Crisis as Cover: Paris Attacks Ringleader Posed as Refugee

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France’s Prime Minister Manuel Valls said Friday some of the Paris attackers, including the mastermind Abdelhamid Abaaoud, exploited the Syrian refugee crisis to slip into the country unnoticed.

Abaaoud, the ringleader behind last Friday’s bombings and shootings in the French capital that killed 129 people, was able to get into Europe undeterred, according to French authorities. The 28-year-old had also been linked to several plots around France including a thwarted attack by a gunman on a high-speed train in August.

French officials confirmed Thursday Abaaoud was killed in an anti-terror raid Wednesday in a suburb north of Paris. He was identified from skin samples after the Saint-Denis apartment raid.

Abaaoud had claimed he successfully moved back and forth from Europe to Syria coordinating terror attacks, and narrowly escaped a January police raid in the Belgian city of Verviers. “Allah blinded their vision and I was able to leave… despite being chased after by so many intelligence agencies,” he told the ISIS magazine Dabiq.

Two counterterrorism officials told Fox News on Thursday that Abaaoud is comparable to Mohammed Atta – the “tactical guy” who identified and pulled together the operatives. (Read more from “Crisis as Cover: Paris Attacks Ringleader Posed as Refugee” HERE)

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Syrian Community Leader: ISIS Is Already in America

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A leader of New York City’s Syrian community told The Post on Wednesday that ISIS terrorists have “absolutely” sneaked into America by posing as civil-war refugees — and joined sleeper cells just waiting to be activated.

“I believe the terrorists from Syria have been coming into the United States, not only in the past few years, but way before that,” said Aarafat “Ralph” Succar of Bay Ridge, Brooklyn, home of the city’s largest enclave of Syrian immigrants. “I think they’re already at work.”

Succar, a member of the Bay Ridge Community Council, said corruption in his homeland is so rampant that anyone could easily pay bribes and obtain official identification papers bearing a fake name to disguise their real identity.

“You can go to the Syrian government today and say to them, ‘I need a piece of paper that says I’m Tony Caterpillar.’ And they give it to you,” he said . . .

Mayor Bill de Blasio said Wednesday that “a grand total of eight” Syrian refugees had settled in the city as part of an official State Department program, and City Hall later lowered that number to four, blaming the information mixup on the feds. (Read more from “Syrian Community Leader: ISIS Is Already in America” HERE)

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Sheriff Joe Beats Obama to Supreme Court on Amnesty

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The Obama administration plans to appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court a 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruling that the Constitution does not allow the president to change laws passed by Congress.

In a case brought by Texas and 25 other states, Obama is defending an executive decision to allow up to 5 million illegal aliens to remain in the country.

The U.S. Supreme Court already has been asked to address Obama’s executive amnesty in a separate case brought by Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Arizona, who is represented by Larry Klayman of Freedom Watch.

The taxpayers of Maricopa County have been hit with an extra $9 million in expenses to house inmates who should have been deported. The costs are rising, so the sheriff challenged the president’s decision to grant even more illegal aliens permission to remain in the U.S.

The D.C. Circuit Court of Appeals earlier threw out the case on an issue of standing, despite one judge’s alarm over the situation and her call for changes. (Read more from “Sheriff Joe Beats Obama to Supreme Court on Amnesty” HERE)

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Rand Paul Demands Vote on Blocking Welfare for Refugees

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A push by Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) for a vote on refugee benefits has thwarted the Senate’s plan to pass a housing and transportation bill this week.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) came to the Senate floor on Thursday and withdrew cloture motions on the spending bill for the Department of Transportation and Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). The motions would have allowed the legislation to come up for a procedural vote.

The move came after Paul, who is running for president, demanded a vote on an amendment that would ban new refugees from 34 countries or territories from getting assistance from welfare programs funded under the spending bill.

With Sens. Susan Collins (R-Maine) and Jack Reed (D-R.I.), who are spearheading the legislation, opposed to Paul’s amendment, Paul pledged that he would block leadership from trying to speed up procedural votes, as well as block any other amendment from getting queued up for floor time.

“The biggest issue of the day is how we protect ourselves from terrorism. My amendment goes to the heart of the matter. Are we sufficiently vetting those who might come here and attack us from the Middle East?” Paul said, adding that “until we address the issues of the day on a germane amendment, I object.” (Read more from “Rand Paul Demands Vote on Blocking Welfare for Refugees” HERE)

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US Youth Slain by Terrorists Was Bringing Food to Soldiers in West Bank

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Ezra Schwartz, an American yeshiva student who was killed Thursday in a West Bank terror attack, had been volunteering delivering food parcels to Israeli soldiers in the area when he was shot by a Palestinian terrorist.

Schwartz, 18, of Sharon, Massachusetts, was remembered as “a fun person to hang out with, very charismatic.”

He was one of three people killed in a terror attack near the settlement of Alon Shvut. He was studying for a year at Yeshivat Ashreinu in Beit Shemesh . . .

Schwartz was killed when an assailant opened fire from inside his car at vehicles near the Etzion Bloc junction. Police named 51-year-old Ya’akov Don of nearby Alon Svhut and 24-year-old Palestinian Shadi Arfah of Hebron as the other victims of the shooting . . .

The United Synagogue Youth program which Ezra joined in 2013 released a statement saying he “is remembered as being a warm and funny member of the…community. Staff on his trip recalled today that he used his deep experience in Judaism to teach other teens how to participate in Jewish ritual.” (Read more from “US Youth Slain by Terrorists Was Bringing Food to Soldiers in West Bank” HERE)

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Leaked NSA Doc Reveals ‘Sheer Luck’ Needed to Find Useful Info in Sea of Surveillance Data

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The NSA didn’t know it was already sitting on a “goldmine” of data on one of its targets until one of its analysts discovered it by “sheer luck,” according to an internal newsletter entry leaked by Edward Snowden.

The article, dated March 23, 2011, was written by a signals development analyst in SIDtoday, an NSA in-house newsletter. He explains how he discovered the contact and personal information for over 10,000 people, as well as some 900 account login details, after “a ton of hard work,” according to reports from The Intercept and teleSUR.

“By sheer luck, (and a ton of hard work) I discovered an important new access to an existing target and am working with TAO to leverage a new mission capability,” the analyst wrote to colleagues. TAO refers to Tailored Access Operations, an NSA hacking team which had collected the 900 usernames and passcodes . . .

Matthew Green, a Johns Hopkins Information Security Institute professor, told The Intercept it was “interesting” that the analyst used the word “discovered” because it means that either the NSA “didn’t realize” it had been collecting PDVSA’s information or that, perhaps, there had been a bureaucratic miscommunication on the subject . . .

An NSA review in 2010 found that its data on PDVSA had become “stagnant,” so it is clear why the analyst described the newly found materials as a “goldmine.” (Read more from “Leaked NSA Doc Reveals ‘Sheer Luck’ Needed to Find Useful Info in Sea of Surveillance Data” HERE)

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Earthquake Shakes Oklahoma, Kansas

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A magnitude 4.7 earthquake struck northern Oklahoma early on Thursday, rattling residents out of their beds and shaking the ground across a 100-mile (160-km) radius that included the city of Tulsa and the state of Kansas.

The U.S. Geological Survey said the 1:42 a.m. CST (0742 GMT) quake’s epicenter was 8 miles (13 km) southwest of Cherokee, Oklahoma.

With a shallow depth of 3.8 miles (6.2 km), it was one of the most-powerful temblors to shake Oklahoma since the strongest one recorded there struck in 2011 with a 5.6 magnitude.

There were no reports of any major damage or injuries, a Cherokee city hall official said. A local emergency management official said bridges did not appear to be damaged in areas around the quake’s epicenter.

Still, state’s oil and gas regulator, the Oklahoma Corporation Commission (OCC), moved within hours on Thursday to implement additional curbs on the use of saltwater disposal wells that scientists have linked to a sharp rise in seismic activity in the state. (Read more from “Earthquake Shakes Oklahoma, Kansas” HERE)

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A 7th Grade Teacher Just Taught Something That Has Parents Outraged

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A teacher in the Ocean View School district [California] forced her seventh-grade class to sing a song about Islam that implied Allah was the only god.

The teacher used the melody of the song “This Is My Fight Song,” written by Rachel Platten, and altered the original lyrics to fit Islam . . .

Susan Negron, the mother of one of the students, discovered what the teacher had done when her son brought home drawings in a notebook including a stick-figure man saying, “Believe in Allah! There is no other god” and a copy of the lyrics, according to the Orange County Register.

Outraged, Susan’s mother Nichole posted pictures on a Huntington Beach community Facebook page on Tuesday, and later addressed the Oceanview School Board. Susan reportedly said, “I believe that by singing this song, the children feel comfortable believing that maybe Allah is the only god, and maybe that they should start following him. And that I’m not OK with.” (Read more from “A 7th Grade Teacher Just Taught Something That Has Parents Outraged” HERE)

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UnitedHealth CEO: Obamacare Losses Worsening, Not Sustainable Past 2016

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The chief executive officer of the largest U.S. health insurance company on Thursday told investors that the company’s losses from Obamacare were worsening, showed no signs of improvement, and would be unsustainable beyond 2016.

UnitedHealth Group CEO Stephen J. Hemsley made the comments in a conference call after the insurer warned investors about $425 million in losses primarily due to its participation in Obamacare, even though the company previously expected that the exchanges would have a neutral effect on profits. He even expressed some regret about participating in the program in the first place.

Asked whether the company would be willing to tolerate losses beyond 2016, Hemsley was emphatic: “No. We cannot sustain these losses. We can’t really subsidize a marketplace that doesn’t appear at the moment to be sustaining itself.”

The news from UnitedHealth comes at a fragile time for Obamacare, as enrollment stalls in its third year and insurers have been forced to cut premiums and access to providers. Republican presidential candidates have continued to call for the repeal of the law heading into the presidential election year, and the Senate is gearing up to pass a partial repeal by the end of this year.

“In our view, in recent weeks, market performance expectations for exchange products have further declined,” Hemlsey said, pointing toward a combination of weak enrollment trends in the healthcare exchanges and more costs associated with covering disproportionately sicker enrollees. (Read more from “UnitedHealth CEO: Obamacare Losses Worsening, Not Sustainable Past 2016” HERE)

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Secret Pagan Basilica in Rome Emerges From the Shadows After 2,000 Years

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A mysterious Roman basilica built for the worship of an esoteric pagan cult and now lying hidden more than 40ft below street level has opened to the public for the first time.

The basilica, the only one of its kind in the world, was excavated from solid tufa volcanic rock on the outskirts of the imperial capital in the first century AD.

Lavishly decorated with stucco reliefs of gods, goddesses, panthers, winged cherubs and pygmies, it was discovered by accident in 1917 during the construction of a railway line from Rome to Cassino, a town to the south. An underground passageway caved in, revealing the entrance to the hidden chamber . . .

The subterranean basilica, which predates Christianity, was built by a rich Roman family who were devotees of a little-known cult called Neopythagoreanism.

Originating in the first century BC, it was a school of mystical Hellenistic philosophy that preached asceticism and was based on the writings of Pythagoras and Plato. (Read more from “Secret Pagan Basilica in Rome Emerges From the Shadows After 2,000 Years” HERE)

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