Archive for category Threat Watch

Pro-ISIS Indonesian Pilots

From The Intercept:

“Both [pilots] appear to be influenced by pro-IS elements including extremist online propaganda by well-known radical Indonesia outlets and a suspected Indonesian foreign terrorist fighter who is likely to be in either Syria or Iraq,” the report states.

“Pilots, air crew and others with access to and within the aviation environment can pose obvious threats if these persons are radicalized. Their access and knowledge of security and safety regimes provides the ability to attempt attacks as witnessed by past global events,” warns the report, which also notes that a recent issue of Inspire, the magazine published by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, encouraged attacks by those involved in aviation.

 

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Russia Flew Bombers Near US Coast on July 4

From Fox17:

According to the report from FOX News, two bombers flew off the coast of Alaska at 10:30am and then off the coast of Central California at 11:00am EST. The bombers are capable of carrying nuclear weapons, although NORAD did not confirm if the bombers were armed at the time of intercept. The bombers did not cross into U.S. airspace but how close they came has not been revealed. A similar incident took place on July 4th of 2013.

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Egypt, Israel May Join Against ISIS

From Arutz Sheva:

An Egyptian source has revealed that if after launching a brutal attack in Sinai the Islamic State (ISIS) terror group approaches Gaza, President Abdel Fattah al-Sisi may “invite” the IDF to strike it.

The source, who is “familiar with Egypt’s decision-making process,” told Haaretz on Thursday that Sisi may give the green light given that Gaza falls under Israel’s responsibility.

 

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British Col. Berates U.N. For Repeating Hamas Propoganda

Colonel Kemp:

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Strategy in Real Time: Dueling with an Enemy That Moves

Strategy in Real Time: Dueling with an Enemy That Moves is republished with permission of Stratfor.”

By Philip Bobbitt

Strategy is a two-way street. But many commentators act as though formulating a strategy is the same as solving a chess problem. Chess problems are artificially constructed arrangements on a chessboard where the goal is to find a series of moves that leaves the other side no room to evade a checkmate within three or four turns. The sorts of conflicts bedeviling us these days, however, are more like the game of chess itself, in which there is no determinate, continuous series of moves that will guarantee victory every time. Each new contest depends on the actions of the other side, how we react to them, how they respond to our reactions, and so on.

Ignoring this aspect of strategy seems to contribute to the widespread view that victory in warfare amounts to the destruction of the enemy, a facile assumption that is all too unthinkingly held. “Defeating the enemy” may be the definition of victory in football, or even in chess for that matter, but not in warfare. Victory in war is the achievement of the war aim, and if, after Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, we still think that victory is simply the devastation of our adversaries, we have a lot of reflecting to do. Read the rest of this entry »

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The Jihadist Trap of Here and Now

The Jihadist Trap of Here and Now is republished with permission of Stratfor.”

By Scott Stewart

In recent weeks, I have found myself spending a lot of time thinking about the jihadist strategy of al Qaeda and how it compares to that of the Islamic State. Earlier this month, I wrote about the possibility that the al Qaeda brand of jihadism could outlast that of the Islamic State. Last week, I wrote about how ideologies are harder to kill than individuals, focusing on the effect that the death of al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula leader Nasir al-Wahayshi will have on the group and the wider global jihadist movement.

But beyond the impact of leaders like al-Wahayshi, there are other facets of strategy that will influence the war for the soul of jihadism. Specifically, I am talking about time and place. Both al Qaeda and the Islamic State seek to establish a global caliphate, but both differ quite starkly in how to accomplish this task and how soon it can be achieved.

Al Qaeda argues that the caliphate can be established only after the United States and its European allies have been defeated, to the extent that they can no longer interfere in Muslim lands — either because of a lack of ability or a lack of desire. The organization pursues a long-war approach that emphasizes the need to attack the United States, “the far enemy,” before focusing on overthrowing local governments. The Islamic State takes the opposite tack. It has adopted a more urgent “why wait?” approach and concentrates its efforts on immediately taking, holding and governing territory. This strategy banks on being able to use any conquered territory and resources for the purposes of continued expansion. The direct approach explains the Islamic State’s decision to quickly proclaim a caliphate at the beginning of Ramadan last year, after it had captured a large portion of Iraq and Syria. The group’s message to the Muslim world is that the caliphate is here and now, and there is nothing the world can do to stop its inexorable expansion. Read the rest of this entry »

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Terrorsist Attacks In Tunisia, France and Kuwait

From CNN:

Gunmen killed at least 37 people at a beachfront Tunisian hotel on Friday, the same day terrorists lashed out brutally in France and bombed a mosque in Kuwait.

One person was beheaded and two injured at a gas factory near Lyon in southeastern France, according to French President Francois Hollande. And ISIS has claimed responsibility for an apparent bomb blast at the Shiite-affiliated Al-Sadiq mosque in Kuwait’s capital during Friday prayers, leaving at least 25 dead and more than 200 injured.

 

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Reflections on Ramadi

Reflections on Ramadi is republished with permission of Stratfor.”

Analysis

Editor’s Note: This analysis was written by Stratfor’s lead military analyst, Paul Floyd, who served in the U.S. Army’s 75th Ranger Regiment, a core component of the United States Army Special Operations Command. He deployed multiple times to Iraq and Afghanistan in a combat role.

The Iraqi city of Ramadi has fallen again into the hands of the Islamic State, a group born of al Qaeda in Iraq. That this terrorist organization, whose brutality needs no description, has retaken a city once fought for by American soldiers troubles me. I served two deployments in Ramadi, fighting al Qaeda. Comrades died in that fight. I was shot in Ramadi. My initial reaction, like that of many veterans, is to ask what the hell it was all for, when nothing seems to change. The whole endeavor was a costly bloodletting and it seems the price we paid yielded no actual benefit. Yet, Memorial Day is as much a day for reflection as it is for remembrance and commemoration. And in reflecting, I have had to sit back and define exactly what we are memorializing on this day. Read the rest of this entry »

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Homegrown Terrorists

From The RAND Corporation:

Dozens of young Americans like Nguyen have attempted to join overseas jihadist groups in the past several years, raising special concern among counterterrorism officials that they might bring the fight home with them when they return. The threat was punctuated with gunfire earlier this year, when two French brothers—Chérif and Saïd Kouachi—stormed the Paris offices of the news magazine Charlie Hebdo; both had reportedly trained with groups in Yemen and then slipped back into French society.

A RAND analysis by internationally renowned terrorism expert Brian Michael Jenkins of more than 100 cases found that almost all of the American jihadists who went overseas ended up dead or landed in the same place as Sinh Vinh Ngo Nguyen. Brought down by his trusted confidante, who was really working undercover for the FBI, Nguyen admitted in court that he was trying to get to Pakistan to help train al Qaeda fighters. He was sent to prison for 13 years.

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Oregonians Rally Against Gun Control, Won’t Comply

A group from Oregon has set up a Facebook page for the rally. It is set for May 30 at the capital Salem.

This is a result of Oregon passing SB 941.

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World War II and the Origins of American Unease

World War II and the Origins of American Unease is republished with permission of Stratfor.”

By George Friedman

We are at the 70th anniversary of the end of World War II in Europe. That victory did not usher in an era of universal peace. Rather, it introduced a new constellation of powers and a complex balance among them. Europe’s great powers and empires declined, and the United States and the Soviet Union replaced them, performing an old dance to new musical instruments. Technology, geopolitics’ companion, evolved dramatically as nuclear weapons, satellites and the microchip — among myriad wonders and horrors — changed not only the rules of war but also the circumstances under which war was possible. But one thing remained constant: Geopolitics, technology and war remained inseparable comrades.

It is easy to say what World War II did not change, but what it did change is also important. The first thing that leaps to mind is the manner in which World War II began for the three great powers: the United States, the Soviet Union and the United Kingdom. For all three, the war started with a shock that redefined their view of the world. For the United States, it was the shock of Pearl Harbor. For the Soviet Union, it was the shock of the German invasion in June 1941. For the United Kingdom — and this was not really at the beginning of the war — it was shock at the speed with which France collapsed. Read the rest of this entry »

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Free Speech and the Threat of Violence

Bill Whittle on the Garland, TX attack.

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Surveillance Planes Tracked Over Baltimore

From The Washington Post:

Discovery of the flights — which involved at least two airplanes and the assistance of the FBI — has prompted the American Civil Liberties Union to demand answers about the legal authority for the operations and the reach of the technology used. Planes armed with the latest surveillance systems canmonitor larger areas than police helicopters and stay overhead longer, raising novel civil liberties issues that have so far gotten little scrutiny from courts.

 

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Pamela Geller On Texas Shooting

Pamela Geller

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k-K0LLDx1bs

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Oregon Bill Expands Background Checks and Provides For Confiscation

From Breitbart:

The Statesman Journal reports that Prozanski pushed the measure in spite of the testimony against expanded background checks from law enforcement personnel like Grant County Sheriff Glenn Palmer. Palmer cited the the ineffectiveness of background checks to show that the passage of SB 941 is really just a way to get government more heavily involved in regulating the Second Amendment. He called it “borderline treasonous,” and said his sheriff’s department would not enforce it.

Oregon Sheriff says he won’t enforce new law:

Sheriff Daniel, who is the new top cop for Josephine County which shares a border with northern California, told reporters that believes this latest gun control law goes against his county’s charter. He also said his department doesn’t have a sufficient number of deputies to pursue lawbreakers who are committing a frivolous misdemeanor.

 

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