Tag Archive for: Abu Bakr al –Baghdadi

PODCAST: On Defeating Global Jihad

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Listen to the below podcast of the April 10, 2016 The Lisa Benson Show with our guest, Dr. Sebastian  Gorka, noted counterterrorism expert and author of Defeating Jihad: The Winnable War.  See our review, “Freedom is Precious and Fragile”, in the April edition of the New English Review currently serves as the Major General Matthew C. Horner Distinguished Chair of Military Theory at Marine Corps University. He is a much sought after guest on Fox News, BBC, CNN, Sky News.

Dr. Gorka was interviewed in by host Lisa Benson, co-host Jerry Gordon and Member of the Advisory Council Richard Cutting.  Gorka’s incisive responses to questions from the panel and callers presented key elements of his thesis that the war against Global Jihad is winnable.  His template for achieving this was the US doctrine and road map adopted at the start of the Cold War that led to the defeat of Soviet Communism with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 without firing a bullet.

Gorka was motivated to write this book in part by his heroic parents experience as refugees from the 1956 Hungarian Revolt who found freedom in the West. The other motivation was to portray the hybrid religious based tyranny of Global Jihadism.  In the course of the discussion he identified the grand masters who implemented the Islamic doctrine of Global Jihadism that spawned the competition between Al Qaeda and the monster it spawned, the Islamic State. He dismisses the false and opaque arguments of the Bush and Obama Administration that Islamic terror is perpetrated by so-called “lone  wolves”  and the priority should be given to  “countering violent extremism.” The latter ironically  has involved the Administration reaching out to  Muslim Brotherhood and radical Islamic clerics perpetrating the same Global Jihad doctrinal messaging we should be defeating.   One of the Cold War templates he referred to in the discussion was the “long telegram” drafted by US Diplomat George Kennan in Moscow in 1946. That led  President Truman to announce the ‘containment’ policy before a joint Session of Congress in 1947. The companion document  he mentioned is  NSC-68, authored by Paul Nitze of the State Department Planning Staff in 1950 that providing a road map to victory in the Cold War

Gorka identified in the discussion four grand masters of Global Jihad.  They were  Osama bin Laden’s  real boss who created Al Qaeda, Jordanian Abdullah Yusuf Azzam, Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood ideologue, Sayyid  Qutb, author of Milestones, Pakistani  Gen. S.K. Malik, author of  The Qur’anic War that espoused terror tactics implemented by Al Qaeda’s bin Laden successor Ayman  Al -Zawahiri and American Yemeni, Anwar al-Awlaki, the so-called “bin Laden of the Internet”. When queried about what was it that the caused ISIS to attract more that 76,000 supporters from100 countries, 6,000 from the west including returning fighters who perpetrated the November 2015 Paris Massacres and March 2016 Brussels, he pointed out the end times significance of the eschatology of the self-declared Caliphate, the Islamic State.  The term Al-Shaam in  ISIS refers the mythic venue of the final war against the infidel Christian Jews and others, Syria and Iraq. The genius of Islamic State Caliph Abu Bakr al Baghdadi was he declared the Caliphate after conquering swaths of Syria and Iraq , the Shaam site of  the final war vanquishing  the armies of world’s infidels..   When asked about the significance of ISIS’ use of chemical, biological and so-called dirty bomb and drones for delivery, Dr. Gorka said we didn’t have to get too sophisticated about  creating  panic from Jihadi terrorist threats. He pointed  out the Washington sniper case with his son as a spotter had wreaked havoc in the metro area shooting victims on the beltway and in service stations. People were fearful of filling up their cars at gasoline stations unless there were under a tarpaulin. The message  Gorka conveyed was it doesn’t cost much for members of Global Jihad networks here in the US  to unleash terror in a major urban areas.

Besides  appendices  containing the Cold War template documents, Kennan’s “Long Telegram” and Nitze’s NSC-68 “roadmap”, Gorka also mentioned  he included in a separate appendix  a list of readings and a valued guide to better inform citizens so they might challenge Presidential nominees, US Senators  and Members of Congress on the issue of winning the 15 year long war against Global Jihadism.

To emphasize the importance of that goal he cited a question from a Department of Homeland Security employee  at a recent  briefing he gave who contested that  the real threat were the KKK,  some Militia group in Montana, noting  the bombing of a federal office building  by Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City in 1995.  As tragic as the example cited by the DHS employee was, Gorka asked the person wasn’t there something more contemporary than  unfortunately one that  occurred 21 years ago? The inference was that more Americans were killed  in 9/11, Little Rock, Fort Hood, Chattanooga and at a Christmas Party in San Bernardino by members of Al Qaeda and US members of the ISIS Global Jihad network.  The Pentagon, FBI and  DHS  at the behest of the Administration have redacting words like Islam and Jihad from training material preventing national counterterrorism and counterintelligence echelons from naming the religious hybrid tyranny of Global Jihad as the real threat.

Dr. Gorka’s  message to win the war against Global Jihad is laid out in a compact  44,000 words in Defeating Jihad. There is the option of listening to a  week’s worth  of audio tapes of the book during commute to work time. However, you can start by listening to this highly informative podcast from The Lisa Benson Show sharing it with friends and groups.

Our usually astute Europeam listener commented:

An excellent show and Dr. Gorka knows his subject profoundly. The way he explains the massive danger facing the free world needs to be distributed everywhere.The main problem that I find is that the free peoples of the world are still sleeping. They prefer to push the danger they are facing into their sub-conscious instead of demanding massively from their elected politicians to fight Global Jihad. Are these populations waiting for the day that Global Jihad will decide to use dirty bombs to assassinate very large numbers of civilians? Regretfully I think that the awakening will come only after a huge shock which is a dreadful feeling for me.

RELATED ARTICLE: Kuwaiti Urges Arab & Muslim States to Recognize Israel Immediately

EDITORS NOTE: This podcast and column originally appeared in the New English Review.

Truth about the Islamic State Slaughter in San Bernardino

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The fourteen victims killed and 21 injured in the December 2nd massacre at a San Bernardino, California Christmas Party by two ISIS-inspired Muslim radicals have been honored by the truth declared by FBI director James Comey that it was an act of domestic terrorism. The eight men and six women slain in this act of Islamic terrorism ranged in age from 26 to 60.

This act of domestic terrorism was perpetrated by a colleague, self radicalized Muslim and U.S. born citizen Syed Razwin Farooq and his Pakistani-born, Saudi raised wife, Tashfeen Malik. The pair had tried to destroy cell phones and  computer drives. Nevertheless,  FBI forensic investigations uncovered a pledge of  fealty to the self styled founder of the barbarous Islamic State, Abu-Bakr al- Baghdadi.  That puts to rest the initial White House and media message that the assault was “workplace violence- related”. Was this equivalent to akin to the U.S. Amy declaration after the November 2009 Fort Hood Jihad massacre by convicted killer, Major Nidal Hassan?

Jennifer and the late Nicholas Thalasinos

Jennifer and the late Nicholas Thalasinos

Some elements of the media presumed that the slaughter of the innocents was triggered by an exchange between Muslim Syed Razwin Farooq and a fellow Department of Public Health restaurant inspector, Nicholas Thalasinos, a Messianic Jew. It was alleged that Thalasinos had contested the views that Islam was a religion of peace and vigorously defended Israel. That despite another victim in this terrorist attack was a Assyrian Christian woman Bennetta Betbadal who had fled the religious tyranny of Shia Iran for sanctuary in the U.S.  The most  disconcerting aspect of the media’s view was the CNN interview by Gary Tuchman with Thalasinos’ grief stricken widow, Jennifer.

Tuchman was endeavoring to place partial blame for Farook-Malik’s deadly attack that killed her husband and his colleagues. Thalasinos, a committed Zionist, allegedly had a “heated, passionate conversation” about politics and religion with the gunman days before the shooting. That might had triggered Farook’s abrupt departure from the Christmas party gathering, only to return with his wife wantonly killing 14 and injuring 21.   Police called to assist the wounded and survivors depicted it as a charnel house scene.   Rabbi Eric Tokajer, editor of The Messianic Times, said, that in preparation for an article, “Remembering  Nicholas Thalasinos” his widow Florence  said  that the Tuchman CNN interview aired only a fraction of the disconcerting questions  directed at her late husband.

Watch the CNN Gary Tuchman Anderson 360 interview with Jennifer Thalasinos:

In 1918 U.S. Senator Hiram Warren Johnson was purported to have said: “The first casualty when war comes is truth.”

That is self-evident in the so-called man made war of no name propounded over the past 7 years by the Obama Administration.  President Obama endeavored to pre-empt the news of the San Bernardino massacre by suggesting this was a mass shooting like Sandy Springs in Connecticut or the Aurora, Colorado movie theater episode. The San Bernardino massacre occurred within a few weeks of the Paris Massacre by ISIS European Muslim operatives.  It was contended that access to guns in this latest mass shooting necessitated immediate Congressional actions on new federal controls.  California has one of the nation’s strictest gun laws.  Where the sales of the weapons used were legally purchased?  Were they subsequently modified for deadly use in the rampage?   It was left to the dogged professional investigations of the FBI and its forensic laboratory to uncover the truth. That Farook Malik were adhering to fundamental Qur’anic doctrine.

Dr. Mark H. Elovitz

Dr. Mark H. Elovitz

Last night I attended erev Shabbat services at a small reform congregation, Temple Beth Shalom, to listen to a brilliant exposition by Dr. Mark H. Elovitz. Dr. Elovitz is the Director of the Centre for Strategic Politics.  Elovitz lectures on world affairs and geopolitical issues.  He has a multifaceted background as an ordained Rabbi, former USAF chaplain, professor of law and TV world affairs anchor and commentator.

His talk following services illuminated the ancient ethnic religious sectarian fissures in the complex Middle East confronting Israel; the intractable Syrian conflict and the rise of ISIS. For his temple audience he dissected the various contending ethnicities among the Turks, Persians, Arabs and Kurds.  Further confounding the resolution to combat ISIS with the aid of Sunni allies in the region, he noted there was little difference between Saudi Wahhabism and the Salafist doctrine of the Islamic State. He elucidated how Shiism of Iran and the Alawite sect of Assad in Syria was viewed as idolatrous by Sunnis further exacerbating already inflammatory ethnic hatreds.  At one point in his talk he drew the audience’s attention to Sura 8:12 in the Qur’an that fixed in the minds of his listeners the basis for Islamic terrorism:  “I will throw fear into the hearts of those who disbelieve. Then smite the necks and smite of them each finger.”

The announcement by FBI director Comey underlines the myopia of the President and his National Security Staff on the threat of extremist Islam, the unnamed elephant in the room.  The President retreated from public view immediately following FBI Director Comey’s declaration of domestic terrorism.  He refrained from the President’s traditional role following terrorist events resolving to combat these threats to our collective safety and security.

San Bernardino is a defining moment as it forces the nation to question tolerance of Political Islam, both at home and abroad. It should  also  question the intentions of alleged American Muslim ‘civil rights’ groups like CAIR, who rushed to judgment suggesting that Farook-Malik  were extremists and not part of mainstream Islamic beliefs. It also should question the press conference convened by lawyers for the family of the perpetrators of this heinous crime. They went to extraordinary lengths disputing the evidence of the FBI. They suggested the grandmother of Farook, who lived in the home caring for their six month old baby, knew nothing of the enormous quantities of weapons, ammunitions and pipe bomb IEDs being manufactured in the garage.

There are issues beyond the findings by the FBI of terrorism that are concerning.  Farook went to Saudi Arabia to bring back Ms. Malik to become his fiancée under a K-1 Visa, receiving an immediate green card, without any vetting. There were indications of cell calls made to persons of interest both domestically and internationally involved with extremist Islamist groups. That raises the wisdom of Congress succumbing to both libertarian and civil rights protests about the purported intrusion of privacy under the meta-data collection programs of the NSA, maligned by Snowden and even some Presidential hopefuls.  Without the phone meta-data, national and regional counterterrorism   echelons in this country cannot compile evidence of social networking among political Islamists that might have prevented the 12/2 San Bernardino massacre.  Then there was the abandonment of community profiling programs monitoring local mosques by major metropolitan police departments such as in New York. In France under its counterterrorism program, surveillances of Mosques is far more intrusive to the point of recording Mosque sermons.  It is now time for Congress to correct the errors of its ways and protect us before another ISIS – inspired domestic terrorist event results in deaths and injuries to innocent civilians. Especially protecting soft target venues like malls, movie theaters and office buildings. As the expression goes, perhaps the truth provided by the FBI will make us free to define the threat of Islamic terrorism and resolve to combat it both at home and abroad.

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review.

Ex-Saddam Intelligence Officer creator of Islamic State Structure for Conquest of Syria and Iraq

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Der Spiegel published a report this weekend identifying the Ex-Saddam intelligence officer who created  the strategy  for the  Islamic State  the late Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifawi aka Haji Bakr killed  by Syrian rebels in January 2014.  The Der Spiegel  report  The Terror Strategist: Secret Files Reveal the Structure of Islamic State,  is based on papers  of  the late Haji Bakr who devised the draconic  oppressive organization of the Islamic State  that facilitated  the conquest  and control of  large swaths of both Syria and Iraq.  It demonstrates that ISIS made common cause with Ba’athist nationalists recreating the dystopian “Republic of Fear” that existed under the late Saddam Hussein under the veneer of apocalyptic Jihadist Islam. The Irony is that the cabal of  former Saddam Ba’athist  officers met the future Emir of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al –Baghdadi while US prisoner at Camp  Bucca in Iraq over the period from 2005 to 2008.  After reading this Der Spiegel report one wonders whether self-appointed Emir of the Islamic State, al-Baghdadi is the real power behind the rise of the Islamic state and whether it is the operatives of the late Haji Bakr.

Der Spiegel wrote:

Not even those who shot and killed him after a brief firefight in the town of Tal Rifaat on a January morning in 2014 knew the true identity of the tall man in his late fifties. They were unaware that they had killed the strategic head of the group calling itself “Islamic State” (IS). The fact that this could have happened at all was the result of a rare but fatal miscalculation by the brilliant planner.

Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifawi was the real name of the Iraqi, whose bony features were softened by a white beard. But no one knew him by that name. Even his best-known pseudonym, Haji Bakr, wasn’t widely known. But that was precisely part of the plan. The former colonel in the intelligence service of Saddam Hussein’s air defense force had been secretly pulling the strings at IS for years. Former members of the group had repeatedly mentioned him as one of its leading figures. Still, it was never clear what exactly his role was.

But when the architect of the Islamic State died, he left something behind that he had intended to keep strictly confidential: the blueprint for this state. It is a folder full of handwritten organizational charts, lists and schedules, which describe how a country can be gradually subjugated. SPIEGEL has gained exclusive access to the 31 pages, some consisting of several pages pasted together. They reveal a multilayered composition and directives for action, some already tested and others newly devised for the anarchical situation in Syria’s rebel-held territories. In a sense, the documents are the source code of the most successful terrorist army in recent history.

For the first time, the Haji Bakr documents now make it possible to reach conclusions on how the IS leadership is organized and what role former officials in the government of ex-dictator Saddam Hussein play in it. Above all, however, they show how the takeover in northern Syria was planned, making the group’s later advances into Iraq possible in the first place. In addition, months of research undertaken by SPIEGEL in Syria, as well as other newly discovered records, exclusive to SPIEGEL, show that Haji Bakr’s instructions were carried out meticulously.

Haji Bakr’s Master Plan

When Iraqi national Haji Bakr traveled to Syria as part of a tiny advance party in late 2012, he had a seemingly absurd plan: IS would capture as much territory as possible in Syria. Then, using Syria as a beachhead, it would invade Iraq.

Bakr took up residence in an inconspicuous house in Tal Rifaat, north of Aleppo. The town was a good choice. In the 1980s, many of its residents had gone to work in the Gulf nations, especially Saudi Arabia. When they returned, some brought along radical convictions and contacts. In 2013, Tal Rifaat would become IS’ stronghold in Aleppo Province, with hundreds of fighters stationed there.

[…]

What Bakr put on paper, page by page, with carefully outlined boxes for individual responsibilities, was nothing less than a blueprint for a takeover. It was not a manifesto of faith, but a technically precise plan for an “Islamic Intelligence State” — a caliphate run by an organization that resembled East Germany’s notorious Stasi domestic intelligence agency.

            

Islamic State Master Plan by Haji Bakr former Saddam Hussein Intelligence Officer

This blueprint was implemented with astonishing accuracy in the ensuing months. The plan would always begin with the same detail: The group recruited followers under the pretense of opening a Da’wah office, an Islamic missionary center. Of those who came to listen to lectures and attend courses on Islamic life, one or two men were selected and instructed to spy on their village and obtain a wide range of information. To that end, Haji Bakr compiled lists such as the following:

  • List the powerful families.
  • Name the powerful individuals in these families.
  • Find out their sources of income.
  • Name names and the sizes of (rebel) brigades in the village.
  • Find out the names of their leaders, who control the brigades and their political orientation.
  • Find out their illegal activities (according to Sharia law), which could be used to blackmail them if necessary.

The spies were told to note such details as whether someone was a criminal or a homosexual, or were involved in a secret affair, so as to have ammunition for blackmailing later. “We will appoint the smartest ones as Sharia sheiks,” Bakr had noted. “We will train them for a while and then dispatch them.” As a postscript, he had added that several “brothers” would be selected in each town to marry the daughters of the most influential families, in order to “ensure penetration of these families without their knowledge.”

                    […]

 Sharia, the courts, prescribed piety — all of this served a single goal: surveillance and control. Even the word that Bakr used for the conversion of true Muslims, takwin, is not a religious but a technical term that translates as “implementation”.

     […]

Bakr was merely modifying what he had learned in the past: Saddam Hussein’s omnipresent security apparatus, in which no one, not even generals in the intelligence service, could be certain they weren’t being spied on.

    […]

The Ba’athist Nationalists link up with the AQ Iraq Prisoners held by the U.S.

In 2010, Bakr and a small group of former Iraqi intelligence officers made Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the emir and later “caliph,” the official leader of the Islamic State. They reasoned that Baghdadi, an educated cleric, would give the group a religious face.

Bakr was “a nationalist, not an Islamist,” says Iraqi journalist Hisham al-Hashimi, as he recalls the former career officer, who was stationed with Hashimi’s cousin at the Habbaniya Air Base. “Colonel Samir,” as Hashimi calls him, “was highly intelligent, firm and an excellent logistician.” But when Paul Bremer, then head of the US occupational authority in Baghdad, “dissolved the army by decree in May 2003, he was bitter and unemployed.”

Although Iraq’s dominant Baath Party was secular, the two systems ultimately shared a conviction that control over the masses should lie in the hands of a small elite that should not be answerable to anyone — because it ruled in the name of a grand plan, legitimized by either God or the glory of Arab history. The secret of IS’ success lies in the combination of opposites, the fanatical beliefs of one group and the strategic calculations of the other.

Bakr gradually became one of the military leaders in Iraq, and he was held from 2006 to 2008 in the US military’s Camp Bucca and Abu Ghraib Prison. He survived the waves of arrests and killings by American and Iraqi special units, which threatened the very existence of the IS precursor organization in 2010, Islamic State in Iraq.

For Bakr and a number of former high-ranking officers, this presented an opportunity to seize power in a significantly smaller circle of jihadists. They utilized the time they shared in Camp Bucca to establish a large network of contacts

(Read More)

EDITORS NOTE: This column originally appeared in the New English Review. The featured image is a composite image of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, ISIL Takfiris, Haji Bakr, and his hand-drawn structural blueprint (Press TV photo).