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In the Name of Allah the Most Merciful the Most CompassionateDate: Third of Shawaal of 1428 Hijri (H) [ 15 OCT 2007]Islamic GreetingsThis is My Will:I am Abu-Tariq, Emir of Al-Layin and al-Mashadah Sector.There were almost 600 fighters in our Sector before the Tribes changed course 360 degrees under the influence of the so-called Islamic Army (Deserter of Jihad) and other known believer groups. Many of our fighters quit and some of them joined the deserters, and later on I will mention the names of Fighters who stood by us (faithful fighters), but things started getting worse ever since, and...

-snip- By implication the struggle between Hesher Islam and Coughlin is symptomatic of a far larger and unresolved debate, which might be summarized as being over whether or not "Islam is a religion of peace", an assumption which has undergirded the War On Terror From September 11 onwards. -snip- One of the implicit strategies of the War on Terror has been to fight Islamic terrorism in conjunction with the populations of Muslim countries. In Iraq, for example, the alliances between Coalition Forces and local groups have formed the basis for attacking and eventually destroying al-Qaeda. -snip- This strategy has many...

“than we are in some places because their life expectancy is much shorter.” quote from Col. Edward Kornish, Commander, Regional Police Advisory Command - South. Today’s Bloggers’ Roundtable interview focused on the Afghan National Police in the southern and southeastern portions of the country. Here’s the transcript. Co. Kornish’s region is made up of six provinces located in southeastern Afghanistan. It corresponds to the area controlled by the Afghan Army’s 205 “Hero” Corps. 10,000 Afghans are seving in the National Police in the region, a shortfall of 6,000. Part of that is due to the difference in pay between the...

CAMP LEJEUNE, N.C. - An Afghan who worked with the CIA two decades ago told a military court Tuesday that a Brooklyn Marine lied about why his special ops unit gunned down unarmed civilians in March 2007. The Marines claimed they fired in self-defense at attacking insurgents as their convoy sped 12 miles back to base after a harmless roadside bomb blast on March 4. < snip > "I swear to Allah and on the Koran not to lie to you," said Qumandan, who a source said worked with the CIA in the 1980s while fighting Soviet military occupiers. "We...

I was studying "Civilian Irregular Information Defense Group" and posted a comment on'Trans-Regional Web Initiative' Friday, 18 January 2008 by cannoneerno4.( Excellent article ) USSOCOM: new multiple language web sites. They are outsourcing the effort to build websites in different languages to counter the Terrorist propaganda, lies, and present USA efforts in balanced terms in support of U.S. Special Operations Command (USSOCOM) in the Global War on Terrorism (GWOT). And I suspect the military are scared as hell of it, will blanket it with all variations of rules, regulations and red tape. A blogger in the Military must get permission...

It has been clearly established that terrorist organizations have adopted unusual and innovative ways of using cutting-edge online technologies to expand their movements. Al-Qa`ida’s principal media wing, al-Sahab Media Production, has recently released a flood of new audio and video recordings over Arabic-language internet chat forums, and has even solicited open questions from forum participants to be addressed by al-Qa`ida’s second-incommand, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Yet, while much time and thought has been dedicated to studying the physical content broadcast over these chat forums, there has been far less attention focused on studying the individual users who populate them. In fact, during...

Since 9/11, the security and intelligence echelons of the United States have been preoccupied with the possibility of domestic al-Qaeda sleeper cells being activated to perpetrate additional terror attacks. In clandestine activities, a “sleeper” is an operative who establishes deep cover to evade security forces and accomplish his mission in hostile environments. To uncover such sleeper cells, the FBI has devised certain security measures throughout its field offices in the United States. Islamist militants, eager to again attack the United States, are posting instructions on jihadi websites as to how fellow militants could evade the security apparatus and carry out...

Last year's scamnesty bill had widespread support among the powers-that-be, with the president, the Democrat majority and mainstream media all singing its praises.  Yet it went down to defeat, slain by a new-media coalition of talk radio and blogosphere warriors.  Working tirelessly to expose the truth and rally the grassroots, they became a David who slew a Goliath.  Forty-three years ago it was a different world.  Ted Kennedy had co-authored the "Immigration Reform Act of 1965," which created a situation wherein 85 percent of our immigrants hail from the Third World and Asia.  He took to the Senate floor, claimed...

It is the conclusion of this thesis that Islamic law forms the doctrinal basis for the jihadi threat that can only be understood through an unconstrained review of the Islamic law of jihad. Answering the three research questions, it turns out that: • When the Chairman said that we have yet to read what our enemy’s have said, he confirmed that we have failed to do a doctrine-based threat assessment of the enemy; • Had the IC done so, it would have quickly found that the doctrinal basis of the jihadi threat is the law of jihad in Islamic law...

Joseph Shahda: Internet Counterterrorism Shadow Warrior Jerry Gordon In the world of special ops against Islamic terrorism, there is group of talented private “shadow warriors” engaged in fighting the little known “internet Jihad” war. One of those “privateers”, Joseph Shahda, emerged from the shadows in a series of investigative articles by New York Times reporter, Michael Moss, that appeared on October 15th and 21st. The first article discussed the internet Jihadis themselves, including, most dramatically, 21-year-old Samir Khan of North Carolina who ran an internet relay for al Qaeda and Osama bin Laden, seemingly with impunity. In the October 21st...

Fort Carson-based Army Major Andrew Olmsted who wrote a blog from the war for the Rocky Mountain News was killed Thursday in Iraq. He went there to teach members of the Iraqi Army how to defend their country and provide security for citizens. Major Olmsted was a veteran blogger and was determined to make a difference in Iraq. He began writing for RockyMountainNews.com on May 21. He left behind a final blog post on his website AndrewOlmsted.com. No details were available on how the Major Olmsted died.

Day One. Partridge in a pear tree: During the night-shift at the NSA, Booz Allen contractors suddenly have their online Christmas shopping interrupted when Booz Allen proprietary counterterrorist data-mining algorithms note an unusual spike in internet chatter of “persons of interest” using the term “partridge in a pear tree.”  Their NSA Contracting Officer’s Technical Rep is alerted.   Day Two. Two turtle doves. At the NSA, SAIC contractors discover a correlation between “partridge in a pear tree” and “two turtle doves.”  The NSA notifies the CIA. CIA analysts who are new to the job due to high Agency turnover...

<< Back to November/December ServiamTHREAT ASSESSMENT The Propaganda Advantage: Why the Terrorists Still Have It Terrorism is primarily psychological warfare carried out by “propaganda by deed.” It’s a mind war that can grind down the public’s will to continue the fight.Weighted down by the old big-war concept of superior firepower, the Pentagon and the national security community at large have ceded the propaganda advantage to the terrorists and insurgents, who cannot hope to defeat us militarily. Despite impressive coalition gains around the world, and especially in Iraq, the United States lacks an effective counterpropaganda strategy to deprive the enemy...

I am not anti-National Guard. I lived with the 2-136 CAB of the MNARNG in Iraq. Good people. Good soldiers. Long live the National Guard.But the National Guard is not the militia the Second Amendment is all about, and it is not the militia the Militia Act of 1792 is all about. The National Guard became the "Organized" Militia by legislative fiat in 1903, when the United States Congress bribed states with federal funds into keeping their Volunteer Regiments raised for the Spanish-American War in existance as part-time soldiers. The National Guard is a Reserve Component of the Federal armed...

Stryker Soldier Awarded Distinguished Service Cross Dec 13, 2007 BY Spc. Vincent Fusco Army Chief of Staff Gen. George W. Casey pins the Distinguished Service Cross on Sgt. Gregory Williams for his actions during a firefight after an IED stopped his Stryker in Baghdad. Photo by Staff Sgt. Matthew MacRoberts FORT WAINWRIGHT, Alaska (Army News Service, Dec. 13, 2007) - A 1st Stryker Brigade Soldier who saved the life of his platoon leader was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross Dec. 12 at Fort Wainwright for his actions during an ambush in Iraq. Sgt. Gregory Williams received the Army's second-highest award...

AP photographer Bilal Hussein was on the radar screen of US forces prior to his being detained in a chance encounter April 12, 2006. He was a stringer working in Fallujah who filed numerous reports and photos that seemed to need a high degree of cooperation from the terrorists. He has been in custody for 19 months and will soon face trial by the Iraqi government on charges related to his activities with Sunni insurgents in Fallujah and Ramadi. Evidence against him is expected to be given to the Iraqi government this week. Geoff Morrell, Pentagon Press Secretary had this...

Secretary Gates was in Kansas yesterday, giving the latest installment of the Landon Lectures at Kansas State University in Manhattan, Kansas. < snip > I find the Washington Post's headline interesting... Gates Urges Increased Funding for Diplomacy, with the tagline of Secretary Calls for Use of 'Soft Power'. I watched the address live. My take, like my notes, are a little different. This speech is potentially a historic address, if Secretary Gates can put in motion a plan that the next administration will be able to carry forward. He's couching it in terms that a Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton...

The sad fact is that for most of the anti-war Left, the only thing that matters is delivering a defeat to the Bush administration, and in achieving that end the Iraqi people are expendable. John Pilger said in January 2004 that while he didn't like the "terrible civilian atrocities" committed by what he called "the resistance", "the outcome of this resistance is terribly important for the rest of the world" and that only a defeat in Iraq of the US "military machine" and the Bush administration would make our world secure. As Christopher Hitchens wrote despairingly in 2005 of his...

Sarah Lai Stirland writes in Wired Magazine about political ‘black op' websites: Welcome to the online house of mirrors that is the 2008 campaign: A growing bag of tricks employed by tech-savvy amateur political operatives now includes a collection of spoofed online forums purporting to support top candidates, while damning them with praise for extreme positions they have never voiced. The operating principle: The best way to undermine a candidate's supporters is to pretend to be one of them. Case in point: It took less than a month for Jason Francis to realize that he was not among allies at...

There are signs that the global Islamic jihad movement is splitting apart, in what would be a tremendous achievement for American strategy. The center of the action is in Pakistan and Afghanistan, the very territory which is thought to harbor Usama, and from which Al Qaeda was able to launch 9/11. Capitalizing on existing splits, a trap was set and closed, and the benefist have only begun to be evident. There were already signs of a split, but recent events strengthen the that trend. In March and again in May of this year I reviewed relevant South Asian media reporting to...