Tag Archives: al Qaeda in Syria

How The US Empowered Terrorists in Syria.

al-Qaeda

This article is cross posted with permission from Global Research News.

Hours after the Feb. 3 U.S. military raid in northern Syria that left the leader of ISIS and

multiple family members dead, President Biden delivered a triumphant White House

address.

The late-night Special Forces operation in Syria’s Idlib province, Biden proclaimed, was a

“testament to America’s reach and capability to take out terrorist threats no matter

where they hide around the world.”

Unmentioned by the president, and virtually all media accounts of the assassination, was

the critical role that top members of his administration played during the Obama years in

creating the Al Qaeda-controlled hideout where ISIS head Abu Ibrahim al-Qurayshi, as well

as his slain predecessor, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, found their final refuge.

In waging a multi-billion dollar covert war in support of the insurgency against Syrian

President Bashar al-Assad, top Obama officials who now serve under Biden made it

American policy to enable and arm terrorist groups that attracted jihadi fighters from across

the globe. This regime change campaign, undertaken one decade after Al Qaeda attacked

the U.S. on 9/11, helped a sworn U.S. enemy establish the Idlib safe haven that it still

controls today.

A concise articulation came from Jake Sullivan to his then-State Department boss Hillary

Clinton in a February 2012 email: “AQ [Al Qaeda] is on our side in Syria.”

Sullivan, the current national security adviser, is one of many officials who oversaw the Syria

proxy war under Obama to now occupy a senior post under Biden. This group includes

Secretary of State Antony Blinken, climate envoy John Kerry, USAID Administrator Samantha

Power, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, NSC Middle East coordinator Brett

McGurk, and State Department Counselor Derek Chollet. Their efforts to remake the Middle East via regime change, not just in Syria but earlier in Libya, led to the deaths of Americans – including Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three other U.S. officials in Benghazi in 2012; the slaughter of countless civilians; the creation of millions of refugees; and ultimately, Russia’s entry into the Syrian battlefield.

Contacted through their current U.S. government agencies, none of the Obama-Biden principals offered comment on their policy of supporting an Al Qaeda-dominated insurgencies in Syria.

The Obama-Biden team’s record in Syria resonates today as many of its members handle

the unfolding crisis in Ukraine. As in Syria, the U.S. is flooding a chaotic war zone with

weapons in a dangerous proxy conflict with Russia, with long-term ramifications that are

impossible to foresee. “I deeply worry that what’s going to happen next is that we will see

Ukraine turn into Syria,” Democratic Senator Chris Coons told CBS News on April 17.

Based on declassified documents, news reports, and scattered admissions of U.S. officials,

this overlooked history of how the Obama-Biden team’s effort to oust the Assad regime – in

concert with allies including Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and Turkey – details the series of discrete

decisions that ultimately led the U.S. to empower terror networks bent on its destruction.

Seizing Momentum and Munitions – From Libya to Pursue Regime Change in Syria.

The road to Al Qaeda’s control of the Syrian province of Idlib actually started hundreds of

miles across the Mediterranean in Libya.

In March 2011, after heavy lobbying from senior officials including Secretary Hillary Clinton,

President Obama authorized a bombing campaign in support of the jihadist insurgency

fighting the government of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi. Backed by NATO firepower, the

rebels toppled Gaddafi and gruesomely murdered him in October.

Buoyed by their quick success in Libya, the Obama administration set their sights on

Damascus, by then a top regime change target in Washington. According to former NATO

commander Wesley Clark, the Assad regime – a key ally of U.S. foes Iran, Hezbollah, and

Russia – was marked for overthrow alongside Iraq in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. A

leaked 2006 U.S. Embassy in Damascus cable assessed that Assad’s “vulnerabilities”

included “the potential threat to the regime from the increasing presence of transiting

Islamist extremists,” and detailed how the U.S. could “improve the likelihood of such

opportunities arising.”

The outbreak of the Syrian insurgency in March 2011, coupled with the fall of Gaddafi,

offered the U.S. a historic opportunity to exploit Syria’s vulnerabilities. While the Arab Spring

sparked peaceful Syrian protests against the ruling Ba’ath party’s cronyism and repression,

it also triggered a largely Sunni, rural-based revolt that took a sectarian and violent turn.

The U.S. and its allies, namely Qatar and Turkey, capitalized by tapping the massive arsenal

of the newly ousted Libyan government.

“During the immediate aftermath of, and following the uncertainty caused by, the

downfall of the [Gaddafi] regime in October 2011,” the Defense Intelligence Agency

reported the following year, “…weapons from the former Libya military stockpiles

located in Benghazi, Libya were shipped from the port of Benghazi, Libya, to the ports of Banias and the Port of Borj Islam, Syria.”

The redacted DIA document, obtained by the group Judicial Watch, does not specify whether

the U.S. was directly involved in these shipments. But it contains significant clues. With

remarkable specificity, it detailed the size and contents of one such shipment in August

2012: 500 sniper rifles, 100 rocket-propelled grenade launchers with 300 rounds, and 400

howitzer missiles.

Most tellingly, the document noted that the weapons shipments were halted “in early

September 2012.” This was a clear reference to the killing by militants that month of four

Americans – Ambassador Christopher Stevens, another State Department official, and two

CIA contractors – in Benghazi, the port city where the weapons to Syria were coming from.

The Benghazi annex “was at its heart a CIA operation,” U.S. officials told the Wall Street

Journal. At least two dozen CIA employees worked in Benghazi under diplomatic cover.

Although top intelligence officials obscured the Benghazi operation in sworn testimony

before the House Intelligence Committee, a Senate investigation eventually confirmed a

direct CIA role in the movement of weapons from Libya to Syria. A classified version of a

2014 Senate report, not publicly released, documented an agreement between President

Obama and Turkey to funnel weapons from Libya to insurgents in Syria. The operation,

established in early 2012, was run by then-CIA Director David Petraeus.

“The [Benghazi] consulate’s only mission was to provide cover for the moving of arms”

to Syria, a former U.S. intelligence official told journalist Seymour Hersh in the London

Review of Books. “It had no real political role.”

The Death of a U.S. Ambassador

J. Christopher Stevens — United States ambassador to Libya from June 7, 2012 until

killed in an attack on the US consulate in Benghazi, on September 12, 2012.

Under diplomatic cover, Stevens appears to have been a significant figure in the CIA

program. More than one year before he became ambassador in June 2012, Stevens was

appointed the U.S. liaison to the Libyan opposition. In this role, he worked with the Al

Qaeda-tied Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and its leader, Abdelhakim Belhadj, a warlord who fought alongside Osama bin Laden in Afghanistan. After Gaddafi’s ouster, Belhadj was named head of the Tripoli Military Council, which controlled security in the country’s capital.

Belhadj’s portfolio was not limited to post-coup Libya. In November 2011, the Al Qaeda ally

traveled to Turkey to meet with leaders of the Free Syrian Army, the CIA-backed opposition

military coalition. Belhadj’s trip came as part of the new Libyan government’s effort to

provide “money and weapons to the growing insurgency against Bashar al-Assad,” the

London Telegraph reported at the time. On September 14, 2012 – just three days after

Stevens and his American colleagues were killed – the London Times revealed that a Libyan

vessel “carrying the largest consignment of weapons for Syria since the uprising began,”

had recently docked in the Turkish port of Iskenderun. Once unloaded, “most of its cargo is

making its way to rebels on the front lines.”

The known details of Stevens’ last hours on September 11 suggest that shipping weapons

was at the top of his agenda. Although based in Tripoli and facing violent threats, he

nonetheless made the dangerous trek to Benghazi around the fraught anniversary of 9/11.

According to a 2016 report from the House Intelligence Committee, one of Stevens’ last

scheduled meetings was with the head of al-Marfa Shipping and Maritime Services

Company, a Libyan firm involved in ferrying weapons to Syria. His final meeting of the day

was with Consul General Ali Sait Akin of Turkey, where the weapons were shipped. Fox News

later reported that “Stevens was in Benghazi to negotiate a weapons transfer.”

With the Libyan channel shut down by Stevens’ murder, the U.S. and its allies turned to

other sources. One was Croatia, where Saudi Arabia financed a major weapons purchase in

late 2012that was arranged by the CIA.

The CIA’s use of the Saudi kingdom’s vast coffers continued an arrangement from prior

covert proxy wars, including the arming of the mujahideen in Afghanistan and of the Contras

in Nicaragua.

Although the Obama administration claimed that the weapons funneled to Syria were

intended for “moderate rebels,” they ultimately ended up in the hands of a jihadi-dominated

insurgency. Just one month after the Benghazi attack, the New York Times reported that

“hard-line Islamic jihadists,” including groups “with ties or affiliations with Al Qaeda,” have

received “the lion’s share of the arms shipped to the Syrian opposition.”

Covertly Arming An Al Qaeda-Dominated Insurgency.

The Obama administration did not need media accounts to learn that jihadists dominated

the Syrian insurgency on the receiving end of a CIA supply chain.

One month before the Benghazi attack, Pentagon intelligence analysts gave the White

House a blunt appraisal. An August 2012 Defense Intelligence Agency report, disseminated

widely among U.S. officials, noted that “Salafi[s], the Muslim Brotherhood, and AQI [Al

Qaeda in Iraq] are the major forces driving the insurgency.” Al Qaeda, the report stressed,

“supported the Syrian opposition from the beginning.” Their aim was to create a “Salafist

principality in eastern Syria” – an early warning of the ISIS caliphate that would be

established two years later.

General Michael Flynn, who headed the DIA at the time, later recalled that his staff “got

enormous pushback” from the Obama White House. “I felt that they did not want to hear the truth,” Flynn said. In 2015, one year after Flynn was forced out, dozens of Pentagon intelligence analysts signed on to a complaint alleging that top Pentagon intelligence officials were “cooking the books” to paint a rosier picture of the jihadi presence in Syria.

(The Pentagon later cleared CENTCOM commanders of wrongdoing.)

The Free Syrian Army (FSA), the main CIA-backed insurgent force, also informed Obama

officials of the jihadi dominance in their ranks. “From the reports we get from the doctors,”

FSA officials told the State Department in November 2012, “most of the injured and dead

FSA are Jabhat al-Nusra, due to their courage and [the fact they are] always at the front

line.”

Jabhat al-Nusra (Al-Nusra Front) is Al Qaeda’s franchise in Syria. It emerged as a splinter

group of Al Qaeda in Iraq after a falling out between AQI leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and

his then-deputy, Mohammed al-Jolani. In 2013, Baghdadi relaunched his organization under

the name of Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). Jolani led his Syria-based Al Qaeda faction

under the black flag of al-Nusra.

“While rarely acknowledged explicitly in public,” Charles Lister, a Gulf state-funded analyst

in close contact with Syrian insurgent groups wrote in March 2015, “the vast majority of the

Syrian insurgency has coordinated closely with Al-Qaeda since mid-2012 – and to great

effect on the battlefield.” As one Free Syrian Army leader told the New York Times: “No FSA

faction in the north can operate without al-Nusra’s approval.”

According to David McCloskey, a former CIA analyst who covered Syria in the war’s early

years, U.S. officials knew that “al-Qaeda affiliated groups and Salafi jihadist groups were the

primary engine of the insurgency.” This, McCloskey says, was “a tremendously problematic

aspect of the conflict.”

In his memoir, senior Obama aide Ben Rhodes acknowledged that al-Nusra “was probably

the strongest fighting force within the opposition.” It was also clear, he wrote, that U.S.-

backed insurgent groups were “fighting side by side with al-Nusra.” For this reason, Rhodes

recalled, he argued against the State Department’s December 2012 designation of al-Nusra

as a foreign terrorist organization. This move “would alienate the same people we want to

help.” (Asked about wanting to help an Al Qaeda-dominated insurgency, Rhodes did not

respond).

In fact, designating al-Nusra as a terror organization allowed the Obama administration to

publicly claim that it opposed Al Qaeda’s Syria branch while continuing to covertly arm the

insurgency that it dominated. Three months after adding al-Nusra to the terrorism list, the

U.S. and its allies “dramatically stepped up weapons supplies to Syrian rebels” to help

“rebels to try and seize Damascus,” the Associated Press reported in March 2013.

‘There Was No Moderate Middle’

Harvard 2014: Biden goes off-script, revealing the truth of U.S. support for jihadists in Syria.

Despite being privately aware of Nusra’s dominance, Obama administration officials

continued to publicly insist that the U.S. was only supporting Syria’s “moderate opposition,”

as then-Deputy National Security Adviser Antony Blinken described it in September 2014.

But speaking to a Harvard audience days later, then-Vice President Biden blurted out the

concealed reality. In the Syrian insurgency, “there was no moderate middle,” Biden

admitted. Instead, U.S. “allies” in Syria “poured hundreds of millions of dollars and

thousands of tons of weapons into anyone who would fight against Assad.” Those weapons

were supplied, Biden said, to “al-Nusra, and Al-Qaeda and the extremist elements of jihadis

coming from other parts of the world.”

Biden quickly apologized for his comments, which appeared to fit the classic definition of the

Kinsley gaffe: a politician inadvertently telling the truth. Biden’s only error was omitting his

administration’s critical role in helping its allies arm the jihadis.

Rather than shut down a CIA program that was aiding the Al Qaeda-dominated insurgency,

Obama expanded it. In April 2013, the president signed an order that amended the CIA’s

covert war, codenamed Timber Sycamore, to allow direct U.S. arming and training. After

tapping Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Qatar to fund its arms pipeline for insurgents inside Syria,

Obama’s order allowed the CIA to directly furnish U.S.-made weapons. Just as with the

regime change campaign in Libya, a key architect of this operation was Hillary Clinton.

Obama’s upgraded proxy war in Syria proved to be “one of the costliest covert action

programs in the history of the C.I.A.,” the New York Times reported in 2017. Documents

leaked by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden revealed a budget of nearly $1 billion per

year, or around $1 of every $15 in CIA spending. The CIA armed and trained nearly 10,000

insurgents, spending “roughly $100,000 per year for every anti-Assad rebel who has gone

through the program,” U.S. officials told the Washington Post in 2015. Two years later, one

U.S. official estimated that CIA-funded militias “may have killed or wounded 100,000 Syrian

soldiers and their allies over the past four years.”

But these militias were not just killing pro-Syrian government forces. As the New York Times

reported in April 2017, US-backed insurgents carried out “sectarian mass murder.”

One such act of mass murder came in August 2013, when the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army

joined an al-Nusra and ISIS offensive on Alawite areas of Latakia. A Human Rights

Investigation found that the insurgents engaged in “the systematic killing of entire families,”

slaughtering a documented 190 civilians, including 57 women, 18 children, and 14 elderly

men. In a video from the field, former Syrian army general Salim Idriss, head of the U.S.-

backed Supreme Military Council (SMC), bragged that “we are cooperating to a great extent

in this operation.”

The Latakia massacres came four months after the U.S. ambassador to Syria, Robert Ford,

hailed Idriss and his fighters as “the moderate and responsible elements of the armed

opposition.” The role of Idriss’s forces in the slaughter did not cancel the administration’s

endorsement. In October, the Washington Post revealed that the “CIA is expanding a

clandestine effort … aimed at shoring up the fighting power of units aligned with the

Supreme Military Council, an umbrella organization led by [Idriss] that is the main recipient

of U.S. support.”

[After this article was published, RCI received Ford’s email response to our request for

comment. Ford wrote that there was “no question” that the U.S.-backed Free Syrian Army

engaged in war crimes but noted, “We denounced [them] publicly at the time and in

private.” Ford said the administration’s official stance that moderates were engaged in the

fight was accurate in light of the facts on the ground. “Our definition of moderates in the

armed opposition,” he wrote, “were people willing to negotiate a peaceful end to the war.”

Officially, the upgraded CIA program barred direct support to al-Nusra or its allies in Syria.

But once U.S. weapons arrived in Syria, the Obama administration recognized that it had no

way of controlling their use – an apparent motive for waging the program covertly. “We

needed plausible deniability in case the arms got into the hands of al-Nusra,” a former

senior administration official told the New York Times in 2013.

One area where U.S. arms got into al-Nusra’s hands was the northwestern Syrian province of

Idlib. Al Qaeda leaders would ultimately control and – though the group disputes it – provide

ISIS leaders sanctuary there.

‘Al-Qaeda’s Largest Safe Haven Since 9/11’

In May 2015, an array of insurgent groups, dubbed the Jaish al-Fatah (“Army of Conquest”)

coalition, captured Idlib province from the Syrian government. The fight was led by al-Nusra,

and showcased what Charles Lister, the D.C.-based analyst with contacts to insurgents in

Syria, dubbed “a far improved level of coordination” between rival militants, including the

U.S.-backed FSA and multiple “jihadist factions.”

For Lister, the conquest of Idlib also revealed that the U.S. and its allies “changed their tune

regarding coordination with Islamists.” Citing multiple battlefield commanders, Lister

reported that “the U.S.-led operations room in southern Turkey,” which coordinated support

to U.S.-backed insurgent groups, “was instrumental in facilitating their involvement in the

operation” led by al-Nusra. While the insurgents’ U.S.-led command had previously opposed

“any direct coordination” with jihadist groups, the Idlib offensive “demonstrated something

different,” Lister concluded: To capture the province, U.S. officials “specifically encouraged a

closer cooperation with Islamists commanding frontline operations.”

The U.S.-approved battlefield cooperation in Idlib allowed al-Nusra fighters to directly benefit

from U.S. weapons. Despite occasional flare-ups between them, al-Nusra was able to use

U.S.-backed insurgent groups “as force multipliers,” the Institute for the Study of War, a

prominent D.C. think tank, observed when the battle began. Insurgent military gains,

Foreign Policy reported in April 2015, were achieved “thanks in large part to suicide

bombers and American anti-tank TOW missiles.”

The jihadist-led victory in Idlib quickly subjected its residents to sectarian terror. In June

2015, al-Nusra fighters massacred at least 20 members of the Druze faith. Hundreds of

villagers spared in the attack were forced to convert to Sunni Islam. Facing the same

threats, nearly all of Idlib’s remaining 1,200 Christians fled the province, leaving a Christian

population that reportedly totals just three people today.

In a 2017 post-mortem on the Obama administration’s covert war in Syria, the New York

Times described the insurgents’ conquest of Idlib as among the CIA program’s “periods of

success.” This was certainly the case for Al Qaeda.

“Idlib Province,” Brett McGurk, the anti-ISIS envoy under Obama and Trump, and now

Biden’s top White House official for the Middle East, said in 2017, “is the largest Al Qaeda

safe haven since 9/11.”

U.S. Allows ISIS Takeover

Al Qaeda is not the only sectarian death squad that managed to establish a safe haven in

the chaos of the Syria proxy war. Starting in 2013, al-Nusra’s sister-turned-rival group, ISIS, seized considerable territory of its own. As with Al Qaeda, ISIS’ land-grab in Syria received significant backdoor assist from Washington.

Before Al Qaeda captured Idlib, the first ISIS stronghold in Syria, Raqqa, grew out of a similar

alliance between U.S.-backed “moderate rebels” and jihadis. After this coalition seized the

city from the Syrian government in March 2013, ISIS took full control in November.

When ISIS declared its caliphate in parts of Syria and Iraq in June 2014, the U.S. launched an

air campaign against the group’s strongholds. But the Obama administration’s anti-ISIS

offensive contained a significant exception. In key areas where ISIS’s advance could

threaten the Assad regime, the U.S. watched it happen.

In April 2015, just as al-Nusra was conquering Idlib, ISIS seized major parts of the Yarmouk

refugee camp on the outskirts of Damascus, marking what the New York Times called the

group’s “greatest inroads yet” into the Syrian capital.

In the ancient city of Palmyra, the U.S. allowed an outright ISIS takeover. “[A]s Islamic State

closed in on Palmyra, the U.S.-led aerial coalition that has been pummeling Islamic State in

Syria for the past 18 months took no action to prevent the extremists’ advance toward the

historic town – which, until then, had remained in the hands of the sorely overstretched

Syrian security forces,” the Los Angeles Times reported in March 2016.

In a leaked conversation with Syrian opposition activists months later, then-Secretary of

State John Kerry explained the U.S. rationale for letting ISIS advance.

“Daesh [ISIS] was threatening the possibility of going to Damascus and so forth,” Kerry

explained. “And we know that this was growing. We were watching. We saw that Daesh was

growing in strength, and we thought Assad was threatened. We thought, however, we could

probably manage, that Assad would then negotiate” his way out of power.

In short, the U.S. was leveraging ISIS’s growth to impose regime change on Syrian President

Bashar al-Assad.

The U.S. strategy of “watching” ISIS’s advance in Syria, Kerry also admitted, directly caused

Russia’s 2015 entry into the conflict. The threat of an ISIS takeover, Kerry said, is “why

Russia went in. Because they didn’t want a Daesh government.”

Russia’s military intervention in Syria prevented the ISIS government in Damascus that

Kerry and fellow Obama administration principals had been willing to risk. Pulverizing

Russian airstrikes also dealt a fatal blow to the Al Qaeda-dominated insurgency that the

Obama team had spent billions of dollars to support.

From U.S. Enemy to ‘Asset’ in Syria

With U.S.-backed fighters vanquished and one of their main champions, Hillary Clinton,

defeated in the November 2016 election, the CIA operation in Syria met what the New York

Times called a “sudden death.” After criticizing the proxy war in Syria on the campaign trail,

President Trump shut down the Timber Sycamore program for good in July 2017.

“It turns out it’s – a lot of al-Qaeda we’re giving these weapons to,” Trump told the Wall

Street Journal that month.

With the exit of the Obama-Biden team, the U.S. was no longer fighting on Al Qaeda’s side.

But that did not mean that the U.S. was prepared to confront the enemy that it had helped

install in Idlib.

While Trump put an end to the CIA proxy war, his efforts to further extricate the U.S. from

Syria by withdrawing troops were thwarted by senior officials who shared the preceding

administration’s regime change goals.

“When President Trump said ‘I want everybody out of Syria,’ the top brass at Pentagon and

State had aneurysms,” Christopher Miller, the Acting Secretary of Defense during Trump’s

last months in office, recalls.

Jim Jeffrey, Trump’s envoy for Syria, admitted to deceiving the president in order to keep in

place “a lot more than” the 200 U.S. troops that Trump had reluctantly agreed to. “We were

always playing shell games to not make clear to our leadership how many troops we had

there,” Jeffrey told Defense One. Those “shell games” have put U.S. soldiers in harm’s way,

including four servicemembers recently wounded in a rocket attack on their base in

northeastern Syria.

While thwarting a full U.S. troop withdrawal, Jeffrey and other senior officials have also

preserved the U.S. government’s tacit alliance with Idlib’s Al-Qaeda rulers. Officially, al-

Nusra remains on the U.S. terrorism list. Despite several name changes, the State

Department has dismissed its rebranding efforts as a “vehicle to advance its position in the

Syrian uprising and to further its own goals as an al-Qa’ida affiliate.”

But in practice, as Jeffrey explained last year, the U.S. has treated Al-Nusra as “an asset” to

U.S. strategy in Syria. “They are the least bad option of the various options on Idlib, and Idlib

is one of the most important places in Syria, which is one of the most important places right

now in the Middle East,” he said. Jeffrey also revealed that he had communicated with al-

Nusra leader Mohammed al-Jolani via “indirect channels.”

Jeffrey’s comments underscore a profound shift in the U.S. government’s Middle East

strategy as a result of the Syria proxy war: The Syrian branch of Al Qaeda, the terror group

that attacked the U.S. on 9/11, and which then became the target of a global war on terror

aimed at destroying it, is no longer seen by powerful officials in Washington as an enemy,

but an “asset.”

Since retaking office under Biden, the Obama veterans who targeted Syria with one of the

most expensive covert wars in history have deprioritized the war-torn nation. While pledging

to maintain crippling sanctions and keep U.S. troops at multiple bases, as well as

announcing sporadic airstrikes, the White House has otherwise said little publicly about its

Syria policy. The U.S. military raid that ended ISIS leader al-Qurayshi’s life in February

prompted the only Syria-focused speech of Biden’s presidency.

While Biden trumpeted the lethal operation, the fact that it occurred in Idlib underscores a

contradiction that his administration has yet to address. By taking out an ISIS leader in Al

Qaeda’s Syria stronghold, the president and his top officials are now confronting threats

from a terror safe haven that they helped create.

MILITARY GRADE WEAPONS THE NORM ON THE STREETS OF THE CARIBBEAN: HOW TERRORIST’S IN THE CARIBBEAN CAN WREAK HAVOC ON CIVILIANS AND SECURITY PERSONNEL.

al-Qaeda, Ethnic Wars, Genocide, History, Innovation, ISIS, Islam, Leadership, Muslims, politics, Terrorism, , , , , , ,

St Peters-Sint Maarten: Yesterday on Trinidad (August 9, 2017,) officers of the Criminal Gang and Intelligence Unit (CGIU) the Southern Division and the Canine Branch, conducted an anti-crime exercise in Couva between 5 am and noon on Wednesday.

More than 800 rounds of ammunition and nine guns were found by police in Couva yesterday.

According to reports, officers of the Criminal Gang and Intelligence Unit (CGIU, the Southern Division and the Canine Branch conducted an anti-crime exercise in Couva between 5 am and noon on Wednesday.
Acting on a tip-off, the officers searched a busy area at Todd’s Road, Milton Village, Couva, and found nine guns, including a Russian-made assault rifle, a Remington rifle outfitted with a scope, an Uzi sub-machine gun and six pistols.

They also found over 800 rounds of assorted ammunition.
Police issued a press release yesterday that stated no arrests had been made in connection with the find, which was described as a major weapons and ammunition haul.

Take note of the extended clips for the pistols and remarkably two or a double drum magazine. Some drum magazines like the Beta C-Mag has a carrying capacity of a hundred rounds, the type of assault rifle shown above and an AK-47, (standard fare on the streets in the Caribbean), can fire up to 600 rounds a minute, an AR-15 another standard weapon for sale throughout the Caribbean on the street level, can fire 25 rounds in 2.5 seconds, with a single drum magazine or a double magazine like the ones shown above a single well trained terrorist like the ones returning from Iraq and Syria to the Caribbean, can wreak havoc on civilians as well a security personnel. The pandemic of gun crime throughout the Caribbean is a facilitator for terror strikes regionally, that can be more terrifying than our worst nightmare. Security organizations regionally have not announced any regional approach to the pending threat, much less a local one. Where are the OAS, OECS, and CARICOM in the face of this 21st-century threat to regional security?

CARICOM WAS WARNED ABOUT THE THREAT OF MUSLIM EXTREMISM FROM GUYANESE MUSLIMS.

Uncategorized, , , , , ,

NOTE TO READERS: This material was published previously by me on other platforms. However, the content remains relevant and even more so than when it was first published.

In the presence of representatives from more than 25 countries, the international and regional community had been warned, that should there be any Caribbean involvement in terrorist activities. That the likelihood that there would be black Guyanese involved was almost 100% certain. The warning was made in 2005 by a Guyanese delegate who had made a study on the structure of Islam in Guyana, at an international Caricom seminar for a Small Business training program. The majority of black Guyanese men he noted were converted to Islam while in prison. The disaffected poorly educated men in prison are fertile soil for radicalization. Above left Abdul Kadir is the exact opposite of the profile given for radicalization by the delegate. Kadir is a former Guyanese parliamentarian, who was arrested along with his cohorts in the middle and right, in the plot to blow up the Kennedy International Airport in New York. Before he was arrested Kadir had repeated contacts with Mohsen Rabbani (an Iranian cleric involved in the 1994 bombing of a Jewish synagogue in Argentina), and Adnan Shukrijumah, using his extensive influence as a former parliamentarian Kadir was able to help Shukrijumah secure a Guyanese passport.

Above top FBI’s most wanted poster for Adnan El Shukrijumah, a Caribbean citizen of Guyanese extraction. It is uncertain where he was born since his father was a cleric in Saudi Arabia. Both his father and mother are from Guyana. Above an FBI most wanted poster for Osama bin Laden, Ayman al Zawahiri, and Adnan El Shukrijumah.
The ―plot‖ to blow up the Kennedy Airport was brought to Kadir and his blundering cohorts by convicted drug dealer Aaron Francis, Francis agreed to lure the men into a CIA masterminded the plot, whose aim was to entrap Shukrijumah. Kadir was targeted because he was an influential, educated Guyanese who had extensive ties in Iranian diplomatic circles and was seen as a threat by the US.April 2004, Muhammad Hassan Ebrahimi, an Iranian Shiite cleric affiliated with Guyanas International Islamic College of Advanced Studies (IICAS, received large amounts of money from the Iranian government ), was abducted by armed unknown assailants (whether his murderers were CIA or others is not known). His decomposed remains were discovered a month later buried in a shallow grave. More Iranians are beginning to make use of the Caribbean, due to the nonexistence of background checks before diplomatic passports are issued. Some Iranians have been given passports of Caribbean island nations as in the case of St Kitts, which issued a Kittitian diplomatic passport to Iranian Alizera Moghadam, he claimed to have paid $1million for the passport, en route to Canada he was detained in transit. While the prime minister of St Kitts and Nevis Denzel Douglas maintains that, it is impossible to obtain a diplomatic Kittitian passport through payment, reports coming out of various sectors in St Kitts and Nevis refute his statements. Apparently, under the ‗Citizenship by Investment‖ program, Moghadam was granted his passport, in other words, he did pay for his passport. The potential for criminals, terrorists, and others to make use of the ―citizen by investment‖, are enormous the ramifications of this practice will be felt throughout the western hemisphere in years to come.

Sheik Abdullah Al Faisal the Jamaican-born, a former Christian who converted to Islam at the age of 16, he was deported from Britain in May 2007 after having spent four years in a British prison and is now on the no-fly list. He was accused of inciting racial hatred and soliciting murder. He is said to have influenced the ―shoe bomber‖, Richard Reid, Germaine Lindsay (Lindsay like Faisal is of Jamaican descent), responsible for the 2005 underground train bombing in London, in which he and 26 other others died, Faisal Shahzad, the failed Times Square bomber was also named as one of the people he ―inspired‖. In 2010 the Sheik was arrested in Kenya and accused by the government thereof of entering the country illegally. His arrest sparked deadly riots and reprisals in Kenya that lasted well over a week. The Kenyan authorities later spent well over 500,000 dollars to have him flown back to his native Jamaica. The Sheik at the age of 16 traveled to Saudi Arabia where he spent eight years, he is believed to have converted to Islam in Saudi Arabia. He took a degree in Islamic studies before coming to the UK. An Associated Press, an article published on Fri May 27 2011 by David McFadden stated: ― U.S. diplomats have expressed concern that an Islamic cleric convicted of whipping up racial hatred among Muslim converts in Britain might do the same thing in his homeland of Jamaica, according to a leaked cable from the island‘s U.S. Embassy‖.The following are excerpts and quotes from Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA), The Project for the Research of Islamic Movements (PRISM.The report stated that the region’s Muslim population consists largely of South and Southeast Asians, with their roots stemming back to the colonial period, in the last decades the region has also witnessed an increase in migrants from the Middle East. According to the report, there is a growing number of Muslim converts in the Caribbean amongst disenfranchised populations of African descent. Many of the Caribbean people of African descent converting to Islam are perceiving Islam as a ―rite‖, of political empowerment as well as an adaptation of a ―suitable‖ identity. Many are adopting Islam as Christianity is being increasingly viewed as a ―white man’s religion‖, particularly by young men of African descent regionally. Recently across the region where Islamic communities have been entrenched for decades, a clamor for the Arabization of the society is taking place. The Arabization process is specifically being felt in the growing demands that Arabic be taught in primary and secondary schools. South Asia and the Middle East is impacting the region politically, culturally, and religiously, as Islamic missionaries from both regions are being sent to the Caribbean, while Caribbean Muslim students are studying in increasing numbers in the above-mentioned Islamic regions. The report highlighted what it referred to as the: Sunnification and Islamization process in Guyana. According to the Central Islamic Organization of Guyana (CIOG), there are 150 formal and informal mosques throughout Guyana. There are several Islamic organizations active in Guyana most notably, the Hajatul Ulamaa, the Muslim Youth Organization (MYO), the Guyana Islamic Trust (GIT), the Guyana Muslim Mission Limited (GML), the Guyana United Sad‘r Islamic Anjuman (GUSIA), the Tabligh Jamaat, the Rose Hall Islamic Center and the Salafi Group. In mid-1988 Guyana became a permanent member of the Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC). In 1966 after Guyana won its independence it established diplomatic relations with Arabic countries including Egypt, Iraq, and Libya all of those countries opened embassies in Guyana. Guyanese Muslims, presently travel to Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Libya to study Islamic theology and Arabic. The Guyanese Muslims upon returning to Guyana began and still continue to introduce Wahabism (a strict Saudi Arabic interpretation of Islam), into Guyanese society. The report cited a growing concern in Trinidad that elements of some Islamic groups have traveled to Afghanistan and Pakistan and have fought in both countries in support of radical Islamists in those nations. What governments regionally nor internationally seem not to comprehend, is the Guyanese and TNT Muslim population are mainly of a Sunni Islamic persuasion, the Wahabist doctrine that has been spread, clandestinely throughout the Caribbean for years, mainly through Islamic organizations sponsored by Saudi Arabia, has borne fruit and are manifesting at present in Caribbean Sunni‘s from a broad spectrum of Caribbean nations joining the fight in Syria and Iraq in aid of their Sunni brethren in IS.

English translation of the latest fatwa by Hayy’at Tahrīr as-Shām.

al-Qaeda, Islam, politics, Terrorism, , , , , , , , , ,

z3fyyopy (1)

 

 

English translation by al-Maqalaat dd May 10, 2017

 

English translation of the recent statement by Hay’at Tahrir Shaam concerning the Astana deal.

“The legal position concerning the latest events and developments facing the Syrian revolution.

 

All praises are due to Allah Who said: “We will, without doubt, help our apostles and those who believe, (both) in this world’s life and on the Day when the Witnesses will stand forth.”

 

And the Exalted Who said: “Permission is given unto those who fight because they have been wronged, and Allah is indeed able to give them victory.”

 

And the most complete peace and blessings for always be upon our master and leader the Messenger of Allah, and his family and companions and those who adhere to them. As for what comes forth;

 

The series of plots against the Jihad of the people of Shaam and their blessed revolution is still ongoing and the latest chapter and most evil one is the Astana agreement. The sacrifices of the people of Shaam and their revolution and Jihad and blood and prisoners are sold on the market of regional and international bargains. As a contract was signed which achieves the interest of the international parties except the interest of the Syrian revolution and Shaam and its people.

 

The change of names does not change the realities, and the Muslims of Shaam will not be fooled by flashy slogans which try to fool them that they seek to bring an end to the bombings, while in reality, it is an attempt to deviate their revolution and a theft of their sacrifices with the excuse of protecting them. And they seek to break the backbone of the Mujahideen who are defending them in a way which prevents the regime from re-establishing its authority over them. And if the Muslims in Shaam would accept the equation: sacrificing the revolution to stop the bombing in return. Then they would not have revolted against the tyrant of Shaam in the first place and they would have accepted the tyrant himself similarly to these offers.

 

And in front of this reality which we pass through we have received news from multiple sources of unprecedented movements by some remnants of previous corrupt factions. And these movements seek to force and enter at the border and from there to the heartland of the liberated territories in Idlib and elsewhere. In a new conspiracy to achieve that which the disbelieving forces like the Russians and the Rawafid and the Nusayriyah were unable to achieve in all of these passed years; in terms of breaking the motivations of the Mujahideen and defeating them or taking over the territories, the Sunni Mujahideen liberated. These movements are carried out by a group of remnants of corrupt factions of whom the leadership were satisfied with loyalty to covert projects at the expense of the revolution of the people of Shaam and their Jihad. As they are preparing to assault the remaining territories of the revolution and Jihad in concordance with the resolutions of Astana.

 

And in accordance to these suspicious movements and sudden preparations the Fatwa council in Hay’at Tahrir Shaam has decided the following:

 

Firstly: agreeing to the Astane deal and accepting it is a betrayal to Allah, his messenger and the believers, also [ a betrayal ] to the blood spilt and efforts put forth in liberating the Muslims in Shaam from the shackles of the Nusayri [ sect ] , and a conspiracy to eliminate the Jihad and revolution in Shaam, and preparation to assign authority to the Nusayris again, and submitting the country and people to the disbelieving occupiers, by exercising the methods of guardianship over the Muslims of Shaam. So it is obligatory upon every Muslim to work on breaching this deal, oppose it, expose its reality and uncover those behind it.

 

Secondly: these gatherings and remnants are groups of corruption, agents, and mercenaries, despite their different names the factor that unites them is corruption in the lands, there isn’t a major sin that they haven’t committed in the lands they land upon, such as plunder of wealth, properties, dishonoring the Muslims and terrorizing those who are safe.

 

Due to this, repelling whoever intends to corrupt the revolution and Jihad from these people or other than them is a type of Jihad in which the aggressor who corrupts the religion and worldly matters is repelled, and it is obligatory upon every Muslim. They should rather fight deadly than to let them occupy the areas liberated by the blood of the Mujahideen. And if Allah writes death for one of us in those situations then what a blessed martyrdom it is in the sake of Allah and striving against his enemies. And it is obligatory upon the masses to fight those criminal remnants, and sacrifice the valuable than to allow those corrupters to advance towards any area under any pretext or banner.

 

And this ruling includes these remnants and also those who cooperate with them or allow them to work under their banner, all of them are the same in the ruling of the obligation to repel and fight them.

 

Finally: to our honored people in the guarded Shaam and land of resurrection and gathering, and to our soldiers and soldiers of all the Sunni factions we say, seek help from Allah Almighty in striving against your enemies until Allah judges between us and them, and do not enfeeble, sorrow, weaken or despair. Fight in defense of your religion, border, honor, land, revolution and Jihad.

 

“And Allah will surely support those who support Him. Indeed, Allah is Powerful and Exalted in Might.”

 

“O you who have believed, persevere and endure and remain stationed and fear Allah that you may be successful.”

 

And praises are due to Allah the Lord of the worlds.

Hay’at Tahrir Shaam

 

Fatwa Council