A group of Islamist militants aligned with the Taliban has been holding an American man hostage for more than a year, according to U.S. officials and others familiar with his case, which has not been reported previously.
The disclosure of another American hostage raises questions about how many Americans are being held abroad—and what the U.S. government is doing to recover them. The Obama administration has been working to streamline its hostage rescue efforts, which critics say have suffered from a lumbering bureaucracy that hasn’t kept family members fully informed about their loved ones. How effective those efforts have been is unclear.
The Daily Beast is not publishing the man’s name or many details about him at the request of his family and administration and law enforcement officials, who are concerned for his safety. The man is said to be held by the Haqqani network, a Taliban-aligned group that operates along the border of Afghanistan and Pakistan.
Previously, The Daily Beast had agreed not to write anything at all about the hostage. However, on Monday, Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA), a leading critic in Congress of the Obama administration’s hostage rescue and recovery policies, wrote a public letter to President Obama in which he noted that “there are still Americans in captivity in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region.”
The only other American known to be held in that region is Caitlin Coleman, who was kidnapped along with her husband, Joshua Boyle, a Canadian citizen, while traveling in Afghanistan in 2012. Coleman had a child while in captivity, multiple U.S. officials have said. (Read more from “Secret U.S. Hostage Held by Taliban Allies” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-12-02 00:02:032016-04-11 10:55:33Secret U.S. Hostage Held by Taliban Allies
On the front lines of the battle against the Islamic State, suspicion of the United States runs deep. Iraqi fighters say they have all seen the videos purportedly showing U.S. helicopters airdropping weapons to the militants, and many claim they have friends and relatives who have witnessed similar instances of collusion.
Ordinary people also have seen the videos, heard the stories and reached the same conclusion — one that might seem absurd to Americans but is widely believed among Iraqis — that the United States is supporting the Islamic State for a variety of pernicious reasons that have to do with asserting U.S. control over Iraq, the wider Middle East and, perhaps, its oil.
“It is not in doubt,” said Mustafa Saadi, who says his friend saw U.S. helicopters delivering bottled water to Islamic State positions. He is a commander in one of the Shiite militias that last month helped push the militants out of the oil refinery near Baiji in northern Iraq alongside the Iraqi army.
The Islamic State is “almost finished,” he said. “They are weak. If only America would stop supporting them, we could defeat them in days.”
U.S. military officials say the charges are too far-fetched to merit a response. “It’s beyond ridiculous,” said Col. Steve Warren, the military’s Baghdad-based spokesman. “There’s clearly no one in the West who buys it, but unfortunately, this is something that a segment of the Iraqi population believes.” (Read more from “Iraqis Think the U.S. Is in Cahoots with the Islamic State, and It Is Hurting the War” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-12-02 00:00:442016-04-11 10:55:34Iraqis Think the U.S. Is in Cahoots with the Islamic State, and It Is Hurting the War
With as many as 1000 active cases, Fox News has learned at least 48 ISIS suspects are considered so high risk that the FBI is using its elite tracking squads known as the mobile surveillance teams or MST to track them domestically.
“There is a very significant number of people that are on suspicious watch lists, under surveillance,” Republican Senator Dan Coats said.
Coats, who sits on the Select Committee on Intelligence, would not comment on specifics, but said the around the clock surveillance is a major commitment for the bureau. “The FBI together with law enforcement agencies across the country are engaged in this. It takes enormous amount of manpower to do this on a 24-7 basis. It takes enormous amount of money to do this,” Coats explained.
These elite FBI teams are reserved for espionage, mob violence and high priority terrorism cases, like a joint terrorism task force case last June, where a 26 year old suspect Usaama Rahim, was killed outside a Massachusetts CVS. When a police officer and FBI agent tried to question him, the Boston Police Commissioner said Rahim threatened them with a knife, and was shot dead.
With at least a dozen agents assigned to each case, providing 24/7 coverage, this high level of surveillance reflects the severe risk associated with suspects most likely to attempt copycat attacks after Paris. (Read more from “FBI Using Elite Surveillance Teams to Track at Least 48 High Risk ISIS Suspects” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-27 02:29:482016-04-11 10:55:43FBI Using Elite Surveillance Teams to Track at Least 48 High Risk ISIS Suspects
Austrian newspapers report that the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) beat to death Samra Kesinovic, a teen recruit whose flight to Syria became a major international story earlier this year, when she attempted to escape the radical Islamic group.
A Tunisian woman told Kronen Zeitung that she had lived with Kesinovic and other young female recruits in Raqqa, Syria, the de facto capital of ISIS. But the Austrian government could not confirm or deny the woman’s comments . . .
The tabloids, along with British outlets, did not provide specific details about Kesinovic’s death. Israeli expert of the United Nations Security Council’s Counter-Terrorism Committee (CTED) David Scharia said her friend Sabina Selimovic perished in September 2014 during fighting.
“The parents of the girl concerned have been informed that there is a risk that their daughter is dead,” said Konrad Kogler, the director-general of public security for Austrian police, at the time.
Keinovic allegedly wanted to return home late last year. Both girls reached out to their parents and said they were “sick of living with the Islamic State.” But they did not think they could return home because they have been publicly identified as jihadists. (Read more from “Austrian ISIS ‘Poster Girl’ Beaten to Death” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00kathleenhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngkathleen2015-11-26 00:32:152016-04-11 10:55:45Austrian ISIS ‘Poster Girl’ Beaten to Death
Christians in Iraq and Syria are losing their people and religion to the brutal Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL), declares the Assyrian Army’s commander-in-chief.
In an exclusive interview with Breitbart News via Skype, Cmdr. Emmanuel Khoshaba Youkhana discussed the Assyrian Army’s efforts to end the ISIS campaign of genocide against Christians in Iraq and Syria.
He noted that the Christian Assyrian Army, known as Dwekh Nawsha, is in desperate need of military assistance in the form of weapons and training from the Obama administration, which so far has refused to lend a hand . . .
When asked what would become of the Assyrian Army efforts against ISIS if U.S. assistance never materializes, Cmdr. Youkhana said, “It would be hard and difficult. We are losing not only the Assyrian people, we are losing the Christianity.”
Earlier this month, Breitbart News spoke to retired Lt. Col. Sargis Sangari, a 20-year U.S. Army veteran and one of the Americans advising the Assyrian Army. He pleaded for military and humanitarian aid from the Obama administration, saying the Christian military force is about done given its lack of resources. (Read more from “Assyrian Army Commander: We Are Losing Christianity to ISIS” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-23 23:24:192016-04-11 10:55:50Assyrian Army Commander: We Are Losing Christianity to ISIS [+video]
Beijing has vowed to bring ISIS to justice after the group said it had executed two hostages, a Chinese and a Norwegian.
ISIS said it had killed the two men, identified as Chinese national Fan Jinghui and Norwegian citizen Ole Johan Grimsgaard-Ofstad in its English-language online magazine Dabiq.
President Xi Jinping “strongly condemned” ISIS for the killing of Fan, the first known Chinese national to be killed by the group, and the country’s foreign ministry said the Chinese government would “definitely hold the perpetrators accountable.”
But how to respond to Fan’s “cold-blooded and violent” death presents a dilemma for China, which has stayed on the sidelines in the fight against ISIS and has a long-held principle of noninterference in other countries’ affairs. [Editor’s note: this is laughable; China economically leverages nations all over the globe. Ask any Ecuadorean, for instance, as to whether they believe China interferes in their domestic affairs]
To date, Beijing has been vague on the question of what it will contribute to the global fight against ISIS and has declined to explicitly offer its support for airstrikes being conducted against the group in Syria. (Read more from “Beijing Vows Justice as ISIS Kills Chinese, Norwegian Hostages” HERE)
The Dijla branch of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) released a new video depicting unidentified jihadists celebrating the recent attacks on Paris and vowing the attacks would “conclude with the so-called White House.”
In the video – titled “Paris Before Rome” — militants warn French President Francois Hollande, U.S. President Barack Obama “and those who follow in his footsteps” to expect more strikes . . .
“We began with you, and we shall conclude with the so-called White House. We shall turn it even blacker than our fire by the will of Allah,” a militants says in the video. “Better still … we shall blow it up just like we blew up the idols on this good land.”
The video surfaced one day after another ISIS video that makes reference to Times Square. In what appeared to be a threat directed at the U.S., Times Square was shown along with New York City taxis and several Midtown locations, interspersed with what appeared to be a man preparing an explosive device and strapping it to himself . . .
Meanwhile, the U.S. State Department is warning that St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, Milan’s cathedral and La Scala opera house, as well as “general venues” like churches, synagogues, restaurants, theaters and hotels have been identified as “potential targets” in those two cities for terrorist attacks. (Read more from “New ISIS Video Threatens Attack on White House” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-21 01:54:262016-04-11 10:55:53New ISIS Video Threatens Attack on White House
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)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-20 00:59:272016-04-11 10:55:57Syrian Community Leader: ISIS Is Already in America
On Nov. 12, President Barack Obama said of ISIS: “What is true is that from the start, our goal has been first to contain, and we have contained them.”
On Nov. 13, ISIS-connected terrorists left 129 people dead and 352 wounded in Paris.
ISIS naturally dominated Obama’s Monday press conference at the G20 summit in Turkey. Yet although the president used the words “leader” and “leadership” fourteen times, the concept was, ironically, absent from his remarks. Speaking with as much passion as an instructional video on waste reclamation, he doubled down on his legacy of inaction, infighting, and incompetence.
The first question came from a reporter for Agence France-Presse: “The equation has clearly changed. Isn’t it time for your strategy to change?”
The president responded, “Well, keep in mind what we’ve been doing.” He then delivered a laundry list of international cooperation, targeted airstrikes, and economic pressure aimed at thwarting the Islamic State. The implication: He’s already on the right track. Nothing needs changing.
Not once did he address what was obvious to the reporter and the world: The Paris atrocity has demonstrated that his ill-defined strategy to “degrade” ISIS is a failure, one that has endangered the Western world and that clearly needs to change.
He grossly caricatured those who take issue with his strategy—or lack thereof—as “a few who have suggested that we should put large numbers of U.S. troops on the ground” and implied that his only option was the current course, “unless we’re prepared to have a permanent occupation of these countries.” This rhetoric has become a pattern: When faced with credible criticism, create false choices.
That the president is entirely unwilling to accept the need for improvement or adaptation in the light of this obvious foreign policy failure leads to uncomfortable questions about how insulated from reality the man might be.
There have been few lapses in leadership as maddening—and insulting to the American people—as Obama’s refusal to outline a clear path to victory against a force that certainly has a clear strategy against free nations: indiscriminate bloodshed.
A strategy connects ends and means—what is our goal (end), and how do we get there (means)? It is not clear what Obama’s goal is. Is it to destroy ISIS? Or just to keep their damage to a minimum so that it becomes the next president’s problem?
To be sure, Obama landed some pre-emptive strikes, but they were against Americans who happen to be Republicans:
You know, I had a lot of disagreements with George W. Bush on policy, but I was very proud after 9/11 when he was adamant and clear about the fact that this is not a war on Islam. And the notion that some of those who have taken on leadership in his party would ignore all of that, that’s not who we are.
The president proves more artful at destroying straw men dressed up as GOP presidential hopefuls than he is at targeting terrorists. I suppose he is most afraid of the group that endangers him professionally.
Further, he condemned as “shameful” American governors who have demanded closer vetting of Syrian refugees or refused to accept them from Washington. In light of the fact that at least one attacker in Paris had a Syrian passport, and that high numbers of those entering Europe are neither Syrian nor refugees, the governors’ concern seems prudent rather than pernicious. Slandering them for prioritizing the safety of their own citizens is as galling as it is cowardly.
The president’s clear intention was to use the aftermath of the Paris atrocity to make excuses and launch partisan political attacks. It will be difficult to unify against ISIS behind a man who is more interested in dividing his own countrymen.
Obama’s remarks on Monday morning could have been his “Tear Down This Wall” moment, his “Never Give In.” Instead, we got “I’m Too Busy for That.”
Obama’s remarks in Turkey will be studied in history and foreign policy curricula for years to come as a prideful dereliction of leadership. (For more from the author of “After Paris, Obama’s Abandonment of Leadership” please click HERE)
There can never have been a policy that more governments are committed to achieving without actually trying to achieve it than the world’s so-called determination to “defeat Isil”.
Everyone is now at it – fighting Isil, that is: the Syrian and Iraqi governments, obviously, parts of whose territory Isil controls; within those failed states, a smorgasbord of local and foreign Shia militias, Iran’s Revolutionary Guard, two major Kurdish fighting forces and in Syria non-Isil anti-Assad rebels, including al-Qaeda.
Then there’s the Western allies – the air forces of the United States, Britain, France, Australia, who are bombing Isil in one country or both, with help from other European armed forces in various ways. Russia, of course, has joined in, proudly suggesting that in some way it is the only nation really serious about “defeating terrorism”. Finally, there are other Middle Eastern states with a vested interest in preventing Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant’s caliphate getting out of control – Jordan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and Turkey are all active or notional parts of the coalition.
Isil are either miraculous fighters or – and this is the truth – the attempt to defeat them is a myth.
It is not of course a myth that all these actors are fighting Isil: the bombs the RAF is dropping are real enough, as are the massacres of Iraqi, Syrian and other troops whose battles have ended in surrender. (Read more from “The World’s Determination to Defeat ISIS Is a Myth” HERE)
https://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.png00Joe Millerhttps://joemiller.us/wp-content/uploads/logotext.pngJoe Miller2015-11-18 00:40:312016-04-11 10:56:02The World’s Determination to Defeat ISIS Is a Myth
