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FBI: Militants May Be Working on Plan to Strike US

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An al-Qaida cell in Syria that was targeted in American military airstrikes last month could still be working on a plan to attack the United States or its allies and is “looking to do it very, very soon,” the head of the FBI says.

“Given our visibility we know they’re serious people, bent on destruction,” FBI Director James Comey said.

The Khorasan Group, a small but battle-hardened band of al-Qaida veterans from Afghanistan and Pakistan, was the target of U.S. strikes near Aleppo, Syria.

In an interview broadcast Sunday on CBS’ “60 Minutes,” Comey said the militants were “working and, you know, may still be working on an effort to attack the United States or our allies, and looking to do it very, very soon.”

Senior U.S. officials have not said whether the group’s plots have been disrupted.

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'Khorasan Group' is New Name Coined by Obama for Old Foe

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Photo Credit: FrontPageMagThe Obama administration is being accused of coining a new name for an old nemesis by dubbing an Al Qaeda offshoot “The Khorasan Group.”

From Rush Limbaugh to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, critics are dubious of the corporate-sounding name rooted in an old term that describes an area on the Afghanistan-Pakistan border and are charging that it may have been introduced last month as a way to avoid invoking the name Al Qaeda, the terror group President Obama once claimed had been “decimated.”

Middle East experts were long familiar with the term “Khorasan,” but its use as part of a terrorist organization’s formal name does not appear in recent online searches prior to Sept. 13, when The Associated Press characterized the militants as a “cadre of veteran Al Qaeda fighters” from Afghanistan and Pakistan who traveled to Syria to connect with the Al Qaeda affiliate there, the Nusra Front.

Ten days later, in a Sept. 23 article, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s Aron Lund also questioned the term’s legitimacy, saying the term “gained currency only” within the past two weeks.

“The sudden flurry of revelations about the ‘Khorasan Group’ in the past two weeks smacks of strategic leaks and political spin,” Lund wrote. “Even if the information provided is entirely correct, which it may well be, the timing can hardly be coincidental — within two weeks of the first press reports, attacks had started against [Khorasan Group leader Muhsin] Fadhli and his allies in Syria.”

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Terrorists’ Handbook: In Rhetoric and Tactics, ISIS Sounds a Lot Like an al-Qaeda Manual

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Photo Credit: National Review

Photo Credit: National Review

By Joel Gehrke.

President Obama may not have a strategy for defeating the Islamic State, but the Islamic State has a strategy for the U.S. In fact, that strategy is set out, in part, in an al-Qaeda manual recently translated for the benefit of the U.S. military.

A guerrilla war proceeds in phases, according to Abd al-Aziz al-Muqrin’s A Practical Course for Guerrilla War, a strategic and tactical guide to mujahideen intent on establishing “a pure Islamic system free from defects and infidel elements.” It was written after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.


The first phase is “attrition (strategic defense),” the time for carrying out attacks, “spectacular operations, which will create a positive impact.” The terrorists use the attacks as a recruitment tool and a morale boost for potential jihadis.

Phase two is the time of “relative strategic balance,” when the jihadis build an army to hold territory that has been wrested from the incumbent regime. “There the mujahidin will set up base camps, hospitals, sharia courts, and broadcasting stations, as well as a jumping-off point for military and political actions,” al-Muqrin writes.

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Photo Credit: CBS

Photo Credit: CBS

Al Qaeda Reportedly Targeting The Air Force Academy

By CBS4.

Al Qaeda is reportedly targeting the Air Force Academy. An online Al Qaeda magazine is threatening more attacks on the U.S. and Colorado Springs could be a target.

It’s parents weekend at the Air Force Academy. Each car entering the campus was inspected for any possible sign of a threat.

The Al Qaeda English language online magazine is now suggesting targets for Lone Wolf terror attacks. Among them listed are Times Square, Las Vegas and the Air Force Academy.

Even the CBS4 news vehicles drew attention, “They told me to tell you guys to go back into the parking lot area. It’s a security issue,” one Air Force Academy security officer said.

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Benghazi: When America Switched Sides In The War On Terror And Armed Al-Qaida (+video)

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Photo Credit: FrontPagMag

Photo Credit: FrontPagMag

The Center for Security Policy’s Vice President for Research and Analysis, Clare Lopez, says in this exclusive video interview with The Daily Caller that very few have seemed to care that America switched sides in the global war on terror when President Obama deposed an erstwhile ally in the Middle East and provided weapons to al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood.

Focusing on this under-reported, critical shift in American foreign policy, Clare Lopez discusses how an American ambassador and others were killed in Benghazi on the anniversary of 9/11 because the Obama administration decided to promote and defend their narrative that “al-Qaida was on the run,” even as we were outright arming militants affiliated with the terrorist group.

Lopez spent 20 years as an undercover operations officer for the CIA. Believing she can now best serve her country in the policy arena, she has found a natural fit at a non-partisan non-profit that promotes American national security and foreign policy based on the principle of “peace through strength.”

This week, we feature part 1 of 2 of our video interview with Lopez on the topic of the Benghazi attacks. Lopez, who’s also a member of the Citizens Commission on Benghazi, says, “Benghazi is symbolic of more than just a disastrous foreign policy or a disastrous attack on our mission that took the lives of four Americans serving there and injured many more. Benghazi is not just what happened on September 11, 2012 either. Americans really need to care about Benghazi and what happened there because that is the place, and 2011 and 2012 was the time, when America switched sides in the war on terrorism.”

To her, the American decision to overthrow the head of a sovereign government, Muammar al-Gaddafi, and to instead support al-Qaida and the Muslim Brotherhood laid the important framework for a resurgence of global jihad.

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Police: Al Qaeda Magazine Suggesting Attack On US Open

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Photo Credit:: Getty Images

Photo Credit:: Getty Images

The US Open Tennis Championship appears on a wish list of terror targets in an al Qaeda magazine, an NYPD official said Wednesday.

In a briefing for New York City’s private security community, Rebecca Weiner, the NYPD’s director of intelligence analysis, warned that Inspire magazineis instructing would-be terrorists on how to make bombs and where to set them off, WCBS 880′s Marla Diamond reported.

The magazine lists targets in Washington, D.C.; Virginia; and New York — including the US Open, which begins Aug. 25 in Flushing Meadows, Queens.

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Isis Hoodies and T-Shirts For Sale Online As Islamist ‘Brand’ Goes Global

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Photo Credit: IBTimesIts social media savvy has made Isis a “terror brand” to rival al-Qaida, with supporters worldwide following the brutal exploits of the Islamist group through its Twitter updates or even downloading the group’s own app.

Now supporters can show their loyalty to the group by sporting a T-shirt or hoodie emblazoned with the group’s black and white jihadist logo, after the items went on sale on Facebook.

The T-shirts, which are being sold on Indonesia-based websites, cost as little as $7 to $13, and have been on sale for several months, reports Vocativ.

With more than 9,000 likes on Facebook, retailer Zirah Moslem on its website calls itself a purveyor of “Islamic style” and sells clothing that promotes a range of Islamist groups.

In one design, emblazoned with the slogan “Mujahideen Around the World/ United We Stand”, figures wearing keffiyeh and brandishing weapons pose like characters on a Hollywood movie poster.

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Boko Haram Video Showing Captured Schoolgirls Features al-Qaeda Banner (+video)

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Photo Credit: YouTube

Photo Credit: YouTube

A new Boko Haram propaganda video released Monday, showing some of the more than 200 Nigerian schoolgirls it abducted last month wearing Islamic garb and chanting the Islamic declaration of faith, also features an al-Qaeda banner.

The banner held up behind the reciting girls by two of their number, is the black-and-white one first used by al-Qaeda in Iraq about seven years ago but since displayed by al-Qaeda affiliates in Yemen, Somalia, Syria and Libya.

Bearing the Arabic script for the Islamic declaration of faith or shahada – “There is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his messenger” – it is the same flag that was hoisted at the U.S. Embassy in Cairo during an anti-U.S. protest on Sept. 11, 2012, after the American flag was destroyed.

Western security officials have long suspected that Boko Haram has links to al-Qaeda’s affiliated in North Africa and Somalia – al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) and al-Shabaab.

As early as June 2012, then-U.S. Africa Command commander Gen. Carter Ham was voicing concern publicly about indications that Boko Haram, AQIM and al-Shabaab were “seeking to co-ordinate and synchronize their efforts.”

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Report: White House Aide Linked to Al-Qaida Funder

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Photo Credit: WND

Photo Credit: WND

There is a troubling common thread that links Hillary Clinton’s former chief of staff to the current special assistant to the National Security Council chief of staff of the military’s Islamic chaplain program.

The thread is more radical than the Muslim Brotherhood. It is the Muslim World League, a group accused of financing al-Qaida fronts. The organization’s offshoots have been declared official terrorist organizations by both the State Department and the United Nations.

Yet despite the troubling facts, Muslim World League-linked individuals have been in key national security positions and are currently helping to run the military’s chaplain program.

The case of Mehdi K. Alhassani, special assistant to the Office of the Chief of Staff of the National Security Council, drew attention last week in the blogosphere after former PLO operative Walid Shoebat reported on Alhassani’s ties to Muslim Brotherhood-linked groups.

Alhassani’s name emerged in an administration email made public last week as part of a Judicial Watch lawsuit. The email was sent three days after the Sept. 11, 2012, Benghazi attack to Alhassani and other officials from Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser for strategic communication.

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Qaeda Chief Urges Kidnappings of Americans

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Photo Credit: AFP

Photo Credit: AFP

Al-Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri has called in an interview for militants to kidnap Westerners, especially Americans, to exchange them for jihadist captives.

In the second part of an interview with Al-Qaeda media arm As-Sahab, which the US-based SITE monitoring service said a jihadist posted on Twitter, Zawahiri was asked what Muslims should do to free militant prisoners.

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Report: US Allowed Arming of al-Qaida Militants in Benghazi

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Photo Credit: Breitbart

Photo Credit: Breitbart

The U.S. government was complicit in arming al-Qaida militants in Libya, according to the Citizens Commission on Benghazi, The Daily Mail reported.

The group includes former top military officers and CIA officials who say the United States is partly to blame for the deadly 2012 attacks in Benghazi.

“Remember, these weapons that came into Benghazi were permitted to enter by our armed forces, who were blockading the approaches from air and sea,” Clare Lopez, a member of the commission and a former CIA officer, told the newspaper.

“The intelligence community was part of that, the Department of State was part of that, and certainly that means that the top leadership of the United States, our national security leadership, and potentially Congress – if they were briefed on this – also knew about this.”

The United States failed to stop a $500 million United Arab Emirates arms shipment from reaching al-Qaida militants in Libya, according to Lopez. The weapons, according to The Daily Mail, were bound for Moammar Gadhafi but allowed by the United States to go to his Islamist opposition.

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