Isis

Can we combine all the ISIS threads please.

  • Yes

    Votes: 14 45.2%
  • Why of course

    Votes: 5 16.1%
  • Yep

    Votes: 3 9.7%
  • Well I mean really, yes

    Votes: 9 29.0%

  • Total voters
    31

spaminator

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CSIS officers urged British police to obscure Canadian link to ISIL smuggler: book
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Jim Bronskill
Publishing date:Aug 31, 2022 • 9 hours ago • 3 minute read • Join the conversation

OTTAWA — A new book says Canadian Security Intelligence Service officers urged police in the U.K. not to reveal CSIS’s recruitment of a man who allegedly helped smuggle three British teenagers into Syria to join the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant.


In the book to be published Thursday, “The Secret History of the Five Eyes: The untold story of the shadowy international spy network, through its targets, traitors and spies,” author Richard Kerbaj says that in early March 2015, two CSIS officers visited Richard Walton, then head of the counterterrorism command at London’s Metropolitan Police Service.


Kerbaj’s book says the Canadian officers told Walton that the accused smuggler, Mohammed al-Rashed, had been working as an agent for CSIS when arrested by Turkish authorities the previous month — a case that had not yet been made public.

The book says the Canadian intelligence officials were not meeting with Walton to offer an apology, but rather in the hope that any ongoing investigation into the teenagers’ journey to Syria would not force CSIS to be questioned or held accountable.


Allegations about al-Rashed’s involvement with Canadian intelligence made international headlines — and surfaced in the House of Commons — in mid-March 2015.

Asked about Kerbaj’s book, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said Wednesday that in a “particularly dangerous world,” Canada’s intelligence services must be creative and flexible in the fight against terrorism, but he also noted they are bound by strict protocols.

“Our intelligence services are subject to rigorous rules and principles that they need to abide by,” he said.

The government will continue to ensure there is proper oversight and take “further steps” if needed, Trudeau added.

CSIS had no immediate response to questions about the book.


During an interrogation by Turkish intelligence officials, al-Rashed claimed that he had met a regional chief of ISIL while working at a hospital in Raqqa, Syria, the book says.

The chief wanted him to meet jihadists and “jihadi brides” arriving in Turkey from countries such as the United Kingdom and organize their travel arrangements over the border into Syria.

However, al-Rashed was desperate to begin a new life beyond Syria, where he was born, and had been trying to seek political asylum in Canada by submitting an application at the country’s embassy in Jordan, the book says.

“There, Canadian intelligence representatives from CSIS had seen his asylum application as a gateway for his recruitment as an agent.”


From then on, al-Rashed started documenting the details of people he had smuggled for ISIL by photographing their passports on the pretext that he required proof of their identification to buy their transport tickets for domestic travel, according to the book.

“He would then upload the passport images into his laptop and ultimately forward them to his CSIS handler at the embassy in Jordan.”

Following his arrest, Turkish authorities searched his laptop and found a video clip he had filmed of the three British schoolgirls, along with images of maps for ISIL camps in Syria and pictures of passports for at least 20 people, Kerbaj writes.

“Aware that the Turkish authorities would likely leak information about al-Rashed’s arrest to the media, the Canadians tried to get ahead of it to avoid any further embarrassment around the role CSIS had played in running him as an agent,” the book says.


“And it was in that spirit of post-operational manoeuvring that the two CSIS officers had travelled from the Canadian High Commission in London to meet with Walton — before the arrest of their agent in Turkey had been made public.”

The Canadians could not have done anything to stop the three teenagers from travelling into Syria, as by the time al-Rashed’s handler had found out, the schoolgirls had already crossed the border into ISIL territory, Kerbaj writes.

The author says he was told by many intelligence officials that it made no operational sense for the British police to publicize Canada’s involvement in the case because any verification would have reinforced ISIL’s ongoing paranoia and compromised any chances of infiltrating it through new informants.

— With a file from Marie Woolf.
 

spaminator

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U.S. to seek death penalty against accused New York bike path killer
Author of the article:Reuters
Reuters
Jonathan Stempel
Publishing date:Sep 19, 2022 • 1 day ago • 1 minute read • 14 Comments
Sayfullo Saipov, the suspect in the New York City truck attack, is seen in this handout photo released November 1, 2017.
Sayfullo Saipov, the suspect in the New York City truck attack, is seen in this handout photo released November 1, 2017. PHOTO BY ST. CHARLES COUNTY DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTIONS /Handout via REUTERS
NEW YORK — The U.S. government said it plans to seek the death penalty for the man charged with using a truck to kill eight people on a Manhattan bike path on Halloween in 2017.


In a letter filed late Friday in Manhattan federal court, prosecutors said Attorney General Merrick Garland “decided to continue to seek the death penalty” against Sayfullo Saipov, and that they notified the defendant’s lawyers and victims.


David Patton, a federal public defender representing Saipov, declined to comment.

The decision followed Garland’s July 2021 moratorium on federal executions while the Department of Justice reviews its use of the death penalty. Executions had resumed in 2020 under Garland’s predecessor William Barr, following a 17-year hiatus.

Saipov, 34, an Uzbek national, has pleaded not guilty to a 28-count indictment, including for murder and for providing material support to Islamic State, a U.S.-designated terrorist organization.


Prosecutors said Saipov intentionally used a Home Depot rental truck to mow down people along the West Side Highway on Oct. 31, 2017, hoping to gain membership in Islamic State.

According to prosecutors, Saipov chose Halloween because he thought more people would be on the streets, and also planned to strike the Brooklyn Bridge.

Those killed included five Argentinian tourists and one Belgian tourist. More than one dozen other people were severely injured.

Saipov has been jailed since his arrest, and is now housed in Brooklyn. If found guilty, he could also be sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Hundreds of prospective jurors received questionnaires last month to assess their knowledge of the case and potential bias.

Formal jury selection could begin around Oct. 11 and last a few weeks, and a trial could stretch into January 2023.

The Justice Department under Garland has defended the death penalty in some cases.

They include Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the 2013 Boston Marathon bomber, and Dylann Roof, the white supremacist who killed nine Black people at a South Carolina church in 2015.
 

spaminator

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Canadian gets 20 years for recruiting Islamic State fighters
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Publishing date:Oct 17, 2022 • 14 hours ago • 2 minute read • 21 Comments

SAN DIEGO — A Canadian who lived in Southern California was sentenced to 20 years in U.S. prison on Monday for helping at least a half-dozen Canadians and Americans join the Islamic State group in Syria in 2013 and 2014 — including the first known American to die fighting for the militant organization.


Abdullahi Ahmed Abdullahi directly funded “violent acts of terrorism,” including the kidnapping and killing of people in Syria, said U.S. Attorney Randy Grossman in a statement.


Abdullahi acknowledged in a plea agreement that he helped a resident of San Diego, Douglas McAuthur McCain, join IS. McCain was killed in Syria while fighting alongside IS fighters against Syrian opposition forces in 2014.

Prosecutors also said Abdullahi provided money to send an 18-year-old cousin from Minneapolis, Minnesota, to join IS fighters in Syria, as well as three other cousins from Edmonton, Canada.

The men all died in combat, according to the U.S. government.

Abdullahi was detained by Canadian authorities in 2017 and extradited to the U.S. two years later. He pleaded guilty to providing material support to terrorists in 2021.


He also admitted to robbing an Edmonton jewelry store in January 2014 to raise money to fund the foreign fighters. Weeks after committing that robbery, Abdullahi sent money to McCain so he could go to Syria.

McCain’s brother, Marchello McCain, was sentenced in 2018 to 10 years in U.S. federal prison for making false statements during several interviews with federal agents from 2014 to 2015, including denying knowing that his brother planned to fight for IS. He told the FBI that he thought his brother was going to Turkey to play music and teach English.

The U.S. announced earlier this month it killed three IS leaders in two separate operations, including a rare ground raid in a part of northeast Syria under government control.

Despite their defeat in Syria in 2019, when IS lost the last sliver of land its fighters once controlled, the extremists’ sleeper cells have continued to carry out deadly attacks in Syria and Iraq. IS fighters once held large parts of the two countries.
 

spaminator

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Family details horrific abuse at hands of female ISIS leader
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Matthew Barakat
Publishing date:Oct 24, 2022 • 19 hours ago • 4 minute read • Join the conversation

ALEXANDRIA, Va. — A Kansas native convicted of leading an all-female battalion of the Islamic State group had a long history of monstrous behaviour that included sexual and physical abuse of her own children, family members said in court filings.


Prosecutors cited the abuse allegations in seeking a maximum 20-year sentence for Allison Fluke-Ekren, 42, when she is sentenced Nov. 1 for providing material support to the Islamic State group.


“Allison Fluke-Ekren brainwashed young girls and trained them to kill. She carved a path of terror, plunging her own children into unfathomable depths of cruelty by physically, psychologically, emotionally, and sexually abusing them,” First Assistant U.S. Attorney Raj Parekh wrote in a sentencing memo spelling out the allegations Fluke-Ekren’s own children and parents have made against her.

Fluke-Ekren pleaded guilty to terrorism charges after she admitted that she led the Khatiba Nusaybah, an all-female battalion of the Islamic State, in which roughly 100 women and girls — some as young as 10 years old — learned how to use automatic weapons and detonate grenades and suicide belts.


Parekh’s sentencing memo spells out how Fluke-Ekren went from a childhood on an 81-acre farm in Overbrook, Kansas, to an Islamic State leader, traveling from Kansas to Egypt to Libya and then to Islamic State-controlled territory in Syria. Along the way she had 12 children and five different husbands, several of whom were killed in fighting.

Through all the years, family and acquaintances of Fluke-Ekren portrayed her as the driving force who pushed her second husband into radicalization and convinced him to take her and the kids to Egypt. Her plans for an all-female battalion were ignored and rejected by other terrorist groups like Jabhat al-Nusra, and only the Islamic State finally acquiesced to her idea, prosecutors said.


Fluke-Ekren’s parents describe her as manipulative and difficult from the start. Family members describe how she would laughingly tell the story of how she tried to drown her brother in an icy lake as children.

Perhaps most disturbing in a laundry list of disturbing reports are allegations from two of her children that she engaged in sexual abuse of her kids.

“My mother would beat my body, leaving my muscles cramping in agony. (She) would then go to her room and masturbate over the fact that she beat me. I could hear her from the other room,” one of Fluke-Ekren’s daughters, now an adult, wrote in a letter to the court. She is expected to testify at Fluke-Ekren’s sentencing hearing.

Fluke-Ekren’s oldest child, a son, also says he was molested.


“My mother is a monster who enjoys torturing children for sexual pleasure,” he wrote in his own letter to the court.

It is unclear to what extent the abuse allegations will affect the sentence imposed by U.S. District Judge Leonie Brinkema because they are not directly related to the terrorism crimes. The daughter will be allowed to testify at the sentencing hearing because she was a victim of the terrorism — her mother enrolled her in the Khatiba Nusaybah as a child. The son is not expected to testify.

Fluke-Ekren, for her part, is denying many of the abuse allegations. She has complained that she has an inadequate opportunity to refute her family’s statements.

Fluke-Ekren “is shocked and saddened by these allegations but acknowledges Witness-1 (her daughter) experienced trauma in Syria,” defense attorney Joseph King wrote in his sentencing memo, which seeks a sentence below 20 years. “She cannot undo the pain that she caused in taking Witness-1 to Syria.”


Her son said Fluke-Ekren has a long history of denying abuse and people choosing to believe her over her children.

“I know her and I know she wants to lie her way out of this, to get a slap on the wrist and try to use a sob story to once again get power and access to victims,” the son wrote.

Other allegations included in prosecutors sentencing memo:

— She urged a woman to commit a suicide bombing. When the woman said she could no longer carry out an attack because she was pregnant, Fluke-Ekren took in the child after his birth so the woman could go forward with the attack.

— She told others that her oldest son was was born after she was raped by an American soldier as a way to ingratiate herself inside the terrorist groups where she sought to increase her status.

— She forced her 13-year-old daughter to marry an Islamic State fighter.

— In Libya, she sought to establish a school for girls in which she showed young girls videos of Iraqi women being raped by American soldiers. “She would tell us that if we didn’t kill the ‘kuffar’ (non-believer) that we would be raped,” the daughter wrote in court papers about the experience.
 

spaminator

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Quebec woman returning from Syria with children charged with joining Islamic State
Oumaima Chouay had been under investigation since November 2014

Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Sidhartha Banerjee
Publishing date:Oct 26, 2022 • 8 hours ago • 4 minute read • 30 Comments

MONTREAL — A Quebec woman who allegedly travelled to Syria to join the Islamic State terrorist group has been repatriated from a detention camp in Syria and is facing terrorism charges, the RCMP said Wednesday.


Oumaima Chouay faces charges of leaving Canada to participate in the activity of a terrorist group, participation in the activity of a terrorist group, providing property or services for terrorism purposes and conspiracy to participate in the activity of a terrorist group.


The RCMP said Chouay, 27, had been under investigation by the police force’s Integrated National Security Enforcement Team since November 2014.

Global Affairs Canada said in a statement that a total of four Canadians — two women and two children — were transferred from the camp in northeastern Syria, thanking the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria for its co-operation and care of those detained, as well as the United States for its assistance.


Along with Chouay and her two children, British Columbia resident Kimberly Polman was also returned to Canada early Wednesday, her lawyer confirmed.

Insp. David Beaudoin told reporters that Chouay’s arrest is the culmination of the investigation triggered after the woman left Canada in 2014.

“According to the investigation, Ms. Chouay allegedly travelled to Syria and Iraq to join the Islamic State terrorist group,” Beaudoin said outside RCMP headquarters in Montreal. “In Syria, it is alleged she participated in terrorist activities in the name of the Islamic State.”


In November 2017, the RCMP says, Chouay was taken prisoner by the Syrian Democratic Forces and held at the Roj camp in a region recaptured from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant. That’s where she remained until her return to Canada, along with her two children who were born while she was overseas.


Beaudoin said the children have been an area of concern for investigators since the beginning of the probe.

“We have taken extensive measures to ensure they receive the proper support. At this point they are in the care of the CIUSSS (regional health board) and also the family has been solicited to take part in the response to ensure they get the best support possible,” Beaudoin said.

Chouay, from the western Montreal borough of Pierrefonds, was arrested by the Mounties at about 2 a.m. Wednesday after landing at Montreal’s Trudeau International Airport.

She appeared briefly by video link on Wednesday from RCMP headquarters, wearing a chador that covered all but her face. Her lawyer, Audrey-Bianca Chabauty, asked the court that she be given access to medical service in detention.


Federal Crown prosecutor Marc Cigana objected to bail for the accused, telling reporters after the hearing that Chouay is considered a flight risk and poses a danger to society. The parties will return to court on Friday to set a date for a hearing.

Polman’s lawyer, Lawrence Greenspon, said he spoke to her after she landed in Montreal and his understanding is that federal authorities will be seeking a peace bond imposing conditions on her release. He said she was en route to Vancouver.

“At that point, I expect she will be brought before a justice of the peace and will enter into a recognizance,” Greenspon said.

Greenspon said in an interview that his client was delighted to be back in Canada, adding that Polman’s poor health is the principal reason she was repatriated.


Polman’s family told The Canadian Press last year that she had been suffering from post-traumatic stress and other challenges about six years ago when she surprised them by turning up in Syria. She married an ISIL fighter but they soon separated. She was imprisoned and later denounced ISIL publicly.

Greenspon said there are now seven Canadians who have returned home from detention in Syria, with many others still waiting, including young children.

“Every time this happens, it demonstrates, once again, the capacity of the Canadian government to make this happen, and the other 23 Canadians that I represent are asking the question, ‘Well, if you can do this for Kimberly Polman … what are we doing rotting way in the detention camps in northeastern Syria?” Greenspon said.


Greenspon said more than 20 countries have repatriated 1,000 nationals to their respective countries, so Canada’s efforts are lagging. He plans to proceed with a Federal Court hearing scheduled for Dec. 5 on the matter.

“So I would hope that we can bring back all of the Canadian men, women and children before then and not need the hearing. That would be wonderful,” Greenspon said.

Speaking before the Liberal caucus meeting in Ottawa, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was asked about the repatriation effort and charges.

“Fundamentally, travelling for the purpose of supporting terrorism is a crime in Canada. And anyone who travelled for the purpose of supporting terrorism should face criminal charges,” he said.

“I’m not going to speak directly to any given situation, because it’s in the hands of the police and eventually the courts. But it is important that we make sure that people know you cannot get away with supporting terrorism in this country, regardless of the circumstances.”

Asked if other repatriation efforts are underway, Trudeau said Canadian authorities continue to “engage responsibly” in the region.

— With files from Mia Rabson in Ottawa and Beth Leighton in Vancouver
 

spaminator

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B.C. wife of ISIS fighter is released on bail, pending peace bond hearing
Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Publishing date:Oct 27, 2022 • 5 hours ago • 1 minute read • Join the conversation

CHILLIWACK, B.C. — A British Columbia woman who was repatriated to Canada from a detention camp in Syria this week after marrying an ISIS fighter has been granted bail pending a peace bond hearing.


Kimberly Polman will be released on recognizance and will be living in Chilliwack, 100 kilometres east of Vancouver, where she appeared in provincial court.


Under the bail conditions, Polman is prohibited from possessing a cellphone or any other device capable of connecting to the internet, and from driving any motorized vehicle.


She cannot possess any documents related to a terrorist group or leave B.C. without the consent of her bail supervisor, and she must be electronically monitored and abide by a 9 p.m. curfew.

Evidence and arguments presented at the bail hearing are subject to a publication ban.

Polman’s next court appearance was set for Dec. 2.

She is one of two women who returned to Canada from a detention camp in Syria on Wednesday.

Oumaima Chouay, a Quebec woman who was repatriated alongside Polman, was arrested and faces four counts, including leaving Canada to participate in the activity of a terrorist group.
 

The_Foxer

House Member
Aug 9, 2022
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Oumaima Chouay, a Quebec woman who was repatriated alongside Polman, was arrested and faces four counts, including leaving Canada to participate in the activity of a terrorist group.
And why aren't we doing that with little Kimberly here?
 

The_Foxer

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Aug 9, 2022
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anyone who commits a crime should not be allowed back in the country.
There's actually a fascinating legal and ethical debate over that spread across multiple countries. To not allow someone back in you'd have to revoke their citizenship. Unless they're a dual citizen that means they have NO citizenship anywhere and are in a weird limbo state legally speaking. Some countries actually do this - england did and i believe still does although there's much pressure not to because of the ramifications of literally having no home country.

For things like taking up arms against your country and it's allies I'm still in favour of it. Sorry if it's an inconvenience - maybe if you like having a country then don't serve with it's enemies.
 

spaminator

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Fintrac agency tracking signs of homegrown terrorism financing
The centre made 355 disclosures in 2021-22 to Canada's law enforcement and national security agencies

Author of the article:Canadian Press
Canadian Press
Jim Bronskill
Published Dec 15, 2022 • 3 minute read

OTTAWA — Efforts by Canada’s financial intelligence agency over the last three years uncovered activity related to homegrown terrorism, the bankrolling of international terrorist groups and attempts by Canadians to take part in extremism abroad.


Those three main themes emerge from the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada’s review of its intelligence disclosures to police and security agencies from January 2019 to October 2022 related to the funding of terrorist activity.


The federal centre, known as Fintrac, is drawing on the analysis to help banks and others that handle large sums to better spot shady transactions linked to terrorism.

For instance, Fintrac says in a newly published operational alert, transaction details might include references to words, phrases or numbers linked to violent extremist groups or symbols.

The centre zeroes in on cash linked to terrorism, money laundering and other crimes by sifting through data from banks, insurance companies, securities dealers, money service businesses, real estate brokers, casinos and others.


In turn, Fintrac discloses intelligence to police and security partners.

Using the information gleaned from Canadian businesses, the centre made 355 disclosures in 2021-22 to Canada’s law enforcement and national security agencies in support of investigations related to terrorist activity financing.

Among the disclosures from recent years in which the target of terrorism was in Canada — whether an event eventually occurred or not — most were related to ideologically motivated violent extremism.

Authorities say such extremism is driven by xenophobia and grievances related to gender, opposition to authority or other personal causes, sometimes in combination with one another.

Based on Fintrac’s analysis, extremists motivated by ideology in Canada fell into three sub-categories: lone actors, cross-border networks and organized groups.


Lone actors tended to be self-funded, sometimes through payroll or government-assistance deposits, the centre found.

Cross-border networks mainly used large money service businesses to transfer funds, along with electronic money transfers, while organized groups raised funds through a variety of methods.

Like money laundering, funds for terrorist activity financing can come from criminal sources such as the drug trade, Fintrac says. However, unlike money laundering, cash might also be raised from legitimate sources including donations and business profits.

The new operational alert — and list of telltale signs to monitor — should be helpful to the agencies that report to the centre “because historically, and traditionally, it’s easier to identify money laundering than terrorist financing,” said Barry MacKillop, the centre’s deputy director of intelligence at Fintrac.


None of the domestic tracking was linked in any way to the “Freedom Convoy” protests of last winter, as they did not involve terrorist activity or financing, MacKillop said in an interview.

Transactions related to the financing of international terrorist groups consisted mainly of funds transfers to countries of concern for such activity including Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Syria, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

These transfers, often funded by cash deposits, were conducted by people in Canada using money service businesses in many cases, Fintrac found.

Within the analyzed disclosures, the most frequently identified international terrorist group was Daesh, also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, followed by Hezbollah, the alert says.


“A large portion of the funds suspected of supporting Daesh were sent to Turkey, often to regions or towns close to the Turkey-Syria border, a particular high-risk region for terrorist activity financing.”

Funds suspected of bankrolling Hezbollah were frequently sent or received by people or organizations refererring to the sale of cars or listed in the automotive industry.

Fintrac also continued to receive information about suspicious financial transactions related to the threat of Canadians travelling to take part in extremist activities.

The agency noticed that such travellers often emptied their bank accounts before leaving and used debit or credit cards along known travel corridors to a conflict zone. In addition, accounts were often dormant while the traveller was abroad, becoming active again upon the person’s return to Canada.

Extremist travellers returning to Canada frequently sent or received international transfers and received cash deposits from third parties with no clear purpose.

In some cases, travel plans were interrupted before the individuals could leave Canada through action by law enforcement agencies.

“Some of our intelligence has been able to support their investigations,” MacKillop said.
 

spaminator

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North York man arrested over alleged fraudulent fundraising that aided ISIS
Author of the article:Liz Braun
Published Dec 15, 2022 • 2 minute read

The U.S. Justice Department has charged four people in a plot to fundraise for ISIS, and one of those charged is a North York man.


Khalilullah Yousuf, 34, was arrested Wednesday by Canadian police as per a request from U.S. authorities.


The others charged are Mohammad David Hashimi, 35, of Virginia, Abdullah At Taqi, 23, of New York, and Seema Rahman, 23, of New Jersey.

A document from the Department of Justice outlines a suspected conspiracy that saw the four allegedly fundraise for fraudulent humanitarian causes, and then transfer the money into cryptocurrency earmarked for the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS).

The arrests were announced in a joint statement Wednesday from the U.S. Attorney’s office, the Justice Department’s National Security Division and the FBI.

“As alleged, this crowdfunding network used cryptocurrency, Bitcoin wallets, GoFundMe, and PayPal to collect and raise blood money to support ISIS, not for needy families as they falsely claimed in their attempt to deceive law enforcement,” said Breon Peace, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of New York.


Peace spoke of “the true evil nature of these virtual money transfers” and those who would enable “acts of violent extremism.”

FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge Michael Driscoll stated: “As alleged, the defendants deliberately participated in schemes to raise funds for ISIS in support of the group’s barbaric aims and actions.”

Hashimi and Yousuf were part of a group chat that allegedly facilitated communication among supporters of ISIS and, according to the Department of Justice, “other violent jihadist ideologies.”

In April of 2021, there was allegedly a conversation about posting donation links, ostensibly for charitable causes, but which were intended to help the “mujahideen” or “holy warriors.”


Yousuf is accused of providing a link to a specific Bitcoin address, while another group chat member allegedly posted a link to a PayPal campaign — both funds being controlled by someone identified as “Facilitator-1” in the complaint.



“Facilitator-1” allegedly sent pictures and video showing tactical gear, ammunition, and grenades on top of an ISIS flag when asked for proof that the money was going to support ISIS.

Between February 2021 and July 2022, the defendants allegedly raised and contributed more than $35,000 to Facilitator-1 via a combination of cryptocurrency and other sources, according to the Department of Justice.

The defendants allegedly sent more than $24,000 to Facilitator-1’s Bitcoin address, with Yousuf allegedly contributing the largest amount of more than $20,000.

The defendants also allegedly contributed to the PayPal account.

Both Yousuf and Rahman are accused of creating multiple GoFundMe campaigns, pretending to collect money for charitable causes.
 

Dixie Cup

Senate Member
Sep 16, 2006
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Edmonton
Oh oh, I did send money over seas. I hope they don't think I'm a terrorist LOL!! Just helping a friend in need.
 

spaminator

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Alabama woman who joined IS hopes to return from Syria camp
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Published Jan 08, 2023 • 5 minute read

ROJ CAMP, Syria — A woman who ran away from home in Alabama at the age of 20, joined the Islamic State group and had a child with one of its fighters says she still hopes to return to the United States, serve prison time if necessary, and advocate against the extremists.


In a rare interview from the Roj detention camp in Syria where she is being held by U.S.-allied Kurdish forces, Hoda Muthana said she was brainwashed by online traffickers into joining the group in 2014 and regrets everything except her young son, now of pre-school age.


“If I need to sit in prison, and do my time, I will do it. … I won’t fight against it,” the 28-year-old told U.S.-based outlet The News Movement. “I’m hoping my government looks at me as someone young at the time and naive.”

It’s a line she’s repeated in various media interviews since fleeing from one of the extremist group’s last enclaves in Syria in early 2019.

But four years earlier, at the height of the extremists’ power, she had voiced enthusiastic support for them on social media and in an interview with BuzzFeed News. IS then ruled a self-declared Islamic caliphate stretching across roughly a third of both Syria and Iraq. In posts sent from her Twitter account in 2015 she called on Americans to join the group and carry out attacks in the U.S., suggesting drive-by shootings or vehicle rammings targeting gatherings for national holidays.


In her interview with TNM, Muthana now says her phone was taken from her and that the tweets were sent by IS supporters.

Muthana was born in New Jersey to Yemeni immigrants and once had a U.S. passport. She was raised in a conservative Muslim household in Hoover, Alabama, just outside Birmingham. In 2014, she told her family she was going on a school trip but flew to Turkey and crossed into Syria instead, funding the travel with tuition checks that she had secretly cashed.

The Obama administration cancelled her citizenship in 2016, saying her father was an accredited Yemeni diplomat at the time she was born – a rare revocation of birthright citizenship. Her lawyers have disputed that move, arguing that the father’s diplomatic accreditation ended before she was born.


The Trump administration maintained that she was not a citizen and barred her from returning, even as it pressed European allies to repatriate their own detained nationals to reduce pressure on the detention camps.

U.S. courts have sided with the government on the question of Muthana’s citizenship, and last January the Supreme Court declined to consider her lawsuit seeking re-entry.

That has left her and her son languishing in a detention camp in northern Syria housing thousands of widows of Islamic State fighters and their children.

Some 65,600 suspected Islamic State members and their families – both Syrians and foreign citizens – are held in camps and prisons in northeastern Syria run by U.S.-allied Kurdish groups, according to a Human Rights Watch report released last month.


Women accused of affiliation with IS and their minor children are largely housed in the al-Hol and Roj camps, under what the rights group described as “life threatening conditions.” The camp inmates include more than 37,400 foreigners, among them Europeans and North Americans.

Human Rights Watch and other monitors have cited dire living conditions in the camps, including inadequate food, water and medical care, as well as the physical and sexual abuse of inmates by guards and fellow detainees.

Kurdish-led authorities and activists have blamed IS sleeper cells for surging violence within the facilities, including the beheading of two Egyptian girls, aged 11 and 13, in al-Hol camp in November. Turkish airstrikes targeting the Kurdish groups launched that month also hit close to al-Hol. Camp officials alleged that the Turkish strikes were targeting security forces guarding the camp.


“None of the foreigners have been brought before a judicial authority ⦠to determine the necessity and legality of their detention, making their captivity arbitrary and unlawful,” Human Rights Watch wrote. “Detention based solely on family ties amounts to collective punishment, a war crime.”

Calls to repatriate the detainees were largely ignored in the immediate aftermath of IS’ bloody reign, which was marked by massacres, beheadings and other atrocities, many of which were broadcast to the world in graphic films circulated on social media.

But with the passage of time, the pace of repatriations has started to pick up. Human Rights Watch said some 3,100 foreigners – mostly women and children – have been sent home over the past year. Most were Iraqis, who comprise the majority of detainees, but citizens were also repatriated to Australia, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Russia and the United Kingdom.


The U.S. has repatriated a total of 39 American nationals. It’s unclear how many other Americans remain in the camps.

These days, Muthana portrays herself as a victim of the Islamic State.

Speaking with TNM, she describes how, after arriving in Syria in 2014, she was detained in a guest house reserved for unmarried women and children. “I’ve never seen that kind of filthiness in my life, like there was 100 women and twice as much kids, running around, too much noise, filthy beds,” she said.

The only way to escape was to marry a fighter. She eventually married and remarried three times. Her first two husbands, including the father of her son, were killed in battle. She reportedly divorced her third husband.

The extremist group, which is also known as ISIS, no longer controls any territory in Syria or Iraq but continues to carry out sporadic attacks and has supporters in the camps themselves. Muthana says she still has to be careful about what she says because of fear of reprisal.


“Even here, right now, I can’t fully say everything I want to say. But once I do leave, I will. I will be an advocate against this,” she said. “I wish I can help the victims of ISIS in the West understand that someone like me is not part of it, that I as well am a victim of ISIS.”

Hassan Shibly, an attorney who has assisted Muthana’s family, said it is “absolutely clear that she was brainwashed and taken advantage of.”

He said her family wishes she could come back, pay her debt to society and then help others from “falling into the dark path that she was led down.”

“She was absolutely misguided, and no one is denying that. But again, she was a teenager who was the victim of a very sophisticated recruitment operation that focuses on taking advantage of the young, the vulnerable, the disenfranchised,” he said.
 

spaminator

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Isis flag sent in school letter an embarrassing mistake for Toronto principal
TDSB principal Darlene Jones mistakenly posted an Isis flag in a school newsletter about Islamic Heritage month

Author of the article:Liz Braun
Published Jan 12, 2023 • 2 minute read

A stupid mistake made by a Toronto elementary school principal last fall has come back to haunt her.


Darlene Jones is the principal of Dr. Rita Cox – Kina Minogok Public School in Parkdale (formerly Queen Victoria Public School) and in October she created a newsletter celebrating Somali Heritage Month and Islamic Heritage Month.


It was emailed to hundreds of families involved with the school.

Jones included a picture of an ISIS flag in her message — obviously a shocking sight to anyone who recognized the image.

Listed as a terrorist group in Canada, ISIS or ISIL (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) is a violent extremist organization that has claimed responsibility for attacks in some 20 other countries.

What prompted Jones to apparently copy and paste the ISIS flag into a school newsletter later emailed to around 700 families remains unknown. But once alerted to the mistake, she apologized immediately.


Jones acknowledged that the image was offensive in a follow-up email sent in October to school families.

She wrote, “I would like to apologize to all who were harmed by the image I sent last week to celebrate Islamic Heritage Month. The image was offensive and harmful and does not represent Islam.”

The story resurfaced this week when some social media users decried Jones’ error as unforgivable in a principal, while others praised her work as an excellent teacher.

A report from CTV claims there is concern among some parents over Jones’ inattention to detail, citing another email in which Jones confused a federal and a municipal election and included the wrong date for families to come and vote at the school.


TDSB spokesperson Ryan Bird has described Jones, a first-time elementary principal, as “completely capable.”

He said on Thursday that the flag incident was a terrible mistake and that Jones apologized at once when the incident happened some months ago.

“There is no reason to believe there was any ill intent. The principal feels horrible about what happened,” he said.

“When the mistake was brought to the principal’s attention in October, she immediately drafted a correction that was shared with all families, in which she apologized and acknowledged the harmful and offensive image that was originally shared.”
 

spaminator

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NYC bike path killer convicted, could face the death penalty
Author of the article:Associated Press
Associated Press
Larry Neumeister and Bobby Caina Calvan
Published Jan 26, 2023 • 3 minute read

NEW YORK — An Islamic extremist who killed eight people with a speeding truck in a 2017 rampage on a popular New York City bike path was convicted Thursday of federal crimes and could face the death penalty.


Sayfullo Saipov bowed his head as he heard the verdict in a Manhattan courtroom just a few blocks from where the attack ended. Prosecutors said the Halloween rampage was inspired by his reverence for the Islamic State militant group.


The dozen jurors deliberated for about seven hours over two days before convicting Saipov, 34, of 28 counts of crimes that include murder in aid of racketeering and supporting a foreign terrorist organization. Jurors will return to court no earlier than Feb. 6 to hear more evidence to help them decide whether he should be executed or spend the rest of his life in prison.

A death sentence for Saipov, a citizen of Uzbekistan, would be an extreme rarity in New York. The state no longer has capital punishment and the last state execution was in 1963. A federal jury in New York has not rendered a death sentence that withstood legal appeals in decades, with the last execution in 1954.


Even before the trial, there was no doubt Saipov was a killer.

His lawyers conceded to the jury that he rented a pickup truck near his New Jersey home, steered it onto the path along the Hudson River and mowed down bicyclists for blocks before crashing into a school bus near the World Trade Center.

He emerged from his truck yelling “God is great,” in Arabic, with pellet and paintball guns in his hands before he was shot by a police officer who thought they were real firearms.

The vehicle attack killed a woman visiting from Belgium with her family, five friends from Argentina and two Americans. It left others with permanent injuries, including a woman who lost her legs.

“His actions were senseless, horrific, and there’s no justification for them,” defense attorney David Patton told the jury during the trial.


The defense asked jurors to acquit Saipov of racketeering charges, saying he intended to die a martyr and was not conspiring with the Islamic State organization, despite voluminous amounts of propaganda from the group found on his electronic devices and at his home.

Saipov did not testify at his trial.

He sat quietly each day, unlike at a 2019 pretrial hearing where he insisted on questioning the judge about why he should be judged for eight deaths when “thousands and thousands of Muslims are dying all over the world.”

Saipov moved legally to the U.S. from Uzbekistan in 2010 and lived in Ohio and Florida before joining his family in Paterson, New Jersey.

Prosecutors said Saipov attacked civilians to impress the Islamic State group so he could become a member and appeared pleased with his work, smiling when he spoke to an FBI agent afterward.


Among those testifying were several family members from Belgium who were injured in the attack. Aristide Melissas, a father, said he had challenged family members to race their bikes to the World Trade Center, with the loser paying for ice cream. When he was struck by Saipov’s truck, his skull was fractured. He underwent brain surgery.

His wife, Marion Van Reeth, spoke of waking up in a hospital to learn her legs had been amputated.

Saipov’s lawyers have said the death penalty process was irreparably tainted by former President Donald Trump, who tweeted a day after the attack that Saipov “SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!”

President Joe Biden subsequently instituted a moratorium on executions for federal crimes.

Until Saipov’s trial, Biden’s Justice Department, under Attorney General Merrick Garland, had not launched any new attempt to obtain the death penalty in a federal case. But Garland has allowed U.S. prosecutors to continue advocating for capital punishment in cases inherited from previous administrations.

It has been a decade since a jury in New York last considered the death penalty.

Federal juries in Brooklyn twice gave a death sentence to a man who murdered two New York police detectives, once in 2007 and again in 2013, but both sentences were tossed out on appeal. A judge ultimately ruled the killer was intellectually disabled.

In 2001, just weeks before the Sept. 11 attacks, federal jurors in Manhattan declined to impose a death sentence on two men convicted in the deadly bombings of two U.S. embassies in Africa. The men’s lawyers had urged jurors not to make the defendants into martyrs.
 

spaminator

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Federal prosecutors want death penalty for New York bike path killer

Sayfullo Saipov, 35, was convicted of federal crimes in January.

Author of the article:Brad Hunter
Published Feb 13, 2023 • 2 minute read

Prosecutors want to give Eddie Lee Mays some company.

Mays was the last man executed in New York State on Aug. 15, 1963, when the low-rent killer died in the electric chair at Sing Sing.


Now, federal prosecutors in the Empire State want to give the convicted terrorist who murdered eight people when he drove down a Big Apple bike path in 2017 the same send-off.

Sayfullo Saipov, 35, was convicted of federal crimes in January.

On Oct. 30, 2017, Saipov drove across the George Washington Bridge from New Jersey in a Home Depot rental van. He later drove onto a West Side bike path and mowed down almost a dozen pedestrians and cyclists.

When he emerged from the vehicle, the ISIS fanboy screamed “God is great” in Arabic while waving paintball guns. A New York cop ended the tirade with a bullet.

If the jury passes on the death penalty, Saipov will automatically be sentenced to life without parole.


One roadblock to giving Saipov the big adios is the Biden administration’s moratorium on federal executions.

The terrorist’s legal eagles argued that Saipov should be let off the hook because the feds didn’t seek the death penalty for Patrick Crusius. Crusius slaughtered 23 people in a shooting rampage in El Paso, Texas. Ergo, Saipov is being discriminated against because of his ethnic background.

Lawyer David Patton said: “Given the recent decision to accept Patrick Crusius’s guilty plea to life imprisonment despite his unrepentant and premeditated hate killing of 23 Latinos at a Walmart in El Paso, Texas — Crusius being a white, U.S.-born citizen — the court should have significant concern that a driving force behind the death notice, in this case, is Mr. Saipov’s religion and national origin, in violation of the Fifth and Eighth Amendments.”

Saipov is an Uzbek Muslim who was in the U.S. after winning a diversity immigration lottery.


His lawyers also took exception to former U.S. President Donald Trump tweeting the day following the attack that Saipov “SHOULD GET DEATH PENALTY!”

Prosecutors said Saipov’s bloodlust was fuelled by his adoration of Islamic State. He was convicted of 28 charges, including murder and supporting a foreign terrorist organization.

This week, jurors will decide whether he should live or die.

He did not testify during the trial.

Prosecutors had argued that Saipov considered the attack as something of a tryout for the Islamic State of which he wanted to be a member.

bhunter@postmedia.com

@HunterTOSun
 
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Tecumsehsbones

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True fact: If you're convicted of a Federal crime and given the death penalty, they'll ship you around until they find a state that has the death penalty, and execute you there.

We've spent billions trying to "improve" execution. Imagine what we coulda done with that money!
 

Dixie Cup

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True fact: If you're convicted of a Federal crime and given the death penalty, they'll ship you around until they find a state that has the death penalty, and execute you there.

We've spent billions trying to "improve" execution. Imagine what we coulda done with that money!
I abhor the death penalty. If they've been found guilty, they simply should "throw away the key." Having said that there are also likely hundreds (?) thousands (?) of people in prison who are innocent of this type of crime so I would not want their deaths on my conscience - we become them!
 
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