Monday, October 7, 2013

US conducts landmark missile defense test




The US military on Tuesday conducted its first operational test of Lockheed Martin Corp’s THAAD missile defense system paired with the ship-based Aegis system, intercepting two medium-range ballistic missiles fired nearly simultaneously.

The test was conducted early Tuesday near the US Army Kwajalein Atoll test site and surrounding areas in the western Pacific, according to a Pentagon statement.

Missile defense experts said the test was important because it demonstrated the ability of the US military to defend against possible regional ballistic missile threats from countries like Iran or North Korea or even accidental releases.

V.-Adm. James Syring, who heads the US Missile Defense Agency, told Reuters that launch crews had been waiting for nearly a month for the tests but were not given any specific details on when the missiles would be fired or from where.

“It was all no-notice, unscripted in terms of what they saw,” he said. “The sailors, soldiers and airmen who operated those systems just performed flawlessly, which gives me great confidence in our capability.”

Rick Lehner, spokesman for the US Missile Defense Agency, said Lockheed’s THAAD system – which stands for Terminal High Altitude Area Defense – had been successfully tested 10 times, but this was the first operational test of that system and its ability to work together with the Aegis system on the USS Decatur, a guided-missile destroyer in the region.

The Aegis system was last year involved in a joint US-Israeli missile defense test, when US naval ships carrying the Aegis positioned themselves off the Israeli coast, and worked with Israeli defense systems to intercept simulated enemy missiles. One US Navy ship carrying the Aegis docked at Haifa Port during the tests.

During that three-week drill, held in November, patriot missiles were fired from the Palmahim Israeli air base, south of Tel Aviv at decoy enemy missiles.

Israeli air defense systems, such as the Iron Dome anti-rocket shield and Arrow 2 anti-ballistic missile batteries, were deployed during the exercise, as well as US and Israeli Patriot batteries.

Israel and the US have spent $30 million each on the drill. More recently, representatives from the US Missile Defense Agency took part in an Israeli missile defense drill last week, which was picked up on Russian Navy radars and announced by Moscow, forcing the Defense Ministry to acknowledge the test.

On Tuesday, the US Defense Department said its flight test in the Pacific was planned more than a year ago and was not connected to events in the Middle East, where the United States is weighing a limited strike on Syria over its use of chemical weapons.

Earlier this year, after North Korea threatened to launch a nuclear attack on the US, the Pentagon moved two Aegis guided-missile destroyers to the western Pacific and a THAAD system to Guam.

Riki Ellison, chairman and founder of the nonprofit group Missile Defense Advocacy Alliance, called Tuesday's test a “tremendous achievement” and said it demonstrated the layered capabilities of the US Ballistic Missile Defense System.

“This historic test presents the most realistic operational success of intercepting ballistic missiles with current capabilities,” Ellison said. He urged the Pentagon to move a THAAD system to Turkey, Jordan or Israel to protect any potential chemical ballistic missiles fired by Syria.

Syring declined comment when asked if there were plans to move the THAAD system to the Middle East.

Monday, April 30, 2012

Medical examiners in Los Angeles are investigating the possible poisoning death of one of their own officials who may have worked on the case of Andrew Breitbart, the conservative firebrand who died March 1, the same day Sheriff Joe Arpaio announced probable cause for forgery in President Obama’s birth certificate. Michael Cormier, a respected forensic technician for the Los Angeles County Coroner died under suspicious circumstances at his North Hollywood home April 20, the same day Breitbart’s cause of death was finally made public. “There are mysterious circumstances surrounding his death,” said Elizabeth Espinosa, a news reporter for KTLA-TV. “We’re told detectives are looking into the possibility that he was poisoned by arsenic.”

Monday, March 5, 2012

Part 2 FBI is now teaching moderate Muslims may be a danger





Back then, however, Gawthrop didn’t work for the FBI. He had recently stepped down from a position with the Defense Department’s Counterintelligence Field Activity. That agency came under withering criticism during the Bush administration for keeping a database about threats to military bases that included reports on peaceful antiwar protesters and dovish Church groups. It is unclear how Gawthrop came to work for the FBI.

Through an intermediary, Gawthrop told Danger Room that he was unavailable for comment before our deadline.

‘Instead of looking for indicators of nefarious behavior, you have a sweeping generalization.’
The FBI didn’t always conflate terrorism with Islam. “I never saw that,” says Ali Soufan, one of the FBI’s most distinguished counterterrorism agents and author of the new memoir The Black Banners, who retired from the bureau in 2005. “Sometimes, toward the end of my time, I started noticing it with different entities outside the FBI. You started feeling like they had a problem with Islam-as-Islam, because of the media. But that was a few people, and was usually hidden behind closed doors.”

Soufan, a Muslim, has interrogated members of al-Qaida and contributed to rolling up one of its cells in Yemen after 9/11. But by the logic of the FBI’s training materials, Soufan’s religious practices make him a potential terrorist.

McFadden, the former NCIS counterterrorist, has a lot of respect for his FBI colleagues, who he believes are ill-served by these Islam briefings. “These are earnest special agents and police officers who want to know how do their job better,” McFadden says.

Too often, McFadden says, counterterrorism training becomes simultaneously over-broad and ignorant. “Instead of looking for indicators of nefarious behavior, you have a sweeping generalization of things like, for instance, the Hawala system,” McFadden explains. “It’s a system that most of the developing world and expatriates from it use to move money around, including terrorists. But you can’t say the whole hawala system is about terrorism, just like you can’t say that Islam as a whole has anything to do with bad behavior.”

McFadden, a Catholic, believes that obsessing over obscure Koranic verses is as useful a guide to terrorist behavior as “diving into the rite of exorcism” is to understanding Catholicism.

On April 6, barely two weeks after the “Islamic Motivations for ‘Suicide’ Bombers” briefing at Quantico, FBI Director Robert Mueller defended the bureau’s budget before a congressional committee. Among his major points: the FBI needs cooperation from American Muslims to stop the next terrorist attack.

“Since September 11th, every one of our 56 field offices and the leadership of those offices have had outreach to the Muslim community,” Mueller said. “We need the support of that community … our business is basically relationships.” That is exactly the opposite message sent in the training rooms of Quantico, where the next generation of FBI counterterrorism is shaped.

FBI Teaches Agents: ‘Mainstream’ Muslims Are ‘Violent, Radical’ Welcome too the game it's about time FBI



The FBI is teaching its counterterrorism agents that “main stream” [sic] American Muslims are likely to be terrorist sympathizers; that the Prophet Mohammed was a “cult leader”; and that the Islamic practice of giving charity is no more than a “funding mechanism for combat.”

At the Bureau’s training ground in Quantico, Virginia, agents are shown a chart contending that the more “devout” a Muslim, the more likely he is to be “violent.” Those destructive tendencies cannot be reversed, an FBI instructional presentation adds: “Any war against non-believers is justified” under Muslim law; a “moderating process cannot happen if the Koran continues to be regarded as the unalterable word of Allah.”

These are excerpts from dozens of pages of recent FBI training material on Islam that Danger Room has acquired. In them, the Constitutionally protected religious faith of millions of Americans is portrayed as an indicator of terrorist activity.

“There may not be a ‘radical’ threat as much as it is simply a normal assertion of the orthodox ideology,” one FBI presentation notes. “The strategic themes animating these Islamic values are not fringe; they are main stream.”

The FBI isn’t just treading on thin legal ice by portraying ordinary, observant Americans as terrorists-in-waiting, former counterterrorism agents say. It’s also playing into al-Qaida’s hands.

Focusing on the religious behavior of American citizens instead of proven indicators of criminal activity like stockpiling guns or using shady financing makes it more likely that the FBI will miss the real warning signs of terrorism. And depicting Islam as inseparable from political violence is exactly the narrative al-Qaida spins — as is the related idea that America and Islam are necessarily in conflict. That’s why FBI whistleblowers provided Danger Room with these materials.

Over the past few years, American Muslim civil rights groups have raised alarm about increased FBI and police presence in Islamic community centers and mosques, fearing that their lawful behavior is being targeted under the broad brush of counterterrorism. The documents may help explain the heavy scrutiny.

They certainly aren’t the first time the FBI has portrayed Muslims in a negative light during Bureau training sessions. As Danger Room reported in July, the FBI’s Training Division has included anti-Islam books, and materials that claim Islam “transforms [a] country’s culture into 7th-century Arabian ways.” When Danger Room confronted the FBI with that material, an official statement issued to us claimed, “The presentation in question was a rudimentary version used for a limited time that has since been replaced.”

But these documents aren’t relics from an earlier era. One of these briefings, titled “Strategic Themes and Drivers in Islamic Law,” took place on March 21.

The Islam briefings are elective, not mandatory. “A disclaimer accompanied the presentation stating that the views expressed are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the U.S. government,” FBI spokesman Christopher Allen tells Danger Room.

“The training materials in question were delivered as Stage Two training to counterterrorism-designated agents,” Allen adds. “This training was largely derived from a variety of open source publications and includes the opinion of the analyst that developed the lesson block.”

Not all counterterrorism veterans consider the briefings so benign. “Teaching counterterrorism operatives about obscure aspects of Islam,” says Robert McFadden, who recently retired as one of the Navy Criminal Investigative Service’s al-Qaida-hunters, “without context, without objectivity, and without covering other non-religious drivers of dangerous behavior is no way to stop actual terrorists.”

Still, at Quantico, the alleged connection between Islam and violence isn’t just stipulated. It’s literally graphed.

An FBI presentation titled “Militancy Considerations” measures the relationship between piety and violence among the texts of the three Abrahamic faiths. As time goes on, the followers of the Torah and the Bible move from “violent” to “non-violent.” Not so for devotees of the Koran, whose “moderating process has not happened.” The line representing violent behavior from devout Muslims flatlines and continues outward, from 610 A.D. to 2010. In other words, religious Muslims have been and always will be agents of aggression.

Training at Quantico isn’t designed for intellectual bull sessions or abstract theory, according to FBI veterans. The FBI conducts its training so that both seasoned agents and new recruits can sharpen their investigative skills.

In this case, the FBI’s Allen says, the counterterrorism agents who received these briefings have “spent two to three years on the job.” The briefings are written accordingly. The stated purpose of one, about allegedly religious-sanctioned lying, is to “identify the elements of verbal deception in Islam and their impacts on Law Enforcement.” Not “terrorism.” Not even “Islamist extremism.” Islam.

According to this FBI training, religious Muslims have been and always will be agents of aggression.
What’s more, the Islamic “insurgency” is all-encompassing and insidious. In addition to outright combat, its “techniques” include “immigration” and “law suits.” So if a Muslim wishes to become an American or sues the FBI for harassment, it’s all just part of the jihad.

On Tuesday, the leaders of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security, Joe Lieberman (I-Connecticut) and Susan Collins (R-Maine), warned that law enforcement lacks “meaningful standards” to prevent anti-Islam material from seeping into counterterrorism training. Some FBI veterans suspect the increased pressure on American Muslims has a lot to do with the kind of training that Quantico offers.

“Seeing the materials FBI agents are being trained with certainly helps explain why we’ve seen so many inappropriate FBI surveillance operations broadly targeting the Muslim-American community, from infiltrating mosques with agents provocateur to racial- and ethnic-mapping programs,” Mike German, a former FBI agent now with the American Civil Liberties Union, tells Danger Room after being shown the documents. ”Biased police training can only result in biased policing.” (Full disclosure: This reporter’s wife works for the ACLU.)

The chief of the Training Division, Assistant FBI Director Thomas Browne, came into his current job in January. His official biography lists no terrorism expertise beyond serving as a coordinator for a bureau “Domestic Terrorism Program” in Tennessee sometime in the last decade.

It is unclear what vetting process the FBI used to approve these briefings; if any Muslim scholars contributed to them; and what criteria Quantico uses to determine Islamic expertise. “The development of effective training is a constantly evolving process,” says FBI spokesman Allen. “Sometimes the training is adapted for long-term use. This particular training segment was delivered a single time and not used since.”

Several of these briefings were the work of a single author: an FBI intelligence analyst named William Gawthrop. In 2006, before he joined the Bureau, he gave an interview to the website WorldNetDaily, and discussed some of the themes that made it into his briefings, years later. The Prophet “Muhammad’s mindset is a source for terrorism,” Gawthrop told the website, which would later distinguish itself as a leader of the “birther” movement, a conspiracy theory that denies President Obama’s American citizenship.

At the time, Gawthrop’s major suggestion for waging the war on terrorism was to attack what he called “soft spots” in Islamic faith that might “induce a deteriorating cascade effect upon the target.” That is, to discredit Islam itself and cause Muslims to abandon their religion. “Critical vulnerabilities of the Koran, for example, are that it was uttered by a mortal,” he said. Alas, he lamented, he faced the bureaucratic obstacle of official Washington’s “political taboo of linking Islamic violence to the religion of Islam,” according to the website.

Thursday, December 29, 2011

What's this? Iran losing terrorists? Surprise: Jihadists may remain neutral during any Israeli strike



By Aaron Klein
2011 WND


TEL AVIV – Iran may be losing one of its key allies and sources of influence in the Middle East – the Hamas terrorist organization.

According to well-placed sources within Hamas speaking to WND, the jihadist group has been asked by the Egyptian military to stay out of any future confrontation between Israel and Iran.

For the first time in recent years, Hamas, feeling confident from major Muslim Brotherhood gains in the region, is considering distancing itself somewhat from Iran, the sources said.

The group may even remain largely neutral if Israel strikes Iran's suspected nuclear sites, the sources said. The sources added, however, that no decision has been made.

Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood belong to the Sunni stream of Islam while Iran's leadership espouses fundamentalist Shiite Islam. While Iran has long supported Sunni groups like Hamas, the major differences in Islamic ideology and practice have always caused some unease.

Indeed, one of the most senior Hamas officials, speaking previously to WND on condition of anonymity, once said he would ultimately be pleased if Israel strikes Iran's nuclear sites even if it means scaled-back Iranian funding to his group. The Hamas official said he fears Iran would use a nuclear umbrella to enforce a Shiite superpower in the Middle East at the expense of Sunni ideology.


According to several Hamas sources, there has been tension between the jihad group and Iran over Hamas' decision to not aid Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in fighting an insurgency targeting Assad's regime.

That uprising has been supported by the Muslim Brotherhood. Syria is a major Iranian partner in the region.

Some Hamas leaders even speculated the group may move their political headquarters from Syria. Hamas chieftain Khaled Meshaal currently resides in Damascus.

According to recent Arabic language news media reports, Hamas has been quietly scaling back its Damascus headquarters.

Speaking last month to WND, Ahmed Yousef, chief political adviser to Hamas' de facto prime minister, Ismail Haniyeh, confirmed reports his group is looking to move the headquarters of its top leadership from Syria.

"There are many places in the Arab world [that would welcome the] Hamas politburo," Yousef said.

Asked specifically where Hamas headquarters can move, Yousef replied: "There are many other countries. Jordan is there. Sounds like they are trying to open dialogue with Hamas. They might offer a place. Turkey, Egypt, Qatar; there are many places where [Hamas leaders] can find a safe haven to work and try to help their people in Gaza and the West Bank."

While Hamas might not come to Iran's aid in the event of an Israeli strike, sources in the Islamist group told WND the Iranian-backed Islamic Jihad terror organization in the Gaza Strip is still firmly in Tehran's camp.

The Hamas sources said Islamic Jihad has very similar weaponry to Hamas, including a massive rocket arsenal capable of causing much damage to Israel.

WND reported in October on Iran's missile training in Gaza. Egyptian security officials said Iran has been preparing Palestinian terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip and Hezbollah in Lebanon to retaliate in the event of Israeli strikes against Tehran's nuclear sites.

The chatter about Hamas' allegiances come after the Muslim Brotherhood and the Islamist Salafi movement's Al-Nour Party saw considerable gains in Egypt's recent parliamentary vote.

Why? WND IMAM, BASEBALL AND APPLE PIE Muslim leaders to boycott NYC mayor's breakfast Concerned by NYPD efforts to infiltrate mosques


NEW YORK – Several Muslim leaders have declined invitations to the mayor's annual year-end interfaith breakfast, saying they're upset at police department efforts to infiltrate mosques and spy on Muslim neighborhoods.

The imams and activists said in a letter to Mayor Michael Bloomberg that they're disturbed at his response to a series of stories by The Associated Press detailing New York Police Department intelligence-gathering programs that monitored Muslim groups, businesses and houses of worship.

Bloomberg has defended the NYPD, saying last week it doesn't take religion into account in its policing.

Bloomberg spokesman Stu Loeser acknowledged Wednesday that about a dozen people turned down the breakfast invitation. But he said "a couple dozen" more said they plan to attend.

The letter to Bloomberg contained the names of several dozen Muslim leaders and organizations and said they believe such police measures "threaten the rights of all Americans, and deepen mistrust between our communities and law enforcement."

"Mayor Bloomberg, the extent of these civil rights violations is astonishing, yet instead of calling for accountability and the rule of law, you have thus far defended the NYPD's misconduct," the letter said.

The Muslim leaders said they appreciate the mayor's staunch support a year ago during an uproar over a planned Islamic center near the World Trade Center site. But they said they were disappointed by what he said after the AP stories since August about the police department's efforts to infiltrate Muslim neighborhoods and mosques with aggressive programs designed by a CIA officer who worked with the department after the Sept. 11 attacks.

The stories disclosed that a team of 16 police officers speaking at least five languages was assigned to use census information and government databases to map ethnic neighborhoods in New York, New Jersey and Connecticut.

Documents reviewed by the AP revealed that undercover police officers known as rakers visited local businesses such as Islamic bookstores and cafes, chatting up store owners to determine their ethnicities and gauge their views. They played cricket and eavesdropped in ethnic cafes and clubs.

The AP stories also revealed that one of the CIA's most experienced clandestine operatives began working inside the police department in July as the special assistant to the deputy commissioner of intelligence.

The CIA is prohibited from spying domestically. Its unusual partnership with the NYPD has troubled top lawmakers and prompted an internal investigation.

Bloomberg in October defended the arrangement, saying it was necessary in a dangerous world.

"There are people trying to kill us," he said. "And if the CIA can help us I'm all for getting any information they have and then letting the police department use it as -- if it's appropriate to protect you and to protect me."

The letter noted that Muslims comprise at least 10 percent of the city's population. It said the Muslims leaders were seeking a meeting with the mayor to discuss the issues raised by the reports.

"We believe it is unequivocally wrong and fundamentally misguided to invest law enforcement resources in religious or racial profiling, rather than investigating suspicious activity," it said. "We seek your clear, unambiguous, public support for the rights and privacy of all New Yorkers, including Muslims; and a condemnation of all policies that profile and target communities and community groups solely based on their religion or the color of their skin."

It also said: "We are deeply disturbed that to date we have only heard your words of strong support for these troubling policies and violations of our rights. We are equally disturbed by (police Commissioner Raymond) Kelly's denials of what we know to be true as verified by the leaked documents."

Kelly, meanwhile, met Wednesday evening at a Bronx mosque with two imams who weren't listed on the letter and with young fans of an NYPD youth soccer league, whose winners were presented with a trophy.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2011/12/29/muslim-leaders-to-boycott-nyc-mayors-breakfast-over-nypd-concerns/#ixzz1hxIgy5Qi

'Drive to kidnap IDF soldiers up since Schalit deal'



Warning Hamas it will be hit hard in a future conflict, a senior IDF commander said on Wednesday that motivation to kidnap Israeli soldiers has significantly increased since the prisoner swap for Gilad Schalit.

According to Col. Tal Hermoni, commander of the Gaza Division’s Southern Brigade, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and other terrorist groups in the Gaza Strip are working to abduct Israeli soldiers and are digging tunnels that could be used in such an attack.


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'Hamas refuses to abandon policy of IDF kidnappings'

“We believe that since there are additional Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails that these groups are working to kidnap soldiers,” Hermoni said during a briefing to reporters along the border with Egypt.

Hermoni said the abduction of a soldier would have “strategic significance” for Israel, and the IDF was working on several levels to prevent such an attack and to thwart one if it were launched.

He said orders about how commanders and soldiers should operate in an abduction attack were being clarified and explained to all the relevant ranks within the IDF.

The Jerusalem Post recently revealed that the General Staff was working to codify procedures that soldiers will be expected to follow if they have the opportunity to thwart the abduction of a comrade, even at the risk of endangering his life.

Turning to the border with Egypt, Hermoni said the IDF was investing new resources and putting in place intelligence- gathering systems to prevent attacks from Sinai. In August, eight Israelis were killed when terrorists crossed into Israel.


“We are speeding up the closure of the border with the [Sinai border] fence and plan to compete it by the end of 2012,” Hermoni said. “The challenges along the border are great. We are facing an increase in African migrants seeking refuge and work in Israel as well as criminal smuggling of drugs in addition to potential terrorist attacks.”

Senior IDF sources said, though, that with the closure of the Egyptian border, there was a fear that terrorists would try to cross into Israel from Jordan.

Turning to the third anniversary of the Cast Lead offensive, Hermoni said the IDF believed the deterrence that was created following the operation was still in place, and that Hamas was currently not interested in a renewed large-scale conflict with Israel.

“The IDF created a new security reality after Cast Lead; before then dozens of rockets were fired daily. Today that is not the case,” Hermoni said.

The brigade commander stressed that the army was prepared to carry out a large offensive if needed.

“We are ready at all times” he said. “Hamas will be the one to pay the price.”