The Islamic State terror group is recruiting in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the top U.S. commander in Afghanistan said Thursday.
“We are seeing reports of some recruiting,” said Gen. John Campbell, commander of the Resolute Support mission, during an interview with Army Times. “There have been some night letter drops, there have been reports of people trying to recruit both in Afghanistan and Pakistan, quite frankly.” Continue reading
English: The United Nations Security Council Chamber in New York, also known as the Norwegian Room Français: La Salle de réunion du Conseil de sécurité des Nations Unies à New York Nederlands: De Zaal van de Veiligheidsraad van de Verenigde Naties in New York (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
January 28, 2014
AFP/UNITED NATIONS – The UN Security Council on Monday demanded that countries not pay terrorist ransoms which the British backers of the move said have reaped Al-Qaeda and its allies more than $100 million.
A resolution passed unanimously by the 15 member council calls on UN members “to prevent terrorists from benefiting directly or indirectly from ransom payments or from political concessions and to secure the safe release of hostages.”
The resolution does not impose any punishments and is based on a statement agreed by the Group of Eight powers at a summit last year but has been several months in preparation at the UN. Several governments are suspected of having paid ransoms to militant groups in recent years.
English: LAPD officers at crime scene (Photo credit: Wikipedia)
by Ronnie Garrett
Created: September 11, 2013
As everyone focuses their attention on the anniversary of 9/11 and reflects on the tragedies that unfolded that fateful day, I am reflecting on a recent conversation I had with Deputy Chief Michael Downing, the Commanding Officer of the LAPD’s Counter-Terrorism and Special Operations Bureau, who mentioned that the greatest threat might not be the one we are most actively seeking–that of the large terrorist action on the magnitude of 9/11–but rather the smaller events committed by lone wolf terrorists.
He explains terrorist operatives have evolved and decentralized, and they now encourage small numbers of people to carry out terrorist acts in order to more readily avoid detection. Not only does this make it easier for them to get away with it, it’s far cheaper for these operatives to carry out a small attack the size of the Boston Marathon massacre or the Fort Hood incident, than it is for them to execute a large-scale attack the size of 9/11.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013 Posted by Daniel Greenfield
Means, opportunity and motive are the three crucial elements of investigating a crime and establishing the guilt of its perpetrator. Means and opportunity tell us how the crime could have been committed while motive tells us why it was committed. Many crimes cannot be narrowed down by motive until a suspect is on the scene; but acts of terrorism can be. Almost anyone might be responsible for a random killing; but political killings are carried out by those who subscribe to common beliefs.
Eliminate motive from terrorism and it becomes no different than investigating a random killing. If investigators are not allowed to profile potential terrorists based on shared beliefs rooted in violence, that makes it harder to catch terrorists after an act of terror and incredibly difficult before the act of terror takes place.
The roadblock isn’t only technical; it’s conceptual. Investigations consist of connecting the dots. If you can’t conceive of a connection, then the investigation is stuck. If you can’t make the leap from A to B or add two to two and get four, then you are dependent on lucky breaks. And lucky breaks go both ways. Sometimes investigators get lucky and other times the terrorists get lucky.
Federal law enforcement was repeatedly warned by the Russians that Tamerlan Tsarnaev was dangerous, but operating under the influence of a political culture that refused to see Islam as a motive for terrorism, it failed to connect the dots between Chechen violence in Russia and potential terrorism in the United States, and because it could not see Islam as a motive, as a causal factor rather than a casual factor, it could find no reason why Tamerlan was a threat not just to Russia, but also to the United States.
