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HOMELAND SECURITY

California Man Sentenced to 30 Years for Conspiring to Support Islamic State Anaheim resident was convicted in connection with helping co-defendant get to Syria By John R. Emshwiller

LOS ANGELES—A Southern California man convicted of conspiring to provide support to the terrorist organization Islamic State was sentenced to 30 years in prison Wednesday by a federal judge in Santa Ana, Calif.

Muhanad Badawi, a 26-year-old resident of Anaheim, in Orange County, was convicted in connection with his efforts to help his co-defendant in the criminal case, 26-year-old Nader Salem Elhuzayel, get to Syria to fight for Islamic State, also known as ISIL.

In September, Mr. Elhuzayel was sentenced to 30 years in prison by U.S. District Judge David Carter, who also handed down Mr. Badawi’s sentence.

The U.S. attorney’s office in Los Angeles, which prosecuted the two men, had recommended a 30-year sentence for Mr. Badawi. Through words and action, Mr. Badawi “demonstrated his deep commitment to the ISIL ideology and his corresponding antagonism to the fundamental values of the U.S.,” said one government court filing.

“Badawi and Elhuzayel wanted to fight for ISIL, desired to become so-called martyrs and supported ISIL’s terrorist activities. Prosecutions such as this are critically important to our national security,” Eileen M. Decker, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, said in a statement.

Mr. Badawi’s attorneys had recommended a sentence of no more than 15 years. Such a sentence “achieves the goals of deterrence, incapacitation and rehabilitation. A greater sentence does not achieve a greater level of justice,” said a defense court filing.

At a hearing Monday, Judge Carter had raised the possibility of assigning Mr. Badawi to a program aimed at “de-radicalizing” individuals who have become followers of terrorist groups. A federal judge in Minnesota has been exploring the use of such a program for defendants facing terrorism-related charges.

The Gathering Storm Clouds: FBI Director Comey Warns Terrorists Heading Our Way One mission of our armed services is to work with our allies to locate, engage and eliminate. Michael Cutler

One mission of our armed services is to work with our allies to locate, engage and eliminate terrorists overseas, while domestically our law enforcement agencies are tasked with protecting America and Americans within our borders. In the wake of the deadly terror attack in San Bernardino, California, I wrote an article, “Fighting the War on Terror Here, There and Everywhere,” in which I took on the false argument that by fighting the terrorists overseas we won’t have to fight them here.

On September 26, 2016, “Business Insider” warned, “FBI director: ISIS’ loss will create a ‘terrorist diaspora’ like we’ve never seen before,” while a day later NBC reported, “FBI’s Comey: Officials Worry About ‘Terrorist Diaspora’ from Syria, Iraq.”

FBI Director Comey is predicting that simply defeating ISIS and other terror organizations overseas, while an achievable objective, would likely have unintended consequences. He warns that as greater pressure is brought to bear against the terrorists on their turf, they will head for the West, including the United States, to create as much death and destruction as possible.

America’s borders are our first line and last line of defense against these terrorists and transnational criminal organizations. Our borders, however, include far more than the U.S.-Mexican border. Our nation has 50 “Border States.” Any state that lies along the northern or southern borders of the United States is a border state, as are those states that have access to our nation’s 95,000 miles of coastline. Finally, any state that has an international airport must, of necessity, be deemed a border state.

The official report, “9/11 and Terrorist Travel – Staff Report of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States” focused specifically on the ability of the terrorists to travel around the world, enter the U.S. and ultimately embed themselves here as they went about their deadly preparations to carry out an attack. The preface of this report begins with the following paragraph:

‘Join the Revolution’: Al-Qaeda Makes Populist Pitch to Millennials Terror group tells youths political elites have left them “devastated, burdened,” and “now is the time to fight back.” By Bridget Johnson,

Al-Qaeda is appealing to millennials with a cocktail of populism and Islam and directives to not admire grown “kids” in professional sports but “men… with their AK aimed at the enemy” — and to follow the latter into jihad.

The outreach was detailed in Al-Balagh, a recent magazine issued by al-Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent, a successful chapter announced by core leader Ayman al-Zawahiri in 2014 that has conducted a spree of machete assassinations against individuals deemed to have insulted Islam. One of the group’s earlier victims was an Atlanta couple who were secular writers visiting Bangladesh; Avijit Roy was hacked to death, while his wife Rafida Bonya Ahmed was seriously injured.

The 53-page inaugural issue of the magazine was printed in English and Bengali. The editor’s note at the beginning first details and slams the “criminal demon-crazy nexus which is known as democracy.”

“Thus, while the anti-Islamic bigots and hate-breeders are hailed as heroes by the rulers and the media, the Tawheed [monotheism]-loving Muslims who came out in the streets to protest the defamation of their beloved prophet are humiliated and massacred,” the column states in apparent reference to the bloggers, professors and journalists who have been hacked to death by AQIS.

The appeal to youth first uses the politics of Bangladesh as a backdrop, arguing that “the criminals siphon billions of dollars from the share market with ease and immersed in mirth, with no accountability whatsoever, while the devastated, burdened youth faced with unrelenting poverty and debt are forced to commit suicide.”

“Domestic maids succumb to death after enduring barbaric torture at the hands of distinguished citizens, while the killers are showered with flowers and garlands. Our mothers and sisters are abused in broad daylight, yet the criminals roam free,” the piece continues. “Every moment a new tragedy is born. It is impossible to keep track of the disasters plaguing this nation. So which one of these can one speak about? Such is the state of the country.”

“And what about the Muslim Ummah [community]? It seems no one even cares to inquire about the Muslims in Palestine anymore, although the criminal Zionist Israel is still surrounded by Muslim countries. I think it was Ali Tantawi who once said, ‘If Muslims can’t learn to resist Israel with weapons then they should learn how to die. You will see Israel be wiped off of the map with a flood of Muslim blood.'”

The article laments that in “Syria, Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, China, Myanmar, India, Pakistan — nowhere have the Muslims been able to be liberated.”

“I am not merely talking about the Western concept of ‘independence’ or ‘self-determination,’ but I am talking about true liberation, which can only come through the victory of the deen [religion]. I am talking about making Islam victorious,” the write continues.

“But the good news is a new wave, a reversal of the world order has started all over the world. A wave of Muslim youth is returning to Tawheed. A wave of the youth is returning to Islam. It is a return to the roots in order to bring back the glory and reclaim the honor, and to destroy the satanic civilization and establish the reign of the divine Shariah.”

“The Muslim youth,” argues the AQIS piece, “have started to realize that they have to rise up and join the caravan.”

“They have to join the resistance and the revolution. They have to conquer fear and walk on the same road on which the Salaf stepped upon. Only then true liberation and true victory will come. The Muslims have recognized the reality of the system of kufr [disbelief] imposed by the global kuffar. The magic of the magician has finally come undone,” continues the recruiting pitch.

Would-be jihadists are told that “with our backs to the wall, now is the time to fight back.”

“It is now or never. The Muslims all over the world are witnessing the help of Allah granted to the Mujahideen.” A few operations are mentioned, including “the beginning of the Third Intifada” in the Middle East. CONTINUE AT SITE

Election 2016: The Threat of Immigration Anarchy Hangs in the Balance Opening the doors to terror. Michael Cutler

Election Day is rapidly approaching. In considering what is at stake, it is important to understand that, as I recently noted, “The Three Most Important Issues For 2016: Immigration, Immigration, Immigration.”

Most polls skew how the concerns of the majority of Americans are reported by the media. Most Americans are most concerned about the threats posed by terrorists and criminals. All too many Americans fear losing their jobs and are concerned about the opportunities that their children will have in these United States. Generally, when polls and surveys are conducted, participants cannot pick more than one item that they consider to be the most important issue. When those polled need to decide what is their biggest worry, they tend to ignore the fact that failures of the immigration system profoundly undermine national security and have a huge impact on nearly every other issue of great concern.

In the Orwellian world of politics and journalism, cities that violate our immigration laws by shielding illegal aliens from detection are referred to as “sanctuary cities.” I addressed the threat that such jurisdictions create in my article, “Terrorism, Enclaves and Sanctuary Cities: How sanctuary cities facilitate the growth of terror enclaves in America.”

In point of fact, on October 3, 2016 the New York Times ran an article with the breathless title, “Millions at Risk of Deportation as Justices Refuse to Rehear Case.”

The “millions at risk” are aliens who either entered the United States without inspection. In the parlance of immigration enforcement personnel, such aliens are referred to as Entrants Without Inspection (EWI). They were not vetted and their presence in the United States is a violation of our laws that are supposed to prevent the entry of aliens who pose a threat to the safety and/or well-being of Americans.

Such “at risk” aliens also include those who, subsequent to being admitted into the United States, went on to violate the terms of their admission by remaining in the United States beyond their authorized period of admission if they were admitted as non-immigrant (temporary) visitors. Foreign students who fail to attend school or fail to maintain proper grades are subject to removal. Aliens who take jobs for which they lack authority are subject to removal, as are aliens who are admitted under the provisions of temporary work visas and fail to report for those jobs or leave those authorized jobs, but remain in the United States without permission.

Finally, aliens who commit a variety of serious crimes may be subject to removal even if they were admitted as lawful immigrants.

Would the New York Times run a report about efforts to get more drunk drivers off the road by saying that stepped-up police efforts to identify and arrest drunk drivers put those drunk drivers “at risk” of arrest? It is more likely they would accurately report that such enforcement programs were aimed at making our roads safer.

Aliens who work illegally, it must be noted, are likely displacing American and/or lawful immigrant workers. In this faltering economy where so many Americans are unemployed and under-employed, a job is a valuable commodity. Somehow the nonsense spewed by the media makes it appear that there is nothing wrong with aliens who are present in the United States provided that they are working, even if they have stolen the jobs of hard-working Americans.

ISIS Already Is Here By James Lewis

If this article by Adm. James Lyons (USN, ret) is correct, and I believe it is, ISIS will start to stage attacks on US home territory. 9/11/01 was one example of a Jihadist attack, backed by the same Sunni Wahhabi forces that has now declared that ISIS is conducting Islamic warfare following the “proper” war theology, including suicide-murders, genocide against civilians, horrific abuse of women and children, etc., all for the sake of Allah. Admiral Lyons has claimed high-level government penetration by Jihadists for years. Earlier this year the European Union was incapable of resisting a tide of Jihadi “Syrian refugees,” aided and abetted by Turkey’s neo-Ottoman Jihadist, Recip Erdogan. (Many of the “refugees” had been settled in Turkey).

More than 30 million potentially radical Muslims have been imported over the years into Europe, constituting an enormous Fifth Column. The Saudis have built mosques for them, and staffed them with Wahhabi imams, who take their orders from a command structure with roots in the Middle East. The Sunni Muslim Brotherhood coordinates with the Wahhabi priesthood in Saudi Arabia, but when it comes to Jihad against the West, Iranian mullahs are involved as well.

Swedish politician Cecilia Hagen called parties opposed to mass Muslim immigration “brown rats” – brown being the color of WWII fascism. Since the police in Malmoe, the rape capital of Sweden, just called for help to investigate and control the city murder rate,, it is clear that an atmosphere of Jihadist terror now prevails in parts of Sweden and Denmark. Jihadist “no go” zones have been reported in Germany, France and Britain.

Because the European Union is all on the side of Muslim infiltration, the widespread rebellion against EU commands is also part of the emerging anti-Jihad resistance movement.

Western governments are reacting to the war of aggression waged against them with almost suicidal slowness and reluctance. Obama may be the worst example of a pro-Jihadist politician who is doing everything possible to undermine US defense. Jihadist infiltration and propaganda, large-scale bribery and probable widespread blackmail have been used, according to Adm. Lyons, since the late Sixties to early Seventies, when OPEC brought immense wealth and power to both Sunni and Shi’ite Gulf regimes.

This election is really about Jihad more than any other issue. Trump is openly anti-Jihad, while the Clinton Foundation has been funneling Jihad money to US politicians for years. Huma Abedin is from a Muslim Brotherhood family, and Hillary’s email breach of normal State Department security procedures is only one of several massive USG leaks. Apparently Huma and Cheryl Mills had free access to high-value US intelligence communications, and were able to spread it with little concern for security.

Hillary’s email scam made it possible to negotiate quid-pro-quos with anti-American forces around the world, with huge money flows to fund the Hillary campaign. Trump’s low-funded but successful campaign (so far) came as a big surprise to Hillary, I believe. Trump’s use of cheap but effective mass media like twitter is unprecedented, and balances Hillary’s vastly larger financing.

This Presidential campaign is therefore a component of the emerging world war, which has been planned and implemented by Jihadists since about 1970, according to Admiral Lyons. Obama’s refusal even to utter the word “Jihad” as the name of the enemy suggests collusion with hostile forces.

Given the war theology of Jihad, the “silent war” of infiltration and sabotage could explode into violence at any moment. For example, Trump could be targeted for assassination — which would be quite within the scope of Jihad doctrine. This is totalitarian warfare, and theoretically it has no limits.

The current warning from Admiral Lyons and others suggests an ISIS attempt to flood the Western world with jihadis, who, like the rape invaders in Germany, go to earth quickly, aided by existing Saudi and Iranian Jihad networks.

PAUL SPERRY: MUSLIM TERRORISTS INFILTRATING LAW ENFORCEMENT

In an alarming trend, more and more Muslim terrorists are infiltrating the ranks of security firms and police departments, where they have acquired official IDs and uniforms to help gain access to secure areas, as well as firearms and tactical training to help carry out attacks.

Some jihadists posing as law enforcement officers have also gained access to classified federal databases to tip off other terrorist suspects under surveillance.

On Sept. 17, Somali-American Dahi Adan wore a security guard uniform as he stabbed or slashed 10 people at a St. Cloud, Minn., mall with a knife before he was shot and killed by an off-duty police officer. Adan made at least one reference to Allah during the stabbings and asked victims if they were Muslim before attacking. An ISIS affiliate claimed Adan was a “soldier of the Islamic State.”

Stockholm-based Securitas AB, a security firm that provides security services to companies in more than 200 cities worldwide, confirmed that Adan worked through June as a guard for its US division.

On the same day, Afghan-American Ahmad Rahami allegedly detonated a pressure-cooker bomb in the Chelsea neighborhood of New York that left 31 injured. A blood-soaked journal found on Rahami after he was shot by police indicated he was carrying out “jihad” against “nonbelievers” in their “backyard.”

Though Rahami was working for his family restaurant at the time, he aspired to be a police officer, according to friends and neighbors. He majored in criminal justice at Middlesex County College in Edison, N.J. Rahami was enrolled there from 2010-2012 but did not graduate.

Another Afghan-American terrorist, Omar Mateen, was employed as a security guard for a major federal security contractor this June, when he opened fire at an Orlando nightclub, killing 49 people. He had been dismissed from training as a prison guard after making threatening remarks, and ended up as a private security guard for G4S Secure Solutions USA Inc., which maintains a $234 million contract with the Department of Homeland Security.

FBI Releases Video, New Details in Minnesota Mall Terror Attack by Somali Refugee Dahir Adan By Patrick Poole

The FBI held an unusual press conference today in the case of last month’s terror attack at a shopping mall in St. Cloud, Minnesota. The attacker, 20-year old Somali refugee Dahir Adan, was shot and killed on the scene by an off-duty police officer after stabbing ten mall workers and shoppers.

The press conference was unusual in that the investigation into the matter is still ongoing, but the FBI and local law enforcement felt the need to release graphic video of the attacks in order to shoot down various conspiracy theories circulating in the Minnesota Somali community and perpetuated by Black Lives Matter groups.

The county prosecutor in St. Cloud says an off-duty police officer was justified in fatally shooting Dahir Adan, the mall stabbing suspect.

— Mitch Smith (@MitchKSmith) October 6, 2016

Stearns Co. Atty: Jason Faulkner told Dahir Adan to drop his knives several times, followed him through Macy’s, shooting when Adan charged

— Courtney Godfrey (@courtneygodfrey) October 6, 2016

One of the early conspiracy theories floated by Adan’s family was the claim that he was an innocent bystander who was in the mall to pick up his new iPhone at the mall:

Family of St Cloud stabber tells community leader Dahir Adan was headed to Mall Sat to pick up a preordered iPhone 7 @wcco 5 and 6 pm

— esme murphy – WCCO (@esmemurphy) September 19, 2016

Those false rumors led some in the Somali community to use the incident to circulate claims that the shooting of Adan was unjustified:

Whereabouts Unknown of Dozen Afghans Who Went AWOL During Military Training in U.S. By Bridget Johnson

ARLINGTON, Va. — The Pentagon today said that the U.S. government has pinpointed the whereabouts of most — but not all — of dozens of Afghan troops who came to the United States for training and went AWOL.

Reuters reported today that 44 Afghan troops have gone missing since January 2015, including eight who have left U.S. bases without authorization since last month alone.

Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook told reporters today that all Afghan trainees who come to the United States “first of all go through a vetting process to be able to qualify to come here to the United States.”

“In those instances where they have gone missing — and this has been something we’ve had to deal with over the years — we’ve been training Afghans in this country for some time. I think more than 2,000 have been trained even in the last few years alone — there’s a notification process that we go through, of course trying to determine where these people are,” Cook said.

“Of the people who have been missing in — over the last two years or so, I believe the number that was provided to you was somewhere around 40 — more than 40 individuals; 32, we understand the status of those people.”

He added that “every effort’s made to try to determine where these people are going, what the reasons are.”

“In some cases they’ve gone home. In some cases there have been efforts — as I understand it — to go to Canada. Some have sought to legally remain in the United States,” Cook continued. “And so there are different explanations for each one of these circumstances.”

Should Family Affiliations with Foreign Islamist Movements Prevent a Security Clearance? A former Pentagon Assistant Inspector General is the son of a prominent American Muslim Brotherhood official. Now he wants his old job back. BY Christine Brim

In 1980, Robert Dickson Crane converted to Islam. From that year to the present day, Crane has built a successful career as a high-level official in multiple Muslim Brotherhood and Hamas-affiliated organizations in the U.S. and Qatar. At the same time, from 1988 to 2013, his son John Ruedel Crane rose to similar prominence in the Department of Defense to the position of Assistant Inspector General and director of both the Department of Defense and NSA’s whistleblower programs. Crane’s position in the DoD Inspector General office came with high-level clearances and access to a broad scope of DoD information. His tenure of twenty-five years within DoD also encompassed a time of multiple jihadist attacks against American targets, including the 1993 and 2001 World Trade Center attacks and the global war on terror waged in response. http://counterjihad.com/should-family-affiliations-with-foreign-islamist-movements-prevent-a-security-clearance

In a recent phone conversation, John Crane confirmed that Robert Crane is his father and stated that, during background investigations throughout his career, he was never asked, nor did he volunteer, any information about his father’s affiliations. We don’t know if the relationship was, in fact, known and approved by the Department of Defense, the intelligence community or by political administrations during Crane’s over two-decade year career. But we can state that the relationship between Robert Crane and John Crane is being described for the first time to the general public in this investigative report.

John Crane’s management of the whistleblower offices included the years when Edward Snowden stole over 1.5 million classified documents. Crane has recently been the subject of numerous media interviews as “The Third Man” in the new book Bravehearts: Whistleblowing in the Age of Snowden, a defense of Edward Snowden’s theft of classified documents from the U.S., UK and Australia. John Crane was quietly removed from his Inspector General and whistleblower office positions in February 2013, four months before the Edward Snowden case became public knowledge. He immediately became a consultant for the General Accountability Project (GAP), the legal counsel for Snowden. GAP was founded in 1977 by the extreme far left Institute for Policy Studies.

On September 15, 2016 the House Intelligence Committee issued a bipartisan, unanimous report summarizing their investigation of National Security Agency computer technician Edward Snowden’s theft of 1.5 million classified documents. The Committee’s critique of Snowden was devastating: “These findings demonstrate that the public narrative popularized by Snowden and his allies is rife with falsehoods, exaggerations, and crucial omissions, a pattern that began before he stole 1.5 million sensitive documents.” As former Intelligence Committee staff Fred Fleitz has observed, “Snowden is not a whistleblower; he is a disgruntled former intelligence employee who did enormous damage to U.S. national security.”

Left-wing activists have mounted a campaign for Snowden’s vindication and pardon before Obama leaves office, including Oliver Stone’s hagiographic movie, Snowden, and Bravehearts, the book by Nation magazine reporter Mark Hertsgaard in which John Crane figures so prominently. Crane’s allegations against the DoD in Bravehearts have been cited as a vindication of Snowden’s acts by the Intercept, the website of Snowden advocate Glenn Greenwald (“Vindication for Edward Snowden From a New Player in NSA Whistleblowing Saga”).

In February 2013, John Crane was placed on “administrative leave” from his position as DoD Assistant Inspector General, his security clearances and pay were suspended, and he was forbidden to come to the office. He has resurfaced in the public eye in 2016 as the subject of numerous articles and interviews promoting the Bravehearts book in Der Spiegel, The Guardian, Government Executive, Democracy Now!, Russia Today, New York Times, The Intercept, and of course Hertsgaard’s Nation. Crane asserts in Bravehearts and in these interviews that Edward Snowden’s theft of U.S. classified information was simply an understandable reaction to the DoD’s prior treatment of whistleblowers, which discouraged Snowden from becoming a “whistleblower” himself inside the system.

Comey Predicts Tsunami of ISIS Terrorists Heading for U.S. An administration ignores the findings and recommendations of the 9/11 Commission. Michael Cutler

Huge sums of money are spent by our government and the governments of other countries to enable meteorologists to more accurately predict the weather.

For decades the United States has orbited fleets of ever more sophisticated weather satellites that circle the globe, taking measurements and tracking storms from orbit, while super-computers on the ground create models to predict when hurricanes or tornados may form and then predict the areas that will likely be endangered.

Courageous storm-hunters on the ground, who seek to observe and measure tornados “up close and in person,” drive heavily armored vehicles with a wide array of instruments in efforts to get a front-row view and develop a better understanding of how tornados form and better predict their destructive paths.

Heroic pilots and their crews of intrepid meteorologists fly into the hearts of violent hurricanes for similar purposes.

However, the purpose of all of these efforts is not simply garner information as a matter of academic curiosity, but to make certain that those who may be at risk are warned about the risks they face. Once the likely track of dangerous storms are established, those who live within the path of the storms are warned to take appropriate action.

Such action may require residents of low-lying areas or those areas along threatened coastlines to evacuate their homes and head for higher ground. It may require that homeowners and store-keepers board up windows and doors and remove anything from their property that could become a dangerous flying projectile.

Those in the path of such monstrous storms might be advised to stock up on food, water, batteries and other supplies to help them ride out the storm.

Those in the path of tornados are alerted to head for their storm cellars to maximize their likelihood of surviving the onslaught of winds and destruction.

Storms of course, are not the only threat we face, especially in this turbulent and volatile era. Increasingly terrorists have gone on bloody rampages around the world and here, within the borders of our nation.

Huge sums of money and Herculean efforts are being expended by various elements of our military and intelligence and law enforcement agencies to develop effective intelligence about the activities of these terrorist organizations that, not unlike major storms, are on the move around the world. The intelligence reports that these agencies produce forecast threats America and Americans face- not from natural events but from threats posed by America’s adversaries.