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Recent Appearances...

Government Corruption

Was the Terrorist Attack in Colleyville a Replay of the Terrorist Attack in Garland in 2015?

2022-01-18

[The Last Refuge] I have intentionally not written about the terrorist attack in Colleyville, Texas, because my initial review saw significant parallels to the first ISIS attack on U.S. soil which took place in 2015 at Garland Texas, carried out by Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi.

In the Garland attack the FBI organized, facilitated and coordinated the attack. The FBI even drove the terrorists to the attack venue and then left once the shooting began. Yes, you read that correctly, the first ISIS attack on U.S. soil was organized by the FBI. {Go Deep} CTH dug deep on the 2015 Garland attack, so it wasn’t too difficult to spot the similarities between Garland 2015 and Colleyville 2022.

♦ Colleyville, Texas — Malik Faisal Akram, who was known as Faisal Akram, had a well known Islamic extremist history to British and American intelligence. Akram ranted, prior to his travel to the U.S, that he wished he had died in the 9/11 terror attacks. He was a regular visitor to Pakistan, and reportedly a member of the Tablighi Jamaat group set up to ’purify’ Islam. To say the U.S. intelligence system knew Faisal Akram would be an understatement. The FBI knowledge of Akram has now been confirmed by The Daily Mail.

So, the questions become: (1) how did Faisal Akram gain a visa to enter the United States? (2) Who did he visit? (3) Who gave him the weapon? (4) Who facilitated his travel and targeting operations; and lastly, (5) who financed and assisted him in his attack?

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Government

Judge Dismisses Lawsuit Alleging FBI Role in 2015 Terror Attack in Texas

2019-01-06

[FreeBeacon] A federal judge has dismissed a lawsuit by a security guard who was injured during a 2015 terror attack by ISIS radicals in Garland, Texas. Bruce Joiner alleged the FBI was liable, arguing the bureau had prior knowledge of the impending violence and had even helped incubate the idea with attackers, but then failed to stop it.

Joiner was shot in the lower leg after Elton Simpson

...African-American known wolf who turned to Islam in high school to keep himself from running with a wild crowd, but found jihad instead. The FBI first noticed him in 2006 when he befriended a man trying to set up a jihadi cell in Phoenix, then stopped him from joining Al Shabaab in 2010...

and Nadir Soofi

...born in Garland, Texas to a Pakistani father and an American mother, he was an outgoing teenage heartthrob back at his fancy private school in Islamabad but failed at everything he tried after his divorced mother brought him with her to America, so he turned to his dad’s religion for solace. Along with Phoenix roommates Elton Simpson and Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem, he looked around for a jihadi project — and this nice little massacre seemed just the ticket...

opened fire at a perimeter checkpoint at the Curtis Culwell Center in Garland, where inside "The First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest" was taking place.

That was Pamela Geller’s effort. As far as I know, there was not a second one.

ISIS later claimed responsibility, marking the first time the terror group ever carried out an attack on U.S. soil. Simpson and Soofi were fatally shot within yards of where their attack began.

Documents released through other court cases, however, revealed how close the FBI was to the action of the attack, which has since drawn media and congressional scrutiny.

Shortly after the "Muhammad Art Exhibit" event was announced in early 2015, the undercover agent who had been infiltrating the small cell of radicals texted Simpson, saying, "tear up Texas."

Additionally, the undercover agent was in a separate car directly behind Simpson and Soofi when they opened fire and had been taking pictures of the attackers' car just seconds before the shooting began.

When the first shots were fired, the undercover agent fled his own vehicle, but was apprehended by local police, at which point the agent told police he was undercover with the FBI.

Joiner claimed the FBI was liable for his injury and was seeking millions in damages but has consistently maintained that his lawsuit was about getting information from the bureau to uncover the full extent of their actions leading up to the attack.

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Home Front: WoT

Akron: OH man who supported ISIS sentenced to 16 years in federal prison

2018-06-23

[Cleveland.com] A Sheffield Lake man who bought an AK-47 from an undercover FBI agent with the purpose of supporting the Islamic State terrorist group was sentenced Wednesday to 16 years in federal prison.

Amir Al-Ghazi, 41, received the sentence handed down by U.S. District Judge Sara Lioi in Akron after reaching an agreement with federal prosecutors to admit to charges and cooperate with the government. The agreement led Al-Ghazi to take the stand in March against a North Carolina man in another terrorism case.

That would be Erick Jamal Hendricks, who contacted Mr. Al-Ghazi on social media to oersuade him to form an ISIS cell. Mr. Hendricks is clearly an extrovert, because he was also social media friends with Elton Simpson and Nadir Hamid Soofi, the Garland Texas attackers who failed so miserably despite FBI encouragement.

At his sentencing he said that he wanted to prove to the judge that he had sworn off his previously-held extremist views for good.

"My speech was violent at the time and I can do nothing but apologize for that," he said.

Al-Ghazi tried for months to buy an assault weapon to use as a "prop" in propaganda videos, Assistant US Attorney Shepherd said. However, chats Al-Ghazi had with informants also showed that he tried to recruit a "squad" for U.S.-based attacks, the prosecutor explained.

He finally succeeded, or so he thought, in June 2015, when he paid $400 to an undercover FBI agent in North Olmsted. He pleaded guilty in March 2016 to attempting to provide material support to ISIS, as well as weapons charges.

Al-Ghazi has said his path to supporting ISIS was fueled by anger and drug abuse and that he frequently posted "crazy messages on Twitter" to get a rise out of people.

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Home Front: WoT

Ohio jury finds man guilty of trying to create ISIS-inspired terrorist cell in U.S.

2018-03-22

[Cleveland.com] AKRON, Ohio -- An Ohio jury on Tuesday found a former FBI informant guilty of trying to create a terrorist cell in the U.S. to carry out attacks in the name of the Islamic State.

Erick Jamal Hendricks, of Charlotte, North Carolina, faces up to 30 years in federal prison following the jury's decision to convict him on charges of conspiracy and attempting to provide material support and resources to a foreign terrorist organization.

Hendricks, 37, was arrested in North Carolina in August 2016. Prosecutors said much of his activities took place online through Twitter and various encrypted chat apps, though the FBI tracked him in Baltimore as he met in person with someone he believed to be a recruit. In fact, the man was an FBI informant.

A large part of the government's case against Hendricks centered on his connection to one of two gunmen who opened fire at "The First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest" in Garland, Texas in May 2015. Elton Simpson and Nadir Hamid Soofi drove from Phoenix to Garland, which is outside Dallas. They wounded a security guard before a police officer and killed them.

Hendricks was not in Texas but was chatting with an undercover FBI agent before and after Simpson and Soofi opened fire. The agent testified that he was in Garland at the time and saw Simpson and Soofi open fire, but he was not aware of the pair's plan before it was executed.

Hendricks is not from Ohio and most of the criminal activity the federal government charged him with did not occur here. It was tried in Akron largely because Hendricks reached out to Sheffield Lake man Amir Al-Ghazi on social media in order to get him to recruit others.

Al-Ghazi, who is awaiting sentencing for buying an AK-47 in support of ISIS, testified against Hendricks.

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Home Front: WoT

FBI Agent Drove Away As Jihadists Open Fire in Garland, Texas

2017-02-11

An undercover FBI agent who was investigating terrorism was driving past two Arizona men just before they opened fire outside a prophet Muhammad cartoon contest in suburban Dallas in 2015, court records show, raising questions about whether authorities could have done more to stop the attack.

The records became available to The Associated Press in the criminal case against Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem, a Phoenix man who was sentenced this week to 30 years in prison on criminal convictions that included providing support to Islamic State.

Kareem wasn't at the event in Garland, but authorities say he provided guns used by Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi in the attack, instructed them on how to use weapons and watched violent jihadist videos with them.

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Great White North

Islamic State claims attempted attack on Canadian police

2016-08-12

Update from yesterday's reports.

[IsraelTimes] Aaron Driver shot dead after detonating bomb in a cab, which Amaq Agency says was ‘response to call to target coalition countries’

The Islamic State’s news agency claimed Thursday that a Canadian man killed by police a day earlier was a member of the jihadist group and acting on its general instructions.

Aaron Driver, 24, was killed Wednesday during a police raid outside the home where he was staying with his sister in the town of Strathroy, Ontario, after he detonated a small explosive in the back seat of a cab.

He was detained last year for pro-IS media posts, and an investigation has revealed his extensive ties to foreign jihadists.

An unnamed source told the Amaq Agency that Driver “was a soldier of the Islamic State and carried out the operation in response to call to target coalition countries.”

Police said they acted to thwart an imminent “potential terrorist threat.”

Driver first came to the attention of authorities in October 2014 with tweets in support of IS and justifying the killing of a soldier standing guard at the Canadian National War Memorial in Ottawa by a young Muslim convert.

In June 2015, a court ordered him to undergo religious counseling, wear an electronic monitoring bracelet and stay off the internet. Those restrictions were gradually loosened and were scheduled to expire this month.

A convert to Islam, Driver’s views had apparently become increasingly radical after he began following the war in Syria online.

“If a country goes to war with another country or another people or another community, I think that they have to be prepared for things like” the October 22, 2014 attack in Ottawa, Driver told the CBC. “And when it does happen they shouldn’t, they shouldn’t act surprised. They had it coming to them; they deserved it.”

Still, he publicly disavowed violence.

“I don’t think there’s a reason for Canadians to think that I’m a threat,” he said.

The RCMP, however, revealed that Driver had been in “fairly constant contact” with violent extremists around the world. They included two members of the Islamic State group, a British youth arrested for his involvement in a terror plot targeting Australia, and Elton Simpson — one of two Americans who launched an attack on a Texas exhibition of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed last year.

Investigators searching Driver’s home in 2015 found a recipe for homemade bombs on his computer.

In a video released by the RCMP on Thursday, Driver warned Canadians: “You have Muslim blood on your hands and for this we will have your blood.”

He called Canadians and their allies “mischief makers” who spread “oppression and corruption.”

“You will pay for everything that you have done against us,” he said, dressed in black clothes and a balaclava.

According to Canadian media, Driver converted to Islam in his teens after a difficult childhood and a split with his father.

Public broadcaster CBC said his mother died when he was seven years old. Driver and his father — a Canadian soldier — recounted last year in interviews with the CBC how their relationship had become strained. The father, whose name was withheld, said his son had become increasingly withdrawn.

“It was like he turned out the lights and put a ‘Do Not Disturb’ sign on the door,” the father told CBC. “When he was living at home, he was very secretive; a lone wolf. He didn’t bring friends over, never talked about where he was going and what he was doing."

Driver lived away from home during most of his teenage years.

At age 17 he turned to religion. Baptized Christian in his birth province of Saskatchewan, he started reading the Bible, he said, but added “I just decided it couldn’t possibly be the word of God.”

After exploring other religions, he converted to Islam.

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Home Front: WoT

FBI arrests 35-year-old North Carolina man who wanted to start an ISIS sleeper cell

2016-08-05

[DailyMail] o Erick Jamal Hendricks, 35, was placed in durance vile
Drop the rosco, Muggsy, or you're one with the ages!
in Charlotte, North Carolina

o FBI officials say he tried to recruit fighters for the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
o According to an affidavit, Hendricks communicated with the two men who carried out the Garland, Texas terror shooting

o Elton Simpson and Nadir Hamid Soofi were rubbed out by SWAT teams after opening fire and killing an off-duty cop at a conference center in 2015

o In April 2015, Hendricks told an undercover agent that he was in communication with ISIS leaders

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Home Front: WoT

Jury finds Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem guilty of helping plan terror attack in Garland, Texas

2016-03-20

[ABC15] The U.S. government landed its second conviction of someone charged with supporting the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
terrorist group after an Arizona man was found guilty of charges that he plotted last spring's attack at a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest in Texas.

Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem, an American-born Muslim convert, was accused of providing the guns used at the May 3 event in suburban Dallas and hosting two Islamic State followers at his home to discuss the upcoming attack. He also was found guilty of providing support to the Islamic State.

The verdict Thursday marked the second time a person was tried in the U.S. on charges related to the terrorist group. A trial in New York ended a week ago with a guilty verdict against a U.S. military veteran charged with attempting to join Islamic State.

Federal authorities said Kareem's conviction demonstrates their commitment to combating terrorism.

In certain forms, absolutely. But the Obama government is still mad for Muslim Brotherhood members as consultants and high level bureaucrats

Kareem, who faces a maximum prison term of 45 years, was scheduled to be sentenced on June 27.

Kareem's attorney, Daniel Maynard, declined to comment after the verdict.

Prosecutors say Kareem, who grew up in a Baptist household and converted to Islam as an adult, also went target-shooting in the remote Arizona desert with two men killed in a police shootout outside the contest, Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi. A security officer was maimed in the attack, but no one else was injured.

It's unknown whether the attack was inspired by the Islamic State or carried out in response to an order from the Islamic State.

Authorities say Kareem, Simpson and Soofi had researched travel to the Middle East to join fighters for the terrorist group.

Kareem testified that he had no knowledge beforehand that his friends were going to attack the contest featuring cartoons deemed offensive to Muslims. He insisted that he didn't even know about the event until after Simpson and Soofi were killed.

Prosecutors said Kareem tried to carry out an insurance scam to fund a conspiracy to support the Islamic State group and attempted to indoctrinate two teenage boys in his neighborhood on radical jihadism.

They also say Kareem, Simpson and Soofi initially wanted to blow up the Arizona stadium where the 2015 Super Bowl was held, but when that plan failed, they set their sights on the cartoon contest.

Kareem told jurors that he evicted Simpson from his home because he believed Simpson was putting tracking devices in his car. He also said he strongly disapproved of Simpson using Kareem's laptop to watch al-Qaeda promotional materials.

Stefan Verdugo, one of Kareem's former roommates, testified that Kareem wanted to get Dire Revenge against people who portrayed the Prophet Muhammad in drawings and had inquired about the types of explosives that would be needed to blow up the stadium.

Defense attorneys attacked Verdugo's credibility by pointing out that he is in jail on a sex-trafficking charge.

Kareem denied inquiring about explosives.

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Home Front: WoT

Arizona Man Charged With Supporting Islamic State Group

2015-12-25

[ABCNEWS.GO] An Arizona man already accused of helping plan an attack on a Prophet Muhammad cartoon contest in Texas in the spring also planned to fight with the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group and inquired about explosives to attack a Super Bowl game, an indictment states.

The document released Wednesday charges Abdul Malik Abdul Kareem with conspiracy to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

Prosecutors allege he researched traveling to the Middle East to fight alongside the group and inquired about the types of explosives that would be needed to blow up a mall and the stadium in metro Phoenix where the 2015 Super Bowl was held.

Kareem's attorney, Daniel Maynard, didn't immediately return a call seeking comment on Thursday.

Kareem is accused of researching the trip and seeking the pipe bomb information with Elton Simpson and Nadir Soofi, who were killed in a May 3 shootout with police outside the cartoon contest in Garland, Texas.

An earlier indictment accused Kareem of providing the guns used in that attack, hosting the gunnies in his home to discuss the contest, and practicing shooting with Simpson and Soofi in the desert outside Phoenix.

The new charge alleges he encouraged Simpson and Soofi to carry out violence in the United States in support of Islamic State and impose retribution for U.S. military actions in the Middle East.

A section of the indictment describing Simpson and Soofi's trip to the cartoon contest says they were carrying a printed paper version of the Islamic State flag.

Cosme Lopez, a front man for the U.S. Attorney's Office in Phoenix, which is prosecuting Kareem, declined to say whether authorities believe the Texas attack was carried out on behalf of Islamic State.

Maynard previously said the case was trumped up and based largely on an unreliable confidential informant.

Maynard has sought to stop prosecutors from using al-Qaeda promotional materials found in Kareem's possession as evidence during his trial. A ruling has not yet been made on the request.

The indictment says Kareem, Simpson and Soofi began in 2014 to conspire to support Islamic State and considered targeting military bases, individual military service members, shopping malls and the Super Bowl.

It says Simpson and Soofi drove to Yuma and other spots in Arizona near military installations after discussing the plan to attack bases.

In a bizarre turn, authorities say Kareem faked having being struck by a car in a parking lot and later tried to make an insurance claim in a scheme intended to support the conspiracy.

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Home Front: WoT

Fast and Furious Hand Gun Used in Garland, TX Terrorist Attack

2015-08-02

One of the terrorists involved in the attack on the Mohammad Art Exhibit and Contest in Garland, Texas, was allegedly allowed to purchase a 9mm handgun from a gun store that is connected to the infamous Fast and Furious gun program run by the Obama Administration in 2010. The pistol was reported to have been purchased at Lone Wolf Trading Co. located in Phoenix.

Lone Wolf was known at the time by gun smugglers to be a store that would sell firearms illegally, according to a report by Richard Serrano with the Chicago Tribune. Nadir Soofi, one of the two terrorists killed during the attack in Garland, had a history of misdemeanor drug and assault charges, the Tribune reported. That could have made him ineligible to legally purchase a gun. While in the Lone Wolf store, Soofi allegedly fudged some facts on the federal firearms form required for gun purchases in a licensed gun store.

Unknown to Soofi, Lone Wolf was in the middle of a federal sting operation knows as Fast and Furious. The ATF program was aimed at Mexican drug lords and traffickers who were attempting to buy guns in the United States and move them to Mexico. The program went sideways when federal officials lost track of the firearms, many of which allegedly ended up in Mexico.

One of those weapons was found at the scene of the murder of U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry. Agent Terry was part of a Border Patrol team responding to the possible presence of Mexican bandits in southern Arizona. He was killed in an ensuing gunfight. One of the guns found at the scene was eventually traced to the Fast and Furious program.

When Soofi submitted the required form, the store contacted the FBI for a background check, according to the Tribune report. Serrano's article cites a Los Angeles Times article that stated a seven-day hold was placed on the pistol Soofi was attempting to purchase. For reasons that have yet to be explained, that hod was released after one day and Soofi was reported to have left the store with the pistol.

Lone Wolf gun store owner, Andre Howard, has reportedly denied selling the handgun to Soofi.

In May, Soofi and his roommate Elton Simpson attacked the Garland exhibit center where the Mohammad Art Exhibit, being attended by three Breitbart Texas writers, was about to let out. Breitbart Texas reported the two men jumped out of their vehicles and opened fire on a Garland police officer and an unarmed Garland school district security officer.

The Garland police officer drew his sidearm and returned fire. Both of the gunmen were killed. The police officer was struck in the foot. He was transported to the hospital and released that evening.

The Tribune reports states that the FBI has not released any details regarding the weapons used by the two terrorists. "Senate investigators are now pressing law enforcement agencies for answers, raising the chilling possibility that a gun sold during the botched Fast and Furious operation ended up being used in a terrorist attack against Americans," Serrano wrote.

Soofi's mother said her son acquired an AK-47 late in 2014. The Tribune reports states that federal officials believe Soofi and his accomplice may have been planning a Super Bowl attack. The Super Bowl was held in Glendale, Arizona, near Phoenix.

Bob Price is a senior political news contributor for Breitbart Texas and a member of the original Breitbart Texas team. Follow him on Twitter @BobPriceBBTX and on Facebook.

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Terror Networks

US officials warn of encrypted communications by extremists

2015-06-05