Tag Archives: counterterrorism

Homegrown Terror Plot Thwarted: Cleveland, Ohio — FBI Arrest Demetrius Nathaniel Pitts AKA Abdur Raheem Rafiq for “attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization.”

02 Monday Jul 2018

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Fast News Share, United States of America

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Arrested: Demetrius Nathaniel Pitts AKA Abdur Raheem Rafiq , Cleveland, Ohio for “attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization”.  Pitts appears to have a related record online: http://www.bustedmugshots.com/ohio/columbus/demetrius-nathaniel-pitts/17357991.  A similar al-Qaeda related story broke in 2003 with the arrest of Ohio-based trucker Lyman Faris, then 34 years old, in New York City for the same thing — and with the same M.O.

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Also in Media: “The Operational Ranks and Roles of Female ISIS Operatives: From Assassins and Morality Police to Spies and Suicide Bombers” – ICSVE – April 23, 2017

24 Monday Apr 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Also in Media, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Religion

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“. . . . You know they have an office for Daesh women? If somehow you forget yourself and speak loudly or take off your gloves, you should pray that if Daesh catches you that it is the Daesh men. You can beg the men, you can apologize, there is a chance that they would limit their abuse to verbal. Daesh women have no hearts.”

Source: The Operational Ranks and Roles of Female ISIS Operatives: From Assassins and Morality Police to Spies and Suicide Bombers – ICSVE

Most pass-along through BackChannels now shows up on the blog’s Facebook page.  However, with this latest from the counterterrorism research community, BC felt it might be helpful to produce greater awareness of the International Center for the Study of Violent Extremism.  As Muslims prove most frequently the targets of “Islamist” zealots, BackChannels would venture to suggest that that majority of the world’s military and paramilitary forces and the journalists covering the same have interest in the study of “violent extremism” and the many experiences and methods that channel humans toward the obliteration of conscience.

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Jihadi Talk – The Dictionary by Nancy Hartevelt Kobrin

17 Tuesday Jan 2017

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Political Psychology, Religion

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Jihadi Dictionary cvr.jpg

Kobrin, Nancy Hartevelt.  The Jihadi Dictionary: The Essential Intel Tool for Military, Law Enforcement, Government and the Concerned Public.  Mamaroneck, New York: MultiEducator Press, 2016 (Amazon – Paperback).

Kobrin, Nancy Hartevelt.  The Jihadi Dictionary: The Essential Intel Tool for Military, Law Enforcement, Government and the Concerned Public.  Mamaroneck, New York: MultiEducator Press, 2016 (Amazon – Kindle).

From the introduction:

The purpose of this dictionary is to explain the confusing and terrifying behavior of the jihadis by bringing to light their unconscious motivation. What is missing in their mental development that makes an entire group enact such vicious crimes not only against humanity but even their own people? The reservoir of their rage arises from problems nested in early maternal attachment in shame–honor cultures ― the early mother/infant bonding attachment, the first relationship in life. This is the real driver of the terrorism. While there has been a voluminous amount of material written about terrorism, little hinges on how to decode the meaning of the terrorists’ aberrant behavior from the perspective of early childhood development and trauma.

One has to be cautious not to “diagnosis” an entire group of people, but given the amount of destruction, cruelty, sadism, and revenge leading to heinous crimes against humanity, in this case I make an exception. Daesh, The Islamic State, helped me uncover a borderline psychotic diagnosis for jihadis because their behavior is so out of bounds in terms of morality and ethics that it has revealed its own psychosis. Others in the Arab world are aware of this and realize that they have created a tiger whose tail they are now bound to ride. Hezbollah and Iranian extremism has also been blatant in its wanton destruction and, in fact, has been a major funder of Sunni violence even though they are Shia. Almost worse than the terrorist attacks themselves is the jihadis’ lack of empathy and concern for the pain they cause. Jihadis are incapable of walking in the shoes of others. They may appear to be empathic, but it is only what I refer to as pseudo-empathy.

Kobrin’s writing is as entertaining as its interpretations of language are educating and loaded with insight.

Here’s a portion from the first “A” — for “Acting Out”:

Acting out is a process frequently seen in play therapy, where children have the opportunity to play out their most violent behavior and repressed fantasies.  Often these acts are attacks against the mother, who is seen as the source of painful dependency needs and nurturing.  The breast that is needed is also the breast that needs to be destroyed — e.g., beheadings, rage against their mothers, the need to get rid of her, to violently separate from her.  Jihadis manifest extreme attention-seeking behavior . . . .  “watching somebody else doing an action is just like doing the action yourself.”

On a late page (271-272) — and all between appears just as well grounded and rich in perspective — comes this gem associated with “Neoteny”:

The Islamic suicide terrorists and all their accessories to the crime — the engineer bomb maker, the recruiter, the sender, the escort, the charismatic leader, their mothers and fathers, their uncles, the clan, the tribe, the umma — are terrified because they, too, have been “neotenized”.  They are developmentally arrested and have never been allowed to separate, individuate, mature, or be free, independent, self-sufficient, confident, and competent human beings.  They live their early lives in the throes of terrorizing and shaming child-rearing practices.  If one never separates psychologically, they are left with group think, a kind of herd mentality.  The family, the community, and the culture embody and accept bad behavior as normative . . . .

For all curious as how it is that Islam, the Religion of Peace seems to be somewhere always wading in blood and unimaginable cruelty, The Jihadi Dictionary delivers answers and explanations aplenty — and they would seem to work.

BackChannels Aside

BackChannels has long maintained that Moscow today “plays” the Jihadists by using their own motivations, proclivities, tendencies, and weaknesses to incite, manipulate, and position the same in service to Moscow’s own medieval ends.  As much fits with Soviet Russia’s long history of involvement with terrorism and certainly this blog’s observation of Assad’s engineering the incubation of ISIL.

If the jihadist were not so predictable, the same would not be so useful to the politicians, like Assad, who have figured out how to get some use out of them.

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Also in Media -Retrospective (2014)Look at American Policy and Language Associated with (Islamic) Extremism

31 Sunday Jul 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Syndicate Red Brown Green

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In October 2014, Katharine Gorka of the Council on Global Security published a white paper on how language was developed and finessed by the American government to cultivate the moderate and discourage extremists.  While noting “The conscious effort not to insult “peaceful” Muslims and at the same time not confer legitimacy on violent Muslims,” she settles on a critique of “Social Movement Theory and Counter-Terrorism Policy,” which turns out also a criticism of the Obama Administration’s approach to “Allahu Akbar” terrorist attacks up to the approximate date of publication.

Here is an excerpt from the thesis of the work:

What are the implications of the Social Movement paradigm for U.S. counter-terrorism policy? First and foremost, it dismisses the ideas and beliefs that inspire
terrorists to act. It reduces their actions from religiously or ideologically inspired acts of will to merely reflexive reaction, little more than an involuntary response to abject circumstances. In this way it also serves to legitimize the actions of extremists, deeming them not as the unjust and horrific acts that they are but as the rational and justified response to negative circumstances, whether they be imperialism, colonialism, tyranny, or poverty.

To be clear, social movement theory can provide valuable and instructive insights into how groups form and behave, but as a unitary and all-encompassing lens through which to view Islamic terrorism and extremism, it dooms the United
States to strategic failure.

Not surprisingly, this single issue is at the heart of the current debate. Today, in the United States, the most important point of contention over U.S. counter-terrorism policy is its deliberate rejection of the ideological component, of the way in which Islam itself drives or inspires extremism or terrorism.

A large number of authors and analysts, as well as lawmakers, have criticized the systemic failure of the U.S. government to address the ideological component of Islamist terrorism.

This paper argues that the roots of that failure lie here, in the application of social movement theory to Islamic activism. If one looks closely at the policy documents that emerged from Obama’s National Security Staff around this time, one can see the influence of social movement theory as well as the criticisms these documents elicited.

 

Gorka, Katharine C.  “The Flawed Science Behind America’s Counter-Terrorism Strategy.” (PDF) White paper, p. 11.  The Council on Global Security, October 2014.

 

As a history, Gorka’s paper covers the many strategies that have been applied to detected and quelling Islamist violence — or should that be “Islamist”?

BackChannels has dropped the quotation marks for at least that much.

While dismissing the “social movement paradigm” as a foundation for counterterrorism strategy, Gorka may have overlooked other contributing variables, much including messianic-narcissistic drives in Islamist leaders and the ranks that support them, and behind that — basically taking place earlier in the formation of personality — the “narcissistic mortification” that drive compulsive wishes and actions beyond normal boundaries in belligerence and the importance of the centrality of control to proponents.

While making the “call the spade a spade argument” — ” . . . language must be used that accurately identifies and distinguishes the enemy, for example, the Global Jihadist Movement” — Gorka may have missed the extremism developing in the Red “comrade networks” of the anti-Semitic International Solidarity / Palestinian Solidarity movements and in such “Brown” and “New Nationalist” spheres as the right-wing Jobbik in Hungary and now so many name-your-nation “defense leagues” springing up in response to the goad of Islamist terrorist events.

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Fast Share – ‘What the Cold War Can Teach Us About Jihadism’ | Stratfor

15 Friday Jul 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Syndicate Red Brown Green

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But as I was writing about the structure of the Islamic State last week, I encountered more and more parallels to the global Marxist movement. This got me thinking even more intently about the similar ways that the two — despite their differences — have applied, encouraged and supported the use of violence. In light of these parallels, the lessons derived from the decades-long struggle against communism throughout the world may provide important guidance for the continuing fight against jihadism.

Read more by Scott Stewart: What the Cold War Can Teach Us About Jihadism | Stratfor – 7/14/2016.

Former Army National Guard Member Arrested for Attempting to Provide Material Support to ISIL | OPA | Department of Justice

06 Wednesday Jul 2016

Posted by in Fast News Share, Islamic Small Wars, Religion, United States of America

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According to court documents and court proceedings, in March 2016, a now-deceased member of ISIL brokered an introduction between Jalloh, 26, of Sterling, Virginia, and an individual in the United States who actually was an FBI confidential human source (CHS).  The ISIL member was actively plotting an attack in the United States and believed the attack would be carried out with the assistance of Jalloh and the CHS.

Read more at Former Army National Guard Member Arrested for Attempting to Provide Material Support to ISIL | OPA | Department of Justice – 7/5/2016.

Related on BackChannels: https://conflict-backchannels.com/2016/06/12/omar-mir-seddique-mateen-known-to-the-fbi/ – 6/12/2016.

FTAC – Counterterrorism and Intercession

15 Wednesday Jun 2016

Posted by in Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, FTAC - From The Awesome Conversation, Islamic Small Wars, Religion

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There would seem to me multiple components involved in intercession, starting with bag searches and metal detectors in proximity to potential targets. However, we have been asking law enforcement to produce a response to _anticipated_ crimes. To do that, we need to do some new things:

1. Acknowledge that a limited “opposition” — “Islamists”, not Islam — believes that it is at war with us, including most Muslims, and that it is — in this order — talking, walking, planning, operationalizing, and acting.

2. Broaden — by reducing strictures on — detention periods and surveillance of persons of interest, so that the talker and walker who pings the FBI radar, as has happened many times now, may enjoy some surreptitious follow-up as needed (say as when acquiring new weapons from the local gun shop).

3. In the region of freedom of speech, we need law recognizing “jihadi-talk” as involving conspiracy and incitement, and then we need permit to act against those who mix the poison that gets in through the ears and eyes and those who deliver that poison by publishing it. There have long been traditional limits to freedom of speech — conspiracy, incitement, libel, and slander. In the area of conspiracy and incitement, we have expected direct contact or cooperation between parties, but today we well know that mediated contact perhaps bolstered by related presentations in the mosque are sufficient to contribute to the motivation of an attack.

4. In the region of freedom of religion, we have to recognize that a religion that has in several aspects the motivation of subduing the world by force in fact represents an alien and invasive political program. As regards those aspects, challenge, confrontation, and reformation involve time, short or long, and the kind of time required is long as regards determining what options are forward and then very short, i.e., the time it takes a person to make a small decision in a good direction.

On those “options forward”, there are today many channels, some congruent with leaving scripture alone but interpreting it more deeply — or tortuously depending on one’s perspective; some unabashedly reformist and determined to eliminate “Political Islam” — and then rejection of the the faith through the abandonment of religion altogether, conversions to other faiths or traditions, and any number of adjustments as seem fit to those who flatly reject extremist programs.

Omar Mir Seddique Mateen – Known to the FBI

12 Sunday Jun 2016

Posted by in 21st Century Feudal, American Domestic Affairs, Conflict - Culture - Language - Psychology, Islamic Small Wars, Religion

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Carlos Bledsoe

The suspect arrested in the fatal shooting of one soldier and the critical injury of another at a Little Rock, Ark., Army recruiting booth today was under investigation by the FBI’s Joint Terrorist Task Force since his return from Yemen, ABC News has learned.

The investigation was in its preliminary stages, authorities said, and was based on the suspect’s travel to Yemen and his arrest there for using a Somali passport.

Esposito, Richard, Pierre Thomas and Jack Date.  “Recruit Shooting Suspect Under FBI Investigation.”  ABC News, June 1, 2009.

Alton Nolen

“This do we find the clear precedent that explains the particular penchant of Islamic terrorists to behead their victims, it is merely another precedent bestowed by their Prophet,” reads the caption, which adds a citation from the Quran, “I will instill terror into the hearts of the Unbelievers; smite ye about their necks.”

With this heinous act, Nolen may have been seeking to convince himself, if nobody else, that he was not just an ex-con who was once again out of work.

Daly, Michael.  “The Muslim Convert Behind America’s First Workplace Beheading.”  The Daily Beast, September 27, 2014.

Here is a little bit of the word on “Prison Islam”:

Oliver testified that allowing the Muslim prisoners to pray in a group led the prisoners to setting up an inmate-led Muslim gang. The gang “shunned” other prisoners, forbidding them from joining the group prayer as well as controlling access to food and laying stake to the “meditation room” being used by leaving their prayer rugs and other religious items to the point of intimidating other faith groups from using the room.

Oliver testified that a group of Catholic prisoners gave up trying to use the room. “They said it was the Muslim room,” Oliver stated.

The Clarion Project.  “Prison Officials: Muslim Group Prayer Led to Gangs.”  July 2, 2013.

It may be noted that conversions to Islam in prison bring criminals into the Ummah, and of that lot, some well may well represent the kind of person who would step on to the manufacturing floor and behead an unsuspecting (what’s to suspect?) coworker just doing her job.

Bipolar Disorder and Narcissistic Personality Disorder have been noted on BackChannels in the context of the construction of concepts perhaps useful to the field of Political Psychology, which concept list includes, of course, the “malignant narcissism” so often associated with dictators, who, if they were not so large, might just as well have turned out machete-wielding monsters at work.

Loose citations (lazy ones) for “Prison Islam”:

http://www.breitbart.com/london/2016/04/05/muslim-terrorists-running-whole-prison-blocks-sharia-law/ – 4/5/2016. | https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/how-belgian-prisons-became-a-breeding-ground-for-islamic-extremism/2016/03/27/ac437fd8-f39b-11e5-a2a3-d4e9697917d1_story.html – 3/27/2016. | http://www.meforum.org/blog/2015/08/islam-prison. – 8/30/2015.

Nidal M. Hasan

A Senate investigation of the Fort Hood shootings faults the Army and FBI with missing warning signs and not exchanging information that could have prevented the massacre.

Wan, William and Felicia Sonmez.  “Senate probe faults Army, FBI for missing warning signs before Fort Hood Attack.”  The Washington Post, February 3, 2011.

Causes for that fumble: aversion to “bureaucratic confrontation”; “political correctness”; and, possibly, military civility, politeness, and avoidance of opening the proverbial can of worms.  Basically, before the fact, no one knew how to field what was coming out of Nidal Hasan’s heart through his mouth.

Also at the time, great official political correctness, an adamant refusal to invoked the term “violent islamist extremism” produced the absurdity of labeling the “Alahu Akbar” laced mass murder as violence in the workplace.

Talk, behavioral change, and, inevitably, “arming up” become part of the terrorist’s narrative on the way to mayhem — but how are officials to select who to “gumshoe” or, were the laws to allow greater flexibility in examinations without charges, who to detain?

Tamerlan Tsarnaev

The FSB first contacted the FBI about Tsarnaev in March 2011. At the time, he was a resident of Boston who seemed too interested in making contact with or joining a militant group in the Caucasus. The U.S. intelligence official said the FBI made three separate requests to Russian authorities for more information about Tsarnaev without an adequate response. The FBI concluded that the Russians considered Tsarnaev a threat to themselves, not the United States.

Finn, Peter.  “Decades of distrust restrain cooperation between FBI and Russia’s FSB.”  The Washington Post, May 8, 2013.

Muhammad Youssef Abdulazeez

He was not on any U.S. terror list and the FBI was not aware of his having any terrorist leanings. Abdulazeez had been stopped by local police in April when he was booked for a DUI..

Pugeus, Jeff.  “What we know about the gunman in Chattanooga attack.”  CBS News, July 16, 2015.

The Abdulazeez “lone wolf” attack appears not to have produced significant “signal” out ahead of itself.  The gunman sent up no caution flags before his attack.

Mohamed Barry

A machete-wielding man who stormed an Ohio restaurant and slashed diners at their tables had previously been investigated by the FBI over his radical Islamist views.
Mohamed Barry, 30, from the Republic of Guinea, West Africa, was shot dead by police during the rampage at Nazareth Restaurant and Deli, a Mediterranean restaurant owned by an Israeli man in Columbus, on Thursday.

Graham, Regina F., Hannah Parry, and Khaleda Rahman.  “FBI investigated Barry four years ago for expressing radical Islamic views.”  Daily Mail, February 15, 2016.

One cannot (yet) cry “Lone wolf!” before the crime, which is today everyone’s problem.

Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik

Officials said that not only had he never been a criminal suspect, but that he was also never mentioned by anyone interviewed by the F.B.I.

Schmidt, Michael S. and Richard Perez-Pena.  “F.B.I. Treating San Bernardino Attack as Terrorism Case.”  The New York Times, December 4, 2015.

Malik belonged to an educated, politically influential family from Karor Lal Esan in the Layyah district of Pakistan. Malik Ahmad Ali Aulakh, a cousin of Malik’s father, was once a provincial minister. Residents said the Aulakh family is known to have connections to militant Islam.

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Investigators have learned that Farook had made contact — in some cases by phone and in others via social media — with people who came up tangentially in previous federal terrorism investigations. But he had not drawn any scrutiny.

Sahi, Aoun, David S. Cloud, and Brian Bennett.  “Tashfeen Malik was ‘modern girl’ who began posting extremist messages on Facebook.”  Los Angeles Times, December 6, 2015.

We all have people in our lives, some equipped with dangerous ideas and personalities to match, and in light of “Social Grammar”, which always applies on this blog, some to many personalities give way before cult, family, in-group, and tribal messages and related pressures either intimidating other thought or promoting deeply malign speech and action paths — and just as many prove more independent and strongly resist the intellectual poisoning associated with one or more social environments or relationships.

As the west does not do guilt or suspicion by mere association — something an outsized paranoid like Stalin would do — the FBI’s call on the matter fits with world’s broadest bandwidth in freedom of religion and of speech.

Still, in 20/20 hindsight, one might add up the dimensions involved: some extremist associates in the family, foreign association with radical centers like Islamabad’s Lal Masjid, and then . . . Islamist expression on Facebook or elsewhere.

When and how should a government step in?

What methods of detention might work?

What laws involving conspiracy or sedition might be needed to get to this kind of person before they arrive at what will become the scene of their crime?

Omar Mir Seddique Mateen

The father of Omar Mateen, identified by police as the man behind the carnage at an Orlando nightclub early Sunday morning, is an Afghan man who holds strong political views, including support for the Afghan Taliban. In a video he posted on Saturday, he appears to be portraying himself as the president of Afghanistan.

Bearak, Max.  “Orlando suspect’s father hosted a TV show and now pretends to be Afghanistan’s president.”  The Washington Post, June 12, 2016.

In the article cited, it’s the killer’s daddy that sounds a wee bit off the hook.

Be that as it may, the son, Omar, had not been completely off law enforcement’s radar.

“The FBI first became aware of Mateen in 2013 when he made inflammatory comments to co-workers alleging possible terrorist ties,” Hopper said.
The investigation was closed, Hopper said, after investigators “were unable to verify the substance of his comments.”

Perez, Evan, Shimon Prokupecz, and Catherine E. Shoichet.  “Omar Mateen pledged allegiance to ISIS, official says.”  CNN, June 12, 2016.

The story is continuing to break as I type, and it’s expected that more details will come out in the course of the investigation.

As regards “persons of interest”, and a few noted here were certainly either that or potentially that, the same issues — who to watch, what to watch for, and when and how to intervene before the fact — will be topics for debate in law involving sedition and detention for some time to come.

Addendum – 6/14/2016

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-nation/wp/2016/06/14/fbi-director-orlando-shooting-probe-also-looks-backward-into-agency-files-on-shooter/

Addendum – 7/6/2016

Mohamed Bailor Jalloh

According to court documents and court proceedings, in March 2016, a now-deceased member of ISIL brokered an introduction between Jalloh, 26, of Sterling, Virginia, and an individual in the United States who actually was an FBI confidential human source (CHS). The ISIL member was actively plotting an attack in the United States and believed the attack would be carried out with the assistance of Jalloh and the CHS.

U. S. Department of Justice.  “Former Army National Guard Member Arrested for Attempting to Provide Material Support to ISISL.”  July 5, 2016.

Additional Reference

The Last English Prince.  “Omar Mir Seddique Mateen: Understanding the Meaning of this Name.”  June 12, 2016.

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