CAIR Tweet Blasts "Racist" FBI

The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) once again has made its animosity toward the FBI loud and clear, reposting a headline on its Twitter feed calling an FBI training program "racist, xenophobic, misdirected, dangerous -- and really, really stupid."

The headline and corresponding link go to a 3,000-word attack on the Bureau for some isolated examples in training programs and for some of its surveillance practices to identify potential terrorists.

It's par for the course for CAIR, especially since the FBI cut off outreach communication with the group due to its roots in a Hamas-support network. A CAIR chapter published a flier last year urging followers to "build a wall of resistance" by refusing to talk to the FBI. Its "know your rights" seminars routinely feature scare tactics about FBI agents breaking the law to set up innocent Muslims. And its spokesmen reflexively cast doubt on FBI terror-related arrests, especially those involving informants.

Taliban, Other Extremists Cheer MB Election

The U.S. and Western nations have cheered on the Muslim Brotherhood's victory in Egyptian presidential elections, seeing it as a triumph for democracy and a better human rights situation in Egypt. But from the standpoint of other political Islamists and even terrorist organizations, the success is a victory of Islam over the West.

From the Taliban to Hamas, and even Shiite organizations like Hizballah, competing Islamist groups are drawing pleasure from the Brotherhood's victory.

"The success of the Islamic Government in Egypt is considered to be the strongest blow in the Middle East and the whole world to the American and Zionist expansionism," the Taliban said in a written statement. "May the Muslim Nation of Egypt and their newly elected government take good advantage of this important occasion and historical victory in the defense and achievement of the interests of the Islamic Ummah."

South Asian extremist organization Jamaat-e-Islami, which has supported violent jihad across the world, chimed in with support as well. JeI Karachi chief Muhammad Hussain Mehanti hailed the election success as "a message to all the Islamic movements across the world that the Islamic revolution was inevitable with constant struggle and endurance."

He also attributed the victory to the MB's following the "thought-provoking writings by Maulana Maududi," the Jamaat's founder and an advocate of overthrowing secular governments in the Muslim world.

As was widely reported in the media, Hamas-run Gaza burst into celebration at the news of Morsi's victory. "We will look to Egypt to play a big, leading role, a historic role, regarding the Palestinian cause, in helping the Palestinian nation get freedom, return home, and totally end the Gaza siege," said Ismail Haniyeh, head of the Hamas government.

Hizballah and Iran were also positive about the development, despite historic tension with Egypt. Hizballah prayed for the move to "return Egypt back to its advanced Arab and Islamic position in defending the causes of the nation and shaping the future and the fate of the region."

Iran praised the "Islamic Awakening" represented by the Brotherhood victory. The Iranian government-sponsored Fars News Agency published what it said was an interview with Morsi, saying he would revise Egypt's peace treaty with Israel and open a new chapter in relations with Iran. Those statements contradicted peaceful assurances to the West, and Morsi's spokesman denied the interview even happened, announcing they would sue Fars News Agency for the "fabricated" interview.

Canadians Modify Terror Lexicon

The Canadian Security and Intelligence Service (CSIS) recently issued a memo to its staff setting forth a set of definitions for terms labeling the kinds of people the agency surveils. The memo was obtained by Canadian media under the country's access to information laws.

CSIS claims the set of definitions, titled "Standard Lexicon of CSIS Terminology," was created after two inquiries into the detention of Arab-Canadian men overseas. Those inquiries occurred in 2006 concerning Maher Arar and 2008 concerning Abdullah Almalki, Ahmad Abou-Elmaati and Muayyed Nureddin.

Among those definitions:

Terrorist: An individual who has or will engage in, assist, commit or conduct a politically, religiously or ideologically motivated act of serious violence against persons or property.

Extremist: An individual who holds an extreme belief or interpretation of an idea, ideology, cause or issue, who may incite others to hold similar views and/or advocates extreme measures, including the use of violence, to draw attention to or advance a desired goal.

Supporter: An individual who supports a particular organization, cause, issue, idea or ideology and who purposefully diverts or re-directs attention and or resources (ie. time, funds, propaganda, etc) towards this organization or cause.

Sympathizer: An individual who may be inclined to favour a particular organization, cause, issue, idea or ideology but who will not purposefully divert or re-direct attention and or resources (ie. time, funds, propaganda, etc) towards supporting this organization or cause.

Saudi Student Found Guilty of Plotting Attacks

A Texas jury convicted a Saudi Arabian student Wednesday for attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction in connection with plots to attack hydroelectric dams, nuclear plants, and the Dallas residence of former President George W. Bush.

Khalid Ali-M Aldawsari was arrested in February 2011 and indicted a month later on a single count of attempted use of a weapon of mass destruction. Aldawsari lawfully entered the United States in 2008 on a student visa and was enrolled at South Plains College in Lubbock.

Court records and evidence presented at the trial show Aldawsari bought chemicals online to make an improvised explosive device (IED). Federal agents found bomb-making materials – including concentrated sulfuric and nitric acids, glass beakers and flasks, wiring, clocks, and a Hazmat suit – during a search of Aldawsari's Lubbock home.

They also discovered a journal handwritten in Arabic that showed Aldawsari had been plotting a terrorist attack in the United States for years. He wrote about obtaining a scholarship from a Saudi corporation that would bring him to the United States.

The scholarship "will help tremendously in providing me with the support I need for Jihad, God willing," he wrote. "And now, after mastering the English language, learning how to build explosives and continuous planning to target the infidel Americans, it is time for jihad." He also wrote the 9/11 attacks brought about a "big change" in his thinking and that he was inspired by the speeches of Osama bin Laden. Aldawsari also expressed a desire to create an al-Qaida inspired group called Jamaat Jund al-Islam.

A search of Aldawsari's computer showed that he researched potential targets for attack in the U.S. An e-mail with the subject line "Targets," listed the contact details for three U.S. military personnel who had served at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Another e-mail titled "NICE TARGETS 01" included names of 12 reservoir dams in Colorado and California. Aldawsari also e-mailed himself a document titled "Tyrant's House" that had the Dallas address of former President George W. Bush.

"As this trial demonstrated, Aldawsari purchased ingredients to construct an explosive device and was actively researching potential targets in the United States. Thanks to the efforts of many agents, analysts and prosecutors, this plot was thwarted before it could advance further," Assistant Attorney General for National Security Lisa Monaco said in a Justice Department press release announcing the guilty verdict.

Aldawsari faces a maximum sentence of life in prison and a $250,000 fine when he is sentenced in October.

Treasury Designates Hizballah-Tied Drug Network

The U.S. Treasury Department on Wednesday targeted four people tied to a Latin American drug-smuggling ring that helps finance Hizballah.

Those sanctioned are part of a network controlled by drug kingpin Ayman Joumaa. He was named a Specially Designated Narcotics Trafficker by the Drug Enforcement Administration last year. Joumaa also is under indictment in Virginia for conspiracy and money laundering tied to drug smuggling.

Government officials say his operations generate as much as $200 million per month, some of which is funneled through the Lebanese Canadian Bank [LCB] to Hizballah in Lebanon.

"The Joumaa network is a sophisticated multi-national money laundering ring, which launders the proceeds of drug trafficking for the benefit of criminals and the terrorist group Hizballah," Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence David S. Cohen said in a statement. "We and our partners will continue to aggressively map, expose and disable this network, as we are doing with today's sanctions."

The new action names Abbas Hussein Harb and Ibrahim Chibli, described as Lebanese nationals who help Joumaa move his money. Ali Mohamad Saleh is described as "a key Hizballah facilitator who has directed and coordinated Hizballah activity in Colombia. He is a former Hizballah fighter with knowledge of Hizballah operations plans due to his contact with Hizballah authorities in Lebanon."

Three companies also were designated: Colombian-based Importadora Silvania and Bodega Michigan, and Importadora Silvania in Venezuela. The designations freeze any assets belonging to those named and prohibit anyone in the United States from dealing with them.

The Treasury Department as a flow chart of the Joumaa network here.

Iranian VP Blames Jews for World Drug Trade

Iranian Vice President Mohammad Reza Rahimi blames Jews, Zionists, and Jewish holy books for the world's international drug problem, according to the Iranian Fars News Agency and the New York Times.

Rahimi attacked the ancient Jewish legal code found in the Talmud, which he referred to as a "Zionist religious book," for Iran's profound drug problem. "The book teaches them how to destroy non-Jews so as to protect an embryo in the womb of a Jewish mother," Rahimi said. He also challenged the audience to find a "single addict among the Zionists," saying that the Talmud taught the Zionists to "destroy everyone who opposes the Jews."

The comments came Tuesday during Iran's International Day of Drug Abuse, and ignore the country's role as one of the leading drug trafficking routes for opium and hashish coming out of Afghanistan.

Rahimi's rant also hit anti-Semitic themes outside of the drug trade.

The Talmud taught Jews that they were a superior race that all other nations must serve, he said, also telling stories of gynecologists' killing black babies at the behest of Zionists, and claimed no Jews were killed in the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution, which they started.

Press TV, Iran's other official English-language outlet, altered and omitted many of the quotes to make them appear only anti-Zionist.

Iran has long claimed that its virulent attacks are directed at the state of Israel and its supporters. But its leaders have sponsored conferences denying the Holocaust and been implicated in a 1994 bombing attack against an Argentinean Jewish center.

Israel and Jewish organizations immediately condemned the hate. "The international community has not yet realized the great danger the [Iranian] regime poses to world peace. Hitler also said crazy things and succeeded in carrying out his plan," responded Israeli foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman.

Although Rahimi focused his bigoted and false accusations of Jewish involvement in the global drug trade, media reports highlight the Iranian government's own drug profiteering.

"There are several commanders involved in smuggling narcotics. Raw opium or morphine is smuggled in from Afghanistan and developed in labs inside Iran," Sajjad Haghpanah, a former investigator with the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corp's (IRGC) domestic intelligence division, told the London Times. "They work with criminal gangs to move it overseas. They have their own ships, aircraft and haulage companies, everything needed for import and export. Their power is limitless."

Former Iranian diplomat Abolfasi Eslami to the Times that following a drug destruction operation in front of U.N. inspectors, he asked IRGC leaders if they had really destroyed all of the illicit substances. The IRGC leaders laughed, saying the "drugs would f*** up the sons and daughters of the West. We should kill them. Their lives are worth less because they are not Muslims."

African al-Qaida Affiliates Coordinating

The three largest Islamist terrorist organizations in Africa are now coordinating their efforts in Islamist-controlled North Mali, says the head of the U.S. Africa Command. The development, led by al-Qaida in the Islamic Maghreb [AQIM], threatens the weak states of Africa's Sahara desert as well as Western interests in the region and beyond.

"Most notably I would say that the linkages between AQIM and [Nigeria's] Boko Haram are probably the most worrisome in terms of the indications we have that they are likely sharing funds, training and explosive materials that can be quite dangerous," said General Carter Ham. He also named Somalia's al-Shabaab as the other "most dangerous" group.

Although al-Shabaab lies much further away in Somalia, all of the groups benefit from a growing safe haven created by Islamist-sympathizing rebels in Mali, the general noted.

Ansar Dine, a terrorist organization closely affiliated with AQIM, joined with local rebels to seize 60 percent of Mali's territory from government forces. The united groups then declared the Islamic Republic of Azawad over their combined 250,000 miles of territory, and the Islamist elements imposed harsh sharia law over locals. Negotiators are now trying to woo Islamist elements of the rebel coalition away from al-Qaida, even as the fragile coalition of rebel forces clash.

Prime concerns for Western nations include destroying al-Qaida's kidnapping enterprise, and capitalizing on the challenges al-Qaida will face when governing reluctant populations. Since 2003, al-Qaida affiliated militants have kidnapped 53 people, raising over 120 million euros in ransom money. Stopping further kidnappings may put a strain on the Islamists' thin finances, which are now being used to fight Mali's army and pay troops and local governors.

Taliban Atrocities and the Peace Process

Two newly published articles provide dramatically different perspectives on the likelihood of achieving peace in Afghanistan. One is a prominent journalist's generally sympathetic account of the Obama administration's efforts to achieve peace with the Taliban; the second, from Bill Roggio of the Long War Journal, documents the Taliban's latest atrocities.

The more hopeful view of negotiations comes from Rajiv Chandrasekaran, a senior correspondent and associate editor of the Washington Post and author of a new book about the war in Afghanistan entitled Little America: The War Within the War. An excerpt published Monday in the Post shows that Chandrasekaran (who covered the war from February 2009 to July 2011) believes negotiations with the Taliban could have succeeded but for infighting between senior administration officials.

He portrays the late Richard Holbrooke, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton's point man on Afghanistan, as a wily visionary who understood the importance of "a peace deal with the Taliban." In Chandrasekaran's view, Holbrooke's efforts might have succeeded but for the sabotage campaign waged by National Security Adviser James Jones and his top deputy, Lt. Gen. Douglas Lute.

According to Little America, nearly every senior administration official involved with Afghanistan (with the notable exception of Gen. David Petraeus) joined Holbrooke in recognizing that the jihadist group could not be defeated and understanding the importance of negotiating peace with it. But Holbrooke's energetic efforts for peace were sabotaged by officials like Lute, who wanted the United Nations rather than the State Department to oversee the negotiations.

While officials in Washington discuss peace, the Taliban continues to prey on Afghan civilians. The Long War Journal reported Monday that Mullah Nazir, a key Taliban commander favored by the Pakistani government and military, has become the second local leader of the group to order an end to polio vaccinations in areas under his control until the U.S. stops drone strikes against terrorists.

Taliban pamphlets distributed by Nazir's group in South Waziristan liken the polio vaccine to sugar-coated poison. Nazir, considered a "good Taliban" commander by Pakistan's military and intelligence services, runs a Taliban faction has joined the Shura-e-Murakeba, an alliance brokered by al-Qaida late last year.

Meanwhile, a top Taliban leader was among those arrested in connection with a series of poisoning attacks that have sickened hundreds of Afghan schoolgirls in recent months. Roggio said he doubts the Taliban have any real interest in reconciliation or compromise.

"They want to restore the Islamic Emirate of the 1990s," he said, referring to the period of Taliban rule that ended shortly after 9/11 and the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan. "The only way to make peace with the Taliban work is to crush them and make sure that their leaders are decapitated."

Report: A Dozen Military "Insider Threats"

FBI agents have identified a dozen cases of possible "insider threats" among Islamic extremists within American military ranks, National Public Radio reported Monday. That includes active duty troops, reservists and civilians with access to military facilities.

The figure was drawn from more than 100 investigations and was reported to members of a House-Senate committee meeting secretly in December. Officials declined to say whether any additional cases have been identified since then.

During a hearing last Wednesday on extremism within the Muslim community, House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Peter King, R-N.Y., said military communities increasingly are targeted for attacks in the United States.

"The number of military insiders suspected of being radicalized to violent Islamist extremism is a still-classified but truly eye-popping amount of ongoing cases," King said in prepared remarks.

Last month, Army Pvt. Naser Jason Abdo was convicted of attempting to use a weapon of mass destruction and attempted murder in connection with his plan to blow up a restaurant popular with Fort Hood personnel last summer. He planned to shoot survivors who then tried to escape.

He told his mother that he had a religious obligation to act in response to American military action in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Two years earlier, Fort Hood was the site of the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil since 9/11. Army psychiatrist Nidal Hasan opened fire at a base processing center, killing 13 people and wounding 32 others. During his service before the attack, Hasan told colleagues that the United States was at war with Islam, justified suicide bombing and said his religious loyalties outweighed his oath to protect America.

The cases identified as posing serious threats include people who may be plotting attacks or who may be communicating with "dangerous individuals" who encourage the subject to attack.

Sinai, Gaza Terror Threats Escalate

Recent events have driven home to Israelis the reality of growing terror threats from Egypt's Sinai Peninsula and Hamas-ruled Gaza. The danger was on vivid display June 18, when three jihadists managed to penetrate a fence near the border between Egypt and Gaza and plant a bomb in southern Israel.

A few minutes later, they ambushed and killed Saeed Fenafshe, an Israeli Arab from Haifa doing contract work for the Defense Ministry. Fenafshe, 35, leaves behind a wife and four children.

It was just the latest terrorist strike from Sinai. Two days earlier, Sinai jihadists fired Grad rockets which landed near an Israeli military base. In August 2011, a raid near Eilat killed 8 people and wounded 30 more.

In April, three Grad rockets fired from Sinai landed in a residential construction site in Eilat. Also in April, the Israeli military intelligence director, Maj. Gen. Aviv Kochavi, said security forces had foiled 10 terrorist plots from Sinai during the previous two months.

The collapse of Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak's regime last year has helped create a large power vacuum in the Sinai. Since then, jihadists from Egypt and Gaza have joined with alienated local Bedouin who seek to improve their economic situation through cross-border smuggling. The Egyptian military has deployed only a small part of the seven additional battalions Israel agreed to temporarily permit into the peninsula.

Egyptian authorities have apparently "lost control over large parts of the Sinai, and the peninsula has become a no man's land," according to retired Israel Defense Forces (IDF) Brig. Gen. Michael Herzog, an international fellow with the Washington Institute for Near East Policy.

Herzog (whose previous posts have included stints as head of the IDF's Strategic Planning Division and chief of staff to the Minister of Defense) writes that over the past 18 months, Egyptian and Palestinian radical groups "have attacked dozens of police stations, checkpoints, and government institutions there, killing a policeman, while the Egyptian-Israeli gas pipeline in northern Sinai has been sabotaged fourteen times."

Israeli intelligence believes that most if not all of the attacks from Sinai during the past year were planned by Gaza jihadist groups using Sinai Bedouin.

For Palestinian terror groups, the Sinai provides multiple benefits, according to Herzog. These include "cover for operational infrastructure (including the test-firing of an Iranian rocket from Gaza into Sinai several months ago); a way to disguise the origin of attacks and thus lower the chances of Israeli retaliation in Gaza; and immunity against Israeli preventive and responsive measures in Sinai itself, given the treaty with Egypt."

Read more here.

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