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HOMELAND SECURITY

Saudi Graduate of Al Qaeda Terror Training Camp Arrested In Oklahoma Alleged classmate of 9/11 hijackers attended US flight school in 2016. Michael Cutler

On February 6, The New York Times published a chilling report on the arrest in Oklahoma of a foreign national who had attended an al Qaeda training camp. The defendant in this case is Naif Abdulaziz M. Alfallaj, a 34-year-old citizen of Saudi Arabia who has been residing in the U.S. since 2011. Allegedly he attended a terror training camp in Afghanistan in 2000 when four of the 9/11 hijacker/terrorists also attended training sessions at that very same camp.

Here is an excerpt from the Justice Department’s press release on the arrest:

According to the (criminal) complaint, the FBI found 15 of Alfallaj’s fingerprints on an application to an al Qaeda training camp, known as al Farooq, which was one of al Qaeda’s key training sites in Afghanistan. The document was recovered by the U.S. military from an al Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan. The document is also alleged to include an emergency contact number associated with Alfallaj’s father in Saudi Arabia. Alfallaj is alleged to have first entered the U.S. in late 2011 on a nonimmigrant visa based on his wife’s status as a foreign student. According to the complaint, he answered several questions on his visa application falsely, including whether he had ever supported terrorists or terrorist organizations.

The indictment returned today charges two counts of visa fraud. Count One alleges that from March 2012 to the present, Alfallaj possessed a visa obtained by fraud. Count Two alleges he used that visa in October 2016 to apply for lessons at a private flight school in Oklahoma. The third count in the indictment charges Alfallaj with making a false statement to the FBI during a terrorism investigation when he was interviewed and denied ever having associated with anyone from a foreign terrorist group.

This is a “good news/bad news” story.

It is certainly impressive that our government was able to uncover the evidence upon which this criminal case is based, however, he was lawfully admitted into the United States in 2011, more than a decade after he received terror training. He has been in the United States for about seven years and his presence in the United States only came to the attention of the FBI when he sought pilot training in October 2016.

The Fight of Our Lives A new documentary exposes the growing threats to the West. Mark Tapson

“Civilizations, empires, great powers, can fall apart very fast. Collapse can come suddenly, like a thief in the night. And we should be very wary of assuming that our civilization, the civilization of the early 21st century West, will oblige us by declining gradually.”

That warning from noted historian Niall Ferguson is the opening and the theme of the vital new documentary The Fight of Our Lives: Defeating the Ideological War Against the West from filmmaker Gloria Z. Greenfield.

Greenfield’s previous work includes Body and Soul – The State of the Jewish Nation in 2014 (which I reviewed for FrontPage Mag here), Unmasked Judeophobia in 2011, and The Case for Israel – Democracy’s Outpost in 2009. She is the president of Doc Emet Productions, the simple and powerful motto of which is “Truth in film.” Unlike, say, propagandist Michael Moore’s front-and-center, demagogic presence in his films such as Fahrenheit 9/11, director Greenfield gets out of the way and crafts her narratives about anti-Semitism, history, Judeo-Christian values, freedom, and democracy from the authoritative, articulate arguments of the many intellectuals who lend their expertise to her projects.

Such is the case with her latest documentary, which features compelling observations and insights from well-known historians, journalists, and thinkers such as Niall Ferguson, Victor Davis Hanson, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Alan Dershowitz, Melanie Phillips, Bruce Thornton, Raymond Ibrahim, Brooke Goldstein, Ibn Warraq, Alan West, and many more respected commentators from academia, human rights organizations, and think tanks. [Full disclosure: I am included among the featured speakers, as are David Horowitz Freedom Center Fellows Thornton and Ibrahim.]

Mattis Reviewing Whether to Ban ‘Wide Array’ of Devices Like Smart Phones By Bridget Johnson

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Defense Department, per direction of Secretary James Mattis, is reviewing whether to ban cell phones or other electronic devices from the Pentagon and other U.S. military installations after reports that apps were revealing sensitive locations of U.S. service members.

Data from users of fitness trackers such as Fitbit was published in a global heat map by Strava, on which fellow runners can share routes. This also ended up highlighting locations of covert military installations and intelligence outposts, as the only runners using the fitness apps in many remote locations are foreigners.

The November 2017 map highlighted routes accumulated from more than 3 trillion individual GPS data points, according to the Guardian report. As U.S. personnel turn on their fitness apps for daily runs, this has ended up clearly identifying mappable outposts from Syria to Djibouti to Afghanistan.

Today at the Pentagon, spokeswoman Dana White confirmed that a review is underway to determine whether smart phones will be allowed in the building.

“It’s important to know that the secretary’s primary focus is the protection of civilians, of service members and their families,” she said. “So the Strava heat maps provided an opportunity for us to see a possible vulnerability. So he’s thinking about the totality of the DoD enterprise, so not just this building. We always are thinking about how do we enhance and adapt our security procedures. And that’s what’s happening now.”

On concerns that Pentagon staffers wouldn’t be able to stay in touch with families without a mobile phone, White clarified “it’s not just about cell phones.”

“This is a comprehensive look at technology. Technology’s very dynamic. It is important that we always adapt our security procedures,” she said.

“With respect to the workforce, the secretary’s primary interest is to ensure that we are all safe and we are all secure. Operational security is his priority. This recent incident, and others, has allowed him to take a bigger look at, what are we doing and how are we doing it?”

White said that “all of those things will be considered in his calculus, but you have to understand that the secretary sees everything within that prism of, how do I protect the civilians, the service members, their families? And so that’s how he will make his decision.”

The review is also “not just about the Pentagon,” but will take into account electronics rules “across the DoD enterprise.” CONTINUE AT SITE

Welcome to America, Terrorists! Right This Way for Student Visas! by Majid Rafizadeh

“Foreign students have one of the highest rates of overstaying visas of any category — much higher even than tourist visas. It’s one of the favorite visas for terrorists to try to obtain, because it offers a longer duration of stay.” — Jessica M. Vaughan, the director of policy studies for the Center for Immigration Studies.

According to the Department of Homeland Security, there were approximately 739,000 immigrants who overstayed their visas last year alone. Roughly 80,000 of those were foreign students.

Worse, jihadists do not even need to obtain a university admission to set foot in the US. They can get a student visa by obtaining an admission from a school to learn English. Many of these Islamists can alter their area of study once they set foot in the US. An agent of the Iranian regime, for instance, may get a visa to study English in the US, but once he arrives, he can switch that major to study nuclear physics, to help his regime obtain nuclear weapons.

Recently, in the middle of a speech at a conference in Europe about the threats of radical jihadist groups, a young imam stood up and vehemently voiced his objection to my remarks. At the end of the conference, the imam and several of his followers came forward. The imam insisted that Americans should be educated about Sharia law.

One of the imam’s followers spoke up, his voice filled with excitement as he described how they had just entered Europe and their next destination was the US. When asked what their experience was like traveling to Europe, the man responded with a tone of gloating in his voice.

“It was very easy,” he said. “We came here on a student visa, and we will be in the US on another student visa!”

What the man claimed was tragically true. Many Islamists have become adept at manipulating the flaws in the immigration system and have found ways of taking advantage of any legal loopholes.

The breach should concern everyone: any prospective jihadists can easily abuse the immigration system by coming to the US on a student visa. All he needs to do is apply to some US universities, receive a letter of admission, then take it to the closest US embassy as a credible document for obtaining an F-1 student visa.

ICE Troubles With Terrorism By Pedro Gonzalez

An audit by the Department of Homeland Security’s Inspector General found that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) is facing a variety of challenges, particularly with implementing the Known or Suspected Terrorist Encounter Protocol (KSTEP). KSTEP allows a myriad of law enforcement and intelligence agencies to coordinate and streamline the “protocol for identifying and processing aliens who are known or suspected terrorists.”

ICE can only screen immigrants while they are in custody. As of June 2017, just 33,701 of 2.4 million—about 1.4 percent—of all immigrants actively monitored by ICE and Immigration Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) were subject to KSTEP screening for connections to known or suspected terrorists. The problem is exacerbated by the fact that “some law enforcement agencies will not honor ICE immigration detainer requests,” thereby preventing ICE Enforcement and Removal Operations (ERO) from taking custody of criminal aliens for KSTEP screening.

From January 2014 through May 2017, approximately 675 jurisdictions nationwide refused to honor more than 29,269 ICE immigration detainer requests. When a state or local law enforcement agency declines to transfer custody of a removable criminal alien to ICE, the released alien may put the public and ERO personnel at risk and it then requires significantly more resources to bring the individual into ICE custody.

California denied 11 ICE detainer requests, the majority for immigrants convicted of violent crimes, between January and February 2017, taking the cake for most detainer requests declined, 3,348, between 2015 and 2017. So-called “Sanctuary Cities,” having been specifically designed to limit or prohibit immigration authorities, were the worst offenders.

Border Wall is Necessary But Not Sufficient By Karl Spence

Juan Leonardo Quintero was a pretty good yard man. His employer, Camp Landscaping of Deer Park, Texas, valued his services so much that the boss bailed him out of jail when he was arrested on a morals charge, and after Quintero pleaded guilty and was deported to Mexico, Camp lent him the money he needed to be smuggled back into the United States.

Then the bill for the yard man’s services came due.

Quintero knew that if found here again, he might go to federal prison for 10 years or more, so he took pains to avoid the authorities’ notice. But then, in 2006, while driving his employer’s truck along a street in Houston, he was pulled over for speeding.

“I knew I was in trouble,” he would say later. “Since I came back, I knew I was in trouble. I was worried about being put in prison.”

So Quintero drew a gun from his pants and put four bullets into Officer Rodney Johnson’s head.

The crime was a big deal in Texas. Quintero stood trial for capital murder and was sentenced to life without parole. His boss, Robert Camp, pleaded guilty to federal charges of harboring an illegal alien and went to jail, too. And the Houston police started cooperating more closely with federal immigration authorities.

In 2010, when Houston Mayor Bill White challenged longtime incumbent Rick Perry for Texas governor, Johnson’s widow appeared in a Perry campaign ad blaming White for the “sanctuary city” policies that had made it harder for those immigration authorities to detect and deport people like Quintero. White lost to Perry, bigly.

I remembered the Quintero case when I heard about the recent courtroom antics of California cop killer Luis Bracamontes. His performance has to be seen to be believed. Dropping F-bombs and N-words left and right, he cursed out the judge, insulted the surviving victims to their face, laughed at their families, and generally behaved as if he had just won the lottery. He finally was thrown out of the courtroom, to watch the remainder of his trial by remote TV.

Convicted Terrorist Hamid Hayat Gets New Hearing Pakistan-trained terrorist was “so pleased” that jihadis cut Daniel Pearl “into pieces.” Lloyd Billingsley

On Monday a federal court in Sacramento will hold an evidentiary hearing on Hamid Hayat, 35, currently serving a 24-year sentence on terrorism charges. Hayat’s legal team will attempt to vacate the 2006 conviction, with support from the northern California division of the Council on American Islamic Relations.

“We welcome the court’s decision to hear new evidence in this case and hope that Mr. Hayat will be given a fair chance to present his appeal,” said CAIR executive director Basim Elkarra in a statement. “With Mr. Hayat’s case, there are legitimate concerns that he did not receive a fair trial.”

The Muslim Legal Fund of America “began funding the expenses for this case in 2014 because representatives were deeply concerned over growing evidence that Hayat was convicted largely on the basis of his religious identity rather than any evidence of wrongdoing.” According to MLFA executive director Khalil Meek, “Hayat was essentially convicted for possessing a prayer written on paper that asked God for protection. Imagine what impact this will have on everyone’s First Amendment rights if this conviction stands.”

Hayat’s lawyer Dennis Riordan, one of the top appeal attorneys in the nation, told the MLFA, “We believe that this is the most important legal case involving Muslim interests currently in courts of this country. This motion to vacate Hayat’s conviction is currently the best vehicle for exposing the harmful effects of anti-Muslim bias in American courtrooms.” Last June, Riordan told the Intercept, “It’s going to be obvious that, not only should he have prevailed at trial, but that he’s factually innocent.”

The January 29 hearing was ordered by federal judge Deborah Barnes, a relative newcomer to California’s Eastern District bench and a veteran of the California attorney general’s office. So Hayat’s CAIR and MFLA-backed legal team had done some judge shopping and it paid off. Barnes’ June 7, 2017 order raised “serious questions concerning the competency of the defense.”

Where is Nidal Sakr and Why Isn’t He in Jail? US Muslim Brotherhood operative who threatened President Trump’s life needs to be brought to justice. Joe Kaufman

March for Justice Chairman and Muslim Brotherhood operative Nidal Sakr has been living in the United States since he escaped Egypt, in March 2014, days before he was sentenced to death for the murder of an Egyptian police officer. While in the US, Sakr has repeatedly called for President Donald Trump’s execution, something that is punishable by US law. Whether serving his Egyptian sentence or his potential US sentence for his threats, he needs to be located so that he could be brought to justice.

Nidal Mohamed Sakr was born in Providence, Rhode Island. He describes himself as “US born from Palestinian origin.” In a videotaped lecture Sakr gave, in October 2012, he claimed that his mother is Egyptian and enlisted in the Muslim Brotherhood (al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin) at an early age, carrying weapons and ammunition for the group. He stated, “Let me be very clear about this. I was born into Ikhwan, and my mother actually is from the first generation of Ikhwan.”

Around 1970, Sakr joined a Brotherhood terrorist cell in Jordan that was conducting paramilitary operations against Israel. According to Sakr, the individual who recruited him into the cell was Abdullah Azzam, the future mentor of Osama bin Laden and co-founder of al-Qaeda. Also according to Sakr, he personally knew bin Laden. He stated, “Osama bin Laden, himself, was a student of Abdullah Azzam at King Abdul Aziz University. I know him personally. I know his brothers. I know his family.”

Years later, during the Arab Spring, Sakr and his convert wife, Sara Rae Bokker, were living in Egypt. According to Bokker’s Facebook page, which is packed with morbid graphics about death, she had arrived in Egypt in December 2003 and worked at the Jana Dan International School in Cairo from 2007 to 2014, first as a kindergarten teacher and then headmistress. While in Egypt, Sakr organized rallies for the Muslim Brotherhood and advised Brotherhood leadership. He, as well, served on the International Islamic Council for Dawah and Relief in Cairo, beginning in 2007.

Following the July 2013 coup against the government of newly elected Egyptian President and Brotherhood leader, Mohamed Morsi, by then-head of Egypt’s military and current Egyptian President, Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the Brotherhood immediately became a target. On Facebook, Sakr describes an incident where he was shot at by the new government. He writes: “Can you Imagine How Horrendous to Be in the Crowd Fired At? I CAN. I Was Fired At by Sisi n RABAA [Square in Cairo] for 12 Hours NON STOP…”

New ISIS Video Sings to U.S. Jihadists: ‘It is Now Time to Rise, Slit Their Throats, Watch Them Die’ By Bridget Johnson

The Islamic State issued a new video today calling on “brothers in Europe, America, Russia, Australia and elsewhere” to “kill them all” as “it is now time to rise.”

The English-language nasheed, inspirational songs frequently released by terror groups, shows scenes of Western terrorists’ handiwork — including the March 2017 Westminster Bridge attack and the ISIS pledge video recorded by Berlin Christmas market terrorist Anis Amri — mingled with ISIS battlefield scenes and beheadings in Syria.

The video from ISIS’ official Al-Hayat Media Center was distributed widely on YouTube and social media platforms Twitter and Facebook, along with being posted on file-sharing sites.

“Your brothers in your lands have absolved themselves of blame, so leap onto their tracks and take an example from their actions and know that jannah [paradise] is beneath the shadows of swords,” a narrator says before the nasheed starts.

“Go answer the call, don’t spare none, kill them all, it is now time to rise, slit their throats, watch them die,” goes the nasheed. “The Islamic State stands, and it stands and demands, that you worship the one, whom besides there is none.”

“We’re the grandsons of men, who gave all that they can, to rule all of the lands, with the law of Islam,” the nasheed continued. “Holding up the flag high, and seeking paradise, o my brothers stay strong, victory won’t be long.”

“Together we will stand up, once filled with iman [faith], men who answered the call, terrorizing the world.” CONTINUE AT SITE

ISIS Group Puts Crosshairs on Vegas Hotel in Threat to Shed ‘Dirty Blood’ By Bridget Johnson

An ISIS-supporting media group threatened another Vegas-style massacre in a new propaganda image, yet zeroed in on a Strip hotel other than the Mandalay Bay.

“The disbeliever west will see our power through the jihad of sincere people and the sacrifice of monotheists. We will be generous in shedding your dirty blood unless you embrace Islam or give the jizyah,” states the message, referencing a tax paid by non-Muslims. “However, Las Vegas’ massacre is not far from you.”

The poster distributed online includes a shadowy backdrop of masked jihadists carrying an ISIS flag, hovering over a photo from the Vegas strip. The words “Las Vegas,” crosshairs and flames are positioned over the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino.

An ISIS-supporting media group threatened another Vegas-style massacre in a new propaganda image, yet zeroed in on a Strip hotel other than the Mandalay Bay.

“The disbeliever west will see our power through the jihad of sincere people and the sacrifice of monotheists. We will be generous in shedding your dirty blood unless you embrace Islam or give the jizyah,” states the message, referencing a tax paid by non-Muslims. “However, Las Vegas’ massacre is not far from you.”

The poster distributed online includes a shadowy backdrop of masked jihadists carrying an ISIS flag, hovering over a photo from the Vegas strip. The words “Las Vegas,” crosshairs and flames are positioned over the Planet Hollywood Resort & Casino.CONTINUE AT SITE