Fausta's Blog

American and Latin American Politics, Society, and Culture

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Mexican woman arrested in Spain for inciting ISIS jihad

El País reports:
Mexican woman arrested in Madrid on terrorism charges. The detainee is said to be a “very important” figure in radical circles in her home country

Say again?
“The detainee is said to be a “very important” figure in radical circles in her home country”

Spanish authorities have accused the woman of glorifying terrorism and believe she was a part of a “stable structure” dedicated to the diffusion of extremely violent jihadist propaganda “using a range of online platforms and instant-messaging services,” Spain’s Interior Ministry said in a statement.

EN ESPAÑOL
Una mexicana, detenida en Madrid por enaltecer el terrorismo yihadista
Spanish authorities have accused the woman of glorifying terrorism and believe she was a part of a “stable structure” dedicated to the diffusion of extremely violent jihadist propaganda “using a range of online platforms and instant-messaging services,” Spain’s Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The detainee had already converted to Islam in 2010 before moving move to Spain, according to the Civil Guard. On her arrival in this country, she married a Muslim and began to spread radical messages.

“She managed to become one of the most important figures among women in the Islamic community in the country of her birth,” sources say, promoting female jihadism and sharing propaganda material with a wide range of contacts. [emphasis added]

The woman remains unnamed.

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Colombia: FARC is world’s 3rd richest terrorist organization

The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, FARC, are the world’s third richest terrorist organization, according to a report published by Forbes:

3. FARC – Annual Turnover $600 million
FARC, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia), is an underground Marxist and anti-imperialist activist group and a key player in the bloody struggle that’s ravaged Columbia for more than 50 years.

Region: Colombia.

Main funding sources: drug production and drug trafficking, kidnapping and ransom, mining of minerals (especially gold), fees and taxes.

Purpose: elimination of the capitalist regime and the establishment of a Marxist-socialist welfare.

ISIS  and Hamas took first and second place on the list.

The pricey “peace” agreement Colombian (and U.S.) taxpayers will be financing:

Over 10 years, the costs of post-conflict programs is expected to reach $16.8 billion, or about 1% of Colombia’s gross domestic product.

The “peace” agreement will give the FARC, an organization whose purpose is the “elimination of the capitalist regime and the establishment of a Marxist-socialist welfare,” ten unelected seats in Colombia’s Congress.

Cross-posted at WoW! Magazine.

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Trinidad: ISIS in the Caribbean

Simon Cottee asks, ISIS in the Caribbean. Trinidad has the highest rate of Islamic State recruitment in the Western hemisphere. How did this happen?

In a recent paper in the journal Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, John McCoy and W. Andy Knight posit that between 89-125 Trinidadians—or Trinis, to use the standard T&T idiom—have joined ISIS. Roodal Moonilal, an opposition Member of Parliament in T&T, insists that the total number is considerably higher, claiming that, according to a leaked security document passed on to him, over 400 have left since 2013. Even the figure of 125 would easily place Trinidad, with a population of 1.3 million, including 104,000 Muslims, top of the list of Western countries with the highest rates of foreign-fighter radicalization; it’s by far the largest recruitment hub in the Western Hemisphere, about a four and a half hour flight from the U.S. capital.
. . .

In 2011, the government declared a state of emergency, in response to a wave of violent crime linked to drug trafficking and intelligence reports warning of an assassination plot against the then-Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and senior members of her cabinet. At-Trinidadi, along with several others, was detained on suspicion of colluding in the alleged plot. In Dabiq, at-Trinidadi, alludes to this, but denies any involvement. “That would have been an honor for us to attempt,” he acknowledged, “but the reality of our operations was much smaller.” He also credited a Muslim scholar named Ashmead Choate as a formative spiritual influence. Choate, a fellow Trini and former principal of the Darul Quran Wal Hadith Islamic School in Freeport, central Trinidad, reportedly left for Syria between 2012 and 2013, taking his family with him. According to at-Trinidadi’s testimony in Dabiq, Choate, who was detained alongside him during the state of emergency, was killed fighting in Ramadi, Iraq.

Long-time readers of this blog may recall that in 2007 Kareem Ibrahim from Trinidad was arrested as member of the JFK terror plot to blow up the airport’s major fuel supply tanks and pipeline.

Earlier yet, Trinidad had an Islamic insurrection – read the full article.

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Argentina: ISIS trial balloon?

The Huffington Post reports today on a story that the UK’s Express reported on last July

Two men were recently arrested in Argentina after sending terrorist threats to the country’s president, Mauricio Macri.

The 21-year olds sent Tweets in Arabic threatening to “obliterate” the South American nation. Authorities were alerted after an image of explosives was sent to Macri. Text with the picture said, “See you soon.”

The messages sent late last night, came as Macri was preparing for a series of high-profile events in Buenos Aires. The events are supposed to be visited by thousands.

The HuffPo and Express articles show a number of tweets sent by a user named Hassan Abdullah Jaaf threatening Macri and the country’s Jewish population.

As has become the trend,

Carlos Rojas, the head of the country’s Cybercrime Division, said, “We must determine the reasons behind the messages.”

Last week RT (link in Spanish) reported that the country’s Security Minister declared Argentinians trained by ISIS have been in the Syrian or Iraqi hot zones, and have travelled back and forth to either Argentina some of the neighboring countries, such as Uruguay.

As of the writing of this post, I could not find an update on the status of “Hassan Abdullah Jaaf” or the other, unnamed 21 year old arrested in July.

So the question remains, were the tweets a trial balloon, to see if the authorities are paying attention?

UPDATE
We talked about this today,

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France: ISIS member beheads Catholic priest in his own church UPDATED – and filmed it

While no one at the DNC mentioned ISIS in yesterday’s speeches, two Islamists stormed into the church in Saint-Etienne-du-Rouvray near Rouen during mass shouting Allahu Akbar, and beheaded Fr. Jacques Hamel, age 84.

There are also reports that one of the attackers was a local resident who was under electronic tag surveillance having been jailed in France for trying to travel to Syria in 2015. His bail terms allowed him to be unsupervised between 8.30am and 12.30pm – the attack happened between 9am and 11am.

Ponder that for a moment.

Fr. Jacques Hamel, R.I.P.

The Daily Mail lists,

Today’s attack is the latest to hit Europe in what has been a year of bloodshed on the continent:

July 24:Festival suicide bombing – A failed Syrian asylum seeker set off an explosive device near an open-air music festival in the southern city of Ansbach that killed himself and wounded a dozen others.

The 27-year-old had spent time in a psychiatric facility, while the regional authorities said an there was ‘likely’ a jihadist motive for the attack.

However a spokesman for the interior ministry later said there was as yet ‘no credible evidence’ of a link to Islamic extremism.

July 24: Knife attack – A Syrian refugee was arrested after killing a Polish woman with a large kebab knife at a snack bar in the southwestern city of Reutlingen, in an incident police said did not bear the hallmarks of a ‘terrorist attack’ and was more likely a crime of passion.

Three people were also injured in the assault, which ended when the 21-year-old assailant was deliberately struck by a BMW driver, believed to be the snack bar owner’s son, trying to stop the man.

July 22: Munich mall mass shooting – David Ali Sonboly, 18, shot dead nine people at a Munich shopping mall before turning the gun on himself, having spent a year planning the rampage.

Police said that the German-Iranian was ‘obsessed’ with mass killers like Norwegian right-wing fanatic Anders Behring Breivik and had no links to the Islamic State group.

July 18: Train axe attack – A 17-year-old migrant wielding an axe and a knife went on a rampage on a regional train, seriously injuring four members of a tourist family from Hong Kong and a German passer-by.

ISIS group subsequently released a video purportedly featuring the assailant, named by media as Riaz Khan Ahmadzai, announcing he would carry out an ‘operation’ in Germany, and presenting himself as a ‘soldier of the caliphate’.

He is believed to have been Afghan or Pakistani.

July 14: Tunisian Mohamed Lahouaiej Bouhlel ploughed a truck into a crowd of people celebrating Bastille Day in the French Riviera city of Nice, killing 84 people and injuring over 300.

The Nice attack was the third major strike on France in 18 months and was claimed by ISIS.

March 22: Suicide attacks claimed by ISIS kill 32 people and wound more than 300 at the Brussels airport and Maelbeek metro station, near European Union offices. They appear to have been carried out by members of the same cell that committed attacks in Paris four months earlier.

November 13, 2015: Coordinated suicide attacks in Paris kill 130 people and wound more than 350 at the Bataclan concert hall, cafes and the national stadium. ISIS claims responsibility for the attacks.

Related: ISIS Slaughtering Christians “In Their Beds”

And, Few targets are softer than churches. Church attack nine years ago: Sunday horror: Church shootings in Colorado; gunman killed by armed female church security staffer

UPDATE
The Daily Mail confirms that the Islamist knifemen forced priest, 84, to kneel and filmed his death as they slit his throat

Two ISIS knifemen who stormed a church in Normandy forced an elderly priest to kneel before filming themselves butchering him and performing a ‘sermon in Arabic’ at the altar, a terrified witness has revealed.

Blogging on Latin America will resume shortly.

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Brazil: ISIS chat board talks Rio Olympics

Bridget Johnson has the story,

A new Telegram channel, Ansar al-Khilafah Brazil, appeared today, declaring itself an ISIS cell in Brazil that had pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. “If French police couldn’t stop France attacks, then their training Brazil’s police will serve no use,” said a message on the new channel. But the administrator later posted that it was just a messaging channel with one person reposting ISIS news in several languages.

And,

Portuguese and Brazilian media revealed last month that Ismail Abdul Jabbar al-Brazili, also simply known as “The Brazilian,” was attempting to recruit his countrymen for the Islamic State. He was said to be employing several different social media accounts to reel in would-be jihadists, and has said he was recruited by late American jihadist Abu Khalid al-Amriki.

In an online forum uncovered by anti-ISIS hackers Binary Sec, a July 11 post to fellow “brothers” notes that someone was “wanting to find al-Brazili within 3 weeks… wants to find the recruiter” — a timetable that coincides with the Olympics’ opening week. The poster mused whether this person was a spy and posted his Telegram information.

The Rio Olympics open on August 5 and run through August 21.

Related:

They are still looking for the GITMO guy who went missing from Uruguay.

Brazil: Brazilian member of ISIS planned attack against French Olympic team

UPDATE
Brazil Deports French-Algerian Physicist Once Linked to al Qaeda. Few details on why a professor, Adlène Hicheur, was sent back to France

Linked to by American Thinker. Thank you!

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Brazil: Brazilian member of ISIS planned attack against French Olympic team

Nothing in the U.S. media on this, but reported by France’s Libération and Brazil’s O Globo:
France’s Director of Military Intelligence, General Christophe Gomart, testified to the Parliamentary Select Committee investigating the 2015 terrorist attacks in France that a Brazilian national who belongs to ISIS planned to attack the French delegation at the Rio Olympic games.

Gen. Gomart would not go into detail about the possible arrest and the exact location of this Brazilian member of ISIS, who may not necessarily be in Brazil, according to Libération.

The information, which should have remained classified, was appended to a 1,000 page report published on Tuesday on the website of the National Assembly, which is how Libération came across it.

Libération: La délégation française aux JO de Rio, cible d’un projet d’attentat de l’EI [French delegation to Rio Olympic Games targeted by ISIS]

O Globo: Jornal diz que brasileiro do EI planejaria ato terrorista contra delegação francesa no Rio

Translated into English from the O Globo article in Portuguese, Brazilian member of the Islamic state planned to attack French delegation in Rio, newspaper says

General Christophe Gomart: At least three sources with references to websites Daech [acronym of the Islamic State] in several Syrian cities could also be evaluated thanks to the knowledge and DRM catches [Direction du Renseignement Militaire] (…) These changes enable you to recover and confirm the information in the theaters of operations [military term].

George Fenech (Member): I had not heard of this Brazilian who intended to commit attacks against the French delegation at the Olympic Games. How do you know that?

General Christophe Gomart: From our partners.

In the evaluation of the newspaper, “our partners” would be countries with which France contributes in the fight against terrorism. The “Libération” highlights that Brazil plans an “anti-terrorist center” composed of US, British, Spanish and French experts.

Brazil’s security forces are on high alert. On Tuesday they released a man whose wife – in the middle of a marital fight – called the police, accusing him of plotting a terrorist bombing, after finding no evidence.

They are still looking for the GITMO guy who went missing from Uruguay, though.

UPDATE:
Linked to by Gates of Vienna. Thank you!

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Mexico: Fox wants to debate Trump

I wonder what Fox’s reaction would have been when Fox was running for office, if a former President of the U.S. had challenged him to a debate on Mexico’s immigration policy,
Former Mexican President Vicente Fox Challenges Trump To Debate

Former Mexican President and noted Trump dogger Vicente Fox challenged Donald Trump to a debate on Thursday.

“I’m willing to come here, to come here, to the States, if it’s for a debate,” Fox stated on WABC radio’s Election Central with Rita Cosby. “A direct personal debate with him.”
. . .
Fox said he hoped the debate would lead to Trump listening and engaging in a discussion with facts and numbers and not just be “lying and cheating to people, saying blah, blah, blah.”

As much as I dislike Trump, I wonder at times if Fox is on the Trump payroll, because while Fox may be playing to his home audience, this sort of thing helps Trump here.

MEANWHILE,
Smuggling network guided illegals from Middle East terror hotbeds to U.S. border

Terrorists from groups besides ISIS crossing U.S.-Mexico border, U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis says (H/T PowerLine)

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