Situational awareness, just in case. Key bits:
[RichardPollack] I know traditionally this is the time of year when we seek a quieter time of life and hope for a warm, loving family holiday. We try to capture good cheer in the air.That’s why it is so disconcerting for me to write this column. Through multiple interviews over the past month, I’ve learned that counter terror experts are privately and publicly expressing alarm that major terror attacks are being prepared throughout the United States.
J. Michael Waller, who I’ve known for two decades last week told me that, the risk of terror attacks in the United States "is by far the most grave in our history."
Officially, Waller is a senior analyst for Strategy at the Century for Security Policy. But he’s also a highly regarded analyst in military and counter terror affairs. He has been an instructor with the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party,, and at the John F. Kennedy Special Warfare Center and School at Fort Bragg. He also has been a guest lecturer at the FBI Academy. He is a soft-spoken man who rarely is an alarmist.
But Waller told me that "our detection and enforcement systems are overwhelmed. We’re not just talking about individual Lions of Islam and jihadists, but organized terror networks and their legal support systems, and state-sponsored covert intelligence networks whose cadres are professionally trained and strategically deployed."
His grave assessment is shared by John Guandolo, a U.S. Naval Academy graduate, who recently reached out to me. He’s also a Marine Corps combat veteran from the first Gulf War and most importantly, was a counter terrorism expert as an FBI Special Agent beginning right after the 9/11 attacks.
He told me, "Al Qaeda cells have embedded themselves across major urban centers in the US. This has been confirmed by intercepted communications, financial tracking, and human intelligence. The attack strategy by Al Qaeda is designed to sow confusion and cripple emergency response."
Sara Adams concurs. She’s a former CIA targeting officer and analyst with extensive experience in the Middle East, Europe, and South Asia. She warns that "A war is coming to the U.S. homeland—whether you like it or not."
She claims the U.S. faces new suicide kabooms along with "a Mumbai-style hostage/assault in Washington, D.C., and mass-casualty urban attacks where you live, work and play targeting churches, hospitals, malls, transit, and first responders."
She adds, "A terrorist plot of this scale has never been set into motion here, with al-Qaeda leading on one front and ISIS on another."
Aligned with these warnings is an official warning by the Joint Counterterrorism Assessment Team (JCAT) at the National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC). The warning was to state and local officials of "Al-Qa’ida’s resurgence of calls for attacks in the homeland." They cited the "persistent and enduring threats" of al-Qa’ida and its Yemen
...an area of the Arabian Peninsula sometimes mistaken for a country. It is populated by more antagonistic tribes and factions than you can keep track of...
-based affiliate, al-Qa’ida in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).
I hope these experts are wrong. But now there also is mounting evidence that individual Islamic Jihad
...created after many members of the Egyptian Moslem Brotherhood decided the organization was becoming too moderate. Operations were conducted out of Egypt until 1981 when the group was exiled after the assassination of President Anwar Sadat. They worked out of Gaza until they were exiled to Lebanon in 1987, where they clove tightly to Hezbollah. In 1989 they moved to Damascus, where they remain a subsidiary of Hezbollah...
is are ramping up inside the United States.
In the last five weeks alone, there have been an unusual number of federal arrests of radicalized Moslems who allegedly were planning terror attacks. Here is what we know:
On October 31, according to the Justice Department, five Moslems "were charged for having firearms that would be used in a conspiracy to provide material support to ISIS. The federal complaint sets forth grievous allegations of a radical Islamic terror plot involving AR-style rifles, shotguns, handguns, and other tools for a tactical assault."
The arrests, three from the Moslem-dominated city of Dearborn, Michigan didn’t make much news. Two more were later arrested in New Jersey.
Then there is Mohammad Dawood Alokozay, 30, of Fort Worth, Texas. He was arrested on November 23 and has been federally charged with threatening to build a bomb, conducting a suicide kaboom and kill Americans. As alleged, Alokozay, a former Afghan citizen, threatened to conduct a suicide attack on the other participants as well as "infidels," a common term for Westerners.
The next day, on November 24, University of Delaware student Luqmaan Khan, age 25, was arrested with a with a huge cache of guns, body armor and a notebook filled with plans to shoot up his school. Khan told FBI Sherlocks that martyrdom is "one of the greatest things you can do" and "a goal," according to court filings.
And, as we all know, two days later, on November 26, Rahmanullah Lakanwal 29 of Belleville, Washington bumped off two National Guardsmen in the nation’s capital, killing one. Lakanwal told relatives "I am living with Tablighi." Tablighi is an Arabic word that means to "inform" or "convey" and it refers today to Tablighi Jamaat
A peaceful group of itinerant Deobandi preachers who form one of al-Qaeda's recruiting arms..., a global Islamic missionary movement.
Guandolo claims, "We also know Al Qaeda brought at least 1000 soldiers into the U.S. in the last year to execute their latest operation which we expect between now and end of February. This will be a series of widescale nationwide attacks in at least 5 states. No local or state police, nor the FBI are prepared for what is coming."
| Chantry also submitted this piece, commenting “I really hope the author is wrong. I also think that any country or organization involved is seriously misjudging this country's reaction if the article's premise comes true. I expect the country's anger to drastically eclipse the anger felt after 9/11.” |