Comment by Riaz Haq on December 9, 2015 at 11:19am

#Americans Attracted to #ISIS Find an ‘Echo Chamber’ on Social Media http://nyti.ms/1OPnjr3 

When a lonely Virginia teenager named Ali Amin got curious about the Islamic State last year and went online to learn more, he found a virtual community awaiting. It had its own peculiar language, stirring imagery and just the warm camaraderie, sense of adventure and devotion to a cause that were missing from his dull suburban life.

At 17, the precocious son of a Yemeni immigrant family, he quickly developed online relationships with older Islamic State supporters around the globe. There was Zubair in Britain, Uthman in South Africa and Abdullah in Finland, who urged him to start a Twitter account under the name AmreekiWitness, or American witness. Mr. Amin drew several thousand followers, sparred online with the State Department, engaged with prominent Islamic State propagandists and developed quite a name among English-speaking fans of the militants — until his arrest in March.

“For the first time, I felt I was not only being taken seriously about very important and weighty topics, but was actually being asked for guidance,” Mr. Amin wrote in August to the judge overseeing his case, expressing regret for what he portrayed as a disastrous youthful mistake. “By assimilating into the Internet world instead of the real world, I became absorbed in a ‘virtual’ struggle while disconnecting from what was real: my family, my life and my future.”

As the Obama administration takes on the multidimensional challenge posed by the Islamic State after the killings in San Bernardino, Calif., the online community of sympathizers in the United States is a critical focus. They number in the hundreds, experts say, and fit no single profile. Among those whose flirtations took a serious turn and led to criminal charges are a trio of teenage siblings from Chicago, a former Air Force mechanic in his late 40s from New Jersey, and a mother of two from Philadelphia.

In fact, they have little in common except one thing: the weeks or months spent marinating in the rhetoric and symbolism of the Islamic State, courtesy of Twitter and other Internet platforms.

It is in this electronic hothouse of mutual support, a sort of round-the-clock pep rally for a cause most Muslims shun, that Americans join other English speakers to try out defiant screen names, throw around Arabic words they have often just learned, and seek to outdo one another in pious zeal. Some merely express anger at American foreign policy or at what they see as mistreatment of Muslims overseas. Others go further, trying to reach Islamic State territory or plotting violence at home.

Like most heady American romances with the Islamic State, Mr. Amin’s came to a crashing halt. In late August, he was sentenced to 11 years in prison after pleading guilty to material support for a terrorist group. Americans who managed to reach Syria have suffered a still grimmer fate, dying on distant battlefields. And last week, in California, two admirers of the extremist group were shot dead by the police after attacking an office holiday gathering and killing 14 people.

Comment by Riaz Haq on December 13, 2015 at 12:31pm

3 Eyewitnesses To #SanBernardino Shooting Now Say 3 Big White Men Did It, Not Accused #Muslim Couple. #Terrorism http://countercurrentnews.com/2015/12/eyewitness-to-san-bernardino-... …


“It’s not him,” a third San Bernardino shooting witness proclaimed about Sayd Farook and his wife.

The so-called “terror couple” have been accused of masterminding an ISIS terror attack on a Christmas office party where Sayd worked.

Earlier this month, the attorneys for the Farook family maintained that they do not believe the suspects are the ones who carried out the attacks in question.

Several eyewitnesses and family of witnesses and victims initially said that three athletic Caucasian men had been responsible for carrying out the attacks. Police immediately banned them from speaking with the media.

Just days ago, another eye-witness in the office came forward and said that in spite of what the law enforcement and mainstream media narrative is saying, the people who carried out the attack where very athletic, large, Caucasian men, who were three – not two – in number. Farook’s wife, it should be remembered weighed approximately 90lbs.

Now, a third prominent eye-witness, Chirs Nwadike, has stepped up to challenge the mainstream narrative. He recently told reporters he received a phone call from an unknown person around 7 p.m., on the evening of the shooting, who told him that he must say that Sayd Farook was the shooter.

You read that right, he says that he was called and told to change his story and say that Farook carried out the attacks with his wife, even though that is very different than what he witnessed.

Nwadike told reporters:

“No it’s not him [Sayd]. I told them about it. He’s quiet. He doesn’t make any trouble.”

“He was just spraying bullets everywhere,” Nwadike said. But the gunman was not Sayd, or his wife.

Comment by Riaz Haq on January 2, 2016 at 10:43am

#ISIS New Year #terror plot story totally bogus. http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/isis-new-years-eve-terror... …

Another major holiday, another sensational ISIS terror plot the FBI takes credit for preventing. This time, the case splashed across the news is that of Emanuel Lutchman, a 25-year-old panhandler in Rochester, New York who allegedly plotted to attack a restaurant on New Years Eve. All major network broadcasts lead with the story and it was breathlessly featured everywhere from The New York Times to CNN. There’s only one problem: the way the story is being presented is wildly inaccurate and in many ways factually false.

Like almost all 11th hour FBI terror busts, the only thing the media has to go off is a DOJ criminal complaint that’s released to the press. Statements from the accused or their lawyer very rarely reach the public. And the criminal complaint and FBI press release are framed to deliberately deceive the media.

Let’s run down some of the key claims made by the media and why they’re either factually incorrect or misleading.

Claim: The plot was directed by ISIS

While the FBI's public statements to the media imply Lutchman was having discussions with real ISIS recruiters, the actual court documents are careful to never make this specific claim, only saying “Mr. Lutchman claims to have received direction from an overseas ISIL member.” For the purposes of proving “attempt to material support of ISIS” prosecutors do not need to actually show a material connection to ISIS, only an attempt to do so. It remains unclear if Lutchman’s contact (“Overseas individual” as the affidavit calls him) was, in fact, a member of ISIS but this hasn’t stopped the media from asserting it as fact.

Claim: Lutchman bought weapons for the attack at Walmart

Several media outlets, from Heavy.com to CBS to local reporters claimed Lutchman bought his weapons but this is inaccurate. He actually went along while a paid informant, at the direction of the FBI, purchased the equipment. Nominally this was because Lutchman could not afford the $40 worth of supplies. This means one of two things: Either A) Lutchman was looking for an out and used his inability to pay for the items as an excuse, only to be further pressured by the FBI or B) Lutchman did indeed not have the wherewithal to muster $40 to go on his own suicide attack which, on its face, should give any critical thinker pause.

This was a man who, according to his grandmother, “can’t buy Pampers for his son" who was being sponsored not by ISIS (evidently, his contact in Syria couldn’t send him $40 or fill out an Amazon purchase) but quite literally by the FBI. The fact that FBI knowingly bought the weapons for the attack is a clear sign the FBI wasn’t interested in thwarting a plot, but building a case. Notice how the New York Times cleverly gets around the awkward fact by reporting Lutchman “gathered” the materials since they can’t say he bought them. Because he didn’t, the FBI did.

Comment by Riaz Haq on February 2, 2016 at 10:34pm

Peter Bergen: " since 9/11, 45 #Americans killed in US by Jihadi #terror, 48 killed by anti-abortion, neo-Nazi, etc" http://www.npr.org/2016/02/02/465257993/who-are-americas-homegrown-... …

BERGEN: Well, since 9/11, the foundation that I work at, New America, we've been compiling deaths caused by jihadi terrorists. And at a certain point, we started thinking, hey, why don't we also - there are anti-government fanatics who've also killed people and violent neo-Nazis. And so since 9/11, 45 people have been killed in the United States by jihadi terrorists while 48 have been killed by people animated by, you know, anti-abortion, neo-Nazi, anti-government fanaticism.

GROSS: And compare the amount of investigative power that we have on each of those.

BERGEN: Well, I will say I think that the FBI is fairly concerned about the issue of anti-government violence. It's hard to make a direct comparison, but I know that the Department of Justice, for instance, has recently appointed a sort of additional senior official to really examine this problem because, you know, whether it's the attack in Charleston where the perpetrator wanted to start a race war or whether it's the standoff that we saw in Oregon, there are other forms of political violence than jihadi terrorism in the United States.

GROSS: But on the whole, Americans are much more preoccupied with jihadi terrorism on American soil, even though the number of deaths since 9/11 - there is more of them caused by right-wing and anti-government extremists.

BERGEN: Yeah, I mean - and some of that isn't surprising. I mean, 9/11 was a sort of hinge event in American history, and all jihadi terrorist plots or attacks are kind of filtered through that lens. But the fact is is that, you know, we had a neo-Nazi shout hail Hitler after he killed three people in Kansas City at a community center in 2014. If he shouted, Allah akbar, what was already a pretty big news story would've become an even bigger news story, I'm sure. So, you know, that's just kind of just the environment we live in.

GROSS: Let's look at another comparison, the number of Islamic extremists who have attacked Americans on American soil, the number who come from other countries and have come here for the attacks versus the number of attackers who are American-born or are American citizens and grew up here.

BERGEN: You know what's interesting, since 9/11, we tend to think that terrorist attacks against the United States must be conducted by foreigners because on 9/11, it was 19 foreign-born Arab hijackers recruited by al-Qaida. In fact, every lethal terrorist attack in the United States since 9/11, whether in Fort Hood or Boston or San Bernardino, has been conducted by American citizens or legal permanent residents. And so some of the hysteria about refugees coming into the country and performing acts of terrorism is very overblown. Certainly about 10 refugees have been involved in relatively minor jihadi terrorism crimes, like material support for a terrorist organization. And - but really, if you were concerned about lethal attacks, it's been American citizens or American residents.

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