Tag Archives: Terrorism

Seattle Student Uncovered As ISIS Recruiter

A journalism student from Seattle has been uncovered by authorities as a prominent female ISIS recruiter.

Rawdah Abdisalaam reportedly ran a twitter account called “@_UmmWaqqas” that had over 8,000 followers.  The account called on all Muslims to join the Islamic terrorist group.

“This is all I do pretty much,” one post stated, which included a photograph of Abdisalaam’s laptop–sitting on an Islamic State flag—playing Islamic lecture videos. “My aspiration is to become like A’isha Radi Allahu Anha (the wife of Mohammed) in every sense.”

“May Allah bless our Mujahideen in Dawlatul Islam,” she wrote in another Tweet. “May Allah grant them victory over their enemies and bless the Islamic State!”

Friends of Abdisalaam were shocked to discover she was working with ISIS.  They say that she has fled Seattle and could have left the country. She also reportedly had contact with Keonna Thomas, a Philadelphia woman arrested earlier this year for attempting to join ISIS.

FBI Director James Comey said that social media is a growing path for the terrorists to recruit members.

“It’s almost as if there is a devil sitting on the shoulder saying, ‘Kill, kill, kill, kill’ all day long,” he said. “[They are] recruiting and tasking at the same time. … In a way, the old paradigm between ‘inspired’ and ‘directed’ breaks down here.”

Senator Says U.S. Vulnerable To ISIS

The chairman of the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee said that the United States is “certainly vulnerable” to the Islamic terrorist group ISIS.

Senator Ron Johnson (R-WI) said those who support ISIS see them as a “winning organization” so the U.S. has no other choice but to completely defeat the group.

“The best strategy the U.S. can employ to defeat this is actually defeat ISIS in Iraq and Syria so that the reality is conveyed that this is not a winning organization, it is a losing organization,” Johnson said on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday.

Johnson cited the recent failed attack on a cartoon contest in Texas as an example of ISIS supporters seeing them as “winning” despite the attack failing in its goal.  Johnson said it’s also difficult because they can’t easily deal with those who are activity promoting ISIS.

“The problem is, what do you do with the not-guilty-yet? We do have laws, we have a Constitution, and it’s extremely difficult for law enforcement officials when you might have tens of thousands of sympathizers — how do you track them all?” Johnson asked.

Johnson said that up to 90,000 twitter accounts in the United States were promoting ISIS although Twitter has begun to delete them.

FBI Director James Comey said Thursday that the terrorists are trying to recruit “hundreds, maybe thousands” of potential terrorists in the U.S.  Former Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said the U.S. is in “more serious circumstances today than we were after 9/11.”

“Remember, back then we thought about al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and Pakistan and a few other places? Well, we’ve seen al-Qaeda metastasize,” Ridge told CNN. “It is now a global scourge. And you have the ascendancy of ISIL. The combination of those two groups — their appeal to the lone wolfs and we see them acting in Belgium and in France and in Canada and the United States, so the threat factors and the nature of the threats are far more complicated and far more serious today than on Sept. 12, 2001.”

Threat Condition Raised At Military Bases

Security conditions at U.S. military bases were raised overnight because of potential threats of a jihadist attack.

The official move from U.S. Northern Command comes hours after FBI Director James Comey said there are thousands of ISIS followers in the United States.

“We have a general concern, obviously, that ISIL is focusing on the uniformed military and law enforcement,” Comey told reporters Thursday.  “It’s like the devil sitting on their shoulders, saying ‘kill, kill, kill.”

“We have the same concern about the potential threat posed by violent homegrown extremists,” said Captain Jeff Davis, spokesman for the U.S. Northern Command which oversees all U.S. military installations in the continental U.S.

CNN reported that an official confirmed “Force Protection Bravo” status, defined as an “increased and predictable threat of terrorism.”  The last time military bases in the homeland had this condition for any significant length of time was the tenth anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

“We are doing this as a prudent measure due to a lot of things in the news lately,” Davis said. “While this change is not tied to a specific credible threat, recent events have led us to recognize the need to take prudent steps to ensure that our security measures can be increased quickly.”

FBI director Comey said the biggest problem is that these people “go dark” like Elton Simpson, one of the two terrorists who attempted the Texas Mohammed Cartoon contest attack.

“The haystack is the entire country,” Comey said. “We are looking for the needles, but increasingly the needles are unavailable to us. … This is the ‘going dark’ problem in living color. There are Elton Simpsons out there that I have not found and I cannot see.”

ISIS Warning Claims Terror Cells In 15 States

A man who clams to be an “American jihadist” says Sunday’s terror attack in Texas was the work of ISIS and that “trained soldiers” are currently positioned in 15 states and planning more attacks.

The post on a file-sharing site was signed by Abu Ibrahim Al Ameriki, a man that intelligence sources admit joined a Pakistani terrorist group several years ago.  He has been seen in propaganda videos for ISIS in the past.

“Out of the 71 trained soldiers 23 have signed up for missions like Sunday, we are increasing in number,” read the warning. “Of the 15 states, 5 we will name… Virginia, Maryland, Illinois, California, and Michigan.”

The posting appeared to claim the attack at the Draw the Prophet Muhammad contest in Texas was successful despite the fact the attackers were shot dead by security at the event before they could reach anyone actually involved in the event.

The terrorist group posted a video Tuesday night with clips of praise for the two jihadists who committed the attempted assault on the contest.

The attack in Texas seems to back up comments earlier this year from FBI head James Comey who said they had reports of radicalized Americans in 49 states.

“We are focused keenly on who would be looking to travel to join this band of murderers who will have come back from Iraq and Syria and to the United States,” Comey said in a speech to law enforcement officers in Mississippi. “We have opened cases all over the place focused on this threat, so it is not … a Washington thing – it is something we focus on throughout the FBI.”

French Government Approves New Surveillance Policies

The French parliament has passed a law that would strengthen intelligence services saying that the changes would improve their ability to fight Islamic extremists.

The law passed 438-86.  The bill was written three days after the Islamic attacks in Paris in January that left 17 people dead.  Socialist government leaders say the new bill takes into account changes in technology.

Critics of the bill say that it is an extension of mass surveillance that further increases the government’s infringement on the personal freedom of citizens.

The focus is on the government now being allowed to collect massive amounts of metadata that would detail the times and places that citizens visit during their day.  Similar to the collection of data that was exposed being done by the NSA in the USA.

Over 200 Rescued Nigerian Women Pregnant From Rape By Terrorists

Officials in Nigeria along with UN officials say that over 200 of the nearly 700 women and girls rescued from the Islamic extremist group Boko Haram have been forcibly impregnated by their captors.

“Already, many of them are undergoing screening for various diseases [and] infections, including HIV/AIDS,” UNFPA Nigeria executive director Babatunde Oshotimehin told reporters, “and about 214 of those already screened were discovered to be at various stages of pregnancies, some visibly pregnant and some just tested pregnant.”

The governor of Borno State, Kashim Shettima, had been expressing concern over the forced impregnations of the women saying he believes the terrorists are showing one way they hope to spread their extremism across the land.

“Boko Haram insurgents deliberately raped women with the intention of getting them pregnant so they would give birth to future insurgents as successors of their violent struggles, hence the need for a special programm to break the chain anticipated by the insurgents,” spokesperson Isa Gusau said on Monday, according to the Nigerian publication “The Leadership.”

“I [am] very worried about what the future holds for us if what I have gathered about these insurgents works according to their plan,” he continued. “These people (Boko Haram) have a certain spiritual conviction that any child they father will grow to inherit their ideology, whether they live with the children or not.”

The government said they will be providing all the necessary support to the women after their rescue including mental health efforts to reverse any brainwashing by the terrorists.

Officials did say they believe that none of the recovered girls were among the Chibok girls taken in 2013.

Nigeria Army Rescues 234 More Female Captives

The Nigerian Army’s successes against the Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram continued this weekend with the rescue of more captured women.

Military officials say that 234 more women and girls were taken from a Boko Haram stronghold in the Sambia Forest.  The total number of women and children rescued in the last week from the terrorists reached 527.

The girls and women are being given counseling to help them with the brainwashing attempts of the terrorists.  Some of the women actually fired on the troops, leading officials to say that after forced marriages and long captivity, some of the women have been successfully convinced they are part of the terror network.

The military was unable to say if any of the captives were part of the 200 schoolgirls taken from Chibok that led to the #BringBackOurGirls campaign.   The leader of Boko Haram had said those girls would be sold to other members of Boko Haram.

“I abducted your girls,” Shekau said in a 57-minute video earlier. “I abducted a girl at a western education school and you are disturbed. I said western education should end. Western education should end. Girls, you should go and get married. I will repeat this: western education should fold up. I abducted your girls. I will sell them in the market, by Allah. I will marry off a woman at the age of 12. I will marry off a girl at the age of nine.”

Two Islamists Dead After Attacking “Draw Muhammad” Contest

A man who had been investigated as a terrorist by the FBI and his roommate attempted to storm a “Draw Muhammad” contest near Dallas with automatic weapons but were gunned down by security before they were able to harm any civilians.

Elton Simpson had been the subject of a terrorism investigation and had been convicted five years ago of lying to federal agents about his plans to travel to Somalia.  A judge said that they couldn’t officially prove that he was attempting to join a terror group and given probation.

The gunmen had been living in Phoenix.

ISIS terrorists have been calling for an attack on the contest for more than a week.  An ISIS fighter posted on Twitter after the attack “two pro-ISIS individuals” had carried out the attack.

‘They Thought They Was Safe In Texas From The Soldiers of The Islamic State,’ added the tweet.

A security guard was hit by the terrorist’s shots but was treated and released from a local hospital.  Moments after the start of the assault, a Garland, Texas police officer shot both terrorists dead.

‘With what he was faced with and his reaction and his shooting with a pistol, he did a good job,’ Harn said of the officer.

‘He did what he was trained to do, and under the fire that he was put under, he did a very good job and probably saved lives. We think their strategy was to get into the events center and they were not able to get past that outer perimeter.’

Elton Simpson’s father released a statement saying that his son “made a bad choice.”

“We are Americans and we believe in America,” Dunston Simpson said. “What my son did reflects very badly on my family.”

German Officials Stop Boston Style Terrorist Attack

German security officials told reporters that they had stopped an Islamic terrorist plot similar to the bombings at the Boston Marathon.

A 35-year-old Turkish man and his 34-year-old wife were taken into custody near Frankfurt.  Special police forces found a bomb, firearms, ammunition and chemicals that can make explosives.

Authorities say that the man had been under surveillance as a suspected Islamic extremist.

“According to our current information we have prevented an attack,” said Stefan Mueller, the chief of police for western Hesse state.

The speculation among police is that the target was a professional cycling race scheduled for Friday.

“Of course we talked about the Boston attack last night,” said Mueller, explaining why security officials decided to go ahead with the raid. The race “is a soft target, and of course since the Boston Marathon it’s part of the security assessment for every marathon in Germany, and of course this is true for cycling races too.”

Weapons found in the home included a pipe bomb, 100 rounds of ammunition, a training rocket for an anti-tank weapon and a gallon of hydrogen peroxide along with other chemicals.  Hydrogen peroxide can create a substance called TATP which is what shoe bomber Richard Reid tried to use to blow up a trans-Atlantic flight.

“I want to emphasize that an attack was prevented, but it will have to be seen whether a concrete attack against tomorrow’s cycle race was planned,” Mueller added.

Tony Blair: Islamic Extremism a “Poison”

Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair says that Islamic extremism is a “poison” that “must be eradicated.”

Blair said the world does not understand the depth of the problem and that it might be too late by the time the world sees the true goal of the terrorists.  Blair also referenced the slaughter of Christians at the hands of the terrorists that has gone largely unanswered by the West.

“If we allow these things to continue, then in the end, the extremists will carry on believing they can get away with this,” Blair told John Catsimatidis’ “Cats Roundtable” radio show.  “We need to mobilize a huge amount of support wherever this type of terrorism and extremism is happening, to go make sure it’s defeated.”

Blair said that he doesn’t believe the extremists represent the whole of Islam but that it was created from within the religion.

“We need to make sure that young people in many of these countries who have been educated to a close-minded view of the world instead get an education toward tolerance and respect for people of different faiths,” Blair said.

Blair had warned in September 2014 that it would be unlikely that ISIS could be defeated in Syria and Iraq without deployment of ground troops.

“Unless you’re prepared to fight these people on the ground, you may contain them but you won’t defeat them,” Blair had said.