Tag Archives: ISIS

The ISIS Threat to Military Families

According to Catherine Herridge of Fox News, the U.S. Army issued a warning this week to military personnel and their families in response to a new threat by ISIS calling on its supporters to use the yellow pages and social media to find the addresses of military families and “show up [at their homes] and slaughter them.”
 
Herridge also reported that the Facebook pages of an Air Force service member and his son recently were “swarmed” by offensive messages after ISIS supporters targeted them online with what resembled a digital “flash mob” attack.  This occurred after the Air Force service member posted pictures online from a flight over Iraq during a recent bombing campaign.
 
So how concerned should military families be about this new ISIS threat? 
 
This type of threat has been made before against military families by al Qaeda and the Taliban.  What’s new is the sophistication of ISIS’s PR and social media efforts.  ISIS is building on prior al Qaeda and Taliban efforts to use the Internet and the news media to spread its message, terrorize the West, and recruit “home grown” or “lone wolf” terrorists to stage acts of terrorism in Western countries. 
 
While the chances are small that ISIS’s call for attacks against U.S. military families will result in an actual attack, they are not zero.  Al Qaeda has been successful since 2001 in instigating several dozen home grown terrorist plots in the United States.  These include the 2009 Fort Hood shooting (which the Obama administration inexplicably still refers to as an act of workplace violence), a 2010 plot by a Portland man to blow up a Christmas tree lighting, a 2007 plot to attack soldiers at Fort Dix, and the 2013 Boston Marathon bombing. 
 
There are indications ISIS has successfully recruited followers using the press and social media.  As many as 300 Americans may have traveled to the Middle East to fight for ISIS and will pose a serious terrorist risk to the U.S. homeland when they return to the United States. 
 
ISIS also has been successful in promoting extreme acts of violence by home grown terrorists in the United States.  The August murder of 19-year old Brendan Tevlin and three others by a man who said these killings were acts of “vengeance” for U.S. military action in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Iran were probably instigated by publicity of ISIS atrocities and its fanatical ideology.  I believe there can be no doubt that the man who beheaded Colleen Hufford at an Oklahoma food processing plant last month while screaming Islamic verses was motivated by recent ISIS internet videos of beheadings.  Unfortunately, the FBI is calling this vicious killing an act of workplace violence. 
 
The U.S. military is taking the recent ISIS threat seriously and has advised military families to be vigilant and more security conscious.  Aside from recommending military families take the usual precautions such as locking their doors, using peepholes before opening doors to strangers, making sure home entrances are well-lit and reporting suspicious persons, the Pentagon is advising them to take special precautions to protect their privacy online.
 
The Army Threat Integration Center (ARTIC) is urging military families to be careful when they post material online and not to trust social media privacy settings.  ARTIC advises not posting home addresses, phone numbers, and military affiliations.  Military personnel and their families also should not post details of their daily routines or allow internet applications to geolocate their locations. 
 
Unstated in the ARTIC recommendations is the Pentagon’s preference that military personnel – especially personnel deployed overseas – not have Facebook and other social media accounts. 
 
While the chance of an ISIS attack on the family of a U.S. serviceman or servicewoman is small, the best response is increased security awareness and not allowing ISIS to achieve its goal of undermining military morale with terrorist threats. 

 

Washington’s VICE: Supporting Islamists

VICE News recently produced a revealing documentary highlighting the Islamic Front, a coalition of Islamist Syrian rebels. Embedded with Tawhid Brigade fighters in the Syrian city of Aleppo, the documentary maintains a generally unquestioning and supportive tone, but nonetheless is informative. Within the first five minutes, the narrator affirms the Tawhid Brigade’s ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, and the role of Qatar in supporting and backing the Islamic Front is repeatedly emphasized throughout the hour-long program. In a segment with the Islamic Front Sharia court, the judges vow to implement Islamic law in a manner not much different from the Islamic State (ISIS), although stressing that ISIS should have waited until Syria was fully liberated and Assad beaten. The VICE video does not mention, however, the Islamic Front’s ties to Al Qaeda, through the AQ-linked Ahrar Al-Sham unit of the Front, whose connections have been ably documented by jihadist monitoring website, the Long War Journal.

While perhaps news to the general public watching VICE News, these sorts of facts are well known. They were certainly known even before the push by elements of the foreign policy community in Washington to highlight the Islamic Front as the kind of rebels that should be supported in Syria. One piece for Foreign Affairs in January of 2014 referred to the Front’s Ahrar Al-Sham as “An al Qaeda–Linked Group Worth Befriending.” One of the authors of that piece, William McCants, works for Brookings Institute, a think tank revealed by the New York Times to have received $14 million over four years from the government of Qatar. The Qataris themselves had arranged for Ahrar Al-Sham to meet with Western diplomats in November 2013 just three months prior to the Foreign Affairs piece. Of course, Brookings would have us believe that their support for Qatari-backed rebel groups, and their own backing from Qatar are unrelated. And of course, it is unsurprising that Qatar would back a Muslim Brotherhood-linked rebel group, considering the strong support Qatar has expressed for the Brotherhood in the past.

Not all those who wished to put the U.S. into bed with an Al Qaeda-Muslim Brotherhood alliance in Syria have financial interests as potential motivations. For some, that support is likely ideological- as they have, like the Tawhid brigade, ties to the Muslim Brotherhood themselves.

Consider the repeated calls by the Syrian Emergency Taskforce for U.S. support for the Islamic Front, even after the U.S. was rebuffed by the group. According to the Global Muslim Brotherhood Daily Watch, an intelligence digest focusing on the Muslim Brotherhood, four of the seven named board members of the SETF have ties to Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated organizations. The executive director of SETF, Mouaz Mustafa, was responsible for arranging Senator John McCain’s meeting with the Northern Storm rebel group. Northern Storm has been accused of playing a role in the abduction of journalist Steven Sotloff. Sotloff’s fixer for the trip, who was also kidnapped by ISIS but released, was affiliated with the Tawhid brigade, which Northern Storm later joined.

Another group, the Syrian American Council (SAC), has also attempted to position the Islamic Front as appropriate U.S. allies. Mohammed Alaa Ghanem, the group’s director of government relations accused the United States of bombing Islamic Front targets in an article entitled, “In Syria, the United States is bombing friend and foe alike.” Ghanem has publicly praised the Muslim Brotherhood’s chief shariah jurist, Yusuf Al Qaradawi, a man who called for jihad in Syria, and called for the 2004 killing of Americans in Iraq. The Syrian American Council has sponsored a speaking tour of the United States featuring a known radical cleric named Sheik Mohammad Rateb al-Nabulsi who supported Palestinian suicide bombings. Another cleric Sheik Osama al-Rifai, who raised funds for the Syrian Sunrise Foundation (which shares board members with the SAC), has publicly supported the Islamic Front. Among the places where Rifai raised funds was the Mosque Foundation of Bridgeview, Ill., whose two founders have Muslim Brotherhood ties according to documents released by federal prosecutors in the Holy Land Foundation trial.

All of this background is part of what makes the VICE documentary so revealing. What VICE stated openly is an unassuming factoid that can, in fact, be found on Wikipedia. But its unstated significance explains much regarding elements among those who support the Syrian rebels, and their fixation on involving the U.S. with the Islamic Front. The Front’s sharia judges openly, and without slick editing, stating their case for sharia law, including beheadings for “criminals,” is something that people outside of Washington will see and comprehend, even if those who should know better continue to push for relations with the Islamist group.

It seems for many in Washington, support for Islamists is a vice they are unable to quit.

 

Confronting the Islamic State abroad, advancing an Islamic state at home

Following on the heels of targeted airstrikes against the Islamic State, the Obama Administration has continued to show a dramatic lack of strategic comprehension by publicly praising an Islamic cleric linked to previous calls to kill U.S. troops in Iraq. The Islamic cleric, Abdullah Bin Bayyah, was the vice president of the International Union of Muslim Scholars, led by Muslim Brotherhood chief jurist Yusuf Al Qaradawi in 2004,  when IUMS called for the killing of Americans in Iraq. This is not the first time Bin Bayyah has been close to the White House, having attended a meeting with White House advisors in 2013.

At the same time President Obama was praising Bin Bayyah, the Secretary of the Department for Homeland Security Jeh Johnson was in central Ohio, meeting with representatives of the Al Noor Cultural Islamic Center. This Islamic center has a long history of ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, and extremist activity, as ably chronicled by veteran investigative reporter Patrick Poole. It was made somewhat infamous as being the mosque at the center of the Rifqa Bary case, when a young Muslim teenager converted to Christianity, and fled Ohio, fearing that she would become the victim of an honor killing.

Most notable among those tied to the mosque is its former Scholar-in-Residence Salah Sultan, a long-time associate of Yusuf Al Qaradawi, and like Bin Bayyah, a member of the International Union of Muslim Scholars. Sultan is currently in Egypt, where he held a position under the Muslim Brotherhood dominated government, until its overthrow.  The Chairman of the Noor Mosque board, at the time of Sultan’s attendance, was Hany Saqr, the Eastern masul (regional leader) for the North American Muslim Brotherhood, as named in a 1992 phone directory of the North American Muslim Brotherhood, as acquired by Federal prosecutors and entered into evidence at the Holy Land Foundation Trial. While Saqr is no longer Chairman at the mosque, he appears to remain a member of its Executive Council, and chairman of its Khutbah (Friday Sermon) committee.

In yet another coincidence, while these meetings were being reported, other individuals with known ties to the Muslim Brotherhood including the Council on American Islamic Relations, the Islamic Society of North America, The ADAMS Center and the Fiqh Council for North America(of which Salah Sultan was a member), were holding a press conference at the National Press Club, issuing an open letter to AbuBakr Al-Baghdadi (aka Caliph Ibrahim) of the Islamic State, declaring “peace and mercy” upon him, and using Islamic law to supposedly critique his organization’s violence. Among the signatories on the letter was none other than Abdullah bin Bayyah.

The letter criticized ISIS for its behavior, in particular for killing journalists, using the logic (the same given by Jihadists including Al Qaeda) that the journalists were considered emissaries or diplomats and thus not eligible for killing. The letter also disagreed with other elements of ISIS’s practice of Islamic law, including the method by which AlBaghdadi was named Caliph.

While the letter supposedly condemns ISIS’ “offensive jihad”, it nonetheless endorses the very jihad that Bin Bayyah supported against U.S. troops in Iraq, namely a “defensive jihad.” The letter states, “All Muslims see the great virtue” in jihad, and that jihad is a “communal” not “individual” obligation. It also denounces the use of the term Jihad in killing Muslims (although notably not non-Muslims). The letter notes, “Jihad is tied to safety, freedom of religion, having been wronged, and eviction from one’s land.” Under such a rubric, one could see how the Muslim Brotherhood organizations may be denouncing ISIS, but endorsing (or at least not denouncing) other jihadist groups like Al Nusra Front, (which is Al Qaeda’s remaining Syrian unit), and Hamas, itself a part of the Muslim Brotherhood.

It is folly for the Administration to on the one hand bomb IS, as it seeks to perfect an Islamic state under shariah law, while at the same time endorsing, praising and working alongside those equally beholden to shariah.

As was the case with the Cold War, the conflict is principally an ideological struggle. You can not win by promoting and supporting the ideas of the enemy. President Obama could have used the opportunity to provide a full-throated support for what we as Americans believe, and the superiority of our way of life over the values of groups like ISIS, but instead, used his time to promote the very ideas of those like Bin Bayaah, who ultimately support the killing of Americans, as long as it is done under their say so, rather than al-Baghdadi’s. Likewise, we can not win by partnering with organizations like the Muslim Brotherhood, who tell us that the solution to the Islamic state can be found in the application of Islamic law.

Pick up the Pace on Counter-UAS Technology

Last weekend, it was widely reported that Iranian-sponsored Hezbollah used an armed drone to bomb a facility used by the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nusra Front, along the Syria-Lebanon border.

This is a significant development. While Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations have used surveillance drones in recent years, this latest incident marks the first time that a non-state actor has successfully fired a weapon from one of these platforms.

There will likely be further calls in the wake of this occurrence to craft an international convention on the use and proliferation of drones. CNN’s Peter Bergen has previously commented in response to ISIS using a surveillance drone over Syria last month:

That terrorist and militant organizations have acquired and used drones during combat operations for surveillance purposes shows how rapidly this technology is proliferating. This is why it is crucial to have some kind of international agreement that governs the use of armed drones by both states and “nonstate actors.”

One could imagine the creation of some kind of Geneva Convention that specifies as a matter of international law when the use of armed drones could be sanctioned outside of conventional war zones to kill terrorists.

Such a convention would also help to prevent the sale or transfer of sophisticated drone technology to nonstate actors such as ISIS.

International cooperation to keep drones out of the hands of terrorist organizations and their state sponsors is to be welcomed, although the utility of a binding international legal agreement regulating armed drone use is rather questionable. Such an agreement likely will not have any effect on groups such as Hezbollah and ISIS (or Iran, for that matter), but it will likely inhibit those countries that are most responsible in their use of this technology (like the United States) from being able to deploy it as they deem necessary for their own self-defense, in accordance with the rules of international law that already exist regarding the use of force.

The better bet for addressing the proliferation of drones to nations and non-state actors intent on harming the United States and its allies is the accelerated development of, and continued investment in, Counter Unmanned Aerial System (C-UAS) technologies, designed to identify and take down enemy drones.

The Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines are already testing such systems, as are the Israelis. Can’t happen fast enough.

The “Khorasan Group”, New Name, Old Threat

Recent media coverage has been bombarded by revelations of a “new terror threat“, “more dangerous than ISIS”, the Khorasan Group.

Khorasan refers to the historical area under the Islamic Caliphate that corresponds to Iran/Afghanistan/Pakistan and the subcontinent, and the Khorasan Group, according to intelligence officials speaking to the media, consists of a relatively small (between fifty and a hundred) group of veteran Al Qaeda fighters from the Afghanistan/Pakistan region. These fighters are said to include a number of highly skilled bomb makers and other operatives, led by Muhsin al-Fadhli, a native Kuwaiti, and long time Al Qaeda insider, who specializes in financing and facilitation. Jihadist social media is hinting that Al-Fadhli may have been killed in the first round of U.S. bombing.

Khorasan Group’s mission, supposedly, has been to find jihadists with western passports who have travelled to Syria, train them, and reinsert them into the West to conduct spectacular attacks of the kind that Al Qaeda is famous for.

Khorasan Group operates in and among Al Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra, and there’s been lively debate in the counterterrorism community over whether its really worthwhile distinguishing between Jabhat al-Nusra and Khorasan group at all. This is significant because Jabhat al-Nusra, despite being Al Qaeda, is deeply intertwined with the Syrian rebels at-large, and they are widely supported by these rebels, including those that the Obama strategy calls for arming and training to fight ISIS. For their part, Jabhat al Nusra hasn’t made the distinction, claiming they were the recipient of U.S. bombings.

It’s entirely plausible that intelligence suggested that this Khorasan group was preparing an imminent attack, and even if they weren’t, they are definitely enemies of America and a legitimate target.

But the extra hype about this specific group, and separating them out as somehow different or more threatening than Jabhat al Nusra, and Al Qaeda proper, has more to do with attempting to limit the negative reaction from rebels within Syria, and to distract Americans from the reality that in Syria there really are few good guys, with a possible exception of the Kurdish forces, who aren’t really receiving support. That strategy has already failed, with multiple Syrian rebel groups complaining about the strikes against Jabhat al Nusra, including one group expected to be the core of the force the U.S. intends to train to send against ISIS.

There has been an attempt to try to separate out elements of Al Qaeda, into Core, and affiliates, and in the case of the Khorasan group, small units within affiliates. Or for that matter to disassociate ISIS from Al Qaeda, as ISIS being “too brutal”, when the reality is that ISIS hasn’t engaged in any tactic that Al Qaeda didn’t institute first.

This is a misguided attempt to convince people that what we face is a series of minor groups, and that the enemy who attacked us on 9/11 is broken, and/or on the run. The reality is we face an overarching enemy, a Global Islamic Movement-which is how they identify themselves- operating in accordance with a knowable strategic doctrine that we are not addressing.

That doctrine is Shariah law. It is the same law that ISIS is instituting in its territory, and the same one that Jabhat al Nusra and several of the other Syrian groups would institute in Syria if they prove successful in defeating Assad.

Our enemy knows that you can not defeat an opponent you do not name. They do not say that their war is with the U.S. Army,  the 75th Ranger Regiment, or the 5th Special Forces Group. They say plainly and openly, that their war is with America, and the allies of America, and more importantly, that it is an ideological war, based on a conflict between belief systems which are irreconcilable.

Until we are prepared to discuss the conflict in ideological terms, we will forever be playing “whack-a-mole” with a never ending series of “new” threats.

Reasons Why Venezuela Should Be Denied A Temporary Seat On The United Nations Security Council

On September 18th, the United States announced that it will not oppose Venezuela’s bid to seek a temporary seat on the United Nations Security Council for a two year term that would commence in 2015. The U.S. decision came after countries in the region unanimously endorsed Venezuela’s bid.

For those who have monitored the assault on human rights in Venezuela as well as the country’s nefarious connections to the FARC, Hezbollah, ETA, and Iran, Venezuela’s appearance as a voting member of the Security Council would make a mockery of the UN Human Rights Charter.

Unfortunately, most of Latin America is now dominated by a left –wing cadre of countries that have warmly greeted the Bolivarian regime as well as the fifty year plus Cuban dictatorship and the ALBA countries.

The United States has no other reason to support its action (or inaction) than seeking to avoid confrontation with the countries of the region or claiming that it has “bigger fish to fry” as it seeks to build a coalition in the Middle East against the Islamic State of Syria and the Levant (ISIL).

The first reason effectively shuts our traditional moral voice down making us irrelevant in the region. This, unfortunately, is consistent with U.S. policies probably since the second half of the second period of the Bush Administration.

These tendencies have continued under the Obama Administration. The assumption is that Latin America, perhaps with the exception of Mexico and now the northern triangle of Central America, does not really present any security threats to the United States and thus may be successfully dealt with on mostly economic matters. However, Venezuela presents a special set of problems for the United States which, if the country is successful in its bid, will become apparent in the Security Council.

This is actually Venezuela’s second attempt as it placed the same bid in 2006 which was fiercely opposed by President Bush, despite the fact that the president then was dealing with his worst crisis in Iraq. The U.S. then strongly campaigned against Venezuela’s bid and succeeded to prevent the two thirds majority the South American country needed.

Such will does not exist anymore. Venezuela is not only treated like a normal country so giving legitimacy to its abnormality and madness but its wrongdoings are downplayed. Even a limited sanctions bill against Venezuela was opposed by the Administration and by key Senators lobbied by the Venezuelan government.

Furthermore, in 2006, there were still countries in Latin America that saw the Bolivarian regime for what it really was. Today, the region is dominated by left-wing governments that view the Venezuelan government as a force of good despite its malicious and systematic political repression, failed economic policies, and terrorist connections.

The message that Venezuela and others get from these events is that they can continue with their perverted behavior because there is no effective political and moral force to prevent it. Now the question is what Venezuela, under the leadership of its president, Nicolas Maduro will do once it secures its’ seat on the Security Council.

Without doubt, Venezuela will support its friends such as Iran, Syria and others including Russia whose invasion of Crimea was supported by Venezuelan president, Nicolas Maduro. Furthermore, Venezuela does not share our values and is likely to go against the U.S. or any other democracy on issues concerning peace and security even though it is the job of the UN Security Council to guarantee international peace and security.

In addition to Venezuela’s hostilities towards the United States as well as a total disregard for the human rights of its citizens, there are other compelling reasons why the United States and other countries should deny Venezuela’s bid.

  1. Venezuela is heavily involved in the drug trade. Venezuela is the only country in Latin America that willingly makes its ports and airports available to drug cartels and harbors the criminals. High officers in the government are deeply enmeshed in the drug business, including distribution (mainly to the U.S. and Europe) and laundering of drug money.
  2. The Venezuelan government has established alliances with rogue states and terrorist organizations such as Iran, Hezbollah, and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC).
  3. Venezuela has built a regional alliance (Bolivarian Alliance or ALBA). Through economic dependency, the Venezuelan government “exports” its ideology and its behavior. To cite a simple fact, the small ALBA members such as the Caribbean islands of Dominica, St. Kitts, Nevins, St. Vincent & the Grenadines as well as St. Lucia have signed agreements with Iran to provide this rogue states with passports to its citizens in many cases under false names. This is something the Venezuelan government has been systematically doing for years.

As terrorist organizations such as ISIL and others continue to flourish, these actions of Venezuela could become even more ominous.

Yet, the Administration does not want to be diplomatically isolated from the region, neither has it wanted to take action or make decisions countries in the region do not agree with.

Indeed, late last year Secretary of State John Kerry declared that the 190 year old Monroe Doctrine -that unilaterally declared the United States the protector of the region- is over. During the same occasion, Secretary Kerry pointed out that the United States views partners in the region as “equals, sharing responsibility, cooperating on security issues, and adhering not to doctrine but to the decisions that we make as partners”.

It is very generous of Secretary Kerry. Indeed, the U.S. has already effectively abandoned the human rights agenda in Venezuela because there is no regional support. But, would we apply the same logic when it comes to our own security?

Are we going to abdicate the responsibility and delegate our own security to these countries dominated by Cuba, Venezuela and Brazil?

We urge the Obama Administration to reconsider its position on Venezuela’s bid for the United Nations Security Council and use its international leverage to deny the Maduro regime such an important seat.

A blind eye to homeland threats

Last month, the United Kingdom raised their terrorism threat level from “substantial” to “severe.” The Australian government followed suit by raising their threat level, citing a growing concern over the domestic impacts from the Islamic State, or ISIS.   This week, Australian authorities broke up a massive ISIS plot to behead random people and broadcast the murders.  However, the Obama administration has decided not to raise our terrorism threat level.

After the UK’s decision, the Department of Homeland Security Secretary, Jeh Johnson stated that the United States will not follow suit, saying: “[T]he U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the FBI are unaware of any specific, credible threat to the U.S. homeland from ISIL.”

Additionally, in spite of major cities such as New York, Chicago, and Washington, DC receiving direct threats from ISIS, it is being reported that the recent National Threat Assessment for Domestic Extremism intelligence report by the FBI makes absolutely no reference to Islamist terror threats.

Currently, our southern border is awash with droves of people skirting immigration laws. This creates the perfect environment for terrorist groups to penetrate our country. In fact, many experts have already issued warnings about ISIS’s interest in penetrating our border.  A recent report by the group Judicial Watch shows that ISIS is currently operating in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and that an attack on our border is “coming very soon.”

However, ISIS may already be actively recruiting in America. So far, two Americans have died fighting for the terrorist group ISIS. Abdirahmaan Muhumed and Douglas McAurther McCain, both died in the same battle.

In addition to both jihadi fighters dying in the same battle, both were from the same area in Minneapolis. Moreover, McCain attended high school with Troy Kastigar, a jihadi who died in 2009 fighting for the al-Qaeda affiliated group al-Shabab. These two jihadi’s both attended Cooper High School in Robbinsdale, Minnesota together and at one point in time, the two were said to be “inseparable.”

Minnesota has a large Somali-Muslim population and has turned into a hotbed for recruiting fighters for groups such as al-Shabab and ISIS. Dozens of men from the Twin Cities have chosen to fight for ISIS. Fox News has recently reported that there is possibly a third jihadi fighter in Syria who has attended Cooper High.

With so much terrorist recruitment taking place in the Twin Cities region, coupled with the FBI’s failure to cite Islamic terror in their recent terrorist threat report, there appears to be a clear failure from our government in recognizing domestic terror threats in the United States.

This failure should not strike anyone as surprising. The Obama administration has continuously dismissed, discounted, and ignored national security threats. When Vladimir Putin sent troops into Ukraine and threw NATO into a tailspin, President Obama’s response was little more than a light slap on the wrist; placing negligible economic sanctions on Russia. After Syria violated the ‘Red Line’ set by Mr. Obama regarding to use of chemical weapons, Obama dithered and denied even setting a red line.

Reports show that President Obama received notifications regarding the growing threat from ISIS in the President’s Daily Brief for over a year; yet, when ISIS came into the public view President Obama Obama dismissed them as the “jayvee team’.

Dismissing ISIS’s threat to our homeland security is on par for the Obama administration’s national security plan as a whole. Despite ISIS threats to at least three major U.S. cities and what seems to be a burgeoning recruitment hub in Minnesota, the FBI seems to be taking a blind eye to Islamic terror.

Additionally, President Obama, in his recent address regarding an ISIS strategy, felt that it was important to state that the Islamic State terrorists are apparently “not Islamic.”

One has to question the motives regarding the administration’s unwillingness to label radical Islam as a threat. Is it denial, negligence, or fear over the idea that an administration official might be labeled “Islamophobic?”

Following such recent events as the Boston Marathon bombing and the Fort Hood massacre, it is important that we question Homeland Security and the FBI’s decision not to raise the terrorist threat level. Additionally, we must demand that those in charge of ensuring our domestic security properly recognize and label the threats that we face.

ISIS’s New Threat is Anything But New

In a new release on Sunday from chief propagandist of the Islamic State (or Islamic State of Iraq and Al-Sham), Shaykh Abū Muhammad al-‘Adnānī ash-Shāmī called for Muslims everywhere to kill Westerners in whatever manner possible:

So O muwahhid wherever you may be, hinder those who want to harm your brothers and state  as much as you can. The best thing you can do is to strive to your best and kill any disbeliever, whether he be French, American, or from any of their allies.
{O you who have believed, take your precaution and [either] go forth in companies or go forth
all together} [An-Nisā’: 71].
If you are not able to find an IED or a bullet, then single out the disbelieving American, Frenchman, or any of their allies. Smash his head with a rock, or slaughter him with a knife, or run him over with your car, or throw him down from a high place, or choke him, or poison him. Do not lack. Do not be contemptible. Let your slogan be, “May I not be saved if the cross worshipper and taghūt (ruler ruling by manmade laws) patron survives.”

If you are unable to do so, then burn his home, car, or business. Or destroy his crops.

This (admittedly brutal) call for the murder of Americans, and our allies, by any means necessary, has received substantial press, as does almost every statement issued by ISIS, thanks in part to their mastery of social media, and comes on the back of a plot by ISIS supporters to kidnap and behead random civilians, which was recently broken up by Australian security forces. Other online chatter from ISIS included discussion of targeting U.S. military personnel at their homes.

The reality, however is that there is nothing new of substance in this call for individual Muslims to undertake jihad with or without prior contact with ISIS or any other Jihadist terrorist entity. The same strategy has been employed  by Al Qaeda proper for several years, following the publication of their online terrorist manual, “the Lone Mujahid’s pocket book” and updated with monthly editions of Inspire Magazine, which contains instructions ranging from how to conduct arson to building pressure cooker explosives of the same kind used by the Boston marathon bombers.  The murderers of British Army drummer Lee Rigby cited some of the same koranic verses given as evidence by Adnani in their May 2013 beheading attack. The Center for Security Policy produced a lecture discussing the phenomenon in April 2013, where CSP Fellow and Shariah law specialist, Stephen Coughlin pointed out that during World War I, the last-sitting Ottoman Caliph issued an almost identical call for “individual jihad.”  As far back as 2006, Dr. Daniel Pipes coined the phrase “Sudden Jihad Syndrome” to refer to such incidents of terrorism from Muslims otherwise absent established terrorist connections, following the attempt by a Muslim man to run over fellow college students with a rented jeep  (presaging Adnani’s “run him over with your car” command).

Unfortunately the United States continues to be ill-prepared to address such a threat. As noted by veteran journalist Bill Gertz last week, the FBI continues to view jihadist terror solely through the matrix of “international” terrorism:

The FBI’s most recent national threat assessment for domestic terrorism makes no reference to Islamist terror threats, despite last year’s Boston Marathon bombing and the 2009 Fort Hood shooting—both carried out by radical Muslim Americans.

Instead, the internal FBI intelligence report concluded in its 2013 assessment published this month that the threat to U.S. internal security from extremists is limited to attacks and activities by eight types of domestic extremist movements—none motivated by radical Islam.

Far from innovative, the call by ISIS for believers to exercise the obligation, imposed by shariah, to target and kill “nonbelievers”, individually if necessary, is well within the established doctrines of jihad. And while it ought to go without saying that not all Muslims personally hold to such views, the call by Adnani for individual jihad remains doctrinally accurate, and legally permissible. Rather than attempting to disguise jihad as “workplace violence” or mental illness, only a strategy which accurately addresses the ideological threat posed by shariah will be effective in stopping ISIS, or Al Qaeda, or indeed the “lone” jihadist in the future.

 

No Place for Iran in ISIS Plans

Secretary of State John Kerry’s awkward denial that the United States has not proposed “coordinating with Iran” against ISIS suggests the Obama administration did indeed propose this and is engaged in damage control after its efforts were revealed by Iranian officials.

I wrote in a Sept. 3 Newsmax article that while the U.S. should attack ISIS — also known as ISIL and the Islamic State — in Syria even though this will help keep Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in power, the United States must resist the temptation to draw Iran further into the crises in Iraq and Syria. I believe this because Iran bears significant responsibility for the outbreak of sectarian tensions in Iraq since 2011 due to its strong support for the Nouri al-Maliki government and by its training of Shiite militias that have massacred Iraqi Sunnis.

An increased Iranian presence in Iraq would alienate Iraqi Sunnis and make it more difficult to bring them back into the political process.

I believe the Obama administration has been unable to resist the temptation of trying to bring Iran into the battle against ISIS. According to The New York Times, Iranian officials claim they have rejected multiple invitations by the United States to join a coalition against ISIS.

According to the Iranian state news agency — IRNA — Iran’s President Khamenei recently said, “The American ambassador in Iraq asked our ambassador [in Iraq] for a session to discuss coordinating a fight against Daesh [ISIS].”

Khamenei said the Iranian government rejected this request.

Kerry’s denial of Khamenei’s claim was tortuous and hard to believe. Kerry said today that he is not going to get into a “back and forth” with Iran over whether his diplomats suggested that the U.S. and Iran join forces against ISIS. Kerry also said, “I have no idea of what interpretation they drew from any discussion that may or may not have taken place. We are not coordinating with Iran. Period.”

The Los Angeles Times reported today that the U.S. has been discussing ISIS with Iran. According to a Sept. 14 LA Times article, “The U.S., for its part, says it is not coordinating military efforts against Islamic State with Iran, though it has repeatedly discussed the issue with Iranian officials.”

Despite holding behind the scenes discussions with Iran about Iraq, Syria and ISIS, the United States vetoed Iran’s participation in an international conference that opened today in Paris on the ISIS threat. While I agree this was the right move, the Obama administration’s decision to publicly block Iran from the Paris ISIS conference while it conducts secret talks with Tehran on the same issues this conference will be addressing suggests Obama officials are trying to conceal what they are discussing with Iran from the American people and Congress.

So when do U.S. talks with Iran about ISIS become cooperation? More importantly, why is the United States using nuclear talks with Iran — which are going very badly — to discuss Iraq and Syria? What purpose could this achieve other than getting Iran more involved in these two countries.

It is fortunate that Iran revealed the overtures by Obama officials to coordinate on the ISIS threat since Congress can now demand answers from the administration about this latest foreign policy blunder and hopefully force the president to halt any efforts by his diplomats to draw Iran further into the crises in Iraq and Syria.