RUTHFULLY YOURS

The Taliban vowed to create “a graveyard for the American Empire” with “lofty spirits” after President Trump didn’t heed their lobbying for a withdrawal from Afghanistan.

In unveiling an Afghanistan strategy at Fort Myer outside D.C. on Monday night, Trump said that “perhaps it will be possible to have a political settlement that includes elements of the Taliban in Afghanistan,” a continuation of the Obama-era policy that kept the door open to negotiations with the terror group and categorized them as armed insurgents.

The Taliban killed two U.S. soldiers in a suicide bombing earlier this month and claimed responsibility for the death of a U.S. soldier in July. They also claimed an Afghan military recruit who killed three U.S. soldiers in June was one of their fighters who had infiltrated security forces.

“America will continue its support for the Afghan government and the Afghan military as they confront the Taliban in the field,” Trump said. “Ultimately, it is up to the people of Afghanistan to take ownership of their future, to govern their society, and to achieve an everlasting peace. We are a partner and a friend, but we will not dictate to the Afghan people how to live, or how to govern their own complex society. We are not nation-building again. We are killing terrorists.”

Trump noted that “the American people are weary of war without victory” and said that despite his “original instinct” to pull out his advisers convinced him that “the consequences of a rapid exit are both predictable and unacceptable.”

In a statement from spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid released in print and on video, the Taliban said, “It seems America is not yet ready to end the longest war in its history. Instead of trying to understand ground realities, they still arrogantly believe in their force and might.”

“So long as a single American soldier remains in our homeland and American leaders continue treading the path of war, we shall also sustain our jihad against them with lofty spirits, absolute determination and additional firmness,” Mujahid vowed, calling it “our religious obligation and national duty — we shall remain true to this duty so long as souls remain in our bodies.”

“America should have thought about withdrawing their troops from Afghanistan instead of continuing the war,” he added. “As Trump stated ‘Americans are weary of the long war in Afghanistan’, we shall cast further worry into them and force American officials to accept realities. The Afghan Mujahid nation is neither tired nor will it ever get tired in pursuit of winning their freedom and establishing an Islamic system. If America does not withdraw its forces from Afghanistan, the day will not be far when Afghanistan shall transform into a graveyard for the American Empire and the American leaders can understand this concept.”

Ahead of last Friday’s Camp David meeting at which Trump discuss Afghanistan strategy with his team, the Taliban issued an open letter to Trump telling him that if the U.S. military hasn’t won the peace so far “you shall never be able to win it with mercenaries, notorious contractor firms and immoral stooges.” CONTINUE AT SITE

The measures to place bollards or planters in public areas were never implemented in Barcelona because the leaders of the Catalan independence movement did not want to be seen as taking orders from the central government in Madrid.

Far more difficult to explain is why no one reported suspicious activity at the chalet.

Although some Catalans are having second thoughts about the wisdom of promoting Muslim mass immigration as a strategy to achieve Catalan independence, at least 10,000 Catalans with links to the separatist movement have actually converted to Islam in recent years.

As details emerge of the August 17 jihadist attack in Barcelona, the evidence points to one overarching conclusion: the carnage could have been prevented if a series of red flags had not been either missed or ignored.

The failure to heed intelligence warnings, enhance physical security and report suspicious activity are all factors that facilitated the attack, which had been in the planning stage for more than six months.

The attack was also enabled by the idiosyncrasies of Spanish politics, especially the tensions that exist between the central government and the leaders of the independence movement in Catalonia, the autonomous region of which Barcelona is the capital.
Failure to Install Bollards on Las Ramblas

The Barcelona attack could have been prevented had municipal officials complied with an order to install bollards, vertical poles designed to prevent car ramming attacks, on the Rambla, the city’s main tourist thoroughfare.

On December 20, 2016, one day after a Tunisian jihadist drove a truck into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 12 people and injuring 56, Spanish National Police issued a circular ordering all central, regional and municipal police departments in Spain to “implement physical security measures to protect public spaces” to prevent jihadist attacks “in places with high numbers of people.” The circular advised:

“Municipalities should protect these public spaces by temporarily installing large planters or bollards at access points to hinder or prevent the entry of vehicles.”

The measures were never implemented in Barcelona because the leaders of the Catalan independence movement did not want to be seen as taking orders from the central government in Madrid.

After receiving the directive, Catalan autonomous police, known as the Mossos d’Esquadra, accused the central government of “alarmism” and insisted that it would not order municipalities in Catalonia to implement this “indiscriminate measure.” The Mossos also claimed to have the jihadist threat under control, that local police were trained to “detect symptoms or radicalization,” and that there were “no concrete threats.”

After the Barcelona attack, Deputy Mayor Gerardo Pisarello blamed the absence of bollards on the Catalan Interior Ministry. “The City of Barcelona has never refused to install bollards. Whenever it has been requested, we have done so,” Pisarello said. Ada Colau, Barcelona’s leftwing mayor, however, has repeatedly refused to “fill Barcelona with barriers,” insisting that it must remain “a city of liberty.”

El Periódico de Catalunya, a paper based in Barcelona, elaborated:

“The total absence of police collaboration between the Mossos d’Esquadra, which is the police force deployed on the ground, and the National Police and the Civil Guard translates into huge security deficiencies. The relationship between police forces — influenced by the political situation — is terrible and, in the case of the Mossos and the National Police, it is open war.

Cambrils, Spain.

The road to September 11 wended its way through this Spanish town where Mohammed Atta, the lead hijacker, met up with Ramzi bin al-Shibh, the former refugee to Germany and current Gitmo inmate, who had been serving as Osama bin Laden’s point man for the attacks that would kill thousands.

The hotel where Atta and Osama’s man met is a few blocks away from where the Muslim terrorists climbed out of their crashed car, drawing knives, axes and machetes, before a police officer working overtime to earn extra money shot most of them dead on the spot outside the Club Nautic.

The distance between where Atta was planning 9/11 and the latest terror attack in Spain is 110 meters. Stroll past a pub, a hair salon and a real estate agency in this seaside resort town and you’re there.

Cambrils hadn’t been the original target of the terrorists. Their dream target was the Sagrada Familia cathedral in Barcelona. When their bombs went off prematurely, they went to Cambrils and Las Ramblas in Barcelona because it was likely to have foreign tourists that they could run over, stab and mutilate.

The consistent pattern of the big Islamic terror attacks in recent years, from the Boston Marathon to the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, from Bataclan to the Manchester Arena, from the Champs-Élysées to London Bridge, is to look for nightlife spots or crowds of tourists all packed into the same place.

The Sagrada Familia, which at completion will be able to hold 14,000 people, would have been a target closer to the scale of September 11. When Pope Benedict arrived in ’10, 6,000 people were able to fill the cathedral. Around 10,000 visitors tour the building every day. Had the terrorists been able to move their original plot along, the way that Atta and Al-Shibh did theirs, thousands might have died.

The message of Driss Oukabir had been clear. “Kill all infidels and only leave Muslims who follow the religion”.

That’s always been the “sacred” mission of Islam. The bloody chapters of the plot played out in Cambrils, where the terrorists were gunned down as they tried to butcher pedestrians, Barcelona, where pedestrians were run over in a van, and Alcanar, where the terrorists squatted a house and filled it with gas canisters and TATP explosives before the whole thing was accidentally blown sky high.

But the Jihad didn’t come from these places. It came, as always, from an Islamic population center and its satellite mosque.

Ripoll, Spain.

Like the river that adjoins it, the history of this small Catalan town of 11,000 flows back to the beginning of human history. Dig in the right places and you can find everything from bronze axe heads to Roman tombs. These days you can also find Muslim terrorists squatting in their mosques and plotting murder.

A pro-ISIS media outlet that had threatened the “disbelievers” of Spain before last week’s attack issued a fresh warning over the weekend that jihad there “has not been fought and gone” and cells remain in Barcelona and beyond.

Fifteen people were killed and at least 130 injured Thursday when terrorists belonging to a local cell plowed a rented van through crowds on Las Ramblas, a long pedestrian mall in Barcelona. Jared Tucker, 43, of Walnut Creek, Calif., who was on his honeymoon, was one of those killed. The deceased and wounded came from 34 different countries.

The suspected driver of the van, Younes Abouyaaqoub, was shot by police today near a gas station 25 miles west of Barcelona. He was reportedly wearing a fake explosive vest. The cell of 12 men was reportedly in the attack-planning stages for six months and had amassed gas cans to use in vehicle attacks.

The new message, addressed “from the Islamic Republic of Spain to the Government of Spain” and issued by the pro-ISIS Wafa Media Foundation, warns that Spain is still considered a target because of “military operations in the Kingdom of Bahrain and in neighboring Iraq and Somalia.”

“Do not you know, O worshipers of the Cross, that the war has not been fought and gone, and that they live today in Barcelona,” the message added in reference to jihadists.

The message references Gibraltar and Andalusia, which was once under Moor rule and bears many landmarks from its Islamic era, to Catalonia. “This is one of our priorities. Today, we create our own community.”

The Wafa’ message was the second in a series, with the first part issued last year. The group ominously noted that they don’t plan on issuing a part three.

“Black days during our attack on your big cities like Madrid, Paris, London, and Brussels,” Wafa’ warned in the first part dated March 28, 2016, adding that they will kill “innocent Spanish” as they’re occupying Muslim lands.

In May 2016, Wafa’ warned in a message to the citizens of Spain and all Spanish-speaking countries that lone jihadists existing in those areas would kill the “disbelievers” as “previously planned.” In August 2016, the media foundation said that jihadists had to step up their game to make attacks in Spain worse than terrorist operations in France. Wafa’ pressed jihadists to kidnap or kill Spanish nationals.

The Wafa’ Media Foundation issued a June message encouraging arson jihad — which was detailed in the January issue of ISIS’ Rumiyah magazine — after the Grenfell Tower fire, which authorities believe was an accidental electrical fire, killed dozens on June 14 in London. The group also issued a justification of the May 22 bombing outside a concert in Manchester, UK, and promoted terrorist Omar Mateen after the June 2016 Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla.

A few years ago, when the news reached the public that Muslim “sex grooming gangs,” for over two decades, had been systematically engaged in the mass rape of non-Muslim girls in the English city of Rotherham – and that local police and other government authorities had known about these atrocities for a long time but had said and done nothing for fear of being considered bigots – one thing seemed all but certain: this couldn’t just be going on in Rotherham.

It wasn’t. On August 10, the Express published a handy list of British cities that, since the Rotherham case exploded, have also been found to be targeted by similar sex-abuse rings. In 2012, nine men were convicted of having run such a gang in Rochdale, outside Manchester. In 2013, a group of Pakistanis and north Africans went to jail for the same crime in Oxford. In 2014, it was Somalis in Bristol.

Other places that are so far known to have been affected included Aylesbury, Peterborough, and Keighley – a motley grab-bag of municipalities, big and small, scattered across England from north to south. A piece in the Daily Mail the other day mentioned that grooming gangs have been uncovered in at least sixteen British towns and cities so far.

And there’s no reason to think that it ends there. Why Keighley and Aylesbury and not London and Liverpool, Bristol and Bradford? Chances are very strong that there’s still plenty of this sort of abuse going on, and armies of cowardly officials still looking the other way.

This month the spotlight was on Newcastle. A probe called Operation Sanctuary, launched in 2014, has led to the arrest of a mind-boggling 461 suspects, who are believed to have raped at least 278 victims. Among the 111 perpetrators convicted so far are men with names like Mohammed Azram, Jahanghir Zaman, Nashir Uddin, Saiful Islam, and Mohammed Hassan Ali.

The journalist usually credited with exposing the Rotherham rape factory (as well as the official cover-up) is Andrew Norfolk, who wrote about it in the Times in 2011 and 2012. But this past May Julie Bindel, the far-left feminist who has repeatedly taken on the Islamic oppression of women, recalled in the Independent that years before Norfolk came along, she had accumulated a great deal of material on the topic – but until 2007 was unable to get anything into print because “editors feared an accusation of racism.”

(Not to take anything away from Bindel, but one wonders: how many editors did she try? Was there really no publication in the English-speaking world that was willing to run a piece by her about grooming gangs? In any case, why couldn’t she have just posted her findings online?)

Also, as even Bindel admits, the British National Party had been trying to draw public attention to the rape gangs for years – but their charges had been dismissed by “respectable” media and politicians as the ravings of bigots.

The same left-wing British media that refused to expose the grooming epidemic in the first place are at last, grudgingly, reporting on it – but now they’d have you believe that Islam (surprise!) has nothing to do with it. CONTINUE AT SITE

As Spanish law enforcement was searching for the Moroccan terrorist who disappeared after ramming a van into pedestrians at Las Ramblas, the progressive pro-Muslim media lost no time in protesting the police checking of “Moroccan-looking drivers,” and warning against “Islamophobia.” The driver, a radicalized Muslim who was identified because of his looks, was shot dead by policemen in a vineyard west of Barcelona. But the efforts to stop identifying others like him and the Islamic ideology that motivates them are not going to die down anytime soon

After the Islamists attacked pedestrians strolling along Barcelona’s Las Ramblas and the nearby town of Cambrils, and blew up a house in the village of Alcanar, killing 14 and wounding more than 100 others, and after ISIS claimed responsibility for and celebrated the deadly attacks, Catalonia’s regional government’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Raül Romeva, insisted his region is known for its tolerance and “coexistence.”

This was not the message that Abdelbaki Es Satty, the Moroccan Salafist Imam, preached until last June at the mosque in Ripoll, which was attended by eight of the nine ISIS sympathizers who terrorized Catalonia last week. The Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch reported that the president of the mosque, Ali Yassine, is a member of the Federation for the Comunidad Islamica Annour De Ripoll, which RAND’s 2007 report identified as “a federation with close ties to the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood.” While the region saw more jihadists arrested last year than any other region in Spain, only one of the attackers had a criminal background and therefore was known to the police. The imam disappeared, and one of the nine attackers vanished. But how many ISIS sympathizers and potential jihadists are among those who frequented the Ripoll mosque, and thousands who flock to more than 100 similar Salafi mosques in Spain are under the radar of the Spanish and international security agencies?

Islamic terrorism is not new to Spain. In March 2004, an al Qaeda group bombed four commuter trains, killing some 200 people and wounded more than 1,400 in rush-hour Madrid. In April 2005, a cell of forty-one al-Qaeda operatives in Spain that assisted the 9/11 attacks on the U.S., was tried in Madrid. In January 2008, fourteen Pakistani Taliban terrorist were stopped just before they blew themselves up in Barcelona’s subway. Many other Salafi jihadists who planned terror attacks or funded terrorism were arrested in Spain over the years.

None of that, however, alerted the Spanish to take seriously the Islamists calls to “reconquer al-Andalus” — a uniting theme for all jihadist groups, even those that often fight each other. Instead, Spain, in which according to a 2016 survey by the Spanish Centre for Sociological Research, 68% of the population is Catholic, has been practicing willful blindness based on “political correctness” towards the radicalization of its Muslim population. Especially when the jihadists used pro-Palestinian anti-Israel propaganda, which in Spain, like other European nations is widely supported,

Spain has a long history of anti-Semitism. Jews were expelled from Spain on July 30, 1492, but anti-Semitism remained rampant although Jews were allowed to return more than four centuries later. The Jewish presence remained low even after the descendants of Sephardic Jews who were expelled from Spain have in 2014 been offered Spanish citizenship. Only 45,000 Jews live there today. Muslims, who were also driven out or forced to convert in 1492, were allowed to live in Spain in the late 18th century and today the two million Muslims account for 4% of Spain’s population, which is rapidly growing with illegals who flood the beautiful Spanish shores.

Spain and Catalonia in have been loudly supporting the Palestinian agenda. Catalonia became one of Europe’s major Salafist jihad hubs, with Hundreds of Saudi-educated and funded imams preaching the radical Salafi/Wahhabi version of Islam together with the Muslim Brotherhood’s version of “Political Islam” (an oxymoron, since Islam is a political movement posturing as a religion). The Muslim’s growing influence in the region was demonstrated in January 2009, when the provincial government of Catalonia canceled a ceremony marking International Holocaust Remembrance Day. A Barcelona newspaper quoted a Catalan official saying, “Marking the Jewish Holocaust while a Palestinian Holocaust is taking place is not right,“ alluding to Israel’s Operation Cast Lead (December 27, 2008 – January 18, 2009) that was launched to stop the constant rockets and mortar attacks from the Gaza Strip on its civilian population. This official, like other European political parrots, repeated the propaganda that is widely spread by Hamas, Iran and the Palestinian Authority, who while calling to take over al Aqsa, also swear to “reconquer al-Andalus” and Rome.

MOSCOW—Russian President Vladimir Putin appointed a hard-line diplomat known for his gruff style as Moscow’s new ambassador to the U.S., signaling a more confrontational approach to Washington.

Monday’s appointment of Anatoly Antonov, who served for nearly five years in the Defense Ministry, will bring a harsher line at a time when ties between the two countries are at their lowest point since the fall of the Soviet Union.

“His positions are defined by his experience with the Ministry of Defense,” said Andrey Kortunov, the head of the Russian International Affairs Council, which has ties to the Foreign Ministry. “Antonov has always been defending the Russian trenches.”

The diplomat will have to navigate what some analysts say may become a downward spiral in U.S.-Russian relations of sanctions and counter-sanctions. On Monday, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow said it would sharply cut back visa services in Russia after the Kremlin in July forced the U.S. to cuts hundreds of diplomats and staff.

Mr. Antonov will be taking his post in the midst of a growing investigation into ties between members of U.S. President Donald Trump’s campaign team and Russian officials, including former Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.

Analysts say Mr. Antonov was selected last year, when Moscow believed Hillary Clinton, who Russian leaders believed would take a harder tack toward the country, would win the presidential race. But they say given the increasing tensions between Moscow and Russia, Mr. Antonov will serve the Kremlin’s interests.

Mr. Kortunov said Mr. Antonov’s arrival likely signals the start of a new approach from Moscow toward Washington, one that will likely see a more adversarial stance and lower chances of cooperation.

“We must understand that any cooperation will be situational and be transactional and that otherwise the U.S. will be hostile to Russia,” he said. CONTINUE AT SITE

Imran Awan is a Pakistani-born computer whiz who worked for Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, and for dozens of Democrats in Congress. He and his wife have been indicted on four criminal counts of bank fraud and lying to investigators.

He was arrested at Dulles International Airport in suburban Virginia just as he was about to board a plane to Pakistan, his home of record, and just after he made a curious transfer of many thousands of dollars to an overseas bank account in his name.

This is a good story that you might think ambitious reporters would have leaped at, a story with all the making of a made-for-television spy thriller. But it was largely ignored by the mainstream media. Mrs. Wasserman-Schultz hired Imran Awan years ago as a technology technician, and he and two members of his family, who were hired to work with him, have collected $4 million of Democratic money.

Federal authorities began casting suspicious eyes at Mr. Awan several months ago, looking for evidence of double-billing, stealing equipment and with — and this is what frightens certain Democras, unauthorized access to the party’s computer systems. Mrs. Wasserman-Schultz kept him on the party payroll for months, even after FBI agents confiscated several smashed computer hard drives at his home. What was on the destroyed drives? Only Mr. Awan, and perhaps Mrs. Wasserman-Schultz, knows. She finally sacked him after his dramatic airport arrest. Why so enamored with him? We still don’t know this, either.

The answers may come by following the money, which has turned over many Washington rocks to reveal secrets of many kinds. The formal indictment from the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia charges Mr. Awan and his wife, Hina Alvi, with engaging in a conspiracy to obtain home equity lines of credit from the Congressional Federal Credit Union by giving false information about properties. The indictment says the couple then sent those illegally collected proceeds to certain persons in Pakistan. The moving finger writes many tales from the Arabian nights, not many of them good.

With all the brouhaha over statues and Antifa…..Trump accomplished what no previous administration did. Yesterday on FOX Senator Ben Cardin (D-Maryland) was asked about that and he offered a dimwitted response. “Negotiations are what’s needed….”

SEOUL—North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has decided not to launch a threatened missile attack on Guam, Pyongyang’s state media reported on Tuesday, but warned that he could change his mind “if the Yankees persist in their extremely dangerous reckless actions.”

(For a deeper analysis of the issues in this story, please see “North Korea Backs Off Threat to Hit Guam”)

(CNN)North Korea leader Kim Jong Un appears to have backed away from a threat to fire missiles towards the US Pacific territory of Guam, opting instead to wait and see what the “foolish Yankees” do next. State media KCNA said Kim had reviewed a previously announced plan to fire four missiles on a trajectory over western Japan, but had decided not to go ahead with the proposal for now.
The comments came after US Secretary of Defense James Mattis warned that if North Korea fired on US territory it would be “game on.”

Speaking at the Pentagon Monday, Mattis told reporters: “You don’t shoot at people in this world unless you want to bear the consequences.”