VIA Rail terror suspect wants a lawyer who will ensure he is judged by the “holy book” — not the Criminal Code

Toronto Sun

TORONTO - One of the men accused in the VIA Rail terror plot wants a lawyer who will ensure he is judged by the “holy book” — not the Criminal Code.

Dressed in orange and donning glasses, a bearded Chiheb Esseghaier appeared in court via video Monday morning.

The court heard that his Legal Aid application is still pending and a lawyer refused to represent Esseghaier because of his conditions.

The 30-year-old Montreal resident interrupted by saying “excuse me” three times to clarify.

“It was not me who refused,” Esseghaier said. “The last lawyer, he wrote and signed a piece of paper (that) he cannot change the reference of my judgement from Criminal Code to holy Qur’an.”

He has also not yet received disclosure about his case.

During his last two court appearances, Esseghaier did not hesitate to speak out against Canada’s Criminal Code.

“I don’t want (a) book written by humans,” he said in court on May 23.

After the RCMP arrested them in April, Esseghaier and his co-accused, Raed Jaser, 35, of Toronto, were charged with conspiring to murder unknown persons, aiding a terror group, and interfering with transportation facilities for a terror group. Esseghaier was additionally charged with instructing someone to take part in a terror group between Sept. 7 and Dec. 20, 2012.

He is scheduled to appear in Brampton court on June 10 in relation to an application by various media outlets to unseal search warrants.

His next Toronto appearance is via video in Old City Hall court at 11 a.m. on June 25.

State Department: Havana Provides Safe Haven to US Fugitives

cubaconfidential

By Juan O. Tamayo, jtamayo@ElNuevoHerald.com

Cuba is harboring and supporting U.S. fugitives but may be trying to distance itself from two dozen members of a Basque terrorist group who live on the island, according to the State Department’s annual Country Report on Terrorism released Thursday.

The report for 2012 is totally separate from the department’s list of state sponsors of terrorism, which now includes Cuba, Iran, Syria and Sudan and subjects those nations to a special set of U.S. economic and other sanctions.

Advocates of keeping or removing Cuba from the list awaited the 2012 report with special interest because of media reports earlier this year, flatly denied by the State Department, that Secretary of State John Kerry would take Havana off the list.

The Cuba section of the 2012 report appeared to be similar to the section in 2011, with both noting that Havana authorities are continuing to harbor fugitives wanted in the United States and supporting them with housing, ration books and medical care.

One such fugitive is Joanne Chesimard, on the FBI’s “most wanted terrorist” list since 2005. A Black Panther who was convicted in the 1973 murder of New Jersey State Trooper, she escaped from prison in 1979 and turned up in Havana in 1984. The FBI hiked the reward offered for her capture to $2 million in April.

“There was no indication that the Cuban government provided weapons or paramilitary training to terrorist groups,” the 2012 report said, in wording almost exactly the same as in the 2011 report.

Both reports also noted “suggestions” that Havana has tried to distance itself from members of Spain’s Basque Homeland and Liberty (ETA), classified by Washington as a terrorist group, who live in Cuba by “not providing services, including travel documents, to some of them.”

The 2012 version adds that two dozen ETA members are living in Cuba.

Members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, also classified as a terror group, received refuge in Cuba in past years, according to the latest version. The 2011 report noted that FARC members had received medical assistance. The FARC and Colombian government are currently holding peace talks in Havana.

Both reports also noted that the U.S. Financial Actions Task Force has identified Cuba as having “strategic … deficiencies” in the fight against terrorism financing and money laundering. The latest report adds that Cuba has now joined a regional body designed for that purpose.

Cuba has been on the separate U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism since 1982. Havana also is on a separate U.S. government list, with Venezuela and others, of countries that are not “cooperating fully with United States antiterrorism efforts.”

To remove Cuba from the list of state sponsors, the White House is required to notify the U.S. Congress that Cuba has not engaged in terrorism for some time and promised not to do so again.

Al Qaeda issues internal complaint to terrorist

US Drone Strike Kills Taliban No. 2 In Pakistan

Business Insider

REUTERS/U.S. Air Force/Lt Col Leslie Pratt

A MQ-1 Predator drone

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - A U.S. drone strike killed the number two of the Pakistani Taliban in the North Waziristan region on Wednesday, three security officials said, in what would be a major blow in the fight against militancy.

The drone strike killed seven people, Pakistani security officials said, including Taliban deputy commander Wali-ur-Rehman, in the first such attack since a May 11 general election in which the use of the unmanned aircraft was a major issue.

Wali-ur-Rehman had been poised to succeed Hakimullah Mehsud as leader of the Pakistani Taliban, a senior army official based in the South Waziristan region, had said in December.

"This is a huge blow to militants and a win in the fight against insurgents," one security official told Reuters, declining further comment.

The Pakistani Taliban are a separate entity allied to the Afghan Taliban. Known as the Tehreek-e-TalibanPakistan (TTP), they have launched devastating attacks against the Pakistani military and civilians.

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ihsanullah Ihsan told Reuters the group did not have "confirmed reports" that Wali-ur-Rehman had been killed. He declined further comment.

Drone casualties are difficult to verify. Foreign journalists must have permission from the military to visit the Pashtun tribal areas along the Afghan border.

Taliban fighters also often seal off the sites of drone strikes immediately so Pakistani journalists cannot see the victims.

"That the Taliban are remaining silent and neither denying or confirming the news is itself peculiar," said Saleem Safi, a Pakistani expert on the Taliban. "But if this news is true, then the Pakistan army has the U.S. to thank."

The security officials and Pashtun tribesmen in the northwestern region said the drone fired two missiles that struck a mud-built house at Chashma village, 3 km (2 miles) east of Miranshah, the region's administrative town.

They said seven people were killed and four wounded.

FOREIGN MINISTRY DENOUNCES DRONES

"Tribesmen started rescue work an hour after the attack and recovered seven bodies," said resident Bashir Dawar. "The bodies were badly damaged and beyond recognition."

The Pakistan government had yet to confirm Wali-ur-Rehman's death.

A U.S. drone killed Pakistani Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud in 2009. There had been several reports that his successor, Hakimullah Mehsud, was killed the same way but they turned out to be untrue.

But the Foreign Ministry again denounced drones in general on Wednesday.

"The government has consistently maintained that the drone strikes are counter-productive, entail loss of innocent civilian lives, have human rights and humanitarian implications and violate the principles of national sovereignty, territorial integrity and international law," it said.

U.S. President Barack Obama recently indicated he was scaling back the drone strike program, winning cautious approval from Pakistan, a key ally in the U.S. fight on militancy.

North Waziristan is on the Afghan border and has long been a stronghold of militants including Afghan Talibanand their al Qaeda and Pakistani Taliban allies.

Prime Minister-elect Nawaz Sharif said this month that drone strikes were a "challenge" to Pakistan's sovereignty.

"We will sit with our American friends and talk to them about this issue," he said.

Obama's announcement of scaling back drone strikes was widely welcomed by the people of North Waziristan, where drones armed with missiles have carried out the most strikes against militants over the past seven years, sometimes with heavy civilian casualties.

The strike also coincided with the first session of the newly elected provincial assembly of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, the former Northwest Frontier Province.

Former cricketer Imran Khan's Pakistan Tehrik-e-Insaf party won most seats in the assembly and denounced the strike, saying Obama had gone back on his word.

Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/us-drone-strike-kills-taliban-no-2-in-pakistan-2013-5#ixzz2UmzNESDx

Florida High School Online Class: Terrorists Lack Self-Esteem

breitbart

By William Bigelow 

A high school online class in Florida has not only compared Christianity and Islam as fundamentalist groups, but apparently claims that terrorists act the way they do because of low self-esteem.Florida Virtual School

(FLVS) in World History stated: "Common traits that psychologists have found in terrorists are that they are often risk-takers and many suffer from low self-esteem. Sometimes joining a terrorist group provides these individuals with a sense of belonging."

A FLVS representative said that this passage and another which tries to equate the two religions by saying Christianity has sections in the Bible that "could be used to justify the slaughter of men…" cannot be altered or changed because they are part of Common Core standards. The school has denied this, as well as any intent to conflate the two religions or present a sympathetic portrait of terrorists.

The online class, with the topic 08.07 "Invisible Warfare: Objectives," is available to high school students. It starts with a definition of what a fundamentalist is, then proceeds to terrorism.

Woolwich Suspect Arrested in Kenya in 2010 in Terror Plot

By Breitbart News 

A Sunday report from the UK Independent says that Michael Adebolajo, one of the men suspected of beheading British soldier Lee Rigby last week in Woolwich, had been known to anti-terror forces for at least three years before the attack. In 2010, he was arrested in Kenya for involvement in an al Qaeda-inspired plot, after landing on an island off the coast of Kenya, allegedly in an attempt to travel to Somalia to join the al-Shabaab terrorist group.

Adebolajo alleged that the Kenyan police tortured him. “We are being tortured by the police and we haven’t eaten for two days now,” he said. “We have even denied the right to talk to our family members and lawyer. We are being treated as criminals and we are innocent.” He was eventually deported back to Britain without charge.

Adebolajo’s family says that MI5, the British secret service, wanted him to turn informant by infiltrating radicalizing Muslim groups in the UK, but that he refused. Adebolajo’s brother-in-law has tried to blame MI5 for Adebolajo’s attack. He added that Adebolajo changed after his visit to Kenya in 2010, where the brother-in-law says Adebolajo just wanted to learn Arabic and Islam at Nairobi mosques. One of Adebolajo’s friends told the BBC that MI5 tried to recruit him six months ago.

Adebolajo’s alleged partner in terror, Michael Adebowale, was detained by British police just two months ago.

French Soldier Stabbed in Throat Outside Paris

breitbart

(AP) - A French soldier was stabbed in the throat in a busy commercial district outside Paris on Saturday, and France's president said authorities are investigating any possible links with the recent slaying of a British soldier.

President Francois Hollande said the identity of the attacker was unknown and cautioned against jumping to conclusions about the assault on the uniformed soldier in the La Defense shopping area. The life of the 23-year-old soldier was not in danger, the Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The stabbing follows the slaying Wednesday of a British soldier, who was brutally stabbed on a London street in broad daylight in a suspected terrorist attack that has raised fears of potential copycat strikes.

"There could be a link, but we will look at all the elements," Hollande said during a news conference in Ethiopia, where he was traveling.

The British soldier, 25-year-old Lee Rigby, was attacked while walking outside the Royal Artillery Barracks in the Woolwich area of south London.

The gruesome scene was recorded on witnesses' cellphones, and a video has emerged in which one of the two suspects -- his hands bloodied -- boasted of their exploits and warned of more violence as the soldier lay on the ground. Holding bloody knives and a meat cleaver, the suspects waited for the arrival of police, who shot them in the legs, according to witnesses.

In the video, one of the suspects declared, "We swear by almighty Allah we will never stop fighting you ... We must fight them as they fight us."

Two Muslim hard-liners have identified that suspect as Michael Adebolajo, a Christian who converted to Islam and attended several London demonstrations organized by banned British radical group al-Muhajiroun.

Short, combative past for Chechen man killed during FBI questioning

usnews

[Splash News

Ibragim Todashev is seen in 2009 at the Massachusetts gym where Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev trained].

By Matthew DeLuca, Staff Writer, NBC News

The friend of Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev who law enforcement forces said was shot and killed Wednesday after being questioned by the FBI about a brutal 2011 Boston-area homicide was a promising if somewhat forgettable mixed martial artist, fellow practitioners of the sport said.
Chris Palmquist, who operates the official registry for amateur and professional MMA fighters, said Ibragim Todashev, 27, fought his matches under the name Ibrahim Tody. “I don’t know if it was an alias he gave or if it was just a misspelling. Or a promoter could have entered him,” said Palmquist, who fought Todashev once in a competition about four years ago.
There was “nothing that stood out” about Todashev when the two faced off in a 2009 New England grappling competition, a video of which is online.
In another video from 2009, this one showing an MMA bout at American Steel Cage Fighting in New Hampshire, the man who was shot on Wednesday strides into the circular ring to the thumping bass of Cypress Hill’s song “Rock Superstar”: “You want to be a rock superstar and live large / A big house, five cars, you’re in charge.”
The announcer introduces him as “hailing” from Chechnya, a “freestyle fighter” with a “perfect amateur mixed martial arts record with four victories in all four of his bouts.” Before the start of the three-round fight – which Todashev would lose – two bikini-clad card girls circle the ring.

Courtesy of Gary Marino

Ibragim Todashev weighing in at a 2009 mixed martial arts competition in Salem, New Hampshire.

Todashev is credited in that video with fighting for Wai Kru, the same gym in Allston, Mass., frequented by Tamerlan Tsarnaev. The man’s father, Abdul Baki Todashev, told NBC News in a phone interview from Chechnya that his son and Tamerlan Tsarnaev “went to the same gym for boxing classes.”
His son and Tsarnaev, the older bombing suspect who was killed in a shootout with police, “never were close friends,” he said.
Mixed martial arts is a popular, full-contact fighting sport in which competitors use boxing and martial arts skills combined with grappling and wrestling moves to defeat their opponent. The introduction of the Ultimate Fighting Championship brought mixed martial arts to greater attention in the United States in the early 1990s.
A matchmaker who organized the 2009 fight in New Hampshire, Gary Marino, said he remembered Todashev from the Wai Kru gym and the weigh-in before the bout.
“I remember that kid, the way he looked at me was weird, he kind of looked right through you,” Marino said. “He was very quiet but he kind of looked right through you like he didn’t know what you were talking about.”
Palmquist also trained MMA fighter Evan Scott, who fought Todashev in his last sanctioned amateur MMA bout. Scott beat the 5-foot-9, 160-pound Todashev with an armbar submission in the second round.
“You get a fair mix of guys who come from solid backgrounds, and then you get guys who probably shouldn’t be fighting already but just kind of jump in there,” Palmquist said. “He was definitely a pretty good amateur fighter. He definitely came from some kind of wrestling background.”
Todashev fought a total of six sanctioned amateur matches, winning four and losing two, according to his official MMA record. He fought one unsanctioned amateur bout in February 2012, and one sanctioned professional bout in July of that year, winning both.

AP Photo / Orange County Corrections Department

In this May 4, 2013 police mug provided by the Orange County Corrections Department in Orlando, Fla., shows Ibragim Todashev after his arrest for aggravated battery in Orlando. Todashev, who was being questioned in Orlando by authorities in the Boston bombing probe, was fatally shot Wednesday, May 22, 2013 when he initiated a violent confrontation, FBI officials said.

Todashev applied for a mixed martial arts license with the Florida State Boxing Commision on July 26, 2012. On an application for a national MMA identification card filed on the same day, he wrote that he had four years of experience in the sport. The Florida license was issued in August 2012 and expired in December of that year, according to the state department of business and professional regulation.
He spent at least some of that time training at The Jungle MMA and Fitness, a gym that bills itself as “Central Florida’s Premier Spot” for MMA training. He did not fight any matches through the gym, according to staff there.

“He was here for about maybe two months about a year and a half ago,” said gym manager John Morehouse.
Todashev was “pretty unmemorable,” Morehouse said. “You know, your basic guy, come in, take a class. I don’t think he had any friends here.”
Law enforcement sources have said Todashev had two prior run-ins with the law and had confessed to involvement in a 2011 triple murder before he was shot. People familiar with MMA said if he did have a violent past, it’s not typical of the sport’s practitioners. Most amateur and professional fighters are no more violent outside the ring than anyone else, they said.
Mark Tullius fell into the world of amateur MMA after graduating with a degree in sociology from Brown University. After being active in the sport from 1998 to 2002, Tullius abandoned it because he was “turned off by the violence,” he said. Over the past year, he has traveled to 15 states and interviewed more than 250 mixed martial arts fighters to figure out what makes them tick.
“Ninety-five to 97 percent of them are just awesome people,” Tullius said of the fighters and their coaches.
“I think when a lot of people go to the gym, they’re looking for something they’re missing,” Tullis said. “There are lots of different kinds of fighters. Lots of today’s fighters are wrestlers who are just super competitive and are looking for another way to compete.”
While pro MMA matches are regulated, amateur competition often goes on with little oversight, according to Gregory Sirb, executive director of the Pennsylvania State Athletic Commission and former president of the Association of Boxing Commissions. Amateur mixed martial arts competitions are banned in West Virginia, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, Colorado, and North Dakota, according to the ABC. Bouts at the amateur level go on completely unregulated in 11 states, the organization says.
“It’s horrible,” Sirb said. “For a sport that’s so violent – this sport screams for oversight.”
While amateur match-ups may not be heavily regulated by the states, experienced fighters tend to have their own code of conduct, Tullius said, an ethic Todashev violated in at least two incidents when he appears to have used his fighting abilities well outside the ring.
"Some places will say if you get into a fight you're not training here," Tullius said. "And a professional would not want to do that."
Todashev was arrested in Boston in 2010 after aggressively confronting two women following an accident involving his van and their car, the Suffolk County District Attorney’s office told NBC affiliate WHDH. There were no injuries and no charges were pressed, authorities said.
He was arrested a second time this year, for aggravated battery on May 4, after allegedly getting into a fight with a man and his son over a parking space in Orlando, according to an Orange County Sheriff’s Office arrest affidavit. Todashev told officers he was a mixed martial artist before being transported to the booking and release center, according to the affidavit.
“This skill puts his fighting ability way above that of a normal person,” the arresting officer wrote in the affidavit.
Todashev was released the next day on a $3,500 surety bond.

Cuba y Consejo Latinoamericano de Iglesias llaman a proteger a los terroristas detenidos en Guantanamo

Obama reframes counterterrorism policy with new rules on drones

nbcpolitics

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

By Tom Curry, National Affairs Writer, NBC News

In a major address Thursday President Barack Obama sought to reframe the nation’s counterterrorism strategy, saying, “Our systematic effort to dismantle terrorist organizations must continue. But this war, like all wars, must end. That's what history advises. That's what our democracy demands.”

He said in a speech at the National Defense University in Washington, “We must define our effort not as a boundless 'global war on terror' - but rather as a series of persistent, targeted efforts to dismantle specific networks of violent extremists that threaten America."

In an attempt to define a new post-Sept. 11 era, Obama outlined new guidelines for the use of drones to kill terrorists overseas and pledged a

President Barack Obama discusses civilian casualties resulting from U.S. drone strikes while speaking Thursday at the National Defense University

renewed effort to close the military detention center in Guantanamo Bay.  In the speech, Obama argued that, “In the years to come, not every collection of thugs that labels themselves al Qaeda will pose a credible threat to the United States.” He warned that “unless we discipline our thinking and our actions, we may be drawn into more wars we don't need to fight.”

With efforts under way in Congress to redefine the 2001 authorization to use military force (AUMF) against al Qaida, Obama said he would work with Congress “in efforts to refine, and ultimately repeal, the AUMF's mandate. And I will not sign laws designed to expand this mandate further.”

Toward the end of Obama’s address as he discussed the Guantanamo detainees, he was repeatedly interrupted by heckling from Medea Benjamin, founder of the antiwar Code Pink, whose members have frequently been arrested for disrupting hearings on Capitol Hill – but Obama patiently said that Benjamin’s concerns are “something to be passionate about.”

“We must define the nature and scope of this struggle, or else it will define us, mindful of James Madison's warning that ‘No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare.’ Neither I, nor any president, can promise the total defeat of terror,” he declared. 

As part of his redefinition of counterterrorism, the president announced several initiatives:

• Setting narrower parameters for the use of remotely piloted aircraft, or drones, to kill terrorists overseas and to limit collateral casualties;
• Renewing efforts to persuade Congress to agree to close the Guantanamo detention site in Cuba where 110 terrorist suspects are being held;
• Appointing a new envoy at the State Department and an official at the Defense Department who will attempt to negotiate transfers of Guantanamo detainees to other countries. 
• Lifting the moratorium he imposed in 2010 on transferring some detainees at Guantanamo to Yemen. Obama imposed that moratorium after it was revealed that Detroit “underwear bomber” Umar Farouq Abdulmuttalab was trained in Yemen.

Obama argued that when compared to the Sept. 11, 2001 attackers, “the threat today is more diffuse, with Al Qaeda's affiliates in the

Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP

President Barack Obama talks about national security, Thursday, May 23, 2013, at the National Defense University at Fort McNair in Washington.

Arabian Peninsula – AQAP – the most active in plotting against our homeland. While none of AQAP's efforts approach the scale of 9/11 they have continued to plot acts of terror, like the attempt to blow up an airplane on Christmas Day in 2009.”

So he said, “As we shape our response, we have to recognize that the scale of this threat closely resembles the types of attacks we faced before 9/11.”

He said that the current threat is often from “deranged or alienated individuals – often U.S. citizens or legal residents – (who) can do enormous damage, particularly when inspired by larger notions of violent jihad. That pull towards extremism appears to have led to the shooting at Fort Hood, and the bombing of the Boston Marathon.”

In discussing his drone strategy he indicated his remorse over the innocent people who had been killed: “it is a hard fact that U.S. strikes have resulted in civilian casualties, a risk that exists in all wars. For the families of those civilians, no words or legal construct can justify their loss. For me, and those in my chain of command, these deaths will haunt us as long as we live, just as we are haunted by the civilian casualties that have occurred through conventional fighting in Afghanistan and Iraq.”

There remains considerable doubt about Obama’s ability to persuade a majority in Congress to change the current law on releasing detainees held there.

The defense spending bill which Obama signed into law last year prohibits any transfers to the United States of any detainee at Guantanamo who was held there on or before Jan. 20, 2009, the day Obama became president.

And the law sets a very high legal bar for Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel to transfer a detainee to his country of origin, or to any other foreign country.

Hagel would need to certify to Congress that the detainee will not be transferred to a country that is a designated state sponsor of terrorism. The country must have agreed to take steps to ensure that the detainee cannot take action to threaten the United States, U.S. citizens, or its allies in the future.

The law allows Hagel to use waivers in some cases to transfer detainees.

Speaking a day before Obama’s speech, Ben Wittes, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution and co-founder of the Lawfare blog which covers detainee news, said, “I don’t see any significant change in congressional sentiment right now” on closing the Guantanamo site.

“He’s got a lot of domestic pressure from his base to be seen to be doing something and he’s also got a hunger strike there (at Guantanamo) — and I think there’s a lot of genuine sentiment in the administration that they want to do something (about Guantanamo) so they’re committed to another push and trying again – but the question of what they actually could get done is a difficult question. There’s very limited latitude.”

Man with ties to Boston bombing suspects shot during FBI questioning

U.S. News

By Richard Esposito and Matthew DeLuca, NBC News

A man with ties to the Boston Marathon bombing suspects was shot and killed while being questioned by the FBI in Florida, the agency said on Wednesday.

The man who was shot, Ibragim Todashev, had been interviewed about his connections to the bombing suspects before by the FBI and started out cooperative, NBC sources said.

The suspect then went to attack the agent and was shot, the sources said.

The suspect is deceased, the FBI said.

“We are currently responding to a shooting incident involving an FBI special agent,” FBI Special Agent Dave Couvertier said in a statement to NBC News.

“The incident occurred in Orlando, Florida. The agent encountered the suspect while conducting official duties,” Couvertier said. “We do not have any further details at this time. We expect to have more information later this morning.”

Uzbek Immigrant Arrested For Teaching Bomb-Making To Terrorists

IMMINENT: Terrorist super-axis to strike within U.S.

wnd

Reza Kahlili

Iran has given the go-ahead to operatives of three terrorist groups that have infiltrated the United States to carry out missions, including what is expected to be a Mumbai-style attack on a hotel where innocent bystanders would be killed, WND has learned.

A full report with many details of the missions has been passed on to U.S. officials and to a

Gen. Soleimani, the head of the Quds Forces with full power given to him by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei/  www.spiran.com

congressional intelligence committee.

Three targets have been chosen within America for imminent attack, and the terror teams have now cut communications with the operational center in Iran, a sign that they are moving ahead with the attacks, according to a high-level intelligence officer within the Islamic regime.

If only one of the attacks occurs, the regime will consider the operation a success, the source said. Tehran believes, he said, an attack would not be traced back to Iran due to the nationalities of the operators.

One of the planned attacks resemble the Mumbai attack in 2008, the source added, in which a hotel was targeted, hostages were taken and 164 people were killed over several days. India alleges Pakistan used proxies to carry out the Mumbai attack so it wouldn’t be traced back to Pakistan, just as Iran now is using proxies to hide its current terrorism. The information provided by the source provides details of a new jihadist coalition with a focus on creating instability in the U.S.

The source said the regime views the Boston bombing as a successful terrorist attack in which fear was created, U.S. intelligence questioned and a sense of security diminished. There has yet to be any link to a specific group or country.

As WND reported exclusively April 22, the regime’s Quds Forces have done extensive planning on gatherings, events and high-value targets in the U.S., but for two years have focused on events such as the Boston Marathon. The Quds Forces run an extensive network of terrorists out of South Asia.

A Feb. 14, 2010, meeting in Iran either set up the new jihadist coalition or continued the coalition among the Quds Forces, Hezbollah and al-Qaida. The latter coalition was formed years ago by Imad Mugniyeh, the dead mastermind terrorist from Hezbollah, under the direction of Ahmad Vahidi, then the head of the Quds Forces and the current Iranian defense minister, to collaborate on their fight against the U.S.

At the 2010 meeting, Qasem Soleimani, the head of the Quds Forces; Seif Adel, the operational head of al-Qaida; and Mustafa Badr al-Din, the operational head of Hezbollah; devised a plan for operations against the U.S. under a new coalition, dubbed the “Coalition of Muslim Soldiers.” The coalition includes al-Shabaab, an al-Qaida offshoot based in Somalia, and has its central command in the Iranian city of Kerman. Command and control centers are located in the Iranian provinces of Kerman, Khorasan, Khuzestan, Kurdistan, and Sistan and Baluchistan, the source said.

The coalition, led by Soleimani, with Iran the main source of funding, is based on a strategic collaboration and devoid of ideological differences and opinions of Shiite and Sunni Marjas. The main operational commanders, mostly well-known terrorists, are:

1. Gen. Soleimani, the head of the Quds Forces with full power given to him by Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.
2. Brig. Gen. Abdolreza Shahlabi of the Quds Forces.
3. Brig. Gen. Hamed Abdollahi of the Quds Forces.
4. Brig. Gen. Hossein Movahedian of the Quds Forces.
5. Maj. Gen. Mohammad Bagher Zolghadr of the Quds Forces.
6. Seif Adel, the operational head of al-Qaida.
7. Abdol Rahman Yasin of al-Qaida operations.
8. Abu Saeed al-Mesri of al-Qaida in Latin America.
9. Adnan ShokriJuma of al-Qaida in America.
10. Hakimalah Masoud of al-Qaida operations.
11. Mustafa Badr al-Din, the operations head of Hezbollah and the brother-in-law and cousin of the dead terrorist Imad Mugniyah, who now serves as Mugnyiah’s replacement as the military leader of Hezbollah and the deputy to the Quds’ Soliemani.
12. Talal Hamieh, the head of the External Security Organization, strategic planning and funding for Hezbollah in Venezuela. He commutes directly from Venezuela to Damascus, Syria, then to Lebanon and back.
13. Fozi Mohammad Mostafa of Hezbollah operations.
14. Mohammad Ali Hamdi of Hezbollah operations in Toronto, Canada. He targets nuclear power plants and other sites in Canada.
15. Ebrahim Saleh Mohammad al-Yaghoub of Hezbollah operations.
16. Mohammad Ahmad al-Monavar, the operations commander for Abu Nidal.
17. Jahad Servan Mostafa, the operations commander for al-Shabaab in Somalia.

Based on intelligence and infiltration by Western intelligence agencies into institutions, operations and cultural centers of radical Arab Islamists after 9/11, the new coalition recruits non-Arab Islamists from many other nationalities and Arabs from countries not on the hot list for American agencies.

Iran believes that the perception of security in America that has helped empower its actions in the Middle East must be turned 180 degrees, not only to defeat and derail all U.S. calculations based on gathered intelligence but to destabilize the political, economic and social conditions in America, the source said.

Based on that understanding, he said, the U.S. through its military might has kept the fight in the Islamic region and away from its homeland and its allies’ turf. Now continuous operations must be conducted in the U.S. homeland to change that equation, they believe.

More than 2,600 targets, including public places, government buildings and military installations, have been chosen for attack, and reconnaissance has been done. Information about some of the targets, based on direct knowledge of the source, has been given to U.S. officials to neutralize the threat and confront the terrorists. They include specific government buildings, news networks, malls and sports events.

This new coalition has also prepared for a major attack to avenge al-Qaida leader Osama Bin Laden’s killing to satisfy Seif Adel, the operational head of al-Qaida, for his collaboration with the Iranian regime.

The radical regime ruling Iran has set up several channels for financial support of the new coalition with its terrorist activities. Multiple commerce, cultural and financial institutions in the U.S. are part of that network. The connection includes individuals running businesses in Damascus and its connections to al-Qaida operatives in America.

Since 2001, more than $270 million has been invested in the expansion of mosques and Islamic centers in America by institutions in the Iranian city of Qom. As part of the coalition’s plan, some 27 mosques and Islamic centers in America are their target for collaboration, infiltration and recruitment of sympathizers for various missions, including reconnaissance and terrorist acts.

The source said the new coalition, due to its composition of different people in Central Asia, is a very complex organization.

The publication of a limited version of the full report is an intention to put the Islamic regime on notice that should it go ahead with its planned attacks in the U.S. homeland, it will be held responsible, the source said.

“El Chacal”acusa de traidor al gobierno venezolano por dejarlo sin fondos

euronews

Sin defensa. El terrorista venezolano Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, más conocido como “Carlos” o “el Chacal”, ha prohibido a sus abogados que le representen en el juicio de apelación abierto este lunes en París por una de las dos cadenas perpetuas que cumple en cárceles francesas por crímenes perpetrados en ese país. El proceso ha despertado una gran expectación.

Françoise Rudetzki, de la asociación SOS atentados, afirma que no espera nada de Carlos”. Simplemente que respete un poco más a las víctimas, algo que no hizo en primera instancia, cuando las llamó daños colaterales. Espero que haya madurado, que no las desprecie y que las respete como nosotros respetamos los derechos de la defensa”.

Carlos ha prescindido de sus abogados y solicitado uno de oficio tras dejar de recibir apoyo económico del Gobierno de Venezuela. El juicio de apelación corresponde a la cadena perpetua impuesta hace dos años por cuatro atentados perpetrados a principios de los años ochenta que dejaron 11 muertos y casi 150 heridos.

FONTOVA: The Castro-coddled cop killer

Assata Shakur remains very active and recognized by the regime of Castros:

Assata Shakur doing the Cuba's Mayday celebration in the Revolution Square [2010]/ www.blackleftunity.org

 

Assata Shakur and two members of the Venceremos Brigade/ www.blackleftunity.org

cubaconfidential

By Chris Simmons

The ‘most-wanted terrorist’ mocks U.S. justice from Cuba

By Humberto Fontova in the Washington Times

On May 2, the FBI announced a $1 million reward for “information leading to the apprehension” of Joanne Chesimard, also known as Assata Shakur, who they named a “most-wanted terrorist.” Chesimard is the first woman to make the FBI’s list. The New Jersey State Police then added another $1 million to the reward pot.

Convicted cop-killer (of a New Jersey state trooper) and “domestic terrorist” Chesimard has been living in Cuba since 1984 as a Castro-coddled celebrity of sorts. And it’s not like bounty hunters can operate freely in a Stalinist country. So the $2 million may be symbolic. As in the U.S. Justice Department putting on a game face and saying: “Look, Castro, we’re serious here.”
In the early 1970s, Chesimard belonged to a Black Panther offshoot known as the Black Liberation Army. “This case is just as important today as it was when it happened 40 years ago,” according to a recent press release from Mike Rinaldi, of the New Jersey State Police. “Chesimard was a member of the Black Liberation Army, a radical left-wing terror group that felt justified killing law enforcement officers. … This group conducted assaults on police stations and murdered police officers.”

More than a mere member of these domestic terrorists, Chesimard was described by former FBI Assistant Director John Miller as “the soul of the Black Liberation Army.”

In 1973, while wanted for multiple crimes from bank robbery to murder, Chesimard and two accomplices were pulled over for a taillight violation on the New Jersey Turnpike. As the troopers were routinely questioning them, Chesimard (who was in the passenger seat) and her pals opened up on the lawmen with semi-automatic pistols (no word on whether these were properly registered.)

As Trooper Werner Foerster grappled with the driver, Chesimard shot him twice — then her gun apparently jammed. As Foerster lay on the ground wounded and helpless, Chesimard grabbed the trooper’s own gun and blasted two shots into his head, much in the manner of her Cuban idols Che Guevara and Raul Castro killing hundreds of their own (always defenseless at the time) “counterrevolutionary” enemies.

“This crime was always considered an act of domestic terrorism,” stresses Mr. Rinaldi. She escaped, but was captured in 1977, convicted of murder and sentenced to life plus 33 years. Then in 1979 she escaped from prison — and with some professional help, probably by Cuban or Cuban-trained terrorists. “Two men smuggled into the prison, took guards hostages and broke her out,” explained John Miller to CBS News.

Chesimard’s 1979 escape from prison was well-planned, Mr. Rinaldi explained. “Armed domestic terrorists gained entry into the facility, neutralized the guards, broke her free, and turned her over to a nearby getaway team.” “In 1984, they smuggled her to Mexico. Using a network of Cuban intelligence officers who worked with American radical groups, they got her into Cuba,” adds Mr. Miller. Since then, according to New Jersey State Police Col. Rick Fuentes, Chesimard “flaunts her freedom. … To this day, from her safe haven in Cuba, Chesimard has been given a pulpit (by Castro) to preach and profess, stirring supporters and groups to mobilize against the United States by any means necessary. She has been used by the Castro regime to greet foreign delegations visiting Cuba.” “Joanne Chesimard is a domestic terrorist,” declared FBI agent Aaron T. Ford, during a recent news conference. “She absolutely is a threat to America.”

Along with coddling Chesimard, Castro’s fiefdom provides haven for more than 70 other fugitives from U.S. law, including several on the FBI’s most-wanted listed. Cuba harbors convicted cop-killers Michael Finney and Charlie Hill, along with Victor Gerena, responsible for a $7 million heist of a Wells Fargo truck in Connecticut in 1983, as a member of the Puerto Rican terrorist group, Los Macheteros. All requests by U.S. authorities for these criminals’ extradition have been rebuffed, often cheekily by Fidel Castro himself: “They want to portray her as a terrorist, something that was an injustice, a brutality, an infamous lie!” is how he answered a U.S. request for Chesimard on May 3, 2005.

Humberto Fontova is author of “Fidel: Hollywood’s Favorite Tyrant” (Regnery, 2005).

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.