Tuesday, December 18, 2018

The Strasbourg Terror Attack: Only The Names Have Changed


"Ladies and gentlemen, the story you are about to hear is true. Only the names have been changed to protect the innocent." That was the opening line for the well-known TV and radio show "Dragnet," which told the story of criminals and law enforcement authorities' efforts to stop them.                                                                                                  The abbreviated version of that slogan, "Only the names have been changed" may well be applied to the latest terror attack that occurred in Strasbourg, France. A gunman identified as Cherif Chekatt shouting "Allahu Akbar" opened fire last Tuesday on a crowd enjoying the annual Christmas Market, snuffing out the lives of five innocent people and wounding 13 others. ISIS has claimed credit for the heinous attack.                                                              A close examination of the incident and the perpetrator reveals an all too familiar pattern.                                                                   

Cherif Chekatt, a French Moroccan, had 
1. an extensive criminal history
2. was radicalized in prison
3. known to authorities
4. on a terrorist watch list.              

We have heard that description too many times in recent years to not feel both frustration and anger.         
Read complete article...                      

Friday, November 16, 2018

CAIR Continues Building Its "Wall of Resistance" Against Law Enforcement

The Council on American Islamic Relations (CAIR)  claims to want to work with law enforcement agencies to "protect our nation," but recent actions by its San Francisco chapter reveal that the policy to "Build a Wall of Resistance" continues to be its driving force.  CAIR believes that the Department of Homeland Security's Countering Violent Extremism program unfairly targets Muslims and that law enforcement only uses the CVE programs to spy on the Muslim community. They also believes that all DHS CVE funding is "tainted" because it comes from the Trump administration, even though the Obama administration started the program.  Their most recent opposition was directed at the Alameda County Sheriff's Office for initiating a program that would work with community organizations to  "assist those individuals most susceptible to violent extremism." In other words, they wanted to help inmates avoid radicalizing influences from extremist groups seeking new members. The program would also address the issue of recidivism.
Read More...

Friday, October 19, 2018

TERRORISTS IN PRISON REMAIN ACTIVE

Mohammed Achraf a 44 yr old Moroccan in prison for terror attacks is the leader of a jihadi recruitment cell operating in the Spanish prison system. This is not the first time he's accomplished this. Authorities ask, what is the attraction that draws common criminals to radical Islamic ideology?    Read More in IPT News...

Tuesday, September 18, 2018

House Passes the Tracer Act

A bill that passed the U.S. House on September 12th of this year would create a vital tool to help the United States track dozens of convicted terrorists whose prison terms are nearing completion. The Terrorist Release Announcements to Counter Extremist Recidivism Act (TRACER) would direct the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) to inform state and local authorities about anticipated release dates and the locations where the terrorists would live post-release. "TRACER would actually do the same thing [as a sex offender registry] and be providing notification that someone has been released," said According to House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas.   
The bill passed on a voice vote which may indicate strong bipartisan support.  However it has not been without its naysayers. Karen Greenberg, director of Fordham University's Center on National Security, demonstrated her naïveté when she said, "I do not distinguish them [terrorists] as any more dangerous than other people who might have been apprehended before they committed a crime or people who were convicted of committing a crime."                                         To think that an individual who indiscriminately mows down innocent pedestrians on a New York City walkway or who travels overseas to join a terrorist organization and fight against U.S. coalition forces is no more a threat to society than a third rate burglar or confidence artist is, in a word, absurd. Thankfully, House members did not agree. A companion bill in the Senate is awaiting action in the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs. The very real threat of recidivism by a released terrorist or a prison-radicalized parolee must be dealt with effectively and the Tracer Act is a step in the right direction. 
Read the complete article...                         

Friday, September 14, 2018

Common Criminal or Enemy Combatant


When a person attempts to join, or declares allegiance to an international terrorist organization that has declared war on the United States and Western democracies, are they a common criminal or do they become enemy combatants? Should they be isolated from other inmate, housed in a maximum security prison, treated humanely, not tortured or abused, but not released until the hostilities are over or the enemy has surrendered?                             In the case of Ali Saleh, who was arrested in 2015 for providing material support for a terrorist organization it would seem the war has not ended.  He told authorities,
"I am ready to die for the Caliphate, prison is nothing."           

 His words were not the idle braggadocio of a wayward youth. Less than two weeks before his guilty plea, Saleh plunged a shank into a correction officer at the Brooklyn Metropolitan Detention Center, reportedly smiling as he did, telling the wounded officer, "I hope you die."                       

For Islamic Terrorists Jihad Doesn't End When Jailed            Read more in IPT News...

Friday, August 3, 2018

Returning ISIS Fighters Present a Challenge to Authorities

As the United States and its coalition partners continue to squeeze ISIS out of its remaining territory in Iraq and Syria, more and more foreign fighters are returning to their home countries. This migration from the battlefield to the hometown is causing great concern among Western counterterrorism authorities. The question on everyone's mind is how long before the returning jihadists unleash an attack on their own countries.  A new study recommends immediate intervention for returning foreign jihadis to prevent them from attacking at home. The same programs are needed for a growing list of jihadis who are about to complete prison terms and be released.
Read More in IPT News...

Wednesday, June 6, 2018

Another Terrorist Sues the Bureau of Prison for "Rights"

Does a terrorist merit rights from the government they once tried to destroy by killing innocent men, women, and children? Do they deserve special treatment because of their twisted religious beliefs? Add convicted terrorist Rafiq Sabir to the growing list of incarcerated radical Islamic terrorists who are suing the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Prisons (BOP) for allegedly violating their rights. Sabir is serving a 25 year sentence after a 2007 conviction for conspiring to provide material support to al-Qaida. Sabir's attorneys argued "that he was a gullible man" and only pretended to pledge bayat to al-Qaida to impress someone. U.S. District Judge Loretta A. Preska saw it differently. She felt that Sabir lacked remorse and imposed the stricter sentence to deter others who would seek to join a terrorist organization. Sabir, an inmate in FCI Danbury, now claims that he has the right to meet with other Muslim inmates anywhere and anytime in the prison. He claims that right under the US Constitution and the Religious Freedom Restoration Act (RFRA) The case is an example of how terrorists, once captured and incarcerated, learn how to manipulate the system, by using the courts to claim "rights" from a government they were all too eager to overthrow. The more time terrorists spend in prison, the more likely they are to become "jailwise," that is, knowing how to exploit the system for all they can get. They learn how to using the legal system to advance their cause. They also find a sympathetic ear and support from groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Muslim Advocates, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) or the Human Rights Commission. Recently "Underwear Bomber" Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab filed a similar lawsuit. Not only are his religious rights being violated, the suit claims, but the conditions of his confinement "prohibit him from having any communication whatsoever with more than 7.5 billion people, the vast majority of people on the planet."                                                                   Talk about the theater of the absurd!

When terrorists tout their "rights," they make a mockery of justice and insult the memories of the fallen.
Read complete article...

Thursday, May 31, 2018

Career Criminal Radicalized in Prison Kills Two Police Officers in Belgium

The recent Belgian terror attack demonstrates the reoccurring pattern of Islamic terror plots carried out by individuals radicalized in prison. Benjamin Herman was a career criminal on a temporary release program from prison. Hours after being released, he stabbed two Liege police officers and then executed them in cold blood with their own service weapons. Herman also shot and killed Cyril Vangriecken, a 22-year-old school custodian. He is suspected of having murdered a fourth individual, Michael Wilmet, a former prison cellmate, prior to the attack on the police officers. Liege terrorist' gunman, Herman, was released two days after a prison guard warned officials that he was radicalized. The list of recent terror cases involving ex-cons continues to grow and includes cities like Barcelona, Berlin, Copenhagen, London, Paris, and yes, here in the United States as well.
Read complete article here...


Friday, May 11, 2018

America Needs a National Registry for Convicted Terrorists

What happens when a terrorist is released from prison? Without a viable post-release program, terrorists who complete their sentences could just be dropped off at a gas station and told to take a bus somewhere. That’s exactly what happen to Shaker Masri after serving seven years in prison for attempting to travel to Somalia and join al-Shabaab, an Al Qaeda affiliate. If that is not alarming enough consider that domestic terrorist Herman Bell, responsible for killing two NYPD officers and a SFPD Sergeant, is a free man, walking the streets. And if a New York judge has his way, fellow terrorist Judith Clarke will be free as well. This raises an increasingly important question:
How many more convicted terrorists are already out there?           Current law requires that a community be alerted if a convicted sex offender, is released but keeps citizens and local law enforcement in the dark when a convicted terrorist is set free in that same community.                                                                                  Since 2001, approximately 300 convicted terrorists have been released. Where are they now? How many have re-offended? We simply do not know, and within the next two years, more terrorists will be released including American Taliban John Walker Lindh, and Kevin James, who plotted to attack military institutions and Jewish religious centers. Creating a national terrorist offender registry that would take the information from all participating criminal justice agencies and placing it in one repository within the FBI’s National Crime Information Center (NCIC), which currently manages the National Sex Offender Registry, would be a viable solution to the current problem.
Read more in Fox News...

Wednesday, April 25, 2018

U.S. Taxpayers Are Funding Terrorists

Tuesday April 17 was the due date for 2017 federal income tax returns – your deadline for tallying up how much of the money that you worked hard to earn all year goes to Uncle Sam to fund all sorts of important and worthwhile projects … like supporting the families of terrorist murderers.
                                   
 Yes, you read that right.

U.S. economic aid to the Palestinian Authority – paid for by your tax dollars – averages $400 million a year. The Palestinian Authority’s 2018 budget includes approximately $360 million to support imprisoned terrorists and the families of dead terrorists – including murderers of Israelis and Americans.

These payments make about as much sense as having American taxpayers send monthly support checks to the families of the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorists or the family of the Las Vegas gunman who murdered 58 people last year.   
The U.S. funds do not go directly to the Palestinian terrorists and their families. But your tax dollars pay for other projects that enable the Palestinian Authority to divert $360 million for its terrorist support program.

The average Palestinian makes about $300 a month. A Palestinian terrorist in prison is paid between $368 a month for those sentenced to less than three years, rising to $3,400 month for those serving at least 30 years and for the families of dead terrorists.

One has to question a culture that makes it more profitable for its people, including its youth, to die while killing civilians than to live. Some would call that philosophy self-inflicted genocide. 

In recent years, the Palestinian Authority hid its line item budget for terrorist payments. This year, however, when faced with the possibility of U.S. congressional action to withhold aid, Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas not only placed it openly in the 2018 budget – he defiantly thumbed his nose in the face of the American taxpayer.
Abbas stated in January: "There is something that the Americans are telling us to stop – the salaries of the martyrs and the martyrs' families. Of course we categorically reject this. We will not under any circumstances allow anyone to harm the families of prisoners, the wounded, and the martyrs. They are our children and they are our families. They honor us, and we will continue to pay them before the living."  

President Trump signed the Taylor Force Act into law March 23. It is named after a U.S. citizen killed by a Palestinian terrorist during a March 2016 attack in Jaffa. Taylor Force was a former U.S. Army officer and West Point graduate who had served honorably in Afghanistan and Iraq, heroically risking his life in defense of America.
The Taylor Force Act directs the State Department to certify that the Palestinian Authority has ceased payments to terrorists and their families and to report to Congress any violations. Congress is then legally required to withhold funds until the egregious violations are corrected.
Read More in Fox News...



Tuesday, March 27, 2018

Freeing a Terrorist Comes With a Price

Freeing a terrorist who murdered three police officers diminishes the value we as a society place on the lives of those who protect us.  The New York State Parole Board made an egregious error when it decided to release domestic terrorist Herman Bell from prison next month.  Bell a member of the Black Liberation army was responsible for the deaths of NYPD Officers Waverly Jones and Joseph A. Piagentini. 
Sgt. John V. Young

                                                       




He also pled guilty in the death of San Francisco Police Department Sergeant John V. Young.





If you listen to Bell you'd think he was a model citizen.  His own words were; "I am not a criminal...I never posed a danger to...society."
Oh really ?  Since when is a terrorist killing police officers no longer a danger to society?
In their current decision, the NY parole commissioners reasoned that Bell "was productive in prison." They pointed to the fact that he had earned two college degrees and had been influential in numerous community outreach organizations as far away as Maine. What they either overlooked or completely ignored was that, in addition to those activities, Bell had also established ties with other domestic and international terrorist organizations. People who support groups such as the Anarchist Black Cross movement, the Antifa movement, Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and the Palestinian Solidarity Movement have visited and communicated with Bell during his time in prison. Others affiliated with those same groups were cellmates of his.

Bell was also active in the anti-Semitic BDS movement and had posted statements supporting the current violent attacks against Israel.
The NYPD Patrolmen's Benevolent Association, which represents the more than 35,000 police officers, has petitioned the court to overturn the parole board's decision. The Board did not consider the sentencing minutes or the concerns of the slain officers' families in deciding to free Bell, the PBA argues. The families of Joseph Piagentini and Waverly Jones lost a husband, a father, and a brother. The hurt from that loss has not diminished over the years.
We can only hope that the judge will consider the totality of Bell's terrorist acts and reverse the parole board's foolish decision, sending a clear message that there is no atoning for the lives of those killed by terrorists.

Otherwise, another outrageous decision to release a murdering terrorist may be made in less than three months, when Bell's co-defendant and fellow terrorist Anthony Bottom, now known as Jalil Abdul Muntaqim, appears before the same parole board.

A free society values the lives of its members, especially those who serve to protect it from terrorism. Allowing terrorists who kill to go free comes with a cost. It diminishes the value of the lives lost.

And that is a price we are not willing to accept.  IPT News....

Friday, February 9, 2018

The Theater of the Absurd: Now Featuring

Jihadists taking acting lessons, basket weaving for bombers, macramé for terrorists and other ridiculous prison programs reveal the lack of a viable de-radicalization program for convicted terrorists. This theater of the absurd will soon have a new actor if convicted Islamic terrorist Ahmad Rahimi has his way. Rahimi has asked to be allowed to take a variety of prison programs while serving a life sentence for setting off several bombs in the New York-New Jersey area in 2016. He has been taking a drama class while in Manhattan's Metropolitan Correctional Center, his lawyer Xavier Donaldson told U.S. District Judge Richard Berman. He would like to continue to pursue this and enroll in several other educational programs in business and enterprise risk management. Unfortunately, that's not all he's been doing in MCC. Rahimi has been radicalizing other inmates to his jihadist cause in the prison mosque. He also has shared instructions on how to build an improvised explosive device with his fellow inmates. Realizing that, as the prosecutor in his case wrote, Rahimi "continues to attempt to wage jihad from his prison cell..." What prison rehabilitation program would best address his situation?               The stark reality is, there is none.
A recently released study from George Washington University's Program on Extremism stated just that. The study went on to warn that the continued failure to have an adequate de-radicalization program would only increase the threat of radicalization in prison.     Read more...

Friday, January 26, 2018

The Undeterred Terrorist

A page from Rahimi's bloody notebook, taken after a shootout with police
Chelsea Bomber, Ahmad Khan Rahimi, facing life in prison, jokes about it. He continues to be committed to jihad.  If prison isn''t a deterrent to a terrorist, what should prosecutors seek in addition to the life sentence they recommend for Rahimi? Particularly when we consider the fact that there is currently no effective de-radicalization prison program for Islamic terrorists in either the United States or the European Union, the outlook for Rahimi's rehabilitation while incarcerated does not look promising.
Read more in IPT News...

Thursday, January 18, 2018

The BDS Movement Has Some Very Violent Friends

From convicted cop killers to domestic terrorists, the list of those calling for the annihilation of Israel grows.  Inmates such as Herman Bell, Anthony Bottom, Mumia Abu-Jamal, and Clark Edward Squire – who were members of the Black Liberation Army – as well as the Weather Underground’s David Gilbert, Bill Ayers, and Bernadette Dohrn have posted statements calling for the end of “US/Zionist Imperialism in Palestine.” Add to that list the name of Assata Shakur in Cuba. Shakur, better known as Joanne Chesimard, was convicted in the murder of New Jersey State Police Officer Werner Foerster. Shakur has the distinction of being the first woman named to the FBI’s Most Wanted List. One wonders what a so- called peace movement and a cop killer have in common.  Read more...

Monday, January 1, 2018

Bureau of Prisons Gives Bomb Instructions to Inmate

Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. That saying may best describe the Federal Bureau of Prisons administrators who operate the New York City's Metropolitan Correctional Center in lower Manhattan.  How foolish were they? Well, they gave the inmates there the blueprints to make a bomb. And if that wasn't stupid enough, they also gave them radical Islamic literature by noted terrorists Osama bin Laden and Anwar al-Awlaki. These were no ordinary inmates who had all this material while in custody. One was an ISIS sympathizer, one was an al-Shabaab member, and another was convicted of attacking U.S. military personnel in Afghanistan.                                                                                             How did this fiasco occur ?                                     Read the complete story in IPT News...