Tag Archives: Al Qaeda

News

Al Qaeda chief suspect in Libya terrorist attack, Obama flies to Las Vegas fundraiser

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From CNN. (H/T Bad Blue)

Excerpt:

A pro-al Qaeda group responsible for a previous armed assault on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi is the chief suspect in Tuesday’s attack that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya, sources tracking militant Islamist groups in eastern Libya say.

They also note that the attack immediately followed a call from al Qaeda leader Ayman al-Zawahiri for revenge for the death in June of a senior Libyan member of the terror group Abu Yahya al-Libi.

The group suspected to be behind the assault — the Imprisoned Omar Abdul Rahman Brigades — first surfaced in May when it claimed responsibility for an attack on the International Red Cross office in Benghazi. The following month the group claimed responsibility for detonating an explosive device outside the U.S. Consulate and later released a video of that attack.

Noman Benotman, once a leading member of the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group and now based at the Quilliam Foundation in London told CNN, “An attack like this would likely have required preparation. This would not seem to be merely a protest which escalated.”

“According to our sources, the attack was the work of roughly 20 militants, prepared for a military assault; it is rare that an RPG7 is present at a peaceful protest,” Benotman said.

“According to our sources, the attack against the consulate had two waves. The first attack led to U.S. officials being evacuated from the consulate by Libyan security forces, only for the second wave to be launched against U.S. officials after they were kept in a secure location.”

That analysis is supported by U.S. sources who say the attack on the consulate is believed to have been pre-planned. The sources say the attackers used the protest as a diversion to launch the attack, although the sources could not say if the attackers instigated the protest or merely took advantage of it.

I wrote before about he’s been skipping more than half his daily intelligence briefings. Well guess what? He skipped every intelligence briefing this week. That Obama would bungle our national security doesn’t surprise me one bit. He’s a Democrat. He’s like Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton. They don’t do anything about terrorism – they are afraid to offend terrorists.

Back to Obama: where is our master of foreign policy and national security now?

He has flown to Las Vegas to do some campaign fundraising:

On the day after the U.S. Ambassador to Libya and three other Americans were killed in Benghazi, the White House on Wednesday morning released a schedule showing that President Obama would continue with his planned campaign trip to Las Vegas.

You can read the full list of Obama’s ten worst foreign policy blunders. Obama’s weak foreign policy (bowing to tyrants and hugging dictators) caused this attack. He’s too busy playing golf to think about national security and counter-terrorism.

News

Obama administration leaked name of British agent who stopped Al Qaeda attack

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From Investors Business Daily.

Excerpt:

Here’s a disturbing update to last week’s amazing story about the U.S. mole who infiltrated al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and thwarted an airliner attack with a more sophisticated underwear bomb.

Someone in Washington whose boss stood to gain from an election year story about alert intelligence operatives successfully protecting American voters at great personal risk leaked the heroic story to the Associated Press. The AP held the story until Obama administration sources said the CIA operative was safe.

But, it turns out, the mole was not a CIA operative. The Obama administration had nothing to do with the operation and, in fact, didn’t even know about it until recently. Somehow such details got lost in all the excited espionage news coverage about the bomb that didn’t go off.

The sting was, in reality, an operation by Britain’s MI6 intelligence service (see photo above of its unassuming headquarters tucked away in an obscure corner of London). It used a Yemeni native with dual British and Saudi citizenship with the cooperation of Saudi Arabia’s intelligence service.

And the folks overseas who actually conceived and executed the risky work are none too happy about their loose-lipped American cousins trying to bolster someone’s domestic political standing by leaking the story prematurely, destroying the agent’s cover and future usefulness. And possibly betraying that agent’s contacts within Yemen.

[…]Without the excited U.S. news coverage, the agent, who reportedly did escape safely once word was flashed about the impending AP leak story, could have still been providing further intelligence on the location of al Qaeda leaders in Yemen, which resulted in only one successful drone strike before word got out, resulting in the explosive demise of senior leader Fahd al-Quso.

According to Britain’s Guardian, CIA professionals are furious at Obama administration officials for leaking the information for obvious political gain.

The newspaper reported: “Mike Scheur, the former head of the CIA’s Bin Laden unit, said the leaking about the nuts and bolts of British involvement was despicable and would make a repeat of the operation difficult. ‘MI6 should be as angry as hell. This is something that the prime minister should raise with the president.'”

Shashank Joshi, a British researcher, wrote in the Telegraph: “These unthinking leaks are reckless and irresponsible acts of posturing that could have far-reaching implications for counterterrorism operations in the future.”

This isn’t the first time,or even the second time, or even the third time, that we have seen these foreign policy blunders. Foreign policy and national security just are not their thing – just like economic policy isn’t their thing.

Polemics

Ex-CIA chief Jose Rodriguez says Nancy Pelosi lied about waterboarding

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Story from the Daily Beast.

Excerpt:

The CIA’s former top spook, unable for years to respond publicly to criticism of his role in waterboarding terrorist suspects after 9/11, is finally getting the chance to answer his critics. And to launch a counterattack.

In a memoir being published Monday and obtained by The Daily Beast, the former CIA official Jose Rodriguez defends the waterboarding program and says he was right in 2005 to order the destruction of videotapes of the harsh interrogation sessions, in which suspected Al Qaeda terrorists were held down and subjected to a simulated drowning.

In his book, Hard Measures: How Aggressive CIA Actions after 9/11 Saved American Lives, Rodriguez, a career undercover CIA officer who headed the agency’s clandestine services from 2004 until his retirement in 2007, tries to turn the table on his critics, identifying many people—in and out of the United States government—who, he says, have hindered the fight against Al Qaeda and other international terrorist networks.

According to Rodriguez, Nancy Pelosi lied when she claimed she was not informed about the use of waterboarding:

House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi and other CIA critics in Congress. Rodriguez challenges Pelosi’s assertion that, while a ranking member of the House intelligence committee after 9/11, she was not informed in detail about the use of waterboarding.

“Pelosi said that we only briefly mentioned waterboarding and left the impression that it had not been used,” Rodriguez writes, insisting that the California Democrat was fully briefed—by Rodriguez himself—about waterboarding and its use. “ He says that Pelosi was explicitly briefed on waterboarding and posed no objection to the technique. “I know she got it.”

“There is no doubt in my mind that she, like almost all Americans less than a year after, wanted us to be aggressive to make sure that Al Qaeda wasn’t able to replicate their attack.” He writes that “Pelosi was another member of Congress reinventing the truth.”

And he takes a shot at the Obama administration:

The Obama administration. Rodriguez says President Obama has abandoned interrogation techniques—including waterboarding—that allowed the CIA to prevent terrorist attacks after 9/11. He said the administration has become too reliant instead of the use of missile-armed drones in Pakistan and elsewhere to kill, instead of to capture, terrorists.

“Drones can be a highly effective way of dealing with high-priority targets,” Rodriguez writes. “But they should not become the drug of choice for an administration that is afraid to use successful, legal and safe tactics of the past.” He adds, “Needless to say, there is no opportunity to interrogate or learn anything from a suspect who is vaporized by a missile launched by a keystroke executed thousands of miles away.”

Right Scoop posted an interview with Jose Rodriguez, in which he explains that he personally briefed Pelosi on the waterboarding.