Tag: the war of terror

Who is the World’s Most Dangerous Terrorist Organization?

Who is the world’s most dangerous terrorist organization?

Look no further than the grand accuser and the one who sits high and mighty in judgment of others.

Earlier this week, Ukraine openly boasted of assassinating a top Russian general outside his home in Moscow.

Lt. General Igor Kirillov was killed when a bomb attached to a scooter was detonated remotely upon him leaving his apartment early in the morning. One of his assistants was also killed.

Russia on Tuesday criticized Ukraine’s Western allies, accusing them of being complicit in the general’s murder. It was easy to come to this conclusion after no one in any official capacity in Washington, London, Paris or Berlin condemned the killing.

Western politicians and media love to characterize Putin as a dictator of the worst sort, a “KGB thug.” I hear a lot of conservative pundits using this same language and I find it laughable in its hypocrisy.

When has Putin ever reached across the Atlantic and assassinated an American general on U.S. soil? I don’t recall ever reading of such an incident but, if I am having a senior moment, please, someone, refresh my memory.

Moscow’s foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova accused the West in a Telegram post of “approval for war crimes by fighters of the Kyiv regime” and said “all those who welcome terrorist attacks or deliberately hush them up are accomplices.”

This also hearkens back to past reports exposing a CIA program to train and assist Ukraine’s special forces and intelligence in sabotage and cross-border targeted assassinations.

Lest you think this is just a clever piece of Russian propaganda, think again. It’s been reported even by a prominent member of the American deep-state media.

Last year, The Washington Post published a report on how Ukraine’s intelligence services were capable of carrying out assassinations inside Russia thanks to support they have been receiving from the CIA since 2014.

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How the West Rebranded Al-Qaeda’s Jolani

Corporate media is heralding the fall of Bashar al-Assad and the emergence of Abu Mohammed al-Jolani as the new leader of Syria, despite his deep ties to both Al-Qaeda and ISIS.

“How Syria’s ‘diversity-friendly’ jihadists plan on building a state,” runs the headline from an article in Britain’s Daily Telegraph that suggests that Jolani will construct a new Syria, respectful of minority rights. The same newspaper also labeled him a “moderate Jihadist.” The Washington Post described him as a pragmatic and charismatic leader, while CNN portrayed him as a “blazer-wearing revolutionary.”

Meanwhile, an in-depth portrait from Rolling Stone describes him as a “ruthlessly pragmatic, astute politician who has renounced ‘global jihad’” and intends to “unite Syria.” His “strategic acumen is apparent,” writes Rolling Stone, between paragraphs praising Jolani for leading a successful movement against a dictator.

CNN even scored an exclusive, sit-down interview with Jolani, even as his movement was storming Damascus. When asked by host Jomana Karadsheh about his past actions, he responded by saying, “I believe that everyone in life goes through phases and experiences … As you grow, you learn, and you continue to learn until the very last day of your life,” as if he were discussing embarrassing teenage mistakes, not establishing and leading the Al-Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda’s franchise in Syria.

This is a far cry from the first time CNN covered Jolani. In 2013, the network labeled him one of “the world’s 10 most dangerous terrorists,” known for abducting, torturing and slaughtering racial and religious minorities.

Still on the U.S. terrorist list today, the F.B.I. is offering a $10 million reward for information about his whereabouts. Washington and other Western governments consider Jolani’s new organization, Hay?at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), as one and the same as Al-Qaeda/Al-Nusra.

This poses a serious public relations dilemma for Western nations, who supported the HTS-led overthrow of President Bashar al-Assad. And thus, Politico and others report there is a “huge scramble” in Washington to remove HTS and Jolani from the terrorist list as quickly as possible.

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US In ‘Direct Contact’ With Designated Terror Group HTS, Blinken Admits

The US has made “direct contact” with the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) under Abu Mohammad al-Jolani which now holds Damascus and most major Syrian cities in the wake of Assad’s fall.

“We’ve been in contact with HTS and with other parties,” US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said following talks with Arab diplomats in Aqaba, Jordan.

This is the first official acknowledgement that the Biden administration is interacting with HTS, which has long been an officially US-designated terror organization, as it originated as Syrian al-Qaeda. Jolani also was once the personal envoy of ISIS terror leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

NBC News has underscored, “The U.S. designates HTS a terrorist organization, making it legally impossible to work with the group, but contact underscores ongoing efforts to change that designation as the U.S. and its allies look to support Syria’s transition from Assad rule.”

A statement from Blinken’s meetings in Aqaba and signed by representatives of the US, EU, Turkey and several Arab countries called for a “a more hopeful, secure and peaceful future”. It urged the protection of women and all ethnic and religious minorities, and for the preventing of “the reemergence of all terrorist groups.”

Also, Jordan’s foreign minister stressed that regional powers don’t want to see post-Assad Syria “descend into chaos”. Given that it remains formally listed as a terror group, HTS was not represented in the Jordan meeting.

The EU has also listed HTS as a terror group. Jolani still has a $10 million bounty on his head. Ironically he has been seen openly at well-known areas of Damascus, and the US could target him if it wanted to – but is clearly not.

“As we see Syria move in that direction and, in a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned process, take these steps, we in turn will look at various sanctions and other measures that we’ve taken and respond in kind,” Blinken said from Aqaba.

Blinken affirmed the US position on Syria has been “communicated” to the new HTS leaders. Ironically, this comes after years of the US refusing to engage diplomatically with Bashar al-Assad, who was a secular ruler.

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Trading Iran for Al-Qaeda

In a reversal of the old proverb “Better the devil you know,” the U.S. and its partners in the Political West have embraced the devil they don’t. In Syria, they have traded Iran for al-Qaeda.

When Bashar al-Assad fell, many of his international partners suffered injuries. But none was hurt so badly as Iran. Unable to compete militarily with its far better armed enemies, Iran relied on a series of regional proxies. That front line of defense and deterrence has now been dismantled.

If Hezbollah was the heart of the proxy system, Syria was the logistical bridge between Iran and Lebanon upon which it depended. The effectiveness of Hezbollah was contingent upon the security of Syria. Syria was the bridge over which Iranian arms flowed to Lebanon. That bridge has now been broken.

Iran relied heavily on military bases and missile factories in Syria that have now all been lost. They have been lost both politically and physically. They have been lost politically because the new rulers of Syria, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), have sworn enmity to Iran. In his victory speech, HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani said that Assad had made Syria “a playground for Iranian ambitions.” No sooner had Damascus been captured than the Iranian embassy was stormed by Syrian rebels. Al-Jolani, has said, “We are open to friendship with everyone in the region – including Israel. We don’t have enemies other than the Assad regime, Hezbollah and Iran.”

They have been lost physically because, now with no air defenses at all, hundreds of air strikes have eliminated virtually all the military structures and weapons in Syria to ensure a toothless new regime. Israel has warned that “If the new regime in Syria allows Iran to re-establish itself, or allows the transfer of Iranian weapons to Hezbollah – we will respond forcefully and we will exact a heavy price.”

Asaad was a was an ineffective and brutal dictator. In the end, he fell, in large part, because he lost the support of his military and his people. The Syrian Army was not willing to die to save Asaad. But Asaad has been traded for al-Qaeda.

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Why is the United States Supporting Islamic Extremists Worse than Al Qaeda?

It is a simple question, but underscores the gross hypocrisy of the United States. Whether you accept or reject the 9-11 narrative that the attack was carried out by Al Qaeda (and, for the record, I do), that attack served as the raison d’etre for the ensuing Global War on Terror aka GWOT. “They hate us because of our freedom,” or so we were told.

While many in the West lump Al Qaeda, ISIS, Hezbollah and Hamas into the same category, the groups spawned by Al Qaeda represent (or represented) something distinct (and more dangerous in my opinion) than Hezbollah and Hamas. Hezbollah and Hamas are not pursuing a “global caliphate.” They simply want the land taken from them by the West and the Zionists. Hamas, in its revised Charter, makes it clear that its war is with the Zionists, not Jews or Judaism:

16. Hamas affirms that its conflict is with the Zionist project not with the Jews because of their religion. Hamas does not wage a struggle against the Jews because they are Jewish but wages a struggle against the Zionists who occupy Palestine. Yet, it is the Zionists who constantly identify Judaism and the Jews with their own colonial project and illegal entity.

17. Hamas rejects the persecution of any human being or the undermining of his or her rights on nationalist, religious or sectarian grounds. Hamas is of the view that the Jewish problem, anti-Semitism and the persecution of the Jews are phenomena fundamentally linked to European history and not to the history of the Arabs and the Muslims or to their heritage. The Zionist movement, which was able with the help of Western powers to occupy Palestine, is the most dangerous form of settlement occupation which has already disappeared from much of the world and must disappear from Palestine.

You will never read a declaration like that from Al Qaeda or its more extreme, lethal descendants — such as, ISIS and Hay’at Tahrir Al-Sham. ISIS was born as a consequence of the US invasion of Iraq is 2003. Its first leader, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, set the tone for ISIS by attacking and killing Shi’a Muslims in Iraq. Here is a portion of a letter allegedly written by Zarqawi that shows you what he thought of the Shi’a:

3 [sic]. The Shi`a

[They are] the insurmountable obstacle, the lurking snake, the crafty and malicious scorpion, the spying enemy, and the penetrating venom. We here are entering a battle on two levels. One, evident and open, is with an attacking enemy and patent infidelity. [Another is] a difficult, fierce battle with a crafty enemy who wears the garb of a friend, manifests agreement, and calls for comradeship, but harbors ill will and twists up peaks and crests (?). Theirs is the legacy of the Batini bands that traversed the history of Islam and left scars on its face that time cannot erase. The unhurried observer and inquiring onlooker will realize that Shi`ism is the looming danger and the true challenge. “They are the enemy. Beware of them. Fight them. By God, they lie.” History’s message is validated by the testimony of the current situation, which informs most clearly that Shi`ism is a religion that has nothing in common with Islam except in the way that Jews have something in common with Christians under the banner of the People of the Book. From patent polytheism, worshipping at graves, and circumambulating shrines, to calling the Companions [of the Prophet] infidels and insulting the mothers of the believers and the elite of this [Islamic] nation, [they] arrive at distorting the Qur’an as a product of logic to defame those who know it well, in addition to speaking of the infallibility of the [Islamic] nation, the centrality of believing in them, affirming that revelation came down to them, and other forms of infidelity and manifestations of atheism with which their authorized books and original sources — which they continue to print, distribute, and publish — overflow. The dreamers who think that a Shi`i can forget [his] historical legacy and [his] old black hatred of the Nawasib [those who hate the Prophet’s lineage], as they fancifully call them, are like someone who calls on the Christians to renounce the idea of the crucifixion of the Messiah. Would a sensible person do this? These are a people who added to their infidelity and augmented their atheism with political cunning and a feverish effort to seize upon the crisis of governance and the balance of power in the state, whose features they are trying to draw and whose new lines they are trying to establish through their political banners and organizations in cooperation with their hidden allies the Americans.

This screed produced a response from Bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, that is lengthy, but worth a read to appreciate the mindset of the Al Qaeda militants. While Zawahiri is generally supportive of Zarqawi’s view of the Shi’a as apostates from Islam, he, with the full support of Bin Laden, chides Zarqawi for his attacks on Shi’a worshipers and their mosques:

A) I repeat that I see the picture from afar, and I repeat that you see what we do not see. No doubt you have the right to defend yourself, the mujahedeen, and Muslims in general and in particular against any aggression or threat of aggression.

(B) I assert here that any rational person understands with ease that the Shia cooperated with the Americans in the invasion of Afghanistan, Rafsanjani himself confessed to it, and they cooperated with them in the overthrow of Saddam and the occupation of Iraq in exchange for the Shia’s assumption of power and their turning a blind eye to the American military presence in Iraq. This is clear to everybody who has two eyes. . . .

(D) The collision between any state based on the model of prophecy with the Shia is a matter that will happen sooner or later. This is the judgment of history, and these are the fruits to be expected from the rejectionist Shia sect and their opinion of the Sunnis. These are clear, well-known matters to anyone with a knowledge of history, the ideologies, and the politics of states.

(E) We must repeat what we mentioned previously, that the majority of Muslims don’t comprehend this and possibly could not even imagine it. For that reason, many of your Muslim admirers amongst the common folk are wondering about your attacks on the Shia. The sharpness of this questioning increases when the attacks are on one of their mosques, and it increases more when the attacks are on the mausoleum of Imam Ali Bin Abi Talib, may God honor him. My opinion is that this matter won’t be acceptable to the Muslim populace however much you have tried to explain it, and aversion to this will continue.

Indeed, questions will circulate among mujahedeen circles and their opinion makers about the correctness of this conflict with the Shia at this time. Is it something that is unavoidable? Or, is it something can be put off until the force of the mujahed movement in Iraq gets stronger? And if some of the operations were necessary for self-defense, were all of the operations necessary? Or, were there some operations that weren’t called for? And is the opening of another front now in addition to the front against the Americans and the government a wise decision? Or, does this conflict with the Shia lift the burden from the Americans by diverting the mujahedeen to the Shia, while the Americans continue to control matters from afar? And if the attacks on Shia leaders were necessary to put a stop to their plans, then why were there attacks on ordinary Shia?

Won’t this lead to reinforcing false ideas in their minds, even as it is incumbent on us to preach the call of Islam to them and explain and communicate to guide them to the truth? And can the mujahedeen kill all of the Shia in Iraq? Has any Islamic state in history ever tried that? And why kill ordinary Shia considering that they are forgiven because of their ignorance? And what loss will befall us if we did not attack the Shia? And do the brothers forget that we have more than one hundred prisoners – many of whom are from the leadership who are wanted in their countries – in the custody of the Iranians? And even if we attack the Shia out of necessity, then why do you announce this matter and make it public, which compels the Iranians to take counter measures? And do the brothers forget that both we and the Iranians need to refrain from harming each other at this time in which the Americans are targeting us?

My point in sharing these communications between the leaders of Al Qaeda and the leader of ISIS is to give you some appreciation of the depth of their theological conviction that they possessed a unique truth and were empowered by Allah to impose what they believed to be “correct” practices and to punish, by death, those who refused to obey.

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Biden’s Parting Shot at America

The interim between a US presidential election and the swearing in of a new Administration has for most of our history been a non-eventful period where the outgoing Administration winds down operations and the incoming Administration ramps up new personnel before the inauguration.

The 20th Amendment to our Constitution was enacted in 1933 to reduce the “lame duck” period between election and inauguration to January 20th instead of March 4th. Increasing ease in travel and communications made such a long interim unnecessary. However long the transition period, it has been understood that with the new election came a new mandate from the American people and the “lame duck” outgoing administration was meant to quietly quack out its last few days in office without incident.

Then came Biden. In the period since the American people rejected Biden’s neocon interventionists in favor of Donald Trump’s promises to end the wars, the “lame duck” has run roughshod over the will of the American people. Whoever is running Biden – and the answer is unclear – has decided to “Trump proof” foreign policy to bring us to the literal brink of WWIII with Russia. And to top it off, Biden’s people this past week have again unleashed al-Qaeda linked rebels to wreak havoc in Syria!

After solidly opposing the neocon demand that Ukraine be given permission to fire US weapons deep into Russia, President Biden in the waning days of his presidency suddenly reversed course and granted permission. From back in 2022, when Russia first went into Ukraine, Biden had argued against sending offensive weaponry and US troops to fight on Ukraine’s behalf. “Make no mistake,” he said in March of that year, “that’s called World War III.”

Something about losing the popular and electoral vote has led Biden’s people to disregard the threat of WWIII and give the green light for attacks with US missiles deep into Russian territory. Why is this so different than providing tanks or bullets? These missile systems are highly complex and classified and can only be operated by US or NATO personnel. That means that American military officers are shooting American missiles into Russia – something unimaginable even in the depths of the Cold War!

Then, just days ago, we saw the sudden re-emergence of the US former proxies in Syria – extremists whose ties go back to al-Qaeda – sweep halfway through the country in what appears to be a return of Obama’s disastrous “Assad must go” policy. For five years the conflict in Syria had been more or less “frozen,” but Biden’s people have turned it up to a boil.

Why has the Biden Administration suddenly given a green light to these terrorists and how deeply is the CIA involved in stirring up new trouble in Syria? Make no mistake: these US-backed “rebels” would never have made their move without the approval of the Biden Administration.

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Legal Plunder: Indiana Police Prey On Packages Transiting Huge FedEx Hub

From a federal government operating far beyond the bounds of the Constitution to law enforcement agencies routinely entering private property without warrants, tyranny takes many forms in the United States. However, few are as shocking to the sensibilities as civil asset forfeiture, the controversial practice that empowers police to seize money, cars, trucks, houses or anything else they merely accuse of having a link to criminal activity — regardless of whether the property owner is charged with a crime.

Civil asset forfeiture is an affront to anyone who’s sincerely committed to the American justice system’s cornerstone presumption of innocence. With law enforcement typically keeping some or all of the assets that are seized, the practice has rightly been called “policing for profit.”

I’ve previously examined the raw tyranny of civil asset forfeiture, spotlighting the story of a Mississippi man who took $42,300 in cash to Houston with the intent of buying a second semi truck for his fledgling trucking business, only to have it seized — or, in legal jargon, “forfeited” — by Harris County police, who pulled him over for allegedly following the vehicle in front of him too closely.

Now I’m compelled to share a new example of this legalized theft — the most brazenly unjust and opportunistic one I’ve encountered yet: In an ongoing, multi-million-dollar racket in Indianapolis, police are routinely seizing cash they find in FedEx packages that happen to be routed through that company’s second-largest hub.

Like bears wading into a river teeming with salmon, state and local Indiana police officers routinely stride up to the conveyer belts at FedEx’s sprawling Indianapolis facility, where tens of thousands of packages flow by every hour, pouncing when they see a package with traits that meet their absurdly broad definition of “suspicious.”

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Nearly 90% of Terror Suspects Entering US through Land Border Came via Canada

Nearly 90% of all terror suspects entering the US across a land border came from Canada, according to new US Customs and Border Patrol statistics.

“In the last fiscal year, 358 individuals on the terror watchlist were stopped at a Canadian border crossing, as compared to 52 stopped at a Mexican border crossing,” Canada’s National Post reported.

The Post went on to note that this ratio was the same throughout the COVID era.

“In 2022, Canada yielded 82 per cent of the 380 terror suspects stopped at a U.S. land border crossing. In 2023, Canada yielded 86 per cent of the 564 total suspects stopped at a land border crossing.”

The US’s “Terrorist Screening Dataset” (TSDS) is a list the includes people who are facing legal action for terrorism, people who are confirmed to be members of terrorist organizations and people who have family ties to confirmed or suspected terrorists or other links to them. Appearance on the list is not a guarantee that the person is actually a terrorist, but it does generally indicate a strong suspicion of involvement.

Security at the US’s northern border with Canada has become a new focus of attention after Trump announced stinging tariffs on Canadian goods until the Trudeau government does something to stem the flow of illegal immigrants moving south.

Illegal crossings from Canada have surged in recent years. In 2024, 19,000 people were arrested crossing from Canada into the US—the same amount as the previous 17 years combined.

“On January 20th, as one of my many first Executive Orders, I will sign all necessary documents to charge Mexico and Canada a 25% Tariff on ALL products coming into the United States, and its ridiculous Open Borders,” Trump wrote on Truth Social.

“This Tariff will remain in effect until such time as Drugs, in particular Fentanyl, and all Illegal Aliens stop this Invasion of our Country!”

The governments of Mexico and Canada have been in panic mode since Trump’s announcement of tariffs linked to illegal immigration. Within hours of the announcement, Trudeau reportedly called Trump to speak about trade and security.

Trudeau has made clear he believes Trump will carry out his threat.

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This Is How It Begins: The Deep State Wants to Terminate the Constitution

This is how it begins. This is how it always begins, justified in the name of national security.

Mass roundups. Raids. Indefinite detentions in concentration camps. Martial law. The erosion of habeas corpus protections. The suspension of the Constitution, at least for select segments of the population. A hierarchy of rights, contingent on whether you belong to a favored political class.

This is what you can expect in the not-so-distant future.

Once you allow the government to overreach the restraints imposed  by the Constitution, no matter what that threat might be, it will be that much harder to restrain it again, no matter which party is at the helm.

We’ve seen this played out time and again.

Some years ago, for instance, at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Salt Lake Tribune Editorial Board suggested that government officials should mandate mass vaccinations and deploy the National Guard “to ensure that people without proof of vaccination would not be allowed, well, anywhere.”

In other words, they wanted the government to use the military to round up and lock up the unvaccinated in concentration camps.

That didn’t happen, but it so easily could have.

Now the script has been flipped, and it’s the soon-to-be Trump Administration promising to use the military to round up and lock up undesirables in concentration camps.

At this moment in time, those so-called “undesirables” are illegal immigrants, but given what we know about the government and its expansive definition of what constitutes a threat to its power, any one of us could be next up in the police state’s crosshairs.

Once you give the government a taste of that kind of power—to disregard the Constitution, even for a day; to use the military for domestic policing; to rely on mass deportations and concentration camps in order to sidestep due process procedures—it won’t be so easy to rein it in when it runs amok.

And it will run amok.

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Here We Go Again… Undercover FBI Set-Up Florida Man in Terror Plot to Bomb New York Stock Exchange Before Thanksgiving — Harun Abdul-Malik Yener Arrested in Explosive Scheme

Federal authorities arrested Harun Abdul-Malik Yener, a South Florida resident, for allegedly planning to detonate an improvised explosive device (IED) capable of massive destruction outside the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE).

According to court documents reviewed by The Gateway Pundit, Yener’s motives were rooted in a desire to “reboot” the United States government.

Yener, 30, reportedly spent months crafting a detailed plan to construct and detonate the device in one of the world’s most critical financial hubs.

His alleged target date was the week leading up to Thanksgiving 2024, a time of heavy market activity.

The FBI’s affidavit claims Yener believed the attack would “wake people up” and disrupt the U.S. government.

Investigators revealed that Yener had a history of extremist behavior, including prior threats of violence and documented attempts to join militia groups.

The affidavit reveals that Yener, born in the U.S. in 1994, began crafting his plan as early as 2017, gathering bomb-making materials and researching high-impact targets. His stated motivation? A radical vision of triggering a “reboot” of the U.S. government.

Yener, who previously sought affiliation with extremist groups, constructed the IED with assistance he believed came from a militia, though these “militia members” were, in reality, undercover FBI agents.

The investigation began when a tip led authorities to Yener’s unlocked storage unit in Coral Springs, Florida, containing bomb schematics and other alarming materials.

Surveillance and undercover operations confirmed his intent to target the NYSE, a symbol of American financial power.

He also recorded a manifesto intended for public release, warning the U.S. government to cease arms sales and implement mass deportations.

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