Video - Filmmaker Dresses as "ISIS terrorist" crosses Canadian border on Lake Erie into the U.S.

Video - Filmmaker Dresses as ‘Ebola-Infected ISIS Terrorist’ to successfully Sneak Across Lake Erie. (DM)

An Ebola-infected ISIS terrorist could easily motorboat across Lake Erie and reach Ohio from Canada, according to an American conservative filmmaker who videotaped a fictionalized one-jihadi incursion across Lake Erie and released the footage Monday.

‘On the eve of the 9/11 anniversary our man, dressed as an ISIS terrorist was able to cross Lake Eris, walk off a boat into Cleveland, Ohio–and into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,’ guerrilla documentarian James O’Keefe narrates.

‘At no point did anyone even question [him] or ask him what he was carrying in his suspicious brown duffel bag.’

O’Keefe’s latest online provocation comes at a time when the world’s attention is focused on the self-professed Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) and Americans are growing increasingly concerned about the danger the group could pose to the US.

His video shows a black-clad jihadi with a British accent being ferried across Lake Erie, which separates Ohio from the Canadian province of Ontario.

‘The British government says American journalist James Foley’s ISIS assassin was an Englishman,’ O’Keefe says in his narration.

‘British intelligence believes more than 500 British citizens have joined ISIS. Brits can enter Canada without a visa; it’s virtually an open door.’

In the short gonzo documentary, O’Keefe meets up with a ‘terrorist’ who has hired a boat to bring him from Ontario to the middle of Lake Erie. The two exchange pleasantries as the pretend jihadi transfers to O’Keefe’s American-piloted craft.

‘On August 17 we stole Ebola from a lab in Liberia,’ he says in the script. ‘We took the bandages and the bed sheets and then we covered ourselves in it and hoped that we’d get infected.
‘The incubation period is about 21 days, and it’s been about–21 days.’

O’Keefe, a confirmed rabble-rousing video activist, last made national noise in August with a video showing how an Islamist terrorist–dressed as Osama bin Laden, no less–could wade across the Rio Grande River from Mexico to the U.S. without being detected.

‘We went to Texas and saw little border security,’ he told MailOnline on Monday; ‘now we’ve discovered there’s even less border security on the Canadian border.’

His jihadi character in this latest video also carries with him a container marked ‘ricin.’

Playing the part to the hilt, the actor points to a fresh-water intake port that serves the Cleveland, Ohio metropolitan area, and tells O’Keefe, ‘The water supply is over there. If we put it in there, it will kill a lot of Americans.’

Staring into the camera, O’Keefe clarifies that the terrorist, his ricin and his Ebola-soaked linens are make-believe–but warns that ‘anyone can cross this border. You could cross in a Jet-Ski if you wanted to.’

‘You could import weapons, you could import whatever you wanted to, because there’s no detection on our borders.’\

O’Keefe told MailOnline that ‘the only coast guard vessels we saw were tied up at their docks.’

‘One of the boat captains expressed his own concern about border security,’ he said, ‘and worried that perhaps the Great Lakes are the soft underbelly of America.’Hmmm....By the way Pres Obama says 'our borders are safe'. Read the full story here.

Video - Welcome to the "Islamic State" land (ISIS/ISIL) - State Dep produces grim/graphic video depicting atrocities of ISIS

Pres Obama: Middle East is "much less dangerous now than 20 years ago, 25 years ago or 30 years ago"

Pres Obama: Middle East is "much less dangerous now than 20 years ago, 25 years ago or 30 years ago"(WH).

Yes, the Middle East is challenging, but the truth is it’s been challenging for quite a while. And our values, our leadership, our military power but also our diplomatic power, the power of our culture is one that means we will get through these challenging times just like we have in the past. And I promise you things are much less dangerous now than they were 20 years ago, 25 years ago or 30 years ago.

Hmmmm.......Wow...Sometimes words just fail to cover it.

Warning By Feds ISIS And Al-Qaeda planning Terrorist Attack on US Border

FBI National Domestic Threat Assessment Omits Islamist Terrorism

Warning By Feds ISIS And Al-Qaeda planning Terrorist Attack on US Border. HT: JudicialWatch.

Islamic terrorist groups are operating in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle born improvised explosive devices (VBIED). 

High-level federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources have confirmed to Judicial Watch that a warning bulletin for an imminent terrorist attack on the border has been issued.  Agents across a number of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense agencies have all been placed on alert and instructed to aggressively work all possible leads and sources concerning this imminent terrorist threat.

Specifically, the government sources reveal that the militant group Islamic State of Iraq and Greater Syria (ISIS) is confirmed to now be operating in Juarez, a famously crime-infested narcotics hotbed situated across from El Paso, Texas. Violent crimes are so rampant in Juarez that the U.S. State Department has issued a number of travel warnings for anyone planning to go there. The last one was issued just a few days ago.

Intelligence officials have picked up radio talk and chatter indicating that the terrorist groups are going to “carry out an attack on the border,” according to one JW source.  “It’s coming very soon,” according to another high-level source, who clearly identified the groups planning the plots as “ISIS and Al Qaeda.”

An attack is so imminent that the commanding general at Ft. Bliss, the U.S. Army post in El Paso, is being briefed, JW’s sources say. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) did not respond to multiple inquiries from Judicial Watch, both telephonic and in writing, about this information.

The disturbing inside intelligence comes on the heels of news reports revealing that U.S. intelligence has picked up increased chatter among Islamist terror networks approaching the 13^th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks. 

While these terrorists reportedly plan their attack just outside the U.S., President Obama admits that “we don’t have a strategy yet” to combat ISIS. “I don’t want to put the cart before the horse,” the commander-in-chief said this week during a White House press briefing. 

“I think what I’ve seen in some of the news reports suggest that folks are getting a little further ahead of what we’re at than what we currently are.”

The administration has also covered up, or at the very least downplayed, a serious epidemic of crime along the Mexican border even as heavily armed drug cartels have taken over portions of the region. Judicial Watch has reported that the U.S. Border Patrol actually ordered officers to avoid the most crime-infested stretches because they’re “too dangerous” and patrolling them could result in an “international incident” of cross border shooting.

In the meantime, who could forget the famous words of Obama’s first Homeland Security Secretary, Janet Napolitano; the southern border is “as secure as it has ever been.” Hmmm......Nobody can be this stupid.

The post Imminent Terrorist Attack Warning By Feds on US Border appeared first on Judicial Watch.

Video - Al-Qaida holds largest, most drone unattended gathering in years.

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Group's 2nd in command is shown announcing his plan to "eliminate" America; CNN reports US must have not been aware of meeting.(Jpost).

A civilian video has surfaced on YouTube illustrating the largest gathering of al-Qaida in years, reported CNN on Tuesday.

The meeting, which reportedly took place in Yemen, shows Nasser al-Wuhayshi a man known to be al-Qaida's second in command, a man who, according to CNN, has previously announced his determination to attack the United States.

According to the international news organization, either the US was not aware of the dangerous meeting, or was not notified with enough time to attack.

"We must eliminate the cross," says the al-Qaida leader in a speech in the video. "The bearer of the cross is America."

US officials believe the professionally produced video is recent, says CNN, and that an attack could be in planning stages.   Hmmm.....NSA IRS FBI CIA and which ever group choose to listen to all our calls, read our emails AND FUCKING MISSED THIS TARGET RICH OPPORTUNITY COMPLETELY.

More here. 

Al Qaeda-linked militants attack Somali presidential compound.

Al Qaeda-linked militants attack Somali presidential compound. (Taz).

Al Qaeda-linked militants al Shabaab attacked the Somali presidential palace compound on Friday, blasting through a gate with a car bomb and engaging in a fierce gun battle with African peacekeepers, police said.

Somali Islamist militant group al Shabaab claimed responsibility for the attack on the heavily fortified compound in Mogadishu, known as Villa Somalia, but the Somali president Hassan Sheikh Mohamud was unharmed, Reuters reported.

"President just called me to say he's unharmed. Attack on Villa Somalia had failed. Sadly some lives lost," U.N. Special Representative Nick Kay wrote on his official Twitter feed.It was not immediately clear how many people were killed.

In the past few weeks, Mogadishu has been hit by a series of suicide bomb attacks claimed by al Shabaab, who were pushed out of the city in mid-2011 but have continued to wage a sustained guerrilla campaign.
Friday's battle took place at the house of Somalia's top military commander, General Dahir Aden Indha Qarshe, located in the same compound and near the presidential palace building, Abdikadir Ahmed, a senior police officer, told Reuters.

"The al Shabaab fighters who attacked the palace were about ten men in military uniform and the red hats [worn by the palace guards]," Hussein Farah, a senior police officer at the scene, told Reuters.

"They had three cars. One was a car bomb and the other cars were carrying well-armed fighters," he said.
"All the Shabaab fighters perished, some blew up themselves while others were shot dead. Several government guards also died. Now the fighting is over, and scattered on the scene is human flesh and blood."
At least seven Somalis were killed when a remote-controlled bomb aimed at a U.N. convoy tore through cars and tea shops just outside the capital's international airport last week.Hmmmm......"The war on terror is over"....yeah sure.

Breaking - Harvard University being evacuated over reports of explosives at 4 sites.

Breaking - Harvard University being evacuated over reports of explosives at 4 sites.HT: RussiaToday.

Harvard University has ordered the evacuation of four buildings following unconfirmed reports explosives were present on campus. Local and university police are currently at the scene investigating.

On Monday morning the Harvard University Police Department (HUPD) received an unconfirmed report that explosives may have been placed in four buildings on campus.

 Harvard University Police and officers from the Cambridge Police Department are currently sweeping the buildings for explosives.
"Out of an abundance of caution, the buildings have been evacuated while the report is investigated. Harvard's focus is on the safety of our students, faculty and staff. We will update the media when we have more information," the University posted on its website.Details to follow, read more here.

Video - Krauthammer: Obama's incoherence has made the US irrelevant in the Middle East.

HT: IsraelMatzav.Newsbusters.

CHARLES KRAUTHAMMER: Had we early in the civil war put our efforts on behalf of the rebels, before the jihadists flooded in from Iraq and from Afghanistan and elsewhere, and when the bulk of the rebellion was spontaneous, secular nationals from every segment of the population, we would have had a decisive influence and Assad would be gone. Right now we’re in a situation where the jihadists are in, where there are more than two sides and any aid would be problematic. I think [chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Martin] Dempsey is right.

The irony is, second irony, that in Egypt where there are only two sides, there's only the Brotherhood and there’s only the military, with wide popular support, we're not choosing either, and I think in fact the Obama administration's incoherence on policy is astounding. The tape you showed of Obama speaking about the intervention in Libya and using a humanitarian explanation and justification shows how completely incoherent the policy is.

The only constant in all of this is Obama as a candidate, as a Senator, decided we should be out of these wars, we should be out of the Middle East, the tide of war is receding, he repeats it over and over again and pretends it’s true. And that is the constant. We're not in Iraq, we’re not in Syria, we’re not in Libya - we're getting killed in Libya as we did - we're not in Egypt. We are doing nothing. All the other actors are in play – the jihadists, the Russians, the Iranians, Hezbollah, but not the United States. We are irrelevant.

Al-Qaeda replacing Assad is the biggest threat to US security - CIA deputy director.

Al-Qaeda replacing Assad is the biggest threat to US security - CIA deputy director.(RT).

Speaking to The Wall Street Journal, CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell said the prospect of the Syrian government being replaced by al-Qaeda his biggest worry.

Morell’s statement is especially surprising considering America’s official position on the Syrian civil war. US President Barack Obama and his officials have repeatedly called Assad a "dictator" who is responsible for more than 92,000 lives lost in a bloody conflict between government forces and rebels - some of whom are openly affiliated with al-Qaeda.  
Should the current regime collapse without a stable government to step up to the plate, Morell said the warheads being held by Assad may end up in the hands of America’s adversaries.
The US remains embarked on a plan that would aid Syrian rebels by way of supplying them with arms. With al-Qaeda extremists entwined in that same war against Assad, however, one wrong turn could cause the US to accidentally equip its most feared enemy.
According to Morell, the Syrian government's weapons "are going to be up for grabs and up for sale" if Assad is ousted. Unless the US has a plan of attack ready for that moment, munitions and warheads currently controlled by Assad could end up in the hands of just about anyone.
And with al-Qaeda close to the action, Morell warned that they could pounce on the opportunity to gain Assad’s equipment.
"Al-Qaeda has had its own victory as well," he said. "The dispersal of al-Qaeda is their victory."
With al-Qaeda increasing the scope of its operation in Syria, the US could have a whole new front in its war on terror. The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001 brought American troops to Afghanistan and Pakistan, and later to Iraq. In the decade-plus since, the US has launched drones over locales like Yemen and Somalia to take a stab at diminishing al-Qaeda’s presence. As hostilities increase in Syria, a new adversary could worsen the current situation.
Given what the US has reported about the current Syrian government, al-Qaeda stands to collect all sorts of goodies if they can grab hold of Assad’s goods as well.
The White House has insisted that Assad deployed chemical weapons on citizens during the civil war, and the opposition and government have both relied on whatever weapons they can collect in order to fight off their foes. That hostile environment is increasingly being populated by al-Qaeda extremists, and Morell says that’s not good for US security.
Syria is “probably the most important issue in the world today because of where it is currently heading," Morell said. He added that Iran, core al-Qaeda, and the North Korean government are following just behind Syria. 

"I don't remember a time when there have been so many national security issues on the front burner as there are today," Morell said. Hmmm......Obama BUILD THAT.Read the full story here.

Related: Obama During Campaign: “Al Qaeda Has Been Decimated”

"The War On Terror Is Over"........Oh Wait: The 'war on terror' is permanent.

"The War On Terror Is Over"........Oh Wait: The 'war on terror' is permanent.(Guardian).

Senior Obama officials tell the US Senate: the 'war', in limitless form, will continue for 'at least' another decade - or two.

Last October, senior Obama officials anonymously unveiled to the Washington Post their newly minted "disposition matrix", a complex computer system that will be used to determine how a terrorist suspect will be "disposed of": indefinite detention, prosecution in a real court, assassination-by-CIA-drones, etc. Their rationale for why this was needed now, a full 12 years after the 9/11 attack:

Among senior Obama administration officials, there is a broad consensus that such operations are likely to be extended at least another decade. Given the way al-Qaida continues to metastasize, some officials said no clear end is in sight. . . . That timeline suggests that the United States has reached only the midpoint of what was once known as the global war on terrorism."

On Thursday, the Senate Armed Services Committee held a hearing on whether the statutory basis for this "war" - the 2001 Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF) - should be revised (meaning: expanded). This is how Wired's Spencer Ackerman (soon to be the Guardian US's national security editor) described the most significant exchange:

"Asked at a Senate hearing today how long the war on terrorism will last, Michael Sheehan, the assistant secretary of defense for special operations and low-intensity conflict, answered, 'At least 10 to 20 years.' . . . A spokeswoman, Army Col. Anne Edgecomb, clarified that Sheehan meant the conflict is likely to last 10 to 20 more years from today - atop the 12 years that the conflict has already lasted. Welcome to America's Thirty Years War."

That the Obama administration is now repeatedly declaring that the "war on terror" will last at least another decade (or two) is vastly more significant than all three of this week's big media controversies (Benghazi, IRS, and AP/DOJ) combined. The military historian Andrew Bacevich has spent years warning that US policy planners have adopted an explicit doctrine of "endless war". Obama officials, despite repeatedly boasting that they have delivered permanently crippling blows to al-Qaida, are now, as clearly as the English language permits, openly declaring this to be so.

It is hard to resist the conclusion that this war has no purpose other than its own eternal perpetuation. This war is not a means to any end but rather is the end in itself. Not only is it the end itself, but it is also its own fuel: it is precisely this endless war - justified in the name of stopping the threat of terrorism - that is the single greatest cause of that threat.Read the full story here.

Obama Pushes Funds for Islamists —- Trashes Their Christian Victims.

Obama Pushes Funds for Islamists —- Trashes Their Christian Victims.HT: FrontPage.


By Faith J. H. McDonnell:
The “Islamist apologist choir” described in Cinnamon Stillwell’s recent story “Profs on Boston Bombing” doesn’t sing solely on behalf of Chechnya and Cambridge. Some of that choir’s most dreadful caterwauling today is in support of Nigeria’s yet-undesignated terrorists, Boko Haram. The choir stalls are located in the U.S. State Department, which not only refuses to designate the jihadists as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO), but maligns and defames Boko Haram’s Christian victims, as well.
Boko Haram’s latest attack, killing at least 42, took place on Tuesday, May 7, in the already battle-worn town of Bama, in Nigeria’s northeast Borno State. Borno, one of 12 states under Sharia, has suffered heavy losses under the Islamists. Some believe that Boko Haram has taken over northern Borno State much as Islamists took over northern Mali. At least 277 had been killed by Boko Haram in Borno State in 2013 before this attack.  According to an AP story the Tuesday event involved “coordinated attacks by Islamic extremists armed with heavy machine guns” in multiple locations around Bama. The jihadists also raided a federal prison, freeing 105 inmates.
Military spokesman Lt. Colonel Sagir Musa told AP that “some 200 fighters in buses and pickup trucks mounted with machine guns attacked the barracks of the 202 Battalion of Nigeria’s beleaguered army.” Musa, who said two soldiers and 10 insurgents died in the attack, revealed that the attackers “came in army uniform pretending to be soldiers.” The Islamists killed 14 prison guards. They also attacked and razed a police station, a police barracks, a magistrate’s court, and local government offices, according to Lt. Col. Musa. Bama police commander Sagir Abubakar reported that at least 22 police officers, three children and a woman were killed in the attacks.
Boko Haram frequently attacks Nigeria’s police and military forces. In 2012 as documented by the Facts on Nigeria Violence website, there were at least 67 attacks, almost exclusively by Boko Haram, against military barracks, police stations, prisons, and other government facilities, as well as against individual soldiers, policemen, and civil servants. But Boko Haram’s main targets are northern Nigeria’s Christians and churches.
The official name of Boko Haram, Jamā’a Ahl al-sunnah li-da’wa wa al-jihād, can be translated “People Committed to the Propagation of the Prophet’s Teachings and Jihad.” Its goal is to establish a pure Islamic state in northern Nigeria, removing the Christian presence – either by conversion, expulsion, or extermination. Boko Haram appears to prefer the third option. According to the World Watch Monitor (WWM) report on global Christian persecution, Nigeria had a higher death toll from anti-Christian persecution and violence than the rest of the world combined. WWM concluded that Nigeria is “the most violent place on earth for Christians.”
In a recent Front Page Magazine article, Daniel Greenfield exposed the unfortunate moral equivalence found in the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom’s (USCIRF) 2013 report on Nigeria.
While much of the report is very good and condemns Boko Haram, impunity, and the forced imposition of Sharia, USCIRF appears to have developed the same pathological impulse that afflicts the rest of the federal government, to never blame Islam.
As a result, portions of the report mischaracterize certain acts of violence by both Boko Haram and other Islamists targeting Christians, and criticize northern Nigerian Christian leaders for calling the situation what it is: persecution.
USCIRF’s egregious observations and recommendations are actually State Department policy.
For instance, USCIRF parrots former Asst. Sec. of State for Africa, Johnnie Carson, who declared in a congressional hearing, “It is important to note that religion is not the primary driver behind extremist violence in Nigeria” and that “the Nigerian government must effectively engage communities vulnerable to extremist violence by addressing the underlying political and socio-economic problems in the North.” USCIRF reports that “The U.S. government consistently has urged the Nigerian government to expand its strategy against Boko Haram from solely a military solution to addressing problems of economic and political marginalization in the north,” says USCIRF, “arguing that Boko Haram’s motivations are not religious but socio-economic.”
Read the full story Here

Egypt says thwarts suicide attack on foreign embassy.

Egypt says thwarts suicide attack on foreign embassy.(Yahoo).CAIRO (Reuters) - Egyptian security forces have captured an al Qaeda-linked militant group that was on the verge of carrying out a suicide attack against a foreign embassy in the country, the interior minister said on Saturday.

Mohamed Ibrahim, speaking in a televised news conference, declined to say which embassy had been targeted. He named three suspected members of the cell now under arrest.

"The Interior Ministry was able to direct a qualitative blow to a terrorist cell that was planning suicide operations against vital, important and foreign facilities in the country," he said. These included the planned suicide attack on a foreign embassy, he said.

Ibrahim said one of the militants had been a member of al Qaeda in Algeria who had travelled to Pakistan and Iran to receive training.

While repeatedly saying the group did not represent an al Qaeda cell in Egypt, Ibrahim said it was linked to al Qaeda in western Asia and "elements responsible for receiving terrorist elements on the Turkish borders" - an allusion to militants overseeing the flow of Islamist fighters into Syria's civil war.

He said the arrested men had been found in possession of statements issued by al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb and 10 kg (22 pounds) of aluminium nitrate, which is used to make bombs.Read the full story here.

'A bullet a day keeps the Infidel away' - Al Qaeda made "Wanted: Dead or Alive Poster,"

'A bullet a day keeps the Infidel away' - Al Qaeda made "Wanted: Dead or Alive Poster,"HT: AnsweringMuslims.(WS).

Al Qaeda has published a "Wanted: Dead or Alive Poster," listing several people guilty of "crimes against Islam." According to the poster, Muslims are to "defend Islam" by murdering Ayaan Hirsi Ali (who helped make the film "Submission"), Terry Jones (Qur'an-burner), Molly Norris ("Everybody Draw Muhammad Day") and several others. A caption reads: "A Bullet a Day Keeps the Infidel Away." 

Apparently, Al Qaeda hasn't realized that Islam is a religion of peace, tolerance, and sugar-coated raindrops.

We can all expect CAIR, ISNA, and other Muslim organizations to immediately spring into action. Instead of sitting around all day complaining about "Islamophobia," Western Muslims are going to tirelessly devote themselves to correcting the violent views of their fellow Muslims.Hmmm......"MISUNDERSTANDING OF ISLAM" ~ The people who killed the grandson of the Prophet were also Muslim – and said their prayers before committing the act.Read the full story here.

New report details al-Qaida membership in the US.

New report details al-Qaida membership in the US.(JPost).By Hilary Leila Krieger.New York seen as a terror group hub; majority of members under age 30, have US citizenship, well-educated, employed.

WASHINGTON – More than half of all al-Qaida operatives and their affiliates in the United States who have committed terrorist offenses are US citizens and a third were born in America, according to a new report profiling the groups’ American adherents.

The 720-page, telephone book-sized volume produced by the Henry Jackson Society and presented at the Center for Strategic and International Studies Tuesday, carefully examines the 171 cases of al- Qaida members or those inspired by the organization who have been convicted in US courts or participated in suicide attacks against the US homeland between 1997 and 2011.

The study found that 95 percent of the terrorist offenses were committed by men, 57% of whom were under the age of 30. New York was seen as a hub for their activity, with more – 14% – residing there than elsewhere and with large number of those living elsewhere trafficking through.

Nearly a quarter of the operatives were converts to Islam, with over half of those born in the US having converted.

And those who converted, all of whom did so from Christianity as far as could be ascertained, were far more likely to have carried out offenses (as opposed to having participated only in training or incitement) than others.

The group researched were fairly well-educated and employed. More than half had attended some form of college, and a quarter had done some higher study. In addition, more than half, or 57%, were in school or had a job at the time they were charged or committed their attacks.Read the full story here.

Video - Canadians among the Islamic extremist hostage-takers in Algeria.

Algeria says 37 foreigners die in siege led by Canadian Muslim extremist.

How many more 'Islamic extremists' are laying low in Canada?

Algeria says 37 foreigners die in siege led by Canadian Muslim extremist.(Reuters). A total of 37 foreign workers died at an Algerian desert gas plant and seven are still missing after a hostage crisis coordinated by a Canadian, Algerian Prime Minister Abdelmalek Sellal said on Monday.
Sellal also said that 29 Islamists had been killed in the siege, which Algerian forces ended by storming the plant, and three had been captured alive.
Earlier an Algerian security source told Reuters that documents found on the bodies of two militants had identified them as Canadians, as special forces scoured the plant following Saturday's bloody end to the siege.
"A Canadian was among the militants. He was coordinating the attack," Sellal told a news conference, adding that the raiders had threatened to blow up the gas installation.
The Canadian's name was given only as Chedad.
In Ottawa, Canada's foreign affairs department said it was seeking information, but referred to the possible involvement of only one Canadian.
American, British, French, Japanese, Norwegian, Filipino and Romanian workers are dead or missing after the attack, for which veteran Islamist fighter Mokhtar Belmokhtar has claimed responsibility on behalf of al Qaeda. Sellal said the jihadists who staged the attack last Wednesday had crossed into the country from neighboring Libya.
An Algerian newspaper said they had arrived in cars painted in the colors of state energy company Sonatrach but registered in Libya, a country awash with arms since Muammar Gaddafi's fall in 2011.
The raid has exposed the vulnerability of multinational-run oil and gas installations in an important producing region and pushed the growing threat from Islamist militant groups in the Sahara to a prominent position in the West's security agenda. Algerian Tahar Ben Cheneb - leader of a group called the Movement of Islamic Youth in the South who was killed on the first day of the assault - had been based in Libya where he married a local woman two months ago, it said.
Belmokhtar - a one-eyed jihadist who fought in Afghanistan and Algeria's civil war of the 1990s when the secular government fought Islamists - tied the desert attack to France's intervention across the Sahara against Islamist rebels in Mali.
"We in al Qaeda announce this blessed operation," he said in a video, according to Sahara Media, a regional website. About 40 attackers participated in the raid, he said, roughly matching the government's figures for fighters killed and captured.Hmmmm......How many more 'Islamic extremists' are laying low in Canada?Read the full story here.

Related:  JihadStock 2010– Torontistan

Canada: Jihadists "radicalizing" peaceful Muslims at mosques and "large number of venues"

JEWISH DEFENCE LEAGUE OF CANADA OPEN LETTER TO THE GOVERNMENT OF CANADA

American isolationism: Obama’s unfolding 'disaster prone' policy.

CNN links Obama’s disaster in Libya with the terrorist attack in Algeria:

American isolationism: Obama’s unfolding 'disaster prone' policy.(Debka).Whereas in his first term as president, Barack Obama opted for “leading from behind,” in international military operations, he enters his second term – even before being sworn in this week – by expanding this step-back precept into American isolationism proper – even when it comes to countering Islamist terrorism. debkafile’s analysts note that this stance was heralded in December 2012 by his abrupt order to the USS Eisenhower strike group and the Iwo Jima Amphibious Ready Group to withdraw from stations opposite Syria. Washington had already then decided to ignore the Syrian chemical war threat, and brush aside the report from the US consul in Istanbul that the Syrian ruler Bashad Assad had already fired chemical bombs against rebels. And so French military intervention in Mali on Jan. 12 and Al Qaeda’s massive attack on an international Algerian gas field four days later found the United States without a single carrier, landing vessel or marine force anywhere in the vicinity, to be available for aiding in the rescue of scores of Western hostages from ten countries, including the United States.
The USS John Stennis carrier is the only vessel left at a Middle East battle station. It is tied down at the Strait of Hormuz to secure the flow of Gulf oil to the West. It is therefore hardly surprising to find Pentagon and top US military experts leveling sharp criticism at the White House’s policy of non-intervention in the Mali conflict, where France is fighting alone, or in Algeria’s In Amenas gas field, where Algerian forces are battling a multinational al Qaeda assault and multiple hostage-taking raid for the third day. The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday, Jan. 20 that the sharp debate between the Pentagon and White House is over the “danger posed by a mix of Islamist militant groups, some with murky ties to Al Qaeda that are creating havoc in West Africa” and whether they present enough of a risk to US allies and interests to warrant a military response.
Many of Obama’s top aides say “it is unclear whether the Mali insurgents, who include members of the group Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, threaten the US.” As to the question, “What threat do they pose to the US homeland? The answer so far has been none.”
Some top Pentagon officials and military officers warn that without more aggressive US action, Mali could become a haven for extremists, akin to Afghanistan before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
debkafile’s counterterrorism sources report that these assertions are misleading.
Whereas the US homeland may not be in immediate peril from the Mali and Algeria episodes, it is important to remember the far-reaching interconnectivity of al Qaeda’s operations. Seven years ago, the suicidal jihads who on July 7, blew up London trains and a bus, used explosives provided by the same Al Qaeda cells of Sahel Desert which are now threatening Mali and which struck the Algerian gas field.
No US official can guarantee that such explosives from the same source won’t be used in 2013 against American targets in Europe or be smuggled into the American homeland by al Qaeda cells in Europe. The Algerian gas field hostage siege was carried out after all by a multinational group that included Algerians, Egyptians, Tunisians, Libyans, a Frenchman and a Malian.
It is true that Al Qaeda terrorists are engaged in vast smuggling rackets – especially of drugs and cigarettes – across Europe, Africa and the Middle East, as well arms trafficking through networks covering Egypt, Sinai, Arabia, the Gulf, Syria, Iraq, Yemen and Sudan – all of which are direct threats of US national security. But to write them off as criminals and smugglers is simplistic: “… some are diehard terrorists with more grandiose visions,” as Pentagon officials point out.
The way the Al Qaeda menace is being handled by Washington has a ripple effect in the wider context. Tehran and Damascus are avidly watching the Obama administration’s stand-aside stance on military involvement in external crises – even emergencies posed by the Al Qaeda terrorist threat encroaching on continental Europe and Africa and the Middle East up to and including the Persian Gulf. Washington should therefore not be surprised when its diplomatic efforts – overt and secret – to rein in Iran’s military nuclear ambitions run into the sand. The Iranians know they have nothing to fear from the Obama administration. The next surprise, our Middle East sources are now reporting, will come from Damascus where, according to a hint President Bashar Assad threw out this week to his intimates.Read the full story here.

Breaking News - 7 hostages dead as Algerian forces storm desert complex: security source.

Algerian hostage crisis - live updates

Breaking News - 7 hostages dead as Algerian forces storm desert complex: security source.(AA).
At least seven captives are reported to have been kiled and 16 foreign hostages freed after the Algerian military stormed a gas installation in the desert where they were being held by al-Qaeda-linked fighters.
Eleven of the fighters were also killed in Saturday's raid, according to the Algerian state news agency.
Those freed included two Americans, two Germans and one Portuguese, sources told Reuters news agency.
The nationalities of the others were not immediately clear.
The fighters had said they were still holding seven foreign hostages at the gas plant, and that their demands of an end to the French military intervention in Mali the release of prisoners remain unchanged
Speaking to Al Jazeera on Saturday, a spokesman for the abductors said that two of those still being held were Japanese, and that the other five people included US, British and Norwegian citizens. He said that the seven were still alive, but would not confirm if they were being held at the gas field in In Amenas or elsewhere.
The spokesman for the group, known as "Signatories in Blood", said that they were still open to negotiations regarding a prisoner swap with the Algerian military, after earlier negotiations broke down and led to an Algerian security services assault on the facility.
The burned bodies of 15 people were found at the site of the gas field on Saturday, but their identities were not clear.
A US citizen was confirmed dead early on Saturday, but uncertainty remains over the fate of other foreigners held at the plant.
"This is an extremely difficult and dangerous situation," Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, said in Washington at a joint news conference with Fumio Kishida, Japan's foreign minister.
The US State Department identified the dead US citizen as Frederick Buttaccio.
Leon Panetta, the US defence secretary, said on Saturday that the United States would "take all necessary steps to protect our people" from the threat posed by al-Qaeda linked fighters in North Africa.
Officials say at least 30 more people remain unaccounted for, and the fate of at least 10 Japanese nationals and six Norwegian hostages is still unknown.
France on Saturday said no more of its nationals were beind held. Defence Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian confirmed that one Frenchman had been killed in the attack and that other French nationals taken hostage had been freed.
Vienna said one Austrian had been released. Romania confirmed that three of its nationals who were being held were now free. At least two Filipino workers were also able to escape. Two Norwegians have also been found alive, said the Norwegian oil company Statoil, which manages the plant.Read the full story here, more here.

"Pakistani Spring" - Protesters demand "Change the System!" Will we see an Islamist Nuclear Power threatening the US?

Imran Khan

"Pakistani Spring" - Protesters demand "Change the System!" Will we see an Islamist Nuclear Power threatening the US?(Spiegel).A self-proclaimed revolutionary is attracting mass protests, while the highest court has ordered the prime minister's arrest and the military waits in the wings. Pakistan is in the grips of a major political upheaval.
The contrast between the images couldn't be any more striking. In Islamabad, people could be seen celebrating in front of the parliament building. Men patted each other on the shoulder and hopped around in circles. Women waved green flags emblazoned with the white crescent symbol and sang. "Nizam Badlo!" they call out repeatedly. "Change the System!"
They had convened to celebrate Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, a government critic and their self-proclaimed revolutionary leader, and the decision made by the country's Supreme Court to allow the arrest of Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf on suspicion of corruption and nepotism.
But television stations also broadcasted images from many other parts of the country, where instead of celebrations one could see angry crowds protesting Ashraf's arrest. Some are rioting, and in Karachi people could be seen firing their guns into the air. Others are cursing Tahir-ul-Qadri, who they accuse of not having any respect for the government or the Pakistani people, who voted for the current leaders democratically during elections in spring 2008.
Pakistan currently finds itself in a state of crisis. The nuclear power is facing a test that it doesn't appear capable of withstanding. In any case, the country will be facing a national election this spring, by May at the latest.Hmmmm....."You harvest what you sow."Read the full story here.

Related: India - Second ceasefire violation by Pakistan in one hour
New Delhi: Another round of firing by Pakistani troops has been reported near the Line of Control (LoC), the second within an hour this evening. The fresh round of firing happened in the Krishnaghati sector in Jammu and Kashmir, making it the fifth ceasefire violation by Pakistani troops since a brigadier-level flag meeting took place between both sides yesterday.    

"Pakistani Spring" - Prime Minister's Arrest Ordered amid 'Revolution.'

Tahir-ul-Qadri announced that he wanted to turn Islamabad into a "Tahrir Square," a reference to the epicenter of the protests in Egypt in the spring of 2011.More Pictures here.

"Pakistani Spring" - Prime Minister's Arrest Ordered amid 'Revolution.'(Spiegel).Pakistan has plunged into a leadership crisis. As hundreds of thousands demonstrate against corruption, the country's high court has ordered the arrest of Prime Minister Ashraf. Populist cleric Tahir-ul-Qadri has declared a "revolution."

The streets of Pakistan were packed on Tuesday, when hundreds of thousands of demonstrators joined the protest called by Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, a self-proclaimed revolutionary leader. Indeed, it was to be his day of "revolution.
He likely wasn't expecting help from the country's highest court, but in the middle of the march, the news suddenly broke that the court had ordered the arrest of Pakistani Prime Minister Raja Pervez Ashraf on suspicion of corruption and nepotism. The demonstrators cheered wildly when they heard the development.

The order issued by the Islamabad-based court came following hearings in a corruption case in which Ashraf, who has been prime minister since last June, stands accused of having received bribes in connection with an energy project during his stint as minister of water and power from 2008 to 2011. He is said to have purchased property in London with the money he received.

Pakistan now finds itself deep in crisis. Already, a power struggle had been brewing. The religious leader Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri has been leading a protest march since Sunday, the goal of which is to overthrow of the government. He is hoping to create an interim government, force new elections an push through voting reforms. At 2 a.m. on Tuesday morning local time, Qadri called for a revolution in Pakistan that would remove the Ashraf government from office.

When the announcement of the court order was made, demonstrators celebrated it as a victory for their cause. Pakistan's economy, on the other hand, did not reflect their elation. The country's stock market index immediately plunged.
The news of Ashraf's impending arrest arrived right in the middle of Qadri's speech at noon on Tuesday, during which he declared a revolution. Moments before, the cleric had praised the positive role of the military and the judiciary in a system otherwise pervaded by corruption. Tahir-ul-Qadri, a moderate Muslim and the founder of the organization Minhaj-ul-Quran, or "the path of the Koran," is seen by critics as a pawn of the country's generals and justices.Hmmmm.........."A moderate Muslim and the founder of the organization Minhaj-ul-Quran, or "the path of the Koran,"....Sounds real 'Moderate'.India better prepare for Big Trouble Ahead.Read the full story here.


Related: Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) chairman Imran Khan demanded President Asif Ali Zardari’s immediate resignation while announcing his seven-point agenda to the media.
The party chairman also called for implementation of Supreme Court’s recent order of arresting Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf in the Rental Power Plants case. “We will come out on the roads if orders are not implemented.”

What Qadri is really against While Dr Qadri has been tight-lipped about his whole agenda, he has made it clear that he wants elections in strict adherence of Articles 62 and 63 of the Constitution and wants dissolution of the Election Commission of Pakistan. Just these demands should alarm us.

Twitter alert: Qadri's deadline and PM Ashraf's arrest


While Tahirul Qadri called for a revolution in Islamabad, in an interesting turn of events, the Supreme Court of Pakistan ordered Prime Minister Raja Pervaiz Ashraf’s arrest in the rental power case.
A mere coincidence?
The local twitterati begged to differ as they began buzzing about a well-thought out conspiracy.
As #longmarch, #KSE, PM Ashraf and #tuQ began trending on twitter, the local twitterati began to put the pieces together.
Top tweets:

Ali Dayan Hasan

Is the Supreme Court of #Pakistan mounting a judicial coup in league with Tahirul Qadri?
Dr Tahir-ul-Qadri
Congrats to Pak nation! Half speech delivered & half goal achieved. Tomorrow, I’ll deliver second half & you’ll achieve remaining goals.
omar r quraishi
Coincidence much? Tahirul Qadri had been asking for SC to have say in formation of caretaker govt – also called PM ‘former PM’ earlier today

Rezaul Hasan Laskar

Asma Jahangir: Only a naïve person will think that there’s no connection between order for PM’s arrest and #TuQ‘s protest.