Putin: Eyes Wide Shut - GlobalSecurity.org - SITREP Situation Report: The Russia that the United States faces today is quite different. Under Putin, Russia has become a revisionist state. Putin believes that the European security system that emerged at the end of the Cold War is oriented against Russia and does not adequately reflect Russian interests and political ambitions. Putin believes Russia got the short end of the stick because it was weak and he is determined to undermine the post-Cold War security system in Europe and reshape it in ways that enhance Russian interests and influence.
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The United States is entering a period of growing competition and tension in relations with Russia. The Russia that the United States faces today is more assertive and more unpredictable--and thus, in many ways, more dangerous--than the Russia that the United States confronted during the latter part of the Cold War.
The Russian leadership after Khrushchev's ouster in 1964 was essentially cautious and conservative. They were primarily interested in maintaining the political and territorial status quo in Eastern Europe, not promoting world revolution. In areas outside Europe, especially the Third World, Moscow relied on proxies such as Cuba to advance its interests. While rhetorically Moscow continued to pay lip service to world revolution, in practice the aging apparatchiks in the Kremlin were more interested in finding ways to enhance "strategic stability" and reduce the risks of nuclear war.
The Russia that the United States faces today is quite different. Under Putin, Russia has become a revisionist state. Putin believes that the European security system that emerged at the end of the Cold War is oriented against Russia and does not adequately reflect Russian interests and political ambitions. Putin believes Russia got the short end of the stick because it was weak and he is determined to undermine the post-Cold War security system in Europe and reshape it in ways that enhance Russian interests and influence.
Putin's speech at the Munich security conference in 2007 was intended to put the West on notice that Russia had its own national interests and was no longer willing to abide by the old rules of the Western game. Henceforth Russia would decide for itself which rules it would obey.
Brezhnev and company were risk-adverse. Putin is the opposite--a risk-taker. When challenged, his inclination is not to seek compromise but to double down and raise the ante, as he did in the wake of the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 last July.
Instead of backing down, he increased the firepower and sophistication of the weapons he was supplying to the separatists in eastern Ukraine and sent several thousand well-armed and well-trained Russian regular army soldiers clandestinely into Ukraine. This bold move caught the Ukrainian government--and the West--by surprise, enabling Putin to deal a stunning blow to the Ukrainian forces, which up until that moment had been winning the war, and reverse the tide of the conflict.
The annexation of Crimea showed the same combination of boldness and readiness to take big risks. Confronted by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's sudden ouster and the prospect that Ukraine might move swiftly and irreversibly into the Western camp, Putin annexed Crimea. The annexation caught Western leaders by surprise, leaving them flatfooted and unable to organize an effective response other than mild economic sanctions.
Indeed, Putin appears to have been surprised at the ease with which the annexation was realized. The Ukrainians put up no military resistance (they reportedly had been advised not to resist. At home the annexation was enthusiastically welcomed by the overwhelming majority of Russian citizens and resulted in a major boost in Putin's approval rating, which soared to over 85 percent.
What do these examples suggest about Putin's character and future behavior?
First, as noted, Putin is a risk-taker. He continually does the unexpected. That keeps his opponents off balance and allows Putin to control the state of play. The West, by contrast, is largely reactive, responding to moves Putin has made rather than taking the initiative and putting Putin on the defensive.
Second, Putin has likely been emboldened by the ease with which he has been able to achieve his objectives. This is likely to reinforce his belief that bold moves pay big dividends.
This suggests that rather than laying the groundwork for a negotiated settlement of the Ukrainian crisis, as many European leaders hope, the ceasefire agreed to in Minsk in February is likely to prove to be only a temporary respite before a new push on the part of the separatists, backed by Putin, to seize the port of Mariupol and establish a land bridge to Crimea that would enable Russia to more easily reinforce its forces in eastern Ukraine. This would be a bold and risky move, but Putin has shown time and again his willingness to take chances.
The Russian leadership after Khrushchev's ouster in 1964 was essentially cautious and conservative. They were primarily interested in maintaining the political and territorial status quo in Eastern Europe, not promoting world revolution. In areas outside Europe, especially the Third World, Moscow relied on proxies such as Cuba to advance its interests. While rhetorically Moscow continued to pay lip service to world revolution, in practice the aging apparatchiks in the Kremlin were more interested in finding ways to enhance "strategic stability" and reduce the risks of nuclear war.
The Russia that the United States faces today is quite different. Under Putin, Russia has become a revisionist state. Putin believes that the European security system that emerged at the end of the Cold War is oriented against Russia and does not adequately reflect Russian interests and political ambitions. Putin believes Russia got the short end of the stick because it was weak and he is determined to undermine the post-Cold War security system in Europe and reshape it in ways that enhance Russian interests and influence.
Putin's speech at the Munich security conference in 2007 was intended to put the West on notice that Russia had its own national interests and was no longer willing to abide by the old rules of the Western game. Henceforth Russia would decide for itself which rules it would obey.
Brezhnev and company were risk-adverse. Putin is the opposite--a risk-taker. When challenged, his inclination is not to seek compromise but to double down and raise the ante, as he did in the wake of the shooting down of Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 last July.
Instead of backing down, he increased the firepower and sophistication of the weapons he was supplying to the separatists in eastern Ukraine and sent several thousand well-armed and well-trained Russian regular army soldiers clandestinely into Ukraine. This bold move caught the Ukrainian government--and the West--by surprise, enabling Putin to deal a stunning blow to the Ukrainian forces, which up until that moment had been winning the war, and reverse the tide of the conflict.
The annexation of Crimea showed the same combination of boldness and readiness to take big risks. Confronted by Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych's sudden ouster and the prospect that Ukraine might move swiftly and irreversibly into the Western camp, Putin annexed Crimea. The annexation caught Western leaders by surprise, leaving them flatfooted and unable to organize an effective response other than mild economic sanctions.
Indeed, Putin appears to have been surprised at the ease with which the annexation was realized. The Ukrainians put up no military resistance (they reportedly had been advised not to resist. At home the annexation was enthusiastically welcomed by the overwhelming majority of Russian citizens and resulted in a major boost in Putin's approval rating, which soared to over 85 percent.
What do these examples suggest about Putin's character and future behavior?
First, as noted, Putin is a risk-taker. He continually does the unexpected. That keeps his opponents off balance and allows Putin to control the state of play. The West, by contrast, is largely reactive, responding to moves Putin has made rather than taking the initiative and putting Putin on the defensive.
Second, Putin has likely been emboldened by the ease with which he has been able to achieve his objectives. This is likely to reinforce his belief that bold moves pay big dividends.
This suggests that rather than laying the groundwork for a negotiated settlement of the Ukrainian crisis, as many European leaders hope, the ceasefire agreed to in Minsk in February is likely to prove to be only a temporary respite before a new push on the part of the separatists, backed by Putin, to seize the port of Mariupol and establish a land bridge to Crimea that would enable Russia to more easily reinforce its forces in eastern Ukraine. This would be a bold and risky move, but Putin has shown time and again his willingness to take chances.
F. Stephen Larrabee holds the Distinguished Chair in European Security (Emeritus) at the nonprofit, nonpartisan RAND Corporation. He served on the National Security Council staff in the Carter Administration.
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The Moscow Times |
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Сybercriminals may provoke nuclear disaster - US, Russian generals
RT Modern technologies, coupled with Cold War-era nuclear doctrines and increasing tensions between the US and Russia make a nuclear war a real threat, say high-ranking retired officers from both countries. The New York Times opinion column by former US ... and more » |
“We’ve had good intel over the years about al Qaeda, about their efforts to coordinate with, as an example, Mexican cartels…in an effort to try to exploit our southern border” he reported, adding that a terrorist group like ISIS “absolutely” knows about the lack of security on the border.
Baker stated he believes there is “a lot of communication” between ISIS and drug cartels. And “the cartels are a business … if there’s a revenue stream they can exploit, then they will, and the extremists understand that.”
Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett
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A newly-unearthed "blueprint" for the jihadi group’s murderous campaign has revealed how surveillance and espionage as well as kidnap and murder were all employed in a bid to gain control of Syria and Iraq.
Among the handwritten scrawls by ‘Lord of the Shadows’ Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifawi is a plot to infiltrate and intimidate families and communities across the region.
The 31-page document, obtained by a German newspaper, shows the former colonel in the intelligence services of Hussein’s air force planned to recruit a legion of spies as the group’s sphere of influence expanded.
It shows detailed charts, lists and schedules for how the group, which has claimed thousands of lives, would swallow up more territory.
The notes reveal Haji Bakr, as he is better known, planned to blackmail those who didn’t comply with the regime’s strict religious code, using conscripts as young as 16.
The group even married off women to influential families in a bid to widen their influence.
The plans were drawn up after Bakr was left “bitter and unemployed” when he lost his job after US forces disbanded the Iraqi army in 2003.
He subsequently spent time in the notorious prison camp Abu Ghraib, run by the US, and was reportedly killed in a firefight in Iraq in January 2014.
The report claims IS is still using information gleaned from years of surveillance – including data from banks and land registry offices – to wring money from millions of people who live under IS control.
The papers were handed to journalists at Der Spiegel after IS fighters were forced to abandon their headquarters in Aleppo, Syria, last year.
Christoph Reuter, the report’s author, wrote: “What Bakr put on paper, page by page, with carefully outlined boxes for individual responsibilities, was nothing less than a blueprint for takeover”.
The pages show that plans by the architect of IS stretched back years, with detailed notes on how the group would spread across northern Syria using command posts disguised as missionary centres.
The latest revelation offers the best glimpse yet into the secretive jihadist organisation.
Until now, experts have explained the rapid rise of IS as either an off-shoot of the already established al-Qaeda terror group – responsible for the 9/11 attack on America – or a mafia-like network of influential families extorting money from already-impoverished communities in the region.
But the cache of secret documents reveals undeniable links between the cult and Hussein’s bloody dictatorship.
It says Bakr’s blueprint was simply a modified version of plans used by Hussein to maintain absolute rule.
The papers also hint at links between the current Syrian regime and IS, with a map of the chain of command scribbled with ballpoint pen on the Syrian Defence Ministry’s letter-headed paper.
Journalist Mr Reuter dismissed the link with the Syrian president Bashar al-Assad’s regime as “presumably a coincidence”.
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U.S.-Mexico border
TEL AVIV – While U.S. government agencies have strongly denied a Judicial Watch report claiming there are ISIS camps near the U.S. border with Mexico, lawmakers have expressed fears the global jihadist organization is linking up with deadly Mexican drug cartels.
Such a partnership would not only help to facilitate the smuggling of jihadists into the U.S. but could ultimately translate into a devastating terrorist attack on American soil, such as an Electro Magnetic Pulse, or EMP, catastrophe.
The U.S. Department of Homeland Security and the U.S. Northern Command and the Texas Department of Public Safety all have denied the April 14 Judicial Watch report citing unnamed “sources that include a Mexican Army field grade officer and a Mexican Federal Police Inspector.”
The sources claimed ISIS “has established its base around eight miles from the U.S. border in an area known as ‘Anapra’ situated just west of Ciudad Juárez in the Mexican state of Chihuahua.”
Judicial Watch further reported on an ISIS camp west of Juarez, which the organization said was planning to attack towns in New Mexico.
Rep. Beto O’Rourke, D-Texas, said he contacted the Mexican government, DHS and the U.S. Northern Command, all of whom told him they have no intelligence indicating ISIS is operating on the U.S.-Mexico border. O’Rourke represents the border city of El Paso and the surrounding area.
“Stories like these are good at scaring people and getting attention for those who spread them,” wrote O’Rourke on his Facebook page. “But they are terrible for the country’s image of the border, for El Paso’s ability to recruit talent, and for our region’s opportunity to capitalize on the benefits of being the largest bi-national community in the world.”
Department of Public Safety Deputy Director Robert J. Bodisch also denied the Judicial Watch claims.
“The Department of Public Safety and its intelligence community partners have no such credible information to corroborate or validate this today,” Bodisch wrote in an agency memo.
It’s not the first Judicial Watch report claiming ISIS was using Mexico as a base to stage attacks in the U.S.
Last August, the watchdog reported “Islamic terrorist groups are operating in the Mexican border city of Ciudad Juarez and planning to attack the United States with car bombs or other vehicle borne improvised explosive devices,” citing anonymous “high-level federal law enforcement, intelligence and other sources.”
In a report that made headlines last October, two Republican lawmakers told BuzzFeed that suspected terrorists had infiltrated the U.S.–Mexico border and as many as 10 jihadists were captured. The DHS at the time denied the claims.
Numerous U.S. lawmakers have repeatedly warned about ISIS teaming up with drug cartels.
In October, Sen. Tom Cotton, R-Ark., warned in a town hall conversation that “groups like the Islamic State collaborate with drug cartels in Mexico who have clearly shown they’re willing to expand outside the drug trade into human trafficking and potentially even terrorism.”
“They could infiltrate our defenseless border and attack us right here in places like Arkansas.”
Cotton was likely referencing the Judicial Watch report.
In August, Rep. Ted Poe, R-Texas, a member of the House Judiciary Committee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, was asked on Newmax TV’s “America’s Forum” whether there was an ISIS-Mexican drug cartel connection.
“My opinion is yes,” he replied. “There seems to be at least a talking to each other. How much? I don’t know. But … drug cartels use the same operational plan as terrorist groups do. They kill their opponents, they behead their opponents, they brag about it and they have operational control of many portions of the southern border of the United States. Mexico doesn’t.
“The United States doesn’t,” he continued. “Otherwise they wouldn’t be crossing daily with their drugs. They’re as vicious as some of these other terrorist organizations. We need to recognize them that this is an organized international crime group. And we have to deal with them as such.”
The reports of terrorists trying to cross the U.S.-Mexico border also took center stage during the 2012 presidential campaign, when candidates Rick Perry and Mitt Romney both warned terrorists infiltrating via Mexico posed a significant threat to U.S. national security.
Texas’s O’Rourke, however, was the public face of the Democrats in responding to those claims. He stated Republicans were simply trying to gin up opposition to immigration reform.
“There’s a longstanding history in this country of projecting whatever fears we have onto the border,” stated O’Rourke.
“In the absence of understanding the border, they insert their fears. Before it was Iran and al-Qaida. Now it’s ISIS. They just reach the conclusion that invasion is imminent, and it never is.”
Electrical grid
If terrorists are teaming up with Mexican drug cartels, the implications could be cataclysmic.
Not only do Mexican drug gangs maintain sophisticated smuggling routes, some of the more dangerous Mexican group have evidenced guerrilla-like tactics already used in terrorist-style attacks.
On Oct. 27, 2013, for example, the criminal drug cartel known as the Knights Templars attacked electrical facilities and blacked out Mexico’s Michoacan state, which boasts a population of 420,000. During the blackout, the Knights Templars reportedly entered towns and villages at will, terrorized the citizens and police, and publicly executed leaders opposed to the drug trade.
In an attack still largely unexplained, on April 16, 2013, a sophisticated assault was carried out on PG&E Corp’s Metcalf Transmission Substation outside of San Jose, California, which supplies power to San Francisco and other areas. A team of gunmen fired sniper and assault rifles on the substation, severely damaging 17 transformers.
Peter Pry, executive director of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and director of the U.S. Nuclear Strategy Forum, believes the assault could have been part of a terrorist group’s preparation for a future attack on the U.S. electrical grid.
Jon Wellinghoff, the former chairman of the U.S. agency responsible for grid security, also warned that the Metcalf attack was likely a dry run for a future large-scale attack.
On the same day as the Metcalf assault, North Korea flew its KSM-3 satellite on the optimum trajectory and altitude to evade U.S. radars and carry out a potential EMP attack drill.
Networks within U.S. cities
An ISIS-Mexican drug cartel alliance could cause pandemonium in U.S. cities. Mexican drug cartels have established major networks within the U.S.
Earlier this month it was reported that federal agents arrested 976 suspected gang members across scores of American cities in a large-scale operation in February and March. The U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency said 199 of those arrested were foreign nationals.
Criminal street gangs are responsible for the majority of violent crimes within the U.S. and are the primary distributors of most illicit drugs, according to a previous report by the Justice Department’s National Drug Intelligence Center, or NDIC.
The NDIC was a task force established in 1993 to coordinate law enforcement actions to stop drug trafficking and to curb the growing threat of violent gangs in the U.S. The agency was closed by the Obama administration in June 2011.
In October 2011, the Immigration and Customs Enforcement reported that in 2009 and 2010 it arrested 5,270 illegal alien gang members across all 50 states.
A 2011 FBI report draws a far dimmer picture of the nature of criminal gangs operating domestically. According to the FBI, criminal street gangs – mostly comprised of illegal aliens – are acquiring high-powered, military-style weapons to engage in lethal encounters with law enforcement members and citizens alike.
States the report: “There are an estimated 1.4 million active street, prison and outlaw motorcycle gang members in more than 33,000 gangs operating in all 50 states, the District of Columbia and Puerto Rico.”
The report notes those numbers reflect an increase from 2009 figures due “primarily to more comprehensive reporting from law enforcement and enhanced gang recruiting efforts.”
In July 2014, WND reported the risk of ISIS infiltrating from Mexico, perhaps with the help of drug gangs.
WND senior staff writer Michael Maloof, a U.S. Defense Department analyst under President Bush, warned ISIS could use the Mexican border to infiltrate America, and it could happen “sooner rather than later.”
“MS-13 already are in over 1,100 U.S. cities, and, as a consequence, the infiltration capabilities are very, very high and the threat from them can be sooner rather than later,” Maloof warned at the time.
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 WND.com |
The deadly truth: ISIS and Mexican drug gangs
WND.com Ted Poe, R-Texas, a member of the House Judiciary Committee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, was asked on Newmax TV's “America's Forum” whether there was an ISIS-Mexican drug cartel connection. “My opinion is yes,” he replied. “There seems ... and more » |
WND.com |
Inside the ISIS-US border scare
WND.com Ted Poe, R-Texas, a member of the House Judiciary Committee on Crime, Terrorism, and Homeland Security, was asked on Newmax TV's “America's Forum” whether there was an ISIS-Mexican drug cartel connection. “My opinion is yes,” he replied. “There seems ... The deadly truth: ISIS and Mexican drug gangsStatesmen News all 8 news articles » |
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Dissident Voice As they had with other groups like Communists, Puerto Rican nationalists, Native American activists and members of the anti-war movement, the FBI targeted Shakur and other members of the Black Panthers for their political affiliations as part of the ... |
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President Barack Obama met for more than an hour with Abu Dhabi's crown prince on Monday and discussed the conflicts in Yemen, Iraq, Syria and Libya, and the United Arab Emirates' need for military equipment, the White House said.
ANKARA (Reuters) - Turkey's top cleric on Monday described comments by Pope Francis that the 1915 mass killing of Armenians was genocide as immoral and said the Vatican should look to its own history before leveling accusations of casting stones.
VIENNA (Reuters) - Iran has continued to meet its commitments under an interim nuclear agreement with six world powers, a confidential United Nations nuclear agency report seen by Reuters showed on Monday.
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WASHINGTON (Reuters) - FBI Director James Comey did not intend to suggest in an article last week that Poland was responsible for the Holocaust during World War Two, a State Department spokeswoman said on Monday after Washington's ambassador was summoned over the remarks.
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - China and Pakistan launched a plan on Monday for energy and infrastructure projects in Pakistan worth $46 billion, linking their economies and underscoring China's economic ambitions in Asia and beyond.
OTTAWA (Reuters) - The number of Canadians leaving to join militant groups in Iraq and Syria such as Islamic State has increased 50 percent in the past few months, a senior security official said on Monday.
WASHINGTON (AP) -- In a stepped-up response to Iranian backing of Shiite rebels in Yemen, the Navy aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt is steaming toward the waters off Yemen to beef up security and join other American ships that are prepared to intercept any Iranian vessels carrying weapons to the Houthi rebels....
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Utah woman gets up to life in prison in deaths of 6 newbornsby By LINDSAY WHITEHURST
PROVO, Utah (AP) -- A Utah woman who pleaded guilty to killing six of her newborn babies and hiding their bodies in her garage was sentenced to up to life in prison Monday in a case that drew national attention and sent shockwaves through her quiet community....
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Getting ISIS Out of Iraq by By ROBERT A. PAPE
A political deal between Baghdad and the Sunni tribes is key to future military success against the Islamic State.
Federal authorities said they had broken up a recruitment ring for the terrorist group in Minnesota, arresting six young men who tried for months to travel to Syria.
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Local law enforcement agencies are continuing their headlong rush up surveillance street, secretly purchasing and using a cellphone monitoring device that is as powerful as it is problematic.
Most knew him as the man with the white beard, some as the black one with the beard. The local rebel commander remembered him as the "Schweib", in charge of weapons procurement. One of the local political heads knew him as "Abu Bakr al-Iraqi, "as the person responsible for religious affairs in the small town of Tal Rifaat in the competitive level of northern Syria .
Only after a small rebel command had shot him, the beginning of 2014, what it clear to all: it was always the same one. A man who what careful to leave no trace as possible.
The rebels did not at first, who They had there shot in the firefight. But They Wondered: Why did the "Islamic State" A veritable army from the south to storm the city? Why They advanced with more than a dozen pickup trucks with machine guns mounted on top? Why They sent before a suicide bomber who blew himself up in the air in the suburbs?
They had the troop detected early, expected and repulsed. But no one knew at first what target was so valuable did the IS Attacked with force examined. The body of the people shot stowed the rebels in a freezer.
Bakr Contributed half years the conquest of northern Syria
So ends the story of Haji Bakr as the man what inside the IS-militia. It is the story of the most influential terror strategists in the recent past - the architect of the organization-wide in recent years, parts of Syria and Iraq has brought` Their under control and terror overmany Thousands of people. It is the story of the head behind the "Islamic state".
The rebels brought` the corpse again only apparent, as a leader from another town alerted. They laid the lifeless body on an orange rug in deep green grass Winter - everyone shoulderstand be able to see him; . Should be everyone Convinced of his death Then she verscharrten him, the man with many names, in unmarked grave on.
His real name is Samir Abed al-Mohammed al-Khleifawi, formerly a colonel in the Iraqi military intelligence with the elevated rank of General Staff use. More than two Decades he had learned secret state in the heart of Saddam Hussein's how to keep a system of comprehensive monitoring and fine-dose scare a population under control.
How he internalized his lessons on how skillfully and meticulously he had planned, Which was the rebels only seen When They searched the house inconspicuous, had lived in the Haji Bakr and a half years, from Which he controlled the conquest of northern Syria.
Christoph Reuter / DER SPIEGEL
House of Haji Bakr: Here lay the plans for the conquest of Syria
The papers are SPIEGEL before ( here you can find the documents in the current issue). There are complex handwritten elevation, some as large thatthey had been drawn on several sheets glued together. "This is something we had never seen before," Said Radwan Qarandel, the local rebel leader.
In the tangle is found, inter alia:
- the detailed plan for getting started: Espionage cells, disguised as Islamic Mission offices shoulderstand be established in all villages and towns
- Schedules for seeking places are "open" should
- Organizational chart for competing intelligence
- Design for separate departments did plan secret murders and kidnappings and perform as precursor for subsequent offer takeover.
IS-documents: "This is something we had never seen"
The history Haji Bakr is less the story of a ideologues than a cool Strategists. He was "absolutely not to Islamist," the Iraqi journalist and expert on radical scene, Hisham al-Hashimi Reminded of the former career officer who had been stationed together with Haschimis cousin on the air base Habbaniya. "Colonel Samir," as he calls it, "what highly intelligent, by determined, and an excellent logistics." But When Paul Bremer, the US governor after Saddam's falling in Baghdad, "in May 2003 simply Dissolved the Entire army by decree what he unemployed and bitter ".
It began the long road of sober intelligence professionals, who left nothing to chance, and Certainly not by faith, to the top of even then most brutal Dschihadistengruppe, Which Became known as al-Qaida in Iraq. In the underground met Haji Bakr, as he called himself now, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most notorious mastermind of suicide attacks on American soldiers Numerous, the UN headquarters in Baghdad, but on Shiite shrines and so clerics.
For two years, Haji Bakr what sitting in the American prison camp and Camp Bucca in the prison of Abu Ghraib, where many of the later terrorist contacts werewolf first made. The US occupation in Iraq had a tragic knack to create only with the resolution of the Entire army and then oft indiscriminate mass arrests Their smartest enemies Themselves and unite.
The intrigue surrounding al-Baghdadi
It took years for the cool Strategists from Saddam's intelligence services and the Islamist fanatics came together. It was not until 2010 did emerged from al-Qaeda in Iraq, "Islamic State" almost lost his Entire leadership, this what the golden moment for Haji Bakr : Always the gray eminence in the background he schemed to today's "Caliph" Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi to the top of IS.
He told the hidden leaders, each Individually did the other had already Agreed. Who silently what, HOWEVER, would disappear without a trace in the Following months. Just as in 2013, northern Syria, the anarchic been made by Haji Bakr's spy cohort Opponents would one by one and murdered.
In his plan, Which werewolf Implemented meticulously and to IS 2014 ruler over about one-third of Syria made, dipped Islam, except in the input phrases, do not give up. Sharia, Islamic jurisdiction Prescribed bigotry - it all what a Means To An end, subject to a single goal: to force the subjects newfound obedience and the enormous traction of jihad to be able to use the streaming Thousands from around the world Radicals.
Even for the forcible conversion to Islam, in his understanding slavish submission, Haji Bakr used not religious, but a technical term. "Takwin" He referred by to the implementation. A sober word did Usually is used in geology or building science.
1200 years ago, HOWEVER, it had become famous ever in a peculiar way:. At Shiite alchemists as a term for the creation of artificial life in his "Book of Stones" Jabir Ibn Hayyan the Persians had written about the creation of a homunculus, to artificial human, in the 9th century, cryptography and codes: "The goal is to deceive all but Those Who God loves."
Whether Haji Bakr knew about this long sunken importance of His Word for the creation of the faithful? Probably not. But the old intelligence officer at the head of IS act like alchemists of the present, They sought to create out of fear of others and Their sober power calculus artificial theocracy.
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A folder of secret documents, drafted by a senior commander of the Islamic State, reveals previously unknown information about the origins, meticulous planning and intelligence structure of the organization. Among other things, the documents show that the organization, which is also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), had plans to capture territory in both countries as early as 2010 —several years before its existence was even known.
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By JOSEPH FITSANAKIS | <a href="http://intelNews.org" rel="nofollow">intelNews.org</a>A folder of secret documents, drafted by a senior commander of the Islamic State, reveals previously unknown information about the origins, meticulous planning and intelligence structure of the organization. Among other things, the documents show that the organization, which is also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), had plans to capture territory in both countries as early as 2010 —several years before its existence was even known. The folder belonged to Samir Abd Muhammad al-Khlifawi, a military general and political ally of Iraq’s late leader, Saddam Hussein. Better known as Haji Bakr, the former Baathist general became a founding member of ISIS and helped shape the organization until his death in a firefight in 2014. Following his demise, an unnamed informant stole the documents and secretly smuggled them into Turkey. It was there that German investigative newsmagazine Der Spiegel accessed them. On Saturday, following months of research, the newsmagazine published its findings based on the stolen documents. They reveal important information about the history and structure of the mysterious organization known as ISIS.
Der Spiegel notes in its analysis that Bakr himself is characteristic of the complexity of ISIS, which today controls territory equal to approximately that of Great Britain in both Iraq and Syria. Before the United States invasion, the former Iraqi general was a typical Baathist, who, like the regime he served, expressed strong secular views. But he became violently bitter in 2003, when he found himself unemployed and stripped of his status after the invading US forces dissolved the Iraqi military. He eventually joined a number of other unemployed former Baathist military and intelligence officers and decided to launch a counteroffensive against the predominantly Shiite Iraqi government. In 2010, this group of conspirators decided to inculcate their group with a Sunni religious identity, for reasons of political expediency. It was then that they appointed a highly educated and charismatic Sunni cleric, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, as the ideological face of the organization. In late 2012, the group began to actively exploit the chaos caused by the Syrian Civil War as an opportunity to capture territory in Syria, and then use it as a base to invade Iraq. The plan worked.
The folder acquired by Der Spiegel contains handwritten fragments from 31 different pages bearing organizational charts, lists of ISIS officials, as well as programmatic schedules. It reveals a hierarchical organizational structure with direct and indirect chains of command, which reach all the way down to local cells. According to the documents, these cells were initially set up in disguised form, so as to resemble Islamic schools or missionary facilities. Today these have expanded to include detention facilities, weapons depots, as well as a complex structure of Sharia-compliant educators, judges and enforcers. The organization also has an elaborate intelligence structure, which appears to undertake daily surveillance and security tasks. The latter depend on an army of officers, agents and informants, many of whom are as young as 16.
The documents detail several ISIS espionage operations in Syria and Iraq, which include meticulous studies of power structures of the local tribes. These were done in an effort to detect what Der Spiegel describes as “age-old faults within the deep layers of [tribal] society]”, and were then used by ISIS to divide and eventually subjugate dissident elements within the territory under their control. In other cases, informants were instructed to detect the personal weaknesses and faults of local leaders, which were subsequently used to blackmail them. Priority was given to recruiting members of powerful families, so as to “ensure penetration of these families without their knowledge”, Spiegelnotes.
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Published on Apr 20, 2015
How is the Gulf Coast coping with the effects of the massive 2010 BP oil spill five years later? Judy Woodruff talks to John Young, president of Louisiana’s Jefferson Parish, and Mark Schleifstein of The Times-Picayune about the environmental and economic impacts and what’s left to be done.
Published on Apr 20, 2015
CNN's Brian Todd reports on North Korean threats to the U.S. ambassador to South Korea only weeks after he was attacked by someone with a knife.
Flawed testimony and lab reports done by forensic examiners over a decades-long period may have resulted in false convictions, the agency says
One of the country's largest-ever forensic scandals includes dozens of death row convictions -- 12 who have already been executed
USS Theodore Roosevelt will join other U.S. ships in response to reports of Iranian arms convoy bound for Yemen's rebels
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PARIS — When Jean-Marie Le Pen, founder of France’s far-right National Front party, this month defended the record of Marshal Philippe Pétain, the wartime leader who collaborated with the Nazis, it became a flash point for debate. And after he repeated his notorious comment that the Nazi gas chambers were a “detail” of World War II, he was forced last week to renounce his candidacy in a local French election.
The echoes of World War II have never stopped reverberating in France, but this time Mr. Le Pen’s evocation of the country’s anti-Semitic, Pétainist past revealed him as an isolated, outdated figure.
While France remains obsessed with a war that once divided the country, it has evolved toward a commonly shared view of that era, according to Denis Peschanski, an expert on the period and curator of “Collaboration,” a recent exhibit at the National Archives.
“There is a form of consensus on the collaboration, and figures like Pétain, both now seen negatively,” he said, adding that by the 1990s, polls showed a “spectacular” worsening of Pétain’s image.
Yet on the other side of Europe, in countries that were once on the war’s eastern front, there is little sign of consensus on the victory or its legacy. Instead, as Mr. Peschanski put it, there is a “competition of memories,” pitting official Soviet history against evolving nationalist narratives in countries now looking to establish their own, post-Soviet identities.
Perhaps nowhere is the divergence over the memory of the war more acute than between Russiaand Ukraine. With less than a month before Victory in Europe Day — traditionally celebrated on May 9 in Moscow and much of the ex-Soviet Union, and on May 8 in Western capitals — both countries are using the last world war to fire up nationalist sentiment in a conflict still being fought, despite a cease-fire agreement, in eastern Ukraine, between government forces and pro-Russian separatists.
In Kiev, President Petro O. Poroshenko of Ukraine has shifted the holiday from May 9 to May 8, in line with the rest of Europe, and renamed it a Day of Remembrance and Reconciliation. The Ukrainian Parliament has also passed a law — now awaiting Mr. Poroshenko’s signature — banning Soviet-era symbols, which would make it difficult for Ukrainian veterans to display the flag under which they fought.
These moves were quickly denounced by Moscow, where the sacred May 9 holiday has taken on new meaning.
In 1990, as the Cold War drew to a close, Victory Day on Red Square became a more civilian affair, with marching soldiers but without the traditional display of military hardware.
Then, in 2008, the tanks, nuclear-missile launchers and fighter jets were back, a signal that Russia was ready to flaunt its military muscle and draw on its Soviet past.
Last year, as the crisis in Ukraine escalated, President Vladimir V. Putin flew to Crimea on May 9 for a victory lap to celebrate the “historic justice” of Russia’s annexation of the peninsula.
This came against the backdrop of repeated accusations in the Russian media that the Ukrainian government is a hotbed of “fascists” and “neo-Nazis,” a reference to the Ukrainian nationalists who for a time fought alongside the Germans in World War II.
This year, Moscow will again celebrate the 1945 victory with heavy weaponry but without the presence of leaders from the United States, France and Britain, former allies that have chosen to stay away because of Russia’s actions in Ukraine.
In the Russian city of Yekaterinburg, a local museum returned the snub by abruptly canceling an exhibit of wartime photographs, a tribute to Ansel Adams, Robert Capa and others, which was sponsored by the consulates of the United States and Britain. According to reports in the Russian news media, confirmed independently, the reason for the closing was political, a response to what is seen as a boycott of the May 9 parade.
The war may be long over, but the competition over its memory continues.
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The aircraft carrier USS Theodore Roosevelt is moving toward the waters off the coast of Yemen to prepare to intercept any potential Iranian shipments of weapons to the rebels fighting the U.S.-backed government of Yemen, a Pentagon official said Monday.
FBI director got it wrong on the Holocaust by Anne Applebaum
The Polish ambassador to Washington has protested, the Polish president has protested, the speaker of the Polish parliament (to whom I am married) has protested — and the U.S. ambassador to Warsaw has apologized profusely. Why? Because James Comey, the director of the FBI, in a speech that was reprinted in The Post arguing for more Holocaust education, demonstrated just how badly he needs it himself.Read full article >>
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(CNN)The FBI has arrested at least six men in what officials allege is an ISIS-inspired terror plot.
Details were scant Sunday night, but federal law enforcement officials told CNN the men were arrested in Minnesota and California as part of a year-long FBI investigation.
There was never a direct threat to the public, the sources said. In recent months, investigators have tracked on what they believe is a terror recruitment network focused on the Somali community in the Minneapolis area.
Minnesota U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger plans to hold a news conference to provide details on the case Monday, the sources said.
BOSTON — Federal agents trying to solve the biggest art theft in the nation’s history arrested a 79-year-old Hartford man on Friday after conducting their second sting against him in three years to force him to disclose the whereabouts of $500 million in stolen art, the man’s lawyer said.
The suspect, Robert V. Gentile, was arrested by F.B.I. agents on charges of selling a .38 Colt cobra revolver on March 2 to an unidentified man who was acting as a confidential informant for the authorities. Investigators say Mr. Gentile, who has been on probation as a result of a 2013 conviction that was part of the first Federal Bureau of Investigation sting against him, received $1,000 for the sale.
Mr. Gentile’s lawyer, A. Ryan McGuigan, said his client knew nothing about the art theft, which occurred 25 years ago at the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston and included works by Rembrandt and Vermeer. Officials investigating the robbery have said in recent weeks that they thought Mr. Gentile remained their strongest lead in the frustrating case because most of the men they had identified as suspects in the robbery were dead.
“It’s the same F.B.I. guys doing the same thing as last time,” Mr. McGuigan said. “They won’t stop squeezing my client.”
Federal officials refused to comment on the arrest Friday. But at a hearing in United States District Court in Hartford, a federal prosecutor, John Durham, said that investigators had a recent recording of Mr. Gentile discussing the sale of some of the stolen paintings.
Mr. Gentile was first imprisoned in May 2013 after he was convicted on federal charges of weapons possession and illegal sale of prescription narcotics. He was sentenced to 30 months and released on probation after serving one year because of his poor health.
After his first arrest, Mr. Gentile told officials he had no knowledge about the whereabouts of the 13 pieces of art stolen from the Gardner Museum on March 18, 1990. Investigators dug through his property and underneath a shed in his backyard looking for clues to the theft, and found what appeared to be a price list for each of the items.
At the time, Mr. McGuigan said, the authorities said they would drop the charges against Mr. Gentile and even grant him some of the $5 million in reward money if he told them the location of the stolen art. Mr. McGuigan said it would be “illogical” for his client to withhold information with so much reward money at stake. Prosecutors later said that Mr. Gentile performed poorly in a lie-detector test when questioned about the theft.
Mr. McGuigan said that in court on Friday, he and Mr. Gentile again adamantly denied that Mr. Gentile had any information about the crime. Mr. McGuigan said his client had diabetes and required a wheelchair. He questioned why Mr. Gentile was arrested on Friday during a visit to his parole officer when the alleged gun sale occurred more than six weeks earlier.
“If he’s such a danger to the community,” he said, “why did they wait so long to take him in?” Mr. McGuigan said the two F.B.I. special agents who arrested his client on Friday are the same men who offered Mr. Gentile a deal on the Gardner case in 2012. The agents, Geoff Kelly and James Lawton, are the lead agents on the Gardner investigation, according to the F.B.I.
In an interview in March, Mr. Kelly said he remained convinced that Mr. Gentile, a reputed member of organized crime, had knowledge of the art through longtime underworld associates in Philadelphia.
Mr. Gentile will be back in court on Monday after spending the weekend in jail, his lawyer said, adding that the weapons charge carried a prison term of 10 years and that he would accuse the F.B.I. of entrapment.
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BRUSSELS — Margrethe Vestager, Europe’s powerful antitrust chief, is expected on Wednesday to charge the Russian gas exporter Gazprom with abusing its dominance in natural gas markets to raise prices and quash competition.
The move should please countries like Lithuania and the United States that have been pushing the authorities in Brussels to crack down on Gazprom, a state-controlled company that the Kremlin depends on for significant export earnings. Over all, the European Union depends on Russia for one-third of its natural gas.
The move was confirmed by two people with knowledge of the case, who spoke on condition of anonymity because such decisions are confidential. Gazprom in Moscow said it “cannot comment before any documents are received.” A spokesman for Ms. Vestager declined to comment.
Europe is Gazprom’s most important and lucrative market by far, and the company’s business model involves opaque contracts that often restrict onward sales to third countries. Any concerted push by the European Union to force the state-controlled energy giant to change that model will be seen by Moscow as opening a new front in what it already views — after the imposition last year of economic sanctions over the Ukraine crisis — as the West’s “economic war” against Russia.
Russia, its economy battered by the twin blows of sanctions and low global oil prices, had hoped for an easing of relations with Europe when sanctions come up for review this summer. But it now confronts a further struggle to preserve the position of its biggest single company.
A European investigation of Gazprom has been underway for four years, with a series of negotiations between Brussels and Gazprom failing to produce a settlement. But the European Commission was wary of bringing formal charges.
One European concern was that an antitrust action could prompt Moscow to harden its line on Ukraine, as the West sought to resolve the fighting between Russian-backed separatists and the government in Kiev.
Forcing Gazprom to make its business more transparent and to relinquish control over what happens to the gas it sells to individual countries would directly challenge a crucial pillar of President Vladimir V. Putin’s economic and geopolitical strategy by limiting Moscow’s ability to set prices that favor some customers and penalize others. This in turn would hamper Moscow’s efforts to use the promise of cheap gas to divide Europe and break its so far united stand on Ukraine.
Gazprom’s willingness to wield its power was illustrated by its stopping the provision of fuel to Ukraine in midwinter “gas wars” in 2006 and 2009, which cascaded to shortages in Europe.
The formal charges against Gazprom would make it more likely that the Russian company would eventually be told to pay a fine — one that could theoretically run higher than 10 billion euros, or $10.7 billion, although European Union antitrust penalties have never gone that high.
But the larger worry for Gazprom would be the prospect of being forced to allow more competition in markets it has long controlled. The company, for example, could eventually be forced to drop conditions in its contracts with European utilities that restrict those utilities’ ability to share the gas with other countries.
Gazprom signed a huge 30-year deal signed last year with China to ramp up Russian gas sales there. The price China will pay Gazprom has never been announced but is believed to be far below the European rate.
The European Union, meanwhile, has been trying to encourage diversification of energy supplies as well as ensure that giant gas producers like Gazprom do not also control transport and sales through Europe.
In recent years, Gazprom’s plan to build a pipeline called South Stream from Russia — under the Black Sea to Western Europe, bypassing Ukraine — became a focus of dispute between the company and the European Union. Gazprom insisted that the pipeline would enhance Europe’s energy security. But the European Union, seeing it as an effort to further tighten Russia’s market hold, would not approve the project without major concessions from Moscow.
Bulgaria was to be the point of entry to Europe from the South Stream pipeline, but the European Union and the United States brought heavy pressure to bear on Bulgaria to reject the plan.
With little chance of a resolution in sight, Mr. Putin said in December that he would bring gas through Turkey instead. While negotiations between Ankara and Moscow are proceeding behind closed doors, it is still unclear how a Turkish pipeline would overcome European objections.
The European antitrust investigation began with surprise raids in 2011 by European officials on Gazprom offices and those of several of its customers in Germany and across Central and Eastern Europe, as investigators sought billing records.
A year later, in September 2012, Joaquín Almunia, Ms. Vestager’s predecessor, opened a formal antitrust case asking whether Gazprom was blocking gas flows in some parts of Europe. Other questions were whether the Russian company was thwarting its European customers’ efforts to diversify sources of supply, and whether it was imposing unfairly high charges by linking gas prices to those of oil, rather than basing prices on global natural gas market rates.
Since then, Russia has annexed Crimea and destabilized Ukraine after the government in Kiev began steering the country toward tighter relations with the West and the European Union. That made penalizing Gazprom an even more diplomatically fragile issue. Although there are no Western sanctions on Gazprom’s natural gas exports to Europe, both the European Union and the United States have made it possible to restrict some energy exploration technologies to Russia and to limit some financing to Russian finance entities like Gazprombank.
Lithuania is among six European Union member states that have long been dependent on Russia for all their gas — although Lithuania has established a gas-import terminal to break that monopoly. The others are Finland, Latvia, Estonia, Slovakia and Bulgaria, according to the European Commission.
As part of a series of settlements with Gazprom from 2003-5, the commission ensured that companies, including Eni of Italy, OMV of Austria and Ruhrgas of Germany, would no longer be prevented from reselling gas to buyers in other countries.
A move against Gazprom would be Ms. Vestager’s second big step in a week. Last Wednesday she filed formal charges accusing Google of abusing its dominance in the market for online search in Europe.
Ms. Vestager warned in a speech last week that she was prepared to conduct “competition enforcement” in European energy markets. Although she did not name Gazprom, she said there was a need to act “decisively against energy companies that harm rivals, block energy flows from one E.U. country to another, or threaten to close the tap.”
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WASHINGTON — FBI Director James Comey did not intend to suggest in an article last week that Poland was responsible for the Holocaust during World War Two, a State Department spokeswoman said on Monday after Washington's ambassador was summoned over the remarks.
Poland says a passage in the article wrongly implied it was complicit in the Nazi genocide of European Jews. Poland's ambassador to the United States called the remarks "unacceptable".
Spokeswoman Marie Harf confirmed that U.S. Ambassador to Warsaw, Stephen Mull, was called in by Polish authorities over the article published in the Washington Post, which drew condemnation in the media and from Polish politicians.
Comey said in the article: "In their minds, the murderers and accomplices of Germany, and Poland, and Hungary, and so many, many other places didn’t do something evil. They convinced themselves it was the right thing to do, the thing they had to do."
Harf said the United States "recognizes and admires the brave efforts of countless Poles, Hungarians and others in occupied Europe in protecting their Jewish countrymen and women from Nazi genocide."
"Director Comey certainly did not intend to suggest otherwise, did not intend to suggest that Poland was in some way responsible for the Holocaust," she added.
Asked whether the State Department believes Comey should apologize, Harf added: "I have nothing further for you on this."
Poland is one of the United States' closest European allies, and bilateral relations have been strengthened by the conflict in Ukraine and related tensions with Moscow.
(Reporting by Lesley Wroughton; Editing by Christian Plumb)
The Justice Department and FBI have formally acknowledged that nearly every examiner in an elite FBI forensic unit gave flawed testimony in almost all trials in which they offered evidence against criminal defendants over more than a two-decade period before 2000.
Today, the Blue Knights Law Enforcement Motorcycle Club will ride in honor of Phillip Cardillo, an NYPD officer who was killed 43 years ago inside a Harlem mosque. Later this year, it’s expected that the street in front of the new police academy in Queens will be named after Cardillo.
It’s a belated honor for the only unsolved police killing in modern NYPD history — a case, writes investigative reporter Micah Morrison, that may have an unlikely culprit.
At 11:41 a.m. April 14, 1972, a call came into the NYPD’s communication division.
“Hello, this is Detective Thomas of the 28th Precinct.”
“Yeah.”
“I have a 10-13 West 116th Street.”
“102 West 116th?”
“Right, that’s on the second floor.”
“Second floor?”
“Right”
“Hold on.”
But the caller hung up.
A 10-13 is every cop’s worst nightmare, a red alert meaning “officer in distress.”
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Chaos outside Mosque #7 in Harlem in 1972, an ambush that left Officer Phillip Cardillo dead.Photo: AP
Two policemen, Phillip Cardillo and Vito Navarra, rushed to the address, which was the Muhammed Mosque #7 of the Nation of Islam. Its leader, Louis Farrakhan, had offices on the third floor.
The mosque doors, usually bolted shut and manned by the Nation of Islam’s own paramilitary force, the Fruit of Islam, were unlocked and unguarded.
In the reception area, Cardillo and Navarra encountered six men. Navarra darted up the stairs. Somewhere up on the second floor, he believed, a brother officer was in serious trouble. He was met by 10 men who forced him back down the stairs.
Nine more cops rushed into the reception area. A fight broke out.
All but three of the cops were forced from the mosque and the metal doors were slammed shut and locked. Cardillo and two other cops were left inside.
At 11:45 — less than five minutes after the fake 10-13 call — police radios reported an ominous new development: shots fired.
Officer Phillip Cardillo was mortally wounded.
The blue book
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Muslim Minister Louis Farrakhan speaks to the crowd outside the mosque, urging them to be calm following the clash.Photo: New York Post
A year after the shooting, a secret internal NYPD review was conducted, known as the Blue Book.
According to the Blue Book, as cops forced their way back into the mosque, Cardillo and another officer were found “lying on the floor, both bloodied.” Cardillo had “received a gunshot wound on his right side during this attack, the bullet exiting from his left side.”
Backup had now arrived. Some of the officers pursued a “fleeing group into the basement, where approximately 16 [men] were located, frisked and detained.”
But the suspects “refused to answer questions and refused to identify themselves,” according to the Blue Book.
Meanwhile, outside, “the situation in the street deteriorated … to the point of potential riot.” A crowd had gathered, bricks were hurled from rooftops, vehicles were overturned and burned.
Farrakhan and Rep. Charlie Rangel appeared, while “other Muslims entered the basement and started screaming invectives at the officers and demanded the removal of all police officers from the mosque,” the Blue Book says.
One high-ranking officer at the scene, Chief of Detectives Albert Seedman, took charge.
Seedman said little about events in the basement for decades. He resigned soon after the incident. But in a 2011 preface to a new edition of his book, “Chief! Classic Cases from the Files of the Chief of Detectives,” he described what happened next.
Seedman said Rangel told him: “That crowd upstairs, they know you’re down here. I don’t know how long it will be before they come down. If you don’t leave now, I can’t guarantee your personal safety.”
Seedman was unfazed. He called in a request for backup. The NYPD had detailed plans to handle urban unrest. He was stunned by the response: Request denied.
He said a superior officer “made it clear to me that we should abandon the mosque in order to minimize the threat of a possible riot.”
Seedman said he made a deal with Rangel: The NYPD would leave the mosque if Rangel promised to deliver the suspects to a local police station that afternoon.
Rangel agreed.
The NYPD withdrew from the mosque, leaving behind the crime scene, blood and ballistics evidence, and 16 suspects.
Rangel and the suspects never showed up.
Rangel has denied Seedman’s version of the events, but has never offered his own. He did not respond to interview requests.
Thwarted investigation
Detectives faced the near-impossible task of finding Cardillo’s killer. Witnesses were in the wind, and mosque workers had already mopped up the crime scene.
In 1973, Detective Randy Jurgensen took over the case. Decades later, in his 2006 memoir “Circle of Six,” he would accuse members of the city’s political and police establishment of a “purposeful negligence of duty” in the Cardillo affair.
The grand jury led by the special prosecutor came to the same conclusion.
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Detective Randy Jurgensen (pictured here in 2009) took over the case in 1973.Photo: Christopher Sadowski
The Blue Book plays a key role in the case. Completed in 1973, the secret NYPD internal report — its official title is “Report and Analysis of the Muslim Mosque Incident of April 14, 1972” — is a detailed reconstruction of the Cardillo shooting and aftermath, with witness interviews, names of suspects, investigative leads, and a ballistics report.
According to the special prosecutor, however, “the Blue Book was only circulated within the upper ranks of the Police Department.”
“It had leads, it had witness names and a ballistics report,” said Jurgensen. “It would have been hugely important to our investigation. I never saw it.”
Despite these hurdles, investigators eventually zeroed in a suspect — Nation of Islam member Louis 17X Dupree.
But even then, the Blue Book appears to have been withheld from prosecutors at the Manhattan DA’s Office.
James Harmon was the lead prosecutor in both Dupree trials. “I do not have any recollection of ever seeing the Blue Book,” he said in a recent interview.
The lack of evidence hindered the prosecution. Dupree’s first trial resulted in a hung jury. In a second trial, Dupree, who now uses the name Khalid Elamin Ali, was acquitted.
‘Let’s get these bastards’
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President Richard Nixon and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover launched a secret program in New York in response to the assassinations of police officers. The two were recorded in a phone conversation discussing a 1971 assassination of two officers in a Harlem ambush; the result of this conversation was Operation Newkill.Photo: Getty Images (2)
However, whether or not Dupree pulled the trigger doesn’t answer the bigger question: Who lured Cardillo to his death?
The 10-13 call, it turns out, was a fake.
While there was an actual Detective Thomas working at the 28th Precinct, he didn’t make the call.
Who lured police to the second floor of the mosque, during a time of political and racial unrest, has never been answered.
Some believe it was a Nation of Islam member, trying to incite a confrontation.
Others note that prank calls were common at the time, and say some random person was trying to mess with the police.
But there’s another, disturbing possibility: the FBI.
In the 1960s and 1970s, the FBI was at war with America’s domestic enemies, real and imagined.
The FBI’s secret COINTELPRO counterintelligence program tried to disrupt and discredit many groups, including the Nation of Islam.
The concern went right to the top — to President Richard Nixon and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover.
The COINTELPRO program was unmasked in 1971 and ordered closed down. But Nixon and Hoover directed that another secret program be launched in New York in response to the assassinations of police officers.
In a conversation recorded by the White House taping system and released by the Nixon Library, Nixon and Hoover discuss the brutal May 1971 assassination of New York City Police Officers Waverly Jones and Joseph Piagentini, gunned down in a Harlem ambush.
“By God, let’s get these bastards,” Nixon said to Hoover.
“I’ll go all out on the intelligence on this thing,” Hoover said.
“Go in with everything you’ve got,” Nixon said. “Surveillance, electronic and everything.”
The result, as T.J. English reported in his book, “The Savage City,” was a new joint effort by the FBI and the NYPD: Operation Newkill.
Operation Newkill “would be devoted solely to seeking out and taking down anyone even peripherally involved in the police shootings,” English wrote. “The NYPD liaison was Chief of Detectives Albert Seedman” — the same high-ranking NYPD official who would later take charge of the Cardillo case.
FBI resources would be poured into the NYPD, English reported. In return, Hoover demanded only one condition: complete secrecy.
“The FBI’s involvement would never be acknowledged,” English wrote.
A ‘pretext call’
Confidential FBI documents released under the Freedom of Information Act raise questions about the extent of the FBI’s involvement in the Cardillo affair.
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Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan helped thwart the investigation.Photo: Spencer A. Burnett
One COINTELPRO tactic was the use of anonymous or “pretext” phone calls — FBI agents posing as someone else — to disrupt targeted groups.
A February 1968 COINTELPRO memo from the FBI’s New York field office to headquarters seeks permission to make “anonymous and other pretext phone calls . . . to neutralize and frustrate the activities of these black nationalists.”
The anonymous phone calls could sow dissent (“there’s an informant in your ranks”) or even get the police to conduct raids and break up meetings.
Six targets are noted in the memo. Four of the names have been blacked out by FBI censors.
“Could that fake 10-13 call sending cops to the mosque have been an FBI ‘pretext call’ gone terribly wrong?” asks Jurgensen. “Or could the FBI have had a high-level informant inside the mosque who was somehow involved and has been protected all these years? I don’t know. Only the FBI knows. But look at the Whitey Bulger case in Boston — there’s a situation where an individual was both a killer and an FBI informant.”
Two COINTELPRO memos note the presence of “high-level NOI [Nation of Islam] informants” and “top-level sources” in the Nation of Islam.
A never-before-seen confidential FBI report on Cardillo’s suspected killer, Dupree, lists six “informants” related to the case. All the names are blacked out. Disclosure of sources, the memo noted, could “adversely affect the national defense interest of the US.”
The report shows that the FBI had kept close tabs on Dupree for years as he was “driving Louis Farrakhan, minister in charge of Mosque #7.”
The FBI declined several requests to discuss the COINTELPRO and other documents.
Dupree, now 75, lives in New York and is said to be in poor health. Cleared of Cardillo’s death in two jury trials, he is beyond the reach of the law. He did not respond to several interview requests. The Nation of Islam did not respond to requests for comment.
‘We didn’t know’
Battered by the Cardillo affair, Jurgensen retired from the NYPD in 1977. He is still haunted by unresolved questions.
“Somebody in authority had to order the guards off the doors of the mosque and leave them unlocked and unguarded,” he said. “And somebody with knowledge of police procedure and personnel had to make that 10-13 call” sending the NYPD to the mosque.
Harmon left the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office in 1977 to become a federal prosecutor. He later served as executive director of the President’s Commission on Organized Crime. He says the NYPD and FBI documents raise questions about the Cardillo case.
“We didn’t have this information when we tried the case in the 1970s,” he said. “We didn’t know about the Blue Book. We didn’t know about the FBI activities — the informants, the focus on the Nation of Islam.”
He too is haunted by the unsolved murder. He thinks there is one last hope to solve the case: the secret files of the FBI.
“Today, the unanswered question is: Does the FBI have any information in its informant, wiretap and electronic surveillance records pertaining to the shooting of Officer Cardillo?”
Micah Morrison is chief investigative reporter for the watchdog group Judicial Watch.
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