RUTHFULLY YOURS

https://issuesinsights.com/2021/09/01/has-a-biden-fueled-terrorism-surge-already-begun/

A cold-blooded murder in a city northeast of Dallas over the weekend hasn’t exactly made national news – yet. But it could be the first in a new wave of terrorist attacks spawned by President Joe Biden’s disastrous retreat from Afghanistan.

On Sunday, the day before the last U.S. military plane departed the Kabul airport, a gunman shot and killed a Lyft driver in Garland, then drove the car over to a nearby police station and started shooting at the people inside. The alleged gunman, later identified as Imran Ali Rasheed, died after police gunned him down.

The next day, an FBI official said that Rasheed “may have been inspired by a foreign terrorist organization to commit these crimes,” by which he meant “was inspired by rhetoric or propaganda by foreign terrorist organizations.”

Why the FBI got involved at all was because Rasheed apparently left a note in the dead Lyft driver’s car, which prompted local police to reach out to the Bureau. 

What, we wonder, could have “inspired” Rasheed to go on a killing spree? Could it be that the humiliating defeat of the U.S. at the hands of the fanatical Taliban has energized Islamic radicals around the world, including in Texas?

The Economist helps answer that question. In the wake of Biden’s desperate evacuation and the loss of 13 Americans to terrorist bombs in Kabul, it notes:

In Yemen, they set off fireworks; in Somalia, they handed out sweets; in Syria, they praised the Taliban for providing a ‘living example’ of how to ‘bring down a criminal regime’ through jihad. Around the world, jihadists were elated by the fall of Kabul. Through willpower, patience, and cunning, a low-budget band of holy warriors has vanquished America and taken charge of a medium-size country. To Muslims who yearn to expel infidels and overthrow secular states, it was evidence that God approves. The ripple effects could be felt far and wide.

Far and wide indeed.

https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/17654/cyberwar-part-one

Directly, these attacks [on the U.S.] strike at parts of our electrical grid, our food supply, our energy providers, banks, business computer networks and government systems. Indirectly, they threaten our livelihoods and our sense of security and stability.

[Cyberwar is] an undisguised assault against military and civilian infrastructure meant to cripple the targeted country, destroy or damage its communications and command systems, and create immediate and total chaos among its people.

Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime has denied its involvement, as it always does. No one believes them.

[Former U.S. National Security Adviser John] Bolton warns that to protect the American people, the defense establishment needs to focus much more attention on early threat-recognition.

Moreover, it is clear the U.S. government must be more assertive in pointing the finger at Vladimir Putin when a Russian attack is unmasked.

Cybercrime often merges with cyberwarfare. The techniques of both are similar, even if their intentions are not. Yet, unlike their “real-world” counterparts, we cannot afford to treat the former as merely a law enforcement problem and the latter as a military problem. Today’s gnat is tomorrow’s nuclear-tipped missile.

In a recent article, former U.S. National Security Adviser John Bolton highlighted the cyberwarfare being waged on the West every day by Russia, China, Iran and North Korea. The assault is an accelerating proxy war, a coordinated terrorism campaign conducted by both hired criminals and military intelligence agencies, capable of great economic and societal damage. At the same time, even at lower intensity, it is a subtler attack on Western morale.

Directly, these attacks strike at parts of our electrical grid, our food supply, our energy providers, banks, business computer networks and government systems. Indirectly, they threaten our livelihoods and our sense of security and stability. That is, at least for the present, the most important thing about them.

The SolarWinds hack of 2020 compromised a top-tier provider of IT management services by injecting malware into the company’s routine software update to its 33,000 customers. Those victimized customers included hundreds of large companies, as well as the federal departments of Treasury, Commerce, and even Homeland Security. The hack was extremely sophisticated and operated for months before it was discovered. Cybersecurity analysts in and out of the government say conclusively it was the work of a hacking group they call “Nobelium,” operating with the support, if not the direct control, of the Russian government. Russian President Vladimir Putin’s regime has denied its involvement, as it always does. No one believes them.

https://nypost.com/2021/08/21/hundreds-of-released-gitmo-detainees-back-to-killing-americans/

Twenty years after the 9/11 attacks, U.S. intelligence documents reveal 229 “rehabbed” former Gitmo detainees have returned to terrorism and killing Americans — and an alarming 66% of them have not been recaptured and are still at large.

Meanwhile, President Biden is quietly freeing more of these terrorist suspects from the Guantanamo Bay prison, all to fulfill his old boss’ pledge to permanently close the facility in Cuba.

Shortly after taking office, Biden reversed President Trump’s executive order to keep Gitmo open and is lining up inmates to transfer out of the prison with the goal of emptying it and shuttering it — even though the remaining prisoners have long been classified by military intelligence as the worst of the worst and too dangerous to release.

Last month, the president freed his first prisoner — accused terrorist Abdul Latif Nasser — leaving the number of remaining detainees at 39. Ten others have been cleared for release, including some of Osama bin Laden’s bodyguards and 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s safehouse operator, according to Gitmo parole board documents.

 The five Taliban prisoners exchanged for Bowe Bergdahl.Department of Defense

Still other detainees have appealed to the Biden administration through their pro-bono defense lawyers to ensure their release, despite the risk of them returning to militant activities. The suspected 20th hijacker, Mohammad al-Qahtani, and a dozen other inmates are slated for parole hearings this year, documents reveal.

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chuckbrooks/2021/08/21/ransomware-on-a-rampage-a-new-wake-up-call/?sh=38a0815b2e81

Ransomware is on a rampage targeting industry and organizations. It is also and creating significant cybersecurity challenges. Ransomware is a type of malware cyber-attack where key files are encrypted encryption by hackers that renders data inaccessible to the victim. It is a criminal extortion tool and after an attack has occurred, the hackers will promise to restore systems and data when ransom is paid by the victims.

The use of ransomware by hackers to leverage exploits and extract financial benefits is not new. Ransomware has been around for over 2 decades, (early use of basic ransomware malware was used in the late 1980s) but as of late, it has become a trending and more dangerous cybersecurity threat. The inter-connectivity of digital commerce and expanding attack surfaces have enhanced the utility of ransomware as cyber weapon of choice for bad actors. Like bank robbers, cybercriminals go where the money is accessible. And it is now easier for them to reap benefits from extortion. Hackers can now demand cryptocurrencies payments or pre-paid cards that can be anonymously transacted. Those means of digital payments are difficult to trace by law enforcement.

But it is not just the financial gains, while hackers can use ransomware to extort, it can also be employed to harass and demonstrate vulnerabilities to critical infrastructure. In this sense, state actors and/or criminal gangs can use ransomware as an instrument of geo-political power. Hackers often operate in tacit support by nation state actors and criminal enterprises acting in cahoots. The use of ransomware against critical infrastructures has certainly elevated the issue to global national security levels.

The Targets (and Costs) of Ransomware Attacks:

The current state of cyber-affairs is an especially alarming one because ransomware attacks are growing not only in numbers, but also in the financial and reputational costs to businesses and organizations. Three statistics stand out that highlight ransomware trends and implications:

https://www.wsj.com/articles/biden-stop-terrorism-afghanistan-al-qaeda-islamic-state-taliban-jihadist-islamist-11629376977?mod=opinion_lead_pos6

President Biden said Monday that “our only vital national interest in Afghanistan remains today what it has always been: preventing a terrorist attack on [the] American homeland.” Yet one of the administration’s most egregious failures has been neglecting to develop a clear strategy to target terrorists in the country. With more than 10,000 foreign fighters already there, from groups like al Qaeda and Islamic State, the administration quickly needs an armed surveillance strategy that involves using intelligence and air power to target terrorists.

U.S. and other Western intelligence agencies have long known the Taliban continue to have close ties to al Qaeda and other terrorist organizations. In a June 2021 assessment, the United Nations Security Council concluded that a “large number of al Qaeda fighters and other foreign extremist elements aligned with the Taliban are located in various parts of Afghanistan.” The Taliban this week released thousands of them from prisons in Bagram, Kabul, Kandahar and elsewhere.

The Taliban and al Qaeda enjoy longstanding personal relationships, intermarriage, a shared history of struggle and sympathetic ideologies. Al Qaeda leaders have pledged loyalty to every Taliban leader since the group’s establishment. It is shocking, then, that U.S. officials have brushed off the implications of a Taliban victory, even as intelligence analysts said that a Taliban victory would likely be a boon for jihadists.

The Taliban has well-established ties with other regional and international terrorist groups, such as the Pakistan-based Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba. In addition, there are roughly 2,000 Islamic State fighters in Afghanistan, and the group has conducted mass-casualty attacks across the country.

The Taliban victory presents a remarkable opportunity for these groups to reorganize and threaten the U.S. at home and abroad. Jihadist groups gleefully celebrated the Taliban’s conquest of Kabul on chat rooms and other online platforms, pledging the revitalization of a global jihad. We have seen this before. The Soviet defeat in Afghanistan in the late 1980s spawned al Qaeda.

The best way to target terrorists in Afghanistan is through armed overwatch—collecting intelligence from airborne assets and striking terrorists from drones and fighter jets. The U.S. will need to fly persistent strike and ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) missions, most likely from Qatar and other countries in the Persian Gulf.

https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/2021/08/bidens-afghanistan-catastrophe-increases-terror-michael-cutler/

The twentieth anniversary of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 is just a few weeks away.

The first step in solving a problem is to acknowledge that there is a problem.

The good news is that the Biden administration acknowledges that America faces an increased threat of terrorism, especially as the 20th anniversary of the terror attacks of 9/11 by al-Qaida approaches.

The bad news, even as the Taliban has now taken back all of Afghanistan because of the Biden administration’s abysmally failed policies, the Biden administration, incredibly, is entirely focused on the threats posed by domestic terrorists and extremists.  

Biden utterly ignores the failures of the immigration system that continue to undermine national security and public safety in this especially dangerous era. 

On August 13, 2021 the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a press release titled, DHS Issues New National Terrorism Advisory System (NTAS) Bulletin.

The focus of the press release, and as you will see, the NTAS Bulletin was Domestic Terrorism without a single reference to possible entry of foreign terrorists into the United States even as it addressed the elevated threats posed by various terror groups as the 20th anniversary of the terror attacks of 9/11 is nearly upon us.

In fact, the above-noted press release included this excerpt:

Under the Biden-Harris Administration, DHS has increased the development, production, and dissemination of intelligence and other actionable information central to countering threats in the current environment.  DHS has established a new, dedicated domestic terrorism branch within the Department’s Office of Intelligence and Analysis (I&A).  Further, DHS has established the Center for Prevention Programs and Partnerships (CP3) to help build local prevention frameworks to provide communities with the tools they need to counter terrorism and other targeted violence.   

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2021/08/bidens_disgraceful_retreat.html

By abandoning Afghanistan, the U.S. has given Islamic radicals a base to train, plan, and project terrorism.

For more than a decade, I hunted terrorists as a supervisory special agent with the Drug Enforcement Administration, and I believe the United States’ abandonment of Afghanistan is a disgraceful, immoral, and short-sighted foreign-policy disaster. 

On September 11, 2001, I was one of the first rescuers to reach the World Trade Center after it collapsed. I stood in the rubble and swore an oath to seek vengeance against the Islamists who targeted the U.S. I pushed my agency to investigate narco-terrorism and spent the next 14 years pursing terrorists across the globe. I helped open DEA’s office in Kabul, wrestled a suicide bomber, fought Taliban in combat, and chased terrorists across five continents. I achieved the first precedent-setting narco-terrorism arrest and convicted the world’s most prolific heroin trafficker.  

For days, I’ve been receiving frantic messages from Afghan allies who are trapped in Afghanistan or have families still in grave danger. The U.S. has a moral obligation to protect Afghan citizens who fought side-by-side with Americans against the Taliban, Islamic State, al-Qaeda, Haqqani Network, and other terror groups. Right now, Islamists are going house-to-house raping and murdering American allies. The rapid abandonment of the Afghan military and our other allies is unconscionable, but there is still time to expand the beachhead at Kabul International Airport and evacuate tens of thousands of Afghans who will be murdered for believing in democracy and human rights.

Despite problems with reconstruction, the war in Afghanistan has been successful. The purpose of the invasion was to depose the Taliban regime that provided a haven for al-Qaeda, and to combat terrorism. The U.S. achieved those goals by pushing the Taliban into Pakistan and denying the country to terrorists for almost twenty years. Southwest Asia has the highest concentration of terror groups in the world, and it is the epicenter of radical Islamic terrorism. A strong military presence in Afghanistan has facilitated intelligence, law enforcement, and military operations against Islamists who want to destroy the West. The advantage of maintaining a military presence in Afghanistan has been obvious.

https://www.nationalreview.com/magazine/2021/09/01/how-china-and-russia-spy-on-us/#slide-1

With differing capabilities and tactics, both infiltrate American institutions

Do China and Russia share a common set of opponents in world affairs? One might immediately think, yes, they do: the United States, the United King­dom, and their allies.

But an even more persistent danger for the world’s great authoritarians is the free flow of ideas. In their ambition to seize the territories of unwilling neighbors formerly governed without harsh restrictions on information, and in their gradual but relentless drive to control expression and religion, Beijing and Moscow show that they have little tolerance for criticism and no room to allow uncontrolled debate. These are the threats to state power that most trouble Zhongnanhai and the Kremlin.

Beijing and Moscow depend on controlling their own domestic narratives to maintain what the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) calls “harmony.” This is why China’s Propaganda Department disciplines print media and why its National Radio and Television Administration controls broadcast outlets. With news on the Chinese mainland under strict control, Hong Kong is the penultimate frontier (the last major one being Taiwan) in Beijing’s drive to exert dominance over Chinese minds.

In Hong Kong, a territory once known for its free press, the CCP wages a continuing campaign against independent voices, such as the now-defunct Apple Daily. Its next targets may be the establishmentarian but stubbornly independent South China Morning Post and the scrappy Hong Kong Free Press — read them while you can.

Contrast this depressing picture with Russia’s. Vladimir Putin exerts direct and personal control over newspapers and broadcasters, as he “appoints editors and general directors, either officially or unofficially,” as the journalist Nataliya Rostova put it in 2015.

Both Xi Jinping and Vladimir Putin enjoy a measure of approval (the former more than the latter) but lean on the crutch of media control to present a one-sided picture to their domestic audiences, pursuing different means to the same end: maximum control of ideas in society. This variance is reflected in how they conceive and execute interference and influence operations abroad.