Tuesday, November 17, 2015
First, They Came for the Jews
The last time Islamic State terrorists rampaged through Paris back in January, one of their principal targets was the Jews. The other two parties attacked, Charlie Hebdo and the police, may have instantiated, respectively, unbridled free expression and the law upon which Western civilization relies, but the Jews, who were attacked in the mundanity of a kosher supermarket, represented something just as profound.Col Kemp: Islamic State could attack Britain any time – and the impact would be catastrophic
The prosperity of the Jews is taken as an affront to radical Islam, as it was to Christianity in bygone eras. But the Jews represent something to Europe, too. Manuel Valls, the French Prime Minister, acknowledged this when he declared in an impassioned speech in Parliament following the attacks that “when the Jews of France are attacked, France is attacked, the conscience of humanity is attacked.” And in an interview just prior to the attacks, he already declaimed that if the Jews leave, “France will no longer be France.”
Some Europeans may disagree with Valls and find themselves not hugely bothered that the Jews are attacked for being Jews. But, following the attacks in Paris last week, it should at least be obvious to them that the Jews are in one respect just being attacked first: European Jews are the canary in the coal mine. Years of anti-Semitic assaults in France – leading to the exodus of French Jewry to which Valls was referring in the interview – preceded the January attacks. But whereas those January attacks deliberately targeted the Jews and, with the exception of Charlie Hebdo and the police, largely ignored everyone else, the attacks in Paris this past Friday did not discriminate. The terrorists, so far as we know, were not after free speech or authority as such, but everyone. Europeans should, therefore, be more concerned when their Jews are attacked, because first they come for the Jews, and then they come for everybody else.
Ex-Cobra Intelligence Group Chairman also believes a stronger military presence in the UK is becoming an increasingly necessary deterrentCaroline Glick: Radical Islam – the invisible enemy
As they did in Paris on Friday , Islamic State terrorists could attack the UK at any time.
Are we ready?
Our intelligence services do a superb job and have disrupted many attacks planned against us by Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State . Many jihadists are in jail. But their challenge is enormous.
Andrew Parker , Director General of MI5, recently warned that there are over 3,000 Islamist extremists willing to carry out attacks in the UK.
Few attacks are conducted by terrorists who are completely unknown to our intelligence services. It appears some of those involved in the Paris attacks were on the radar screen of French intelligence.
As the cleaning crews were mopping the dried blood from the stage and the seats of the Bataclan concert hall in Paris, a depressing act appeared on stage in distant Iowa.
Saturday night the three contenders for the Democratic Party’s presidential nomination took to the stage in Iowa for a debate. The moderator asked them whether they would be willing to use the term “radical Islam” to describe the ideology motivating Islamic terrorists to massacre innocents. All refused.
Like her former boss, US President Barack Obama, former secretary of state and Democratic frontrunner Hillary Clinton not only refused to accept the relevance of the term. Clinton refused to acknowledge what radical Islam stands for.
She merely noted some of what it rejects.
In her words, “I think this kind of barbarism and nihilism, it’s very hard to understand, other than the lust for power, the rejection of modernity, the total disregard for human rights, freedom, or any other value that we know and respect.”
Her opponents agreed with her.
France and Israel: Obama’s Double Standard
Israel’s prime minister has called the latest terrorist attacks “an act of war.” He called the attackers “barbarians,” vowed to wage a war of “no mercy” against them and ordered bombing strikes on “terrorist training camps,” even though they were located adjacent to medical clinics, a museum and a soccer stadium.Quadrant Magazine: Betrayed by Our Craven, Treasonous Elite
Remarkably, neither the Obama administration nor the United Nations condemned Israel’s strong response to the terrorists. Has the world finally come to its senses? Does it finally understand that Islamic terrorism, whether against Israelis or anybody else, is an attack on us all?
Actually, no. Because I misspoke.
It was French President Francois Hollande, not Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who called the latest terrorism (in Paris) an “act of war.” It was Hollande who called the attackers “barbarians,” and vowed to wage a war of “no mercy” against them. It was the French air force that bombed medical clinics, a museum, and a soccer stadium located near terror camps in the Islamic State-controlled Syrian city of Raqqa.
When Netanyahu says that Palestinian Islamic terrorists have carried out “acts of war,” he is accused of exaggerating the threat. When he calls the killers “barbarians,” he is denounced as a racist. If Israel strikes terrorist sites that are situated near civilian areas, Israel is accused of “war crimes” and “disproportionate” responses.
Remember when Secretary of State John Kerry sarcastically grumbled, “Hell of a ‘pinpoint’ attack,” after one Israeli strike in Gaza? We don’t hear Kerry calling the French bombing of those Raqqa medical clinics a “hell of a ‘pinpoint’ attack.” We don’t hear National Security Adviser Susan Rice demanding that Hollande apologize for describing Islamic killers as “barbarians.” We don’t hear President Barack Obama calling for “both sides” to “exercise restraint” as he always does when Israel responds to Arab terrorists.
Our leaders have failed us. Paris confirms it. Make no mistake, at the end of the day their loyalties lie not with the people who elected them, nor with the societies that they govern or the civilisation of the West that has dragged the world out of poverty and barbarism and onto the path of progress. What loyalty they possess is only to their own careers and ambitions and to the special-interest groups they serve.Tzipi Livni: Not only shared pain with France – a shared battlefield
The latest atrocity in Paris exemplifies this failure. The knee-jerk reaction of [Australian PM] Malcolm Turnbull was to follow the lead of the predictably craven Barak Obama and mouth meaningless platitudes about “attacks on humanity” and other abstractions, carefully avoiding any real acknowledgement that the cowardly perpetrators of this latest episode of jihadist mass murder were Muslims and that the hideous ideology they follow is a widely accepted interpretation of Islam. Meanwhile, NSW Premier Mike Baird tried to demonstrate resolve by declaring that NSW was so outraged that authorities would fly a big French flag over the Harbour Bridge and bathe the Sydney Opera House in the Tricolour’s red, white and blue. The leadership of Islamic State must be shaking in their sandals at such a display of defiance and intestinal fortitude!
What the Paris atrocity reveals yet again is that the people our leaders are most worried about managing is us, not the local and imported jihadist cells and homicidal lone wolves who want nothing more than to achieve martyrdom by attacking and murdering infidels en masse.
In the face of repeated jihadist atrocities our leaders see us as the problem! They prefer to regard us as ignorant, Islamophobic dolts whose concern at endemic jihadist violence, not to mention legal and illegal Muslim immigration, is likely to embarrass them amongst their peers in the world of international politics, academia, the media, NGOs, and amongst the chattering classes. They decided long ago that, rather than confront an ideology that detests everything the West stands for, it was more palatable to think of hard-working Australians as racist and sexist bogans who are beneath contempt.
The shock, grief and pain now unite the free world.Islamic State cannot be defeated with kindness. It's time to kill or be killed
Just as in the wake of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, the world has again been naturally divided into two: those who are victims of terrorism and identify with those in pain, against those who partner, whether practically or empathetically, with those who have declared war on the free world.
For anyone who still uncertain of the reasons for last night’s attacks in Paris, ISIS’s announcement has provided no room for doubt. This brutal terrorism is the expression of the war that radical Islam has declared on the Western world – on its culture, on its values, on its religious and cultural beliefs.
But this connection – this shared pain – now felt by the free world cannot be the end.
We must join together in an uncompromising joint war effort. Christians, Jews and moderate Muslims must fight together. Individuals must choose whether they are on the side of terrorism, its organizations and activities – or on the side of those who will fight against it. There is no middle ground.
History is littered with lessons that tell us that, contrary to the lament of the dove, war is actually good for quite a lot of things: mostly, defeating those who would wish us harm.The Paris Attacks Were Not 'Nihilism' but Sacred Strategy
Our politicians can wring their hands and deliver fine, uplifting speeches as much as they want. The whole world can light up in the tricoleur and we can invent hashtags and change our Facebook or Twitter avatars until the end of time: it is all utterly pointless unless it is backed up by force.
The evil of Islamism is not going to go away. It didn’t go away when it was ignored and appeased by the West for many years, despite a lengthy bombing campaign on western targets long before 9/11. And it isn’t going to go away now.
Isil and its death cult stablemates will never be defeated until we get to grips with the concept that this has nothing to do with anything except the fact that we exist. It is that, and that alone, which offends them and which they seek to destroy.
So, unless we are all happy to sign up to radical Islam right now, with every heretic and infidel executed on sight, every man forced to take up arms, every woman enslaved, every homosexual stoned to death and every nine-year-old girl at risk of rape, in a terrifying return to the Dark Ages, we have a choice to make.
That choice is stark: kill or be killed. So which one is it going to be?
Leading commentator Janet Daley's article in Saturday's Telegraph, "The West is at War with a Death Cult," stands for everything that is woeful about European elites' response to Islamic jihad.Bassam Tawil: The Terrorists Funded by the West
It is a triumph of religious illiteracy.
The jihadist enemy, she asserts, is utterly unintelligible, so beyond encompassing in "coherent, systematic thought" that no vocabulary can describe it: "This is just insanity," she writes.
Because the enemy is "hysterical," lacking "rational demands," "negotiable limits," or "intelligible objectives" Daley claims it is pointless to subject its actions to any form of historical, social or theological analysis, for no one should attempt to "impose logic on behaviour that is pathological."
Despite this, Daley then ventures to offer analysis of and explanations for ISIS' actions, but in doing so she relies upon her own conceptual categories, not those of ISIS.
Her explanations therefore fall wide of the mark.
The French and other Westerners need to wake up to the reality that the Palestinians who are condemning the terror attacks in Paris are the same ones who are praising terrorists who murder Jews, and naming streets and squares after them.Spengler: Why France will do nothing about the Paris Massacre
Once again, Abbas's Western-funded loyalists are hoping to convince the world that there are "good" and "bad" terrorists. The good terrorists are those who murder Jews, while the bad terrorists are those who target French citizens. In fact, Abbas is doing his utmost to support the terrorists and their families.
For the war on terrorism to succeed, France and the rest of the Western countries also need to fight those who are harboring terrorists, glorifying murderers, and to stop financing the practitioners of terrorism who now regard it as a big, juicy cherished business.
Ignored in news coverage of the Paris massacre is the single most pertinent piece of background: A 2014 opinion poll found that ISIS had an approval rating in France (at 16%) almost as high as President Francois Holland (at 18%). In the 18-to-24-year-old demographic, ISIS’ support jumped to 27%. Muslims comprise about a tenth of France’s population, so the results imply that ISIS had the support of the overwhelming majority of French Muslims (and especially Muslim youth), as well as the endorsement of a large part of the non-Muslim Left.‘French authorities have their hands tied in fight against Islamic terrorism’
Reporting the survey, conducted by the polling organization ICM for a Russian news service, Newsweek’s France correspondent Anne-Elizabeth Moutet wrote, “This is the ideology of young French Muslims from immigrant backgrounds, unemployment to the tune of 40%, who’ve been deluged by satellite TV and internet propaganda.”
After last Friday’s massacres, to be sure, the flip-it-to-them attitude reflected in last year’s poll no doubt has attenuated somewhat. Nonetheless, it is clear that a very large proportion of French Muslims support the most extreme expression of radical Islam, offering the terrorists the opportunity to blend into a friendly milieu. The problem has gotten too big to be cured without a great deal of mess and pain. In the Gallic hedonistic calculus, a massacre or two per year is preferable to a breach of the tenuous social peace. And that is why France will do nothing.
An Israeli expert on radical Islam who was in Paris advising on the topic before and after Friday’s attacks in the city, told The Jerusalem Post that French officials were shocked and that security measures following the massacre were lacking.Michael Totten: France’s “Merciless” Response to ISIS is Anything But
“The French have had many threats recently, but not something actionable, and then this attack happened,” said Dina Lisnyansky, an Islamic terrorism consultant from Bar-Ilan University, who also teaches at the Hebrew University.
Lisnyansky, who is also the co-founder of the Petah Tikva-based Israeli Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies, returned from Paris on Sunday after meeting with French officials about radical Islam.
According to her, French intelligence has been picking up on constant threats, mostly due to the recent wave of immigration, but these attacks came as a surprise.
“Specific people in the Muslim community have been subjected to radical propaganda and these people are all over Paris and their major cities,” Lisnyansky said.
After last week’s coordinated string of terrorist attacks in Paris that killed more than 100 and wounded more than 300, ISIS says France will remain on “the top of the list” of targets, that this is just “the first of the storm” against “the capital of prostitution and obscenity” and “the carrier of the banner of the Cross in Europe.”Yes, There Is A Muslim Fifth Column In The West, And It's Time To Get Real About It
France is promising a “merciless” response, but what we’ve seen so far has been anything but.
With American help, the French air force launched just a handful of air strikes against the ISIS “capital” Raqqa in eastern Syria.
Activists on the ground say there were no civilian casualties. That’s certainly good. It’s what distinguishes Western armies from terrorist armies and gangster regimes like Bashar al-Assad’s. Western armies do their imperfect best to minimize civilian casualties, whereas murdering civilians in places like restaurants, newspaper offices and concert venues is all ISIS does.
The problem with the French response isn’t that the air strikes apparently killed no civilians. They apparently didn’t kill any ISIS members either.
In 2007, a poll found that 86 per cent of Muslims in Britain said they feel that religion is the most important thing in their lives. “That’s nice,” some amongst us might say, including Britain’s Prime Minister, David Cameron, and the President of the United States, Barack Obama.John Bolton: 4 Lessons From the Paris Terror Attacks
“It’s important to have faith,” they’d add. In fact, almost verbatim, both Mr. Cameron and Mr. Obama are on the record proclaiming Islam’s meaning on behalf of their constituent Muslim populations. This is Mr. Cameron, just hours after British tourists were slaughtered by radical Muslims in Tunisia this summer.
And here’s Mr. Obama, saying “Islam is a religion that preaches peace”.
But even if you do believe those things. Even if you have read the Quran cover to cover and you come out thinking, “Yeah, fair enough, that wasn’t so bad,” there’s no doubt that Islam is a core component of radical, terrorist ideology, and perhaps just as concerning, of fundamentalist, non-violent, segregationist and intolerant politics in the West.
The reason the first is bad is clear. It will remain clear to those wounded and their families, and not least to the families of those who died in this weekend’s terrorist attacks in Paris.
First, the Paris attacks were not “senseless violence” as some media commentators observed as the news coverage unfolded.David Horovitz: Will the West now adopt Israel’s anti-terror strategies?
Nor were they “an attack on all of humanity and the universal values that we share,” as President Obama said late Friday evening.
These Islamic radicals know who their enemies are, and have for decades. It is we — or at least some of our leaders — who have forgotten who is under attack.
This coordinated, well-planned and, sadly, well-executed series of assaults on innocent civilians was deliberate, ideologically motivated, and carefully targeted.
These Islamic radicals know who their enemies are, and have for decades. It is we — or at least some of our leaders — who have forgotten who is under attack.
Second, we should not view the appropriate American and Western response as “bringing these terrorists to justice,” in President Obama’s words. This is not a matter for the criminal law, as many American political and academic leaders, including the President, have insisted, even after the September 11, 2001, attacks.
This is a war, as President Hollande has forthrightly called it, not a slightly enhanced version of thieves knocking over the corner grocery store within an ordered civil society. And the mechanism of response must be to destroy the source of the threat, not prosecute it, not contain it, not hope that we will “ultimately” destroy it. “Ultimately” is too far away.
Third, in light of Paris and the continuing threat of terrorism it so graphically conveys, we need a more sensible national conversation about the need for effective intelligence gathering to uncover and prevent such tragedies before they occur.
Knee-jerk, uninformed and often wildly inaccurate criticisms of programs (such as several authorized in the wake of 9/11 in the Patriot Act) have created a widespread misimpression in the American public about what exactly our intelligence agencies have been doing and whether there was a “threat” to civil liberties. Now is the time to correct these misimpressions, and to rebut the unfounded criticisms that have in too many cases become the conventional wisdom.
Finally, as we all know, the United States is already in the midst of the 2016 presidential campaign. America’s proper place in the world should be at the very center of the debate.
This is precisely the right moment to discuss the threats we face and how to meet them. We should discard the conventional wisdom of political operatives and commentators who routinely say that American voters do not care about national-security issues.
The first responsibility of the president is to keep the country safe. While there are many important issues at stake next November, all of them come second when the safety of the country is at risk.
You’d want to think, right now, that he and the other well-intentioned world leaders who have been telling us to take risks for peace, telling us that we can securely relinquish adjacent territory even in our treacherous Middle East, telling us that we don’t know where our best interests lie, are internalizing that maybe, just maybe, it’s not so simple. Maybe we Israelis, stubbornly resisting internationally prescribed policies that we fear might constitute national suicide, aren’t such fools after all.Analysis: ISIS made 'al-Qaida-type' mistake by attacking West
I’m not holding my breath.
In fact, I’m waiting to see how many more prominent figures who should know better will follow the lead of Sweden’s foreign minister and contort themselves to somehow partly implicate Israel for the evil actions of a death cult that has persuaded its followers to kill and be killed in the name of god. That argument is so risible it can hardly be articulated: If only we’d done what the international community told us to do, the claim apparently insinuates, and given up the West Bank like we gave up Gaza (placing our entire country at grave potential risk in the process), Islamic State might not have massacred 129 people in Paris and would not now be threatening the United States.
Honestly, words fail.
At the very least, however, I do recommend that the leaders and security chiefs of France and the rest of Europe and North America reach out to those Israeli counterparts they’ve so often judged and critiqued, to benefit from our bitterly accumulated experience in fighting Islamist terrorism.
There is no absolute defense against terrorism. And there are no offensive panaceas either. But there are effective strategies.
Israel would not have survived without them. Friday in Paris signaled that the rest of the free world needs to adopt many of them too.
Islamic State made a grave strategic error by attacking the heart of Western civilization in Paris, which undoubtedly will provoke a fierce Western military response that could devastate the group.Paris Was Merely A ‘Test,’ Says U.S. Counter-Terrorism Expert
If Islamic State had simply stuck to its Middle Eastern battles, it likely would have avoided a major Western military escalation.
Al-Qaida’s 9/11 attack against the US evoked a ferocious response, leading ultimately to the death of its leader, Osama bin Laden, and scattering its remaining members into hiding across the globe. While the group was never totally defeated, it was greatly debilitated.
Islamic State is set to face a similar onslaught that will remove its hold of swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria, and depending on Western resolve, possibly also in strongholds in weak states such as Libya and Nigeria.
Jihadist groups are not as disciplined and pragmatic as other Islamist movements such as the Muslim Brotherhood, its Palestinian branch Hamas, or Turkey’s AKP-led government, all of which condemned the Paris attacks.
However, they all, for example, have no problem with the targeting of Israeli civilians by Hamas.
A former FBI counter terrorism expert claims the bloody Nov. 13 Paris attack wasn’t a full-fledged assault, but a cold-blooded ISIS “test” to assess its ability to launch small, randomized attacks in a major Western city.Queensland police to get extra weapons training to deal with terrorists
That expert, Eric O’Neill, told The Daily Caller News Foundation that ISIS was testing the model he called, “small randomized attacks” when it went on a shooting and bombing spree throughout Paris, killing 129 people and wounding another 352.
“I think this was a test to see how well this could work in a city. Can we coordinate it? Can we effectively carry it out,” O’Neill told TheDCNF. “My sense is they are benchmarking themselves. They are going to see if this could be deployed somewhere else because if this was a test, then they passed.”
The same test “could have happened in a Washington, D.C. or New York, or Los Angeles and San Francisco, yeah, easily,” he said.
Queensland police officers will be given extra training to deal with armed offenders, including terrorists.An Idiot Speaks
Police Commissioner Ian Stewart says the training could be used to deal with situations similar to the Paris attacks, but stresses it was in the pipeline before at least 129 people were killed in the French capital at the weekend.
"The issue is for our people to be able to identify that there is no point in waiting to try and negotiate when lives are being lost right at the time when the police respond," Mr Stewart said on Tuesday.
In response to reports that NSW Police have upgraded their response policy to "shoot first" from "contain and negotiate", Mr Stewart said a "use of force" model was already in place in Queensland.
There would no changes to the law and no significant policy changes.
"What does need to change is the decision-making by our people of how they best deal with those different situations (such as school shootings or acts of terror)," Mr Stewart said.
Let’s say you frequent places which terrorists armed with AKs and suicide vests would love to attack. Not airliners, embassies or military bases. You know, rather modest restaurants in quiet residential areas, rock concerts in small venues, the unremarkable bar around the corner.'From Paris, With Love': Emotive message of revenge scrawled across the U.S. bombs destined for Syria
How would you feel if the man ultimately in charge of your safety said this when he is asked about terrorist attacks:
“I’m not happy with the shoot-to-kill policy in general – I think that is quite dangerous and I think can often can be counterproductive.
“I think you have to have security that prevents people firing off weapons where you can, there are various degrees for doing things as we know.
“But the idea you end up with a war on the streets is not a good thing.”
That’s what we would get under Prime Minister Corbyn, for it is the idiot himself speaking to the BBC today.
Emotive photographs of the message ‘From Paris, With Love’ daubed on American bombs and missiles bound for ISIS strongholds have emerged on social media.Iraq Warned of Attack before Paris Terrorism
The photographs appear to show the message scrawled over the Hellfire missiles and JDAM bombs in an act of solidarity for those affected by the Paris attacks.
ISIS has claimed responsibility for the atrocities on Friday night, during which members of the public were mercilessly slaughtered in a series of shootings and suicide blasts.
The message, in the unverified photographs, has apparently been written by members of the U.S. military.
Leaving graffiti messages aimed for those targeted by missiles has been a U.S. military tradition since the Second World War.
The Associated Press has learned that Iraqi intelligence officials warned the United States-group fighting ISIS of "immanent assaults" by the terrorists one day before the deadly attacks in Paris.In hotel room, Paris terrorists leave behind syringes, needles, pizza boxes
Iraqi intelligence sent a dispatch saying the group's leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, had ordered an attack on coalition countries fighting against them in Iraq and Syria, as well as on Iran and Russia, through bombings or other attacks in the days ahead.
The dispatch said the Iraqis had no specific details on when or where the attack would take place, and a senior French security official told the AP that French intelligence gets this kind of communication "all the time" and "every day."
A senior intelligence official told the AP he was not aware of any information that could have stopped the attacks in Paris.
According to the French magazine Le Point, authorities found syringes, needles and empty pizza boxes inside one of the rooms rented by Salah Abdeslam on Bookings.com days before the November 13 attacks. Abdeslam is the only terrorist who took part in the attacks who managed to flee and is currently on the run. An international warrant has been issued for his capture.French Police Raid 168 Homes, 100 People Under House Arrest: Vow It's 'Just The Beginning'
Abdeslam’s brother, Ibrahim, was also one of the gunmen in the attacks at a series of restaurants and bars in Paris on Friday. He died detonating his suicide vest.
According to the report, the Abdeslam brothers rented rooms 311 and 312 in a hotel in Alfortville, a suburb to the southwest of Paris, from November 11 to 17. The rooms could accommodate up to six people, Le Point reported.
Police raided homes of suspected Islamist militants across France overnight following Friday’s Paris attacks, and a source close to the investigation said a Belgian national in Syria was the possible mastermind.Massacre at Paris stadium averted by 'bad timing'?
Prosecutors said one of the killers had been stopped and fingerprinted in Greece last month, fuelling speculation that Islamic State had taken advantage of the recent influx of refugees fleeing the Middle East to slip militants into Europe.
The carnage, which killed 129 people, has led to calls for the European Union to close its borders to asylum seekers.
Islamic State, which has claimed responsibility for the attacks in retaliation for French airstrikes in Iraq and Syria, warned in a video on Monday that any country hitting it would suffer the same fate, promising specifically to target Washington.
French warplanes bombed Islamic State training camps and a suspected arms depot in its Syrian stronghold Raqqa late on Sunday — its biggest such strike since it started assaults as part of a U.S.-led mission launched in 2014.
At least one of the three Stade de France suicide bombers tried to get into the stadium, despite not having a ticket, but was turned away, said an official who spoke on condition of anonymity. The three bombers were part of the multi-pronged attack that killed 128 in Paris Friday night.Report: Paris Terror 'Mastermind' Also Behind Train Attack Thwarted By Hero Marines
According to Britain's Daily Telegraph, one police theory is that the attackers never expected to get inside the stadium, and instead planned to detonate as people filed in before kick-off or filed out after the game, causing mass casualties and a probable stampede.
But their timing may have been off, officials say. When they triggered their vests — two during the first half of the match, the third at halftime — most of the crowd was inside the stadium. Only one bystander was killed in the explosions.
“We think this operation failed,” a police official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. “(It was) badly organized.”
French authorities have confirmed that the “mastermind” behind Friday night’s deadly attacks in Paris was also behind the thwarted train attack in August, where off duty U.S. marines apprehended a jihadist gunman.Obama Calls Terror Attack in Paris 'Setback' to His Awesome ISIS Strategy
Jihadist Abdelhamid Abaaoud has previously been described as “one of the most active Isis executioners” in Syria and is known to have fought with Islamic State (ISIS) in the region. He appeared in an online video driving a car loaded with mutilated bodies.
The 28-year-old is thought to come from the infamous Molenbeek district of Brussels. Belgium authorities have admitted that Islamist terrorism is “out of control” in the area.
At the G20 Summit in Turkey on Monday, President Obama held a press conference that was remarkable in many ways, most of them terrible. One moment in particular was particularly .. well, disgusting.Reports: ISIS Releases Video Vowing Attack on Washington Next
"The terrible events in Paris were obviously a terrible and sickening setback. Even as we grieve with our French friends, however, we can't lose sight that there has been progress being made."
Sorry about that massive terror attack but, come on guys, give us credit where it's due.
Can you imagine a worse thing to say? Well don't worry, Obama can, because he also said that his ISIS strategy is working great and he plans only to intensify it.
Reports are circulating that a new video issued by the Islamic State threatens that countries fighting against its forces in Syria, and specifically Washington, D.C., will face the same carnage as France.Flashback: Intel Officials Warned ISIS Studied Snowden Material to Hide Operations
"We say to the states that take part in the crusader campaign that, by God, you will have a day, God willing, like France’s and by God, as we struck France in the center of its abode in Paris, then we swear that we will strike America at its center in Washington," said one terrorist featured in the video, which was published on the "Dark Net."
For those unfamiliar, the Dark Net, or Dark Web, is a breeding ground for propagating and disseminating terrorist content due to the anonymity the space affords its users. Terrorists use the Dark Web to spread its propaganda, recruit new jihadists, and secure funding through black-market trade.
According to a cyber security focused blog the U.S. intelligence community is well aware of Dark Net but tracking those operating in its space has proven difficult. From Security Affairs:
There have been several high-profile accusations that material leaked by Edward Snowden helped ISIS terrorists conceal their operations from Western intelligence agencies, including planning and execution of the horrific terrorist attack in Paris on Friday.Islamic State Has Avoided Direct Clash With Israel Despite Having Forces Close to Two of Israel’s Borders
CIA Director John Brennan alluded to the Snowden leaks on Monday morning, complaining that “in the past several years, because of the number of unauthorized disclosures and a lot of hand-wringing over the government’s role in the effort to try to uncover these terrorists, there have been policy and other legal changes that make our ability to collectively find these terrorists much more challenging.”
Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, agreed that counter-terrorist surveillance has degraded. “The fact that an attack this big occurred suggests to me an erosion in surveillance capabilities compared to magnitude of the threat. A few years ago people hoped the age of mass-casualty incidents in Western states was gone because surveillance or interruptions from authorities could prevent attacks like this,” Business Insider quotes Gartenstein-Ross, who added that the Paris attack has put a “definitive end” to such hopes.
Armin Rosen of Business Insider noted in response to Brennan’s comments that the Paris attack was “planned and executed within the capital of a country with a highly advanced anti-terrorism infrastructure,” which has been on high alert ever since the Charlie Hebdo massacre at the beginning of the year.
Although the Islamic State has forces close to two of Israel’s borders, Defense Minister Moshe Ya’alon said Monday, it has chosen thus far to avoid a direct clash with Israel.Report: IDF Training for Potential ISIS Infiltration, Abduction of Israeli Soldiers
“Daesh (another name for the Islamic State) hasn’t opened a front against us because they would simply get hurt,” he said in an interview on Israel Radio.
One of the Islamic State’s most formidable affiliates exists in Egypt’s Sinai Peninsula abutting southern Israel. Before pledging allegiance last year to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the Egyptian Jihadi group had operated under the name of Ansar Bayt al-Maqdis. Since joining the Islamic State, its aggressiveness has increased and its tactics have become more sophisticated. It has also wielded advanced arms, including Russian-made anti-tank weapons.
In its previous incarnation, the Sinai group had staged incursions into the Israeli Negev and fired rockets periodically at the southern resort of Eilat. Since becoming part of the Islamic State it has not staged incursions and rocket attacks have been few. The group’s efforts have been directed almost entirely to battles with Egyptian security forces, which have been unable to suppress them.
The IDF has been preparing for the possibility of an ISIS infiltration from the Egyptian-controlled Sinai Peninsula and/or abduction of Israeli soldiers, Al-Jazeera reported on Monday.In Aftermath of Paris Attacks, French-Jewish Children Afraid to Attend School
According to the report, officers in the IDF unit responsible for retrieving kidnapped and missing soldiers carried out an intensive training exercise simulating the disappearance of three Israeli soldiers near the country’s border with Egypt, a scenario which IDF brass are taking particularly seriously in the wake of Friday night’s attacks in Paris.
The scenario involved the investigation into the cause of the disappearance of soldiers in the desert along the Egyptian border after their tank was blown up, according to the unit’s deputy commander, Lazar Borenshtein.
He said that the soldiers were expected to confront ISIS kidnappers with heavy gunfire and mortars, while maintaining calm, and noted that the IDF was in a “race against time to prevent the occurrence of such a difficult scenario.”
Following the major terror attacks in Paris on Friday, Jewish students in the city are afraid to go to school and some families are opting to keep their children at home, Israeli Channel 2 news reported on Monday.French Sermon on Day of Paris Attacks: Our Children Can Become Rulers of France by Legal Means
Reporting from Paris, a Channel 2 correspondent pointed out several armed soldiers protecting a Jewish school.
The correspondent said he was filming from a distance so as not to reveal any visual details that could be used to identify the school’s location.
The beefed-up security at Jewish sites across Paris, and indeed across France, is an ongoing effort launched after the hostage crisis at the HyperCacher kosher supermarket in Paris in January that resulted in four dead victims.
“After Friday’s attacks, the heads of Jewish schools received phone calls from the Education Ministry and the police, to clarify and to reinforce the French commitment to security,” Channel 2 said.
In Wake of Paris Attacks, Security Beefed Up at UK Jewish Sites
Security at many UK Jewish sites was beefed up with “unprecedented government funding” after simultaneous terrorist attacks Friday, claimed by Islamic State, killed more than 132 in Paris.Swedish FM and Fatah See Israeli Roots in Paris Attacks
The Community Security Trust, a British charity that provides protection to Jewish community centers in the UK, was in contact with police and the government to clarify the implications of the weekend’s grisly assaults.
“CST increased its security cover at [synagogues] on [the Jewish Sabbath] and we will continue seeing what more can be done,” the group said in a statement.
A spokesperson said the group received “unprecedented levels of government funding” this year for hiring security personnel to complement the CST’s core volunteers and staff.
Sweden’s Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom attributed Friday’s terrorist attacks in Paris to Muslim frustrations in the Middle East — and Palestinian anguish in particular, in an interview with Sweden’s SVT2T network, as reported by the Times of Israel.Israeli Foreign Ministry: Sweden 'justifying Palestinian terror'
“To counteract the radicalization we must go back to the situation such as the one in the Middle East of which not the least the Palestinians see that there is no future: we must either accept a desperate situation or resort to violence,” Wallstrom said on Swedish television shortly after the Islamic State’s terrorist attacks in Paris that killed 132 people.
Israel’s foreign ministry issued a swift rebuttal, arguing that the Swedish FM’s statements are “appallingly impudent” and that anyone who attempts to create a link between the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and radical Islamist attacks around the world is deceiving the international community.
“The Swedish foreign minister has consistently demonstrated bias against Israel and exhibits genuine hostility when she indicates a connection of any kind between the terrorist attacks in Paris and the complex situation between Israel and the Palestinians,” the Israeli Foreign Ministry statement said.
Foreign Ministry Director General Dr. Dore Gold summoned Swedish ambassador Carl Magnus-Nesser Monday, to give him a reprimand following Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom's blaming the Paris terror attacks on Israel.Swedish-Jewish Activist Slams Foreign Minister for Tying Paris Massacre to Palestinian Plight, Making Excuses for Murder
"Any connection between ISIS terrorism and the Palestinian issue is baseless, and the words might be interpreted as a justification for Palestinian terrorism," Gold fired, in a conversation with Magnus-Nesser.
He also noted that Sweden was one of the leading nations who called to label products made in Judea, Samaria, Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights, and to single out Israel in that controversial EU decision.
Gold added that the labeling move does not promote peace and may actually harm Palestinians working in Israeli industrial plants in those areas.
Wallstrom provoked a firestorm of criticism Monday, when she appeared to blaming the attacks on "Palestinian frustration" with Israel.
"To counteract the radicalization we must go back to the situation such as the one in the Middle East of which not the least the Palestinians see that there is no future: we must either accept a desperate situation or resort to violence,” she stated in a Swedish-language TV interview.
Annika Hernroth-Rothstein — who gained notoriety for requesting asylum in her own country, to make a public statement about life as a pro-Israel Jew in Sweden – recounted: “One hour after the attacks, at 10:45 pm, Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallström was interviewed on Swedish national TV [SVT2T], and she said that ‘to fight radicalization, we have to go back to the situation in the Middle East, where especially the Palestinians see no future. We either have to accept a desperate situation or act forcefully.'”Dutch politician: Paris attacks result of frustration over Palestinian-Israeli conflict
This, Hernroth-Rothstein said, “is an example of where most of Europe is today: making excuses for murderers; blaming the killings of more than 130 innocent people on ‘Israeli occupation;’ and refusing to acknowledge that what we see unfolding on our streets is created, and sustained, by European inaction and cowardice in the face of pure evil in our midst.”
She added that such carnage in the streets of a major European city was “never a question of if, but when,” noting that “despite having a rise in homegrown terror since the London bombings 10 years ago, Europe has failed to identify the threat and instead given in to a severe case of cognitive dissonance.”
The chairman of the Dutch Socialist Party said the perpetrators of the attacks in Paris acted in part out of frustration over the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.Islam Attacks, Left Blames All Religion
Jan Marijnissen linked the Nov. 13 attacks, which left at least 129 dead and which French President Francois Hollande said were planned by the Islamic State terrorist group in Syria, to the Palestinian issue during an interview for the Dutch radio station NPO Radio1 on Monday.
“Their behavior eventually is connected also to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict,” said Marijnissen about the perpetrators. “The guys – I assume they were guys – who carried out the attacks probably come from a group of outraged people from the French suburbs,” he said. The Palestinian-Israeli conflict, he added, “is the growth medium for such an attack.”
In the aftermath of the awful terrorist attacks in Paris last Friday by radical Islamists, leftist atheists have been using the atrocity as another rallying cry to eradicate all religion, refusing to point their crosshairs at Islam itself, but at Christianity.Kerry: Paris Islamic Terrorists 'Psychopathic Monsters'
True to comedian Evan Sayet's masterful prediction that leftists will inevitably side with "wrong over right, evil over good, and the behaviors that lead to failure over those that lead to success" at every moral junction, they have been targeting religion relentlessly since Friday. Below are just some samples of current headlines:
1 Paris Attacks: Why Islam and Christianity are Twin Religions.”[The Conversation AU]
2 “How Religion Can Unleash Humanity’s Violent Impulses.” [Raw Story]
3 “Can Atheism Replace Religion?” [Huffington Post]
4 “Freedom from Religion: Maybe a Good Idea.” [Patheos]
5 “In Light of the Paris Attacks, is it Time to Eradicate Religion?” [Washington Post]
On Saturday, as mourners gathered outside the Bataclan in Paris – the same venue as the terrorist attacks – an unknown French musician set up a piano painted with a giant peace sign and began singing John Lennon's "Imagine," which should be actually titled "Imagine All the Stupid People," considering the song's call for the elimination of countries, possessions - and all religion. Except that it wasn't Christians - or for that matter, Buddhists, Hindus, or even Wiccans - whose ideology drove them to slaughter nearly 130 people last weekend in Paris.
The Islamic State terrorists who perpetrated Friday’s Paris attacks are “psychopathic monsters”, US Secretary of State John Kerry has said.Bobby Jindal Vindicated on 'No-Go' Zones After Paris Attacks
Speaking on a visit to Paris on Monday, Mr Kerry described France as America’s ally, and pledged solidarity between the two nations.
French President François Hollande is due to fly to Washington and Moscow in the coming week for talks with US and Russian leaders in the aftermath of the attack in which over 130 people died.
Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal faced a storm of criticism earlier this year for describing “no-go” zones in Europe–areas dominated by Muslim immigrants where police had limited control, and which were hotbeds for terrorism and radicalism as a result.Exclusive– ‘Bobby Jindal Was Right’ On Muslim No-Go Zones
At the time, Jindal was blasted by the left, and hence by the media. Here is a small sample of what he faced:
Bobby Jindal invokes controversial ‘no-go zones’ in London speech – CNN
Jindal condemns imaginary ‘no-go zones’ – MSNBC
Jindal doubles down on Muslim ‘no-go zones’ in Europe – USA Today
Louisiana governor unapologetic after Muslim ‘no-go zones’ comments – Guardian
Even conservatives felt compelled to step in and clarify what Jindal had said. Daniel Pipes explained at National Review that the term “semi-autonomous sectors” was more accurate than “no-go zones,” since the government had not “lost control of territory.”
Bobby Jindal, the Governor of Louisiana and a Republican candidate for President, has released a new video exclusively to Breitbart News, highlighting the attacks he received from the mainstream media when he warned against the presence of Muslim-supremacist “No-Go” zones in Europe.Britain Has Foiled Seven Terror Plots In Last Year, Says Cameron
Jindal was ultimately proven correct, as “No-Go” zones continue to emerge throughout the continent.
The video highlights the vicious attacks Jindal was subject to from mainstream media outlets such as CNN and MSNBC.
Jindal’s campaign video highlights a particular MSNBC segment on “Islamophobia In U.S,” when a Muslim commentator says in racist remarks: “Yeah, you know, I think, Governor Jindal is protesting a bit too much [about the No-Go zones]. He might be trying to, you know, scrub some of the brown off of his skin as he runs to the right, you know.”
“He should have his facts on this and he doesn’t,” one CNN Political Commentator said in his false assertion that Jindal was incorrect on the “No-Go” zones.
Britain has foiled seven terror attacks in the past year, Prime Minister David Cameron has said.UK Home Secretary: Paris Attacks ‘Have Nothing To Do With Islam’
Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme this morning, Mr Cameron said that seven attacks had been “stopped” by British security services and that “what Paris proves is [the terrorists] will try and kill as many people as possible.”
Whitehall sources confirmed to The Times that this represents an increase from the six foiled attacks reported in October, meaning another attack had been foiled within the past few weeks.
The prime minister claimed this morning that the attacks had been foiled over the past six months, but security sources corrected him, saying the figure represented plots disrupted over the last year.
The Home Secretary Theresa May has said the attacks in Paris, “have nothing to do with Islam”. She said Islam was peaceful, whilst explaining that “appropriate security measures” will need to be taken at the England France football match tomorrow.Egyptian cleric: The West, not Islam, created ISIS
The Home Secretary was giving a speech to the House of Commons, just three days after eight terrorists, taking orders from the Islam State, murdered 129 people in Paris whilst screaming “Allah-hu Akbar”. Her closing words were:
“British Muslims and indeed Muslims worldwide have said very clearly these events are abhorrent.
“The attacks have nothing to do with Islam which is followed peacefully by millions of people around the world.
“The terrorists seek to divide us and to destroy our way of life but theirs is an empty, perverted and murderous ideology.
“They represent no one and they will fail.
“France grieves but she does not grieve alone. People of all faiths, of all nationalities and all backgrounds are with you. And together we will defeat them.”
An Egyptian cleric, speaking on local television following the Paris terrorist attacks, expressed condolences over the attacks but also said that the West should not be surprised by them nor connect them to Islam.Italian Cardinal Calls On Muslims To Publicly Condemn ISIS
The reason, according to Sheikh Khaled Elgendy, is that the Islamic State (ISIS), the jihadist group which claimed the attacks, was created by the West itself.
Elgendy’s comments were made on the Egyptian Al-Hayat TV and were translated by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI).
In an unusually blunt statement, the President of Italy’s Conference of Catholic Bishops (CEI) has called on Muslims to completely disassociate themselves from the Islamic State by categorically condemning it.Pope Benedict Was Right in Warning About Radical Islam
In an interview Sunday, the Archbishop of Genoa, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco (pictured), declared that the Muslim world must “loudly disassociate itself” from ISIS and categorically condemn its employment of terrorism.
After Friday’s horrific jihadist attacks in Paris that resulted in some 130 deaths, the cardinal said that “the whole world” must isolate the terrorists by cutting off all political and economic ties.
Bagnasco also said that due to the interethnic composition of Europe’s population the political authorities have an “even more delicate and serious task to ensure law and order” in their respective countries and throughout Europe.
Pope Benedict was universally pilloried by the media for his famous 2006 Regensburg address, in which he commented on the historical relationship between Islam and violence. But now even the mainstream media are finding themselves forced to ask whether Benedict was right, and perhaps even prophetic in his statements.Video by Iranian Leader Khamenei's Office: U.S. and Its Allies Were Behind Paris Attacks
In that talk, Benedict cited the 14th-century Byzantine emperor Manuel II Paleologus regarding the relationship between religion and violence. “Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached,” the quote read.
Pope Benedict XVI, a scholar who wrote extensively about religious freedom as well as the proper relationship between church and state, always insisted on speaking about religions (plural) rather than religion (singular). He based his reflections not only on a solid philosophical footing, but also on impartial observation of what religions actually propose and the sort of societies they create.
Poll: 52% Believe Accepting Refugees Makes America Less Safe
In the wake of Friday night’s devastating terror attacks in Paris, President Obama has called those concerned with accepting Syrian refugees “un-American.” MSNBC sometimes-anchor Brian Williams calls them “anti-refugee.” According to a Reuters poll taken over the weekend, and as you would expect, both Obama and Williams are out of touch with a majority of the country.PreOccupiedTerritory: Warning To ISIS Their Attacks May Spark Islamophobia Oddly Ineffective (satire)
A full 52% of those polled said “nations which accept refugees fleeing the strife in Syria are less safe.”
A plurality of 41% said that “countries should stop accepting refugees because of the threat of terrorism.”
Forty-percent want countries to continue to accept refugees.
A tribal leader from a cluster of villages north and east of Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State, shook his head as he recalled advising several senior ISIS strategists to account for the welfare of Muslims in the areas targeted by terrorist operations abroad. “I said they better watch out, because the first people to suffer after the immediate victims would be Europe’s Muslims, when the local population inevitably reacts with hostility,” said Alday Sakr. “They sort of smiled and nodded, as if that’s exactly what they were hoping for. So I repeated myself, to make sure they understood I was describing something bad, and they said, basically, ‘Yeah, we know – that’s fine.’ I’m a little surprised. Don’t know what to make of it.”Hamas, Hezbollah Condemn Paris Attackers for Not Picking ‘Jewier’ Targets (satire)
Indeed, pundits across the region have noted that not just ISIS, but militant Islamic groups in general, appear not to heed warnings that their activities put the lives and welfare of Muslims at risk. “It’s almost as if they don’t actually value the lives of Muslims in and of themselves,” observed Turkish commentator Mekingyit Avyis. “Which is bizarre, I would say, considering ISIS claims to be the sole legitimate representative of all Muslims, so you’d think the well-being, safety, and relative freedom of Muslims everywhere wold be of prime concern to them. They have a funny way of showing it.” He noted that the vast majority of victims of Islamic terrorism are Muslims, a fact that merely indicates the curious phenomenon is not restricted to ISIS.
“It’s like they’ve never even heard of Islamophobia,” he added. “Bizarrre.”
Days after coordinated attacks in Paris killed 129 people, Islamist groups Hamas and Hezbollah condemned the attacks, blasting the attackers for not going after “Jewey enough” targets.PMW: PA TV song: “Nothing is sweeter than Martyrdom”
“We strongly denounced the attacks in Paris and see these attacks as immoral and unproductive,” the leaders of the two Islamist militant groups said in a joint statement. “I mean, targeting a death metal concert? That’s the last place you’d find a Jew. Why didn’t they attack a Chinese restaurant or a Broadway show?
Both leaders stressed that terrorist actions against civilians were only permissible when the targets’ last names ended in Stein, Berg, and Man.
“They really couldn’t find a synagogue or kosher deli to shoot up?” Hamas leader Ismail Haniyeh asked.
Hezbollah chief Hassan Nasrallah urged ISIS to focus its attacks on Brooklyn and the Miami-Dade area, but said if terrorists insisted on targeting the French, they should restrict their operations to the Israeli city of Netanya, “Israel’s French capital”.
As part of its encouragement of Palestinians to continue the current wave of terror attacks against Israelis, the Palestinian Authority yesterday broadcast a song that promotes fighting against Israel and presents Martyrdom-death as a duty to "Palestine" and the land. The music video shows a Palestinian man arguing with Israeli soldiers at a roadblock after which he returns with a rifle and shoots at the soldiers who return fire and kill him. The words of the song support the message that dying as a Martyr for Allah and shedding ones blood for "Palestine" is ideal: "my blood belongs to my land" and "there is nothing more beautiful than Martyrdom." It also suggests that this belief has been internalized in the minds of Palestinians who willingly become "righteous Martyrs," quenching the "thirst of the land" with their blood:Song on official PA TV encourages Martyrdom: “My blood belongs to my land"
"Mahmoud woke up and left quickly. He wanted to return quickly
[He told his wife:] 'Give me the rifle.' She said: 'Be careful.'
He told her: 'My land calls me. I'm going and my blood belongs to my land.
And if I do not return, tell Ahmad (i.e., their unborn son) 'there is nothing sweeter than Martyrdom.'
My land will remain free, despite the occupation
When Palestine calls us, it will find us [ready] on the top of the hill.
This land raised free men, glory and suffering have been sown in it
Whenever it is thirsty, the blood of righteous Martyrs will water it.'
Mahmoud resisted and did not give in
This is what he was taught and what he learned
In his last breath he said 'There is no god but Allah, and Muhammad is his Prophet'
And closed his eyes and smiled."
"Martyrs do not die
We are a people that do not know fear
We love Martyrdom
Here in Palestine, here we remain."
[Official PA TV, Nov. 15, 2015]
Terrorist attacks "all have a context," says UNRWA's Chris Gunness
