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Reports that a man accused of sexual assaults on six Edmonton teenage girls was a Syrian refugee have ignited a firestorm of reaction, from anti-immigration diatribes to criticism about how the media dealt with the story. Groups that work with refugees in the city have been inundated with calls and texts over the past 24 hours, some from people calling for an end to the refugee program and others from refugees themselves apologizing on behalf of their community. Erick Ambtman, executive director of the Edmonton Mennonite Centre for Newcomers, said his organization received a message on Twitter from a white...

A fifteen-year-old student pilot apparently trying to recreate the 9/11 kamikaze attack on the World Trade Center slammed a stolen Cessna 172 private airplane Saturday into Tampa, Florida's Bank of America building, the city's tallest structure. Charles J. Bishop, a 15-year-old flight student from Great Britain, stole the small aircraft from Albert Whitted Municipal Airport in nearby St. Petersburg at about 5 p.m., law enforcement sources said. Bishop was killed as the Cessna carrying 56 gallons of fuel slammed into the Bank of America tower, leaving the tail section of the plane dangling precariously from its side. The fuel did ...

The lone 15-year-old pilot who stole a small private plane and crashed it into a high-rise office block in Tampa, Florida, left a note expressing sympathy to Osama bin Laden. Tampa Police Chief Bennie Holder said the note was found on the body of Charles Bishop, who was the only person killed in Saturday's incident. "I would characterize it as a suicide note," Holder said.. He said Bishop's note clearly stated that he had acted alone without any help from anyone else. "Troubled Young Man" But Holder said that in the note Bishop expressed sympathy for bin Laden, the Saudi-born ...

ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Hookah smoke drifted through the restaurant as Elias Shetayh and Aziz Wehbey spoke intently about their support for President Trump, whose temporary halt on immigration from war-torn Syria — their homeland — had touched off a political firestorm. Nearby, a waitress carried out several platters of Mediterranean food to a large Arab American family. Trump is right, in a way, to do what he’s doing,” Shetayh said, discussing the executive order banning certain immigrants from entry into the United States. “This country is going into a disaster. Allentown and surrounding Lehigh County have one of the country’s...

A number of Arabic and Pashtu interpreters at the terror-war detention center at Guantanamo Bay are under active investigation for omitting valuable intelligence from their translations of detainee interrogations, among other security breaches. This could taint some of the evidence at the "9/11 trial" in New York and proceedings against other detainees. Remarkably, the Pentagon never cleaned up the "mole infestation" at its highest-security facility after the FBI busted a Muslim spy ring at Gitmo in 2003. The 2003 probe involved at least two Arabic interpreters with high-level security clearance. Senior Airman Ahmad al-Halabi, a Syrian native, and former Army...

John F. Kerry was late to his own party. Staffers, journalists and other officials were gathered in the ornate Benjamin Franklin salon at the State Department on Dec. 14 for early Christmas festivities. But the secretary of State was nowhere to be seen. Kerry was on the telephone to various world leaders, trying to find out about a major diplomatic meeting — from which the United States had been excluded. The gathering, which sought to broker a resolution to the devastating Syrian conflict, took place six days later in Moscow and involved the foreign ministers of Russia, Iran and Turkey.

States that refuse to help resettle Syrian refugees are guilty of illegal discrimination, a federal appeals court ruled Monday, delivering a judicial rebuke to GOP vice presidential nominee Mike Pence, who as Indiana’s governor had tried to halt Syrian resettlement. Judge Richard Posner, writing for the three-judge panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit, said there’s no evidence that Syrians are more dangerous, and he said even if they are, allowing Indiana to refuse to resettle them would only foist the problem onto neighboring states. “Federal law does not allow a governor to deport to other...

Despite resistance by Idaho’s top political leaders, 118 Syrian refugees have moved to the Gem State since last Oct. 1, all of them settling in Boise, according to new data from the State Department. Compared with larger cities, Boise took in a disproportionate share, accepting more than twice as many refugees as New York, with 9, and Los Angeles, with 45, combined. ... Overall, the United States had admitted 11,469 Syrian refugees as of Sept. 9, ... no state took in more Syrian refugees than California, with 1,300. San Diego accepted more than half of them, or 690, while Sacramento...

George Soros to invest $500 million in help for refugees http://www.cnbc.com/2016/09/20/george-soros-to-invest-500-million-in-help-for-refugees-through-his-open-society-foundations.html George Soros to invest $500 million in help for refugees Nyshka Chandran | @nyshkac 9 Hours Ago CNBC.com Soros invests $500m for refugees Billionaire investor George Soros pledged on Tuesday to invest up to $500 million in programs and companies benefiting migrants and refugees fleeing life-threatening situations. Announced against the backdrop of an ongoing United Nations (U.N.) summit in New York, Soros explained that he wished to harness the power of the private sector for public good. "We will invest in startups, established companies, social impact initiatives, and businesses...

Russia and the US have agreed to a "cessation of hostilities" in Syria from sunset on 12 September after intensive talks in Geneva. Under the plan, the Syrian government will end combat missions in specified areas held by the opposition. Russia and the US will establish a joint centre to combat so-called Islamic State and al-Nusra fighters. The plan follows a day of talks between US Secretary of State John Kerry and his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov.

VIDEO – Bill Clinton: Rebuild Detroit with Syrian Refugees Julia Hahn 29 Aug 2016 Washington D.C.340 In a previously little-noticed video from February at the Clinton Global Initiative, former President Bill Clinton suggested that the U.S. use Syrian refugees to rebuild Detroit. “The truth is that the big loser in this over the long run is going to be Syria. This is an enormous opportunity for Americans,” Bill Clinton said about the Syrian migrant crisis. Detroit has 10,000 empty, structurally sound houses—10,000. And lot of jobs to be had repairing those houses. Detroit just came out of bankruptcy and the...

AT LEAST one person has been killed and 12 more are injured after a Syrian asylum seeker blew himself outside a wine bar in Germany. The attack took place in Ansbach, near Nuremburg, after the 27-year-old was denied access to the nearby Ansbach Open music festival, according to Germany's interior minister Joachim Herrmann. Hermann said the suspect, who was known to police, had lived in Germany for two years but was denied asylum in the country a year ago. He said it is unclear if the suspect intended to kill others or just himself but said he had “tried to...

Less than a week after a man who had claimed refugee status as a 17-year-old Afghan attacked train riders with an axe in Wurzburg, Germany, and after an attack by a German-Iranian teen in Munich on Friday that killed nine, now come reports that a Syrian refugee wielding a machete has killed a pregnant woman and wounded two others in Reutlingen, Germany. Reuters reports: A 21-year-old Syrian refugee killed a woman with a machete and injured two other people on Sunday before being arrested in the southern German city of Reutlingen, a police spokesman said. The asylum-seeking Syrian man had...

A Syrian refugee wielding a machete has killed a woman and injured two other people in Germany before being arrested by police. The attack happened in the south western city of Reutlingen near a doner kebab stand at Listplatz Square. German media have been reporting that the motive for the attack in the city south of Stuttgart was unclear. Pictures from the scene appear to show the knifeman lying on the ground with blood on his face. Armed police officers can be seen pinning him down to the ground before binding his hands behind his back. . One eyewitness told...

AP: Administration Freed Terror Suspect By JOHN SOLOMON, Associated Press Writer WASHINGTON - Nabil al-Marabh was No. 27 on the FBI (news - web sites)'s list of terror suspects after Sept. 11. He trained in Afghanistan (news - web sites)'s militant camps, sent money to a roommate convicted in a foiled plot to bomb a hotel and boasted to an informant about plans to blow up a fuel truck inside a New York tunnel, FBI documents allege. The Bush administration set him free — to Syria — even though prosecutors had sought to bring criminal cases against him and judges...

The “surge” of Syrian refugee admissions first announced by the State Department last spring hit a new peak during June – 2,381 refugees, or more than double the number permitted to resettle in the United States in May. Of them, eight (0.3 percent) are Christians and 2,364 (99.2 percent) are Sunni Muslims. The remainder comprise eight other Muslims, and one refugee giving no religious affiliation, according to State Department Refugee Processing Center data. In comparison, 1,069 Syrian refugees were admitted during May, of whom two were Christians and 1,060 were Sunnis. The other seven were other Muslims. With the more...

More than 800,000 people from Muslim majority countries have gotten green cards since 2009, wth the number set to hit 1 million before President Obama leaves office. The data, released by a Senate subcommittee on immigration and the national interest, reflect a steady uptick in migration from Muslim nations in recent years – even as Donald Trump seeks to put a pause on Muslims visiting the United States.

One of the sitting members on the Homeland Security Advisory Council’s (HSAC) Subcommittee on Countering Violent Extremism is a 25-year-old immigrant of Syrian heritage who said that the 9/11 attacks “changed the world for good” and has consistently disparaged America, free speech and white people on social media. Laila Alawa was one of just 15 people tapped to serve on the newly-formed HSAC Subcommittee on Countering Violent Extremism in 2015 — the same year she became an American citizen. Just last week, the subcommittee submitted a report to Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, recommending that the DHS avoid...

Obama Administration Surge Agenda Threatening U.S. With 100 Syrian Refugees Per Day by Lana Shadwick 11 Jun 2016 http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/06/11/obama-administration-surge-agenda-threatening-u-s-100-syrian-refugees-per-day/ Over 100 Syrian refugees have been admitted every day in June according to the federal government’s own database from the Refugee Processing Center. More than 1,000 were admitted in May. The rate of those admitted has sky-rocketed when compared to the 3,755 accepted in fiscal year 2016.

A Syrian man who was detained in France and exposed a terror ring in Germany, told officials that the cell contained more people than the three who were arrested last week, according to officials familiar with the man’s testimony. The Wall Street Journal reported Wednesday that the man’s revelations are increasing concerns that the Islamic State (ISIS) could be close to carrying out an attack in Europe once again.