Treasury Gets Innovative Targeting Hizballah Money

Hizballah may have lost the ability to move tens of millions of dollars tied to international money laundering and drug trafficking after U.S. Treasury officials acted against two Lebanese based money exchange operations. Each handled money from a drug network led by Ayman Joumaa.

When Joumaa was indicted in late 2011, Treasury officials also moved against the Lebanese Central Bank, which allegedly was moving as much as $200 million a month for Joumaa. The Halawi Exchange and Remeiti & Co. helped fill that void, a Treasury statement Tuesday said . The action marks the first time the Treasury Department used a provision in the Patriot Act to go after an informal financial operation.

Officials say Hizballah takes profits from drug sale and mixes the money with proceeds from West African used car sales. It all goes into the money exchanges, then the money is sent to the United States for other business, before making its way back to Africa and Lebanon.

"Hizballah is operating like a major drug cartel, and we're going to actively investigate them as such with all our law enforcement partners acting as one team," Drug Enforcement Administration Special Operations Special Agent Derek Maltz told reporters Tuesday. "This is another of many clear links between global drug trafficking and terrorism. Drugs and terrorism coexist across the globe in a marriage of mutual convenience. As state-sponsored terrorism has declined, these dangerous organizations have looked far and wide for resources and revenue to recruit, to corrupt, to train, and to strengthen their regime."

Hizballah increasingly has turned to criminal enterprises for money because Iran cannot provide the same financial support it used to, said David Cohen, Treasury's Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence. The money funds global terror operations, he said, referring to a suspected Hizballah bombing of Israeli tourists in Bulgaria last summer, and its ongoing support for Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad's crumbling regime.

Hizballah "has long sought access to the international financial system in order to move its terrorist funds and to launder the profits from its involvement in illegal activity," Cohen said. "Make no mistake, [Hizballah] is both a full-fledged terrorist organization, lavishly funded over the years by Iran, and an enterprise that increasingly turns to crime to finance itself as the economic pressure on Iran mounts and Iran's financial situation becomes more tenuous."

The Treasury action requires American banks to report any new transactions by Remeiti and Halawi for the next 120 days. The department hopes to make that reporting requirement permanent.

Wolf Legislation Brings Back 9/11 Commission

An amendment to the FBI's appropriations bill signed into law by President Obama may bring back the 9/11 Commission to assess how its recommendations have been implemented since they were issued in 2004.

"We should not miss an opportunity to look at everything and look at anything inappropriate that we may have done differently in the past that we may have to do differently," amendment sponsor U.S. Rep. Frank Wolf, R-Va., told the Investigative Project on Terrorism. "We need to bring people who have a history of dealing with things like this and bring them in front of the Congress."

"They would look at everything," Wolf said. "What is the radicalization issue? What were some of the recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission? How have they all been carried out? Is there anything based on new technology or whatever that we should be doing different to look at everything?"

He hopes the review also will examine the problems leading up to last week's Boston Marathon bombing.

Much has changed since the recommendations were made and al-Qaida has adapted, shifting toward using lone-wolf terrorists to attack America. It has also uses Internet tools such as al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula's Inspire magazine for recruiting.

With accused Boston Marathon bomber Dzhokhar Tsarnaev telling FBI investigators that he and his brother were radicalized online and that they found the design for their bombs in Inspire, the deficiency of traditional counter-terrorism approaches becomes apparent.

Homegrown terrorists such as the Tsarnaev brothers, Fort Hood shooter Nidal Hasan and Sgt. Jason Naser Abdo show the threat is more difficult to intercept.

"You don't get the chatter that you normally would if it was al-Qaida," Wolf said. "Some are impacted by abroad and some are impacted by just reading the magazine that's online.

Many questions remain about Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and their ability to carry out the Boston attack without the FBI and other government agencies detecting them.

Among those is the FBI's handling of a January 2011 inquiry triggered by contact from Russia's Federal Security Bureau (FSB) about Tamerlan's Islamic extremism.

The fact that the FBI didn't learn about Tamerlan's travel to Russia despite knowledge within the Department of Homeland Security underscores some of the problems that have remained unsolved since the 9/11 Commission issued its report.

A Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee report on the terrorism watch list from last July found that the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) lacked access to all intelligence databases despite the 9/11 Commission's desire to break down the walls between various agencies.

Wolf blames a comprehensive political correctness that he says has consumed all aspects of the Obama administration. Involving the American Muslim community in finding the extremists before they strike is an important part of preventing future attacks, he said, but the message emanating from come Muslim groups hinders that, he said. "[Muslims] should be out there speaking out on this, but if you recall you had CAIR (Council on American Islamic Relations) urging … young Somalians in the Minneapolis area and their families with this line of not to participate and not deal with the FBI."

Wolf has long been a critic of CAIR's effort to blind the FBI, DHS and other national security agencies in their quest to catch homegrown Islamic extremists before they turn to terror.

In a 2009 floor speech, he took CAIR Executive Director Nihad Awad to task for his stated support for Hamas in a 1994 speech at Berry University and nailed CAIR officials for giving aid and comfort to such international terrorist groups.

His amendment would ensure the FBI's policy about limiting contacts with CAIR continues. "They have been more of a hindrance than a help," Wolf said.

Boston Bomber Database Error Underscores Terrorism Watch List Weaknesses

A clerical error thwarted the FBI from discovering that now-deceased Boston bombing suspect Tamerlan Tsarnaev had traveled to Russian last year for six months. It underscores broader problems that have persisted in federal counterterrorism databases since 9/11.

Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News Sunday night that the assistant director of the FBI had told him that Tsarnaev's name had been misspelled in the system.

"He went over to Russia but apparently when he got on the airplane, they misspelled his name, so it never went into the system that he actually went to Russia," Graham said.

Tsarnaev arrived in the Russian republic of Dagestan around February 2012, but the details of his six-month trip remain sketchy. It isn't known who he met with, but the al-Qaida-aligned Caucasus Emirate terrorist group denied Sunday that it had anything to do with the Boston bombing.

The FBI interviewed Tsarnaev in January 2011 but found no indication he was a threat despite having been warned about him by Russia's internal security agency, the FSB.

Questions lingering from the FBI interview were enough to hold up Tsarnaev's naturalization application last year.

The terrorism watch list has been hampered by an inability to do keyword searches and by a cumbersome indexing system, among other issues.

"Meanwhile, tens of thousands of 'potentially vital' messages from the Central Intelligence Agency have not been included in the database, known as the Terrorist Identities Datamart Environment, or TIDE, congressional investigators found," the Wall Street Journal reported in 2008.

A Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee report issued last July found that the National Counterterrorism Center's (NCTC) computer systems were "substandard" and lacked access to all intelligence agency databases.

Problems with misspellings are nothing new, as shown by a 2006 GAO report. "Misidentifications most commonly occur with names that are identical or similar to names on the watch list," the report said.

A 2008 New York Times editorial opined that the $500 million software behind the terrorism watch list could not recognize slight misspellings of suspects' names.

Two Arrested in al-Qaida-Tied Canadian Rail Plot

Canadian authorities say they have two men in custody for plotting to attack a commuter rail line in Toronto.

Toronto resident Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser of Montreal allegedly were aided by al-Qaida elements in Iran, Canada's National Post reports. Officials did not release many details, including what explosives would be used in the attack, or where the suspects – who are not Canadian citizens – came from.

"Had this plot been carried out, it would have resulted in innocent people being killed or seriously injured," Royal Canadian Mounted Police official James Malidza told reporters. The men received "direction and guidance" from al-Qaida sources in Iran.

"This is the first known al-Qaida planned attack that we've experienced in Canada," said RCMP Supt. Doug Best.

The rail line targeted is believed to travel between New York and Toronto. More details could emerge when the suspects appear in court Tuesday. Law enforcement had been watching the suspects for more than a year, the CBC reports. The men had the ability to carry out the attack, but authorities moved in before there was an imminent threat to public safety, Malidza said.

"Project Smooth" began last August. It included the RCMP, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service and, in America, the FBI and Department of Homeland Security, an RCMP statement said.

Surviving Boston Bombing Suspect Charged with Using WMD

Dzhokhar A. Tsarnaev, the 19-year-old surviving suspect in last week's deadly Boston Marathon bombings, was charged in a criminal complaint unsealed Monday with using a weapon of mass destruction against persons and property in the United States. The charges were announced by Attorney General Eric Holder in a Justice Department press release.

"Although our investigation is ongoing, today's charges bring a successful end to a tragic week for the city of Boston, and for our country," Holder said.

The April 15 bombings that took place close to the Marathon's finish line in quick succession of each other killed three people and injured more than 200. Tsarnaev was captured Friday evening, several hours after a dramatic shootout with police that resulted in the death of his older brother, 26-year-old Tamerlan Tsarnaev, the other accused in the bombings.

A federal magistrate visited Dzhokhar Tsarnaev in his hospital room Monday to hold a preliminary hearing. Tsarnaev may face additional charges in a subsequent indictment.

An affidavit in support of the complaint provided detailed the suspects' movements before the explosions based on video footage captured by security cameras. The videos also showed the men placing bombs hidden in knapsacks at the bombing site.

The affidavit said that the suspects tried to escape from the city on April 18 soon after the FBI published video and pictures of them. Close to midnight, the Tsarnaevs carjacked a vehicle at gunpoint in Cambridge, Mass. They demanded money from the victim and used his ATM card to withdraw money before driving to a gas station/convenience store. The victim managed to escape when the men got out of the car.

A short time later, law enforcement officers located the stolen car and pursued the men who threw out two small improvised explosive devices (IEDs) at them. The violent shootout ended with Tamerlan dead. A police officer was killed and another critically wounded in the standoff.

Dzhokhar managed to escape and the car was later founded abandoned with several unexploded IEDs inside it. Dzhokhar was discovered several hours later in a covered boat with severe gunshot wounds on his body and neck. He is in serious but stable condition.

Tsarnaev faces the death penalty if convicted. He will "not be treated as an enemy combatant," White House spokesman Jay Carney told reporters Monday. "We will prosecute this terrorist through our civilian system of justice. Under U.S. law, United States citizens cannot be tried in military commissions," Carney said.

Read the complaint here.

Apology Does Little to Stem Erdoğan's Hostility

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's surprising apology last month for "operational mistakes" in the 2010 raid on the Mavi Marmara was supposed to launch a new era of improved relations between Israel and Turkey.

"I am hopeful that today's exchange between the two leaders will enable them to engage in deeper cooperation on this and a range of other challenges and opportunities," President Obama said at the time.

But since the apology, Turkey's Islamist Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his government have:

• Announced his intention to visit the Hamas government in Gaza in May despite American opposition. "Our position is that engagement with Hamas is counterproductive, and we don't think it should continue," State Department spokesman Patrick Ventrell said Monday.

• Become the "first state with an ambassador recognized by Palestine."

• Helped derail a planned meeting of NATO's Mediterranean Dialogue group which would have included Israel.

• Chastised Israel's efforts to negotiate compensation for nine people killed on the Mavi Marmara. "Israel should perfectly know that this is not a process of bargaining. Compensation talks should not be turned into horse trading or dirty bargaining," an unnamed official said.

• Vowed not to return an envoy to Israel until after Israel's naval blockade on Gaza is lifted.

Erdoğan's position emboldens the group least interested in a peaceful future. Subsequent investigations showed that passengers on the Mavi Marmara wanted to instigate a violent confrontation with Israeli troops and that the ship ignored numerous warnings to turn away. They wanted to break Israel's blockade on Gaza, which was imposed to try to slow weapons smuggling to Hamas terrorists. Despite Erdoğan's anger, the United Nations determined the blockade is legitimate and legal.

Rather than build on a diplomatic opening, Erdoğan seems intent on maintaining tension rather than building on a chance for warmer relations. As Daniel Pipes wrote in March:

"Perhaps after all the apology was a good thing. For a relatively inexpensive price – some words – Israelis and others have gained a better insight into the Turkish leadership's mentality. It's not that they suffer from hurt pride but that they are Islamist ideologues with an ambitious agenda. If the misguided apology makes this evident to more observers, it has its compensations and possibly could turn out to be a net plus."

NJ Men Get Lengthy Prison Sentences in al-Shabaab Conspiracy

Two New Jersey will serve more than 20 years in prison for conspiring to join the al-Qaida linked Somali terrorist group al-Shabaab.

Mohamed Alessa and Carlos Almonte pleaded guilty to conspiring to murder individuals overseas on behalf of al-Shabaab. They were arrested and charged in June 2010 while attempting to board separate international flights from New York's JFK International Airport.

The investigation began in 2006 following a tip from an acquaintance regarding the men's activities. An undercover New York police officer subsequently befriended the men and recorded their conversations. The undercover agent reported the men listened to radical sermons, watched jihadi videos, and planned to travel abroad to engage in violent jihad.

In a January 2010 conversation with the undercover officer, the men discussed U.S. troops deployed overseas returning home "in caskets" and "sliced up in 1,000 pieces cozy in the grace, in hell."

They also discussed carrying out jihad in America if their attempts to wage jihad overseas failed. "We'll start doing killing here, if I can't do it over there," the complaint quoted Alessa saying. Alessa also confided to the undercover officer: "I leave this time, God willing. I never come back. I'll never see this crap hole. Only way I would come back here is if I was in the land of jihad and the leader ordered me to come here and do something here. Ah, I love that."

During a car ride with the undercover, Almonte played a recording on his mobile phone of a sermon by now-deceased Yemeni al-Qaida cleric Anwar al-Awlaki titled "Constants on the Path of Jihad." The American-born Awlaki spoke in support of lone-wolf jihad where "an individual need not rely on others or have a leader in order to wage violent jihad."

Agents found documents by senior al-Qaida leaders, including Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri on Almonte's computer.

"Alessa and Almonte wanted to join terrorists who shared their violent, extremist ideology so they could murder those who did not," New Jersey U.S. Attorney Paul J. Fishman said in a Justice Department press release. "We need not speculate about their intentions: their own words confirm the deadly mission for which they trained, planned, and attempted to embark. Their decades-long sentences are both a just punishment for their admitted actions and a warning to others who would be tempted down this dead-end path."

Boston Marathon Bomb Probe Focusing on Pressure Cookers

At least one of the two improvised explosive devices loaded with shrapnel at Monday's Boston Marathon was packed into a pressure cooker, CBS and Fox news each reported Tuesday.

Investigators found "shredded pieces of pressure cookers" in the bomb debris, Fox reported, adding that a source said it was hidden inside a black backpack placed in a garbage can. The FBI is hoping to identify the cellular telephone which may have been used to trigger the bomb.

If the reports prove to be true, they could tie the attack to Islamist terrorists. Pressure cooker bombs are among the suggestions for terrorist attacks offered by al-Qaida's Inspire magazine. An article entitled "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom" is strikingly similar to what is known about Monday's attack that killed three people and injured more than 130 others gathered near the marathon's finish line.

Pressure cooker bombs should be "placed in crowded areas and left to blow up. More than one of these could be planted to explode at the same time. However, keep in mind that the range of the shrapnel in this operation is short range so the pressurized cooker or pipe should be placed close to the intended targets and should not be concealed from them by barriers such as walls."

A 2010 release from the Department of Homeland Security said pressure cookers "frequently have been used in Afghanistan, India, Nepal, and Pakistan. Pressure cookers are common in these countries, and their presence probably would not seem out of place or suspicious to passersby or authorities."

At least two previous terror plots in America included pressure cookers. One of the explosives Faisal Shahzad left in Times Square was a loaded pressure cooker, the DHS release said. And in 2011, Army Pvt. Jason Naser Abdo told investigators he planned to pack gun powder and shrapnel into pressure cookers as part of an attack on a restaurant popular with personnel from Fort Hood. When he was arrested, Abdo had a copy of Inspire magazine and explosive supplies and two pressure cookers.

Bangladeshi Leader Snubs Demands for New Blasphemy Law

In the latest standoff between Bangladesh's secular government and largely Islamist opposition, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina turned down demands for a new blasphemy law seeking to punish those who defame Islam and the Muslim prophet Mohammad.

"They have demanded it. Actually, we don't have any plan to [bring in the law]. We don't need it. They should know that existing laws are enough," Hasina told the BBC.

Bangladesh "is a secular democracy," she said. "So each and every religion has the right to practice their religion freely and fair. But it is not fair to hurt anybody's religious feeling. Always we try to protect every religious sentiment."

Hundreds of protestors led by the Islamist Hefajat-e-Islam group took to the streets last weekend in what was widely reported as "the long march." The demonstrators had a list of 13 demands that included a call for execution of "atheist" bloggers accused of insulting Islamic beliefs. The government arrested four bloggers last week on charges of defaming Islam.

Despite her stand against any new blasphemy law, Hasina defended the arrests based on existing law. "If anybody tried to hurt any sentiments of any religion or any religious leader … we can take any action," she told the BBC.

The Hefajat-e-Islam is an offshoot of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), an Islamist party that seeks to impose Sharia law in Bangladesh.

The protests are seen as a reprisal against the recent death sentence against Islamists accused in the mass killings and other war crimes committed during the 1971 war of independence from Pakistan. It has also been alleged that bloggers critical of opposition Islamist leaders are being targeted.

Arif Jebtik, a high-profile blogger, claimed he was framed by Islamists who allegedly published an anti-Islamic piece under his name. "It was published under my name and with my account. The blog is anti-Islamic and insults the Prophet Mohammad. I fear the blog was posted to frame and criminalize me and also give the Islamists a reason to attack me."

Jihad is Cool: Jihadist Magazines Recruit Young Terrorists

Jihad recruitment has evolved into using a mainstream format, it is now cool. Print and online magazines provide practical detailed instruction on how to commit terrorist acts. The latest offering, Lone Mujahid Pocketbook, Spring 2013, is published courtesy of al-Qaida in the Arabian Peninsula's Inspire magazine, and is available on multiple websites.

It bills itself as "A Step to (sic) Step Guide on How to Become a Successful Lone Mujahid" and already has enthusiasts. Using hip, modern language conventions and rap lingo, the cover asks "R U dreamin' of wagin' jihadi attacks against kuffar? … Well, there's no need to travel abroad, coz the frontline has come to you. Wanna know how? Just read 'n' apply the contents of this guide which has practical 'n' creative ways to please Allah by killing his enemies 'n' healing the believers' chests." Creepily akin to a teen magazine, the Pocketbook specifically targets prospective American jihadis with tips, tactics and incitements to carry out terror attacks.

It offers Inspire's glossy, high quality graphics and a professional finish to pages methodically detailing the types of bombs; the best locations for attacks and other ways to generally reap mayhem. Using everyday supplies such as sugar, motor oil or pressure cookers, readers are enthusiastically encouraged to wage jihad in their communities. Many of the features are repeats from Inspire's first 10 issues.

For example, "Make a Bomb in the Kitchen of Your Mom" and the "Ultimate Mowing Machine" offer simple, do-it-yourself advice to "cause chaos and terror among the public."

Mixing religious devotion with a desire to be cool in the MTV generation, the magazine offers an attractive picture for jihadi wannabes, perhaps inspired by the mass popular appeal of rapping gang-bangers who make gun violence "cool." Jihad has never been easier.

A chart of Inspire themes and content can be seen here.

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