Today on “Full Measure,” we have a report on “The Missing”—the hundreds of illegal immigrants who cross the border, never to be seen alive again. Their remains are found in remote desert areas.
For this story, I traveled to the Tucson, Ariz., morgue where advanced forensic science is used to identify the remains, and let loved ones know how the journey ended.
Here’s an exchange I had with Dr. Gregory Hess, the Pima County medical examiner:
HESS: “Since about 2001, we’ve had the largest number of undocumented border crosser deaths for any single jurisdiction in the U.S. and so we’ve had a lot of experience with examining these kinds of remains.”
ATTKISSON: “How successful are you at identifying these unknowns?”
HESS: “It’s actually pretty good. We’ve had about 2,500 unidentified remains since 2001, of people we believe to be foreign nationals. We’ve identified [about] 1,700 of those. So it’s about 65%.”
ATTKISSON: “That’s pretty amazing, right?”
HESS: “Yeah, it’s pretty good. But that still leaves us with [about] 900 individuals that we have not identified. And essentially the odds of us identifying someone are directly proportional to the conditions of the remains when they come in, and whether or not they have any personal effects with them.”
HESS: “Just because somebody has personal effects doesn’t mean that it’s that person, because people travel under aliases quite frequently, and they may have just flat out false IDs.”
ATTKISSON: “So what is the key when you’re able to identify somebody that was carrying a fake identity? What’s the key to figuring out who that was?”
HESS: “Finding family. Because if you have a family, you can compare a family reference sample to the remains that we have to determine if they’re related.”
ATTKISSON: “Does it ever make you sad? The idea that this, someone’s life boiled down to this and nobody even knows when they died?”
HESS: “Sure. But you know for us, it’s more of an objective, kind of clinical perspective, because this is what we do. So we try to, you know approach it professionally and try to get this person identified.”
I also spoke to U.S. Customs and Border Protection Cmdr. Paul Beeson:
“We are of course very concerned about human life. And we’re going to do everything we can to preserve and protect human life. We have a number of programs in place to respond in those instances when migrants get into trouble when they cross through some of these desert environments. Ultimately, the smuggling organizations and these people make these decisions to cross in these areas. They put themselves at risk, the smuggling organizations put them at risk.”
(For more from the author of “The Deadly Crossing on the US-Mexico Border” please click HERE)
Only a handful of mostly sick or elderly Christians remain in the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa, and Syrian Christians fear the forces that have brought that city’s population of Gospel followers to the brink of extinction could do the same for the entire nation.
An estimated dozen Christian families are still in the northern city, forced under threat of execution to convert, pay an “infidel” tax or go into hiding. Forbidden from leaving, they also face death from attacks directed at ISIS by Damascus, Russia and the U.S.-led Western coalition.
“We are trying to help them escape or stay safe, in hiding,” said Ayman Abdel Nour, executive director of Syrian Christians for Peace. “Their life is horrible. The people of Raqqa are being forced to live like it was 1,400 years ago.”
The plight of Christians in Raqqa is the eye of a storm that threatens to engulf all of the embattled nation whose ties to Christianity are as old as the faith itself. Terror, bombings and systematic persecution designated as genocide by the U.S. has left the close-knit community of Syrian Christians fearing for their future.
“We are facing terrorist action in the whole geography of Syria,” the Rev. Ibrahim Nseir, pastor of the National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon and the Presbyterian Church in Aleppo, told FoxNews.com from the conflict-torn city. “They are destroying our churches, killing and kidnapping Christians, stealing our homes and our businesses.” (Read more from “‘Life Is Horrible’: Syria’s Christians Fear Total Genocide” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/cross-295848_960_720.jpg720960Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-16 01:06:562016-05-16 01:06:56‘Life Is Horrible’: Syria’s Christians Fear Total Genocide
Former Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta would “probably not” believe that President Barack Obama was serious about his promise to take action to stop Iran from building a nuclear bomb if Panetta could make his assessments over again, he conceded in a New York Times Magazine article published on Thursday.
Panetta, who was the director of the CIA from 2009-2011 and then served as defense secretary until 2013, told reporter David Samuels that one of his most important jobs in the Pentagon was preventing Israel from launching a preemptive strike against Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and then-Defense Minister Ehud Barak wanted to know if the president was serious about his commitment to prevent Iran from developing nuclear weapons.
“They were both interested in the answer to the question, ‘Is the president serious?’” Panetta recalls. “And you know my view, talking with the president, was: If brought to the point where we had evidence that they’re developing an atomic weapon, I think the president is serious that he is not going to allow that to happen.”
Panetta stops.
“But would you make that same assessment now?” I ask him.
“Would I make that same assessment now?” he asks. “Probably not.”
Panetta explained that defense and foreign policy veterans like him and then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton would be asked for policy opinions, only for White House staffers such as Ben Rhodes, the Deputy National Security Adviser for Strategic Communications and the subject of Samuels’ piece, to narrow them down to “to where they thought the president wanted to be.”
They’d say, ‘Well, this is where we want you to come out.’ And I’d say ‘[expletive], that’s not the way it works. We’ll present a plan, and then the president can make a decision.’ I mean, Jesus Christ, it is the president of the United States, you’re making some big decisions here, he ought to be entitled to hear all of those viewpoints and not to be driven down a certain path.”
Rhodes disputed this, saying that the president rejected policy options that he didn’t like was because he didn’t agree with the traditional foreign policy establishment, of which Panetta was a part. But Rhodes did not dispute the process that Panetta described.
Panetta also said that in his capacity as CIA director, he never assessed that there was a meaningful difference between Iranian moderates and hardliners. “There was not much question that the Quds Force and the supreme leader ran that country with a strong arm, and there was not much question that this kind of opposing view could somehow gain any traction,” he said.
Rhodes, the White House’s chief foreign policy communications manager, promoted the narrative that the election of Iranian president Hassan Rouhani presented an opportunity to engage with moderates to limit Iran’s illicit nuclear weapons program. But he admitted to Samuels that “we are not betting” that Rouhani or foreign minister Mohammad Javad Zarif are actually moderates.
Wendy Sherman, who served at the administration’s lead negotiator with Iran, made a similar statement earlier this year in a speech at Duke University, admitting that “there are hardliners in Iran, and then there are hard-hardliners. Rouhani is not a moderate, he is a hardliner.” (For more from the author of “FORMER OBAMA DEFENSE SEC: Yeah, Obama Was Never Serious About Stopping Iran From Getting Nukes” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/8051267396_cc912979e4_b.jpg7311024Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-14 23:11:492016-05-14 23:42:01FORMER OBAMA DEFENSE SEC: Yeah, Obama Was Never Serious About Stopping Iran From Getting Nukes
(Editor’s note: the original publisher of this article, RT News, is funded by the Russian government) Russia is being forced to look for ways to neutralize threats to its national security due to deployment of the NATO anti-missile shield in Europe, Russian President Vladimir Putin said after the alliance launched a missile defense site in Romania.
“Now, after the deployment of those anti-missile system elements, we’ll be forced to think about neutralizing developing threats to Russia’s security,” Putin said.
The US missile shield in Europe is a clear violation of Russian-American arms treaties, Putin said at a meeting with Russian military officials, adding that the anti-missile facilities can be easily repurposed for firing short and midrange missiles.
The US anti-missile shield in Europe is yet another step in increasing international tensions and launching a new arms race, he stressed.
“We’re not going to be dragged into this race. We’ll go our own way. We’ll work very accurately without exceeding the plans to finance the re-equipment of our Army and Navy, which have already been laid out for the next several years,” Putin said. (Read more from “Putin: Russia Will Consider Tackling NATO Missile Defense Threat” HERE)
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The aircraft parked on the ramp at this military base in northern Iraq offer a symbolic counterpoint to the White House narrative that U.S. forces are on the sidelines of the ground war against the Islamic State.
U.S. Army medevac Blackhawk helicopters are based here, including the one that picked up mortally wounded Navy SEAL Charles Keating IV under heavy enemy fire during a May 3 battle north of Mosul.
Also lined up on the tarmac are Army Apache attack helicopters; intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance aircraft; and a variety of armed special operations aircraft from different military branches.
“We’re in a war zone, and this place is dangerous,” an Army officer told The Daily Signal.
The U.S. base is an operational hub for Operation Inherent Resolve, the U.S.-led, 66-nation coalition combating Islamic State, the terrorist army also known as ISIS that holds territory in Iraq and Syria.
From the base in the vicinity of Erbil, capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, U.S. and coalition personnel coordinate airstrikes to support Kurdish peshmerga forces. U.S. special operations troops also stage operations from here to advise and assist the peshmerga during combat.
To accomplish the advise-and-assist mission, U.S. special operations troops frequently go into areas where combat is happening.
While embedded with the peshmerga on the ground, U.S. special operations troops sometimes call in airstrikes from coalition warplanes against ISIS forces, a U.S. Army officer told The Daily Signal on condition of anonymity due to security concerns and restrictions on speaking with news reporters.
The White House, however, has insisted U.S. ground forces in Iraq are not in combat.
The day of Keating’s death, White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters in Washington: “The relatively small number of U.S. service members that are involved in these operations are not in combat but are in a dangerous place.”
The night after Keating was killed, the mood on the base in northern Iraq was somber, yet there was not a feeling of shock or surprise.
For many U.S. military personnel on the ground in Iraq, Keating’s death underscored something they’ve known for a long time—U.S. special operations forces are neck-deep in the daily grind of the ground war against ISIS.
“Most people took it in stride,” the Army officer told The Daily Signal. “We’re in a war zone, and this place is dangerous. We know people are going to get hurt.”
Indispensable
The base in northern Iraq has all the trappings of other U.S. military installations spread across the Middle East, North Africa, and Central Asia.
It has a tent gym loaded with Crossfit equipment and truck tires stacked out back. Civilian contractors in khaki 5.11 Tactical cargo pants and button-down shirts are here. And inside the chow hall, called a DFAC, an eclectic mix of uniforms from coalition countries and military branches is on parade.
There’s also a subgroup of oft-bearded, elite troops who tend to stick to themselves.
The infrastructure at the base has expanded noticeably since this correspondent last visited in September 2015. More troops, tents, aircraft, and equipment are here than eight months ago.
The installation’s growth reflects the creeping growth in the U.S. presence in Iraq, and the increasingly indispensable role U.S. airpower and special operations support play in the ground war against ISIS.
“We can’t fight without U.S. airstrikes or U.S. support,” a Kurdish official at the Kurdistan Region Security Council told The Daily Signal on condition of anonymity due to security rules. “But the U.S. mission can’t exist without us. It’s a partnership.”
A Dangerous Place
U.S. special operations forces in Iraq for the advise-and-assist mission are not sequestered inside fortified compounds impervious to attack.
These members of the military, including Navy SEALs and Army Special Forces, deploy to team safe houses behind the front lines to carry out their mission and to forward stage as land-based, quick-reaction forces in case U.S. servicemen and servicewomen come under attack.
The Navy SEAL quick-reaction force in which Keating served was stationed at one such team house outside Mosul.
The SEALs deployed in “nontactical vehicles,” military jargon for civilian SUVs. The ensuing firefight lasted for hours, according to military personnel and news reports.
The U.S. Army DUSTOFF Blackhawk helicopter that picked up Keating came under heavy fire and returned pockmarked with bullet holes.
Keating was the third U.S. service member to die in Iraq from enemy fire since Operation Inherent Resolve began in 2014. And the May 3 battle wasn’t the first time U.S. aircraft took fire from ISIS over Iraq.
In September 2015, Air Force pararescuemen, also known as PJs, and combat rescue officers from the 57th Rescue Squadron, then deployed to this location, told The Daily Signal that ISIS forces frequently fired on the HH-60G Pave Hawk helicopters they used to forward position behind enemy lines.
“We take fire every time we go out,” a combat rescue officer said then.
Also in September, U.S. Air Force A-10 attack pilots flying missions over Iraq and Syria from a base in the Persian Gulf region said the volume of surface-to-air fire they faced was much higher than in Afghanistan.
“There’s a real threat here, unlike in Afghanistan,” an A-10 pilot told The Daily Signal at the time. “I’ve had a few close calls. Do we respect the threat? Yes. Are we afraid of it? No.”
Center of Gravity
The Department of Defense said it officially maintains 4,087 troops or less in Iraq and has plans to increase the number of special operations troops and support personnel in Syria from 50 to 300.
The number of U.S. troops on the ground in Iraq and Syria does not, however, reflect the aggregate U.S. war effort against ISIS.
To support Operation Inherent Resolve and military operations in North Africa, as well as operations in Afghanistan, the U.S. is standing up new bases and refurbishing old ones across the Middle East, reflecting a reversal of White House plans to draw down U.S. forces in the region.
“It’s busier now than it was a year ago,” Air Force Lt. Col. Mike Cummings, a C-130 pilot from the Alaska National Guard, told The Daily Signal during an interview at an undisclosed location in the Persian Gulf region.
“We were drawing down and now we’re building back up,” Cummings said. “Now we’re moving in the opposite direction.”
As of the end of April, the U.S. had conducted 9,073 airstrikes in Iraq and Syria in support of Operation Inherent Resolve, according to the Pentagon. Nearly all the U.S. military aircraft, manned and unmanned, launched from bases and Navy vessels outside Iraq and Syria.
U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM, declined to disclose the number of bases U.S. forces use throughout the Middle East to support the operation.
CENTCOM also declined to disclose the total number of U.S. military personnel committed to Operation Inherent Resolve due to “host-nation sensitivities and operational security.”
According to news reports and open source data, about 50,000 U.S. military personnel are deployed throughout the Middle East, including locations in Turkey and Navy personnel at sea. And, according to CENTCOM, 9,800 personnel remain in Afghanistan.
In an emailed statement to The Daily Signal, a CENTCOM spokesperson said: “We maintain the necessary forces and capability throughout the region to assist our partners and respond to threats as appropriate.”
Chasing the Front Lines
The total number of U.S. troops throughout the Middle East region is only a fraction of the approximately 170,000 U.S. troops who were in Iraq alone during the “surge” in 2007.
And unlike the days of Operation Iraqi Freedom and Operation New Dawn, no countrywide network of U.S. forward operating bases and combat outposts inside Iraq exists from which ground and air forces can project power.
The war against ISIS in Iraq is a frontal war, with a clear delineation between enemy and friendly territory. The 1,200-mile-long front line in Iraq is defined in places by trenches and hilltop forts. Opposing camps trade potshots across no man’s land.
As Iraqi and Kurdish forces take back ground from ISIS, coalition air assets and advise-and-assist personnel constantly move to new bases closer to the shifting front lines. Some bases that were strategically positioned to launch warplanes a year ago are now inconveniently distant from the battlefield’s northward shifting center of gravity.
Bases in Turkey, consequently, play a more important role due to their geographical proximity to the battle space.
The Turkish air base at Incirlik, for example, was reopened to U.S. Air Force F-16s in August 2015 to conduct airstrikes against ISIS targets. The F-16s were swapped out for A-10 attack planes in October. And, according to news reports, F-15C fighter jets and F-15E strike aircraft also have deployed to Incirlik since August.
The total U.S. military force deployed at Incirlik has grown to nearly 2,500, up from about 1,300 last year, according to news reports.
Long-Term Plans
The Daily Signal recently visited an Air Force base at an undisclosed location in the Persian Gulf region. Military officials at the base said about 1,800 U.S. troops and about 2,200 civilian support personnel are deployed there.
The base is a key airlift hub for Operation Inherent Resolve and for supporting military operations in the Horn of Africa. The location is also the launching pad for U.S. and British drones flying missions over Iraq and Syria. Other coalition partner countries fly intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance missions from here.
Air Force Col. Clarence Lukes Jr., commander of the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing headquartered at the base, said Pentagon planners drew up a three- to five-year plan to build up its infrastructure after Operation Inherent Resolve kicked off in 2014. And, Lukes added, the Pentagon plans to use the base “for much longer.”
“This puts us in a perfect crossroads for different types of mission sets … regardless of the adversary,” Lukes said.
The base has a swimming pool, a movie theater, and a state of the art gym. Plans are under way to build brick and mortar dormitories to replace the tents and trailers in which most personnel now live.
A recreation center, called the Drop Zone, includes ping-pong tables, flat screen TVs tuned to the Armed Forces Network, and cans of nonalcoholic Beck’s beer in the fridge.
A coffee shop, the Green Bean, offers free Wi-Fi, mocha lattes, and protein shakes. Wi-Fi is available throughout the base. Self-serve ice cream and Krispy Kreme doughnuts can be found in the DFAC.
“Morale hinges on three things,” Lukes said. “Self-serve ice cream, laundry, and Wi-Fi.”
U.S. servicemen and servicewomen say there has been a noticeable uptick in operational tempo since Operation Inherent Resolve began almost two years ago. Yet, many also consider the battle against ISIS to be just the latest chapter in nearly 15 years of nonstop combat operations.
For them, combat deployments are now a way of life.
“It’s just the status quo,” Lt. Col. Corey Reed, deputy operations group commander for the 386th Air Expeditionary Wing, said. “As Afghanistan tapered off, OIR [Operation Inherent Resolve] kicked off. So it’s business as usual.”
“It’s like the last one never ended,” Cummings, the C-130 pilot, said. “It’s not really the start of something new.” (For more from the author of “‘People Are Going to Get Hurt’: America’s Quiet War in Iraq” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/Elements_of_the_3rd_Stryker_brigade_on_patrol_in_Iraq_-a.jpg13122000Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-12 02:47:432016-05-12 02:47:43‘People Are Going to Get Hurt’: America’s Quiet War in Iraq
The Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) threatened to “drown” any US warships approaching Iran, a top general said Tuesday, according to state-controlled media.
“We have informed Americans that their presence in the Persian Gulf is an absolute evil,” Rear Admiral Ali Fadavi stated to state media. “Americans are aware that Iran would destroy their warships if they take a wrong measure in the region.”
He further threatened that the US would “lose control of everything” by drawing others into Middle-East affairs.
“There has never been normal conditions in the Persian Gulf and Americans can feel the presence of IRGC navy forces at any spot,” he added. “Iran’s great power has forced US to consider creation of deterrent capabilities” . . .
The threats surface just days after top White House adviser Ben Rhodes revealed the US deliberately misled the American public about the 2015 Iran deal. (Read more from “Iran Threatens to Sink US Warships” HERE)
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Ahmed Abu Khatalla, the accused ringleader of the of the Benghazi terrorist attacks that killed four Americans including a U.S. ambassador, will not face the death penalty if found guilty, Justice Department officials announced Tuesday.
The decision was revealed in a filing to D.C.’s federal trial court and marks a victory for Khatalla’s attorneys who had pressed the government to nix the death penalty as a punishment should the Libyan militant be convicted at trial, the Associated Press reported . . .
U.S. investigators have labeled Khatalla as the central figure behind the Sept. 11, 2012, assaults on a State Department diplomatic compound that killed U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, State Department information management officer Sean Patrick Smith, and two other Americans.
“The department is committed to ensuring that the defendant is held accountable for his alleged role in the terrorist attack on the U.S. Special Mission and annex in Benghazi that killed four Americans and seriously injured two others, and if convicted, he faces a sentence of up to life in prison,” Justice Department spokeswoman Emily Pierce said in a statement Tuesday, according to the Washington Post. (Read more from “State Department Will Not Pursue Death Penalty Against Accused Benghazi Leader” HERE)
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The Islamization of Britain made an immense advance this week, as a Muslim with extensive ties to jihadis and Islamic supremacists, Sadiq Khan, was elected mayor of London, just as London buses are set to carry ads proclaiming the “glory of Allah.”
It’s a sign of the times – and a sign of things to come. Is anyone really surprised? That a man such as Sadiq Khan, who has shared a platform with open Jew-haters, could still be elected mayor of London, is an indication of how far gone Britain already is. In Sadiq Khan’s campaign, his opponents brought up his close ties to jihadis, Islamic supremacists and Islamic Jew-haters as a blot on his record. Soon enough in Britain, however, that sort of thing will be a selling point for candidates appealing to an increasingly Muslim electorate.
The UK banned me from the country. It is already acting like a de facto Islamic state. Did anyone really think that the notoriously anti-Semitic UK would vote for Khan’s opponent, Zac Goldsmith — a Jew? London has already been overrun – voter fraud in Muslim precincts is rampant. Not that they will really needed it soon. London’s Muslim population is 1.3 million and growing.
The Muslims who voted for Sadiq Khan did not reject his extremist ties and supremacist rhetoric, dispelling the notion that most Muslims are moderates and do not adhere to the Sharia, or support extremism. Apparently, they are not “Uncle Toms,” as Sadiq likes to call moderate Muslims.
At the same time, many Jews were prohibited from voting. Even the Chief Rabbi of London was turned away – leading to the Chief Executive of one London borough having to resign. Innumerable voters throughout the London Borough of Barnet – where much of the British Jewish community lives today – were prevented from voting by a suspicious and never-explained “error” at the area’s polling stations. (Read more from “Pamela Geller: Immediately After Muslim Mayor Elected, London’s Iconic Buses Proclaim “Glory to Allah”” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/islam.jpg515900Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-11 01:20:432016-05-11 01:20:43Pamela Geller: Immediately After Muslim Mayor Elected, London’s Iconic Buses Proclaim “Glory to Allah”
A former North Korean military chief who Seoul had said was executed is actually alive and in possession of several new senior-level posts, the North’s state media said Tuesday.
The news on Ri Yong Gil marks yet another blunder for South Korean intelligence officials, who have often gotten information wrong in tracking developments with their rival. It also points to the difficulties that even professional spies have in figuring out what’s going on in one of the world’s most closed governments.
Ri, who was considered one of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s most trusted aides, missed two key national meetings in February. Seoul intelligence officials later said that Kim had him executed for corruption and other charges. (Read more from “Back From the Dead: Former North Korean General Believed Executed Turns up Alive” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/maxresdefault-38.jpg7201280Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-10 00:33:172016-05-10 03:34:53Back From the Dead: Former North Korean General Believed Executed Turns up Alive
Waleed Basyouni is trying to take something good from the fact that the Islamic State terrorist group has specifically targeted him for death.
In the twisted way in which the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, views the world, Basyouni says he would not be considered a threat to the terrorists if he wasn’t doing something right.
“I have a long history with these jihadist groups speaking very vocally against them,” Basyouni, a Houston imam, told The Daily Signal.
“When we, as Muslims, come out and show there is another choice, you can be successful or accepted in keeping a Muslim identity and also a national identity, that in itself will destroy what ISIS is calling for, even if it makes us a target. I take pride from that. It means whatever I am doing is hurting them and I am glad to know that.”
Last month, ISIS published a hit list in its online propaganda magazine, Dabiq, targeting moderate Muslims living in the West.
In an article titled, “Kill the Imams of Kufr in the West,” ISIS calls for its followers to kill “overt crusaders” and “politically active apostates” who “involve themselves in the politics and enforcing laws of the kufr [disbelievers].”
The target list includes high profile Muslim American political figures Rashad Hussain, who has served as the U.S. special envoy to the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and Rep. Keith Ellison, D-Minn. And for the first time, ISIS put out a direct hit on U.S. imams, or religious leaders, including Basyouni.
In an hour-long phone interview with The Daily Signal this week, Basyouni described what it’s like being on an ISIS kill list, and why the threat won’t stop him from preaching Islam the only way he knows how, and condemning those who twist the religion into something it isn’t.
There is nothing scary about Basyouni, a baby-faced 46-year-old Muslim whose idea of extreme is indulging in sports like scuba diving and mountain climbing.
Basyouni is the imam of the Clear Lake Islamic Center in Houston. Known since before 9/11 to deliver sermons in which he challenges prominent terrorists by name, including Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki, Basyouni travels the world spreading his counter-narrative message.
“We try to educate Muslims about the true religion so that we can build a resilient community immune from extreme messages that ISIS and other terrorist groups are trying to spread,” said Basyouni, who is also the vice president of the AlMaghrib Institute, an educational nonprofit for Muslims that he says has more than 130,000 students across the world.
“That’s what bothers ISIS the most—the firewall we are building inside the communities through education,” Basyouni added.
Born in Egypt, and raised in Saudi Arabia, Basyouni moved to the United States in 1997.
Basyouni immigrated first to Montana to be with his wife, who had previously come to the state from Saudi Arabia.
Already possessing bachelor’s and master’s degrees in Islamic studies from Al-Imam Muhammad University in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, Basyouni earned a doctorate in theology from the Graduate Theological Foundation in Indiana.
He’s proving that Islam and the West can co-exist, much to ISIS’ chagrin.
“I chose to live here,” Basyouni said. “I chose to be an American citizen and I truly believe this is the greatest country in the world today. I will stand out against any threat to this society at large. If I can make this place safe, I will do it.”
Basyouni believes that his religious expertise, and exposure to different teachings of Islam, taught him to be an “independent thinker,” and gives him the credibility to confront ISIS. His authority is bolstered by his large following: Basyouni has more than 30,000 Twitter followers, and over 230,000 people have “liked” his Facebook page.
“This is my duty as a Muslim scholar,” Basyouni said. “These guys have abused my religion. We have a verse in the Quran that says people of knowledge will explain it to the people and defend their religion. This kind of counter messaging is what gives me superiority over others because I can strip down the evidence and names they use to claim legitimacy.”
Basyouni learned he had become an ISIS target from a friend—a former Department of Homeland Security employee—who also made the hit list.
To ensure his safety, Basyouni says he quickly contacted his local FBI connections, who he says he has a “working relationship” with (he’s a 2012 graduate of the bureau’s citizens academy).
Basyouni’s young children, a 15-year-old daughter and 9-year-old son who he preferred not to name, reacted to the news in their own way.
“I told them to take it easy and it’s not a big deal, but my daughter heard from a classmate in school that, ‘Your dad is on the ISIS kill list,’” Basyouni said. “She came to me and said, ‘Papa, is that true they are going to kill you?’ I said, ‘I hope not.’ I never thought I’d have that conversation with my 15-year-old daughter.”
Basyouni says he has received supportive calls from leaders of Houston area synagogues and churches, neighbors, and officers in the local police department. While Basyouni promises to be more cautious when he travels—and he will consider hiring private security—he says he won’t limit his activism.
“I take the threat seriously, absolutely,” Basyouni said. “Some of my friends have told me to be more general, and not name names. I believe these issues have to be addressed very bluntly and explicitly. I think it would be wrong if I limit my activity. I would be giving them [ISIS] what they want and not what they deserve. They make these threats just to scare us and stop us from doing what we are doing. But I am not scared.” (For more from the author of “What It’s Like to Be on ISIS’ Kill List” please click HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/maxresdefault-4.jpg10801920Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-05-05 23:25:252017-03-03 12:51:11What It’s Like to Be on ISIS’ Kill List
