French officials have announced they will increase monitoring of cash payments and small bank accounts in an attempt to stop the funding of homegrown terrorists.
Finance Minister Michel Sapin said that after the Islamic terrorist attacks that killed 17 people it was necessary to “fight against the use of cash and anonymity in the French economy.”
“It’s a terrorism that is low cost to carry out but has major impact,” Sapin told a news conference. “This low-cost terrorism feeds on fraud, money laundering and petty trafficking.”
The biggest change is that French account holders will not be allowed to make deposits of more than 1,000 euro in cash, down from 3,000 euro. Foreign visitors had a higher cap of 15,000 euro but that will be cut to 10,000. This is done for the benefit of tourism.
The government will also require anyone trying to exchange more than 1,000 euros in cash into other currencies to show an identity card. And if more than 10,000 euros are transferred the government will be notified.
At least three gunmen stormed a museum in Tunisia Wednesday attacking tourists and leaving at least 21 people dead.
The scene at the National Bardo Museum in Tunis was described as “horrific” by witnesses. In addition to the 21 confirmed dead, at least 21 others were wounded.
Officials say that 17 tourists are among the dead.
The government took the unusual step of taking tourists to a secured location for their safety while a manhunt took place for the shooters.
Tunisia’s internor ministry said the standoff with the gunmen ended when security forces stormed the museum. The attack was from “two or more terrorists armed with Kalashinkovs.” Local radio said the terrorists were in military-style clothing.
Witnesses say that many of the tourists were Italians who were part of a cruise that had docked in Tunis for the day.
The attackers were not immediately identified but Tunisia has been dealing with attacks by various Islamic terrorist groups, including several who have pledged support for ISIS.
The Islamic terrorist group ISIS is continuing their campaign to eradicate any religious historic emblems by destroying historic Christian churches in Iraq.
The Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor says they have obtainted pictuers of terrorists using sledgehammers and other tools to destroy crosses and other Christian iconography. Statues were torn down and then smashed to pieces.
“The images show ISIS men engaged in the destruction of various Christian symbols, which ISIS perceives as being polytheistic and idolatrous,” JTTM reports.
“They don’t care what it’s called; they are just following their ideology and that means getting rid of churches and minorities. It is the Islamic State, and there’s no room for anyone else,” MEMRI Director Steven Stalinsky said, according to The Daily Mail.
The United Nations calls the actions of ISIS a “war crime.”
“This is yet another attack against the Iraqi people, reminding us that nothing is safe from the cultural cleansing under way in the country: it targets human lives, minorities, and is marked by the systematic destruction of humanity’s ancient heritage,” UNESCO’s Irina Bokova said.
A former ISIS hostage has written that ISIS build their own version of “Guantanamo” to torture Western hostages near Aleppo.
They said that “Jihadi John” staged mock executions at the facility.
Javier Espinosa, a Spanish journalist, recorded his memories in the newspaper El Mundo.
Espinosa said that the prisoners called their guards “The Beatles” and that they focused on showing the prisoners what could happen to them.
“The Beatles … loved this sort of theatre. They had me sat on the floor, barefoot, with a shaven head, a thick beard and dressed in the ‘orange’ uniform’ that had made Guantanamo, the American prison, famous,” Espinosa wrote, according to Scotsman.
“Jihadi John wanted maximum drama. He had brought along an antique sword of the kind Muslim armies used in the Middle Ages. It was a blade of almost a meter in length with a silver handle,” added Espinosa, who was kidnapped on Sept. 16, 2013 and freed on March 29, 2014.
Espinosa said that executed American James Foley told him ISIS had been planning this for a long time.
“‘They had this project for a long time. The [head guard] told us at the beginning they wanted to intern Westerners in a high-security prison with cameras and lots of guards.’ ‘They told us that we would be here for a very long time, because we were the first ones they captured,'” Foley told him.
ISIS has released a statement that they plan to “Blow up the White House, Big Ben and the Eiffel Tower.”
ISIS spokesman Abu Muhammad al-Adnani outlined the group’s plot to take over Portugal, Spain, Paris and Rome in a 30 minute broadcast. The message, aimed at the West, is called “So They Kill And Are Killed”. The title is a reference to a verse in the Koran.
“We won the day Europe and U.S. dreamt of reclaiming Tal Hamis, Mosul, Sinjar, Tikrit, Qaim, Derna, Tell Abyad, and more,” stated the ISIS mouthpiece, as transcribed by Ynet News.
“We — with Allah’s help — want Paris, before Rome and Islamic Iberia and after we blow up the White House, Big Ben, and the Eiffel Tower before Paris, and Rome,” al-Adnani warned. “The Muslims will return to power, to be the vanguard and lead in every place.”
Intelligence experts say the message is really an attempt to boost the morale among the members of ISIS after a series of big losses to Iraqi troops and U.S. airstrikes.
At least 14 people were killed when terrorists attacked their churches.
Officlals in Lahore, Pakistan said that at least 70 were wounded in the twin attacks. One church was Catholic, the other was Protestant.
Geo TV reported that police stopped one of the bombers outside the church, forcing him to detonate outside killing one officer and wounding others. The second bomber was able to enter the church and detonate in the middle of services.
“Islamist militants in Pakistan have attacked Christians and other religious minorities often over the last decade or more. Many Christians, who make up less than two percent of Pakistan’s population of more than 180 million, accuse the government of doing little to protect them, saying politicians are quick to offer condolences after an attack but slow to act to improve security,” Retuers reported.
The Pakistani Taliban, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar, claimed responsibility for the attacks and said they are planning to attack more churches.
On the heels of losing the key city of Tikrit to Iraqi forced backed by U.S. airstrikes, intelligence experts say that ISIS is suffering from infighting that is causing overall weakening in the ranks.
“The key challenge facing ISIS right now is more internal than external,” The Washington Post quotes Lina Khatib, director of the Carnegie Middle East Center in Beirut, as saying. “We’re seeing basically a failure of the central tenet of ISIS ideology, which is to unify people of different origins under the caliphate. This is not working on the ground. It is making them less effective in governing and less effective in military operations.”
One of the problems is that ISIS recruits in Iraq feel that preferential treatment is being given to the ISIS recruits in Syria. Also the living conditions of ISIS recruits in rural areas are considered to be much less favorable than those in urban centers.
Also, the group has executed 120 of its own members for various perceived failures in loyalty, which has caused dissention among the ranks.
ISIS was driven out of Tikrit by a force of 30,000 Iraqi troops and militia which has also delivered a blow to the morale of the terrorist army.
Assyrian Christians kidnapped by the terrorist group ISIS have been ordered to convert to Islam but all of them have rejected the order.
The news of the refusal was given by an Assyrian Christian who was released by the terrorist group on March 1.
The man, calling himself “Robert”, told the Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) that all the Christian residents of his town had been gathered by the terrorists and placed into a small room until the terrorists drove Kurdish forces from the town. At that point, they were taken to a location on Abdul Aziz Mountain.
“They asked us to convert to Islam. … Yes, that was their [first] idea that we should convert to Islam,” Robert said. “Many bearded people spoke to us, and everyone asked us to convert to Islam.”
“They kept pressuring us to convert to Islam. It was their constant focus. But we were not mistreated.” Robert continued. “We said we would not convert. They said you must then pay the jizya [a Christian poll tax] or leave the country. That was the option given to us. We said we would pay the jizya but we would not convert.”
Robert said that the terrorists provided them with all the basic necessities: food, water, bathing facilities.
Another released prisoner named “Peter” said they were tried in a Sharia court but ruled to be non-combatants.
The head of the FBI is stating that ISIS has sympathizers in all 50 states.
“We have investigations of people in various stages of radicalizing in all 50 states,” James Comey told a recent meeting of the National Association of Attorneys General (NAAG). “This isn’t a New York phenomenon or a Washington phenomenon. This is all 50 states and in ways that are very hard to see…”
“[I]t’s highly unlikely that it’s going to be a federal agent to first see or hear about someone acting in strange ways on social media, or acting in a strange way in a religious institution or educational institution, or in the community. It’s going to be a deputy sheriff; it’s going to be a police officer who knows that neighborhood,” he continued. “The Joint Terrorism Task Forces that we have set up all across this country are in some ways more important today than they were at 911 because of the nature of this threat.”
Comey went on to say that ISIS has been using a sophisticated social media campaign to try and pull disenfranchised youth into their web. He said that in their own twisted way, the terrorists are able to convince the youth there is a purpose in defending the terrorists supposed “state”.
“Those people exist in every state” the FBI director reiterated. “I have homegrown violent extremist investigations in every single state. Until a few weeks ago there was 49 states. Alaska had none, which I couldn’t quite figure out. But Alaska has now joined the group, so we have investigations of people in various stages of radicalizing in all 50 states.”
Long rumored to be happening, the Nigerian Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram has pledged their allegiance to ISIS and is calling on Muslims around the world to do the same.
“We announce our allegiance to the Caliph of the Muslims … and will hear and obey in times of difficulty and prosperity, in hardship and ease, and to endure being discriminated against, and not to dispute about rule with those in power, except in case of evident infidelity regarding that which there is a proof from Allah,” leader Abubakar Shekau said in an audio recording posted to Twitter on Saturday. “We call upon Muslims everywhere to pledge allegiance to the Caliph.”
Boko Haram, which has been attempting to form their own caliphate since 2009, has been releasing videos stating that Islam is commanded to take over the world and that they would not stop until every Christian in the world was killed.
“Boko Haram joining the ISIS fold makes sense to both groups,” Jacob Zenn with the Jamestown Foundation told CNN. “Boko Haram will get legitimacy, which will help its recruiting, funding and logistics as it expands into (French-speaking) West Africa. It will also get guidance from ISIS in media warfare and propaganda. Previously Boko Haram was a sort of outcast in the global Jihadi community. Now it is perhaps ISIS’s biggest affiliate.”
The announcement by Boko Haram marks the 31st terrorist group to pledge allegiance to ISIS.
