N.Y. man accused of terror recruiting
30-year-old Mufid Elfgeeh of Rochester, N.Y., is indicted on three counts of attempting to provide material support and resources to ISIS. A Yemeni-born U.S. dual citizen, he is one of the first people to be charged by the U.S. with recruiting for ISIS. Court documents show that Elfeegh tried to raise money to enable a Yemeni man to join ISIS including allegedly sending the man $600 to travel from Yemen to Syria. An FBI affidavit says that in April, Elfgeeh traveled to Buffalo with an FBI informant to get a passport for the undercover agent. He suggested that ISIS would use the informant to ‘operate a cannon, act as a sniper and/or build bombs.’ A tweet from his home computer:
al-Qaida [sic] said it loud and clear; we are fighting the American invasion and their hegemony over the earth and the people.
He is also charged with one count of attempting to kill ‘officers and employees of the United States,’ two counts or possession of an unregistered firearm silencer, and a count of possession of firearms and silencers in furtherance of a violent crime. He is scheduled to appear in court for arraignment Thursday. Assistant Federal Public Defender Mark Hosken says that he will enter a not guilty plea in response to all the charges.
Half Iraqi army not ready
Half of the potential military prowess in Iraq is not capable of effectively teaming up with the United States. The other half requires rebuilding efforts consisting of additional training and equipment. Dempsey is hoping this force is made ready with intelligence, air surveillance and tactical air power, along with advisers to assist. Dempsey:
This is about training them in protected locations and then enabling them…
Dempsey also explains that a large US military force, also known as boots on the ground, cannot fix the problem of the Islamic State taking over large swaths of land. He says the key is to form an Iraqi government that unites the Kurdish and Sunni populations as equal partners. Dempsey:
I’m telling you, if that doesn’t happen then it’s time for Plan B.
The general further explains why even US air power cannot ultimately stop ISIS. Dempsey:
What we’ve seen so far is, a lot of the black flags have come down, a lot of the convoys have dispersed, a lot of the (fighter) assembly areas have been moved into urban areas. This will be a campaign of adaptation.
Manning: Focus on containment
Manning writes a commentary in The Guardian stating that military strikes play to ISIS’s strengths, and recommending four areas that a containment strategy could focus on. She suggests countering ISIS’s online presence to curb recruitment. The coalition should then set clear, temporary borders in the region to discourage ISIS taking territory where humanitarian issues could result. It should place a moratorium on ransom payments for hostages and cut off other sources of ISIS funding such as oil trade and artefact theft. Finally, it should allow ISIS to succeed in setting up a failed ‘state’ – in a contained area and over a long enough period of time to prove itself unpopular and unable to govern.
Eventually, if they are properly contained, I believe that Isis will not be able to sustain itself on rapid growth alone, and will begin to fracture internally. The organization will begin to disintegrate into several smaller, uncoordinated entities – ultimately failing in their objective of creating a strong state.
Foley mission ‘riskiest ever’
Gen. Dempsey tells the Senate that the mission to rescue Foley – which ultimately failed – was the riskiest ever attempted:
Having been at this some time, it was the most complex, highest risk mission we’ve ever undertaken.
He says this may provide some solace to Foley’s family, who have said that the government did not offer them enough help.
‘Won’t look like shock-and-awe’
Dempsey says strikes on ISIS in Syria will be different from the ‘shock-and-awe’ tactics of the Iraq War:
This won’t look like a shock-and-awe campaign because that’s not how Isil is organized.
The U.S. will work to ensure a Syrian chain of command is in place to lead forces against ISIS in what he says will be a persistent campaign.
Local forces to fight ISIS
Hagel says that the fight against ISIS in Iraq and Syria will depend on local opposition:
The best counterweight against Isil are local forces
U.S. troops will not engage the group directly:
American forces will not have a combat mission.
He says U.S. forces in Iraq will operate out of Baghdad and Irbil, for a total of about 1,600 troops. will support Iraqi and Kurdish forces. Meanwhile, Saudi Arabia has agreed to host training grounds for more than 5,000 Syrian opposition forces, who will be given small arms, vehicles and communications equipment and training:
We would be prepared to provide increasingly [sophisticated] types of assistance.
The U.S. will select the Syrian opposition carefully:
A rigorous vetting process would be critical to the success of this program. There will always be risks. But we believe that risk is justified.
Hagel: ‘We are at war’
Defense Secretary Hagel says that the U.S. is fighting a war against ISIS:
This will not be an easy or a brief effort … We are at war with Isil, as we are with al-Qaeda.
Approves Syrian airstrikes
Defense Secretary Hagel tells the Senate that he has approved a plan to conduct ‘targeted actions against [ISIS] safe havens in Syria.’
General Dempsey and I have both reviewed and approved the Cent Com plan.
This includes striking infrastructure. He says the U.S. has carried out more than 160 airstrikes so far, which have ‘disrupted’ ISIS.
Expands air campaign
Less than a week after President Obama pledged a multi-step campaign to degrade and destroy IS militants, U.S. attack and fighter aircraft are used Sunday and Monday beyond humanitarian missions and protecting U.S. personnel. Two airstrikes target ISIS positions in Sinjar to the north and southwest of Baghdad in support of Iraqi offensive operations. The number of air strikes has now risen to 162 since early August.
Turkey provides ISIS recruits
At least 1,000 Turks join the Islamic State over a period of time. The extremist group especially attracts disgruntled, disadvantaged youths with the enticement of money. Turkish fighters also identify more favorably with ISIS governance versus Turkish governance. A rickety district known as Hacibayram that is a tourist attraction serves as a recruitment center for potential fighters to Syria. Stein:
There are clearly recruitment centers being set up in Ankara and elsewhere in Turkey, but the government doesn’t seem to care. It seems their hatred for Bashar al-Assad and their overly nuanced view of what radical Islam is has led to a very short and narrow-sighted policy that has serious implications.
The United States places considerable pressure on President Recept Tayyip Erdogan to better police the Turkey border connecting with Syria. Turkey refuses to take measures countering ISIS, upsetting American officials.
European Kurds take up arms
Kurds who live in Europe are leaving their homes and taking up arms against ISIS by joining the Peshmerga, a militia force in the Kurdish region of Iraq. Deputy Chairman of the Kurdish community in Germany, Mehmet Tanriverdi, knows of dozens of Kurds who are leaving Germany and other European countries to combat against ISIS. One potential participant is just a phone call away to leave his quiet life in Denmark in order to combat the “psychopaths” of the Islamic State. Pirani:
I feel so helpless here. I am ready to die for the Kurdish cause.
Offered reduced sentence
Berisha is offered a reduction in sentence to three years if he provides information on ISIS. A charge sheet says he took part in ISIS combat missions in Syria but that he has turned his back on the group and is not a threat to Germany. His lawyer:
[Berisha] returned disappointed and traumatised. He saw and experienced terrible suffering there.
‘Quran books’ found near border
Midland County, Tx., sheriff Gary Painter tells Fox & Friends that there is evidence of ‘Muslims’ crossing the Mexican border. Hasselbeck:
Are you saying that ISIS is ready to come across poised to perhaps execute what they have threatened to do, attacks on the United States, drown us in our own blood?
Painter:
I’m saying the border is wide open. We have found copies, or people along the border, have found Muslim clothing, they have found Quran books that are laying on the side of the trail. So we know that there are Muslims that have come across, have been smuggled in the United States.
He recommends military action against ISIS, without specifying the location of the proposed airstrikes:
If they show their ugly head in our area, we’ll send them to hell. I think the United States needs to get busy and they need to bomb them. They need to take them out. I would like for them to hit them so hard and so often that every time they hear a propeller on a plane or a jet aircraft engine that they urinate down both legs.
Syrian airstrikes ‘may be illegal’
Officials in the House of Commons Library warn that airstrikes against ISIS in Syria may be difficult to justify under international law, despite Cameron’s view that the Assad regime is illegitimate and does not need to give permission for military operations. A briefing paper prepared for Members of Parliament:
Action in Syria will be difficult to justify legally without a request for assistance from the Assad government, and it is unlikely that the West could be seen to be responding to such a request. The British Government has said that any action in Syria will comply with international law, and the most likely way to achieve this would be to claim that military action is for humanitarian purposes, using the Responsibility to Protect doctrine. This remains controversial, however, without a United Nations Security Council resolution to authorise it.
‘Al Qaeda requested Henning’s release’
U.S. journalist Bilal Abdul Kareem, a film-maker who has reported extensively from Syria, says he interviewed a commander of the Al-Nusra Front, the Syrian affiliate of Al Qaeda, who confronted ISIS to demand the release of Henning. Kareem says ‘anyone of any influence,’ including Al Qaeda, has sought to intervene on behalf of Haines, as he was a volunteer seeking to help Muslim refugees in the town of Dana and his abduction is ‘wrong under Islamic law’:
Four days after he was captured, the emir went to Al-Dana and said: ‘Look, what you are doing is wrong. You have no business what you are doing. You have no right to abduct him. You have no reason to detain him just because he is not Muslim’.
There were initial hopes that Henning would be released:
But then Henning was removed from his prison in Al-Dana and never heard of again.
‘Dedicated to Syria cause’
The organizer of the British volunteer convoy that Henning was traveling with when he was kidnapped by ISIS militants says that he was dedicated to aid work in Syria. Bolton aid worker Kasim Jameel:
Alan is an amazing guy. He is the best of the best. He is my best friend and I am praying for him. He loved the cause so much that when he went to Turkey on holiday with his family, he had a big tattoo across his arm saying ‘aid for Syria’ – he was that dedicated. The cause had literally changed his life around – it meant that much to him.
Students unwittingly support ISIS
0 CommentsThe Media Research Center records an experiment on video with Dan Joseph convincing college students to sign a petition to support ISIS. Dan explains in the video that he assumes any student who signs the petition have no clue of the ISIS threat. Joseph:
We are supporting ISIS today. We are telling President Obama to support the fighters of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria — do not bomb them. They are just like us, only with slightly more beheadings.
Some students sign, while other students who are aware of ISIS are upset. U.S. military veteran:
I know not so. I’m from the military. I know not so.
Joseph:
How do you think we’ve gotten so many signatures?
U.S. military veteran:
Because people are (expletive). And they don’t watch the news, and they vote uneducated — that’s why.
Austrian girl may be dead
Austrian Interior Ministry spokesman Alexander Marakovits says authorities have received intelligence that one of the two Austrian teen girls believed to have joined ISIS may have been killed:
We also have this information and have checked it, but cannot say with absolute certainty that it is true. But the parents have been informed their daughter could be dead.
It is not specified whether the girl believed to have died is 16-year-old Samra Kesinovic or 15-year-old Sabina Selimovic, both of whom are believed to have run way from their homes in Vienna in April to join ISIS.
No air strikes
Cameron resists calls for the UK to join the U.S. in conducting airstrikes on ISIS. With the threat posed by ISIS to UK citizens underscored by the group’s execution of Haines, Cameron says the nation will stick with its approach of diplomatic pressure, supporting U.S. action and helping Iraqi and local Kurdish authorities. Televised statement:
As this strategy intensifies, we are ready to take whatever steps are necessary to deal with this threat and keep our country safe. Step by step, we must drive back, dismantle, and ultimately destroy ISIL (IS) and what it stands for. We will do so in a calm, deliberate way, but with an iron determination.
‘Barbaric murder’
Obama says the killing by ISIS of British aid worker Haines is a ‘barbaric murder,’ and reiterates plefges to ‘degrade and destroy’ the group.
"The United States strongly condemns the barbaric murder of UK citizen David Haines by the terrorist group ISIL." pic.twitter.com/iscj8GSB5h
— White House Archived (@ObamaWhiteHouse) September 14, 2014