the former Soviet Union so that senior nuclear experts didn’t go and work in other parts of the world,” Baird said.

“Given we’re some 25 years out from that, the program has largely been successful. Most of the people have retired.”

But a former Canadian ambassador for disarmament questioned why, if that’s the case, Canada appears to be unilaterally abandoning a program that G8 nations championed as recently as the 2011 summit in France.

At that meeting, the G8 agreed to continue funding the global partnership for another 10 years and maintained that the scientist engagement strategy should remain a priority.

“It is a little curious, if that was all restated so recently, that there’s been a decision that this work is now complete and not requiring any further support,” Paul Meyer said.

“You would have thought if there was to be a determination of that nature, that it would be done more collectively by the G8 and other states that have co-operated with the global partnership endeavour.”

Canada is still funding the global partnership; last year, the government announced $367 million over five years aimed at “building on past initiatives to enhance global weapons of mass destruction security.”

“In effect we’re actually spending substantially more than we did when that program was created,” Baird said.

“We’re just focusing it on where the new weapons of mass destruction are.”

In the case of the Moscow centre, its future was placed in doubt two years ago when Russia announced its intention to withdraw.

Many took that as a sign of that program’s eventual collapse, likely by 2015, which is the deadline Russia has placed for the conclusion of research programs taking place in its own country.

Canada’s withdrawal is a logical step, suggested Elena Sokova, the executive director of the Vienna Center for Disarmament and Non-Proliferation.

“It’s winding down,” she said of the Moscow centre.

“And I think the purpose of the centre has been indeed served. I’m not suggesting there aren’t problems to deal with but the instrument of the centre, the way it was established, the way it served needs, the idea is over. It’s time to move on.”

Meyer said that while the Moscow centre’s demise have been hastened by Russia’s withdrawal, there are still programs being undertaken by other countries and offers from them to play host to the facility headquarters.

Meanwhile, there have been no similar signals sent by the Ukrainian government about a desire to shutter the facility there.

It has, however, been struggling with funding shortfalls, in part because two years ago Canada dramatically scaled back funding to its operations, catching it off guard.

That announcement came just after Canada volunteered to help the organization restructure, according to documents posted on the Ukraine centre’s website.

The decision to stop funding the two centres is the latest exit Canada has made from a multilateral organization or treaty that the Conservative government has declared past its best-before-date.

They include a decision to withdraw from a United Nations convention that fights droughts in Africa and elsewhere.

The government said membership was costly and of little benefit to Canadians.

Benghazi Hearing Aims to Reveal High Level Decision-Makers

breitbart

By Kerry Picket 

Republicans on the House Oversight Committee say there will be “explosive” revelations that will come forth during the Committee’s hearing on Wednesday when three State Department witnesses reveal what they knew the night the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya were attacked by terrorists. Committee members will be hearing the testimonies of State Department employees Greg Hicks, Mark Thompson, and Eric Nordstrom.

The Committee appears to be interested in finding out who ultimately made the decision to tell military assets not to send help to the Americans who were under assault in Benghazi on September 11, 2012. The attack took the lives of four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens.

Congressman Trey Gowdy (R-SC), a member of the Oversight Committee, has said the whistleblower witnesses will discuss whether or not there could have been military assets deployed during the siege that could have saved the lives of former Navy SEALS Tyrone Woods and Glenn Doherty.  

Hicks told the Oversight Committee in April:

If we had got clearance from the Libyan military for an American plane to fly over Libyan airspace. The Libyans that I talked to and the Libyans and other Americans who were involved in the war have told me also that Libyan revolutionaries were very cognizant of the impact that American and NATO airpower had with respect to their victory. They are under no illusions that American and NATO airpower won that war for them.  And so, in my personal opinion, a fastmover flying over Benghazi at some point, you know, as soon as possible might very well have prevented some of the bad things that happened that night.

“[T]he administration says we couldn’t have gotten there in time which defies logic, because they had no idea had long the attack was going to last,” Gowdy told Fox News on Tuesday night. “Mr. Thompson is going to shed light on...the siege itself and whether or not our fellow Americans were crying for help and we could have helped them and for whatever reason chose not to,” he said.

Additionally, Gowdy says he will be questioning the witnesses about the administration’s explanation for falsely blaming an online video, made in part by California resident and Coptic Christian Mark Basseley Youssef, for instigating the attack on the consulate. U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice went onto five Sunday news shows following the attack and touted the administration’s position that the video was the reason for the attack on the consulate.

“You’re going to know that [Ambassador Susan Rice] was demonstrably false. You’re going to know that she was the only person who held onto that narrative even after everyone else went away from it,” Gowdy said, adding, “And importantly..what you're going to hear that this cover up, her choosing to rely on those false talking points about the video, impeded and obstructed our ability to get at what happened in Benghazi. The [FBI] was denied access to the crime scene as a direct result of her false narrative that it was a video.”

Hicks will tell the Committee, according to Gowdy, how the State Department attempted to protect high-level officials at the Department after the attack. Excerpts of Hicks’ interview with the Committee show Hicks thought the Department's Benghazi Accountability Review Board (ARB) report did not palace blame on anyone, telling the Committee:

I thought it was incomplete. I thought that it was--that the recommendations were unbalanced in favor of building higher walls, pouring more concrete, that it was insufficiently strong in recommending that the State Department personnel needed to have more and better training to be deployed to critical threat environments…
I mean, the ARB report itself doesn’t really ascribe blame to any individual at all. The public report anyway....It does let people off the hook. In our system, people who make decisions have been confirmed by the Senate to make decisions. The three people in the State Department who are on administrative leave pending disciplinary action are below Senate confirmation level.  Now, the DS assistant secretary resigned, and he is at Senate confirmation level. Yet the paper trail is pretty clear that decisions were being made above his level. Certainly the fact that Under Secretary Kennedy required a daily report of the personnel in country and who personally approved every official American who went to Tripoli or Benghazi, either on assignment or TDY, would suggest some responsibility about security levels within the country lies on his desk...

The witnesses will likely be asked to describe what their transition was like after the attack, particularly focusing in on any threats they may have received from the State Department if they broke their silence about what they knew.

CBS News: U.S. Diplomat Contradicts White House on Benghazi

breitbart

Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley was fired: Army forsakes combat hero for Muslims

wnd

www.familysecuritymatters.org

The U.S. Army has further punished a highly respected and decorated officer in the wake of Muslim groups complaining about the approved course he taught on radical Islam at National Defense University.

In October, we reported that Lt. Col. Matthew Dooley was fired from his position at the school for the way he conducted a class on how to respond to a variety of scenarios instigated by radical Muslims. A visitor to the class found the discussions offensive to Muslims and informed some 57 Islamic organizations, which then complained to Gen. Martin Dempsey, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. In addition to the firing, Gen. Dempsey promptly orchestrated a negative Officer Evaluation Report against Dooley that deeply tarnished a career that had received only sterling reviews from West Point through nearly 20 years in the service. Dempsey never discussed the incident with Dooley.

On Sunday, the Washington Times reported Dooley has been punished again, this time as he pursued the role of battalion commander. According to the Times, an Army command selection board studied Dooley’s record and candidacy for a command assignment. The five-member panel agreed to keep Dooley under consideration. Shortly thereafter, Gen. Lloyd J. Austin III, who at the time was Army vice chief and subsequently became head of U.S. Central Command, overruled the board in a brief memo. His actions could effectively spell the end of Dooley’s career.

“There was no reason given, and that’s also a very disturbing aspect of it,” said Richard Thompson, president of the Thomas More Law Center, who is representing Dooley in his original appeal of his firing and negative review. “The way they’re treating him now is not only a total miscarriage of justice on a personal level, but it also is really removing an effective combat leader from the Army, and it ultimately effects the national security of the United States.”

Thompson told WND he doesn’t believe this order originated with Gen. Austin. Instead, he believes Gen. Dempsey gave the order and Austin chose to follow so as not to impair his own career. However it happened, he said Lt. Col. Dooley is the victim of a dangerous policy.

“Instead of being loyal to the people that are loyal to you, they would rather throw Lt. Col. Dooley under the bus for their own advancement or to appease the Muslims, which ultimately could lead to the destruction of the United States internally. If we cannot accurately describe who the enemy is, how can we win a war?” asked Thompson.

Dooley’s appeal of his initial punishment is still processing through the military bureaucracy. Thompson said Dooley will file a federal suit to defend his constitutional rights if the Army appeal is denied.

Don’t Forget Misha:Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s possible mentor

NewZeal

By: Bethany Stotts
Accuracy in Media

The mainstream media are absent on the Misha story, preferring to let the discussion of Tamerlan Tsarnaev’s possible mentor devolve into hearsay reporting rather than to delve in-depth into the background of this Islamist. Perhaps he undermines the narrative that this was a couple of self-radicalized kids who were just taking out their anger at America for the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Who is Misha? “Misha was an Armenian native and a convert to Islam and quickly began influencing his new friend, family members said,” according to the Associated Press. “Under the tutelage of a friend known to the Tsarnaev family only as Misha, Tamerlan gave up boxing and stopped studying music, his family said. He began opposing the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He turned to websites and literature claiming that the CIA was behind the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, and Jews controlled the world.”

“Tamerlan loved music and, a few years ago, he sent Khozhugov [his brother-in-law] a song he’d composed in English and Russian,” continues the AP. “He said he was about to start music school.” Then, after talking with Misha, he decided that Islam could not support his musical goals.

“Musical instruments are considered haram (sinful) by Islamists,” outlines Abdel Bari Atwan in his recent book After bin Laden: Al Qaeda, the Next Generation. “Ibn Tamiyyah—a scholar widely admired by jihadis—said that music is ‘alcohol to one’s soul.’”

The younger Tsarnaev brother has confessed to the authorities that the Boston bombs were designed using the recipe outlined by al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula’s online jihadist magazine, Inspire. But, as the Misha connection shows, Tamerlan’s views may not have been only radicalized over the Internet—they were likely radicalized first at home. The Tsarnaev brothers’ uncle, Ruslan Tsarni told the Daily Mail that “that the man responsible was a cleric aged around 30 called Misha and that he was an Armenian who, unusually for such a largely Christian people, had converted to Islam.”

“As far as he knew Misha was based in a mosque that was a short drive from Cambridge and that he was new to Islam.”

Last weekend, Christian Caryl, a regular contributor to The New York Review of Books, located Misha, also known as Mikhail Allakhverdov. “He confirmed he was a convert to Islam and that he had known Tamerlan Tsarnaev, but he flatly denied any part in the bombings,” reports Caryl. The interview doesn’t indicate whether he was a cleric, as Uncle Tsarni alleged. “I wasn’t his teacher. If I had been his teacher, I would have made sure he never did anything like this,” Allakhverdov told Caryl.

The FBI would not disclose to Caryl whether Allakhverdov was connected to the bombing, so Caryl relies on statements by anonymous government officials that he had no connection to the bombing.

Regardless of whether Misha aided in the bombings, isn’t what he taught Tamerlan—that he might have radicalized him—still of interest?

The stories between Misha and Tamerlan’s uncle Tsarni are simply irreconcilable. “A close friend of the family in Boston said that Misha was not known to have visited Tamerlan at home,” reports Caryl. (Relatives said otherwise.) “I interviewed Allakhverdov in Russian and it seems likely that in whatever contact the two men had, they would have spoken Russian.”

If these two stories don’t match, then why aren’t the media digging deeper into this issue? Perhaps they are afraid of the Islamist angle. This piece by the Los Angeles Times does little but repeat the family’s side and Allakhverdov’s assertion that he was not Tamerlan’s teacher. The Boston Herald likewise reprinted his assertion, as did CBS Boston.

“CNN has made repeated efforts to speak with Allakhverdov, but has so far been unsuccessful,” report Josh Levs and Ben Brumfield for CNN. Allakhverdov is also not speaking to The Washington Post.

Todd Wallack and Lisa Wangness of the Boston Globe, in contrast, asked the hard questions. “The Review of Books published a brief account of the interview with Allakhverdov on its blog Sunday night, saying the item was part of a longer piece on the Tsarnaev family and Boston’s Russian and Chechen community to be published in a forthcoming edition of the journal,” they wrote for the Boston Globe. “But the brief account left many questions unanswered…There was no information about Tamerlan’s religious beliefs or politics, nor was there an explanation of why the two men stopped talking.”

Since Allakhverdov clearly has no interest in speaking to the press further, as evinced by his refusal to speak to the Post or CNN, perhaps a little investigative journalism is in order. These future stories should center around facts, not hearsay quotes from either party.

However, as of this writing the media appears to have dropped the story entirely, abrogating its journalistic duties.

BENGHAZI: Names of ‘whistleblower’ witnesses revealed

Fox News

Their identities have been a well-guarded secret, known only to their high-powered lawyers and a handful of House lawmakers and staff. But now Fox News has learned the names of the self-described Benghazi “whistleblowers” who are set to testify before a widely anticipated congressional hearing on Wednesday.

Appearing before the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee will be three career State Department officials: Gregory N. Hicks, the deputy chief of mission at the U.S. Embassy in Libya at the time of the Benghazi terrorist attacks; Mark I. Thompson, a former Marine and now the deputy coordinator for Operations in the agency’s Counterterrorism Bureau; and Eric Nordstrom, a diplomatic security officer who was the regional security officer in Libya, the top security officer in the country in the months leading up to the attacks.

U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other Americans were killed in the Sept. 11, 2012, attacks on the U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya.

Hicks was at the time of the highest-ranking American diplomat in the country.

Nordstrom previously testified before the oversight committee, which is chaired by Rep. Darrell Issa, R-Calif., in October 2012. Of the three witnesses, he is the only one who does not consider himself a whistleblower. At last fall's hearing, however, Nordstrom made headlines by detailing for lawmakers the series of requests that he, Ambassador Stevens, and others had made for enhanced security at the U.S. consulate in Benghazi in the period preceding the attacks, requests mostly rejected by State Department superiors.

"For me the Taliban is on the inside of the [State Department] building," Nordstrom testified, angry over inadequate staffing at a time when the threat environment in Benghazi was deteriorating, 

The other two witnesses have not been heard from publicly before.

Hicks is a veteran Foreign Service officer whose overseas postings have also included Afghanistan, Syria, and Yemen.

Rep. Jason Chaffetz, a Utah Republican and committee member, said Hicks was in Tripoli at 9:40 p.m. local time when he received one of Stevens’ earliest phone calls amid the crisis.

“We’re under attack! We’re under attack!” the ambassador reportedly shouted into his cell phone at Hicks.

Chaffetz, who subsequently debriefed Hicks, also said the deputy “immediately called into Washington to trigger all the mechanisms” for an inter-agency response.

“The real-life trauma that [Hicks] went through,” Chaffetz recalled to Fox News’ Greta Van Susteren, “I mean, I really felt it in his voice. It was hard to listen to. He’s gone through a lot, but he did a great job.”

 According to the State Department website, Thompson “advises senior leadership on operational counterterrorism matters, and ensures that the United States can rapidly respond to global terrorism crises.”

Five years before the Benghazi attacks, he lectured at a symposium hosted by the University of Central Florida and titled “The Global Terrorism Challenge: Answers to Key Questions.”

Joe diGenova, a former U.S. attorney, and wife Victoria Toensing, a former chief counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee -- Republicans -- disclosed this week that in their private practice in the nation’s capital, they now represent pro bono two career State Department employees who regard themselves as “whistleblowers” and would be testifying before Issa’s committee at its next Benghazi hearing, on May 8. 

The lawyers said their clients believe their accounts of Benghazi were spurned by the Accountability Review board (ARB), the official investigative body convened by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to review the terrorist attacks, and that the two employees have faced threats and intimidation from as-yet-unnamed superiors.

 “I'm not talking generally, I'm talking specifically about Benghazi -- that people have been threatened,” Toensing told Fox News on Wednesday. “And not just the State Department; people have been threatened at the CIA….It's frightening….They're taking career people and making them well aware that their careers will be over.”

DiGenova told Fox News on Thursday, by way of describing his and Toensing’s respective clients: “There were people who were material witnesses, who wanted to talk to [the ARB], and they were not allowed to talk to them.

“The people that we are representing are career civil servants...people who have served the country overseas…in dangerous positions all over the world, have risked their lives and only want to tell the truth.”

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/04/benghazi-names-whistleblower-witnesses-revealed/#ixzz2SLMK0Ct5

Special ops called for military backup during Libya attack, sources say

Fox News

By Adam Housley

On the night of the Benghazi terror attack, special operations put out multiple calls for all available military and other assets to be moved into position to help -- but the State Department and White House never gave the military permission to cross into Libya, sources told Fox News.
The disconnect was one example of what sources described as a communication breakdown that left those on the ground without outside help.
"When you are on the ground, you depend on each other -- we're gonna get through this situation. But when you look up and then nothing outside of the stratosphere is coming to help you or rescue you, that's a bad feeling," one source said.
Multiple sources spoke to Fox News about what they described as a lack of action in Benghazi on Sept. 11 last year, when four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed.
"They had no plan. They had no contingency plan for if this happens, and that's the problem this is going to face in the future," one source said. "They're dealing with more hostile regions, hostile countries. This attack's going to happen again."
Under normal circumstances, authorities in Benghazi would have fallen under the chief of mission, one source said -- the person in charge of security in the country who in this case was Stevens. But once Stevens was cornered and members of his security detail pushed his distress button, that authority would have been transferred to his deputy. However, that deputy was out of the country.
That meant the authority then reverted directly to the U.S. State Department, and oversight of the response to the attack that night fell to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Undersecretary of State Patrick Kennedy, who were calling the shots.
Sources said that shortly after the attack began around 9:40 p.m., special forces put out the calls for assets to be moved into position.
"What that does is that enacts ... every asset, every element to respond and it becomes a global priority," one source said. "I would tell you that was given and the only reason it was given is because of special operations pack."
However, the source said, "Assets did not move."
The failure of the State Department or White House to give the military permission to go into Libya, according to the source, only accentuates the significant breakdown in communication among the State Department, military, CIA and White House.
"I can see the initial confusion in the beginning. I mean, you have a situation that's developing. The problem with the State Department is they don't have procedures in place. And if they do, they haven't practiced or exercised them. And now they are making up for all the mistakes they have made, with excuse. And there is no excuse," the source said, describing a "huge breakdown between State and military."
Last October, then-Defense Secretary Leon Panetta defended the response, saying the military was reluctant to put forces at risk.
"You don't deploy forces into harm's way without knowing what's going on, without having some real-time information about what's taking place," Panetta said. "And as a result of not having that kind of information, the commander who was on the ground in that area, General Ham, General Dempsey and I felt very strongly that we could not put forces at risk in that situation."
The State Department Accountability Review Board, which investigated the attack and what led up to it, also claimed that "Washington-Tripoli-Benghazi communication, cooperation, and coordination on the night of the attacks were effective."
But one source told Fox News there was "not good communication" between State and Defense "on any level."

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2013/05/02/special-ops-called-for-military-assets-to-move-into-position-during-libya/#ixzz2S9GqlqN1

FBI seeks help identifying three suspects seen at Benghazi mission during attack

FBI seeks help identifying three suspects seen at Benghazi mission during attack

FBI.gov

The FBI is seeking information about these three individuals who were on the grounds of the U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi when it was attacked on Sept. 11, 2012.

By Richard Esposito, Jonathan Dienst and Joe Valiquette
NBC News

The FBI is seeking the public’s help identifying three suspects captured by surveillance cameras on the grounds of the U.S. Special Mission in Benghazi, Libya, when it was attacked on Sept. 11, 2012. U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens and three other Americans died in the nighttime assault.

The FBI, working with a number of U.S. and foreign agencies, has identified about 45 persons suspected of involvement in the attack, according to law enforcement sources who spoke with NBC News on condition of anonymity. Of those 45 about 25 have been identified, they said.

The bureau, which posted photos of the trio on its website, did not explain why it focused on them among the 25 unidentified suspects.

“We are seeking information about three individuals who were on the grounds of the U.S. Special Mission when it was attacked,” it said in a short post accompanying the photos. “These individuals may be able to provide information to help in the investigation.”

The FBI urged anyone with information to send a text or email to BenghaziTips@ic.fbi.gov.

Up to several hundred gunmen attacked the U.S. diplomatic mission and a CIA annex in Benghazi in the night of the 11th anniversary of the September 11, 2001 attacks on New York and Washington by al Qaeda.

The incident has raised questions about the adequacy of security at U.S. embassies around the globe and where to draw the line between protecting American diplomats in dangerous places and giving them enough freedom to do their jobs.

U.S. intelligence officials say militants with ties to al Qaeda affiliates were likely involved in the attack and witnesses say members of the Islamist Ansar al-Shariah group were at the scene.

Libyan authorities said eight people were detained in the immediate aftermath of the attack and around 50 were "wanted for investigation.” The eight turned out to be only looters, Reuters reported in December, citing local officials.

SWAT team: ‘Boston bomber’ possibly not shot

wnd

Joe Kovacs

Jeff Campbell of the MBTA Transit Police SWAT team describes 
the wound on Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's neck.

Was Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old suspect in this month’s bombing at the Boston Marathon, actually shot in the neck as news reports have suggested?

Or did he merely suffer a cut on his throat?

A televised interview with the SWAT team that caught the accused terrorist is raising new questions.

Until now, news media have indicated Tsarnaev likely suffered a gunshot wound to his throat.

New York’s Newsday reported, “Authorities believe Tsarnaev may have tried to shoot himself before he was taken into custody Friday night [April 19] because of the trajectory and location of the bullet wound in his neck, a source familiar with the investigation said. The shot was fired at close range, the source said, suggesting the wound was self-inflicted.”

The Boston Herald reported Tsarnaev “survived bullets to the head, neck and hand.”

However, during an interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, the police SWAT team which apprehended Tsarnaev voiced a different view of the teen’s injury.

“I did see a throat injury. To me it looked more like a knife wound,” said Officer Jeff Campbell of the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority Transit Police SWAT Unit.

“It wasn’t a puncture hole. It was a slice where it was spread open, possibly a piece of shrapnel from one of the explosives that they were using the night before. It didn’t look like a bullet wound to me. It looked like a cut of some kind.”

Campbell held his fingers on the right side of his neck to demonstrate where the wound was specifically located.

Curiously, though, when CNN posted that interview online on YouTube, it edited out Campbell’s comments describing Tsarnaev’s throat injury.

“These remarks are from a SWAT team so they would know what a bullet wound would look like,” one analyst told WND. “So until his arrest, he was not shot in the throat.”

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was apparently photographed leaving the scene of the April 15 bombing by a man who was running the Boston Marathon.

A photo by marathon runner David Green of Jacksonville 
Beach, Fla., apparently shows bombing suspect Dzhokhar 
Tsarnaev wearing a white hat uninjured as he leaves the
scene of the April 15, 2013, explosions.

“My first reaction, as people were really charging me – you know it was a stampede – and I could either flee or kind of go and help. I pulled my camera out and took one snapshot,” David Green, 49, of Jacksonville Beach, Fla., told WFTS-TV.

“I took that one picture that could have been helpful, so it’s about the greatest win I could ever have right there to have helped.”

An FBI agent told Green his photo was the best lead the bureau had. The image gives no indication of any wound the teen may have suffered in the marathon explosions.

Dzhokhar’s older brother Tamerlan Tsarnaev, 26, was killed April 19 during a gunfight in Watertown, Mass., with police who had pursued him and his teen brother after the killing of an MIT police officer and a carjacking.

The Herald noted a doctor who treated Tamerlan Tsarnaev said he had gunshot, shrapnel and blast wounds, and that police said Dzhokhar, while fleeing the scene of the shootout, drove over Tamerlan’s body.

The SWAT team took Dzhokhar into custody after he was found hiding in a dry-docked boat in the back yard of a local resident.

Reports by the New York Post and Washington Post said he had no gun at the time he surrendered.

Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev

Dzhokhar had apparently provided some information to investigators, until he was advised of his right to remain silent.

He immediately stopped talking after a magistrate judge and a representative from the U.S. attorney’s office entered his hospital room and gave him his Miranda warning, a U.S. law enforcement source and four officials of both political parties briefed on the interrogation told the Associated Press.

The Department of Justice said the reading of Tsarnaev’s Miranda rights was coordinated with prosecutors, the federal defender, the court reporter, the U.S. Marshal Service and the hospital.

The AP noted that before being advised of his rights, the 19-year-old told authorities his older brother, Tamerlan, recruited him only recently to be part of the attack that detonated pressure-cooker bombs at the marathon finish line.

Additional reporting by Joshua Klein.

O'Reilly: A shocking report about the Boston terror family

3 more suspects taken into custody in Boston bombing case, police say

Fox News

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev (r.) was photographed in New York's Times Square last year with two of the latest suspects in the Boston Marathon bombing investigation, Azamat Tazhayakov (l.) and Dias Kadyrbayev (c.).

Three additional suspects were taken into custody in the Boston Marathon bombing case, the Boston Police Department tells FoxNews.com. 

Police would not confirm when the suspects were taken into custody, and referred further questions to the FBI.

Prior to the latest development, authorities had named only brothers Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev as suspects in the April 15 bombing at the finish line of the world famous race.

Two of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev’s former UMass-Dartmouth classmates, Dias Kadyrbayev and Azamat Tazhayakov, are from Kazakhstan and faced an immigration hearing this morning, sources said. Sources told Fox News they face obstruction charges in connection with the bombing. The identity of the third suspect is unclear.  

Kadyrbayev and Tazhayakov are suspected of taking computers and other equipment from Dzhokhar Tsarnaev's apartment and trying to dispose of it after the bombings, sources told Fox News.

Kadyrbayev's attorney Robert Stahl says his client will be transported to the federal courthouse later Wednesday to appear on new criminal charges. On Friday, Yerlan Kubashev with the Consulate General for Kazakhstan in New York confirmed in a statement to Fox News that the consulate is helping the young men with legal representation.

Kubashev said the two men are "shocked at the bombings," and "they express sorrow to the bombing victims and their families."

Police did not confirm the gender of the third suspect, but Fox News confirmed the person is a U.S. citizen. More information was expected to be provided by the US Attorney's office later Wednesday.

Three people were killed and more than 200 injured when the pair allegedly set two bombs, at least one of which was made from a pressure cooker packed with explosives and shrapnel, amid the crowd. 

Tamerlan Tsarnaev died April 19, after a shootout hours after authorities showed the brothers on surveillance video and named them as suspects.  Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, is in a prison hospital after being wounded in the shootout with police as he and his brother made their getaway attempt. He is charged with using a weapon of mass destruction to kill, a crime that carries a potential death sentence.

Authorities have searched the Rhode Island home of the parents of Katherine Russell, Tamerlan Tsarnaev's widow.

Click for more from MyFoxBoston.com

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2013/05/01/3-more-suspects-taken-into-custody-in-boston-bombing-police-say/#ixzz2S42OV2TG

Boston Plot/ Saudi Arabia-USA: Yet another communication that never arrived

canadafreepress/ By Judi McLeod 

We’ll never know for sure whether Saudi Arabia really did warn the USA in writing about the terrorist attack intentions of one Tamerlan Tsarnaev, but we do know that President Barack Obama slept through the slaughter in Benghazi.

“A senior Saudi government official told Daily Mail that the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia sent a written warning to the U.S. Department of Homeland Security in 2012.  According to the source, the letter was pertaining to Tsarnaev and potential terror threats.” (Daily Mail, May 1, 2013).

Is this a Saudi Arabia/USA “You-cover-my-back-and-I’ll-cover-yours” game?

Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud bin al-Faisal attended an unscheduled White House meeting with President Barack Hussein Obama on April 17, 2013.  Odd that nothing was mentioned about the written warning from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia on that day.

During the time period of 2012 when a Saudi Arabia official says the letter was sent, the U.S. Department of Homeland Security was busy nailing returning war vets, “bible thumping” Christian and Tea Party patriots as the real potential terrorists.  Don’t Saudi Arabians surf the Internet?

“In addition to sending the warning to America, the Saudi government also denied an entry visa to Tsarnaev in Dec. 2011 when he purportedly sought to take the Islamic pilgrimage to Mecca, the source claimed. 

Well bully for the Saudi government.  Can they now promise in writing that they will stop their massive funding of terrorism conducted in all countries of the world due to Wahhabism (ultra conservative branch of Sunni Islam)?

“The source went on to say that, although the letter, which purportedly came from the Saudi Minister of Interior, did not name Boston specifically, it did cite Tsarnaev and it was “very specific”.  The Saudi official also told the outlet that the notice warned the U.S. government that “something was going to happen in a major U.S. city”.

That’s exactly what countless Americans have been saying ever since Obama got himself elected, knowing at heart that Obama is much more like the Saudis than he is like them.

The U.S. government, incidentally is denying that such a communication was ever received.

The Saudis would know that the U.S. government does not hear communication from places such as Benghazi where the death of four Americans including Ambassador Chris Stevens commemorated the 11th anniversary of 9/11.

We don’t know which month the Saudis sent their warning letter about Tamerlan Tsarnaev in 2012.

But we do know what Obama was doing during the entire year of 2012:  campaigning, vacationing, playing golf, continuing his obsessed Fundamental Transformation of America (read Take Down).  And, oh yes, throwing in with Russia,  making his open mic promise that “after my election I have more flexibility” to Dmitry Medvedev, president of the other country that supposedly tried to red flag the U.S. about the Tsarnaev brothers.

Saudi Arabia must—just like Obama—think Americans are stupid.

Boston carjack victim on narrow escape: 'God was with me'

 

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Read on TODAY.com >>

Search for human remains at 9/11 plane debris site in NYC begins

usnews

By Shimon Prokupecz, NBCNewYork.com

Workers for the New York City medical examiner's office have begun sifting soil for possible human remains at a site near the World Trade Center where a chunk of airplane debris believed to have come from one of the 9/11 hijacked jetliners was found.

The aircraft part has been identified as a piece from a 767 wing, officials said Monday. NBC 4 New York, which first reported the finding in an alley near ground zero last week, has also learned the answer to the mystery of a rope that was found intertwined in the part — according to a law enforcement official, a detective who responded to the original call about the part last week tried to move it with a rope.

Authorities on Friday had said the rope might have indicated the part was lowered into the alley, but have since interviewed everyone who had contact with the part last week and have now answered that question. The official tells NBC 4 New York that the detective found the rope nearby and was trying to move the part to find a serial number or other identifying mark.

The NYPD also said Monday that a Boeing technician has confirmed that the 5-foot part is a trailing edge flap actuation support structure.

"It is believed to be from one of the two aircraft destroyed on Sept. 11, 2001, but it could not be determined which one," NYPD spokesman Paul Browne said.

On Sept. 11, American Airlines flight 11 hit the north tower at 8:46 a.m., and United flight 175 hit the south tower at 9:03 a.m. A FEMA graphic below shows that all the other plane parts in the immediate area were from flight 175.

Police and officials from the city medical examiner's office were on scene Monday preparing to sift the soil under the part for lost human remains. Officials said the part will be removed later in the week when that process is complete.

The part was found wedged between two buildings in a very narrow alley only about 18 inches wide between the rear of 50 Murray St. and back of 51 Park Place, the site where a mosque and community center has been proposed three blocks from ground zero.

The part bears a "Boeing" stamp, followed by a series of numbers.

The NYPD said the landing gear was found after surveyors hired by the property owner inspecting the rear of 51 Park Place called police on Wednesday. 

Most of the rubble from the 9/11 attack was cleared from the 16-acre site by the spring of 2002. Other debris, including human remains, has been found scattered outside the site, including on a rooftop and in a manhole, in years since.