 People in America are often shocked to discover the extent to which the authorities in Britain have been taken in by the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood, to such an extent the UK government and police use them as advisers on combating Islamic extremism. Americans would be even more shocked to discover that exactly the same thing is going on in their own backyard. Pajamas TV features two interviews with former US security people, one described merely as having been given some kind of intel-gathering assignment by the ‘joint chiefs’ and the other described as a ‘former FBI special agent’.
The first describes how, when he discovered to his alarm that there was not only no evidence that Islamic radicals were wrong in Islamic law but that there were no counter-arguments to them in that law, the US intel/law enforcement community that had instructed him just didn’t want to know. The second, the ex-FBI man, is even more alarming. He states that the American counter-terrorist establishment has allowed itself to be infiltrated by radical Islamists -- to whom counter-terrorism officials are going for advice and training in countering Islamic radicalism.
Every major Muslim representative organisation in the US, he says, is a Muslim Brotherhood front. Hamas fronts such as CAIR are used by the US authorities for outreach to the Muslim community in America. They are invited to sit in on brainstorming sessions about investigative techniques, and are actually training the FBI. ‘The Muslim Brotherhood are telling us how to fight them’, he says. The PJTV interviewer seemed stunned by this unbelievable situation. But it’s exactly what’s happening in the UK, too, where the Brotherhood are used – incredible as this sounds – as an antidote to radicalisation and as interlocutors in good faith with the Muslim community.
In the US, this profound and wilful institutionalised ignorance of the religious war being waged against the free world revealed itself most catastrophically recently when seven CIA officers, amongst them some of the most experienced and valuable, were blown up by a Jordanian triple agent. Not only were they duped, but it seems their professional training went by the board in inviting such a man onto their base and with so many of them clustering around him. As the Washington Post reported: ‘The tradecraft that was developed over many years is passé,’ complained a recently retired senior intelligence official, also with decades of experience. ‘Now it’s a military tempo where you don't have time for validating and vetting sources. . . . All that seems to have gone by the board. It shows there are not a lot of people with a great deal of experience in this field. The agency people are supporting the war-fighter and providing information for targeting, but the espionage part has become almost quaint.’ Endemic ignorance, sloppiness, incompetence -- even now, even after 9/11, even after the restructuring which was supposed to remedy the dysfunctionality and turf wars between intelligence agencies but which – as was predicted at the time – has merely stuck another layer of bureaucracy on top. And if one thinks back to the systematic failure over decades to identify and analyse correctly the rise of Islamism and before that, the imminent collapse of Soviet communism, one has to ask oneself the terrifying question whether US intelligence really is fit for purpose at all. Melanie Phillips 
 An Egyptian daily newspaper has published an article praising Israel for preventing Iran from completing its proposed nuclear facilities.
The article claims the Israeli intelligence service Mossad has carried out assassinations and acts of sabotage in recent years to prevent the facilities being completed.
The daily newspaper Al-Ahram, in its Saturday edition, says Mossad chief Meir Dagan has led the charge against Iran, and without him the Islamic Republic's nuclear plants would have been completed years ago.
"Over the past seven years, he has worked in silence, away from the media," the op-ed article says. "He has dealt painful blows to the Iranian nuclear program, he is the Superman of the Jewish state."
The Egyptian newspaper cited assassinations, inciting of opposition protests, the carrying out of acts to embarrass Iran's leaders, and covert attacks against nuclear facilities, among the list of achievements by the Mossad chief.
The article also lauds Dagan for his, "many bold victories," against Syria, Hezbullah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad, and praises the Israeli intelligence service's wisdom for not admitting its involvement in the various acts it orchestrated.
 U.S. intelligence officials believe that the homicide bomb attack that killed seven CIA officers in Afghanistan last month was planned with the help of Usama bin Laden's close allies, raising fears that the Al Qaeda leader is enjoying a lethal resurgence. Authorities believe that the attack could not have taken place without the prior knowledge and assistance of the Haqqanis, the powerful Taliban group thought to be shielding bin Laden. The attack was carried out by a Jordanian doctor whom the CIA believed was about to divulge the whereabouts of bin Laden's deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri.
It is one of the deadliest blows against the CIA and has increased tensions between the U.S. and Pakistan because of Islamabad’s repeated failure to target the Haqqanis. The Haqqanis control a large block of territory on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistan border near the Afghan town of Khost, a Taliban hotbed near where the CIA officials were killed on December 30. It is also where the U.S. believes bin Laden is hiding. One former CIA officer, who did not wish to be named, told The Times of London that the agency had taped evidence of a Pakistani army officer tipping the Haqqanis off about a raid and a member of Pakistan's intelligence service boasting that the "Haqqanis are our guys." Pakistan has ignored U.S. demands to target the strongholds of the Haqqanis’ leader, Sirajuddin Haqqani, whose father, Jalaluddin, founded the network and was a Mujahidin commander and ally of the U.S. during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. The network is said to be behind several audacious attacks, including the bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul in July 2008. Continue reading at The Times of London FoxNews
 Officials discovered Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab's name on the Customs and Border Protection database after he boarded his Northwest flight in Amsterdam and were waiting to question him upon landing in Detroit, senior law enforcement officials told the Los Angeles Times. The disclosure appears to show US intelligence was close to uncovering the terrorist plot, despite the barrage of criticism it has come under since Abdulmutallab, 23, failed to detonate a bomb aboard a Northwest airliner on Christmas Day. The window in detecting a passenger as a potential threat before boarding is limited, a senior Homeland Security official said, adding that in-depth vetting only begins once the flight manifest has been generated, a few hours before takeoff. “The people in Detroit were prepared to look at him in secondary inspection,” said a senior law enforcement official quoted by the Times. “The decision had been made. The... database had picked up the State Department concern about this guy, that this guy may have been involved with extremist elements in Yemen ... They could have made a decision on whether to stop him from getting on the plane.” None of the officials quoted in the Los Angeles Times provided their identities because of the ongoing investigation into the bomb plot. Abdulmutallab was indicted today by a grand jury for attempted murder and trying to use a weapon of mass destruction aboard a US plane and could face life imprisonment. President Barack Obama has sharply rebuked intelligence and security services for missing a series of “red flags” that could have unmasked the plot earlier. “That's not acceptable, and I will not tolerate it,” he said in an unusual public dressing-down of the intelligence services. The White House is expected to release an unclassified version of a report into the intelligence failures. The Australian
 BARACK Obama angrily revealed today that US intelligence services had enough information to disrupt the Christmas Day airliner attack but had failed to connect those dots. The intelligence failures were deeper than first thought, Mr Obama said as he demanded action after meeting US intelligence chiefs and top national security aides. “It is increasingly clear that intelligence was not fully analysed or fully leveraged,” Mr Obama said in a terse televised statement after the meeting at the White House. “That's not acceptable, and I will not tolerate it.” Mr Obama said two investigations into the botched plot to blow up a Northwest plane showed US intelligence missed other “red flags” as well as the already revealed fact that the top suspect was an extremist who had traveled to Yemen. He said US intelligence knew that Al-Qa'ida in the Arabian Peninsula wanted to strike not only US targets in Yemen but in the United States itself. “In other words, this was not a failure to collect intelligence, it was a failure to integrate and understand the intelligence that we already had. “When a suspected terrorist is able to board a plane with explosives on Christmas Day, the system has failed in a potentially disastrous way. “It's my responsibility to find out why, and to correct that failure so that we can prevent such attacks in the future.” The Australian
 US intelligence agencies did not miss a "smoking gun" that could have prevented an alleged attempt to blow up a US airliner on Christmas Day, President Barack Obama's top counterterrorism adviser said Sunday. White House aide John Brennan cited "lapses" and errors in the sharing of intelligence and clues about the Nigerian man accused in the foiled attempt. "There is no smoking gun," Brennan said. "There was no single piece of intelligence that said, 'this guy is going to get on a plane.'" Brennan is leading a White House review of the incident. Obama has said there was a systemic failure to prevent the attack, which he said was instigated by an affiliate in Yemen of the al-Qaeda terrorist network. Obama ordered a thorough look at the shortcomings that permitted the plot, which failed not because of US actions but because the would-be attacker was unable to ignite an explosive device. The president has summoned homeland security officials to meet with him in the White House Situation Room on Tuesday. Brennan cited "a number of streams of information" - the 23-year-old suspect's name was known to intelligence officials, his father had passed along his concern about the son's increasing radicalization - and "little snippets" from intelligence channels. "But there was nothing that brought it all together." "In this one instance, the system didn't work. There were some human errors. There were some lapses. We need to strengthen it. But day in and day out, the successes are there." Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab apparently assembled an explosive device, including 80 grams of Pentrite, or PETN, in the aircraft toilet of a Detroit-bound Northwest Airlines flight, then planned to detonate it with a syringe of chemicals. Passengers intervened, and the plan failed. "What we need to do as an intelligence community, as a government, is be able to bring those disparate bits and pieces of information together so we prevent Mr. Abdulmutallab from getting on the plane." Brennan didn't say whether anyone is in line to be fired because of the oversights. He stood by Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano, although he acknowledged she has "taken some hits" for saying that the airline security system had worked. It didn't, and she clarified her remarks to show she meant that the system worked only after the attack was foiled, Brennan said. He said the situation was not like before the attacks of September 11, 2001, when intelligence agencies failed to share tips and information that might have uncovered the plot. He said there "were no turf battles" between agencies. "There's no evidence whatsoever that any agency or department was reluctant to share" information. Brennan appeared on "Fox News Sunday," CNN's "State of the Union," ABC's "This Week," and NBC's "Meet the Press." Meanwhile, a senior British official said Sunday that British intelligence officials knew that Abdulmutallab had ties to UK extremists but did not consider him enough of a high risk to alert American authorities. Officials realized about a year after Abdulmutallab came to London to study in 2005 that he was in contact with Islamic extremists whose communications were being monitored, a senior government official told The Associated Press. But there were no signs that Abdulmutallab wanted to target the United States or was considering turning toward violence, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of his work. "It was clear he was reaching out to radical extremists in the UK but there was nothing to indicate he was violent," the official said. "There is a very large number of people in the UK who express interest in radical extremism but never turn to violence. He only pinged up on our radar because of other people we were interested in." YNet
 The U.S. government had intelligence from Yemen before Christmas that leaders of a branch of Al Qaeda there were talking about "a Nigerian" being prepared for a terrorist attack, the New York Times reported Tuesday. A senior official told the Times that President Obama was told in a private meeting Tuesday while vacationing in Hawaii that the government had a variety of information in its possession before the failed bombing on a Detroit-bound flight last week that would have been a clear warning sign had it been shared among intelligence agencies. The newspaper said the information did not include the name of the Nigerian. A CIA official prepared a report on Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab after a meeting with the suspect's father in November, who shared information about his son's extremist views, CNN reported Tuesday. The report was sent to CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia, but it sat there for five weeks and was not disseminated, a "reliable source" said. "Had that information been shared... [he] might have been denied passage on the Northwest Airlines flight," the source reportedly said. A CIA spokesman confirmed the report Tuesday, saying: "We learned of Abdulmutallab in November, when his father came to the U.S. embassy in Nigeria and sought help in finding him. We did not have his name before then." "This agency, like others in our government, is reviewing all data to which it had access, not just what we ourselves may have collected, to determine if more could have been done to stop Abdulmutallab." The president acknowledged Tuesday that a "systemic failure" on multiple levels allowed Abdulmutallab to board the flight, amid growing evidence of missed warning signs. The president, in his most extensive comments so far on what went wrong in the security process, said information about the terror suspect was not properly shared among agencies. He said that information, particularly a warning to authorities from the 23-year-old suspect's father in Nigeria, should have landed him on a no-fly list well before he boarded the Northwest Airlines flight in Amsterdam. "The warning signs would have triggered red flags and the suspect would have never been allowed to board that plane for America," Obama said. "A systemic failure has occurred, and I consider that totally unacceptable." Senior U.S. officials told The Associated Press that intelligence authorities are now looking at conversations between the suspect in the failed attack and at least one Al Qaeda member. They did not say how these communications with the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, took place -- by Internet, cell phone or another method. The officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence matters, said the conversations were vague or coded, but the intelligence community believes that, in hindsight, the communications may have been referring to the Detroit attack. One official said a link between the suspect's planning and Al Qaeda's goals was becoming more clear. Obama said a mix of "human and systemic failures" contributed to what could have been a "catastrophic breach of security." A senior administration official, speaking with reporters on condition of anonymity, said enough was known about the suspect to stop him, but the government didn't connect the dots. "It is now clear to us that there were bits and pieces of information that were in the possession of the U.S. government in advance of the Christmas Day attack -- the attempted Christmas Day attack -- that had they been assessed and correlated could have led to a much broader picture and allowed us to disrupt the attack," the official said. The suspect was not on the "no-fly" list or a separate list that would have required secondary screening at an airport. Obama said there were several "deficiencies" in the intelligence-gathering process, and that information about the suspect "could have and should have been pieced together." "It's becoming clear that the system that's been in place for years now is not sufficiently up to date to take full advantage of the information we collect and the knowledge we have," Obama said. The comments come as the administration launches a review of airport screening and the terror watch list system. The president said a preliminary review is due to him by Thursday. "We need to learn from this episode and act quickly to fix the flaws in our system because our security is at stake and lives are at stake," he said. FoxNews
 Debka is reporting here about a meeting between the senior intelligence officers of the CIA, the Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA), the Mossad, Egyptian Intelligence and hosted by the Jordanians.
This is a rather extraordinary gathering to say the least. Our sources add that the unpublicized get-together took place just a few days before Israeli prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu and US president Barak Obama conversed at the White House Monday, Nov. 9.
They therefore had its conclusions before them when they talked. Two days later, Netanyahu passed input from the intelligence summit to French president Nicolas Sarkozy when he stopped over in Paris. It was the first time Israel had taken part in a secret meeting of Middle East intelligence chiefs whose purpose was to coordinate their steps. (Emphasis mine.) Please read the entire article. Analysis. This is not a very good sign.
I will freely admit that Debka cries wolf a lot. Given the backgrounds of the people who are Debka, that is totally understandable. I am the same way because my background besides being an F-4 Weapons Systems Officer and a few other things is plans and intelligence.
It is our job to present our best analysis of enemy capabilities and intentions to the commander. By design we present the worst case scenario. I consider it to be very telling that the countries who form the “Western Front” against Iranian expansion by proxy have finally gotten together at least at the senior intelligence level.
Were the senior planners there also? I don’t know and we probably never will. But I would strongly suspect that the DIA contingent included at least one planner.
I cannot say for sure that these five countries plus Saudi Arabia are ready to sit together and create defensive plans for the time when the Syrians and Hezbollah go south. They are probably close. The Saudis are a key country. They are exposed to Iran on both sides. They have Jordan to protect them on the north. But they are vulnerable in the south as the Yemeni insurgency shows.
Their eastern front is wide open from the Persian Gulf as are the fronts of the rest of the GCC countries. The Saudis also have another problem. They are substantially more than pissed at the machinations of Shiite Iran. They are only a little less than apoplectic about having a Shiite Iraq. Note the earlier post regarding Iraq’s attempt to cause the UN to investigate terrorists coming from both Syria and Saudi Arabia. The other big key that the Saudis have is their airspace. With the recent turn of Turkey to the Dark Side that route to Iran is closed as is presumably the Iraq route. That leaves the Saudi route. In any case, the Saudi AWACS can watch every flight in the area for a long distance. They would know immediately if a large formation of Israeli aircraft took off and headed east. As the intelligence meeting probably figured out, any viable attack on Iran must be synergistic. Each country, including the rest of the Gulf Cooperation Countries has particular capabilities that by themselves provide some minimum measure of defense. Together they complement each other and make a credible attack and defense force at least from the air. The ground forces would require reinforcement from Egypt to present a credible invasion force aimed at Syria. I expect that meetings such as these will continue on a regular basis and will soon openly include planners and senior commanders. Then it gets serious. Source: World Threats
 Debka is reporting here that Turkey will begin sharing intelligence on Israel. Their understandings have bound Turkish to pass intelligence data to Tehran on potential Israeli preparations for a strike and on US military movements in the Middle East for providing backup.
Our sources report that the details finalized in meetings between the Turkish and Iranian military specialists in Istanbul Monday, Nov. 9, were due to be sealed by presidents Abdullah Gul and Ahmadinejad Tuesday. The Iranian president is to be in Turkey as guest of the Islamic Conference. The other item in this story is sort of a throw away line that is part of the first paragraph. The Turkish Air Force will cooperate with Iran in defending the Iranian nuclear sites. Please read the entire article Analysis. A week ago Sunday I posed a question to an acquaintance of mine. Now that Turkey and Iran were becoming allies, would the Turkish Air Force be providing spare parts for the Iranian F-4s and F-5s? I believe I have my answer. I was doing some research on Middle Eastern militaries and happened to be looking at the Turkish Air Force. One of the things that would make an Israeli attack on Iran easier is the fact that we have embargoed spare parts for Iran’s US made F-4 and F-5 aircraft since the takeover of the Embassy.
If the airplanes can fly their combat capability is severely reduced, especially the F-4s, if the radar doesn’t work, or the electronic countermeasures systems won’t jam enemy radars. If the Turks provide the parts and maybe the technicians to get all of those airplanes totally mission ready, it will be a lot harder on the Israelis when they attack. Yes, I said when. I have flown against F-15s. They can be beaten in an F-4. Besides, it is not necessary to shoot down the F-15s and F-16s of the Israeli Air Force.
Like the North Vietnamese, all they have to do is get them to drop their bombs other than on their intended targets to have a successful defense. Source: World Threats
 December 02, 2008
INDIA received warnings in October from US intelligence of a possible terrorist attack "from the sea" on targets in Mumbai, according to American news reports.
Unnamed US intelligence officials told the American ABC network they had warned their Indian counterparts in mid-October of a potential attack “from the sea against hotels and business centres in Mumbai”.
One intelligence official even mentioned specific targets, including the Taj hotel, the TV news service said.
According to the CNN network, Indian sources confirmed that US officials warned them twice of a possible attack on Mumbai.
About 10 gunmen landed in rubber dinghies on the beaches of Mumbai on Wednesday and launched a 60-hour assault that killed at least 172 people and injured close to 300.
Indian intelligence officials told ABC News that on November 18 they intercepted a satellite phone call to an address in Pakistan used by the leader of the Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist group, revealing a possible sea-borne attack.
The group is believed to be behind the bloody Mumbai attacks.
US officials also said US intelligence had been tracking prepaid mobile phone SIM cards recovered from the Mumbai terrorists, which had led them to a “treasure trove” of leads from Pakistan and several possible connections to the US, ABC reported.
They said one of the SIM cards might have been purchased in the US.
No further details were provided because of the ongoing investigation, ABC reported. Source: The Australian from Agence France-Presse
 By Clare M. Lopez When the Director of National Intelligence declares publicly that "We try not to refer to 'jihad' as something that's bad," even though he knows that the United States (U.S.) and all of civilized society is engaged in an existential struggle with the forces of Islamic Jihad, it is hard to fathom what he could possibly be thinking. Only a few short weeks ago, we were told that referring to jihad might somehow legitimize our enemies. Of all of our leaders charged with the defense and protection of our Constitution, DNI Michael McConnell bears a special responsibility to understand clearly the identity of the enemy and the nature of the threat he poses. He also has a professional responsibility to communicate that honestly to the American people. The refusal of DNI McConnell and, apparently, the rest of the Bush administration, to acknowledge the obvious linkage between terror in the name of Islam, and the Islamic faith, goes beyond absurd: it is dangerous to national security because it prevents the U.S.'s top officials from crafting an appropriate strategic policy to defend us. Willful ignorance of the fundamental doctrine of Islamic Jihad, as defined by Islamic scriptures, scholarly consensus, and historians cannot change what is written, what is believed, and what is lived by those who would destroy our Constitutional system and replace it with Sharia. It doesn't matter in the end whether we agree or disagree with the doctrine of our enemies, or judge it good or evil: if that is what guides the enemy's behavior towards us, then that is what we must deal with. It is also irrelevant that more peaceful methods for propagating Islam, such as Da'wa, do exist, or that there indeed is a "Greater Jihad" (the inner struggle to better oneself). Neither Da'wa nor the "Greater Jihad" employs warfare or terror to replace liberal democracy with Sharia. But the "Lesser Jihad" does. Read more ...Source: Family Security Matters
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People in America are often shocked to discover the extent to which the authorities in Britain have been taken in by the Islamists of the Muslim Brotherhood, to such an extent the UK government and police use them as advisers on combating Islamic extremism. 
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