Ramadi is a city in central Iraq, about 68 miles west of Baghdad. It is the capital of Al Anbar Governorate (Anbar Province). The city extends along the Euphrates and is the largest city in Al-Anbar.

Over the weekend ISIS moved into towns just to the north of Ramadi sending thousands fleeing on foot into the city.  ISIS had already blocked off access from the south months ago, and the west was contested territory. The east, until now, was not just a sketchy safe zone but the only viable entrance and exit…..

“Ramadi is under siege from all sides, I consider the city to have fallen.”

~ Major Aref al-Janabi (Police Chief)

BAGHDAD — More than 2,000 families have fled the Iraqi city of Ramadi with little more than the clothes on their backs, officials said Thursday, as the Islamic State group closed in on the capital of western Anbar province, clashing with Iraqi troops and turning it into a ghost town. (more…)

In September of 2012 President Obama declared “al-Qaeda on the run”, Last month al-Qaeda fueled the collapse of the government in Yemen. Today, continuing the advance, AQAP takes control of a major airport in in Yemen.

Next Up, move into Saudi Arabia….

SANAA, Yemen (AP) – Military officials and residents say Al Qaeda has taken control of a major airport in southern Yemen after briefly clashing with troops.

The officials say Al Qaeda fighters clashed Thursday with members of the infantry brigade in charge of protecting the Riyan airport in the city of Mukalla, a major port city and the provincial capital of Yemen’s largest province, Hadramawt.

Al Qaeda overran the city itself earlier this month and freed inmates, including a militant commander, from its prison.

Nasser Baqazouz, an activist in the city, said the troops guarding the airport put up little resistance. (more…)

The Victims

BREAKING: Guilty on all 30 counts!  He is death penalty eligible !

After deliberating over 11 hours, the jury in the Boston Marathon bombing trial has reached verdicts.   It has been close to two years since the attacks left three people dead and far more wounded in the Boston Marathon Bombing.

The jury has found defendant Dzhokhar Tsarnaev guilty on charges of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and all 30 counts.  Which means he is eligible for the death penalty.

Computer forensic analysis of Andreas Lubitz online activity shows he was looking up “Suicide” and “Cockpit door security” prior to murdering 149 people on flight 9525. The Flight Data Recorder was also found buried in the mountain – investigators hopeful data can be recovered.

BERLIN (AP) – Germanwings co-pilot Andreas Lubitz spent time online researching suicide methods and cockpit door security in the week before crashing Flight 9525, prosecutors said Thursday – the first evidence that the fatal descent may have been a premeditated act.

As the browsing history on a tablet computer found at Lubitz’s apartment added a disturbing new piece to the puzzle of the March 24 crash, French investigators said they had recovered the Airbus A320’s flight data recorder – another step toward completing the picture. (more…)

(Via New York Times) Two women living in Queens have been charged with planning to build a bomb that they wanted to detonate in the United States.

The women, Noelle Velentzas, 28, and Asia Siddiqui, 31, who until recently were roommates, were named in a complaint unsealed on Thursday in Federal District Court in Brooklyn, and were expected to appear in court on Thursday afternoon.

Ms. Velentzas and Ms. Siddiqui, who are American citizens, appeared to be interested in jihad, according to the complaint, which said that they had been communicating with Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and had been viewing violent videos made by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS. (more…)

It should be noted Al-Shabaab -which is also known as AQNA (al-Qaeda in North Africa)- has previously been conclusively identified as maintaining training bases in Mexico (Report from 2011).  It is the same group responsible for the Kenya Mall attacks and has threatened the Mall of America. 

GARISSA, Kenya — Al-Shabaab gunmen rampaged through a university in northeastern Kenya at dawn Thursday, killing 147 people in the group’s deadliest attack in the East African country. Four militants were slain by security forces to end the siege just after dusk.

The masked attackers armed with AK-47s singled out non-Muslim students at Garissa University College and then gunned them down without mercy, survivors said. Others ran for their lives with bullets whistling through the air.

The gunmen had strapped themselves with explosives, Interior Minister Joseph Nkaissery said. When Kenyan officers shot at the four, the attackers exploded “like bombs” and shrapnel from the explosions injured officers, he said. (more…)

Two European media outlets, Bild and Paris Match, have combined their legal and financial resources around their possession of a micro SD (data memory card) recovered from the Flight 9525 crash site.

According to reporters who have watched the content.  The data card contains a short video showing the “chaos within the cabin” moments before the flight crashed. The video appears to have been taken from a cell phone belonging to a passenger who was on board the plane.

Bild/Paris Match are not saying how they came into possession of the fingernail sized data card. However, it is generally assumed someone picked it up from the crash site.

After Bild and Paris Match released a description of the video the initial crash investigative authority denied its authenticity. However, today the French authorities are walking back their doubtful statements and instead requesting the European media turn it over to them.

(Via The Telegraph) French police tell Paris Match and Bild to “hand over” what the two media claim is a “genuine” mobile phone video taken inside the Germanwings plane

[…] French authorities initially firmly denied the existence of the clip, which allegedly relays in a “few seconds” scenes of chaos and passengers screaming “My God” in several languages. But they are now calling on anyone in possession of such a film to “hand it over to investigators”. (more…)

Nothing to see here, move along, move along folks. The driver Ricky Shawantza Hall (27), and passenger Kevin Fleming (20), had spent night in a motel with another guy – then stole his truck, had some cocaine and a gun, took a wrong turn and panicked at the Fort Meade NSA guard shack.

(Via The Hill) New details about the pair of men who crashed outside the gates of the National Security Agency’s headquarters and sparked a shooting on Monday morning indicate that the incident was more a tragic mistake than a threat to national security.

Both men were “dressed as females” when they approached Fort Meade, Md., the FBI’s Baltimore office said on Tuesday, however their attire was “not in an attempt to disguise themselves from authorities.” (more…)

As we have outlined (with considerable criticism) over the past year, the only substantive inquiry into the Benghazi scandal will have to be held in non-public settings. When you dig into the substance, and avoid the political aspects, everything that matters regarding the Benghazi fiasco is covered under U.S. national security protections.

There is little of value available to discuss in public hearings. If you understand the Benghazi Brief you understand why.

The CIA and the State Department were conducting a joint covert operation labeled “Zero Footprint” in Libya. That operation was expanded into Syria after Panetta left the CIA. The congressional intelligence oversight known as the Gang of Eight were fully briefed.

Hence, if House Select Committee Chair Trey Gowdy wants to discuss email use, or communication methods therein, during the tenure of Clinton and Panetta, around Operation Zero Footprint, Gowdy has to make those inquiries in private.

WASHINGTON — The chairman of the House select committee investigating the Benghazi attacks asked Hillary Rodham Clinton on Tuesday to appear for a private interview about her exclusive use of a personal email account when she was secretary of state.

“The committee believes a transcribed interview would best protect Secretary Clinton’s privacy, the security of the information queried, and the public’s interest in ensuring this committee has all information needed to accomplish the task set before it,” the chairman, Trey Gowdy, Republican of South Carolina, said in a letter sent Tuesday morning. (more…)

INDIA – A Bangladeshi blogger was hacked to death in Dhaka on Monday, the second such attack on a critic of religious fundamentalism in the mainly Muslim country in less than two months.

Three knife-wielding attackers set upon 27-year-old Washiqur Rahman near his home on Monday morning, weeks after the murder of an American atheist blogger in Dhaka triggered international outrage.

Police said they had arrested two suspects at the scene and retrieved three knives, but a third escaped.  Deputy commissioner Wahidul Islam said Rahman had been “brutally hacked to death”.

“They hacked him in his head and neck with big knives and once he fell on the ground they then hacked his body,” he said. (more…)