Weapons Supplied By Gun Runner In Chief Turn Up In Algeria Massacre

[bitterlyclingin]

Whats a coupla thousand automatic weapons deliberately shipped across the border of your neighbor to the south with the intent of creating enormous domestic unrest and toppling the Conservative Government then in power there or supplying entire al Qaeda armies with enough weapons to conquer the entire Hermaphroditic European continent. The Caliphate has already demanded that Spain return to the Islamic fold. Don't worry America, the Gun Runner in Chief wants you to surrender yours in return for his promise of complete protection. The American people today are more a Huddled Mass yearning for a benevolent Master than a people "Yearning to breathe free" and Barry hears your cries and feels your pain. He's also very familiar with Chairman Mao's quote "All power emanates from the barrel of a gun" and he knows you really don't want any power, just 'Free stuff' from your Santa Claus government.

Report: Most Of Weapons Al-Qaeda Used In Algeria Gas Plant Siege Came From NATO-Backed Rebels In Libya? | Weasel Zippers

 

[waltky]

Granny got her 12 ga. Mossburg ready fer when dey come over here...

Algeria hostage crisis may be future of terrorism
January 21st, 2013 - EDITOR’S NOTE: Raffaello Pantucci is a Senior Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and the author of the forthcoming 'We Love Death As You Love Life: Britain's Suburban Mujahedeen' (Hurst/Columbia University Press).

By Raffaello Pantucci, Special for CNN

At this still inconclusive stage it is difficult to know exactly what the aim of the groups involved in the attack on the gas installation in Algeria was. Did they truly want to ransom the hostages they took or massacre them, and was money or punishment to the Algerian or French government’s the driving motivation? What is clear is that the incident has immediately captured international attention, highlighting again how terrorism continues to be a tool that can be used by groups to bring focus to their causes. The deadly operation itself further highlights the direction that we are likely to see Islamist terrorism continue to go in over the next few years.

What seems clear is that the operation was conducted by a group of jihadist fighters under the command of Moktar Belmokhtar, a longtime fighter-criminal who had recently broken away from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) to form a separate unit that was aligned with the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA). Reports seem to suggest that Belmokhtar is likely somewhere in the region of Gao, a city in eastern Mali that has recently been targeted by French forces as they seek to reclaim the country from Islamist extremists.

With a history of targeting foreigners and alignment with hardline North African (and international) groups, the attack on the site in Algeria is in many ways not surprising. Given the scale of the site they were targeting, the number of individuals sent and the tales of captives being told to contact their families and embassies to make demands while they had explosives strung around them, the initial evidence suggests this was an operation that was intended to end in a blaze of explosive publicity. That demands included freeing international political targets like Aifa Siddiqui, a Pakistani female doctor, and Omar Abdel Rahman, the infamous Egyptian ‘blind sheikh’, both high profile convicted terrorists in American custody. That, along with the demand that France withdraw from Mali, suggests wildly ambitious goals that are not expected to be met. Whether this was the intention all along or whether the group was backed into this by events on the ground is uncertain.

What is likely is that this sort of attack is to be the face of the terrorist threat that the west is going to face for the next few years. As security forces in Europe and the United States have become more adept at countering terrorists, plots in Europe and North America have been increasingly disrupted at earlier stages of planning. The days of terrorist networks like al Qaeda operating out of Afghanistan and directing 19 men to conduct the September 11 attacks or 4 young Britons to carry out the July 7 plot seem to have passed. Terrorist networks abroad remain ambitious and when individuals arrive who have the potential to carry out attacks back in the west, they are rapidly trained and sent back if at all possible, but these operations turn out in odd ways. For example, Mohammed Merah, the young Frenchman who killed three off-duty soldiers, a rabbi and three young Jewish children, received some training in Pakistan and was dispatched back with unclear orders. He seems to have gone quiet and then decided to carry out his particularly brutal terrorist plot in a direction of his own choosing.

MORE

 

[waltky]

AQIM footprints seen in wake of Algeria gas plant...

More signs al Qaeda in Mali orchestrated Algeria attack
January 25th, 2013 - The Obama Administration now believes the attack and hostage-taking at a natural gas plant in Algeria last week is the work of al Qaeda operatives based out of northern Mali.

U.S. officials say al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) was behind the attack and may also have operated a communications network from northern Mali. Despite the recent French intervention, large areas of Mali remain in the hands of jihadist groups. One senior U.S. official said "elements of AQIM" may have carried out the offensive in tandem with fighters loyal to Moktar Belmoktar, a veteran militant based in northern Mali who has claimed responsibility for the assault. Last year, Belmoktar was said to have been demoted by the Emir of AQIM, Abdel Malek Droukdel, but is thought to have retained links to the organization.

One U.S. official told CNN that American intelligence gatherers are trying to determine if the two factions had reunited for the attack. If so, that would indicate greater communications among North African elements of al Qaeda affiliates and splinter groups than previously thought. U.S. intelligence believes some of the attackers came into Algeria from training camps in Libya, whose border is about 40 miles (60 kilometers) from the In Amenas site.

One of the officials emphasized that the United States is now relying on intelligence it has gathered "by other means" because of the lack of information coming from the Algerian government. It has long been privately acknowledged that the U.S. intelligence community has the ability to gather imagery and intercept communications using a variety of military and CIA platforms such as satellites and aircraft. "We have other ways of assessing who the perpetrators were," he said, but warned the information on Mali could change as more information emerges.

That official said that intelligence gathered so far indicates "this was a relatively sophisticated attack." "It took planning to select and case the facility, and coordinate to attack it. They had to penetrate the perimeter security and take hostages. That doesn't just happen," he said. The officials declined to be identified because of the sensitive intelligence matters involved.

MORE

 

[Doc91678]

Granny got her 12 ga. Mossburg ready fer when dey come over here...

Algeria hostage crisis may be future of terrorism
January 21st, 2013 - EDITOR’S NOTE: Raffaello Pantucci is a Senior Fellow at the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI) and the author of the forthcoming 'We Love Death As You Love Life: Britain's Suburban Mujahedeen' (Hurst/Columbia University Press).

By Raffaello Pantucci, Special for CNN

At this still inconclusive stage it is difficult to know exactly what the aim of the groups involved in the attack on the gas installation in Algeria was. Did they truly want to ransom the hostages they took or massacre them, and was money or punishment to the Algerian or French government’s the driving motivation? What is clear is that the incident has immediately captured international attention, highlighting again how terrorism continues to be a tool that can be used by groups to bring focus to their causes. The deadly operation itself further highlights the direction that we are likely to see Islamist terrorism continue to go in over the next few years.

What seems clear is that the operation was conducted by a group of jihadist fighters under the command of Moktar Belmokhtar, a longtime fighter-criminal who had recently broken away from al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) to form a separate unit that was aligned with the Movement for Unity and Jihad in West Africa (MUJWA). Reports seem to suggest that Belmokhtar is likely somewhere in the region of Gao, a city in eastern Mali that has recently been targeted by French forces as they seek to reclaim the country from Islamist extremists.

With a history of targeting foreigners and alignment with hardline North African (and international) groups, the attack on the site in Algeria is in many ways not surprising. Given the scale of the site they were targeting, the number of individuals sent and the tales of captives being told to contact their families and embassies to make demands while they had explosives strung around them, the initial evidence suggests this was an operation that was intended to end in a blaze of explosive publicity. That demands included freeing international political targets like Aifa Siddiqui, a Pakistani female doctor, and Omar Abdel Rahman, the infamous Egyptian ‘blind sheikh’, both high profile convicted terrorists in American custody. That, along with the demand that France withdraw from Mali, suggests wildly ambitious goals that are not expected to be met. Whether this was the intention all along or whether the group was backed into this by events on the ground is uncertain.

What is likely is that this sort of attack is to be the face of the terrorist threat that the west is going to face for the next few years. As security forces in Europe and the United States have become more adept at countering terrorists, plots in Europe and North America have been increasingly disrupted at earlier stages of planning. The days of terrorist networks like al Qaeda operating out of Afghanistan and directing 19 men to conduct the September 11 attacks or 4 young Britons to carry out the July 7 plot seem to have passed. Terrorist networks abroad remain ambitious and when individuals arrive who have the potential to carry out attacks back in the west, they are rapidly trained and sent back if at all possible, but these operations turn out in odd ways. For example, Mohammed Merah, the young Frenchman who killed three off-duty soldiers, a rabbi and three young Jewish children, received some training in Pakistan and was dispatched back with unclear orders. He seems to have gone quiet and then decided to carry out his particularly brutal terrorist plot in a direction of his own choosing.

MORE

Maobama and Holder are buying these guns wholesale from Putin. No wonder they're so tight.

 

[waltky]

Algeria gas plant attack emboldens Moktar Belmoktar...

Algeria gas facility attack fuels jihadist rivalry
January 30th, 2013 - The deadly attack on the In Amenas gas facility in southern Algeria could herald a power struggle within al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, or AQIM, which is fast becoming one of the most dangerous branches of the organization.

The attack was claimed by veteran Algerian jihadist Moktar Belmoktar, who last year was forced out of AQIM's leadership by its emir, Abdelmalek Droukdel. Their rivalry has been aggravated by geographic distance, disagreement over jihadist doctrine, and - above all - personal ambition. At one point, Droukdel tried to have Belmoktar assassinated, a former jihadist from the region told CNN. The rift between them not only led Belmoktar to mastermind one of the most serious terrorist attacks in North Africa in years, but may also dictate the future course of jihad in the region, the sources say. In September, Droukdel "fired" Belmoktar from the AQIM leadership, and he responded by setting up what one of his close associates described as a new trans-Saharan franchise of al Qaeda. Nearly all the men under his command were said to have followed Belmoktar out of AQIM.

In December, Belmoktar announced the formation of a new commando unit called "We Sign with Blood," and he promised attacks against Western interests in the region and the home soil of Western countries if an operation was launched against jihadists in northern Mali. The name of the new commando unit was first used by a unit of an Algerian militant outfit that hijacked a French airliner in 1994, according to Camille Tawil, a Lebanese expert on al Qaeda. "It is possible (Belmoktar) is trying to assert his influence in the Sahara and is telling Droukdel that 'it's me who is the big leader of the AQIM cells in the Sahel region, and I report directly to Zawahiri and Mullah Omar and not to you,' " Tawil told CNN.

Ayman al-Zawahiri is al Qaeda's leader, and Mullah Mohammed Omar is the spiritual leader of the Taliban. The two men are close in age: Droukdel was born in 1970 in Meftah, just south of Algiers, and Belmoktar in 1972 in central Algeria on the edge of the Sahara. Both fought for the Armed Islamic Group in Algeria's brutal civil war. Belmoktar spent time in jihadist encampments in Afghanistan in the early 1990s, providing him with contacts to al Qaeda's senior leadership, according to experts on the group. He also spent time in Yemen.

Droukdel did not travel to Afghanistan. He first became involved in Islamist activism after high school, according to Andrew Lebovich a Senegal-based analyst. Belmoktar and Droukdel later joined a new group - the Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat, or GSPC, which promised an end to massacres of civilians - for which the Armed Islamic Group had become notorious. Droukdel became the emir of the group in 2004, which did not sit well with Belmoktar. Droukdel subsequently reached out to al Qaeda's senior leadership in Pakistan and rebranded the GSPC as al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb in 2007. Documents recovered from Osama bin Laden's Abbottabad compound revealed correspondence between the two leaderships.

Mounting tensions

See also:

Emboldened al Qaeda group seeking more Western targets to attack
January 31st, 2013 - U.S. officials believe extremists across northern Africa, emboldened by the terror attack on a natural gas plant in Algeria, are growing more daring.

A senior American intelligence official tells CNN that "what we have seen is intelligence suggesting a desire to carry out more attacks" against western and U.S. interests in the region. The United States is not aware of any specific threats, the official said. But one of those believed to be plotting is Moktar Belmoktar, a veteran militant who has claimed responsibility for the attack this month on the BP facility in eastern Algeria that left at least 37 hostages dead. Threats are now coming from multiple Al Qaeda groups the region. U.S. military commanders have been warning of the threat from these elements in Africa for months. "We're starting to see increasing collaboration, sharing of funding, sharing recruiting efforts, sharing of weapons and explosives, and certainly a sharing of ideology, that is expanding and connecting these various organizations, " said Gen. Carter Ham, commanding general of the U.S. Africa command.

Former Sen. Chuck Hagel, nominated to become the next defense secretary, already knows what he would face. "I will ensure we stay vigilant and keep up the pressure on terrorist - keep up the pressure on terrorist organizations as they try to expand their affiliates around the world in places like Yemen, Somalia, and North Africa," he said on Thursday at his Senate confirmation hearing. But U.S. intelligence agencies may be of limited use to him when it comes to North Africa. "We do not have the level of resources, the footprint or the capabilities we have in other theaters," the senior intelligence official said.

It's a broad acknowledgment that after more than a decade of focusing on Pakistan, Afghanistan and, in recent years, Yemen, the map has changed to include Mali, Algeria, Niger, Libya and Egypt. The Obama administration is struggling to catch up. One key problem is the lack of capable and willing governments in North Africa to partner with for any U.S. operation, intelligence officials say.

Furthermore, military force is a difficult proposition for the U.S. because al Qaeda in Africa has no central headquarters, no Osama bin Laden-type leader, and it is increasingly spread out over thousands of miles of remote desert. As a result, American intelligence agencies are now working with France whose own spy networks are more established in the former French colonies. The United States will set up a drone base in Niger to fly over safe havens, hoping to catch terrorists before they fully establish themselves and begin to plot attacks against the U.S. homeland.

Source

 

[waltky]

Granny says, "Dat's right - put a Predator missile up his butt...

US mulls putting Algerian militant on ‘kill’ list: report
Sun, Feb 10, 2013 - GAS FACILITY ATTACK:Adding the mastermind of the attack that killed 37 foreign hostages would entail a significant US military expansion in Africa

Senior members US President Barack Obama’s administration want to put the mastermind of last month’s attack on an Algerian natural-gas facility on a secret “kill” list, the Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. Adding Algerian militant Mokhtar Belmokhtar to a US list for targeted killing would entail a significant US military expansion into northwestern Africa, the newspaper said, citing unnamed US officials.

It would mean extending drone strikes and other lethal counterterrorism operations to the region, the paper added. Thirty-seven foreign hostages, including three US citizens, were killed when gunmen last month stormed the In Amenas gas plant and the Algerian army launched a military assault in response. One Algerian and 29 of the insurgents were also killed.

The push to target Belmokhtar is being led by US military and intelligence officials, the Journal reported. Some were also pressing for a more direct involvement in the hunt for Belmokhtar, whether with drones, other aircraft or US forces, the paper added. Such an effort could rely on the military’s special-operations units, with help from the CIA, the report said. Last month, a US official said that Washington planned to set up a base for drones in northwest Africa to improve surveillance of Islamist groups in the region. The base would probably be in either Niger or Burkina Faso, the official said.

The US government has maintained secret “capture-or-kill lists” since after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the Journal said. Separate lists are maintained by the Pentagon and by the CIA, and contain the names of terrorist leaders such as Ayman al-Zawahiri, Yemen-based al-Qaeda bombmaker Ibrahim al-Asiri and, before his death, Osama bin Laden, the paper said.

US mulls putting Algerian militant on ?kill? list: report - Taipei Times

 

[Lakhota]

How is Obama connected to this? Were any of the weapons U.S. weapons?

 

[Clementine]

It's so nice that Obama is supplying weapons, tanks, jets and money to those who want to destroy all infidels.

Meanwhile, our own military members won't get a raise and they'll be paying more for their measly benefits. But, we're all making sacrifices for the greater good, which apparently is radical Muslims spreading their hate.

 

[Doc91678]

13 Jun 2012
Russia was supplying "anti-air defence systems" to Damascus in a deal that "in no way violates international laws," Lavrov told a news conference during a brief visit to Iran.

"That contrasts with what the United States is doing with the opposition, which is providing arms to the Syrian opposition which are being used against the Syrian government," he said, in remarks translated from Russian into Farsi by an official interpreter.

It was the first time Moscow has directly pointed the finger at Washington. Previously, it had said unidentified "foreign powers" were arming Syria's opposition.

Lavrov's accusation followed a charge by US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Tuesday that she had information Russia was sending to Syria "attack helicopters ... which will escalate the conflict quite dramatically."

Asked in Tehran about the helicopter allegation, Lavrov said only that Moscow was giving Damascus "conventional weapons" related to air defence and asserted that the deal complied with international law.

**snip**
Russia accuses US of arming Syrian rebels - Telegraph

How is Obama connected to this? Were any of the weapons U.S. weapons?