Information Lacking Resolve Is Useless

Anis Amri

The terrorist attack in Berlin by radical Islamist Anis Amri is flooding media outlets with continued questions about what authorities knew and when they knew it.
Amri was on German security radar, and his asylum claim was rejected over concerns he was radicalized, but somehow he managed to stay free and make a video pledging allegiance to ISIS before he crashed a truck into a Berlin Christmas market, killing at least 12 and injuring many more.               The search for answers to prevent it from happening again requires solid data from reliable sources. We are consumed with obtaining the facts. As the layers of this case are peeled back and the process of drilling down on the facts of Amri's life occurs, we find more and more of what was already known, and we ask, did authorities miss something?
Anis Amri was an illegal immigrant from Italy, originally from Tunisia. He was disenfranchised and isolated from his family. He had a prior propensity to violent behavior, with prior arrests for assault. He had a history of petty criminal behavior and spent time in prison. He was radicalized while incarcerated. He was previously known to Counter Terrorism authorities and was on a watch list. His method of attack has been sanctioned and encouraged by ISIS.

We've heard these descriptions before. The Charlie Hebdo terrorist attack, the Paris/Brussels attacks, the Toulouse shootings in France, the Orlando nightclub attack, the Chelsea bombing, unfortunately the list goes on. The vast majority of the most recent vicious attacks carried out in the name of Islam against society share some of the same indicators. If the information was there, then what went wrong?
We live in a time that has been dubbed the information age, where enormous amounts of data flow freely over the internet and other media outlets. And yet I'm reminded of a line from a 1965 Rolling Stones' song: Satisfaction - "And the man comes on the radio, He's tellin' me more and more, About some useless information"                                                                                                         What exactly is useless information ?   Read the answer in IPT News...

Funding Terrorism - The Buck Stops Here

Funding Hamas is a Crime

"Follow the money" – that fundamental rule for investigating organized crime – also holds true for uncovering terrorist organizations. But if the search leads to your own doorstep, immediate and decisive action must be taken.
This may be the case for the U.S. government in light of recent statements by Mahmoud Abbas, the current president of the Palestinian Authority. The 81-year-old Abbas, who has been president since 2005, is calling for unifying the Fatah party government with Hamas, which controls the Gaza Strip. President Bill Clinton's executive order first labeled Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization in 1995.
Hamas was included among terrorist groups whose "grave acts of violence ... disrupt the Middle East peace process [and] constitute an unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security, foreign policy, and economy of the United States."
The State Department followed that up by labeling Hamas as a foreign terrorist organization in 1997. Those actions make it prohibited by law for any U.S. citizen to provide material support, including currency, to the organization. That means that if you or I gave a dollar to them or their pseudo charities, we can go to prison.
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France's De-Radicalization Program Deemed a Failure

The latest attempt by Western democracies to deal with the ever-growing threat of Islamic radicalization in the prison system has been deemed an utter failure. French officials announced Tuesday that they would no longer isolate inmates with jihadists tendencies from other inmates, or offer therapeutic services or specialized counseling aimed at de-radicalizing Islamic terrorists already in prison.
They found that the program actually increased the threat of radicalizing inmates into terrorists rather than diminishing it.

Following a series of terrorist attacks in France, counterterrorism investigators found that a large number of the jihadists had previously spent time in prison for petty crimes. It was there, in the fertile soil of prison, where they were influenced by the radical Islamic teachings of incarcerated members of groups like al-Qaida, the GIA (Armed Islamic Group of Algeria) and ISIS.

In announcing the suspension of the program Justice Minister Jean Jacques Urvoas admitted the failure: "I don't use the term de-radicalization. I don't think we can invent a vaccine against this temptation" (Islamism).

France has produced more soldiers for ISIS than any other Western country.

But France is not the only country that has attempted to come up with an program to prevent Islamic radicalization in prison and help rehabilitate those terrorists who have been successfully prosecuted and sent to prison.
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Milking the System - Jihadists On The Dole

The social safety net was designed to give those in need a helping hand and not to give potential terrorists a hand out.

Milking the system for all they can get now appears to be a strategy employed by radical Islamic extremists. While counter terrorism investigators were busy searching for the funding terrorist organizations used to plan attacks and get out their message of violence against all non-believers, there is one place nobody thought to look: the social welfare line.
We now know that some of the individuals involved in the terror attacks in Paris and Brussels were supported by benefits supplied by Europe's social welfare net.

Some of the money came from unemployment claims and some came from student assistance claims submitted by the terrorists while they were planning the attacks.

"We've identified that the benefit system is vulnerable to abuse for terrorist financing purposes," Tom Keatinge, director of the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London said. And then he posed the question, "What are we going to do about that?"

One of those who received benefits was Anjem Choudary, the radical Islamic preacher who for more than 20 years proselytized and recruited people to a radical form of Islam that encourages jihad as a necessary tenet of the faith. He did it on street corners, mosques, and in front of television cameras.

Choudary received more than £25,000, or roughly $40,000 a year, in social benefits. He had the audacity to call those payments "Jihad Seeker's Allowance." He described it to his flock of potential jihadists as a form of jizya.

According to the Quran and the Hadiths, the jizya is a per capita yearly tax historically levied by Islamic states on certain non-Muslim subjects permanently residing in Muslim lands under Islamic law. Choudary taught that milking the social welfare system was another form of collecting the payment that was owed to Muslims.

Imam Bengharsa

A similar case is taking place right here in the United States. Suleiman Anwar Bengharsa has been an Islamic cleric in the Baltimore area for more than 10 years. During that time he has drawn FBI attention for his fiery sermons, which, like Choudary's, walk right up to the legal line of incitement. But it has yet to be proven that he crossed it.

Bengharsa founded the Islamic Jurisprudence Center, which calls for the death of homosexuals. He has also been implicated in the case of Sebastian Gregerson, a Muslim convert who was arrested in July for possessing explosive devices. According to the New York Times, an FBI affidavit from last year that was mistakenly filed publicly said that Bengharsa gave Gregerson $1,300 in June 2015. Gregerson, who also goes by the name Abdurrahaman Bin Mikaayl, then used the money to buy grenades and other weapons.

The reason for them, according to the agent who wrote the affidavit was clear: "Based on the totality of the aforementioned information and evidence, there is reason to believe that Bengharsa and Gregerson are engaged in discussions and preparations for some violent act on behalf of the Islamic State."

And yet Bengharsa, like Choudary did for so many years, has avoided being charged with any crime.
Bengharsa resigned in 2006 after admitting to plagiarism, records show. He filed for unemployment compensation, which was contested by the Department of Commerce and upheld by a D.C. administrative judge. From there Bengharsa applied to the Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services to be a prison chaplain. He worked in the state prison system until 2009 when he filed for worker's compensation, alleging he was hurt lifting a box of books.

The more alarming fact is that someone like Bengharsa, who holds radical Islamic views and preaches a message of hate, was even considered to work in the prison environment.
Authorities have known for quite some time that prisons are fertile soil for recruiting potential Islamic terrorists, and that one of the catalysts in the radicalization process is the presence of clergy or religious volunteers holding extremist views. Bengharsa's dismissal from that sensitive position should have occurred before he was able to apply for a financial benefit from Maryland taxpayers. The social safety net was designed to help those in our society who truly need a hand up. Not a radical Islamist who wants a handout.
article published in IPT News...

A Case of Junk Justice: Light Sentence for Convicted Terrorist

Anjem Choudary

Law enforcement and counter terrorism experts in the United States and around the world are shaking their heads in collective disbelief after convicted Islamic terrorist Anjem Choudary's sentencing in London's Old Bailey courthouse last week.  
Choudary received a mere 5½ years in prison after being convicted of supporting the terrorist organization ISIS.
After calculating for good behavior, his actual time spent behind bars will probably be less than 30 months. Career criminals would call that a "skid bid" and say they could do that amount of time "standing on their heads."

British officials have stated that Choudary will be isolated from other inmates and held within a special "extremist wing" which will prevent him from radicalizing. 

                          Even the criminals know it's a joke.

The light sentence was imposed by Timothy Holroyde, a judge of the High Court of Justice of England, while describing the defendant as a "dangerous man."

What exactly did Choudary do? Well, for more than 20 years he preached, proselytized, and recruited people to a radical form of Islam that encourages jihad as a necessary tenet of the faith. He has done it on street corners, mosques, and in front of television cameras.

Sly like a fox, he avoided prosecution in the past because no direct contact between him and a terrorist organization could be proven. But then British authorities uncovered a video of Choudary pledging allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al Baghdadi. This is an organization that is responsible for such heinous acts as beheadings, drownings in cages, immolations, and throwing gay people off the roofs of buildings.

Pledging allegiance to the leader of this group of radical Islamic terrorists is not like joining the Rotary Club: it is more akin to taking an induction oath into the armed forces. He's now a soldier in the fight.
Read more @ IPT News...