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HOMELAND SECURITY

Kirstjen Nielsen, White House Aide, Is Picked to Run Homeland Security By JULIE HIRSCHFELD DAVIS

WASHINGTON — President Trump said on Wednesday that he intended to name Kirstjen Nielsen, a top White House aide, to lead the Department of Homeland Security, elevating a former homeland security official in the George W. Bush administration who has lately worked to impose order in Mr. Trump’s chaotic West Wing.

Mr. Trump announced his choice in a statement that noted Ms. Nielsen’s “extensive professional experience in the areas of homeland security policy and strategy, cybersecurity, critical infrastructure and emergency management.” She is the first nominee for the homeland security post who had served in the department, according to the statement.

If confirmed, Ms. Nielsen would replace John F. Kelly, who was homeland security secretary until he left in July to serve as the White House chief of staff and bring discipline and direction to a West Wing plagued by disorganization and infighting. Mr. Kelly had drafted Ms. Nielsen to be his chief of staff at the Homeland Security department, and when the president plucked him for the White House, he brought her as his No. 2.

Known as a no-nonsense player and policy wonk, Ms. Nielsen appears unlikely to land at the center of the type of controversies that have engulfed Mr. Trump’s presidency. But her regimented style in a freewheeling and often dysfunctional West Wing frustrated some senior officials and people close to the president, who chafed under her dictates. On Wednesday, some of them described Ms. Nielsen’s promotion as a solution to a toxic personnel situation, while others fretted privately that her departure would create a void at the White House that would be difficult to fill.

Mr. Kelly pushed hard for her selection, making a personal appeal to Mr. Trump during a monthslong search process. Among the other candidates considered, according to people familiar with the process, was Representative Michael McCaul, Republican of Texas and the chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee.

Former colleagues said on Wednesday that Ms. Nielsen was well qualified.

“She’s a total homeland security expert — absolutely has no learning curve,” said Michael Allen, who worked with Ms. Nielsen during the Bush administration. “She’s an experienced manager, she’s an implementer, she knows how to get under the hood and figure out what needs to be connected to what.”

Added Frances Townsend, her boss at the White House during the Bush administration: “She is tough as nails, competent and has rightly earned the president’s respect.”

ISIS in Ohio (Part One): The Terror Attack at Ohio State University By Patrick Poole

Ohio State students returning from their Thanksgiving break last November had their first day back on campus shattered by one of their fellow students, Abdul Razak Ali Artan. He drove his brother’s grey Honda Civic into a crowd gathered outside Watts Hall on campus, injuring a number of them. He then emerged from the wrecked vehicle with an eight-inch knife and began attacking bystanders, some of whom were already tending to the injured.

The Islamic State would hail Artan the very next day, calling him a “soldier” and praising him for responding to their call for Muslims living in the West to conduct terror attacks in its name.

Artan, however, isn’t the only Islamic State “soldier” from Ohio to answer the terror group’s call.

In fact, a growing number of ISIS supporters and operatives have emerged from the Buckeye State over the past two years. The ISIS-inspired terror attack at Ohio State on November 28, 2016, should have been a wake-up call to the escalating problem in the state, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. Rather, the terror incident is yet another example of how the problem has been buried while the threat has metastasized.

Buckeye Battle Cry: “Run, Hide, Fight”

The pageantry of a football game at Ohio Stadium is among the top spectacles in American college athletics, with 100,000-plus fans (usually) cheering their team on to victory. The bells ringing after a score. The “Skull Session” with the football team and the marching band prior to the game. And the band’s entry into the stadium at the beginning of the game, leading the crowd with Ohio State’s fight song, “Buckeye Battle Cry.”

But after Abdul Razak Artan’s terror attack last year, Ohio State has a new fight song, as do hundreds of other college campuses: “Run, Hide, Fight.”

Artan’s victims didn’t have much time to run and hide when his car jumped the curb and rammed into a crowd of students. Eleven people were injured, most by the car-ramming; two were slashed by Artan with his knife. One victim had a fractured skull. Artan was shot and killed by a campus police officer two minutes after the attack began.

It was the first semester for the Logistics Management third-year student at Ohio State’s Fisher College of Business, having graduated cum laude in May 2016 with an associate’s degree from Columbus State Community College.

On his first day on campus, Artan was interviewed by the Ohio State student newspaper, The Lantern. He whined to the reporter about the absence of places for Muslims to pray on campus (there is a dedicated room at the student union) and about misconceptions other students might have about him and Islam if he prayed in public. The reporter later related how quickly Artan was able to recite from memory the laundry list of Islamic grievances, and his perception that Muslims were under siege in America from pervasive Islamophobia.

Among the courses he was taking that first semester was a class on “microaggressions” called “Crossing Identity Borders,” where students are encouraged to “identify ways in which they can challenge or address systems of power and privilege.”

One might say that given Artan’s background, he had already been the beneficiary of privilege.

Born and raised in Somalia, he and his family lived as refugees in Pakistan from 2007 until 2014, at which time they moved to the U.S. and received legal permanent resident status. Among the stated reasons for his family moving to America was his mother’s concern that she didn’t want Abdul Razak and his siblings being recruited by the Somali terror group Al-Shabaab.

First landing in Dallas for a few weeks, they were resettled in Columbus — home of the second largest Somali community in the country. He apparently quickly enrolled at Columbus State, which has one of the largest Muslim student populations of any higher education institution in America.

Artan’s friends in Ohio and Pakistan claimed that he “loved America,” but that contrasts dramatically with the Facebook post he left just three minutes before his attack: CONTINUE AT SITE

Homeland Security Uncovers Massive Immigration Failures The devastating consequences for national security. Michael Cutler

President Trump has been rightfully demanding that aliens who are citizens of countries that have an involvement with terrorism must undergo “extreme vetting.”

This is certainly an important and commonsense requirement. However, the computer systems used by both Customs and Border Protection (CBP) and United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) inside the United States are unable to provide CBP inspectors at ports of entry the data they need to prevent transnational criminals and international terrorists from entering the country. Nor can these systems provide the vital information and records to USCIS adjudications officers that would allow them to prevent aliens present in the United States from improperly acquiring immigration benefits such as political asylum, lawful immigrant status and even United States citizenship.

Simply stated, today — more than 16 years after the terror attacks of September 11, 2001 — the effective vetting of any alien seeking entry into the United States or for any alien seeking immigration benefits has been elusive goals.

The September 28, 2017 Department of Homeland Security Office of Inspector General’s (DHS OIG) report, “CBP’s IT Systems and Infrastructure Did Not Fully Support Border Security Operations,” noted:

CBP’s IT systems and infrastructure did not fully support its border security objective of preventing the entry of inadmissible aliens to the country. The slow performance of a critical pre-screening system greatly reduced Office of Field Operations officers’ ability to identify any passengers who may represent concerns, including national security threats. Further, incoming passenger screening at U.S. international airports was hampered by frequent system outages that created passenger delays and public safety risks. The outages required that CBP officers rely on backup systems that weakened the screening process, leading to officers potentially being unable to identify travelers that may be attempting to enter the United States with harmful intent.

On September 25, 2017, a report was published by DHS OIG on the distressing issue of individuals with multiple identities in US fingerprint enrollment records receiving immigration benefits. This disastrous situation has profound national security and public safety implications. Yet the report stated in part:

As of April 24, 2017, 9,389 aliens USCIS identified as having multiple identities had received an immigration benefit. When taking into account the most current immigration benefit these aliens received, we determined that naturalization, permanent residence, work authorization, and temporary protected status represent the greatest number of benefits, accounting for 8,447 or 90 percent of the 9,389 cases. Benefits approved by USCIS for the other 10 percent of cases, but not discussed in this report, include applications for asylum and travel documents. According to USCIS, receiving a deportation order or having used another identity does not necessarily render an individual ineligible for immigration benefits.

That last sentence should give us all serious cause for pause.

Apparently the “get to yes” philosophy of the Obama administration still permeates management at USCIS where adjudications officers were ordered to do whatever they had to do in order to approve virtually all applications for various immigration benefits.

We will, a bit later on, take a look back at how the Obama administration dismantled a program that sought to uncover immigration fraud and imbue the immigration benefits program with integrity.

But let’s first consider some additional facts.

Saudi government allegedly funded a ‘dry run’ for 9/11 By Paul Sperry

Fresh evidence submitted in a major 9/11 lawsuit moving forward against the Saudi Arabian government reveals its embassy in Washington may have funded a “dry run” for the hijackings carried out by two Saudi employees, further reinforcing the claim that employees and agents of the kingdom directed and aided the 9/11 hijackers and plotters.

Two years before the airliner attacks, the Saudi Embassy paid for two Saudi nationals, living undercover in the US as students, to fly from Phoenix to Washington “in a dry run for the 9/11 attacks,” alleges the amended complaint filed on behalf of the families of some 1,400 victims who died in the terrorist attacks 16 years ago.

The court filing provides new details that paint “a pattern of both financial and operational support” for the 9/11 conspiracy from official Saudi sources, lawyers for the plaintiffs say. In fact, the Saudi government may have been involved in underwriting the attacks from the earliest stages — including testing cockpit security.

“We’ve long asserted that there were longstanding and close relationships between al Qaeda and the religious components of the Saudi government,” said Sean Carter, the lead attorney for the 9/11 plaintiffs. “This is further evidence of that.”

Lawyers representing Saudi Arabia last month filed a motion to dismiss the lawsuit, which may finally be headed toward trial now that Congress has cleared diplomatic-immunity hurdles. A Manhattan federal judge has asked the 9/11 plaintiffs, represented by lead law firm Cozen O’Connor, to respond to the motion by November.

Citing FBI documents, the complaint alleges that the Saudi students — Mohammed al-Qudhaeein and Hamdan al-Shalawi — were in fact members of “the Kingdom’s network of agents in the US,” and participated in the terrorist conspiracy.

They had trained at al Qaeda camps in Afghanistan at the same time some of the hijackers were there. And while living in Arizona, they had regular contacts with a Saudi hijacker pilot and a senior al Qaeda leader from Saudi now incarcerated at Gitmo. At least one tried to re-enter the US a month before the attacks as a possible muscle hijacker but was denied admission because he appeared on a terrorist watch list.

Qudhaeein and Shalawi both worked for and received money from the Saudi government, with Qudhaeein employed at the Ministry of Islamic Affairs. Shalawi was also “a longtime employee of the Saudi government.” The pair were in “frequent contact” with Saudi officials while in the US, according to the filings.

During a November 1999 America West flight to Washington, Qudhaeein and Shalawi are reported to have tried multiple times to gain access to the cockpit of the plane in an attempt to test flight-deck security in advance of the hijackings.

‘The dry run reveals more of the fingerprints of the Saudi government.’
– Kristen Breitweiser

“After they boarded the plane in Phoenix, they began asking the flight attendants technical questions about the flight that the flight attendants found suspicious,” according to a summary of the FBI case files.

Canada ISIS-Inspired Attack Exposes Terror Suspects Illegally Crossing U.S. Border By Patrick Poole

According to the media, an alien illegally crossing the U.S. border and then committing a terror attack is supposed to be an urban myth.

But after an apparent ISIS-inspired terror attack in Edmonton, Canada, last week by a Somali asylee we now have a documented case of that exact scenario happening.

Abdullahi Hasan Sharif illegally crossed the U.S. southern border in July 2011. After he was released here he fled to Canada and claimed asylum.

As I reported here at PJ Media, last Saturday in two separate incidents he ran over and stabbed an Edmonton police officer, then later ran down pedestrians in downtown Edmonton in a U-Haul truck. An ISIS flag was found in one of the vehicles he used.

The police chief described the injuries to the pedestrians struck as ranging from “broken arms to brain bleeds.”

He’s now facing five counts of attempted murder.

Sharif had been reported to Canadian authorities for extremism in 2015 but had been deemed “not a threat,” making this yet another case of “Known Wolf” terrorism.

Macleans reports:

Two years ago, city police and RCMP had investigated Sharif after receiving a complaint about him espousing extremist ideological views— reportedly incoherent rants about genocide, and praise for Islamic State leaders. Police at least interviewed the complainant and the suspect, performing what they called this week an “exhaustive investigation” yet concluding the young resident didn’t pose a security threat and didn’t warrant charges or further investigation […]

A construction site co-worker had complained to police about Sharif, saying the suspect confided to him his hatred for Shia Muslims, and said that polytheists “needed to die,” CBC reported Monday. After he alerted city police, the co-worker was interviewed by RCMP, as part of the local branch of the Integrated National Security Enforcement Teams (INSET). That multi-agency force, formed after the 9/11 terror attacks, has had its share of successes, helping thwart the 2006 “Toronto 18” terror plot. In 2015, it arrested a group of young Montrealers hoping to fly abroad to join jihadist groups, and the same year arrested a man in Fort St. John, B.C., after he allegedly posted Islamic State propaganda advocating murder.

Speaking to reporters Monday, the head of Alberta’s INSET team would not say how many complaints it has received similar to the one that prompted its investigation of Sharif two years ago. Carvin says the number of national investigations likely numbers in the hundreds—far fewer than European countries are handling. The RCMP couldn’t legally or logistically monitor all such individuals all the time, so authorities must prioritize, she says.

Feds Unseal Indictments on ISIS Sympathizers Who Planned New York Attacks in 2016 By Rick Moran

An ISIS-inspired plot to attack the New York City subway, concerts, and other landmarks was foiled in 2016. Now the terrorists, who said they wanted to create the “next 9/11,” have been charged on multiple terrorism counts.

Charged in the case are Abdulrahman El Bahnasawy, 19, a Canadian citizen; Talha Haroon, 19, a US citizen living in Pakistan; and Russell Salic, 37, a Philippines citizen, the release said. According to prosecutors, all three have been arrested and El Bahnasawy has already pleaded guilty following his May 2016 arrest. Haroon and Salic have been arrested overseas, and the US is seeking to have them extradited to stand trial here.

El Bahnasawy allegedly traveled to New Jersey to carry out the attacks, purchased bomb-making materials and helped rent a cabin for building the devices, the news release said. Haroon is alleged to have planned to travel from Pakistan to New York to help and met with bomb experts in Pakistan. Salic is charged with wiring money from the Philippines to further the plot.

El Bahnasawy and Haroon allegedly communicated with an undercover officer posing as an ISIS supporter about their plot and declared their allegiance to ISIS in the communications, according to investigators.

Authorities tracked the international plot using an undercover officer.

According to the court documents, El Bahnasawy and Haroon claimed to the undercover agent to have contacts with an ISIS branch known as Khorasan Province, which is active in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

El Bahnasawy wrote of wanting to “create the next 9/11,” investigators said, and Haroon wanted to “cause great destruction to the filthy (disbelievers) by our hands.”

Targets included the subway, Times Square and concerts — inspired by the Paris attack. One message also mentioned targeting a Jewish neighborhood.

“(W)e seriously need a car bomb at Times Square. … Look at these crowds of people!” El Bahnasawy said in one message. He also talked of a desire to “shoot up concerts cuz they kill a lot of people. … (W)e just walk in with guns in our hands. … That’s how the Paris guys did it.”

Haroon called the subway a “perfect” target and spoke of killing as many people as possible on a “very busy day,” not stopping even if there were “women or kids.”

That would be followed up with explosions, Haroon said, adding, if they “get trapped” or “when we run out of bullets we let the vests go off.”

“No mercy is rule one,” Haroon said.

“I wanna kill . . . them in thousands,” he added later. “(W)e have to make a ocean out of their blood(.) Leave no one standing.”

El Bahnasawy bought bomb supplies including 40 pounds of hydrogen peroxide, a key ingredient in triacetone triperoxide (TATP), which is commonly used in improvised explosives, and he also bought batteries, Christmas lights, thermometers and aluminum foil, the court documents said. He then rented the cabin they would use to build the bombs.

Salic was introduced to the undercover agent by El Bahnasawy as a trusted supporter of ISIS who would help fund the operation. Using an alias, Salic then contacted the operative about transferring the money, and also said he was “desperate” to join ISIS in Syria. He wired just over $400 in mid-May to support the attacks.

I have no doubt the terrorists were dead serious and capable of carrying out the attacks. But talk of killing thousands with 40 pounds of TATP? Their plot is both chilling and pathetic — bragging to each other how many people they were going to kill, “no mercy,” “make an ocean of their blood” — they sounded more like terrorist wannabees than ISIS trained militants. CONTINUE AT SITE

Las Vegas Shooting Leaves at Least 20 Dead, More Than 100 Wounded Authorities shut down part of Las Vegas Strip after incident at music festival By Alejandro Lazo

At least 20 people are dead and more than 100 wounded after a shooting late Sunday at a music festival on the Las Vegas Strip.

Police said they were first alerted to reports an incident at 10:08 p.m. and then established there was a shooter on the 31st floor of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino who was targeting the nearby Route 91 Harvest Festival.

Joseph Lombardo of the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department said officers responded and shot dead the suspect. He said the suspect was a local resident but declined to identify him. Police are also trying to locate a female companion who was traveling with the suspect.

Local television news reports showed crowds of people in Las Vegas ducking for cover as the sound of rapid gunshots rang out, while dozens of patrol vehicles descended on the Strip.

Concertgoers reported seeing muzzle flashes from the upper floors of the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino across Las Vegas Boulevard from the country music festival and the sound of what they described as automatic gunfire.

Witnesses said they saw multiple victims as they fled the gunfire raining down on the concert venue.

Some later huddled in the basement of the nearby Tropicana hotel-casino.

Some officers took cover behind their vehicles while others carrying assault rifles ran into the Mandalay Bay Hotel and Casino.

Authorities shut down part of the Las Vegas Strip and Interstate 15.

Las Vegas authorities on alert over new ISIS propaganda video By Andrew Craft From May 2017

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/05/25/las-vegas-authorities-on-alert-over-new-isis-propaganda-video.html

An ISIS propaganda video posted on social media last week featured a brief clip of Las Vegas’ famed strip, prompting Sin City law enforcement authorities to perceive a credible threat.
The 44-minute video showed 2015 footage of the strip, along with images from other cities, including New York and Washington, D.C. The video, narrated in English, calls on ISIS supporters living in the U.S. to carry out attacks using knives and vehicles.

Florida Islamist’s “Human Rights” Organization Needs to Be Investigated for Possible Terrorism Ties by Joe Kaufman

“WE WILL OVERTHROW them ALL. US WILL PAY FOR ITS CRIMES” — Nidal Mohamed Sakr.

Sakr is a prime example of a radical Islamist taking advantage of the freedoms that the United States has to offer all its citizens, in order to undermine its existence — in the name of “human rights.”

Although voicing his enmity is precisely one of those rights, membership in a terrorist group is not, particularly if he is using his March of Justice organization as a front. A serious investigation into Sakr and his operations needs be launched to determine whether and to what extent he is a threat to US national security.

On March 19, 2014, Nidal Mohamed Sakr, an American citizen from Providence, Rhode Island, was detained by Homeland Security upon his arrival in the United States from an extended stay in Egypt, the country of his mother’s birth. Although Sakr is an active member of the Muslim Brotherhood and former al-Qaeda associate, he was released and has been operating freely in the U.S., traveling back and forth between Florida and California as the head of a Miami-based, self-described “human rights” organization called The March for Justice.

This was not the first time that Sakr, who describes himself as “US born from Palestinian origin,” had been interrogated by American authorities. According to an account he posted on the March for Justice website, he was questioned by Palm Beach police in January 2002 about the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden. This occurred as he, Sakr, left an event held by a Jewish organization to express unity and solidarity in the wake of the 9/11 attacks, which had taken place less than four months earlier. At the time, he penned a letter to President George W. Bush complaining that he was being victimized by anti-Muslim Jews.

Prior to 2014, when he was temporarily detained at a US airport, Sakr had spent time in Egypt, where he actively participated in the eruption of the “Arab Spring” — which led to the ouster and imprisonment of then-President Hosni Mubarak and the rise of Muslim Brotherhood chief Mohammed Morsi as Egypt’s president. While in Egypt, Sakr gave a lecture in which he recounted how he was recruited by al-Qaeda co-founder and bin Laden mentor Abdullah Azzam to a Palestinian terrorist cell operating out of Jordan in the 1970s and ’80s. He also spoke about having gotten to know bin Laden and his family.

In the aftermath of the July 2013 military coup against Morsi, which led to the current presidency of General Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the Muslim Brotherhood was outlawed and anyone associated with it became a target. Thousands of people were arrested and hundreds sentenced to death, including Morsi — whose sentence was later reversed, but recently reinstated for a term of 25 years in prison.

Sakr was allegedly among 529 Muslim Brotherhood members sentenced to death by an Egyptian court “for murder and other offenses.”

THE TENNESEE SHOOTING: DANIEL GREENFIELD

Tennessee Church Killer Posted Black Nationalist, Anti-Police, Pro-Islam Material
http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/267953/tennessee-church-killer-posted-black-nationalist-daniel-greenfield

Kidega, the Sudanese immigrant who opened fire in a Tennessee Church had a social media profile (as reported by Heavy) that is chock full of everything you expect.

Kidega’s likes included black nationalist Muslim racists like Farrakhan and Malcolm X.

There is the black nationalism and the accusations of racism. Especially when directed at the police.

Kidega’s page was also full of conspiracy theories on a variety of topics.

http://www.frontpagemag.com/point/267952/sudanese-immigrant-opens-fire-tennessee-church-daniel-greenfield

A Sudanese immigrant named Emanuel Kidega Samson opened fire at a Nashville church.

Kidega shot 5 people. He killed one woman in a parking lot. The Minister was shot and left in critical condition. His wife was also shot and is in stable condition.

The Sudanese immigrant’s other four victims. Two of them are women in their sixties. Two others are women in their eighties. All of them appear to be stable.

Worshipers reportedly put up a fight causing Kidega to shoot himself in the leg. An usher was pistol whipped by the Sudanese man.

A Facebook page apparently belonging to the African immigrant shows that he was from Khartoum, Sudan and was living in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.

Murfreesboro, Tennessee has been at the center of a great deal of controversy over the settlement of immigrants and refugees in the area leading tensions with the American residents.