FBI arrests brother of San Bernardino terrorist and 2 others after searches - U.S. Thursday April 28th, 2016 at 2:39 PM
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LOS ANGELES (Tribune News Service) — Federal agents arrested three people, including the older brother of San Bernardino gunman Syed Rizwan Farook, on charges of marriage fraud conspiracy and lying to federal investigators on Thursday morning, according to a criminal complaint.
Syed Raheel Farook, the brother of Syed Rizwan Farook, Mariya Chernykh and Tatiana Farook were all arrested Thursday morning and charged in a five-count indictment filed in federal court that centers around a fraudulent marriage between Chernykh and Enrique Marquez, who has been charged with aiding in the deadly Dec. 2 attack.
Two people were arrested at Raheel Farook’s home after the FBI conducted a search warrant on Thursday morning, according to Sgt. Paul Mercado, a spokesman for the Corona Police Department. A second search warrant was also served at Chernykh’s home in Ontario, federal prosecutors said.
In the course of the investigation into the terrorist attack, federal investigators determined that Marquez received money to marry Chernykh, who only took part in the wedding in order to gain legal status in the U.S. FBI agents interrogated Chernykh as part of the probe into the terror attack, and prosecutors say she lied during those interviews, saying she lived with Marquez, when she actually resided in Ontario.
All three are expected to appear in federal court later Thursday, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office.
FBI agents have executed three search warrants at Raheel Farook’s home since Dec. 2, when Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, killed 14 people and wounded several more in a mass shooting at a conference room at the Inland Regional Center.
The husband and wife died hours later in a gun battle with police. Federal agents searched the older brother’s home, where several Farook family members live, in the days after the shooting.
They conducted a second search in February, after the investigation pivoted to a search for key evidence that might help the FBI track Farook and Malik’s movements after the Dec. 2 shooting. The hard drive of Farook’s laptop has eluded FBI agents and has become something of a holy grail in the investigation as the FBI tries to determine whether Farook and Malik had any help in planning or carrying out the attack.
Raheel Farook’s marriage to a Russian national also came under suspicion in the weeks after the December attack. The elder Farook and Enrique Marquez — a friend of Syed Rizwan Farook who has been charged with buying weapons used in the assault — were married to a pair of sisters from Western Russia: Tatiana and Mariya Chernykh.
Tatiana was married to Raheel Farook, while Mariya was wed to Marquez in 2014. Late last year, Marquez was charged with marriage fraud after federal prosecutors accused him of receiving money to marry Mariya Chernykh.
Records have shown Mariya Chernykh resided in Ontario and did not live with Marquez.
In the days after the shooting, friends and neighbors of the brothers said they were polar opposites. While his younger brother has been named as the architect of the deadliest terror attack on U.S. soil since 2001, the elder Farook was a Navy veteran who received medals for service in the “Global War on Terrorism.”
The older brother was the extrovert of the two, friends say, loud and sociable when compared to Rizwan Farook.
While there has been no indication the elder Farook brother had any knowledge of his brother’s plans, police were called to his Corona home days after the attack at the Inland Regional Center because of a domestic disturbance. At the time, a spokesman for the Riverside County district attorney’s office said the agency was reviewing the case.
Calls to the district attorney’s office spokesman seeking additional comment Thursday were not immediately returned.
©2016 Los Angeles Times
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Syria’s peace talks begin to look like a cover for more warby Ian Black Middle East editor
Parties are paying lip-service to a ‘political solution’ even as a dysfunctional truce collapses around them
Bombs hitting hospitals, doctors and rescue workers killed, civilians starving, scores of dead and injured every day – the raw, bleeding statistics of Syria’s unending war are making a nonsense of an already fragile truce and destroying the slim hopes that peace talks can even carry on.
Staffan de Mistura, the UN envoy for Syria, is a consummate diplomat, but this week he has struggled to mask a sense of rising panic – appealing to the US and Russia to come together to stave off what his humanitarian coordinator warned on Thursday would be a new “catastrophe” if violence did not stop.
Continue reading...Демонстрация силы или хулиганство? by golosamerikius
Лихачество российских военных летчиков - стало привычной темой новостей. США, ЕС, НАТО считают такие инциденты опасными и провокационными. Москва же традиционно не видит проблемы. Чем опасна показная бравада российских военных - мнение политолога Ариэля Коэна в проекте "Контекст".
Originally published at - http://www.golos-ameriki.ru/media/video/video-context-cohen-ruavia-hooligans/3306817.html
Originally published at - http://www.golos-ameriki.ru/media/video/video-context-cohen-ruavia-hooligans/3306817.html
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NATO Building Black Sea Fleet by therearenosunglasses
The Russian foreign Ministry reacted to the plans of NATO to create the black sea fleet
The official representative of Russian foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova believes that the project of creation of the black sea fleet, NATO has seriously undermined security and stability in the region. This is stated in the document, published on Wednesday, April 27, at site Department. Zakharova said that the plans of the Alliance are forcing Moscow to take adequate steps to ensure their own security.
“It is obvious that the conversations on this topic, not to mention practical solutions, if they, of course, will be, will not promote the conservation of the Black sea as a region of peace and good neighborliness”, — said the representative office. Zakharov stressed that the bloc’s leadership, this project does not comment.
In April, President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko said, that Kiev is ready to join the creation of the black sea fleet. In January, the media reported that the Ministry of defence of Romania start the negotiations with NATO on the issue of formation of such Alliance connections.
To be part of the new naval group that Bucharest wants to see in the region can, Navy ships, United States, Germany, Italy and Turkey. It is assumed that a new fleet may be similar in structure with the already existing ones that do not reside in the Black sea. The project is under control of Prime Minister of Romania, Dacian ciolos and the Minister of national defence of Mihnea Motoc.
In the Black sea regularly come warships of US, UK and other non-black sea countries-members of NATO. So, in October 2015 there was American missile destroyer “porter”, which conducted exercises with the Ukrainian Navy ships and coast guard of Georgia, visited Odessa and Batumi.
The residence time of ships nachimovsky States in the Black sea is limited to 21 days. This term is defined by the Montreux Convention, signed on 21 July 1936, USSR, Turkey, great Britain, France, Bulgaria, Romania, Greece, Yugoslavia, Australia and Japan.
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Authorities in California arrested three people on Thursday who are tied to one of the San Bernardino attackers, charging them with lying under oath and participating in a fraudulent marriage.
Gen. Joseph Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, testified during a Senate Armed Service Committee hearing Thursday that he wished he could do more to fight the Islamic State, but political limitations were playing a role.
In the clip noted by the Weekly Standard, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), who has been highly critical of the Obama administration, questioned Dunford, saying that not enough has been done to fight ISIS.
“So I just want the whole country to know this, that the president’s goal is to destroy ISIL,” he said, using another name for the terror group. “I share that goal. I know you do too. The military strategy that we are embarked on is the best way to destroy ISIL and it’s what you recommended, or is it limited by conditions put on you by the White House?”
“Senator, to clarify, so if I say that certain-” Dunford said.
Graham stepped in to rephrase his question.
“Would you do more if you could?” Graham asked.
“I would do more if I could, but the limitation is not just a political limitation, part of it is our partners on the ground,” Dunford said.
“Right,” Graham said.
This testimony comes as 250 more American troops are being sent to Syria to supplement the 50 troops that are already there. All 300 are special forces operators who are focused on training and fighting along with local militias.
The post General Dunford: I Would Do More Against ISIS if I Could appeared first on Washington Free Beacon.
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MSNBC host Chris Matthews said Wednesday that “we don’t even know what the facility’s called” where the 2012 Benghazi terrorist attack occurred that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens and three other Americans.
Discussing Donald Trump’s attack on former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton for not being awake for the phone call about the attack, Matthews appeared not to remember it occurred at the diplomatic compound in the Libyan city.
“Ever since the horror that happened to Chris Stevens and the other Americans in Benghazi, ever since that very confusing night, out in the middle of a facility, we don’t even know what the facility’s called, that horror went on, Hillary’s been accused of somehow dereliction of duty,” Matthews said. “Not that she spun the PR the wrong way afterward, not that she failed to meet the refurbishing needs of an outlying facility, but that she somehow didn’t care about her friend. She let him die.”
Matthews has never shown a disposition for taking the Benghazi attack seriously. He once said“things happen” while discussing the attack, and he also dismissed probes into the attack and its subsequent handling by the Obama administration as “this thing called Benghazi.”
Matthews and many other liberal media members have routinely shrugged off investigations into Clinton’s conduct as a partisan witch hunt, and the press delighted in calling Clinton’s 11-hour testimony about the attack in October a triumph for her campaign.
A Russian MiG-31 jet flew within 50 feet of a U.S. surveillance aircraft in Northeast Asia last week, Moscow’s latest aerial saber-rattling against American ships and planes, according to defense officials.
“On April 21, a U.S. Navy P-8 Maritime Patrol reconnaissance aircraft flying a routine mission in international airspace was intercepted by a MiG-31 Russian jet in the vicinity of the Kamchatka Peninsula,” Cmdr. Dave Benham, a spokesman for the Pacific Command, told the Washington Free Beacon.
Benham said the intercept was “characterized as safe and professional.”
“Intercepts between the United States and other militaries occur often and the vast majority are professional,” he noted. “For intercepts that are deemed unprofessional, the U.S. takes appropriate measures through military and diplomatic channels.”
A defense official familiar with the MiG-31 intercept said the jet flew within 50 feet of the P-8, a maritime patrol and anti-submarine warfare aircraft.
The incident took place near the Russian city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, a port located on the southeastern end of the peninsula.
Kamchatka is Russia’s main military hub in the Pacific and the focus of a buildup of Russian military forces that Moscow has said is intended to match the U.S. military rebalance to Asia.
Several military bases are located there, along with a major naval base. The peninsula is also the main impact range for Russian missile flight tests launched from the central part of the country.
The latest aerial incident involving a Russian jet followed two dangerous encounters over the Baltic Sea last week.
A Russian Su-27 flew within 50 feet of an RC-135 reconnaissance aircraft on April 14 and executed a barrel roll over the surveillance plane in what the Pentagon called an “unsafe and unprofessional manner.”
Two days earlier, two Russian Su-24s buzzed the guided missile destroyer USS Donald Cook, coming very close to its deck as the warship sailed in the Baltic Sea. The Pentagon protested both incidents.
On Capitol Hill, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a Senate hearing on Wednesday that the recent incidents are an indicator of “tension that has built up in Europe especially over the last couple of years since events in Crimea and Ukraine.”
On the recent buzzing of the Cook, Carter said “it is unprofessional behavior, and whether it is encouraged from the top, whether it was encouraged from higher up or not I can’t say.”
“But we do expect it to be discouraged from higher up from now on,” he added. “These pilots need to get the word, ‘Hey, knock it off. This is unprofessional. This is dangerous. This could lead somewhere.’”
Carter, appearing before the Senate Appropriations Committee, said the recent incidents were “dangerous” and could have led to a conflict, noting that “we can’t be accidentally stumbling into something.”
The P-8 flight appears to have been part of an effort to spy on Russia’s deployment of a new missile submarine at Petropavlovsk.
Adm. Harry Harris, commander of the Pacific Command, told a Senate hearing in February that Russia is building up its military in the Pacific, where Moscow’s Far East forces had declined sharply after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.
“Russia continues modernizing its military forces, homeporting its newest Dolgurukiy-class ballistic missile submarine in Petropavlovsk, and revitalizing its ability to execute long-range strategic patrols, highlighted by last July’s deployment of Tu-95 Bear bombers near Alaska and California, and last month’s bomber flights around Japan,” Harris told the Senate Armed Services Committee Feb. 23.
Retired Navy Capt. Jim Fanell said the close-in MiG-31 intercept is significant.
“The 50-foot closest point of approach by Russian Far East MiG-31 Foxhound interceptors to a U.S. Pacific Fleet P-8 reconnaissance flight is an indicator the Russian Navy has likely transferred their first Dolgorukiy-class SSBN to the Pacific Fleet,” Fanell said, using the acronym for ballistic missile submarine.
The new missile submarine, armed with Bulava nuclear missiles, marks a significant upgrade of Russia’s aging fleet of Delta III missile submarines.
The arrival of the first Dolgorukiy “places an additional ‘hold at risk’ tasking on the U.S. Pacific Fleet which has also had to account for the introduction of [People’s Republic of China] Navy JIN-class SSBN patrols in 2015,” Fanell said.
The need to monitor new Russian missile submarines adds to the already overloaded requirements for U.S. submarine forces.
“This clearly represents another clear and present danger to U.S. national security,” Fanell said. The “nation needs more ballistic missile and fast attack nuclear submarines, and fast.”
A Su-27 in January flew within 20 feet of an RC-135 over the Black Sea in a dangerous maneuver.
Last October, the Russians used threatening aerial maneuvers against the aircraft carrier USS Reagan in the Sea of Japan. Two Russian Tu-142 bombers made low passes near the aircraft carrier near the Korean peninsula.
Earlier, on July 4, 2015, two Tu-95 nuclear-capable bombers flew within 40 miles of the California coast prompting intercepts by U.S. jets.
Moscow also has sent Tu-95 bombers to circumnavigate the Pacific island of Guam on several occasions. The island is a major military hub and central to the U.S. military’s pivot to Asia.
The Russian navy’s Pacific Fleet conducted exercises in the Sea of Japan on April 22, a day after the P-8 was intercepted, according to a Twitter search.
Russian naval forces from Kamchatka also carried out missile and artillery fire exercises in recent days.
The military activities may have been a target of the P-8 surveillance operations.
The post Russian Warplane Flies Within 50 Feet of U.S. Spy Plane in Asia appeared first onWashington Free Beacon.
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Afghan interpreters who worked with the FBI, the State Department, and other U.S. agencies in Afghanistan could be deemed ineligible for U.S. visas by the 2017 defense appropriation bill, according to advocacy groups.
Under the Special Immigrant Visa program, Afghans who worked as translators for the U.S. military and support operations are eligible to apply for American visas if their lives are at risk in Afghanistan.
But according to advocates for the SIV program, the latest version of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act in the House of Representatives would limit eligibility to translators who worked directly for the U.S. military or intelligence agencies. Interpreters in other support roles, such as working with the American embassy in Kabul or for base security, would no longer be qualified for the visa program.
As U.S. troops pull out of the region and the security situation deteriorates for American allies, thousands of Afghans currently under threat from the Taliban could be impacted.
“If this becomes the law of the land, in all intents and purposes there will not be an SIV program anymore,” said Matt Zeller, a former Army captain who runs the interpreter advocacy group No One Left Behind. “And we will be outright turning our backs on a group of people we have made a fundamental promise to.”
Zeller said the current version of the bill is “remarkably ambiguous” in defining which interpreters would be unqualified for the program. He called it a “wink and a nod to the State Department to start denying anybody who’s applying for a [special immigrant] visa.”
“All the people who worked for the FBI, the DEA, our very own State Department, none of those people suddenly qualify,” said Zeller, adding that the changes could also cause problems for Afghans who worked in covert capacities for U.S. intelligence agencies.
“As far as the Taliban are concerned, they worked for the U.S. military and they should all die,” he said.
The bill also does not allocate additional visas despite a backlog of 10,000 applicants. Currently, 4,000 visas are still available from last year’s congressional allocation, but the State Department has requested another 4,000 so it can process new requests.
“Thousands of Afghans have given sacrificial service to our country in Afghanistan, and our country has made a promise to them,” said Betsy Fisher, policy director at the International Refugee Assistance Project. “When we fail to provide them with safe passage as we’ve promised to do, we leave them in danger. But we also jeopardize our national security, in light of our ongoing military presence overseas.”
The bill is being drafted by the House Armed Services Committee, but sources say the obstacle on visa allocation lies with the House Judiciary Committee, which has authority over immigration and visa issues.
Fisher said the failure to earmark additional visas means “those people in the backlog have no avenue for safety.”
“There hasn’t been any explanation about what those extra 6,000 people should do,” Fisher said. “It’s unclear whether this means they’re unwilling to grant further visas ever, or just reticent to do so right now. Certainly there’s a need for those visas immediately.”
Zeller said the bill could have “profound consequences for our trust and goodwill” in the region.
“How could members of Congress put our current troops in this much danger?” he asked. “What happens if the current Afghans working as translators decide they can’t trust the U.S. to keep its promise, and just quit?”
The post Latest Defense Bill Could Decimate Visa Program for Afghan Allies appeared first onWashington Free Beacon.
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