British Prime Minister Theresa May speaks to the media following the terrorist attack in London last night. Mrs. May outlines the latest casualty count and expresses thanks for the rapid response of law enforcement.
(Daily Mail) Five jihadi terrorists shouting ‘this is for Allah’ have reportedly killed seven people and left dozens more injured in a horrific rampage around two locations in central London.
The men, described as being ‘of Mediterranean origin’, mowed down up to 20 people with a white van at 50mph on London Bridge on Saturday night, then began ‘randomly stabbing’ revellers with 12-inch hunting knives.
(Via Reuters) The United States has started distributing arms to Syrian Kurdish fighters battling to help retake the city of Raqqa from Islamic State, a U.S. official told Reuters on Tuesday, as the United States moved ahead with a plan despite concerns by ally Turkey.
The official said distribution of the arms had started in the past 24 hours, based on authority given by President Donald Trump earlier this month. (read more)
26 people have been killed and 25 wounded after masked gunmen opened fire on a bus carrying Coptic Christians in central Egypt. The terrorist attack happened in Minya province, about 220km (140 miles) south of the capital city of Cairo. The bus was headed to the Monastery of St Samuel.
The bus was ambushed by masked men in three 4 wheel drive vehicles. An immediate response by Egyptian military and security forces is underway, while units of the police special forces closed all exits to Minya.
According to Egyptian media – the terrorists had driven from the Western Desert to a nearby location of the attacked bus then walked to ambush the bus, where they sprayed the bus with gunfire indiscriminately. During the terrorists exit, they found another group in another bus, which they stopped, killed everyone aboard and fled.
Islamic State fighters landed in Libya back in November of 2014, and began work establishing training camps in the Libyan city of Derna before launching a terror offensive which included an attack on a Libyan hotel, attacks on oil field workers, and the execution of 21 Copts in a graphic video which made international headlines.
In early through mid-2015 several extremist jihadist elements in Libya swore allegiance to Bakar al-Baghdadi. A man named Abdelhakim Belhadj took the position as head of ISIS in Libya. Abdelhakim Belhadj was critical in forming “Libya Dawn”, essentially a group of Islamic militia forces (LIFG or Libyan Islamic Fighting Groups) who fought under various banners such as Ansar al-Sharia (al-Qaeda in Libya) and the Muslim Brotherhood.
Today the links emerge between the Manchester bomber, Salman Abedi (22), and these extremist forces within Libya. It appears the bombing attack against the Manchester concert venue was directed and coordinated by the family of Abedi and their close contacts within Libya including his father Ramadan Abedi who was arrested earlier today.
Important top-lines:
The suicide bomber who detonated a bomb at a Manchester pop concert killing 22 people including young children has been named as 22-year-old Salman Abedi.
According to the UK Daily Mail the bomber was previously known to authorities. He died at the scene and police carried out a controlled explosion at what is believed to be his home during raids around the city today.
(UK Daily Mail) […] Abedi is understood to have been born in Britain but is from a Libyan family. A school friend told MailOnline had grown a beard when he last saw him and neighbours claimed he had been ‘acting strangely’ recently.
A 23-year-old man, believed to be Abedi’s brother, was also arrested by anti-terror officers as police and security services attempt to work out if the suicide bomber was part of a cell.
Security sources have told MailOnline that initial analysis of the ‘sophisticated’ device suggests it was made by an expert.
President Trump and First Lady Melania Trump join President Fattah al-Sisi (Egypt) and Saudi King Salman to participate in the inauguration of The Global Center for Combating Extremist Ideology. [two videos below] ‘Hearts and Memes’?
Essentially the center appears to be a Saudi data hub for monitoring multiple media and social media platforms, detecting extremist sentiments and countering the concerning rhetoric with positive social media messaging. In the U.S. we have the NSA cyber command monitoring system, a ‘big brother’ per se’. The Saudi version appears to be a non military enterprise which might be considered ‘Big Allah’.
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Given First Lady Melania’s interests in combating social media bullying, this Saudi enterprise and exhibit was likely interesting.
President Trump is scheduled to deliver a historic speech in Saudi Arabia during the Arab Islamic American Summit. The venue is The King Abdulaziz Conference Center and the scheduled time is approximately 9:15am EDT / 4:45pm local.
Update Video Added:
Long time CTH readers will note we extended well over a year of benefit-of-the-doubt to the motives of former FBI Director James Comey with regard to the severity of his politicized nature and disposition. Throughout the entire Clinton investigation we remained ambivalent to Comey’s motives.
Indeed it wasn’t until after the Pulse nightclub terrorist attack when Comey obtusely noted the FBI had been contacted (prior to the attack) about the sketchy behavior of Omar Mateen by a ‘random concerned citizen’ -and our finding that the actual ‘citizen’ was the far more substantive St Lucie county sheriff Ken Mascara– that we recognized how far Comey was willing to go to save his political face.
Yesterday, a friend of James Comey by the name of Benjamin Wittes, editor and writer for lawfare blog, now steps out and admits he was one of the primary sources for the New York Times Comey Memo article (Michael Schmidt); and in so doing outlines the severity of the political nature of the former FBI Director:
[…] I called Schmidt Friday morning after reading his earlier story, which ran the previous evening, about Comey’s dinner with President Trump and the President’s demands at that dinner for a vow of loyalty.
Last month President Trump took a great deal of criticism for calling Turkish President Erdogan and congratulating him on the narrow referendum victory. Many critics of Trump said he was congratulating a dictator, without also recognizing Turkey is a NATO member.
As long as Turkey is allowed to remain in NATO the entire member nation alliance will always be compromised by the self-serving Islamic interests of Erdogan. The EU and the political left, demand President Trump recognize the value of NATO – and hypocritically denounce Trump for speaking to a NATO nation’s leader. This is the mindset of the idiots in the EU and their defenders amid the political left.
Today, the Trump administration announces they are arming the Kurdish fighting forces in Northern Syria. President Erdogan hates the Kurds and considers them as adversaries and political opposition to his control over Turkey.
Within the dynamic you can see a multidimensional problem. The Kurds are fighting short-term against ISIS and Bashir Assad in Syria; however, in the larger Kurdish goal they are also attempting to establish their own independent state, Kurdistan.
Erdogan opposes Assad, but Erdogan more strongly opposes the Kurds and any Kurdistan formation efforts because it would destroy his goal of establishing the new Ottoman empire he dreams of leading. (more…)