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Thread: The Trials and Affairs of Terrorists in the non DP World

  1. #131
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    British police arrest 18-year-old in connection with London Tube attack

    British police arrested an 18-year-old man in the southern port of Dover on Saturday in a “significant” development in the hunt for the people behind a London commuter train bombing that injured 30 people a day earlier.

    Prime Minister Theresa May put Britain on the highest security level of “critical” late on Friday, meaning an attack may be imminent, and soldiers and armed police deployed to secure strategic sites and hunt down the perpetrators.

    The home-made bomb shot flames through a packed commuter train during the Friday morning rush hour in west London but apparently failed to detonate fully.

    “We have made a significant arrest in our investigation this morning,” said Neil Basu, Senior National Co-ordinator for Counter Terrorism Policing.

    “Although we are pleased with the progress made, this investigation continues and the threat level remains at critical.”

    The arrest was made in the port area of Dover, where passenger ferries sail to France.

    The blast on the London tube train at the Parsons Green underground station was the fifth major terrorism attack in Britain this year and was claimed by Islamic State.

    Soldiers deployed

    Britain deployed hundreds of soldiers at strategic sites such as nuclear power plants and ministry of defence sites on Saturday to free up armed police to help in the hunt for those behind the bombing.

    The last time Britain was put on “critical” alert was after a man killed 22 people at an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester in May. Prior to that it had not been triggered since 2007.

    “For this period, military personnel will replace police officers on guard duties at certain protected sites,” May said in a televised statement.

    “The public will see more armed police on the transport network and on our streets providing extra protection. This is a proportionate and sensible step which will provide extra reassurance and protection while the investigation progresses.”

    The bomb struck as passengers were travelling to the centre of the British capital. Some suffered burns and others were injured in a stampede to escape from the station, one of the above-ground stops on the underground network. Health officials said none was thought to be in a serious condition.

    Pictures taken at the scene showed a slightly charred white plastic bucket with wires coming out of the top in a supermarket shopping bag on the floor of a train carriage.

    “I was on the second carriage from the back. I just heard a kind of ‘whoosh’. I looked up and saw the whole carriage engulfed in flames making its way towards me,” Ola Fayankinnu, who was on the train, told Reuters.

    “There were phones, hats, bags all over the place and when I looked back I saw a bag with flames.”

    The Islamic State militant group have claimed other attacks in Britain this year, including two in London and the pop concert in Manchester.

    It was not immediately possible to verify the claim about Parsons Green, for which Islamic State’s news agency Amaq offered no evidence.

    Western intelligence officials have questioned similar claims in the past, saying that while Islamic State’s jihadist ideology may have inspired some attackers, there is scant evidence that it has orchestrated attacks.

    http://www.france24.com/en/20170916-...-islamic-state

  2. #132
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    How a 2012 attack ushered in an era of terror for France

    BY LORI HINNANT
    THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

    PARIS — Soon after Mohammed Merah's life ended in a torrent of explosions and bullets, the mother of his first victim swore she would devote her life to ensuring that no other parents would suffer as she had.

    But since the 2012 assault on a Jewish school and soldiers left seven people dead, France has endured a seemingly endless series of attacks and near-misses from extremists with the same background. Merah was the model they hoped to imitate and surpass.

    Beginning with that attack, Islamic extremists — most of them homegrown — have killed nearly 250 people in France, far more than anywhere else in Western Europe.

    "I said, 'Watch out, there are Merahs everywhere! You have to do something,'" said Latifa Ibn Ziaten, whose son, Imad, was a French paratrooper when Merah shot and killed him on March 11, 2012. "But, unfortunately, no one heard me at first. I think they believed it was just a mother's grief."

    Within eight days, Merah attacked other French soldiers and a Jewish school in Toulouse. In all, he killed seven people, including three children in France's first Islamic extremist attack in 17 years.

    "France entered a new era. Beginning in 2012, we entered an age of terrorism, where before we believed ourselves protected. It was a turning point in French history," Mathieu Guidere, a professor of Islamic studies in Paris and author of "Islamic Fundamentalism."

    Merah, who had gone to Pakistan and trained with al-Qaida-linked extremists, died after a 32-hour televised standoff with France's police special forces. He was 23 and had already been in and out of prison for petty crimes. His older brother, Abdelkader Merah, and an acquaintance will stand trial Monday, charged with complicity in terrorism.

    Guidere said the Merah brothers' choice of targets made an impression on a simmering generation of nascent French extremists.

    "In attacking, in killing at the same time soldiers and Jewish citizens, he smashed two taboos and opened the path psychologically for those who came after, who saw a model in him and who said to themselves they could do the same thing, if not worse," he said.

    Worse came quickly.

    In May 2014, a Frenchman who fought alongside Islamic extremists in the Middle East returned to Europe to gun down visitors at a Jewish museum in Brussels, killing four. According to Didier Francois, a former hostage who recognized Mehdi Nemmouche after the extremist's arrest, he had "an obsession to imitate or surpass Merah."

    In 2015 and 2016, more French extremists followed suit, either sent by the Islamic State group directly or inspired by its directives to inflict pain and hatred.

    "At the time, even if the Merah attack should have been an alert, the attacks in Paris stupefied us. We suddenly discovered that we were a terrorist target and that the risk was everywhere," Interior Minister Gerard Collomb said this week.

    Since then, France has more than doubled down on security and, next week, votes on a law that would make permanent many of the measures imposed as part of a state of emergency that began Nov. 13, 2015, when a group of mostly French and Belgian Islamic State fighters killed 130 people with bombs and gunfire in Paris. About 7,000 soldiers, most armed with automatic weapons, are deployed across the country in what the military calls Operation Sentinel.

    Other countries also entered the crosshairs of their own homegrown extremists, including Belgium, Britain and Spain. But none suffered as much bloodshed as France, and no other European country has seen as many young people leave to join the Islamic State and other extremist fighters in Iraq and Syria, including Merah's own sister and his half brother.

    Through it all, Ibn Ziaten visited schools and prisons, bringing her son's service beret and speaking to those at risk of traveling the same path to extremism as his killer.

    Merah's brother, Abdelkader, was in prison, out of sight of the victims of the 2012 attack. On Monday, Ibn Ziaten will face him for the first time.

    "This trial has to shed light, be clear, that the truth come out, that justice be done, and that it become a part of history. Because he is the one who set off all these terrorist attacks in France, it was Merah," she said.

    Abdelkader Merah is accused of playing an active role in radicalizing his brother and in plotting the attacks. During the standoff with police, Mohammed Merah said he acted alone, according to a transcript obtained by the French newspaper Liberation a few months afterward. According to court documents obtained by The Associated Press, Mohammed Merah wrote in a 2009 letter to Abdelkader from prison: "When I get out, I will know very very precisely what is left for me to do."

    Mohammed rode a scooter stolen by Abdelkader to the Ozar Hatorah school in Toulouse and, in a span of 38 seconds, gunned down a father and his two young sons, as well as an 8-year-old girl. Ibn Ziaten believes the jailed Abdelkader Merah knows far more than he has admitted about the meticulously planned and videotaped attacks.

    "I hope I will be allowed to take the stand, to say what I think," Ibn Ziaten said.

    "These are things that I expect from him: I expect him to speak and that he look at me," she added. "Not a smile. It's not the smile that will disconcert me. Not at all. Or his eyes that will make me afraid. Because I'm not afraid of him."

    http://www.sfchronicle.com/news/crim...r-12244292.php

  3. #133
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    UPDATED: Edmonton police investigate 'acts of terrorism' after officer stabbed, pedestrians run down

    5 people were injured and 1 person is in custody

    By CBC News

    ​A man who stabbed a police officer with a knife and deliberately plowed into pedestrians on Edmonton's busiest downtown strip is being investigated for "acts of terrorism," police said at a news conference early Sunday.

    A 30-year-old man is in custody following a high-speed chase just before midnight through streets filled with bar patrons and football fans. The chase ended only after a white U-Haul van the man was driving struck four pedestrians and flipped on its side.

    "We believe the individual acted alone," Edmonton police Chief Rod Knecht said early Sunday, adding that police would investigate the possible involvement of others.

    Knecht confirmed that a black ISIS flag was seized from a car where the police officer was attacked. The officer was not critically injured. The condition of the four pedestrians is not known.

    "Based on evidence at the scenes and the actions of the suspect ... it was determined that these incidents are being investigated as acts of terrorism," Knecht said.

    The first attack happened at about 8:15 p.m. Saturday near Commonwealth Stadium, where an officer was working traffic control for a CFL game.

    Knecht said the officer was standing behind a barricade when a Chevrolet Malibu crashed into it, hit the officer and sent him flying 4.5 metres into the air.

    "A male believed to be 30 years old then jumped out of his vehicle and viciously attacked the Edmonton Police Service member with a knife," Knecht said. "A struggle then ensued, during which the male suspect stabbed the officer several times before fleeing the scene on foot, northbound down 92nd Street.

    The officer was taken to hospital, but his injuries are not critical.

    At around 10 p.m., police told a news conference that a manhunt was underway, but there was no threat to the public.

    Just before midnight, a white U-Haul van was pulled over at a Checkstop on the north side of town. When a police officer checked the driver's name, he recognized it as being similar to the name of the registered owner of the car that had struck the officer at Commonwealth Stadium.

    'The police cars just kept coming'


    The U-Haul immediately sped off toward downtown Edmonton, where streets were filled with Saturday night bar crowds and football fans.

    As bystanders watched, the van barrelled down Jasper Avenue with up to 20 police vehicles following.

    "The police cars just kept coming. They just kept coming," said Jaylene Ellard, who was out with a friend on the crisp fall evening.

    Another witness said the vehicles were driving up to 80 km/h in the 50 km/h zone.

    "That high-speed chase should have never, ever in a million years have happened downtown," said Brian McNeill, who was in a parking lot with a group of friends when the vehicles sped past.

    One witness said police cars began to block streets that connect to Jasper Avenue. The U-Haul eventually doubled back and drove the opposite way down Jasper Avenue. Near 107th Street the van struck at least two pedestrians.

    "Throughout the chase, the U-Haul truck deliberately attempted to hit pedestrians in crosswalks and alleys in two areas along Jasper Avenue," Knecht said.

    Eventually, the van flipped and landed on its side.

    Pat Hannigan was about a quarter-block away when he heard a loud bang.

    "I saw the van on its side, it flipped over, U-Haul van," he said. "And they had a guy handcuffed on the ground and obviously they smashed out the window. They had a pipe or something in their hand."

    Knecht said officers did not stop the chase along the busy downtown street "due to the seriousness of the offence — or the believed offence."

    Police are scheduled to hold another news conference at 3 p.m. Sunday.

    Edmonton police are working with the RCMP's Integration National Security Enforcement Teams on the investigation.

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/edmont...ruck-1.4315545
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  4. #134
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    Report: Knife attack at French train station; assailant shot

    MARSEILLE, France (AP) — French police have warned people to avoid Marseille’s main train station amid reports of a knife attack.

    Marseille police said an operation “is underway” on its official Twitter account. No other details were immediately available.

    French television BFM TV says at least one person has been stabbed, and the assailant has been shot dead.

    Interior Minister Gerard Collomb tweeted that he’s going immediately to the scene “after the attack perpetrated near Saint Charles train station.”

    The train station has been evacuated.

    https://apnews.com/6ac1eb8c501f4e2c9...&utm_medium=AP
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  5. #135
    Administrator Helen's Avatar
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    Marilou Danley has been detained for questioning


    Las Vegas massacre suspect, Stephen Paddock of Nevada, is dead, police say


    • Stephen Paddock, a 64-year-old man from Mesquite, Nevada, has been identified as the suspected gunman in the Las Vegas shooting.
    • Police say he is dead.
    • He had no known connection to terrorism, according to NBC News.
    • At least 50 people died and more than 200 were injured in the attack near the Mandalay Bay hotel, police say.

    By Matt Clinch and Arjun Kharpal
    NBC News

    The suspected gunmen in the Las Vegas shooting has been identified as 64-year-old Stephen Paddock of Mesquite, Nevada. Police say they located him on the 32nd floor of the Mandalay Bay hotel and that he is dead.

    Police say he had no known connection to terrorism, according to NBC News.

    Over 50 people died and more than 200 were injured after Paddock opened fire at the Route 91 Harvest country music festival across the road from Mandalay Bay on the Las Vegas Strip.

    Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department Sheriff Joseph Lombardo said the authorities have not completed an investigation into Paddock's background and history. But Lombardo said the police department had located a number of firearms in the room he occupied in the hotel. Officers will also be carrying out a search on Paddock's residence.

    It appeared the shooter fired on concertgoers from an upper-floor room at Mandalay Bay, the Las Vegas Review-Journal said.

    Investigators said they located a woman who had been traveling with Paddock, Marilou Danley, and want to question her.

    NBC News said that police described Danley as his companion and she was living with him. The police are also searching Paddock's house.

    Paddock was not known to the federal authorities, but was known to local law enforcement, according to NBC News.

    He has no known connection to terrorism and police have not called the shooting a terrorist attack, according to NBC.

    The gunman's companion Marilou Danley has been detained and her room raided by police following the Las Vegas attack that left 50 dead and 200 more injured.

    She believed to be an Australian citizen of Indonesian heritage.

    She and the shooter are said to be roommates or companions; their precise relationship has not been explained.

    https://www.cnbc.com/2017/10/02/las-...-mesquite.html
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

  6. #136
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    Guantánamo Defendant Is Sentenced, in Rare Success for Military Commission

    By CHARLIE SAVAGE
    The New York Times

    FORT MEADE, Md. — A panel of American military officers at the Guantánamo Bay wartime prison sentenced on Friday a Saudi detainee, Ahmed Muhammed Ahmed Haza al-Darbi, to 13 years in prison for his admitted role in a 2002 attack by Al Qaeda on a French oil tanker off the Yemeni coast.

    The sentencing completed a rare successful case before the military commission system, which has struggled to bring contested cases — unlike that of Mr. Darbi, who pleaded guilty in February 2014 — to trial.

    Marring the triumph, the punishment was handed down as a new hurdle emerged in a case against another Saudi detainee, Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri, who is fighting charges that he orchestrated the bombing of the American destroyer Cole in 2000.

    Mr. Nashiri was arraigned on capital charges six years ago, but his case has been plagued by problems and remains bogged down in pretrial hearings. On Friday, Richard Kammen, a death penalty specialist on Mr. Nashiri’s defense team, said in a statement that he and two other civilian lawyers had quit for ethical reasons related to a dispute over the confidentiality of their communications with their client.

    The details of that dispute are murky because filings related to the matter are classified. But Mr. Kammen’s resignation, which was earlier reported by The Miami Herald, means pretrial hearings probably cannot proceed until Mr. Nashiri gains representation by a new death penalty expert. Brig. Gen. John Baker, the chief defense lawyer in the military commission system, said in an email that he was looking for one but did not know how long it would take to find one.

    This year, Mr. Darbi provided videotaped testimony against Mr. Nashiri for use if the Cole case reaches trial, along with a deposition against another detainee fighting commission charges. He had promised to cooperate as a witness in his 2014 plea deal.

    Under its terms, the commission could have imposed a sentence of 13 to 15 years. The prosecution had joined the defense in asking for the minimum available term in light of his extensive assistance to the government. Mr. Darbi has renounced Islamist ideology and lived apart from the general detainee population for years.

    Before the commission members deliberated, Mr. Darbi, wearing a dark suit and glasses, stood at a lectern and said he took full responsibility for his actions, for which he apologized. Reporters watched a video feed of the hearing at Fort Meade, Md.

    Mr. Darbi also thanked Guantánamo staff members and guards who he said had been kind to him, forgave those he said had “treated me harshly” and expressed remorse about the hardship and shame he said his actions brought his wife and children.

    “I wish that I could talk now to myself years ago, or to any young man considering the same path, and tell them: ‘Don’t lose your life and future for something that is not real,’” he said.

    Mr. Darbi has admitted that from 2000 until 2002, he helped plan and arrange for a Qaeda operation to sink at least one civilian oil tanker near the Strait of Hormuz, resulting in the attack on the French ship, the Limburg. Yemeni suicide bombers rammed an explosives-laden boat into the ship in October 2002, killing a Bulgarian crew member and wounding 12 other sailors.

    By then, Mr. Darbi had already been incarcerated. About four months earlier, he had been arrested in Azerbaijan and then transferred to American custody.

    Ramzi Kassem, a law professor at the City University New York who represents Mr. Darbi on a volunteer basis through his law school clinic, told the commission on Friday that as early as August 2002, his client had provided detailed information about the members and last known locations of the Qaeda cell plotting to attack ships.

    The completion of the case against Mr. Darbi now sets up a policy question for the Trump administration: whether it will live up to the Obama-era deal and transfer him to Saudi Arabia by February to serve the remainder of his sentence. Mr. Darbi struck the deal with the Pentagon official who oversees the commission system, who agreed to recommend a transfer but lacks the authority to order the government to carry it out.

    During the campaign, President Trump denounced President Barack Obama’s policy of trying to winnow down the Guantánamo prison’s population, calling for a halt to any more releases and vowing to instead fill it back up with “some bad dudes.”

    In the nearly nine months since he took office, however, Mr. Trump has brought no new captives there. If that remains the case and Mr. Darbi is repatriated, it would mean that despite his campaign talk, Mr. Trump will end up presiding over a reduction in the prison population he inherited from Mr. Obama — from 41 to 40 captives.

    A spokesman for the White House’s National Security Council did not respond to a question asking what the Trump administration would do. But Mr. Kassem said this week that it was in the United States government’s interest to live up to the deal.

    “Honoring the agreement with my client and Saudi Arabia would serve the Trump administration’s interests,” Mr. Kassem said. “It would encourage other witnesses to testify for the government in the military commissions and federal court. And it would avoid alienating an important ally.”

    He also noted that if the United States did repatriate Mr. Darbi, he would not be released, but would instead serve the remainder of his sentence in a custodial rehabilitation program for low-level Islamist extremists.

    The distinction between being transferred and released could be a face-saving way out for the Trump team, said Robert Chesney, a law professor at the University of Texas, Austin, who worked on an Obama administration detention policy task force.

    “Reneging on this deal would make it significantly harder for military prosecutors to secure plea deals going forward, making it that much less attractive to use the commission system in the first place,” Mr. Chesney said. “Honoring the deal, in contrast, doesn’t have to be seen as inconsistent with his prior complaints; those complaints focused on decisions to transfer or release quite apart from the commissions process.”

    Still, Republicans criticized the Obama administration for transferring detainees pursuant to military commission process, too, including a Sudanese man who pleaded guilty before a tribunal and was repatriated when his sentence ended in 2012, only to later join Al Qaeda’s Yemen branch.

    Mr. Darbi received no credit for the nearly 12 years he was in custody before his guilty plea, so he would complete his sentence in February 2027. However, the Pentagon official who oversees the commission system may waive the remainder of his sentence after February 2023.

    https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/13/u...ced-darbi.html

  7. #137
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Virginia man sentenced to 2 years in terrorism probe

    ALEXANDRIA, Va. (AP) — A Virginia man has been sentenced to two years in federal prison for obstructing justice and making false statements involving international terrorism.

    Twenty-eight-year-old Michael Queen of Woodbridge was sentenced Friday in federal court in Alexandria.

    Prosecutors say Queen and a conspirator lied to FBI agents who were investigating their friend, who was trying to travel to join the Islamic State.

    Authorities say Queen knew the friend had tried to join the Islamic State in 2014, but denied it to protect him.

    https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-...rrorism-probe/

  8. #138
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    Far-right extremists arrested in France over terror plot targeting politicians and migrants

    The suspects have close ties with far-right group Action Française Provence.

    By Isabelle Gerretsen
    The International Business Times

    Ten people with close ties to a far-right extremist group have been arrested in France on suspicion of planning terror attacks against mosques, politicians and migrants.

    French counter-terrorism police arrested nine men and one woman in Paris and Marseille on Tuesday (17 October).

    The suspects aged 17-25 are believed to have ties with Logan Alexandre Nisin, a former militant of the far-right group Action Française Provence.

    Nisin was arrested in June after he posted online that he planned to attack "blacks, drug dealers, migrants and jihadist scoundrels."

    On Facebook, Nisin also glorified Norwegian far-right terrorist Anders Behring Breivik, who shot dead 69 people on the island of Utoya in 2011. Police discovered two revolvers and one rifle in Nisin's home upon his arrest.

    The woman who was arrested is believed to be Nisin's mother.

    A French official told The Associated Press that the suspects were arrested on a charge of criminal terrorist association. He said that they had been planning attacks against "a place of worship, politicians and migrants."

    "They were only in the earliest planning stages," the source said.

    Another source named the politicians as far-left politician Jean-Luc Melenchon and government spokesperson Christophe Castaner, according to French newspaper Le Parisien.

    A spokesperson for Melenchon, who ran as a presidential candidate in this year's elections, complained that he was not informed of the threat and that "requests for protection during the legislative elections were rejected."

    http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/far-right-e...grants-1643644

  9. #139
    Senior Member CnCP Legend CharlesMartel's Avatar
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    Abdella Ahmad Tounisi


    Aurora man gets maximum sentence in terrorism case

    By Michael Tarm
    The Associated Press

    A federal judge scolded a former college student from Aurora as he sentenced him to a maximum 15-year prison term Thursday for seeking to join terrorist-linked militants fighting Bashar Assad's regime in Syria, saying he would have given him even more time behind bars if statutes allowed it.

    The judge brushed aside arguments by Abdella Ahmad Tounisi's lawyers who said the then-18-year-old's plans for Syria in 2013 didn't neatly fit the definition of terrorism. They insisted he'd been motivated foremost by a sincere desire to help Syrians by fighting Assad's repressive regime -- not by any extremist ideology.

    "You traded your opportunity to attend college for a terrorist training camp," Judge Samuel Der-Yeghiayan said, addressing Tounisi directly. "You chose to join a bunch of thugs who took pride in cowardly killings."

    He then added sternly: "There are no free passes when it comes to collusion with terrorists."

    The judge said the group Tounisi aspired to join, Jabhat al-Nusrah, wasn't merely one of many militant organizations seeking to oust Assad -- some of which the United States has supported. It was one affiliated with al-Qaida, which has "openly called for the destruction of this nation," Der-Yeghiayan said.

    Tounisi apologized in a brief statement before he was sentenced, speaking softly and looking younger than his 23 years. After reflection in jail, he said, he's now grateful federal agents arrested him at O'Hare International Airport on April 19, 2013, before he could start his journey to participate in the civil war in Syria.

    "Thank you," he said. "Thank you for saving my life."

    As the hearing began, a child sitting on Tounisi's father's lap smiled when he saw Tounisi led into the room and shouted, "Hi, Abdella!" Tounisi, standing with his legs shackled, later hung his head when the judge imposed the toughest punishment available. Several of his relatives in court also looked shaken.

    Tounisi pleaded guilty in 2015 to attempting to provide material support to terrorists. Defense attorneys had asked for a seven-year prison term, which with time served could have led to his release from prison within two or three years.

    While the U.S. attorney's office asked in filings for a 15-year term, prosecutor Barry Jonas sounded conciliatory Thursday compared to the judge. Jonas told Der-Yeghiayan he accepted that Tounisi was "extremely remorseful" and said the court could consider it in calculating a sentence.

    Tounisi's case also focused attention on the use of fake extremist sites created by the FBI. Critics say they tend to woo and then ensnare impressionable youth, like Tounisi, while others argue they stop terrorist wannabes in the virtual world before they can carry out real-world harm.

    Tounisi visited one such sham site just weeks before his 2013 arrest. It included photos of gun-toting fighters and a flowery exhortation to, "Come and join your lion brothers ... fighting under the true banner of Islam." Soon after, he began communicating with federal agents posing as militants.

    Der-Yeghiayan also ordered that Tounisi will be subject to lifetime supervision once released, including close monitoring of his internet use.

    Tounisi, born in Massachusetts to Jordanian immigrant parents and raised in the Chicago area, was feeling increasingly isolated as a Muslim in the United States, one of his lawyers said in court and presentencing filings.

    "His deep desire to belong and his youth was, in some way, exploited by the agents," attorney Molly Armour said. "Instead of pushing him towards a productive use of his life, he was encouraged (to become more isolated) and take a different path."

    But Jonas noted Tounisi had been questioned in the 2012 arrest of his friend Adel Daoud, who is alleged to have plotted to bomb a Chicago bar. Despite the visit and interrogation by the FBI on the day of Daoud's arrest, Tounisi still hatched plans months later to join an al-Qaida-linked group.

    The visit by FBI agents "should have scared him straight," Jonas said. "But it didn't. It only emboldened him."

    http://www.dailyherald.com/article/2...ews/171018549/
    Last edited by CharlesMartel; 10-20-2017 at 06:19 AM. Reason: add picture of the terrorist

  10. #140
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    Raed Jaser and Chiheb Esseghaier were sentenced to life in prison for conspiring to commit murder for a terrorist group.


    Chiheb Esseghaier, left, spits during his sentencing hearing in front of, left to right, Justice Michael Code, crown attorney Marcie Henschel and witness Philip Klassen on Sept. 2, 2015 in Toronto.



    Via Rail plotters weren’t sick or addicted — they were evil, FBI undercover agent says

    Agent Tamer Elnoury jumped at the chance Tuesday to debunk the notion that Chiheb Esseghaier and Raed Jaser were anything but die-hard, would-be terrorists

    By Tom Blackwell
    The National Post

    TORONTO — By the time he was sentenced to life in prison for plotting to wreck a Via Rail train and other terrorist acts, Chiheb Esseghaier had been diagnosed as psychotic, having gone on incoherent rants, spit at a witness and fallen asleep during his trial.

    Co-accused Raed Jaser claimed he was a mere drug addict trying to scam money from an undercover FBI agent posing as a rich jihadist.

    And a third associate said the whole terrorist conspiracy was “manufactured” by the agent.

    That police officer has just broken cover to offer a “deep dive” into his rarefied world. And he jumped at the chance Tuesday to debunk the notion that the men he helped convict were anything but die-hard, would-be terrorists – or that he somehow manipulated them.

    Agent Tamer Elnoury describes how Esseghaier gave him chills from the first time they met, musing casually about shooting down passenger aircraft.

    “The look in Chiheb’s eyes when he talked about killing infidels was something I’d never seen before in my life,” he writes in American Radical, a new book that focuses largely on the Via case. “It was a look of hatred and death.”

    Lawyers have suggested that Esseghaier’s 2015 conviction was tainted by the mental illness that seemed to manifest itself at trial, an issue expected to figure prominently in his appeal.

    But Elnoury — the agent’s cover name in the Canadian investigation — says the Tunisian-born PhD student from Montreal “absolutely” knew right from wrong as the conspiracy unfolded, offering complex justifications for his planned violence, and removing cell-phone batteries and doing other counter-surveillance to try to avoid police scrutiny.

    “That isn’t someone who isn’t aware of what’s happening, who’s ‘out there,’ ” he said in an interview. “That’s someone who’s calculating to commit mass murder.”

    For his part, Jaser had plotted with Esseghaier to derail a Via Train from New York to Toronto well before he ever met the agent, while their other associate, Quebec City resident Ahmed Abassi, is on tape talking of wanting to destroy America, noted Elnoury.

    The agent says the extensive, secret recordings of his conversations with the men show there was no hint of entrapment.

    “You will never, ever hear me being the driving force behind any plot,” he said. “I have been a sounding board and a comrade-in-arms, nothing more.”

    Justice Michael Code, who presided over the trial, appears to have been convinced. He asked an FBI supervisor to tell the agent “you’re not only a hero in your country, but in (ours). Your service and commitment will forever be appreciated,” the book reveals.

    Esseghaier and Jaser were sentenced to life in prison for conspiring to commit murder for a terrorist group. Together they had planned to kill the Via passengers, while Jaser discussed having a sniper shoot Jewish businessmen in Toronto, and Esseghaier to bomb Times Square in New York.

    Elnoury, an Egyptian-born Muslim, was at their side through most of it, and adds a fascinating perspective to the well-chronicled case.

    He said the book was intended not just to draw the curtain on a new form of clandestine policing, but to offset the distorted image of Islam that, ironically, his own investigations help disseminate.

    Throughout American Radical, Elnoury — who describes himself as a religious man — carefully corrects his suspects’ warped theological vision.

    “There’s 1.7 billion Muslims on the planet, and the only ones who seem to have a voice is al-Qaida and ISIS,” he lamented Tuesday.

    The agent advocates better understanding of Islam to combat terrorism, not policies such as a “Muslim ban.”

    “I believe in a strong vetting process,” he said. “But … I just don’t know that we should be hiding from them.”

    Still an undercover operative with the FBI’s covert counter-terrorism unit, Elnoury did media interviews this week with his voice and face disguised.

    He was brought into the Via case after U.S. police alerted the Canadians to the fact Esseghaier had been in contact with al-Qaida members and travelled twice to Iran. The Canadians tried to “bump” him — orchestrate a seemingly chance encounter — in Mexico, but the Peruvian Christian agent couldn’t get close.

    The FBI offered up Elnoury to help, and he successfully made contact on a flight to San Francisco, followed by the dinner and talk of downing aircraft, all the while posing as a wealthy real-estate investor with Islamist leanings.

    They stayed in close contact for the next several months. Esseghaier led to Jaser and to Abassi, who was eventually convicted of immigration fraud in the U.S.

    There were nerve-wracking moments, such as the time Elnoury ended up in the basement of a Toronto home, convinced he was about to be exposed as a cop, planning out which of the jihadists he would try to kill first to get away.

    But Elnoury said the work, though obviously psychologically taxing, is less dangerous than what he did before, working undercover to catch drug traffickers and other conventional criminals.

    “I think violence in the drug game is much more prevalent, and is much more likely to happen on a moment’s notice, with no warning,” he said.

    Elnoury makes clear his one regret in the case — that he could not identify an American al-Qaida sleeper agent Essegaiher had heard about. Al-Qaida officials had invited them to Dubai to learn the person’s identity, but Canadian authorities insisted the case be wrapped up and the suspects arrested.

    Elnoury said Tuesday he was initially infuriated but realizes now that, after stretching out the investigation for months longer than necessary to build a case against Essegaier and Jaser, letting one of them leave the country at that point was too great a risk.

    As it is, he left Canada after the trial on a high note, his RCMP minders plying him with farewell gifts.

    “As the plane started to taxi, I looked out the window,” Elnoury writes. “The entire security detail was lined up and saluted us. That’s when I cried like a baby … It was finally over.”

    http://nationalpost.com/news/canada/...ver-agent-says
    "I realize this may sound harsh, but as a father and former lawman, I really don't care if it's by lethal injection, by the electric chair, firing squad, hanging, the guillotine or being fed to the lions."
    - Oklahoma Rep. Mike Christian

    "There are some people who just do not deserve to live,"
    - Rev. Richard Hawke

    “There are lots of extremely smug and self-satisfied people in what would be deemed lower down in society, who also deserve to be pulled up. In a proper free society, you should be allowed to make jokes about absolutely anything.”
    - Rowan Atkinson

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