Gulen Movement: Turkey's Islamic Supremacist Cult and the Civilization Jihad

Fethullah Gulen has been called the “most dangerous Islamist” in the world. He has amassed a fortune—thanks, in part, to the CIA—of $25 billion. The Turkish government remains controlled by Gulen, and Gulen has wielded political allegiances in Washington that have resulted in the placement of Turkish Muslims in the CIA, NSA, FBI, and other national security organizations. He has created well-heeled lobbies to promote the cause of Islam and to develop Islamic candidates for political office. He has formed close friendships with Bill and Hillary Clinton, former Secretaries of State James Baker and Madeleine Albright, and George W. Bush. Gulen has also established thousands of schools throughout the world, where students are indoctrinated in the tenets of political Islam. More than 100 of these schools, funded by American taxpayers, are located in the United States. Fethullah Gulen build schools to indoctrinate an entire generation using U.S. taxpayer dollars [more here on the “Imam’s Army.”]. It is a cult-like Turkish supremacist Movement to induce school boards to charter and pay Gulen's followers to establish vehicles for indoctrinating impressionable American students, usually under the guise of enriched science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) education. Gulen's focus is to promote an increasingly Shariah-dominated Turkey. [Paul L. Williams, Ph.D., The Last Crusade, Mounting Crisis Between Turkey and Israel Created in Pennsylvania, June 1, 2010]

Osman Nori, the retired head of Turkish intelligence, recently alleged that the Gulen movement has served as a front for US intelligence by sheltering 130 CIA agents in its schools throughout Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. This claim collaborates the testimony of Sybil Edmonds, a former FBI translator and celebrated whistleblower. Ms. Edmonds says that Gulen and his movement began to receive vast sums of money from the CIA in the wake of the collapse of the Soviet Union, when US officials realized that they could not obtain control of the massive energy resources of the newly created Russian republics because of a deep-seated suspicion of American motives. The CIA, Ms. Edmonds maintains, came to view Turkey as a perfect “proxy” for US interests since it was a NATO ally that shared the same language, culture, and religion as the other Central Asian countries. But centralized control of these republics, she points out, could only be actualized by the creation of the Pan-Turkish nationalism and religion, envisioned by Gulen and his followers. And so, according to Ms. Edmonds, the CIA became Gulen’s partner in the creation of the New Islamic World Order. The money for the pasha’s schools and settlements, she says, came not from congressionally-approved funding but rather from covert CIA operations, including narcotics trafficking, nuclear black market, weapons smuggling, and terrorist activities. [Source]

Gülen lives in his fortress in the Poconos of Pennsylvania, and he has received praise and support from high-level figures in the American government. Bill Clinton and James Baker have delivered encomiums to his contributions to world peace, for instance, and President Obama has made an admiring visit to the Gülen-inspired Pinnacle School in Washington, D.C. Former CIA officer Graham Fuller—also former vice chairman of the National Intelligence Council and the author of The Future of Political Islam—vouched for Gülen personally in his green-card application process, as did former CIA officer George Fidas and former ambassador to Turkey Morton Abramowitz. [Source]

Ferhat Ünlü, the intelligence editor for the Turkish language Sabah newspaper, said the Federal Bureau of Investigation of the United States (FBI) is not so fond of the Gülen Movement or its Pennsylvania-based controversial leader Fethullah Gülen and that there is a deep clash of opinions between the FBI and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). "This is a reality and the FBI explicitly does not adopt the views held by the CIA toward the Gülen Movement as was evident in the Green Card incident," said Ünlü, who explained that the FBI resisted granting permanent residency status to Fethullah Gülen during the period between 2006 to 2010. Gülen was at the time staying in the United States on a tourist visa since 1999 when he came to the country to receive medical treatment. Ünlü noted former CIA officials supported Gülen receiving a Green Card, whereas the FBI denied the requests. [Source]

Bill Clinton: Fethullah Gulen's Contribution to the World, Turkish Cultural Center Friendship Dinner

More Dangerous than bin Laden? Protestors to Descend on Gulen’s Mountain Fortress in Pennsylvania

PAUL L. WILLIAMS, PHD
August 30, 2013

A protest against Fethullah Gulen and his movement will take place on Saturday, August 31, at Logging Road in Saylorsburg, Pennsylvania. The rally is set to start at 2 p.m. and hundreds of Turkish Americans are expected to be in attendance.

The purpose of the event, according to organizer Armagan Yilmaz, is “to warn the American people” about Gulen, “a man even more dangerous than Osama Bin Laden.”

This description, Mr. Yilmaz insists, is not hyperbole. Gulen has been responsible for the transformation of secular Turkey into an Islamic state with 85,000 active mosques – – one for every 350- citizens – – the highest number per capita in the world, 90,000 imams, more imams than teachers and physicians – – and thousands of state-run Islamic schools.

Gulen accomplished this through the creation of the Justice and Development Party (Adalet ve Kalkinma, AKP) which now controls the Turkish government.

The Gulen Islamic Movement is a Dangerous and Insidious Global Operation

The Gulen Movement is one of the most dangerous and insidious operations acting in the U.S. today. Started in Turkey as a moderate Islamic movement in the secular 1960s and 1970s, the movement — also known as Hizmet, roughly meaning “service” in Turkish — runs schools, businesses, and media outlets around the world. There is no formal membership: Affiliates say they are “inspired” by Gülen, and many groups aligned with him deny any official affiliation. The movement courts state legislators from almost every state. They also target education committees and, particularly, the chairs of those committees. They have taken many legislators on junkets to Turkey and other Muslim countries. The movement's followers - referred to by many as Gulenists - are encouraged to work in the civil service and to be a useful part of society through their charitable actions or work. The Financial Times reported in 2014 that Gulenists ran schools in 140 countries and also operate Tuskon, a confederation of 120,000 Turkish companies which works to open up markets for Turkey, notably in Africa. [Source]

Horizon-Concept charter schools in Ohio [associated with the Turkish Gülen movement] place a big emphasis on courting politicians. PR people had to do a monthly report and list the politicians they contacted, tell whether they took any kids to visit his or her office, and say if they invited any politicians to visit the school. Their strategic PR plan was comprehensive and designed to continually put the schools in a positive light in terms of how the politicians and communities viewed them. The reality was much different from the newsletter photos shown. [Source]

Wyoming state Rep. Dave Zwonitzer said he and four other Wyoming lawmakers were contacted in 2013 by the Gulenist group the Mosaic Foundation, which offered them a free trip to Baku, Azerbaijan. On the trip, he said, were “four buses full of legislators” from around the country. Zwonitzer said that though he personally was not directly encouraged to introduce a resolution, “I did get the impression from other legislators I talked to that they had been encouraged.” He said that it was “never clear to us” who exactly was paying for the trip, “which was a little disconcerting.” Zwonitzer and his colleagues introduced their resolution based on model legislation provided to them by the Mosaic Foundation, though they changed one sentence, he said. It failed to pass, but they plan to reintroduce something similar in the 2015 legislative session. “You don’t get a free 10-day trip sponsored by the oil company without somebody asking for something,” Zwonitzer said. [Source]



Gulen is ranked as the most influential Muslim in the U.S. and the 11^th most influential Muslim in the world. He fled to the U.S. in 1998 after the Turkish government charged him with trying to overthrow its secularism. He has erected a parallel state in Turkey and was instrumental in enabling the Islamist takeover of the country. Gulen has since had a falling out with Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan. Leaked documents show Erdogan’s government planned to act against Gulen’s network in Turkey. Gulen resides in a 28-acre compound in the Pocono Mountains of Pennsylvania and has a reported net worth of $25 billion. He set up his first charter school in the U.S. in 1999 and now has 135 of them, making it the largest charter school network in the country. Sharon Higgins, a researcher who closely follows the Gulen network, wrote a thoroughly referenced article about the network in the Washington Post in March 2012. The article states that “the United States is the only country where the Gulen Movement has been able to establish schools which are fully funded with public money.” [Source]

Islamic Radicals Mount Influence Operation On Louisiana Leges

The Hayride
April 11, 2014

“You must move in the arteries of the system without anyone noticing your existence until you reach all the power centers… until the conditions are ripe, they [the followers] must continue like this.  If they do something prematurely, the world will crush our heads, and Muslims will suffer everywhere…” – ​​​​​​Fethullah Gulen

Later this month, organizations affiliated with the Turkish-based Gulenist Islamist movement will hold a reception lobbying Louisiana’s lawmakers.

Why would a Turkish-based Islamist movement seek to lobby lawmakers in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, USA? For the same reason they have conducted similar influence operations in almost every state capitol in the United States.

Longstanding Turkish Prime Minister Erdogan Transitioned from Head of Government (Prime Minister) to Head of State (President) in 2014

After his Strasbourg EU visit, the pope moves on to EU-aspirant Turkey. Turkey’s President and former Primer Minister, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, is a Fethullah Gulen disciple.

Erdogan hosts people's pope, in plush new palace

November 28, 2014

AFP/Reuters - Pope Francis, in his Alitalia jet, arrived in Turkey on November 25, 2014, his first visit to the country. The austere Argentine will be President Recep Tayyip Erdogan's guest of honor in Ankara's controversial new, 1,000-room presidential palace. 

On Pope Francis' first of his three day in the country,  his mission was to strengthen ties with Muslim leaders while condemning violence against Christians and other minorities in the Middle East. Francis held talks with then-President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Mehmet Gormez, the top cleric in the Muslim-majority secular country.

The visit came as the self-styled "Islamic State" laid claim to large parts of Iraq and Syria, just across Turkey's southern border. At the time, Turkey was sheltering over 1 million refugees from Syria, thousands of them Christians.

The 77-year-old Argentine, born Jorge Mario Bergoglio, moved on to Istanbul with a visit to the Hagia Sophia — the great Byzantine church that was turned into a mosque in 1453 and now serves as a museum — one of the highlights on his itinerary.

Some 2,700 police supervised the visit in Turkey's capital, Ankara, with more than 7,000 officers ready for Francis' Istanbul appointments.

A palace fit for a … president

Francis became by far the highest profile guest ever to visit Turkey's new presidential palace, inaugurated in October 2014 to coincide with longstanding Prime Minister Erdogan's transition from head of government to head of state.

The building is by no means universally popular. The lavish, 1,000-room palace cost just over 500 million euros (well over $600 million) so far, with a major mosque complex and other extensions still reportedly planned.

The presidential palace, tentatively called Ak Saray ("White Palace") was built under controversial circumstances, in a wooded area within the Ataturk Forest Farm in Ankara. The construction went ahead despite environmental concerns and court orders, prompting its critics to instead call it Kacak Saray ("Illegal Palace").

ISIS Has Ties to Canadian Intelligence

Canadian intelligence caught clandestinely backing Islamic State

March 22, 2015

The Fifth Column - In the latest of a string of incidents that call into question the West’s real intentions in the battle against the Islamic State, an alleged asset of Canadian Intelligence was caught red handed smuggling Islamic State sympathizers into Syria.

Editor’s Note: The Fifth Column does not report conspiracy theories. As bizarre as the unfolding story is, it is not based on anonymous sources or unsourced allegations.

On Friday, the Turkish Foreign Minister (a person holding the equivalent office of John Kerry) publicly stated:

“The person arrested by us is someone working for an intelligence agency in the coalition.”

Later in the week it was specified that the suspect was working for Canadian Intelligence.

It is important to note that Turkey is one of the West’s key allies in the region and has been since the nation joined NATO in 1952. This is not an allegation the Turkish government takes lightly.

Turkish authorities are holding Mohammed Mehmet Rashid (AKA Doctor Mehmet Rashid and Mohammed al Rashid) after he was caught smuggling three teenage girls into Syria to join the Islamic State. He confessed to working for the Canadian Embassy in Amman, Jordan. The bizarre claim was backed up with a computer and cell phone that are reportedly in Turkish custody that were provided by the Canadian government. When he was captured he also had in his possession the passport photographs of 17 other people, in addition to the three teenage girls he had just handed over to the Islamic State.

Rashid’s travel records indicate that he has bounced back and forth across the border more than 30 times since 2013, while most people have a hard time getting out of war torn Syria once. There was another entry on Rashid’s travel documents: a trip to Canada.

ISIS Has Ties to U.S. NATO Ally Turkey

Killed ISIS Commander’s Cell Phone Shows Direct Ties To Turkish Intelligence

Former US Department of State senior adviser David Phillips said, “Turkey’s role has not been ambiguous — it has overtly supported the ISIL. It has provided logistical support, money, weapons, transport and healthcare to wounded warriors.”

December 28, 2015

The Fifth Column - An ISIS commander was killed in Salahuddin province and his body was searched. A cell phone retrieved from the corpse revealed messages from Turkish intelligence services proving the NATO country was providing security for ISIS militants when they traveled between Turkey and Iraq. This is the second NATO country implicated in assisting ISIS troops. The first was Canada.

The IS commander was killed by Hashd al-Shaabi, a loyalist volunteer force. Jabbar al-Ma’mouri, a leader within the force made the announcement. He said,

“The mobile phone also contains other important information which cannot be disclosed now, and it has been delivered to the specialized security groups for further scrutiny.” 

Turkey and the ISIS share two enemies: President Assad of Syria and the Kurdish people. This incident comes on the heels of the Turkish Air Force shooting down a Russian plane engaged in operations against the Islamic State. Ten days ago, Turkey invaded Iraq briefly. It sent its troops to within a few hundred miles of where the phone was recovered. Turkish artillery has also rained shells down on the Kurdish community of Kobane.

While the western media seems to be overlooking and downplaying NATO support for the Islamic State, some senior US officials are speaking out. Former US Department of State senior adviser David Phillips said, “Turkey’s role has not been ambiguous — it has overtly supported the ISIL. It has provided logistical support, money, weapons, transport and healthcare to wounded warriors.”

Across the border in Syria, President Assad blasted western adventurism in Syria and cast the NATO powers as an obstacle to peace. He said,  

“There are only a few countries ready for this. No one dares to establish contact with Syria to resolve the situation as long as it does not appear on the agenda of the United States.” 

Ex-CIA Chief Explains How ISIS/ISIL is Establishing a New Islamic Caliphate

Ignorant fool, serial murderer, rapist, and ISIS head al-Baghdadi fancies himself a "caliph"; but the real caliphs of the past, from al-Rashid to al-Wathiq, would condemn this man's overconfidence in his rightness, so extreme as to render dissent a capital offense, as a formula for civilizational failure. ISIS is not fighting Crusaders. No--Islamic State fighters are Crusaders. Modern, less tolerant ones. And like the most fanatical Western knights, ISIS is obsessed with forcing everyone else to trash their capacity to reason and to instead buy into their narrow worldview, dismissive of the right of any brain holding another version of "truth" to function. [Source]

A recent Soufan Group report on foreign fighters in Iraq and Syria (not necessarily fighting with ISIS):

Ending ISIS: An Ex-CIA Chief's Plan

After recent attacks on Paris, Beirut and on a Russian passenger jet, most experts now believe that we are in a global war with the Islamic State. The would-be caliphate differs from past threats — more brutal and uncannily adept at tapping into disaffection. While the global powers do not recognize the Islamic State’s legitimacy, its terror has reached around the world. How can we stop the Islamic State? Defusing the IS, also known as “ISIS” and ”ISIL,” requires understanding first what makes it tick — how it exerts power and why it thrives. But that’s only part of the game plan that is only now developing. In this three-part series, taken from excerpts of his testimony before the House of Representatives’ Armed Services Committee last month, former CIA deputy director John McLaughlin lays out his analysis of the threat and offers a plan of attack. McLaughlin begins here by examining the scourge of the Islamic State, inside out.

December 28, 2015

John McLaughlin, Ozy.com - My last four years in government were largely focused on the post-9/11 battle against al-Qaida. Dangerous and challenging as that was, the challenge presented by ISIL exceeds it. This is because for at least the past year, it has been apparent that ISIL has six things al-Qaida never had in anything like the measure ISIL possesses them. No one, therefore, should be surprised that ISIL has shown the capabilities it did in Paris — elaborate planning, stealthy access, deadly tactics.

First, ISIL has a more comprehensive strategy. As the Institute for the Study of War has smartly concluded, we are dealing with an enemy that has a strategy, one the Institute concludes ISIL is executing in three concentric rings. Its “interior” ring includes Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon and Palestine. Here their objective is to conquer, defend and expand — and, as the Paris attacks show, to plan and execute external operations. Its “near abroad” ring comprises the rest of the Middle East and North Africa, extending out to Pakistan and Afghanistan. Libya is, for now, the main external hub. The objective is to establish affiliates here and increase disorder. In the “far abroad” ring — the United States, Europe, parts of Asia and sub-Saharan Africa — the goal is to attack and polarize.

Second, unlike al-Qaida, ISIL holds territory. By now it has as much as half of Iraq and Syria, with a capital in Raqqa, Syria, and a secondary center in Iraq’s second-largest city, Mosul. Al-Qaida central never succeeded beyond essentially renting part of Afghanistan before 9/11. As long as ISIL has this territory, it has the “caliphate” it claims and therefore the basis for its appeal — a destination for recruits.

Third, it has money. I have heard U.S. Treasury officials publicly put this somewhere between $500 million and $1 billion. Al-Qaida was always scraping for money and seeking loans from more successful terrorists. ISIL’s money comes from taking over about 80 bank branches in Iraq, from taxes, kidnapping, smuggling and oil.

I believe we have never fully grasped the importance of ISIL’s relative wealth. Much of this may be needed to administer its territory, but I’m convinced it still has more money than al-Qaida ever had to buy expertise on things like information technology and weaponry, and to send its recruiters and trainers to places like Libya and operatives to places like France.

Fourth, ISIL has easier access to the West. As Paris vividly illustrates, the 4,500 or so Western recruits among its 20,000 to 30,000 fighters allow ISIL to move among us in ways that are harder to detect than typical al-Qaida operatives.

Fifth, ISIL has a powerful narrative. Its slick propaganda depicts for alienated youth in the West and elsewhere a better life of jobs, homes, fellowship and power. We notice mainly the brutality, but in a single month this summer, 52 percent of the nearly 900 propaganda messages ISIL sent out were focused on quality-of-life issues, while 37 percent hit military themes and only 2 percent touched on brutality. Al-Qaida’s narrative was and remains far less sophisticated and appealing — essentially, go attack the West and then enjoy a dangerous life on the run.

CIA Knowingly Armed Militant Islamists in Syria

Top CIA strategist Graham Fuller is the “Godfather of Al Qaeda.” Fuller was also the key CIA figure in convincing the Reagan Administration to tip the balance in the eight-year-long Iran-Iraq war by using Israel to channel weapons to Iran in what became the Iran-Contra Affair. As well, in 1999, around the time his daughter Samantha and “Uncle” Ruslan Tsarni (aka Tsarnaev, uncle to the accused Boston Marathon bombers) lived at his home near Washington, DC., Fuller, former Deputy Director of the CIA’s National Council on Intelligence, then a senior figure at the Pentagon and CIA-linked neo-conservative RAND corporation, advocated using Muslim forces to further US interests in Central Asia. He stated:

“The policy of guiding the evolution of Islam and of helping them against our adversaries worked marvelously well in Afghanistan against [the Russians]. The same doctrines can still be used to destabilize what remains of Russian power, and especially to counter the Chinese influence in Central Asia.”

Russia’s main pipeline route out of the Caspian Sea basin transits through Chechnya and Dagestan. The 1994-1996 Chechen war, instigated by the main rebel movements against Moscow, served to undermine secular state institutions. The adoption of Islamic law in the largely secular Muslim societies of the former Soviet Union served US strategic interests in the region.

This is precisely what happened in Chechnya with hundreds of CIA-trained Jihadists and Al Qaeda fighters sent into Chechnya, Dagestan and other parts of the former Soviet Union, precisely where Uncle Ruslan and his two Tsarnaev nephews came to the USA from. Coincidence?  [Source]

Seymour Hersh report on Syria: White House knew US was arming Islamic State

December 27, 2015

UPI - Pulitzer-prize-winning journalist Seymour Hersh reports that the administration of President Barack Obama, in particular the CIA, has knowingly armed militant Islamists in Syria, including the Islamic State.

"Barack Obama's repeated insistence that Bashar al-Assad must leave office -- and that there are 'moderate' rebel groups in Syria capable of defeating him -- has in recent years provoked quiet dissent, and even overt opposition, among some of the most senior officers on the Pentagon's Joint Staff," Hersh writes in the London Review of Books.

"Their criticism has focused on what they see as the administration's fixation on Assad's primary ally, Vladimir Putin. In their view, Obama is captive to Cold War thinking about Russia and China, and hasn't adjusted his stance on Syria to the fact both countries share Washington's anxiety about the spread of terrorism in and beyond Syria; like Washington, they believe that Islamic State must be stopped."

Hersh writes that a highly classified 2013 Defense Intelligence Agency/Joint Chiefs of Staff report on Syria forecast that the fall of the Assad regime would lead to "chaos" and possibly to Islamist extremists taking over Syria.

Hersh reports that Lieutenant General Michael Flynn, director of the DIA between 2012 and 2014, told him that his agency sent a "constant stream" of warnings to the "civilian leadership" about the dire consequences of ousting Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

The DIA's reporting "got enormous pushback" from the Obama administration, Hersh quotes Flynn as saying.

"I felt that they did not want to hear the truth."

The report, published in the Jan. 7, 2016 edition of the London Review of Books, relies heavily on an anonymous former senior adviser to the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Hersh writes that the adviser told him the DIA/Joint Chiefs report took a "dim view" of the Obama administration's insistence on continuing to finance and arm the so-called moderate rebel groups and found that the covert U.S. program to arm and support those "moderate" rebels fighting Assad had been co-opted by Turkey, which then morphed the program into an "across-the-board technical, arms and logistical program for all of the opposition, including Jabhat al-Nusra and Islamic State."

"The assessment was bleak: there was no viable 'moderate' opposition to Assad, and the U.S. was arming extremists," Hersh wrote.

In October, the Pentagon announced that it was discontinuing its program to train and equip moderate rebels in Syria, saying the program cost $500 million and only succeeded in training a "handful" of recruits.

In November, however, the CIA increased its shipments of arms to rebels in Syria, joining with U.S. allies in challenging Russia and Iran's involvement in Syria in support of the Assad regime.

The Zionist Plan for the Middle East: ISIS Controls the Exact Same Territory Israel Wants to Conquer and Annex to Make Up the Greater Israel

According to the founding father of Zionism, Theodore Herzl, “the area of the Jewish State stretches “from the Brook of Egypt to the Euphrates.” According to Rabbi Fischmann, “The Promised Land extends from the River of Egypt up to the Euphrates; it includes parts of Syria and Lebanon.” When viewed in the current context, the war on Iraq, the 2006 war on Lebanon, the 2011 war on Libya, the ongoing war on Syria and Iraq, the war in Yemen, the process of regime change in Egypt, must be understood in relation to the Zionist Plan for the Middle East. The latter consists in weakening and eventually fracturing neighboring Arab states as part of an Israeli expansionist project.

“Greater Israel” consists in an area extending from the Nile Valley to the Euphrates. The Zionist project supports the Jewish settlement movement. More broadly it involves a policy of excluding Palestinians from Palestine, leading to the eventual annexation of both the West Bank and Gaza to the State of Israel. Greater Israel would create a number of proxy States. It would include parts of Lebanon, Jordan, Syria, the Sinai, as well as parts of Iraq and Saudi Arabia (see map).

Greater Israel” requires the breaking up of the existing Arab states into small states. “The plan operates on two essential premises. To survive, Israel must 1) become an imperial regional power, and 2) must effect the division of the whole area into small states by the dissolution of all existing Arab states. Small here will depend on the ethnic or sectarian composition of each state. Consequently, the Zionist hope is that sectarian-based states become Israel’s satellites and, ironically, its source of moral legitimation… This is not a new idea, nor does it surface for the first time in Zionist strategic thinking. Indeed, fragmenting all Arab states into smaller units has been a recurrent theme.” [Source]

'Syria Will Be Torn Into Pieces:' Abu Qatada Speaks to VICE News

November 5, 2015

Vice News - A radical Islamic cleric once described as Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe says that Syria can no longer function as a nation state, and will be permanently fragmented into zones controlled by various rebel groups.

"Syria will be torn into pieces," said Abu Qatada in an exclusive interview with VICE News, also claiming that the so-called Islamic State (IS) could have been defeated if the United States had taken decisive military action earlier.

"No single group can destroy the other group [in Syria]," he continued. "This fighting will extend to neighboring countries," such as Israel, Jordan, and Lebanon.

Abu Qatada, a Palestinian-Jordanian whose real name is Omar Othman, spent more than two decades in the UK where he became a leading Islamist cleric known for increasingly hardline views. By the early 2000s he was accused by British authorities of advocating Islamic extremism and promoting terrorism, including suicide bomb attacks.

Richard Reid, the man known as the shoe bomber for his failed 2001 attempt to blow up a US passenger plane with explosives packed into his shoes, was said to have consulted Abu Qatada on religious issues. In 2002 Spanish judge Baltasar Garzon described the cleric as "the spiritual head of the mujahideen in Britain", and "Osama bin Laden's right-hand man in Europe," and in 2012 he was placed under worldwide embargo by the United Nations for his alleged links to al Qaeda.

After a long legal battle that cost the UK taxpayer £1.7 million ($2.7 million), the UK deported Abu Qatada to Jordan in 2013. He stood trial for allegedly planning a terrorist attack against tourists in Jordan during millennium celebrations, but last September was acquitted due to insufficient evidence.

Since his trial, Abu Qatada has focused on organizing political support for Jabat al Nusra (Nusra Front), the al Qaeda affiliate in Syria, according to Hassan Abu Haniah, a Jordanian researcher on extremist groups and commentator for major Arab media. He also consults with al Nusra leaders, advising them on "how they can manage and control Jabat al Nusra and how they can communicate with the ISIS [Islamic State] and Free Syrian Army," said Haniah.

Al Nusra was part of the so-called Islamic State until 2013, when the two groups split in a bitter feud over strategy and tactics. IS went on to establish what it calls an Islamic caliphate, which includes parts of Syria and Iraq, brutally murdering thousands of civilians, foreign journalists, non-Sunni Muslims and other religious minorities in the process.

Abu Qatada maintains IS could have been defeated had the US taken more decisive military action sooner, a position also advocated by American hawks. The US provided shoulder fired anti-aircraft missiles to rebels fighting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, he noted, and "could have done the same" in Syria, he said.

Russian Analyst Says Russia Needs to Increase Its Military Strategies Against the U.S. and Its NATO Allies, Which are "Moving to the Borders of Russia"

Russian analyst urges nuclear attack on Yellowstone National Park and San Andreas fault line

March 31, 2015

Sydney Morning Herald - A Russian geopolitical analyst says the best way to attack the United States is to detonate nuclear weapons to trigger a supervolcano at Yellowstone National Park or along the San Andreas fault line on California's coast.

The president of the Academy of Geopolitical Problems based in Moscow, Konstantin Sivkov said in an article for a Russian trade newspaper on Wednesday, VPK News, that Russia needed to increase its military weapons and strategies against the "West" which was "moving to the borders or Russia".

He has a conspiracy theory that NATO - a political and military alliance which counts the US, UK, Canada and many countries in western Europe as members - was amassing strength against Russia and the only way to combat that problem was to attack America's vulnerabilities to ensure a "complete destruction of the enemy".

"Geologists believe that the Yellowstone supervolcano could explode at any moment. There are signs of growing activity there. Therefore it suffices to push the relatively small, for example the impact of the munition megaton class, to initiate an eruption. The consequences will be catastrophic for the United States - a country just disappears," he said.

"Another vulnerable area of ​​the United States from the geophysical point of view, is the San Andreas fault - 1300 kilometers between the Pacific and North American plates ... a detonation of a nuclear weapon there can trigger catastrophic events like a coast-scale tsunami which can completely destroy the infrastructure of the United States."

He said the Russian geography on the other hand would protect it from a tsunami or a volcano attack. Few people live on the coast in Russia and Siberia, which rests on basalt, would withstand similar attacks.

Mr Sivkov, who spoke at the 2013 Moscow Economic Forum, said by 2020 to 2025 Russia would have amassed "asymmetric weapons" in its arsenal for the attack.

"The situation for us today is comparably worse than half a century ago," he said.

"The weakened economic potential in Russia, the loss of the 'spiritual core of what was the communist idea', and the lack of large-scale community allies in Europe such as the Warsaw Pact, Russia simply cannot compete against the NATO and its allies." 

In December last year, the vocal military strategist told Russian newspaper, Pravda.ru that there is a "developing standoff between Russia and the West" and the US's ultimate goal was to "destroy Russia".

Mr Sivkov accused American politicians of committing several crimes, including causing the deaths of 1,200,000 people in Iraq. 

He believed the only way for the "American elite" to be held accountable was for its military forces to be destroyed.

"American politicians have committed a variety of crimes. Will anyone be held accountable for those crimes? What about the international law, the UN and other organisations? Are they doing anything?" he asked.

Mr Sivkov told Pravda that the idea of the US preparing for a serious war against Russia using cruise missiles was plausible given that it had already launched a thousand missiles in Yugoslavia and Iraq.

NOW WATCH: 11 Facts That Show How Different Russia Is From The Rest Of The World

Russia's Military Is More Advanced Than You Might Think

Putin is itching to fight after one of his jets was shot down by Turkey. 

December 15, 2015

Popular Mechanics - Vladimir Putin is not a man to back down from provocation, especially a direct, lethal provocation like the shooting down of a Russian Su-24 aircraft by Turkey on Tuesday. Such an attack raises the possibility of a direct military confrontation, and makes you wonder just what Russia could do if you rattled its cage. How dangerous are they?

Kurds of All Denominations Could Ultimately Destroy the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq

Syria’s Kurds Have Nearly Tripled Their Territory Fighting the Islamic State in 2015

December 22, 2015

Vice News - Amid the chaos in Syria, the country's Kurds have managed to resist the advances of the Islamic State and carve out a zone of unprecedented autonomy in their own lands.

Over the past year, the YPG Kurdish militia beat back the Islamic State (IS) and nearly tripled the size of Kurdish-controlled territory in Northern Syria, all the while helping shrink the size of the IS caliphate by around 14 percent.

That's according to a new report by the IHS Jane's, a private intelligence company that analyzes international security issues,  and has been tracking the ground war in Syria.

As a result, the Kurds are essentially in control of their own mini-state — which they call Rojava — that runs across the Turkish-Syrian border. Administered by the Democratic Union Party (PYD) the political arm of the YPG, the government in Rojava has reached an understanding with the Assad regime that allows the Kurds to govern their own territory, while beating back IS from the borders.

"The Kurds have had autonomy thrust upon them," explained Michael Gunter, a professor of political science at Tennessee Tech University, and the author of Out of Nowhere: The Kurds of Syria in Peace and War, a recent study of Kurdish politics in Syria. "There's no way they will go back to a subservient position of not controlling their own lands anytime in the future."

ISIS Wants the United States and Its Allies to be Dragged into a Ground War in Syria; George W. Bush Bashes Obama for Not Sending Ground Forces to Syria

ISIS leaders are trying feverishly to draw the U.S. and the Western powers (“the forces of Rome”) into a bloody ground war in Syria. Why? In order to fulfill Islamic prophecies about an apocalyptic End Times battle in an obscure Syrian town called Dabiq and establish a global Islamic kingdom or caliphate.

ISIS did not just emerge out of nowhere, but has been festering for over a decade, taking root in the chaos that Iraq found itself in after the U.S. invasion in 2003. So why is it working for ISIS this time, starting around 2010-2011? Despite facing multiple challenges and disappointments, ISIS was able to use the continued lack of a cohesive state in Iraq to survive. The breakdown of central authority left a power vacuum filled by a variety of self-appointed Sunni militia groups, but these proved to be little more than armed thugs imposing protection taxes but providing no protection (nor trash collection, water and power supply, medical care or food). Next to them, ISIS was seen as a relief.

The second big break ISIS got was the civil war in Syria, a war that left the (largely Sunni) Syrian hinterland ungoverned. The disparate, disorganized and fractious rebel groups in that region were unable or unwilling to fight sustained battles against the central government forces under Bashar Al-Assad, which made it excruciatingly difficult for the West in general and the U.S. in particular to find reliable recipients of U.S. military aid. The only group that really pushed the battle forward was the Nusra Front, and they were allies of Al Qaeda. For his part, Al-Assad was (and is) only too happy to let ISIS do his Sunni-on-Sunni dirty work. Truly a foreign policy problem from hell from the U.S. standpoint.

The third big break ISIS got was the Arab Spring, a movement of popular revolutions that unhinged government after government but which led not to a birth of a new Arab freedom but chaos and further economic dislocation. Disaffected youth (and not just youth) hear a resonance in these End Time prophesies as their world has turned upside down. Utopianism has a strong appeal to the marginalized and disaffected, whether it’s the weird cult of a Jim Jones or a restoration of a more pure and primitive society as preached by Pol Pot. When the Utopians are heavily armed, the myth plays out exactly one way—the dubious peace of mass slaughter and unburied death. [Robert J. Hard]

U.S. Seeks to Avoid Ground War Welcomed by Islamic State

December 7, 2015

New York Times - As the debate on how best to contain the Islamic State continues to rage in Western capitals, the militants themselves have made one point patently clear: They want the United States and its allies to be dragged into a ground war.

In fact, when the United States first invaded Iraq, one of the most enthusiastic proponents of the move was the man who founded the terrorist cell that would one day become the Islamic State, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. He excitedly called the Americans’ 2003 intervention “the Blessed Invasion.”

His reaction — ignored by some, and dismissed as rhetoric by others — points to one of the core beliefs motivating the terrorist group now holding large stretches of Iraq and Syria: The group bases its ideology on prophetic texts stating that Islam will be victorious after an apocalyptic battle to be set off once Western armies come to the region.

Obama Vetoes Two Measures That Would Have Stopped His Plans to Implement Carbon Policies

Notice that the establishment media is now calling CO2 "carbon pollution." 

CO2 is Carbon Dioxide: A heavy odorless colorless gas formed during respiration and by the decomposition of organic substances; absorbed from the air by plants in photosynthesis.

CO is Carbon Monoxide: An odorless very poisonous gas that is a product of incomplete combustion of carbon (the burning of Gasoline, Kerosene, Propane, Fuel Oil for Trucks and also home heating, and wood burning).

It is CO emissions which need to be reduced and eventually eliminated to the lowest limits possible, not CO2 which is what all animals exhale and all plants, flowers and trees absorb and convert to Oxygen. 

Botanist studies show that WE NEED MORE CO2 TO HAVE A GREEN EARTH. Anti-scientists (unfortunately, our president) associate CO2 with the smoke from chimneys and truck exhausts because they are totally ignorant of science. CO2 IS A CLEAR, ODORLESS, COLORLESS, TASTELESS GAS THAT COMBINES WITH SUNSHINE AND WATER IN PHOTOSYNTHESIS TO CREATE GREEN PLANTS.

The carbohydrates in plants are at the base of the food chain. Less CO2 = less life on Earth. Also, warmer temperatures oxidize Earth's plant matter to increase CO2, rather than more CO2 causing warmer temperatures.

Now that the Earth is cooling, on average, the scare tactics of climatologists who are on the research-funding gravy train, are seen as false. Only those benefiting from such scare tactics are clinging to such absurd claims that go against the current and historical data. But such "climatologists," making money based on the fears they spread, have destroyed data that didn't fit their predictions and are selecting data from hot airport tarmacs and asphalt paving areas in cities to claim warming.

IN FACT, THE EARTH OVERALL HAS BEEN COOLING SLIGHTLY SINCE 1999. Historical data show that about 2022 we will know definitely that a Maunder Minimum is setting in. North America and Europe will cool at a faster rate. MOVE SOUTH NOW AND AVOID THE RUSH (when Obama is exposed as an anti-science demagogue who has been taken by a conspiracy of "climatologists"). SCIENCE IS NOT VERBAL ARGUMENTS TO MAKE YOUR SIDE WIN A DEBATE (scientifically ignorant lawyers do that)!!! [Source]

Once everyone thinks of carbon dioxide as a pollutant, the fight is over. Republicans should just roll over and let the Democrats destroy the country. 

Obama vetoes anti-climate change measures passed by Congress

December 19, 2015

AP - President Barack Obama has vetoed two measures that would have blocked steps that his administration is taking to address climate change.

One would have nullified carbon pollution standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency. The second would have voided a set of national standards designed to reduce the amount of greenhouse gas pollution from existing power plants.

In a letter notifying Congress of his decision, Obama says climate change is a "profound threat" that must be addressed.

Some Republican lawmakers and presidential candidates scoff at the climate science [man is not the cause of climate change].

Obama has made addressing climate change a priority. He recently praised a new international climate agreement reached at a Paris conference and credited his administration as being a driving force behind the deal.

He rejected the measures through a rare "pocket veto," intended to be used when Congress has adjourned, as it did Friday for the year. A pocket vote essentially takes effect when the president fails to sign a bill within 10 days.

By Including Them in the Federal Budget Deal, Congress Snuck into Law Deeply Unpopular Things They Could Never Justify Introducing or Voting for on Their Own

5 Horrible Things Congress Just Snuck Into Law

December 19, 2015

Huffington Post - Congress has officially approved the latest omnibus budget deal, which now heads to President Obama's desk. The bill is essentially guaranteed to be signed into law, because anything less means the government would shut down. Again.

In what's become something of a sick annual tradition, members of Congress attached a multitude of riders to this must-pass piece of legislation in an attempt to sneak through deeply unpopular things they could never justify introducing or voting for on their own.

The text of the 2,000 page bill was quietly made available to the public in the middle of the night on Tuesday -- just a few days before it was passed by both houses of Congress. So, what was Congress trying to hide? Here are five of the most egregious things we found.

THE PART COPY-PASTED FROM CISA -- A HIGHLY CONTROVERSIAL GOVERNMENT SURVEILLANCE BILL

Civil libertarians and privacy advocates received a nasty shock when it was discovered that the full text of Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) was added 1,729 pages into the budget deal. Pushed as a "cybersecurity" measure, CISA actively encourages companies to quietly share data they've accumulated on consumers with numerous government agencies.

While the bill has been lambasted by privacy advocates and major tech companies like Apple, Google, Twitter, and Wikipedia, it does have the blessing of numerous industries that spend big to buy political influence -- The Telecommunications Industry Association, the Financial Services Roundtable, and Retail Industry Leaders Association have all applauded its passage.

THE PART THAT ALLOWS FOR MORE SECRET (AND POSSIBLY FOREIGN) POLITICAL MONEY

A provision buried on page 472 added the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) from taking any action to reign in the political activity of 501(c)4 organizations. These organizations, which enjoy significant tax exemptions as nonprofits, weren't originally supposed to engage in political activity at all. In recent years, however, they've become a favorite of anyone who wants to buy political influence without attracting attention.

Everyone from Karl Rove's Crossroads GPS to the Harry Reid-aligned Patriot Majority USA has taken advantage of the lax rules governing 501(c)4s. Since there's no legal requirement that 501(c)4 organizations disclose their donors, anyone can use them as a vehicle to pour unlimited money into our political system. And we mean anyone. As former Republican Federal Election Commissioner Trevor Potter has pointed out, even foreign nationals and governments could use 501(c)4s to quietly influence U.S. policy.

Let that sink in folks: Rather than allow the IRS to prevent the abuse of tax-exempt nonprofit status for purely political purposes by both parties, Congress has specifically banned the agency from taking any kind of action -- even at the risk of allowing secret foreign money to poison our elections.

The United States of America Was Founded on Religious Freedom for All, Regardless of Race, Ethnicity or Religion

Thomas Jefferson, in authoring the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom in 1777, established the foundation for the rights guaranteed in the U.S. Constitution. The statute disestablished the Church of England in Virginia, freeing Virginians from paying taxes to the church and guaranteeing freedom of religion to people of all faiths.

Christianity is currently the world's largest religion, making up a third of the world's population with 2.2 billion adherents. Pew research shows that Islam is the fastest growing religion in the world. The religious group will make up 30 percent of the world's population by 2050, compared to just 23 percent of the population in 2010. That means the number of Muslims in the world will nearly equal the number of Christians by 2050. [Source]

Muslim Americans fear demonization of Islam after mass shooting

December 3, 2015

Reuters - Muslim Americans fear their religion will be demonized and Islamophobia will spread after a young Muslim couple was accused of carrying out one of the bloodiest mass killings in the United States.

Across the country, Muslim Americans responded with shock and outrage after a shooting in which authorities said Syed Rizwan Farook, 28, and Tashfeen Malik, 27, stormed a holiday party attended by San Bernardino County employees in California on Wednesday, killing 14 people and wounding 21.

"I was at the gym yesterday while the shooting was taking place and all the TVs were showing that footage and all I could keep thinking to myself is 'God, I hope they don't have any Eastern descent, not just Middle Eastern, anything we'd associate with a Muslim'," said Adam Hashem, 32, in Dearborn, a Detroit suburb with one of the country's largest Muslim populations.

"We're all worried. We're all concerned," he said.

World War Three Would Be Fought Between Eastern Communism and Western Internationalists: Both Intend to Bring into Effect a Totalitarian Dictatorship

Harry Browne's 2004 or 2005 interview of Richard Maybury, author and publisher of "The Thousand Year War" and the Early Warning Report. They discuss mostly foreign policy and middle east history. At the 23:40 mark, a caller proposes a valid solution to the perpetual war for perpetual peace.

Excerpted from Chapter 18, "The Present Dangers" of the Book "Pawns in the Game"

By William Guy Carr (1895-1959)
First Published in 1954

World War Three if started by the Eastern Communist dictators will begin without any preliminary warning:

1. An international general strike will be called in all capitalistic countries. This action is calculated to produce the paralysis previously referred to. 
2. The Communist planes will bomb all industrial centres to knock out the war potential of the United States and Canada and kill as many of the population as possible in order to bring about speedy surrender and subjugation. Britain will likely get the same treatment. 
3. Nerve Gas may be used on industrial areas the enemy do not wish to destroy. 
4. Soviet forces will occupy the mining districts of northern Canada from coast to coast. The occupied areas will be used as bases of operation against the southern objectives. 
5. The international general strike will tie up shipping in every port in the world making it impossible for supplies to reach the people of Great Britain. A blockade of the British Isles by Soviet submarines will stop any leaks. The people of Britain will be starved into submission four weeks after the outbreak of hostilities. 
6. The members of the Communist underground in all cities in the western world will evacuate target areas immediately before the attacks. The underground armies will return and take over the devastated areas as soon as the “All-Clear” has been given. 
7. The Communist 5th Column will round up and liquidate all people whose names are on the black list. Thus will the directors of the Western internationalists be gotten rid of in much quicker time than they got rid of their Nazi opponents by means of the Nuremberg Trials.

On the other hand, if the Western internationalists become convinced that an attack is to be made upon them by the Communist dictators, then they will force the western democracies into another World War in order that they may get in the first blow:

1. As a prelude to their attack, the public will be made aware of the dangers of international Communism. 
2. The danger to Christian democracy will be emphasized. The atheistic-materialists, who have the western world in economic bondage, will call for a Christian Crusade. 
3. They will justify their atomic attacks upon Russia and China as Churchill justified his attack on Germany. They will say it was necessary to save our civilization. 

But don’t lets fool ourselves. Regardless of how the case may be presented to the public, the fact will remain that if World War Three is allowed to take place it will be fought to decide whether Eastern Communism takes over the entire world or whether the Western capitalists will continue to rule the international roost.

If World War Three is permitted to take place, the devastation will be so extensive that internationalists will continue to justify their contentions that ONLY a world government, backed up by an international police force, can solve the various national and international problems without resorting to further wars. This argument will appear very logical to many people who overlook the fact that both the Eastern Communist leaders, and the Western capitalist leaders, intend to ultimately bring into effect THEIR ideas for an atheistic-totalitarian dictatorship.

ISIS Sees Turkey as Its Ally; Draft Deal is Reached to Normalize Ties Between Israel and Turkey

Fethullah Gulen has been called the “most dangerous Islamist” in the world. He has amassed a fortune—thanks, in part, to the CIA—of $25 billion. The Turkish government remains controlled by Gulen, and Gulen has wielded political allegiances in Washington that have resulted in the placement of Turkish Muslims in the CIA, NSA, FBI, and other national security organizations. He has created well-heeled lobbies to promote the cause of Islam and to develop Islamic candidates for political office. He has formed close friendships with Bill and Hillary Clinton, former Secretaries of State James Baker and Madeleine Albright, and George W. Bush. Gulen has also established thousands of schools throughout the world, where students are indoctrinated in the tenets of political Islam. More than 100 of these schools, funded by American taxpayers, are located in the United States. He lives in his fortress in the Poconos of Pennsylvania. - Paul L. Williams, Ph.D., The Last Crusade, Mounting Crisis Between Turkey and Israel Created in Pennsylvania, June 1, 2010

1857 Mt. Eaton Road, Saylorsburg, PA (Gulen's Headquarters)

In November 2014, Newsweek interviewed a former ISIS member going by the pseudonym Sherko Omer. Sherko told Newsweek of how he left his native Iraq hoping to join the fight against Assad in Syria, but soon found himself caught up in a horrifying sectarian war, unable to escape: "My parents are practicing ­Muslims and prior to leaving for Syria I regularly went to the mosque for Friday prayers. I never joined a political party or organisation but I had friends who were members of Kurdistan Islamic Group (KIG) – and it was KIG who gave us the contacts in Turkey to go to Syria. When the three of us went to ­Turkey in October 2013 most of those who crossed into Syria ended up at ISIS border camps. This is what happened to us. Others were jihadists who knew what was going on and believed that if they died fighting for Allah they would go to heaven; and there were some who had come to join organisations such as the al-Qaida branch in Syria, the Jabhat Al-Nusra. While with ISIS, I noticed that the field captains and commanders spoke fluent Turkish. I rarely heard them speak in Arabic. ISIS commanders in Raqqa openly talked about the best foreign jihadists crossing into Syria from Turkey. Once, I heard that some ISIS foreign jihadists had been stopped by the Turkish border guards and police, but such were the ISIS connections that they were soon freed and safely on their way to Syria."

In September 2014, Rozh Ahmad of YourMiddleEast.com was the first to interview Sherko Omer. Sherko told Ahmad: "In October 2013 we got contacts from several people close to the Kurdistan Islamic Group (Komal) in my hometown, Halabja [Iraq]. We were told that the contacts were members of the Free Syria Army (FSA). We met the contacts in Turkey and they took us to a hotel for few days. Afterward, they took us to a training camp on the Turkey-Syria border and we found ourselves at an ISIS (or IS) camp instead of FSA. They had no beards, dressed in modern clothes and even took us to a hotel in the Turkish city of Kilis. We therefore assumed that they were FSA not IS, as did many others who came to Turkey to join the Syrian opposition but joined us at the IS camp... My commander said Kurdish YPG was an infidel secularist army and impure, arguing that each jihadist has the duty to first purify his own people and if we were all pure then infidels would not exit. The commander and others too gave me examples of Palestine and Israel as well as Kosovo and Serbs. They told me jihadists should first fight impure Muslims of Palestine and Kosovo to purify them and this way Israelis and Serbs would not exist. This was argued against my Kurdish people too. I joined a new battalion; we went back to Turkey and crossed the Turkish border to enter Serekaniye. [The Turkish soldiers at the Ceylanpinar Turkish border post] just turned a blind eye. We were initially told by the IS field commander to fear nothing because there was cooperation with the Turks at the border. The watchtower light caught us and our commander said everybody should stop but do not look at the light. He talked on the radio, then the watchtower light began to move after 8-10 minutes and that was the signal saying we could safely cross the border."

Reconciliation pact struck with Turkey: Israeli official

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has signaled a possible warming of relations with Israel, saying that the entire region would benefit from the normalization of ties. Last year, Erdogan spoke out strongly against Israel's operations in Gaza, accusing it of committing genocide and "barbarism surpassing Hitler."

 December 17, 2015

AFP/AP - Israel and Turkey have reached "understandings" to normalise ties, at a low since the Israel naval raid on a Turkish flotilla headed for the Gaza Strip, an Israeli official said Thursday.

In 2010, Israeli commandos stormed the Turkish-flagged Mavi Marmara, the largest ship in an aid flotilla for the besieged Gaza Strip. One Turkish-American and seven Turkish citizens died in the raid and one more, who was in a coma, died in 2014. . 
 
In the aftermath of the raid, Turkey became one of the strongest critics of Israeli actions in Gaza.
 

Northern Syria, Along the Turkish Border, Plays a Key Role in Islamic Apocalyptic Prophesies

ISIS’ claim that the apocalypse is nigh is a powerful recruitment tool. ISIS has made apocalyptic prophesies the bedrock of its brand. The prophecies ISIS relies on were written dozens and sometimes hundreds of years after Muhammad’s death and are not included in the Quran, but the prophecies are widespread and believed by many — one poll in 2012 suggested half of Arabs believed the end of the world was nigh.

These prophecies are so entwined with ISIS’ identity that the group has pasted a line from one of them — “a Caliphate in Accordance with the Prophetic Method” — on the coins it has minted, on the badges soldiers wear, and even on a billboard marking the beginning of ISIS territory. In that prophecy, Muhammad said that after a “tyrannical monarchy,” an Islamic caliphate would return [the rule or reign of a chief Muslim ruler]. The formation of the caliphate would lead to a grand battle with the West that would bring along the end of the world.

In ISIS’ interpretation, the figure of the Mahdi will appear after the establishment of an Islamic caliphate. (Medieval caliphs, attempting to gin up support for their own battles against the Christian crusaders, claimed to be the Mahdi in the past.) The Mahdi, “the rightly guided one,” will appear in northern Syria before the end of days to lead final battles against the Western infidels, called Rome. In some of the Islamic prophecies, Jesus descends from the heavens to assist the Mahdi in his battle against the infidels, who are led by an Antichrist figure. After the day of judgment, only those who supported the Mahdi will be saved.

ISIS leadership has made key military decisions based upon these prophecies. It fought in the summer of 2014 to take over the small and militarily unimportant village of Dabiq close to Turkey because it is name-checked in one of the prophecies as a place where the final great battles will occur. The infidels are supposed to gather under “80 flags” in this village, before their defeat. [Source]


And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the four horns of the golden altar which is before God, saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, 'Loose the four angels which are bound in the great river Euphrates.' And the four angels were loosed, which were prepared for an hour, and a day, and a month, and a year, for to slay the third part of men. And the number of the army of the horsemen were two hundred thousand thousand: and I heard the number of them. [Revelation 9:13-16]

And the sixth angel poured out his vial upon the great river Euphrates; and the water thereof was dried up, that the way of the kings of the east might be prepared. And I [John] saw three unclean spirits like frogs come out of the mouth of the dragon, and out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet. For they are the spirits of devils, working miracles, which go forth unto the kings of the earth and of the whole world, to gather them to the battle of that great day of God Almighty. Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. And he gathered them together into a place called in the Hebrew tongue Armageddon. [Revelation 16:12-16]

New Russian Air Defenses in Syria Keep U.S. Grounded

December 17, 2015

Bloomberg View - There is a new crisis for the international effort to destroy the Islamic State, created by the Kremlin. The U.S. has stopped flying manned air-support missions for rebels in a key part of northern Syria due to Russia’s expansion of air defense systems there, and the Barack Obama administration is scrambling to figure out what to do about it.

Russia’s military operations inside Syria have been expanding in recent weeks, and the latest Russian deployments, made without any advance notice to the U.S., have disrupted the U.S.-led coalition's efforts to support Syrian rebel forces fighting against the Islamic State near the Turkey-Syria border, just west of the Euphrates River, several Obama administration and U.S. defense officials told us. This crucial part of the battlefield, known inside the military as Box 4, is where a number of groups have been fighting the Islamic State for control, until recently with overhead support from U.S. fighter jets.

Saudi Arabia Forms Military Coalition of 34 Countries to Fight 'Terrorism' in the Islamic World

The Lebanese Shi'ite Muslim group Hezbollah said on Thursday that a Saudi-led 34-nation anti-Islamic State coalition was suspicious, and questioned Saudi Arabia's competence to lead it. Hezbollah, which has repeatedly criticized Sunni heavyweight Saudi Arabia over both its military operations in Yemen and its support for Sunni Muslim Islamist rebels in Syria, also said in the statement that it rejected any Lebanese participation in the coalition. Hezbollah has sent fighters across the border to support Syrian President Bashar al-Assad in his fight against rebel forces. [Source]

Saudi forms 34-nation anti-'terrorist' military coalition

December 15, 2015

AFP - Saudi Arabia announced Tuesday the formation of a military coalition of 34 countries to fight "terrorism" in the Islamic world, in the latest sign of a more assertive foreign policy by the kingdom.

The regional Sunni power said the alliance would share intelligence, combat violent ideology and deploy troops if necessary.

"Nothing is off the table. A number of countries are in desperate need of assistance," Foreign Minister Adel al-Jubeir said.

"Terrorism has hit Islamic countries. It is time that the Islamic world takes a stand," he told reporters in Paris.

The alliance was announced by Saudi Deputy Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, who is also defence minister, on the same day that peace talks between the Yemeni government and Iran-backed rebels began in Switzerland, accompanied by a shaky ceasefire.

Adam Baron, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said the coalition fits into "the larger, more assertive policy" of Saudi King Salman and Mohammed, his powerful son.

The prince told a rare news conference that the Riyadh-based coalition will "be a partner in the worldwide fight against this scourge" of terrorism in the Islamic world.

Some coalition members like Nigeria have mixed Muslim-Christian populations, but all belong to the Jeddah-based Organisation of Islamic Cooperation.

They range from the tiny African nation of Guinea to major regional powers including Turkey.

Farea al-Muslimi, a visiting scholar at the Carnegie Middle East Centre, called most of them "honorary members" in a coalition that "seemed to have been cooked at the last minute" without clear goals.

A Western diplomat said responding to Western concerns that Saudi Arabia's position is "ambiguous or even complicit" with regard to terrorism was one factor behind the coalition.

He said it is also a response to the threat from Islamic State group jihadists, as well as an Iranian effort to make the West think Shiites are "good Muslims" in contrast to Sunnis.

"In the face of the situation, they decided to take the initiative." the diplomat said.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu told reporters in Ankara that his country backed the alliance's formation.

"Turkey is ready to contribute by all its means to all gatherings that aim to fight terrorism, no matter where or by whom it is organised," he said.

Sunni Islam's leading seat of learning, Al-Azhar, urged all Muslim countries to join the coalition, expressing hope that it would defeat the "evils of terrorism".

Congress Snuck the Controversial Cybersecurity Bill into the Federal Budget Bill at 1:04 AM on December 16, 2015

Under the cybersecurity bill, companies would be encouraged to silently share "security" information with the Department of Homeland Security and, ultimately, other government agencies. The terms of such agreements are vague and give broad leeway for companies to share information with the feds without accountability. The final version of the bill was to be sent to the White House for a signature or veto from the president.

Congress snuck a surveillance bill into the federal budget last night

December 16, 2015

The Verge - After more than a year of stalemate, Congress has used an unconventional procedural measure to bring a controversial cybersurveillance bill to the floor.

Late last night, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan (R-WI) announced a 2,009-page omnibus budget bill, a last-minute compromise necessary to prevent a government shutdown. But while the bulk of the bill concerns taxes and spending, starting on page 1728 it contains the full text of the controversial Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act of 2015, which passed the Senate in October.

CISA has been widely criticized since it was first introduced to congress in 2014, with Sen. Ron Wyden (D-OR) calling it "a surveillance bill by another name." The bill would make it easier for private sector companies to share user information with the government and other companies, removing privacy and liability protections in the name of better cybersecurity. But critics like Wyden say removing those protections would turn internet backbone companies into de facto surveillance organs, with no incentive to protect users' privacy.

"A disingenuous attempt to quietly expand the US government’s surveillance programs."

In many ways, the bill currently facing the House is even more invasive than previous versions, stripping out crucial provisions that prevented direct information-sharing with the NSA and mandated that data be anonymized before being widely distributed.

"It’s clear now that this bill was never intended to prevent cyber attacks," said Evan Greer, campaign director of Fight for the Future, which has campaigned vigorously against the bill. "It’s a disingenuous attempt to quietly expand the US government’s surveillance programs." 

At the same time, a number of industry groups have applauded the bill, including the Financial Services Roundtable and Retail Industry Leaders Association.

Last night's proposal means CISA is more likely than ever to become law.

Nearly 200 Nations Adopt Climate Agreement at COP21 Talks in Paris; UN Deal Requires $16.5 Trillion in Spending on Renewable Energy Through 2030; Carbon Policies Through "Markets or Taxes" Will Be Needed, Says Chief Economist

In what supporters are calling a historic achievement, 196 nations attending the COP21 climate meetings outside Paris voted to adopt an agreement Saturday that covers both developed and developing countries. Their respective governments will now need to adopt the deal. The agreement sets the goal of limiting the world's rise in average temperature to "well below 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels and pursuing efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees Celsius." Reporting on details of the deal, NPR's Christopher Joyce says, "To help developing countries switch from fossil fuels to greener sources of energy and adapt to the effects of climate change, the developed world will provide $100 billion a year."
He adds that the 1.5-degree cap was sought by island nations. Under the agreement, the Obama administration says that for the first time, all countries will be required to report on "national inventories of emissions by source" and also to report on their mitigation efforts. President Obama spoke on the agreement late Saturday afternoon, saying the agreement was a strong one, showing what is possible when the world stands as one. [Source, December 12, 2015]

Climate Deal Requires $16.5 Trillion Investment to Cut Pollution

December 13, 2015

Bloomberg - The deal struck at United Nations climate talks requires an overhaul of historic proportions for energy policies worldwide and a huge investment in cleaning up the pollution now damaging the Earth’s atmosphere.

Targets outlined in the agreement on Saturday, involving 195 countries, will require $16.5 trillion of spending on renewables and efficiency through 2030, according to the International Energy Agency.

To accomplish that, governments will have to offer incentives for clean energy production, scale back support for fossil fuels like oil, make emissions more costly, and reduce deforestation. The changes will touch industries from transport to construction, and encourage people to change their behavior.

“The strength of the agreement is that it allows a thousand policy flowers to bloom,” Paul Bledsoe, a climate aide during U.S. President Bill Clinton’s administration, said in an interview in Paris, where the deal was sealed. “This sends a powerful economic signal that fossil fuels will be saddled with financial and legal premiums to remain part of the energy mix, and clean energy will enjoy subsidies.”

The deal aims to limit the global temperature increase since the Industrial Revolution of the 18th and 19th centuries to 2 degrees Celsius (3.6 degrees Fahrenheit), while calling on nations to “pursue efforts to limit the temperature increase to 1.5 degrees.” That more ambitious goal implies vast cuts to emissions from burning fossil fuels.

“Politically as well as technologically, this is no walk in the park,” said Ottmar Edenhofer, chief economist at the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research Institute near Berlin, and a lead author of the UN’s most rigorous assessment of climate economics. The target may trigger “a fundamental shift of investments towards renewables, energy efficiency, and carbon capture and storage,” he said.

Tree Planting

Policies such as carbon pricing through markets or taxes, and planting trees while burning biomass rather than fossil fuels, will also be needed, and in a 1.5-degree scenario, they’ll need to be stepped up, Edenhofer said.