Vidme – Latest Video-Sharing Service Embraced By ISIS, Other terrorist Jihadis.

Vidme – Latest Video-Sharing Service Embraced By ISIS, Other terrorist Jihadis – Follows In Footsteps Of YouTube, Internet Archive. HT: Memri.By: Steven Stalinsky.

In the past few months, the MEMRI Jihad and Terrorism Threat Monitor (JTTM) has found that the video-sharing service Vidme has joined other services such as YouTube, the Internet Archive, Sendvid, Daily Motion, and more that host hosting numerous pro-Islamic State (ISIS) videos.

The videos on Vidme, many of which are produced by the ISIS media wing Al-Hayat, feature beheadings; children receiving ISIS military training and religious education; ISIS fighters from Canada, Germany, Russia, and other countries; Indonesian and other jihadis swearing allegiance to ISIS;  ISIS fighters training and fighting in Iraq, Syria, Nigeria, and other places; fighters from Jabhat Al-Nusra and other groups captured by ISIS; ISIS women fighters training; speeches by ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi and others; Western media reports about ISIS with pro-ISIS commentary; and more.

Some of the videos are subtitled in English. Accounts and video pages, some of which feature ISIS leader Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi and ISIS flags as avatars, can also include links to accounts on Twitter, Facebook, and other social media, and also to other websites. Read the full story here. (Warning link contains graphic images).

Egypt draft constitution may ban religious political parties – report.

Egypt draft constitution may ban religious political parties – report.HT: RussiaToday.

The new draft constitution is expected to be announced on Wednesday, Ali Awad, head of the ten-member technical committee and legal aid to the interim president, said in a Sunday press conference.

Following the ousting of former President Mohamed Morsi, interim President Adly Mansour created a ten-member committee tasked with proposing amendments to the constitution. The panel consists of six judges and four constitutional law professors.

A second committee, comprised of 50 public figures will then have 60 days to review those amendments, to determine if the new proposals are fit for a public referendum. Parliamentary elections are expected to follow after the referendum.
 
“Fundamental changes must be introduced to [the] 2012 Islamist-backed constitution,” Ahram Online quoted source close to the committee as saying. According to the source, the committee has agreed that the new constitution will ban political parties based on religious ideology.

Such a move will clash directly with Morsi’s Article 2 of 2012's constitution, which stipulates that Islamic Sharia law supersedes civilian judiciary. Last week, however, Awad was quoted as saying that Article 2 will be kept “in order to stress the Islamic identity of Egypt.” 

The source said the ban is necessary, as a number of political parties were formed on religious ideology with an ultimate goal of creating a religious state in Egypt. Such caution against religious extremism arose after “proposals from more than 400 political, economic, and social institutions, pressing hard for the necessity of safeguarding Egypt against Islamist factions trying to change the civil nature of the country into a religious oligarchy.”

Among one of the other major amendments proposed would be the annulment of the ban against Hosni Mubark’s National Democratic Party (NDP), the source claimed.  

Committee sources also stated that the “the upper house of parliament, the Shura Council, would be scrapped.”
“Most political factions also press for the elimination of this council, which was exploited by the Muslim Brotherhood and its allies over one year to impose their Islamist ideology on the country,” a source said, adding that the Shura Council costs the state budget “too much money at a time of severe economic crisis.”

Some changes are expected to be introduced to the High Constitutional Court and the media in order to reinforce the institutions’ independence and shield them from further “intimidation by ruling regimes.”


Earlier, Egyptian Prime Minister Hazem el-Beblawi proposed dissolving the Muslim Brotherhood as the army clashed with pro-Morsi supporters across the country.

“There will be no reconciliation with those whose hands have been stained with blood and who turned weapons against the state and its institutions,” Beblawi told reporters.

The Muslim Brotherhood has also been blamed for dozens of attacks on churches and Christian communities in Egypt. However, Amr Darrag from the Freedom and Justice Party told RT that “the Muslim Brotherhood has always been protecting churches.”

Citing a priest in Minya - where many Christian churches were attacked this week - Darrag said that the “attacks were orchestrated by thugs who cooperate with security forces.” He added that allegations of Islamist groups attacking the places of worship are unfounded. “These allegations are being propounded by the current [regime], in order to justify the aggression.”
Furthermore, Darrag told RT that mass media often misinterprets the whole picture, placing pro-Morsi protesters in one camp and government forces in the other. They are composed of “several fractions of Egyptians,” the politician said, adding that some are not organized or united under any banner. “They are all protesting and marching to regain democracy back.”

25 Egyptian policemen killed in Sinai peninsula near Gazan border, slain execution-style by suspected Islamists.

25 Egyptian policemen killed in Sinai peninsula near Gazan border, slain execution-style by suspected Islamists.(TOI).

EL-ARISH, Egypt (AP) — Suspected militants on Monday ambushed two mini-buses carrying off-duty policemen in Egypt’s northern Sinai, killing 25 of them execution-style and wounding two, security officials said.

The militants forced the two vehicles to stop, ordered the policemen out and forced them to lie on the ground before they shot them to death, the officials said.

The policemen were in civilian clothes, the officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity as they were not authorized to talk to the media. The killings took place near the border town of Rafah.

There was initial confusion over how the ambush had happened, and the officials at first said the policemen were killed when the militants fired rocket-propelled grenades at the two minibuses.

But confusion over details in the immediate aftermath of such incidents is common. Egyptian state television also reported that the men were killed execution-style.

Sinai has been witnessing almost daily attacks targeting security forces by suspected militants since the July 3 ouster of Islamist President Mohammed Morsi in a military coup. The strategic region borders the Gaza Strip and Israel.

Egypt’s military and security forces have been engaged in a long battle against militants in the northern half of the peninsula. Militants and tribesmen have used the area for smuggling and other criminal activity for years. Militants have fired rockets into Israel and staged other cross-border attacks there on previous occasions.

More here.

Egyptian Government Admits Killing Islamists in Custody.

Egyptian Government Admits Killing Islamists in Custody.(GlobeAndMail).

The Egyptian government acknowledged that its security forces killed 36 Islamists in its custody Sunday, as the military leaders and the country’s Islamists vowed to keep up their fight over Egypt’s future.

The news of the deaths came on a day in which there appeared to be a pause in the street battles that have claimed more than 1,000 lives in recent days, most of them Islamists and their supporters gunned down by security forces. The Islamists took measures Sunday to avoid confrontations, including canceling several protests over the ouster of a democratically elected Islamist-led government.
While confirming the killings of the detainees Sunday, the Ministry of the Interior said the deaths were the consequence of an escape attempt by Islamist prisoners.
But officials of the main Islamist movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, described the deaths as “assassinations,” and said the victims, which it said numbered 52, had been shot and tear-gassed through the windows of the locked prison van.
The government offered conflicting details throughout the day, once saying the detainees had suffocated to death in the van from tear gas to suppress an escape attempt, but later insisting the Islamists died in a prison where they were taken.
In either case, the incident was the fourth mass killing of civilians since the military took control on July 3, but the first time those killed were in government custody at the time.Read the full story here.

Related: Middle East Today: Egypt — How Did 36 Anti-Regime Prisoners Die?

"The War On Terror Is Over" - Obama admin building $92 million Afghan ‘Pentagon’ in Kabul.

"The War On Terror Is Over" - Obama admin building $92 million Afghan ‘Pentagon’ in Kabul.(HD).The United States is spending $92 million to build Afghanistan a new “Pentagon,” a massive five-story military headquarters with domed roofs and a high-tech basement command in the capital of Kabul. “Once it’s finished, it will be a permanent and a very significant illustration of the United State’s support for Afghanistan,” Afghan Defense Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak said in an interview, the Washington Post reported. The United States is still working its way through a $10 billion menu of construction projects aimed at bolstering the Afghan security forces. Of the 1,150 buildings planned, more than 600 have been completed, with a total value of $4 billion. In addition to new headquarters for the Defense Ministry, the United States is building headquarters in Kabul for the Interior Ministry, which oversees the Afghan police, at a price tag of $54 million. They are also building a $102 million base for the military’s 201st Corps in eastern Afghanistan. Meanwhile, a man wearing an Afghan police uniform shot dead three British soldiers at a checkpoint in Afghanistan on July 1, Britain’s Defense Ministry said yesterday. The assailant was injured and detained, a Defense Ministry spokesman said. Their deaths take the number of British military personnel killed in Afghanistan since operations began in 2001 to 422.Hmmmm......Things to reflect on during the 4 Th of July?Read the full story here.

"I'm A Big Boy Now" - New Underwear Bomb, New Threat Information.

"I'm A Big Boy Now" - New Underwear Bomb, New Threat Information.(Cato).By Jim Harper.It’s a good bet that news of a new thwarted underwear bomber will underlie more than one argument for the strip-search machines American travelers encounter even at the domestic terminals of our airports. According to the AP:

The plot involved an upgrade of the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas 2009. This new bomb was also designed to be used in a passenger’s underwear, but this time al-Qaida developed a more refined detonation system, U.S. officials said. … The would-be suicide bomber, based in Yemen, had not yet picked a target or bought his plane tickets when the CIA stepped in and seized the bomb, officials said.

Reading this, you’ve been reminded of the fact that, somewhere in a remote Middle Eastern backwater, someone would like to bomb an aircraft flying into the United States. For many, this will induce a bout of probability neglect, making it very hard to process the upshot of this news: This type of attack, which was already very unlikely to succeed, has been made even less likely to succeed.
How did it become less likely to succeed? Let’s use the Transportation Security Administration’s layered security concept to examine things.
In December 2009, the underwear bomber (well—he failed: the “underwear bomb plotter“), managed to get a deformed bomb onto a plane. It was so deformed that he could not cause it to explode. Instead, he burned himself while other passengers subdued him. In the TSA’s formulation, the plot was foiled by the last security layer (it’s hard to read in the graphic): passengers.

(This is not actually the last security layer. The design of planes to withstand shocks to the fuselage is a preventive against downings that small smuggled bombs will have a hard time overcoming.)
The latest news has it that an updated underwear bomb was seized in Yemen by the CIA. That’s the first layer of security in the TSA’s graphic. Intelligence—the first layer.
(This is not actually the first security layer. A benign, phlegmatic foreign policy would produce fewer people worldwide wishing to do the United States harm and more people intolerant of those who do.)
Now, it is not all 100%, unalloyed good security news. As the AP report says:

The FBI is examining the latest bomb to see whether it could have passed through airport security and brought down an airplane, officials said. They said the device did not contain metal, meaning it probably could have passed through an airport metal detector. But it was not clear whether new body scanners used in many airports would have detected it.

There may be an innovation in underwear bombs that make them easier to smuggle on to planes. At its best, this innovation may render the body scanners useless against them. (Again, watch for arguments that, despite their impotence, this news makes body scanners all the more essential. A news report yesterday said that new vulnerabilities in the machines have been unearthed by government investigators.)
On balance, I think this news shows just how much the threat is diminished. Innovations in bomb-making, happening on the far outskirts of modern society, are being thwarted at their source, long before they begin the journey through the many other security layers that protect aviation and air travelers. You may continue to move about the country even more confident of your safety than you did before. I’m hopping on a plane again Friday morning, and I will be just as polite and cheerful as ever in declining to go through the strip-search machines.Hmmmm.......Bend "Forward".Read the full story here.

"The War on Terror is Over" - CIA thwarts new al-Qaeda underwear bomb plot.

"The War on Terror is Over" - CIA thwarts new al-Qaeda underwear bomb plot.(USAToday).WASHINGTON (AP) – The CIA thwarted an ambitious plot by al-Qaeda's affiliate in Yemen to destroy a U.S.-bound airliner using a bomb with a sophisticated new design around the one-year anniversary of the killing of Osama bin Laden, The Associated Press has learned.The plot involved an upgrade of the underwear bomb that failed to detonate aboard a jetliner over Detroit on Christmas 2009. This new bomb was also designed to be used in a passenger's underwear, but this time al-Qaeda developed a more refined detonation system, U.S. officials said.

The FBI is examining the latest bomb to see whether it could have passed through airport security and brought down an airplane, officials said. They said the device did not contain metal, meaning it probably could have passed through an airport metal detector. But it was not clear whether new body scanners used in many airports would have detected it.

The would-be suicide bomber, based in Yemen, had not yet picked a target or bought a plane ticket when the CIA stepped in and seized the bomb, officials said. It's not immediately clear what happened to the alleged bomber.

White House spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden said President Barack Obama learned about the plot in April and was assured the device posed no threat to the public.The operation unfolded even as the White House and Department of Homeland Security assured the American public that they knew of no al-Qaeda plots against the U.S. around the anniversary of bin Laden's death. The operation was carried out over the past few weeks, officials said.

"We have no credible information that terrorist organizations, including al-Qaeda, are plotting attacks in the U.S. to coincide with the anniversary of bin Laden's death," White House press secretary Jay Carney said on April 26.

On May 1, the Department of Homeland Security said, "We have no indication of any specific, credible threats or plots against the U.S. tied to the one-year anniversary of bin Laden's death."

The AP learned about the thwarted plot last week but agreed to White House and CIA requests not to publish it immediately because the sensitive intelligence operation was still under way. Once officials said those concerns were allayed, the AP decided to disclose the plot Monday despite requests from the Obama administration to wait for an official announcement Tuesday.It's not clear who built the bomb, but, because of its sophistication and its similarity to the Christmas bomb, authorities suspected it was the work of master bomb maker Ibrahim Hassan al-Asiri. Al-Asiri constructed the first underwear bomb and two others that al-Qaida built into printer cartridges and shipped to the U.S. on cargo planes in 2010.

Both of those bombs used a powerful industrial explosive. Both were nearly successful.Hmmm....Someone should inform these guys the 'war on terror is over'.Read the full story here.

Video - Frank Gaffney: Obama's Campaign Stop in Kabul "Spiking the Football"

Bin Laden's Declassified Notes To Go Online Tomorrow, '2012 Election Bonus'?

Bin Laden's Declassified Notes To Go Online Tomorrow, '2012 Election bonus'?(RFE).The United States is expected to make available online a selection of declassified notes and letters from Osama Bin Laden. The one-year anniversary of bin Laden's death at the hands of U.S. forces in Pakistan is being marked on May 2. White House counterterrorism chief John Brennan says some of the declassified documents will be posted online on May 3 by the U.S. Army's Combating Terrorism Center. Navy SEALs seized the material after killing the Al-Qaeda terrorism leader in a raid on his compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. The cache is said to include correspondence between bin Laden and affiliates, and his handwritten diary. Bin Laden evaded capture after the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States by avoiding electronic communications, instead relying on a courier to pass messages.Hmmmm......"Milking Osama".Read the full story here.