[Extensive Regional Back-Story after Presser and MSM report] – Earlier today Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Joseph Dunford held a press conference to discusses the four U.S. deaths during a mission in Niger on October 3rd and 4th. General Dunford walks through the initial timeline as an investigation is ongoing:
. WASHINGTON — An emerging theory among U.S. military investigators is that the Army Special Forces soldiers ambushed in Niger were set up by terrorists, who were tipped off in advance about a meeting in a village sympathetic to local ISIS affiliates, three U.S. officials who have been briefed on the matter told NBC News. (more…)
Life With Jihad – Another possible terrorist attack today in London England as a cab driver intentionally plows into a group of pedestrians outside the London Natural History Museum. It appears his rampage was hampered by the bollards and barricades recently put into place as a security precaution.
[Details from Daily Mail] Several people have been injured after a car mounted the pavement and mowed down pedestrians outside the Natural History Museum in London this afternoon.
A man was pinned down by security guards and arrested by police in the heart of the capital’s museum land in Kensington.
Hundreds of terrified tourists fled the scene as the black Toyota Prius – a registered minicab – careered into a sign before ultimately crashing into a crowd of as many as 10 people as it hit a silver car, according to witnesses.
Everything eventually comes full circle. The dissonance within this tweet and subsequent article is a story unto itself. Obviously six years ago when Hillary Clinton, Susan Rice, Samantha Power and President Obama were destroying Libya the progressive movement needed to stick their head in the sand regarding predictable future consequences.
The Obama/Clinton short-sighted Libya fiasco created situation where regional extremists became well armed, and now the Obama/Clinton supporters are wondering why?
Let’s take a little trip down memory lane…
Several years ago we wrote about how those massive stores of former terror armament looted from the Gadhaffi caches was going to be a major -yet unreported- story. We’re not talking about a few pounds of yellow-cake, or a few Man-Pads. No, we’re talking about 20,000+ shoulder fired SAAMs, Stinger Missiles, hundreds of Man-Pads and thousands of canisters of mustard gas and serin componentry.
The story everyone sealed up in the too-big-to-scalefiles of military FUBAR.
Yeah, that story. (more…)
Hypocrisy, thy name is…. German Chancellor Angela Merkel is facing an election challenge. In 2014 German Chancellor Angela Merkel told the world that German’s borders were open and welcoming to Islamic refugees from the Middle East. Hundreds of thousands of Muslim males aged 18 to 34 took her up on her offer.
Terrorism necessarily skyrocketed throughout Germany and Western Europe in 2015, 2016 and 2017. Today German Chancellor Angela Merkel is saying Germany’s borders must be protected.
(Via Irish Times) With a month to election day, German chancellor Angela Merkel has ramped up her refugee-critical rhetoric in a bid to pull back far-right voters, boost her Bavarian allies and win over a record number of undecideds.
The chancellor used weekend interviews and rallies to stand by her 2015 decision that saw almost one million asylum seekers arrive in the country. She said she would decide the same way again, but insisted that events of 2015 “must not be repeated”. Aware of huge public unease over the refugee crisis, and related terror attacks since, she signalled Germany would demand an extension of border checks on the border with Austria, a Schengen suspension requiring EU approval.
At least 13 people have been killed and dozens injured after a van in Barcelona Spain ploughed into pedestrians in a busy tourist street. The attack happened in the area around Las Ramblas, a busy shopping and business promenade in the center of the city. Local and national media are reporting that one suspect named Driss Oukabir, apparently from Morocco, has been arrested. A second suspect was been killed after a shootout on the outskirts of the city with police. It remains unclear how many attackers were involved in the incident, which is being treated by police as a terrorist attack.
Horrific footage recorded at the scene shows dozens of victims lying injured on the pavement. Police have confirmed that at least 64 people are hurt. Catalonia’s interior minister Joaquim Forn stated it is ‘very possible’ the number of dead will rise because of the ‘very serious’ wounds to victims. (more…)
Facing increased criticism from the EU and Libyan officials being paid by the EU to keep North African economic migrants from crossing the Mediterranean, Doctors Without Borders has temporarily shut down their North African ferry services.
Under the auspices of generous NGO funding, the globalist organization transported thousands of economic migrants from North Africa to the EU so far this year by transferring small groups onto their bigger ships for the journey across the sea. However, the EU is overflowing with the migrant arrivals, and without the billions of dollars from U.S. pledges via the Paris Climate Treaty even liberal EU supporters of Drs w/out Borders are now saying enough is enough.
ROME (Reuters) – Doctors Without Borders (MSF) said on Saturday it was suspending its migrant rescues in the Mediterranean because it felt threatened by the Libyan coastguard and the Italian government’s policies have made its job harder.
The aid group’s decision is the latest development in mounting tensions between Rome and NGOs as migration dominates Italy’s political agenda ahead of elections early next year.
As you know CTH takes a different approach at significant world events. We try to share the untold stories as they shake out, in real time, in granular details not noted by the MSM. We discuss the stuff on the way to the destination. That way when we arrive at a ‘way point’ we have a historic reference, a back-story, to comprehend consequential headlines when they happen. With that in mind, here’s another non-discussed granular detail, spotted recently, building toward a much more significant geopolitical outcome, vis-a-vis Russia.
You might remember on August 4th President Trump and French President Emmanuel had a phone call. The outline of the phone conversation is HERE, but there was no real reason for them to be chatting…. or was there?
Western media has paid virtually no attention to how Trump’s big picture economic policy enmeshes and bolsters his national security policy.
Quite literally, and I really want to emphasize this, Secretary Mnuchin (Treasury) and Secretary Ross (Commerce) are just as important as Secretary Mattis (Defense) and Secretary Tillerson (State).
Stop and think about that for a minute.
When President Trump went to Saudi Arabia for the Arab Security Summit the two most visibly active cabinet members were Mnuchin and Ross. When has a Treasury Secretary and Commerce Secretary ever had as much importance during world security events?
Think about it.
Who was Obama’s Commerce Secretary during Iran negotiations? (more…)
UPDATE: After popular request, I finally received a copy of “the map” McGurk is using and added it to the transcript to make it easier. /SD
Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS Brett McGurk follows up on the “around the globe” update speech delivered by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. With this update McGurk explains the current status of the D-ISIS campaign in Syria and Iraq. (additional emphasis regionally) WATCH:
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[Transcript] MS NAUERT: Good to see you back. I know, it’s Friday late in the day, summertime. So you all get good camper awards for coming in today. Thank you so much for being here on this Friday. We have our Special Presidential Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, Brett McGurk, who’s here with us. I know you heard from Brett just a couple weeks ago at the end of the ISIS – D-ISIS coalition meeting here in Washington. And so Brett wanted to come in today to provide you all with an update as to where things stand in the campaign.
So without further ado, Brett’s here with that. MR MCGURK: Thank you. Okay, thanks everybody for coming. I thought what I’d do today – you heard from the Secretary for a kind of trip around the world six months in here since he arrived about everything going on in the world and the activity here at the State Department. And what I thought I’d do is drill in a little bit more on what he discussed about the very important – one of our key priorities here at the department, about the campaign against ISIS. (more…)
There is a considerable amount of visible internet and social media angst surrounding the National Security Council and staffing decisions made by National Security Advisor HR McMaster. CTH has no insight into the inner workings of disagreements within the current NSC, however, with a modest amount of both skepticism and cynicism the current level of alarm appears over indulged.
Within any work group there’s going to be differences of opinion. Within any national security working group there’s going to be ideological differences of opinion. The issues are important and very complex. The differences should never be dismissed or marginalized in their potential consequence. That said, it’s not the differences of opinion that present problems – it’s when those differences become entrenched in opposition to the reason for the groups primary function. That’s when differences become problems.
Consider the foreign policy proposals, and worldviews therein, of candidate Donald Trump and candidate Ted Cruz. Now think about taking the foreign policy/NatSec principals from both candidate camps, and the outlooks carried therein, and put them into the same council chamber to hammer out papers of recommended action toward policy.
Can you see the structure for an underlying problem? Now overlay the ideological interests of the institutional military with a healthy dose of both deep state and religious (centered principle outlook) career ideology, and you’ve got a recipe for disagreement. Well, that’s essentially what I see when reviewing various media reports of internal group conflict points. (more…)
Ten days ago the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Embassy in Mali warned every American to avoid any travel to Mali and specifically to avoid any resort, hotel or venue without high security: “Avoid vulnerable locations with poor security measures in place, including hotels, restaurants, and churches.”
The U.S. State Department specifically warned of al-Qaeda (AQIM) attacks and kidnapping: “In the border regions shared by Mali, Niger, and Burkina Faso, extremist groups and linked criminal networks have targeted Westerners for kidnapping.”
Today, a holiday resort in Mali popular with Western tourists has been stormed by gunmen, with hostages taken.
(Via Daily Mail) […] Shots were heard by local residents near Le Campement Kangaba, to the eastern edge of the Malian capital Bamako, with plumes of smoke also seen billowing into the air.
