Reader links for Dec. 11 – 2015

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In order to preserve the flow of conversation about various posted items, and also in order to make it easier for visitors to find the list of related links being shared by other readers, regulars and interested parties in one place, each day a post is automatically created at a minute past midnight ET.

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Thank you all for those that take the effort to assist this site in keeping the public informed. Below, typically people can find the latest enemy propaganda, news items of related materials from multiple countries and languages, op-eds from many excellent sites who write on our topics, geopolitics and immigration issues and so on.

About Eeyore

Canadian artist and counter-jihad and freedom of speech activist as well as devout Schrödinger's catholic

81 Replies to “Reader links for Dec. 11 – 2015”

  1. SYRIA – Truck bomb attack in Syria kills 22 in Kurdish-held town: Monitor

    At least 22 people were killed by three truck bombs in a Kurdish-controlled town in northeastern Syria, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reported on Friday.

    It said the death toll from the attack in Tel Tamer late on Thursday was likely to increase. The town in the northeastern province of Hasaska is controlled by the Kurdish YPG militia, which has been battling Islamic State with the support of U.S.-led air strikes.

    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-northeast-idUSKBN0TU0NS20151211

    video – Tel Tamer Syria – Dec 11 2015

  2. Turkey fines Twitter for failure to remove “terrorist propaganda” – official

    ANKARA, Dec 11 (Reuters) – Turkey’s communications technologies authority, the BTK, has fined micro blogging site Twitter 150,000 lira ($51,000.) for not removing content it says is “terrorist propaganda”, a BTK official told Reuters on Friday.

    He did not give further details on the content.

    This is the first time the Turkish government has fined fined the popular site. It has temporarily banned Twitter several times after it failed to comply with requests to remove content.

    http://www.trust.org/item/20151211081038-laj7j

  3. BREITBART – FBI Director Goes Where Obama Doesn’t: Yes, It Is ‘Radical Islamic’ Terror

    WASHINGTON, D.C. — FBI Director James Comey declared that “radical Islamic terrorism” is an “umbrella term” that accurately describes acts by “savages… [and] maniacs” in groups such as the Islamic State.

    That is significant because President Barack Obama and other Democrats have refused to use the term “radical Islam” when describing terrorist attacks carried out by Muslims. Those jihad attacks include the Dec. 2 massacre in San Bernardino, California which killed 14 Americans.

    During a national security discussion at the Newseum Wednesday night, Comey was asked by the moderator whether using “radical Islamists” to identify ISIS jihadists is productive and “whether people’s religious identity features in the assessment of the [terrorism] threat or if it’s more divisive to our society than valuable.”

    “My job is kind of crazy and so I’m so busy I don’t spend a lot of time following some of those discussions, but ISIL’s message is one about leaning to a particular faith, which is Islam,” responded the FBI director.

    “And so it is a message that is aimed at and resonates with those who are either raised Muslim or converted to be Muslim, and so the term ‘radical Islamic terrorism’ is accurate in the sense as an umbrella term.”

    “But in our work we’re focused on — so what group are we talking — is it ISIL, is it AQAP [al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula], is it AQIM [al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb], is it al-Shabaab and… they’re trying to recruit people, troubled people, right? Outliers who are part of a great faith and so inevitably it leads us in our investigations into contact with communities of that faith,” he continued.

    Comey noted that he is concerned that the current rhetoric in the United States against adherents of Islam, prompted by recent attacks inspired by Islamic terrorist organizations, may end up driving the American Muslim community away from cooperating with law enforcement.

    He said the federal government relies on the U.S. Muslim community to find out who is being recruited by jihadist groups.

    “One of the things I’ve been worried about in the wake of some of the recent conversations in public and some of the rhetoric is, we depend upon those good people, millions of good people, Muslims in this country, to tell us when they see somebody being recruited from among them because that’s where the savages are aiming their recruiting,” said Comey. “And we have worked so hard to build relationships with those folks and they’re very valuable and people tell us ‘I think this young man is on the wrong path.’”

    “What would be a terrible thing to have happen is for those folks to feel that the government is somehow pulling away from them and doesn’t want that relationship,” he added. “We not only want it, we will work to protect it.”

    He pointed out that the FBI also investigates hate crimes carried out against individuals because of their national origin or religious identity. “I want people to know we also investigate hate crimes and civil rights violations,” he declared. “If people in this country think they’re being picked on or bullied or attacked or threatened because of their national origin or their religion, I hope they’ll tell us because we will take that very, very seriously.”

    Comey said the FBI’s relationship with the Muslim community is “low key.”

    “We try to make sure our presence in interacting with the communities is low key, but it’s probably poorly understood,” he noted. “Not just with Muslim communities but with other communities that we interact with.”

    “We have the same values,” he added. “We don’t want people killing people and no parent — whether they’re Jewish or Hindu or Chrisitian or Muslim — wants their children hijacked by maniacs. So our interests are shared, but maybe is a story that’s under-told.”

    http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/10/fbi-director-goes-obama-doesnt-yes-radical-islamic-terror/

    video ( 49 min 40 )

    To mark the opening of the new exhibit “Today’s FBI: Fighting Crime in the Age of Terror,” FBI Director James B. Comey sat down with Newseum CEO Jeffrey Herbst on Dec. 9, 2015, for a lively one-hour discussion on the challenges of balancing national security with First Amendment rights

  4. Clinton calls the GOP front-runner “dangerous” for his comments against Muslims

    Hillary said, “I no longer think he’s funny.” And “now he has gone way over the line. And what he’s saying now is not only shameful and wrong, it’s dangerous.”

    She added, “this latest demand that we not let Muslims into our country really plays right into the hands of the terrorists, and I don’t say that lightly, but it does. He is giving them a great propaganda tool, a way to recruit more folks from Europe and the United States. And because it’s kind of crossed that line, I think everybody, and especially other Republicans, need to stand up and really say, ‘Enough. You’ve gone too far. That’s not who we are. That’s not the kind of country that we believe we are. And we’re just not going to tolerate it.’ And so, I hope more people will do that.”

    video – ( 2 min 02 )

    • When people say that anyone standing up to the Muslims is “helping” the terrorists they are giving into the line of reasoning of the appeaser. Those are the exact same thoughts that went through Neville Chamberlain’s mind as he contemplated the rise of Adolf Hitler. It’s totally intuitive and understandable to hunker down and not say anything when a frightening bully enters the room, to not “make him mad”, but it’s the very last thing you should do – unless you want the bully to permanently dominate the environment.

      Nope! The right thing to do is make the miserable bastard as angry as possible then knock him out cold when he takes a lunging swing at you. Then you head off into the sunset with the pretty girl on your lean sinewy arm…

          • Why do you think the Dems always try to keep the absentee ballots of soldiers from being counted? Also think about which side the soldiers and police will be supporting if there is a revolution, that should but probably won’t make the left back down.

  5. Putin vows tough line on Syria threats (BBC, Dec 11, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35070354

    “President Putin has ordered the Russian military to take “extremely tough” action against any threat to its forces in Syria.

    Any targets threatening its forces must be “immediately destroyed”, he told top military leaders.

    Mr Putin did not elaborate but Turkey and Russia are currently locked in a spat over the downing of a Russian jet by Ankara.”

  6. German Vice-Chancellor Warns of Rising Nationalism in Europe (abcnews, Dec 11, 2015)
    http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/german-vice-chancellor-warns-rising-nationalism-europe-35709699

    “Germany’s vice chancellor has warned against the rise of nationalism in Europe, citing the far-right National Front that scored strongly in recent French regional elections.

    Sigmar Gabriel told members of his Social Democratic Party on Friday that movements such as the National Front “stand against everything we represent.”

    Gabriel cited the National Front’s claim to be both “national and social” — a sensitive phrase in Germany since the dictatorship of Adolf Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party.

    He urged conservative politicians to take a stronger stance against the far right, and said left-wing parties in Europe should fight against “the enemies of Europe.””

    • What exactly does he want to conserve? The tenets of applied international socialism? Well, in that respect even this raving leftist lunatic is a conservative…

      • He wants to conserve the power that the left currently holds, never underestimate the greed for power of a leftist politician. Ask a leftist how the greed for power to control people is good and the greed for money made by selling things is bad?

    • Yes, yes, they’ve been freaked out over “nationalism” ever since the war, but there are different kinds of nationalism. Hitler personally thought that war was perfectly fine – no problem whatsoever – and that killing large numbers of people was as natural as the falling snow. He was one kind of nationalist. Nationalistic Europeans today just want their cultures to survive; they have no interest in invading France or annihilating the Jews, or taking over the world. It’s ridiculous. A little bit of nationalism is a good thing. The left is creating one big 70-year-long straw man argument.

      • Don’t use facts and logic, they confuse the left and the left is sure there is only one kind of nationalism.

        • And that is why the paradigm of the new left is “internationalism”. They’re just not going to stop pushing until they have the entire world under the leadership of some bloated, corrupt, totalitarian neo-UN: the EU only much worse. They are mad and they must be stopped. They quite literally know not what they do…

  7. US Intel: ISIS May Have Passport Printing Machine, Blank Passports

    http://abcnews.go.com/International/us-intel-isis-passport-printing-machine-blank-passports/story?id=35700681

    With the U.S. and other countries on high alert for ISIS attacks, American authorities are warning the terror group’s followers may have infiltrated American borders with authentic-looking passports ISIS has printed itself with its own machines, according to an intelligence report obtained by ABC News.

    The 17-page Homeland Security Investigations (HSI) Intelligence Report, issued to law enforcement last week, says ISIS likely has been able to print legitimate-looking Syrian passports since taking over the city of Deir ez-Zour last summer, home to a passport office with “boxes of blank passports” and a passport printing machine. Another passport office was located in Raqqa, Syria, which has long been ISIS’s de facto capital.

    “Since more than 17 months [have] passed since Raqqa and Deir ez-Zour fell to ISIS, it is possible that individuals from Syria with passports ‘issued’ in these ISIS controlled cities or who had passport blanks, may have traveled to the U.S.,” the report says.

  8. Feds Launch Facial, Eye Scans Of Foreigners Entering U.S. From Mexico

    http://losangeles.cbslocal.com/2015/12/10/feds-launch-facial-eye-scans-of-foreigners-entering-u-s-from-mexico/

    SAN DIEGO (AP) — Nearly half of the people living in the U.S. illegally are believed to have entered the country legally and stayed on expired visas. To combat the problem, the federal government on Thursday is launching one of its most ambitious efforts to track them.

    U.S. Customs and Border Protection will begin capturing facial and eye scans of foreigners entering the country at San Diego’s Otay Mesa port of entry on foot. By February, foreigners going to Mexico on foot through the checkpoint will get scanned.

    The trial run, which lasts through the end of June, will help determine if authorities expand biometric screening to foreigners at all land crossings on the 1,954-mile border with Mexico. Authorities will look at the accuracy of the cameras.

  9. Muslim Population in U.S. to Double by 2050, Study Shows

    http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2015/12/10/muslim-population-u-s-double-2050-study-shows/

    Islam’s spectacular birthrates, the relative youth of Muslims and the increase in Muslim immigration into the United States combine to account for its accelerated growth rate in the U.S.

    Muslims currently make up approximately 0.9% of the U.S. adult population, or 1.8 million Muslim adults. If children are included, the Muslim population in the United States totals 2.75 million Muslims in the country, the majority of whom (63%) are immigrants.

    As the fastest-growing religion in America, by the year 2050, the number of Muslims is projected to more than double, surpassing Judaism as the country’s second-largest religious group after Christianity. Those identifying with Islam are projected to comprise 2.1% of the U.S. population.

    • All of the demographic projections assume a steady state, I wish they would includ that state in the articles because a lot of people read the [projections and decide nothing can be done are refuse to fight.

  10. Putin says Russia backs Free Syrian Army alongside Assad troops

    http://www.oann.com/putin-says-russia-backs-free-syrian-army-alongside-assad-troops/

    MOSCOW (Reuters) – President Vladimir Putin said on Friday Russia supports the opposition Free Syrian Army, providing it with air support, arms and ammunition in joint operations with Syrian troops against Islamist militants.

    His statement appeared to be the first time Moscow said it was actually supporting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s opponents in the fight against Islamic State forces. Putin said last month the Russian air force had hit several “terrorist” targets provided by the Free Syrian Army.

    Western and Arab states carrying out air strikes against Islamic State for more than a year say that Russian jets have mainly hit other rebel forces in the west of Syria.

    “The work of our aviation group assists in uniting the efforts of government troops and the Free Syrian Army,” Putin told an annual meeting at the defense ministry.

  11. Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric says government should not tolerate infringement of sovereignty

    http://www.oann.com/iraqs-top-shiite-cleric-says-government-should-not-tolerate-infringement-of-sovereignty/

    BAGHDAD (Reuters) – Iraq’s top Shi’ite cleric, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, called on the government on Friday to show “no tolerance” of any infringement of the country’s sovereignty, after Turkey deployed heavily armed troops to northern Iraq.

    Sistani’s spokesman, Sheikh Abdul Mehdi Karbala’i, did not explicitly name Turkey, but a row over the deployment has badly soured relations between Ankara and Baghdad, which denies having agreed to it.

    Sistani also said Iraq’s neighbours should not send any troops to Iraq “under the pretext of fighting terrorism”, except with the approval of the Baghdad government.

  12. Divers search lake for evidence in Southern California massacre

    http://www.oann.com/fbi-security-leaders-to-brief-congress-on-california-killings/

    SAN BERNARDINO, Calif. (Reuters) – A week-old investigation into the shooting rampage that left 14 people dead at a holiday party in Southern California turned on Thursday to a small lake near the scene of the massacre, where divers searched for evidence.

    The FBI also revealed investigators were looking into any connections there may have been between one of the two killers in San Bernardino last week and four men arrested in 2012 in a separate federal terrorism case brought in nearby Riverside, California.

    Thursday’s underwater search stemmed from unspecified leads indicating the married couple who carried out the shooting spree had been in the vicinity of Seccombe Lake in San Bernardino on the day of the killings, said David Bowdich, assistant director of the FBI field office in Los Angeles.

    Bowdich said he would not discuss the “specific evidence we’re looking for.”

  13. Six-year-old Kentucky boy gets ‘bionic’ hand courtesy of 3-D printing technology

    http://www.oann.com/six-year-old-kentucky-boy-gets-bionic-hand-courtesy-of-3-d-printing-technology/

    LOUISVILLE (Reuters) – A 6-year-old Kentucky boy born with a malformed right hand because of a rare disorder has received what he called his best Christmas gift ever – a “bionic” prosthetic made from 3-D printing technology.

    Lucas Abraham, who has wanted a working right hand since he was 2 years old, showed off the new prosthetic made by University of Louisville bioengineering students.

    “It’s better than every gift that I’ve ever had before,” Lucas told a news conference at the university on Wednesday.

    Gina Bertocci, a University of Louisville bioengineering professor, said Lucas’ hand was the first created by the school for a child and that more could be produced. The university described it as “bionic.”

  14. First planeload of Syrian refugees arrives in Canada

    http://www.oann.com/first-planeload-of-syrian-refugees-headed-to-canada/

    TORONTO (Reuters) – After months of promises and weeks of preparation, the first Canadian government planeload of Syrian refugees landed in Toronto on Thursday, aboard a military aircraft met by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

    Trudeau was elected to a surprise majority in October promising to accept more refugees more quickly than the previous Conservative government.

    “This is a wonderful night, where we get to show not just a planeload of new Canadians what Canada is all about, we get to show the world how to open our hearts and welcome in people who are fleeing extraordinarily difficult situations,” Trudeau told airport workers and volunteers standing by to meet the refugees.

    Trudeau’s Liberal government scaled back the number of Syrian migrants it will accept by year end after the attacks in Paris sparked concern that the election promise to bring in 25,000 by Dec. 31 would not allow enough time for security checks.

  15. Honduras international Peralta shot dead

    http://www.oann.com/honduras-international-peralta-shot-dead/

    (Reuters) – Honduras midfielder Arnold Peralta was shot to death in the Honduran city of La Ceiba on Thursday, police said.

    Peralta, 26, was attacked by several men as he got into his car at a shopping center in his birth city La Ceiba, 185 km north of the capital Tegucigalpa, a region noted for drug cartel activity.

    “Robbery has been discarded as a motive because Peralta had no personal belongings stolen,” said Leonel Sauceda, a spokesman for the Security ministry.

    “The player died from multiple wounds from a firearm,” the Honduran daily La Prensa on Friday quoted the forensic report as saying.

  16. French PM says far-right win would open road to civil war

    http://www.oann.com/french-pm-says-far-right-win-would-open-road-to-civil-war/

    PARIS (Reuters) – France’s Socialist prime minister warned on Friday of a slide towards “civil war” if the far-right National Front wins power in regional polls this weekend as a stepping stone toward its 2017 presidential election campaign.

    Manuel Valls, head of the Socialist national government, is waging a fierce battle to keep Front leader Marine Le Pen from power, going as far as urging left-wingers to back mainstream right-wingers in regions where Le Pen and her camp could win.

    “We have reached a historic moment where the bottom line for our country is a choice between two options,” said Valls. “One is the extreme right, which basically stands for division, a division that can lead to civil war.”

    The other option, he said in a radio interview, was to vote for what the French call republican values, meaning a country open to people of diverse cultures as long as they accept the underlying rules and authority of the secular state.

    • Note how the left in France and the US is saying that the politicians that want to defend their nations and culture are decisive. Also note how the threat of civil war is used in France to try and scare people into voting against defending their nation while in the US the threat of civil war is used to try and warn politicians not to take away right.

    • The Leftists opened the door to civil war (i.e. by decades of applied loony policies). Now they want to blame the “Far-Right.” That is really cheap.

      • The left truly believe that you never let a crisis go to waste and they believe that the truth is whatever helps the left.

  17. Turkey issues arrest warrant for dozens linked to Erdogan foe

    http://www.oann.com/turkey-issues-arrest-warrant-for-dozens-linked-to-erdogan-foe/

    ANKARA (Reuters) – Turkey issued arrest warrants for U.S.-based cleric Fethullah Gulen and 66 others on Friday, state-run Anadolu Agency said, pressing President Tayyip Erdogan’s campaign to root out the influence of the former ally he accuses of trying to topple him.

    A former ruling AK Party deputy was among five people held in operations across Turkey, targeting the “parallel state” Erdogan accuses his former ally of secretly creating in police, judiciary and politics. The suspects all face accusations linked to association with a terrorist group.

    Ilhan Isbilen had resigned from the AK Party after a corruption investigation that touched Erdogan’s inner circle in 2013. The investigation was the final straw that broke relations with Gulen.

    Erdogan has since moved to purge the police and judiciary of what he sees as a network of conspirators and terrorists at home and abroad.

  18. Cruz: U.S. should focus on Islamic State, not regime change

    http://www.oann.com/cruz-follow-military-advice-on-u-s-troops-in-fight-against-islamic-state/

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Republican presidential hopeful Ted Cruz said U.S. leaders should prioritize combating Islamic State over pushing for regime change abroad, as he took a tough stance on militants but maintained his opposition to aggressive overseas intervention.

    Cruz, a U.S. senator from Texas, has sought to stake a middle ground between rivals who support more U.S. action in Syria, such as U.S. Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, and non-interventionists who prefer to steer clear of foreign conflicts.

    “Nothing that has happened in the last two and a half years has given me any more confidence that intervention in the Syrian civil war is in America’s interest,” Cruz said on Thursday in a speech at the Heritage Foundation, a think tank in Washington.

    “I believe we should focus on the immediate and unambiguous challenge to our security, which is utterly destroying ISIS.”

  19. House members join Senate war authorization push

    http://www.oann.com/house-members-join-senate-war-authorization-push/

    WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Democratic and Republican members of the House of Representatives joined a Senate push on Thursday for Congress to vote on a formal authorization to use military force against Islamic State, a boost for an effort that has struggled to gain traction among lawmakers.

    Eight days after an attack in San Bernardino, California, by a couple who pledged loyalty to the militant group, Republican Representative Scott Rigell and Democratic Representative Peter Welch backed a proposal to formally authorize the use of military force, or AUMF, against it.

    “As I see it, we must not fear ISIS, nor should we fear the debate about how to defeat ISIS,” Rigell told a news conference, using an alternate name for the group, which has seized swaths of territory in Iraq and Syria.

    The two joined Republican Senator Jeff Flake and Democratic Senator Tim Kaine, who have been calling for a vote on an authorization for months. Kaine and Flake said it was important for any proposal to have backing from members of both parties and both houses of Congress.

    • I’m AGAINST it => 0 will KILL Americans.
      It will just have to wait.
      The chain of command is unclear. False flags will wave on high. His “allies” aren’t ours.
      They’ll be dupes or pawns or hostages.

  20. Obama told NSC and FBI to ‘downplay’ terrorist angle of San Bernardino

    http://libertyunyielding.com/2015/12/11/75373/

    The FBI has taken heat for failing to immediately classify the San Bernardino shootings as terrorism, but a new report shows that FBI reluctance could have been due to external pressure from the White House.
    Obama stupid grin

    A source told Jack Murphy of SOFREP that the FBI instantly believed the shooting, which left 14 dead, to be a clear act of terrorism. The White House, however, didn’t feel the same way and quickly moved in to squash the terror classification.

    This source added that as soon as the shooting took place, Obama convened a meeting with the National Security Council and the heads of other federal enforcement agencies to discuss a public relations strategy.

    • Note that he wasn’t worried about the dead but rather how to spin this so the Moslems wouldn’t be blamed.

  21. BREAKING: ‘Taliban car bombers’ target Spanish embassy in Afghanistan in terrorist attack

    TERRORIST car bombers apparently belonging to the Taliban have attacked a Spanish embassy property in Afghanistan’s capital Kabul this afternoon.

    At least two people were killed when the terrorists drove a car packed with explosives at a guest house belonging to the Spanish government, which was used to accommodate important dignitaries.

    Witnesses reported hearing a loud blast following by piercing rounds of gunfire, suggesting that the militants may have managed to escape from the vehicle and engage in a firefight with security services. Local news sites reported that some of the terrorists may have managed to hole up in a nearby building.

    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/626044/Taliban-car-bomb-terrorist-Spanish-embassy-Kabul-Afghanistan

  22. UK: Police shoot man dead in north London

    DAILY MAIL –
    A man was shot dead by police after he ‘came out firing’ as armed officers thwarted an audacious bid to spring a convicted carjacker from a nearby court.

    Two other men were arrested as the drama unfolded at 9am just yards from Wood Green Crown Court in north London.

    Police are believed to have been tipped off that an attempt would be made to free Turkish nationals Erwin Amoyaw-Gyamfi and Erun Izzet as they attended court to be sentenced for carjacking and firearms offences.

    Another two men were arrested in a nearby street in connection with the incident.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3355712/Police-shoot-man-intelligence-led-operation-North-London-Scotland-Yard-says.html

  23. BBC NEWS – Canada: PM Justin Trudeau welcomes Syrian refugees

    The first military plane carrying Syrian refugees to be resettled in Canada has arrived in the country. Welcoming the 163 refugees, new Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said his country was “showing the world how to open our hearts”.
    The newly elected Liberal government has pledged to take in 25,000 refugees by the end of February.


  24. Paris attacker was French army reject

    WISSEMBOURG, France (Reuters) – Foued Mohamed-Aggad, one of three young men who shot dead 90 people at a Paris concert hall a month ago, was turned down by the French army and possibly also by the police before Islamic State took him on to fight for them.

    Army recruiters in the eastern city of Strasbourg decided after conducting physical and psychological tests that he was not a suitable candidate to bear arms as a French soldier.

    Mohamed-Aggad’s identity was only established this week because of a text message his mother Fatima received.

    The text came from his wife, Hadjira, in Syria. It told the mother of four that her younger son had died “with his brothers” on Nov. 13, the night of the attacks.

    Fearing the worst, and with her elder son already in prison on suspicion of having terrorism links, the Moroccan-born woman went to the family’s lawyer.

    DNA matching followed, and the profile of yet another radicalized young man, from yet another part of France, emerged this week, joining other home-grown French and Belgian jihadis already identified as the killers of 130 victims at the Bataclan concert hall and elsewhere in Paris.

    Mohamed-Aggad had set off for Syria in 2013, and while his departure was no secret in his small home town of Wissembourg in northeastern France, some who knew him were shocked to learn of his role in the Paris killings.

    “I can’t believe it was him,” said Yazar Mesut, a 46-year-old neighbor told Reuters in one of the town’s bars. “He was intelligent and polite, knew what respect was about and didn’t act like a big shot.”

    According to another neighbor, who gave his name as Youssef, the young man failed the police entrance exam by just a few marks, and was also turned down by the army.

    “That’s the only time I saw him disappointed. He was complaining. He reckoned it was because of his foreign origins,” said Youssef.

    NOT SUITABLE

    An official from Strasbourg’s army recruitment office confirmed that Mohamed-Aggad had tried and failed to join up in 2010.

    “We have filters. We look at personality and do physical and psychological tests. The candidate has to be healthy and viable for the army,” said army recruitment spokeswoman Lieutenant Colonel Sophie Caussel.

    “In this case we identified him as not suitable as a soldier and to bear arms. We decided not to go any further with him.”

    Most would-be soldiers in France are in fact disappointed. Only 15,000 people will be recruited to the French army this year out of 160,000 applicants so far, according to official figures, which recorded a big jump in applications after the Nov. 13 attacks.

    Police recruitment authorities would neither confirm nor deny any application. An official cited the confidentiality requirements of the inquiry into the Nov. 13 killings as the reason for the secrecy.

    Either way, Mohamed-Aggad, who was 23 when he died, had left his military and police ambitions far behind him.

    According to the judicial source he was also being investigated for links to Mourad Fares, a Franco-Moroccan man suspected of being a key jihadist recruiter for Syria in Toulouse and Strasbourg, and who is already in jail in France after being arrested in Turkey last year.

    PRAYED ON HIS OWN

    Christian Mahler shared a floor in the small residential building near Wissembourg station where Mohamed-Aggad’s family lived for a time, and where they stood out among most residents who were of European descent.

    Mohamed-Aggad began frequenting the Mosque more often around 2012, according to other people in the bar.

    During that period, according to Mahler, Mohamed-Aggad’s mother often found herself apologizing to neighbors for the noise made by her children, who used to bang on the walls of their apartment.

    Can Yakup, president of a Turkish cultural center that he said Mohamed-Aggad visited “once or twice”, thinks he was a witness to a change in the young man’s behavior.

    “The last time I sent him away because he wanted to pray on his own,” Yakup told Reuters at the center which sits behind a railway line and next to a Lidl supermarket. “It was like for him the rest of us weren’t good enough Muslims.”

    DEPARTURE

    According to police sources and locals, Mohamed-Aggad and his brother Karim, 25, set off for Syria towards the end of 2013.

    Two friends from the Wissembourg and five more young people from Meinau, a suburb of nearby Strasbourg, went with them.

    One of the Wissembourg contingent did not get far, intercepted at Frankfurt airport by his parents.

    Others came back a few months later in 2014, saying they had been on a humanitarian mission. In May that year, seven were arrested, including Karim. They are still in custody.

    Judicial sources say Paris prosecutors asked on Oct. 9 this year for a case to be brought against them on terrorism-related charges that could carry jail sentences of 10 years. They could appear in court in 2016.

    ATTACKERS

    Officials have yet to name all the dead gunmen and suicide bombers directly involved in last month’s attacks, for which Islamic State claimed responsibility. It remains unclear when and how Mohamed-Aggad returned to France.

    The other two attackers at the concert hall have been named as Samy Amimour, 28, a former bus driver from Drancy, north east of Paris, and Ismail Omar Mostefai, 29, a Frenchman of Algerian descent who lived for a time in Chartres, south west of Paris.

    Amimour also spent time in Syria, as did the presumed ringleader, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, 28, a Belgian of Moroccan origin who died in a police raid the following week.

    Brahim Abdeslam, 31, who blew himself up after taking part in the cafe and restaurant killings, was a French citizen too although born and raised in Brussels.

    Bilal Hadfi, 20, one of three suicide bombers who died near the Stade de France, dropped out of school in 2014 to travel to Syria. Another of the attackers, Salah Abdeslam, 26, also a Frenchman although born in Brussels, is still on the run.

    http://www.foreigndesknews.com/news/politics/paris-attacker-was-french/

  25. WaPo – Memo to politicians: It is a very bad idea to speculate about how many Muslims advocate terrorism

    We didn’t have to wait long after Donald Trump’s proposal to temporarily ban Muslim immigrants before another politician said something else off-color about the world’s fastest-growing religion.

    This time, though, it was a Democrat who stepped into politically fraught territory. And in doing so, Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Calif.) could complicate the line her party hopes to draw between Trump, xenophobia and the rest of the Republican Party.

    Sanchez, who is running for the open U.S. Senate seat in her state, suggested Wednesday that up to 20 percent of Muslims want to establish an Islamic caliphate and are willing to use terrorism to get there.

    “We know that there is a small group, and we don’t know how big that is — it can be anywhere between 5 and 20 percent, from the people that I speak to — that Islam is their religion and who have a desire for a caliphate and to institute that in any way possible,” Sanchez said on “PoliticKING with Larry King.”

    Later on in the interview, Sanchez goes so far as to use the “t” word, saying this group of Muslims “is willing to use and they do use terrorism.”

    This isn’t the first time Sanchez has stepped in it when it comes to cultural matters. In May, she let out a Native American war cry while speaking to a group of Indian Americans. A few days later, she apologized.

    Her spokesperson stressed to Politico that Sanchez was making clear it’s unknown how many Muslims might be sympathetic to groups like the Islamic State, which is aiming to build such a caliphate. Sanchez issued a statement to BuzzFeed, which first reported her comments, saying “I strongly support the Muslim community in America and believe that the overwhelming majority of Muslims do not support terrorism or ISIS.”

    But in even attempting to categorize how many Muslims might support the use of terrorism, Sanchez stepped on to a slippery and arguably irresponsible slope, both politically and in her responsibilities as an elected official.

    Politically, the Democrat’s words certainly don’t help her party make the case that Republicans are the ones trying to stoke xenophobia and undermine the United States’ basic tenet of religious freedom. (Worth noting here: Sanchez is the highest-ranking woman on both the House Armed Services and House Homeland Security committees.)

    It also gives one more advantage to Sanchez’s main Democratic primary challenger for the seat being vacated Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.). Attorney General Kamala Harris’s campaign is probably just tacking this line on to a ready-to-go attack ad featuring some of Sanchez’s more eyebrow-raising comments. (The Sacramento Bee reported that, in 2010, while facing a Republican opponent who immigrated from Vietnam, Sanchez told Spanish-language TV that she thought the Vietnamese community was teaming up with Republicans to take her out.)

    Most troublesome, though, is the possibility that Sanchez’s theory gives people who want to take her argument further — like banning all Muslim immigrants from America, or heaping suspicion and even threats of violence on to the ones who are already here — license to do so.

    It’s a small step from the congresswoman’s words to considering it fair game to question the allegiance of any Muslim, since according to a lawmaker who purports to know such things, one-fifth of Muslims might sympathize the aims and even methods of the Islamic State. That is not an argument Sanchez, her party, or most any politician wants to facilitate.

    Sure, what Sanchez said might blow over and become yet another minor political controversy for her and a footnote in the greater struggle about how the West should react after terrorist attacks like those in Paris and San Bernardino, Calif. But it was terribly off-message.

    And that’s reason enough for Sanchez to serve as a warning for any other politician who is tempted to try to categorize members of an entire religion in these divided times: Stop and think about what you’re saying first. Then, probably don’t say it.

    https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-fix/wp/2015/12/11/memo-to-politicians-it-is-a-very-bad-idea-to-talk-about-how-many-muslims-advocate-terrorism

  26. Swiss arrest two Syrians; traces of explosives in car – media reports

    GENEVA, Dec 11 (Reuters) – Two Syrian nationals were arrested in Geneva on Friday and traces of explosives were found in their car, the local newspaper Tribune de Geneve and Swiss television said.

    The newspaper gave no details on the identity of the two men or the circumstances of their arrest. It said it was unclear whether the arrests were linked to a heightened security alert Geneva authorities had declared on Thursday. It remained in effect at level 3 on a scale of 5.

    “Two men of Syrian origin were arrested in Geneva on Friday,” Swiss television said on its nightly news broadcast. “Traces of explosives were found in their car.”

    Geneva officials were not immediately available to comment, but a source close to the case told Reuters that two men had been arrested, without giving any details.

    Swiss media and Reuters have reported that authorities are looking for four men believed to have been in Geneva this week. A van with Belgian plates and two men entered Switzerland from France via the Jura mountains on Tuesday and went back to France after three few hours, Swiss television said.

    Earlier on Friday, Swiss President Simonetta Sommaruga said that Swiss federal authorities had put Geneva on a high security alert this week after getting a tip from foreign authorities about a suspected Islamic State cell in the region.

    Two sources confirmed to Reuters that the Central Intelligence Agency had provided a photo of four men to Swiss authorities on Wednesday, saying they could be on Swiss territory.

    The photo, published in Swiss newspapers, showed four bearded men seated, with their faces blurred and index fingers raised in the air. A CIA spokesman in Washington declined to comment on Thursday.

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/wires/reuters/article-3356579/Swiss-arrest-two-Syrians-traces-explosives-car–media-reports.html

  27. Homeland Security Shut Down Investigation Into Farook And Malik Linked Islamist Group To Protect ‘Civil Liberties’ Of Potential Terrorists

    http://www.breitbart.com/national-security/2015/12/11/homeland-security-shut-investigation-farook-malik-linked-islamist-group-protect-civil-liberties-potential-terrorists/

    The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been accused of deleting intelligence records relating to dangerous Islamists linked to terrorists Sayed Farook and Tashfeen Malik, because they wanted to protect the “civil liberties” of members of the caliphate-supporting network.

    Phil Haney, a U.S. Customs and Border Patrol analyst, says he was ordered to stop investigating Deobandi Islamist groups and his work on them was erased. He even says he was subjected to a disciplinary when he attempted to blow the whistle.

    If he’d been allowed to continue his investigation, he claims Malik’s visa application would have been flagged for greater scrutiny.

    He explained: “The administration was more concerned about the civil rights and liberties of foreign Islamic groups with terrorist ties than the safety and security of Americans”.

    Analyst Phil Haney told Fox News that he once worked as a researcher looking into potential terrorists in the Passenger Analysis Units at the Department of Homeland Security in Atlanta, as well as at the U.S. Customs and Border Protection’s National Targeting Center.

  28. A Famous Person Just Called For The Assassination Of Donald Trump

    http://www.westernjournalism.com/stunning-a-famous-person-just-called-for-the-assassination-of-donald-trump/?utm_source=MailChimp&utm_medium=email&utm_content=featured-stories&utm_campaign=DailyEmail12.11.15

    A rap artist is using his music to call for the assassination of businessman Donald Trump, who is leading the field of GOP candidates for president.

    Rick Ross, who supports #BlackLivesMatter, raps in his latest song to “assassinate Trump like I’m Zimmerman,” referring to George Zimmerman who shot and killed black teenager Trayvon Martin in a controversial confrontation in Zimmerman’s white neighborhood.

  29. Latest Islamic State video shows “Dabiq Army” that will invade Rome, destroy crucifixes & enslave Christian women

    ===========================================================

    ISIS release chilling new ‘end of the world’ video showing final battle with ‘crusaders’

    In the video, tanks can be seen driving towards the Colosseum crumbled in the sand. Footage then cuts to outside buildings of the Italian capital, before zeroing in on the Vatican. However, the video was filmed by ISIS in Iraq and the scenes of Italy are stock footage.

    The film’s dialogue makes claims that the “Dabiq Army” will race into Rome, destroy crucifixes, and enslave Christian women.

    ISIS has released chilling new footage depicting its apocalyptic vision of the end of the world.

    It has titled the video ‘Meeting at Dabiq’ which refers to the location of a final battle between the ‘Crusaders’ and the ‘Believers’.

    The video also shows an ISIS ‘armoured unit’ advancing towards the Colosseum in reference to the ‘armies of Rome’.

    In the footage the terrorist organisation shows a dead fighter being kissed by his comrades, a Jihadi on horseback trying to look like a honourable soldier and groups of men with the majority too scared to show their faces to the camera.

    The propaganda video then shows a convoy of cars driving at sunset, before switching to a man raising the black and white flag of ISIS.

    It then moves on to show the ISIS flag over Algeria, Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Iraq before parading the flags of the countries it has decided, ISIS is at war with.

    The British flag is one of 60 on the screen.[…]

    http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/world-news/isis-release-sickening-new-video-6995563

    New ISIS Video Shows Armageddon Battle With the West

    http://heavy.com/news/2015/12/new-isis-islamic-state-news-video-see-you-in-dabiq-rome-muslim-extremists-rome-crusaders-colosseum-malahim-meeting-at-dabiq-italy-west-war-uncensored-full-youtube/

  30. bin Laden aide resurfaces on battlefield after being freed from Gitmo by Obama

    http://www.gopusa.com/news/2015/12/11/bin-laden-aide-resurfaces-on-battlefield-after-being-freed-from-gitmo-by-obama/?subscriber=1

    A hardened Al Qaeda fighter who served as Usama bin Laden’s jack-of-all-trades before spending a decade at Guantanamo Bay made a military prosecutor’s prophecy come true when he resurfaced on the field of battle in Yemen, where he is one of the terror group’s top leaders.

    Ibrahim al-Qosi, a Sudanese native who once served as Usama bin Laden’s cook, chauffeur and bookkeeper, appears in the latest video released this week by Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), some three years after he was released from the U.S. military facility. The 55-year-old Al-Qosi is one of the Al Qaeda chapter’s top men, according to the Foundation For Defense of Democracies’ Long War Journal blog.

    “One of the main reasons the United States was willing to return him to Sudan was the U.S. confidence in the government of Sudan’s program and its confidence that Mr. al-Qosi would not represent any kind of threat to the United States,” his attorney, Paul Reichler, said in July, 2012, when Al-Qosi was freed. “If they had

  31. General: Russia’s ‘Significant’ Buildup Along Baltic Sea ‘Worrisome’

    https://pjmedia.com/news-and-politics/2015/12/11/general-russias-significant-buildup-along-baltic-sea-worrisome

    While the world is distracted by the scourge of ISIS, Russia is upping the ante in Eastern Europe on the heels of its invasion of Ukraine.

    Lt. Gen. Ben Hodges of Operation Atlantic Resolve, the United States’ “demonstration of continued U.S. commitment to the collective security of NATO” after Russian President Vladimir Putin’s seizure of Crimea, told reporters at the Pentagon today that Russia has placed “a significant amount of capability” in the Kaliningrad area on the Baltic coast.

    “The most worrisome part is not just the fact that it sits between Poland and Lithuania — two of our allies — but it has the ability to deny access up into the Baltic Sea because of its anti-ship capability, air defense capability, electronic warfare capability as well,” Hodges said.

    “And then, the — the way that senior Russian officials have talked about Denmark as a nuclear target, Sweden as a nuclear target, Romania as a nuclear target — sort of an irresponsible use of — of the ‘nuclear’ word, if you will. You can understand why our allies on the eastern flank of NATO — particularly in the Baltic region — are nervous, are uneasy. Large snap exercises without announcement, and so on — these put a lot of pressure on them.”

    The general stressed that “really, Europe changed significantly with Russia’s invasion of Crimea.”

    • There are several reasons for this, 1) Putin wants to re-establish Russian control over Eastern Europe, 2) he wants to position himself to be the savior of civilization when the major fighting in Europe starts. People usually look at wars as two sided but as usual this war will have several sides who are temporally allied and then at each others throats. Remember the ENEMY OF MY ENEMY IS MY ENEMIES ENEMY, NOTHING MORE. Putin and the Russian people may be willing to spend lives and treasure to prevent Islam from controlling Europe but they will charge a price that may be almost as bad as the one the Moslems would charge.

  32. The Passing of a GI Joe
    Medal of Honor recipient Tibor Rubin wanted to show that Jews could fight as well as die.

    http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261088/passing-gi-joe-peter-collier

    Our country lost a hero last Saturday (December 5), a hero it acquired along the way, when Tibor Rubin—“Ted,” as he liked to be called because that was his “American name”—died. His birth certificate said he was 86, but by his own calculation he was actually a little younger than that since he believed that he had a second birthday when he arrived in America 67 years ago.

    Ted’s story is one of the most remarkable in U.S. military history. It is a story of daring and determination not quite like any other. It is a story given flesh and bones by simple human decency.

    Voluble and mordantly funny, Rubin, a thick and powerful man even in old age and still speaking an immigrant’s eccentric English, told me about it a few years ago during a couple of interviews I conducted with him for a book I was doing on the Medal of Honor.

    The story begins in Hungary where he was born in 1929 in the small town of Paszto. His family were Jews, but this didn’t matter to their neighbors—not yet, anyhow. “We have a beautiful life there,” Rubin said. “We didn’t bother nobody and nobody bothered us.

    • A true hero died, the world is a lesser place with his passing. He was a member of the old breed, the breed who make this nation great. In the near future we are all going to have to ask ourselves if we can live up to the standards he and other like him have set.

      For everyone who receives a medal for valor there are a hundred whose valorous actions aren’t seen and who are never awarded the medals they have earned. None of them begrudge the ones who are seen, and the vast majority of both groups will deny that they are heroes.

  33. The Lies About Mass Muslim Immigration
    And the dire consequences.

    http://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/261079/lies-about-mass-muslim-immigration-howard-rotberg

    For over 30 years on American television, and before that on radio, the premier game show was called “Truth or Consequences”. For about 20 years, it was hosted by the ever-popular Bob Barker.

    On the show, contestants received roughly two seconds to answer a trivia question correctly (usually an off-the-wall question that no one would be able to answer correctly, or a bad joke) before “Beulah the Buzzer” sounded. If, as was almost always the case, the contestant could not complete the “Truth” portion, there would be “Consequences,” usually a zany and embarrassing stunt. From the start, most contestants preferred to answer the question wrong in order to perform the stunt. Said the show’s producer Ralph Edwards, “Most of the American people are darned good sports.”

    In many broadcasts, the stunts on Truth or Consequences included a segment with a popular, but emotional, heart-rending surprise for a contestant, that being the reunion with a long-lost relative or with an enlisted son or daughter returning from military duty overseas, particularly Vietnam.

    Bob Barker would sign off the show by saying “I hope all your consequences are happy ones.”

  34. The Right Scoop – Syed Farook’s friend: “There’s so many sleeper cells, so many people just waiting”

    […]He would say stuff like: ‘There’s so much going on. There’s so many sleeper cells, so many people just waiting. When it happens, it’s going to be big. Watch,’ ” said Nick Rodriguez, a frequent patron who had known Mr. Marquez on and off for the past two years. “We took it as a joke. When you look at the kid and talk to him, no one would take him seriously about that.”

    http://therightscoop.com/syed-farooks-friend-theres-so-many-sleeper-cells-so-many-people-just-waiting/

    • Black Supremacist Who Said Open Season on Whites Warns Every Muslim Will Declare War on America

      http://savingtherepublic.com/blog/2015/12/black-supremacist-said-open-season-whites-warns-every-muslim-will-declare-war-america/

      Oh look our pal self-proclaimed “King” Noble is back issuing a warning to the America. Apparently evil America through religious persecution, oppression and associating all muslims with terrorists is going to force moderate muslims to become terrorists! Yes, his logic is if we don’t stop the hate, associating all muslims with terrorists and persecute them over their beliefs they’ll become terrorists…. We evil Americans will have to worry about standing in line and getting killed in the “most heinous way”! Noble also warns those who engage in jihad won’t care about gun control, (see dems laws don’t matter to the lawless) they’ll use anything they can get their hands on to kill people.

      Majority of Americans have a problem with radical islam. No one is attacking muslims. There is no religious persecution or oppression against any muslim in America. Their mosques, and businesses owned by muslims are open. Muslims are free to go about their lives in America. They are not being forced out of or segregated from any business or institution. This guy is a black supremacist who is looking to stoke flames and create multi-pronged race war in America after he said it was open season on white people and cops.

      So WHERE is DOJ Chief Loretta Lynch? Is this not hateful violent rhetoric? According to Lynch had this been anyone talking in a hateful manner towards muslims they would be prosecuted. Why aren’t racists and self-proclaimed black supremacists calling for violence, open season on whites etc being prosecuted? Double standard from progressives in power is off the charts.

      Watch your backs America.

  35. Yemen crisis: Saudi-led coalition ‘targeting’ schools (BBC, Dec 11, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-35071200

    “Air strikes carried out by Saudi-led coalition forces in Yemen have targeted schools that were still in use, Amnesty International has said.

    The rights group accused the coalition of violating international law and disrupting the education of more than 6,500 children.

    It said the US and UK should suspend the sale of arms used in such attacks.

    The Saudi-led Arab coalition intervened in Yemen in March against Houthi rebels who toppled the government.

    Saudi Arabia has previously denied that it targeted civilian infrastructure…”

  36. EU concern after Bosnia’s Serbs suspend police co-operation (BBC, Dec 11, 2015)
    http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-35070144

    “The EU has expressed concern after Bosnian Serbs decided to suspend co-operation with the country’s central police force and courts.

    The decision could “jeopardize the functioning of the judiciary and law enforcement in BiH [Bosnia-Herzegovina]”, the EU warned.

    The Bosnian Serb move follows raids by officers investigating war crimes.

    Most Bosnian Serbs live in one of two entities set up by the Dayton agreement that ended the 1992-1995 Bosnian war…”

  37. Mosque Fire in Coachella, California, Investigated by FBI (nbcnews, Dec 11, 2015)
    http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/mosque-fire-coachella-california-investigated-fbi-n478851

    “A fire sparked at a mosque in Coachella, California, Friday is being investigated by the FBI to determine whether it was deliberately set.

    The Coachella Police Department received a call at about noon (3 p.m. ET) about “possible arson” at the Islamic Society of Coachella Valley, the department said in a statement.

    The fire was extinguished within about an hour, and no one was injured, according to the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection…”

  38. U.S. Agents in Greece Expose Syrian Who Sold Passports Thinking They Were for ISIS (nbcnews, Dec 11, 2015)
    http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/europes-border-crisis/u-s-agents-greece-expose-syrian-who-sold-passports-thinking-n477421

    “An NBC News investigation has uncovered that a Greece-based document forger — who sold American passports to a U.S. agent after being told they were meant for ISIS — will not be extradited to America anytime soon, since he was not promptly arrested despite a nine-month-long investigation by the Department of Homeland Security.

    Speaking to NBC News from inside a Greek prison, Haytham Koubash denied that he forged the passports himself but acknowledged facilitating the sale.

    “It’s my work,” he said, “I don’t ask anybody for who or what they want to do with the passports.”

    For U.S. authorities, it all began in October 2014 when, according to a federal agent’s sworn affidavit, DHS investigators received a tip from two informants who claimed that the 46-year-old Syrian, Koubash, was selling doctored American and European passports in Athens….”

  39. Turkish fighter jet intercepted by GREECE in another airspace violation (express, Dec 11, 2015)
    http://www.express.co.uk/news/world/625932/Turkey-Greece-Russia-Space-Airspace-Jets

    “ARMED Turkish jets were intercepted by Greek aircraft after claims they breached airspace borders.

    Turkey was embroiled in another airspace violation row – but this time ITS armed jets had to be escorted out of territory.

    The breach comes just weeks after Turkey brought down a Russian fighter jet for allegedly breaching its own airspace. Russia denies any violation.

    A radar was fixed on two Turkish F-16 fighter jets according to the Turkish General Staff when the jets entered the zone over the Aegean Sea.

    Turkey refuses to recognise a 10-mile airspace zone around Greek islands, which led to 1,233 airspace violations so far this year, 31 of which took place over Greek territory.

    The Turkish General Staff said in a statement: “The Turkish F-16 fighter jet was conducting a training flight over neutral waters.

    “During its mission, two Greek air force F-16s began pursuing our fighter jet, holding it as a target on the radar for three minutes and 40 seconds.”

    The General Staff’s statement added that its pilots demonstrated “the necessary reaction.”

    Intruding flights over Greek territory have more than doubled in 2015, compared to the previous year….”