Human rights campaigners have condemned Japan’s use of the death penalty after two inmates were hanged, bringing the number of executions to 16 since the prime minister, Shinzo Abe, took office in late 2012.
The executions were carried out on Friday, just weeks before Japan is to host the G7 leaders summit: Japan and the US are the only two G7 nations that retain the death penalty, while European countries are among the most vocal critics of Japan’s secretive executions.
Yasutoshi Kamata, 75, was hanged in Osaka for the murders of five people – including a nine-year-old girl – between 1985 and 1994, according to Japanese media.
Junko Yoshida was convicted of killing two men in the late 1990s to obtain life insurance payments. The 56-year-old, who was executed in Fukuoka, is the first woman to be hanged in Japan since 2012.
Campaigners accused Japan of resisting the global trend towards the abolition of the death penalty in the mistaken belief that the punishment acts as a deterrent. (Read more from “Japan Executes Two Prisoners Amid Protests” HERE)
The Muslim Brotherhood and its various offshoots have chosen 2016 as the year they will turn their focus away from the Middle East and toward the Western democracies seen as ripe for revolutionary activity, says a former FBI counter-terrorism specialist and Islam expert.
The revolutionary jihad movement that swept through the Middle East and North Africa as part of the “Arab Spring” is starting to take root in Europe with attacks already carried out on Paris and Brussels, said John Guandolo.
This movement will eventually spread to the United States, said Guandolo, a former Marine and instructor at the U.S. Army War College who now provides training to law enforcement agencies that want to learn more about the jihadist network in the U.S.
That network is operated, he said, by the International Muslim Brotherhood through its many front organizations. Among them are the Muslim-American Society, or MAS; Muslim Student Association, or MSA; Council on American-Islamic Relations, or CAIR; Islamic Society of North America, or ISNA; and North American Islamic Trust, or NAIT.
Guandolo, author of the book “Raising a Jihadi Generation,” said the Muslim Brotherhood is teaming up with the Black Lives Matter movement to create violent events that will surprise many police agencies in cities across the U.S. (Read more from “FBI Counter-Terror Expert Sees Historic Islam Pivot” HERE)
The Obama administration has spent three years engaged in secret talks with Iran that resulted in the payment of nearly $2 billion in taxpayer funds to the Islamic Republic, with more payouts likely to come in the future, according to a recent letter issued by the State Department and obtained exclusively by the Washington Free Beacon.
The administration’s disclosure came in response to an inquiry launched in January by Rep. Mike Pompeo (R., Kan.), who was seeking further information about the Obama administration’s payment of $1.7 billion in taxpayer funds to Iran, which many viewed as a “ransom payment” for Iran’s release that month of several U.S. hostages.
The administration’s official response to Pompeo was sent earlier this week, just days after a Free Beacon report detailing a months-long State Department effort to stall the lawmaker’s inquiry.
“We apologize for the delay in responding,” Julia Frifield, an assistant secretary for legislative affairs, states in the letter’s opening.
Obama administration officials first began talks to settle a number of outstanding legal claims leveled against the United States by Iran in 2014. The administration predicts that more taxpayer-funded payments are likely to be granted to the Islamic Republic in the future, according to the letter. (Read more from “Obama Admin Engaged in Secret Talks to Pay Iran Nearly $2 Billion” HERE)
In Brussels police are still desperately hunting a dangerous terrorist after he fled a triple-suicide bombing in the city that left 34 dead, as officials search for news on U.S. citizens who went missing during the attack and medics tend to nine more Americans lying wounded in hospital.
Meanwhile in Buenos Aires President Barack Obama was dancing the night away with wife Michelle at a glitzy state dinner alongside Argentine President Mauricio Macri and his first lady Juliana Awada as part of a two-day state visit.
Despite increasing calls from the likes of Donald Trump and Ted Cruz for the President to return home in the wake of the Brussels attack, Obama showed his determination to carry on regardless Wednesday night.
Perhaps as a concession to his critics, Obama said he will be sending John Kerry to Brussels on Friday to express his condolences on behalf of the American people and stand in solidarity with Belgium.
The Obamas also shared at candlelit dinner with Macri and Awada at the Centro Cultural Kirchner, named after Argentina’s former President and Marci’s predecessor, in the country’s capital this evening. (Read more from “Obama Dances While Brussels Burns” HERE)
The Islamic State group has trained at least 400 fighters to target Europe in deadly waves of attacks, deploying interlocking terror cells like the ones that struck Brussels and Paris with orders to choose the time, place and method for maximum carnage, officials have told The Associated Press.
The network of agile and semiautonomous cells shows the reach of the extremist group in Europe even as it loses ground in Syria and Iraq. The officials, including European and Iraqi intelligence officials and a French lawmaker who follows the jihadi networks, described camps in Syria, Iraq and possibly the former Soviet bloc where attackers are trained to attack the West. Before being killed in a police raid, the ringleader of the Nov. 13 Paris attacks claimed he had entered Europe in a multinational group of 90 fighters, who scattered “more or less everywhere.”
But the biggest break yet in the Paris attacks investigation — the arrest on Friday of fugitive Salah Abdeslam— did not thwart the multipronged attack just four days later on the Belgian capital’s airport and metro that left 31 people dead and an estimated 270 wounded. Three suicide bombers also died. (Read more from “ISIS Has Sent 400 Fighters to Attack Europe, Officials Say” HERE)
00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-03-23 22:49:442016-04-11 10:51:11ISIS Has Sent 400 Fighters to Attack Europe, Officials Say
By Ruth Halkon. Fears are growing for a priest believed to have been kidnapped by ISIS as sickening reports suggest he may be crucified on Good Friday.
Father Tom Uzhunnalil was seized when four armed militants stormed an old people’s home in Aden in Yemen on March 4.
The gunmen killed 16 people, including four nuns, in the brutal attack on the home run by the in a brutal raid which killed 16 people including four nuns.
No group has come forward to claim responsibility for the kidnap of the priest, who was a member of the Silesian order in of Bangalore, India, but a survivor said ISIS was to blame.
Now reports shared on social media suggest the priest faces being brutally tortured this Friday as Christians mark the day Jesus died. (Read more from “Fears Grow for Priest ‘Kidnapped by ISIS'” HERE)
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Quantity of Explosive Found in Belgium Surprises Officials
By C. J. Chivers. The announcement by the Belgian authorities that they had confiscated more than 30 pounds of the explosive TATP from a dwelling used by the attackers in Brussels was, in some ways, an expected development. But it contained one detail that bomb-disposal technicians and security officials regarded with surprise: the quantity of the particular explosive involved.
TATP, also known as triacetone triperoxide, is a white, crystalline explosive also used in the attacks in Paris in November, though it caused few casualties compared with the terrorists’ assault rifles. Highly unstable and sensitive to shock, friction and heat, it breaks down quickly in air. And while it can be made with basic chemistry skills and relatively simple equipment, it is more dangerous and tedious to manufacture than a commonly used fertilizer-based explosive, ammonium nitrate, which an American official, citing intelligence shared by Belgium, said the attackers had also used.
Unlike ammonium nitrate, TATP is typically seen in small quantities, not in the tens of pounds. One American official who had reviewed the intelligence related to the bombs in France and the newer intelligence from Belgium said the recovery of more than 30 pounds indicated an increased capacity since the Paris attacks. And that figure did not include any explosive actually used in the bombs that killed 31 people on Tuesday. (Read more from “Quantity of Explosive Found in Belgium Surprises Officials” HERE)
Echoes of shouting in Arabic rang out in the Brussels airport moments before two explosions ripped through a departure area, the Belgian news agency Belga has reported.
The news agency also reported that shots were fired just before the two blasts took place that left up to 20 dead. The overall death toll from explosions at the airport and a Brussels subway station was 34, with more than 130 injured.
“There were two explosions in the departure area, one probably caused by a suicide bomber,” said Belgian federal prosecutor Frederic Van Leeuw. Police reported finding a Kalashnikov assault rifle next to one dead attacker at the airport. A suicide vest found in the airport was later detonated by police.
Airport worker Alphonse Youla, 40, told Reuters a man was yelling in Arabic before the first blast. “Then the glass ceiling of the airport collapsed” . . .
“This was no doubt a warning strike to European leaders and there may be more to come,” said Natasha Underhill, an expert on terrorism in the Middle East at Nottingham Trent University. “The group has time and time again issued statements that it will have no mercy in targeting those who are supporting the U.S. and who are fighting against the group.” (Read more from “What Was Heard Seconds Before Brussels Attack Confirms the Worst” HERE)
00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-03-23 01:13:402016-04-11 10:51:13What Was Heard Seconds Before Brussels Attack Confirms The Worst
By Morgan Chalfant. A series of coordinated terror attacks in Brussels Tuesday have put Belgium on its highest threat level alert and sparked the U.S. Embassy there to warn American citizens in the city to shelter in place.
Multiple explosions targeted two locations in Brussels Tuesday morning. Two blasts struck a departure hall of Brussels Airport in Zaventem, and one occurred at the Maelbeek subway station.
The subway station is close to the offices of the European Union in central Brussels. At least one of the attacks is believed to have been the result of a suicide bomber.
Officials have confirmed that at least 31 people were killed in the attacks and 187 injured. Belgian media reports have indicated that the death toll has been elevated to 34.
“The level [of] threat in Belgium has been raised to 4 (maximum alert) with special emphasis on transport hubs, airports, stations, and nuclear plants,” Prime Minister Charles Michel said Tuesday. (Read more from “ISIS Claims Responsibility for Brussels Terror Attacks” HERE)
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Belgian Terrorists Can Still Enter US Without a Visa
By Adam Kredo. Leading lawmakers identified Belgium as a hotspot for terrorism months ago and are warning that many of the radicalized individuals living there are still able to travel to the United States without first obtaining a visa and undergoing thorough security checks.
Rep. Ron DeSantis (R., Fla.), a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, told the Washington Free Beacon Tuesday afternoon that current flaws in the U.S. visa waiver program—which facilities travel to the United States from partner nations including Belgium—have created a loophole that could permit radicalized individuals to legally enter the United States with minimal background checks.
DeSantis is warning of these flaws on the heels of deadly mass terrorist attack in Brussels on Tuesday that has killed at least 30 and wounded hundreds more.
“The visa waiver reform, this is something we have been perusing and the [Obama] administration has brushed us off at every turn,” DeSantis said, explaining that current policy does not mandate more strenuous checks on individuals identified as coming from terrorist hotspots, such as the small Belgian town of Molenbeek, which has emerged as a principal training site for jihadists.
“It’s the case that if those folks are citizens of Belgium they qualify for the visa waiver program and can hop on a plane and get here,” he added. “Clearly, that is not adequate given what happened.” (Read more from “Belgian Terrorists Can Still Enter US Without a Visa” HERE)
The same week President Obama makes the first trip to Cuba by an American president in almost 90 years, The Rolling Stones will play a free concert in Havana — the first open-air show there by a British rock band.
But changing times in the Communist country haven’t stopped tens of thousands from fleeing the island and saying gimme shelter to American immigration officials at Texas land ports.
From October 2015 to February 2016, more than 18,500 Cubans arrived at Texas’ Laredo field office of U.S. Customs and Border Protection, which includes ports from Del Rio to Brownsville. If that trend continues, it will shatter last year’s numbers for the same ports, when a record 28,371 crossed. During the 2015 fiscal year, more than 43,150 arrived at the 20 CBP field offices in the United States that process immigrants. More than half — 25,800 — arrived in only the first five months of the current fiscal year.
The president’s visit to Cuba Monday was the latest step in his mission announced in late 2014 to normalize relations with the Castro regime.
“I’ve come to Havana to extend the hand of friendship to the Cuban people,” Obama said in a statement Monday. “I’m here to bury the last vestige of the Cold War in the Americas and to forge a new era of understanding to help improve the daily lives of the Cuban people.” (Read more from “Cuban Refugees Flocking to Texas Border” HERE)
A U.S. Marine was killed in a rocket attack by Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL) in northern Iraq on March 19, the Pentagon reported.
“Earlier today a U.S. Marine providing force protection fire support at a recently established coalition fire base near Makhmur in northern Iraq was killed after coming under ISIL rocket fire,” the Pentagon said. “Several other Marines were wounded and they are being treated for their varying injuries.”
It was the second U.S. combat death in the fight against the terrorist organization.
Makhmur, which is 70 kilometers (43.5 miles) southeast of ISIL’s Iraqi stronghold in Mosul, lies within territory controlled by the autonomous northern region of Kurdistan, but Baghdad has recently been deploying federal forces there to prepare for a siege on Mosul . . .
While the U.S.-led coalition’s main role in the fight against ISIL is to provide air support, the U.S., France, Britain, Australia and Italy also have significant contingents deployed on the ground in Iraq. Their official role is to train and advise local Iraqi forces. (Read more from “Marine Is Second U.S. Combat Death in Fight Against ISIS” HERE)
00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2016-03-21 01:01:352016-04-11 10:51:19Marine Is Second U.S. Combat Death in Fight Against ISIS
