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HOMELAND SECURITY

Another Ohio Man Charged With Providing Material Support to ISIS By Debra Heine

A federal grand jury today indicted a Jordanian man living in Ohio on charges that he attempted to provide material support and resources to ISIS — the second such case in Ohio in a month.

Laith Waleed Alebbini, 26, of Dayton, was arrested on April 26 by the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force at the Cincinnati/Northern Kentucky International Airport as he was going to board the first of a series of connecting flights to Jordan, where he planned to cross the border into Syria and join the terror group.

According to the FBI, Alebbini is a citizen of Jordan and became a legal permanent resident of the United States in April 2014. He first traveled to the U.S. in July 2011.

A sworn affidavit from FBI investigators states Alebbini was arrested Jan. 10 for unlawfully entering the Turkish embassy in Washington D.C., but the charges were later dropped.

Two days later, Alebbini tried to travel to Turkey via Amsterdam, but was denied entry because his Jordanian passport had expired, officials said. He returned to the U.S. on Jan. 15.

On Jan. 23, the FBI states Alebbini was interviewed about the incident at the Turkish embassy.

During the interview, Alebbini allegedly admitted to posting pro-ISIS videos on Facebook and to supporting ISIS’s desire for a united Middle East.
He allegedly said during the interview that “I am the perfect recruit for ISIS,” but said he did not agree with their violence, according to court documents.

He said his reason for going to the embassy was to discuss the conflict in the Middle East with the Turkish Ambassador, the documents state.

“Alebbini said the security at the embassy was very lax, and that ‘if I had on bomb on me, I swear to God, three embassies would have done down,'” investigators reported in the affidavit.

The FBI decided to keep a close eye on Alebbini after that.

Via WCPO Cincinnati:

In court records, an FBI special agent detailed various pro-ISIS comments he said Alebbini had made to a confidential source, including that he planned to travel to the Middle East, join ISIS and “fight in Jihad.”

“Our duty is to support the Islamic State,” Alebbini is quoted as saying. “Those are the words, what is your duty? Jihad. A person is supposed to stay away from the people of sins … and what happens, happens … caught? Let them arrest you, then, let them arrest me. This is the true conversation.”

If convicted, Alebbini could spend up to 20 years in prison. CONTINUE AT SITE

Fixing the Federal IT Mess Before it is Too Late

Paul Ferrillo, Chuck Brooks, Kenneth Holley, George Platsis, George Thomas, Shawn Tuma, and Christophe Veltsos.

Let us take a headcount of recent events: the attack on the Ukraine’s electric grid, a LinkedIn data dump as a result of a 2012 breach, the information warfare campaign surrounding the US Elections, a peculiar “Google Docs” app involved in a massive spear-phishing campaign, and most recently, another information warfare campaign aimed at the French Elections. Do not forget our ”good ole friends” – North Korea, Iran, and Syria, just to mention a few – are well into the cyber game and ready to pounce on the next database which has been left unguarded, unencrypted, and unprepared to thwart an attack.

As the disc jockey says, “and the hits keep on playing!”

Despite increased “cybersecurity talk” since the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) breach, great strides in Federal IT security improvement are not apparent.

Despite loads of Congressional attention, there is only one piece of credible legislation to show for, the Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA).

And despite the billions spent on cyber defense measures, we seem to wake up every morning to news of some type of new breach, making it feel like Groundhog Day.

With each new breach, some nation state, cybercriminal, or terrorist group has gotten their hands on our personal information (and that of our spouses, kids, and parents) all in an effort to exploit us further, whether it is a wire transfer scam or an attempted run at the crown jewels of whoever employs us. Coupled with publicly available information that we – and our family, friends, and co-workers, and businesses, services, and not-for-profits – post online, and that which is available through workplace and government listings, seemingly tiny and unrelated pieces of information, once collated, become a powerful weapon for the adversary.

The adversary will not hesitate for one moment to use this information against us should it meet their interests.

We cannot overemphasize this issue enough: spear-phishing and pretexting tactics work and they work extremely well. And government employees are by no means exempt or necessarily protected from these social engineering attacks. Once that email makes it past the firewalls, the spam filters, the anti-virus and the artificial intelligence onto your device (which it can and does), you – and you alone – are the last line of defense.

So why have we been so completely unsuccessful in defending our data? There are enough reasons to numb you:

Silo mentalities of various agencies, groups, and companies;

Unsubstantiated hype of vendor strategies designed to work together, but in practice are disjointed;
Never-ending shortage of skilled cyber professionals;
Perpetual lack of money, time, and attention the issue truly needs;
Basic naivety of the user; and
A fundamental misunderstanding of issues and terms.

Do people really understand the intricacies and complexities the cybersecurity challenge presents? How much do the US House and Senate really care to understand these intricacies and complexities?

We do not need to spend another year, or election cycle, or decade debating across party lines or through political filters when there are actionable steps that support a unified American interest, regardless of party or ideology.

Remedial ISIS Tutorial Steers Jihadists Toward Heavier, Deadlier Truck Attacks By Bridget Johnson

The Islamic State just published a remedial step-by-step pictorial for lone jihadists on how to use a heavy vehicle to kill, walking would-be terrorists through how to acquire a vehicle and which targets to strike.

ISIS’ monthly Rumiyah magazine, which publishes online in 10 languages including English, last covered vehicle attacks in their November issue “Just Terror Tactics” segment, using Mohamed Lahouaiej-Bouhlel, who plowed a cargo truck through a crowd of Bastille Day revelers in Nice, France, last summer, as their key example.

In that article, ISIS encouraged shying away from budget sedans and “off-roaders, SUVs, and four-wheel drive vehicles” that “lack the necessary attributes required for causing a blood bath” as “smaller vehicles lack the weight and wheel span required for crushing many victims.” They recommended trucks with double wheels for “giving victims less of a chance to escape being crushed by the vehicle’s tires.” Long semi trucks were discouraged because of the possibility of jack-knifing.

The terror group encouraged jihadists to find a vehicle with a “metal outer frame which are usually found in older cars, as the stronger outer frame allows for more damage to be caused when the vehicle is slammed into crowds, contrary to newer cars that are usually made of plastics and other weaker materials.” A picture of a U-Haul truck was shown with the caption “an affordable weapon.” A picture of the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade was shown with the words “an excellent target.”

Shortly after the article was published, a ram-and-stab attack by Ohio State student Abdul Razak Ali Artan on a sidewalk full of students and faculty caused several injuries, but no fatalities. He used a silver sedan in the attack.

In December, Anis Amri hijacked a Polish semi truck and killed the driver, then plowed the big rig into a Christmas market in Berlin, killing 11.

This March, Khalid Masood rented the Hyundai Tuscon he used to run over five pedestrians on Westminster Bridge before crashing into the palace fence and stabbing a police officer. Last month, Rakhmot Akilov stole a beer truck and drove it down a busy Stockholm shopping street, killing four.

Eager to build on those attacks no matter the IQ of the jihadist, ISIS this week published the how-to with pictures — trying to steer terrorists toward vehicles more like Berlin and Stockholm.

“The ideal vehicle,” says the page, has a “slightly raised chassis and bumper,” is a “double-wheeled, load-bearing truck” that “large in size, heavy in weight” and is “fast in speed or rate of acceleration.”

Then comes the very remedial lesson on where to get the attack vehicle (“kafir” means disbeliever, while “murtadd” means apostate Muslim): CONTINUE AT SITE

ISIS to Jihadists: Use Fake Apartment, Job, Craigslist Ads to Lure Hostage, Murder Victims By Bridget Johnson

The Islamic State magazine that has published tutorials on vehicle, knife and arson attacks as a tool of lone jihad is now encouraging terrorists to acquire guns at shows and shops and take hostages not for ransom but “to create as much carnage and terror as one possibly can.”

The latest issue of Rumiyah magazine, distributed online in 10 languages including English, offers another installment of the “Just Terror Tactics” series, praising lone jihadists including U.S. terrorists who have “set heroic examples with their operations.”

The objective of taking hostages, would-be jihadists are told, is “not to hold large numbers of the kuffar hostage in order to negotiate one’s demands,” but to sow terror with “the language of force, the language of killing, stabbing and slitting throats, chopping off heads, flattening them under trucks, and burning them alive, until they give the jizyah [tax] while they are in a state of humiliation.”

“The scenario for such an attack is that one assaults a busy, public, and enclosed location and rounds up the kuffar [disbelievers] who are present. Having gained control over the victims, one should then proceed to slaughter as many of them as he possibly can before the initial police response, as was outstandingly demonstrated by the mujahidin who carried out the Bataclan theatre massacre during the course of the blessed Paris raid,” the article instructs.

Orlando nightclub shooter Omar Mateen “superbly demonstrated this scenario” of taking hostages simply to delay police while killing them “when, having armed himself with an assault rifle and a handgun, he single-handedly slaughtered 49 sodomites.”

Jihadists are told that Europeans should try to acquire guns in conflict zones or from underground dealers, and “much like its Crusader European counterparts, the UK faces a gun control dilemma as it feebly attempts to fend off the influx of weapons, but to no avail” so attackers are advised to find guns “readily available for purchase on the streets of Britain.”

In the United States, “anything from a single-shot shotgun all the way up to a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle can be purchased at showrooms or through online sales – by way of private dealers – with no background checks, and without requiring either an ID or a gun license,” ISIS states. “And with approximately 5,000 gun shows taking place annually within the United States, the acquisition of firearms becomes a very easy matter.”

They include a picture of an unidentified gun show with the caption, “Gun conventions represent an easier means of arming oneself for an attack.”

Jihadists are advised to refrain from casually asking people where they can get guns, lest they end up “bringing upon oneself unnecessary suspicion.”

Another suggestion for gun acquisition in the ISIS article is staging a ram-and-grab burglary driving a car into a gun shop when it’s closed.

“Alternatively, after some simple reconnaissance, one could follow the shop owner after he’s closed for the day, ambush him or run him over with a vehicle, and then take his keys in order to gain access to the store’s arsenal and any other location where he might be storing firearms and ammunition,” the advice continues. “Such targets, though potentially offering a considerable gain in terms of ghanimah [booty], are ambitious in nature and should be pursued while keeping in mind that tactical and gun shop owners are normally the type who arm and train themselves and would not be as averse to engaging in a firefight when attacked.”

Still, the terror group added, a “faint-hearted kafir shop owner in the West” can “be taken by surprise if one takes the means available to him and plans his attack carefully.” CONTINUE AT SITE

PENTAGON: TERRORISTS THREATENING TO CONTROL 40% OF AFGHANISTAN PAUL SPERRY

So why is Congress OK’ing 2,500 more US visas for Afghan immigrants?

A just-released Pentagon report suggests Afghanistan is spiraling toward civil war with the number of terrorist attacks, casualties and displacements of Afghans hitting record highs, thanks in no small part to former President Obama’s precipitous withdrawal of US combat troops starting in 2014.

As the Afghan government risks losing roughly 40 percent of the country to terrorists and insurgents, Congress proposes issuing 2,500 more visas to Afghan nationals to allow them to immigrate to America, a move that raises security concerns. The Pentagon says ISIS has established beachheads in several Afghan districts, along with al-Qaeda and the Taliban, and these and other terrorist groups could use the visa program to infiltrate the US.

The new report from the Defense Department’s special inspector general for Afghan reconstruction paints a picture of chaos and instability throughout the country. Among the shocking findings:

* The number of terrorist attacks and other security incidents throughout 2016 and continuing into the first quarter of 2017 reached their highest level on record.

* Casualties suffered by Afghan security forces “in the fight against the Taliban and other insurgents continue to be shockingly high,” with 807 killed and 1,328 wounded in just the first six weeks of this year.

* Conflict-related civilian casualties in Afghanistan rose to 11,418 in 2016 – the highest on record.

* A whopping 660,639 people in Afghanistan fled their homes due to conflict in 2016 – a 40 percent jump over 2015 and the highest number of displacements on record.

* The Afghan government now controls barely 60 percent of the country’s 407 districts, while the Taliban and other insurgents control or threaten to control the rest.

“Preventing insurgents from increasing their control or influence of districts continues to be a challenge” for the Afghan government, the report warned, noting that Kabul’s control of the country has dropped from 72 percent in November 2015 to just under 60 percent today.

Taliban Launch Spring Offensive with Focus on Killing Americans By Bridget Johnson

The Taliban announced the commencement of their spring offensive with a vow that their main focus this year would be on targeting “foreign forces” in Afghanistan.

Their strategic goals come as Russia has been arming the Taliban over the winter, according to Defense Department officials and Afghan officials. “We continue to get reports of this assistance, and, of course, we had the overt legitimacy lent to the Taliban by the Russians,” Gen. John Nicholson, commander of the Resolute Support mission, told reporters in Kabul this week. “That really occurred starting late last year, beginning through this process they’ve been undertaking.”

In February testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Nicholson told lawmakers that Russian support for the Taliban was increasing.

The general added that he believes Russia is “concerned that if there’s a coalition and a U.S. presence in Afghanistan that this affects their ability to influence the Central Asian states to the north.”

Pressed on what Russia’s endgame in Afghanistan could be, Nicholson said he thinks the Kremlin’s goal is to “undermine United States and NATO.” Russia ally Iran also believes that successful democracy in Afghanistan “will be a threat to them,” he added.

In addition to the reports of material support, Afghan officials have reported seeing Russian trainers on the ground with Taliban in Uruzgan province.

The Taliban have denied receiving assistance from Russia, but added in an April 14 statement, “However it should be clear that the Islamic Emirate – as a representative of its people and a guarantor of its national interests – seeks to develop cordial relations with all its neighbors and regional powers.”

The Taliban spring offensive is named Operation Mansouri, after late Taliban leader Mullah Mansour, who was killed in a May drone strike.

“Although over the course of the 15-year Jihad the foreign occupiers have suffered heavy casualties and a large number of the coalition have withdrawn from our lands yet under American leadership some unjust countries insist on the continued occupation of Afghanistan,” said the Taliban Leadership Council in a statement. “…The Islamic Emirate therefore has determined that with the advantageous weather we once again launch our yearly spring offensive against the foreign forces and their internal allies named Operation Mansouri.”

They added that during Mansour’s tenure “the mujahideen gained various decisive victories, annihilated highway robbers and impious people, foiled various seditions and intrigues, leaped forward in the political and social arenas, humiliated various foreign powers compelling them to leave our land, and achieve copious other proud milestones.”

“With the help of Allah Almighty and the infinite sacrifices of our Mujahid nation the foreign forces have suffered a historic defeat having been forced to admit that the Mujahideen control more than half of Afghanistan,” they said. “Hence, keeping the evolving situation in mind, this year’s Mansouri Operations will differ from previous ones in nature and will be conducted with a twin-tracked political and military approach.”

PC Pentagon Caves To CAIR, Agrees to ‘Review’ Anti-Terror Training Program Assigns case to Muslim chaplain who graduated from radical Islamic school raided after 9/11 Paul Sperry

The Pentagon has agreed to formally review an anti-terror training program taught to special forces by a private contractor for material deemed offensive to Islam and Muslims, even though the Muslim group that lodged a complaint against the allegedly “Islamophobic” program has been accused by the Justice Department of supporting terrorism and is currently banned from outreach activities by the FBI.

The instructor hired to teach the program says he fears his class might not get a fair hearing, because military brass have assigned the review to a Muslim military chaplain who graduated from a radical Saudi-funded Islamic school raided by federal agents after 9/11 on suspicion of terrorist activities. He is their second choice for conducting the review. They had originally picked a more radical military chaplain to inspect the training materials before learning he has ties to an imam with a history of ministering to Muslims later convicted of terrorism.

Brass decided to launch the review after receiving a letter from the Council on American-Islamic Relations last month demanding the commander of US Air Force Special Operations sever ties with longtime counterterrorism instructor Patrick Dunleavy, claiming his lessons “contain anti-Islamic content.” CAIR, a suspected terrorist front organization, did not cite any examples of content from his “Dynamics of International Terrorism” course to support its claim.

Dunleavy formerly served as deputy inspector general of New York State prisons’ criminal intelligence division and also worked with the NYPD’s intelligence division for several years. His five-day course, which he’s taught complaint-free at the AIr Force for several years, covers homegrown terrorism and prison radicalization, which tie directly into recent ISIS cases.CAIR claims to be a “Muslim civil-rights organization,” but the feds have ID’d

CAIR and its founder as “members of the US Muslim Brotherhood,” while designating them both as “unindicted co-conspirators” in a 2008 terror-financing case involving Hamas, the Palestinian branch of the Muslim Brotherhood and a US-designated terrorist group.

“From its founding by Muslim Brotherhood leaders, CAIR conspired with other affiliates of the Muslim Brotherhood to support terrorists,” US prosecutors charged in one court filing.

As a result, the FBI has cut off ties to CAIR until investigators “can resolve whether there continues to be a connection between CAIR or its executives and Hamas.”

Air Force Special Operations commander Lt. Gen. Marshal Webb received the CAIR letter and, in turn, ordered Special Operations School commandant Lt. Col. Christopher Portele to initiate a review. It is not clear if Webb is aware of CAIR’s well-documented support of terrorists. A spokeswoman did not return calls seeking comment.

The EMP Threat From North Korea Is Real, and Terrifying By John R. Moore

Fifty-five years ago, the U.S. tested a nuclear weapon high above the atmosphere over the Pacific. At the time, my father — a nuclear weapons engineer — was listening on our ham radio.

When the device exploded, we heard nothing in Albuquerque. But, in Honolulu, 1000 miles from the detonation, the sky turned red as streetlights and telephones went out. EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) effects from the distant nuclear explosion had struck.

Today we hear concern that cities might be destroyed by North Korean nuclear tipped missiles, but Starfish Prime should alert us to a more imminent danger: EMP. North Korea can launch an EMP attack before it has developed nuclear missile technology, and EMP may be far more deadly.

An EMP disaster from a high-altitude blast seems like science fiction: There is a silent flash high in the sky, and everything using electricity just … stops. Cars stop, power goes out, the Internet dies, satellites quit working, landline and mobile phone systems go out, and computers are destroyed. In a moment, we are back to 1850, as was dramatized in William Forstchen’s 2009 novel One Second After.

While the total wipeout depicted in One Second After is probably exaggerated, the effects could knock out our power grid for months, and destroy critical communications and computer systems. As former CIA chief James Woolsey recently said:

If you look at the electric grid and what it’s susceptible to, we would be moving into a world with no food delivery, no water purification, no banking, no telecommunications, no medicine. All of these things depend on electricity in one way or another.

In such a situation, there simply is no way to rule out the possibility that hundreds of millions could die.

To nuke one of our cities, the North needs to master ICBM construction, nuclear weapons miniaturization, precision long-range guidance technology, atmospheric re-entry vehicles, and fusing to trigger detonation at the right time after the hazardous re-entry. In contrast, an EMP attack requires only a small, light nuclear weapon and the ability to launch it as a satellite. Once over the U.S., it is detonated.

Already, two satellites launched by North Korea cross the U.S. every day.

Do they contain nuclear weapons? Probably not, but how can we know? Nuclear weapons don’t emit much radiation until they go off, so they are hard to detect. I used to fly in a nuclear bomber with the weapon station just a few feet from my station with no shielding — no need.

Meanwhile, North Korea continues striving to miniaturize its nukes — and may have already succeeded. They have released pictures of a miniaturized bomb, although that may just be propaganda.

Starfish Prime used a thermonuclear weapon, a “hydrogen bomb,” which was very powerful but which the North is still striving to build — a difficult task. But only a fission weapon or “atomic bomb” is needed for an EMP, and North Korea has tested several. The yield would probably need to be increased over their latest test, but getting there is only a matter of time. Fusion boosting the weapon to higher yield is not a difficult step. The North recently restarted its Yongbyon reactor, which can produce the necessary tritium.

The EMP danger isn’t only from North Korea. Iran has the capability to launch missiles from ships at sea — the EMP attack depicted in Forstchen’s novel.

We currently have little defense against this threat. Our land based anti-ballistic missile systems are oriented towards warheads coming across the North Pacific, while North Korea launches satellites to the south, which later cross the U.S. from the south or north. The anti-satellite ability of the Navy’s AEGIS ships is unclear — one satellite in a very low orbit has been intercepted, and ships need to be positioned within range of the orbit. Shooting a satellite down before it reaches orbit is another possibility, but AEGIS has a very limited window for such a “boost phase” intercept. CONTINUE AT SITE

Flash robberies: The newest homeland threat By Robert Arvay

A recent incident on a train in Oakland, California offers a glimpse into how domestic terrorism may soon affect all of us, close up and personally. In that incident, a group of teenagers swarmed onto a train, robbed several passengers, beat two of them, then quickly escaped before police arrived. See here and here.

Flash mobs are nothing new, and in fact, many of them are actually good, as when a number of people in a shopping mall suddenly spring a pleasant surprise and perform a rehearsed, choreographed music routine.

Some flash mobs, by contrast, are criminal. Groups of criminals, in concert, have been known to swarm a retail store, quickly stealing as much as they can carry, and then making their escape before law enforcement can respond.

Criminals are inventive and resourceful, and now that the Oakland incident has made the news, there will be plenty more crews of robbers who are already taking notes and planning their own heist, perhaps on a larger scale.

It is only a matter of time before someone (actually, many) figures out that there is money to be made by inciting civil disorder. It would not take much “community organizing” to pull it off. The police cannot be everywhere, nor can they respond quickly enough to this kind of crime.

The next thought is to ask, when the risk escalates, is, what will we, the ordinary citizens, do when we fear to take a train or bus, or to go shopping? One possible remedy comes to mind, as follows.

The name Bernhard Goetz has largely been forgotten, but in 1984, nearly every American was familiar with what came to be known as the subway vigilante incident. During that era, before Rudolph Giuliani became mayor, crime on the New York subway system was infamous, and worse yet, the response by law enforcement was tepid and ineffective. It was in this context that Goetz took matters into his own hands. He pulled a gun and shot three teenagers, on a train, who already had criminal records, and who were intimidating him for money. One of the robbers was paralyzed for life.

Only when Giuliani became mayor (ten years later), and imposed what some considered draconian law enforcement measures, did the crime rate (including murder) in New York City dramatically decrease. Giuliani proved that by enforcing laws against even so-called “minor” infractions, the ripple effect is to increase respect for the law in general, thereby reducing more serious crime. Giuliani was well aware of the “broken windows” principle, and he used it to good effect.

“A Mortal Enemy Called Radical Islam.” Gen. John Kelly charts how jihadists target the USA with “exported violence.” Lloyd Billingsley

“For a brief moment after the attacks of 9/11,” Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly said Tuesday, “our nation shook off its complacency, and realized our American values had a mortal enemy called radical Islam.” This threat, Kelly said, “has metastasized and decentralized, and the risk is as threatening today as it was that September morning almost 16 years ago.”

Part of the problem, Gen. Kelly said, is that many “holy warriors” will depart their home countries, and because of the Visa Waiver Program, “they can more easily travel to the United States which makes us a prime target for their exported violence.”

To address this problem, President Donald Trump issued an executive order temporarily restricting travel from seven predominantly Muslim nations with terrorist issues, only to have the order blocked by federal judge James Robart. Last month, President Trump issued “Protecting the Nation from Foreign Terrorist Entry into the United States.” Federal judge Derrick Watson blocked the order, ruling that a reasonable person would conclude that the measure was “issued with a purpose to disfavor a particular religion,” not to prevent terrorists from entering the United States.

Neither judge made any reference to the way terrorists had gained entry to the United States in the past, particularly before September 11, 2001. As it happens, the United States government has already addressed that subject at considerable length.

“It is perhaps obvious to state that terrorists cannot plan and carry out attacks in the

United States if they are unable to enter the country.”

That is from the introduction to 9/11 and Terrorist Travel: Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks on the United States, which the 9/11 Commission failed to include in their larger report in July of 2004. It emerged on August 21, 2004, the same day the 9/11 Commission disbanded. The 19 radical Islamic terrorists responsible for 9/11 were able to enter the United States, and the report explains how they did so.

Those involved in that attack successfully entered the United States 33 times over 21 months through nine airports. A ballpark figure for the number who should have got in is zero. As the report notes, all 19 of the 9/11 terrorist visa applications were incomplete in some way, with data fields left blank and questions not fully answered.