As readers are no doubt aware, following the death of its founder, Osama bin Laden, the Al Qaeda terrorist network has threatened retaliation against the USA.
In confirming the death of its leader in a statement dated Tuesday, Al Qaeda urged Muslims to not stray from the path of armed struggle against the United States.
. . .
The Internet statement released by Al Qaeda warned that “soon, with God’s help, we pray that their happiness turns into sorrow, and may their blood mix with their tears.” Al Qaeda militants, the statement said, “will continue to plan and plot without any fatigue, boredom, despair, surrender or indifference.”
There’s more at the link.
I hope the people at Homeland Security are at last going to pay more attention to securing our southern border as a result. Not only is it porous as hell to illegal immigrants, it’s highly likely to be used by terrorist infiltrators. After all, they’re already widespread in South America. They’ve been active there for years:
- In 2002 it was reported that numerous Islamic terrorist and fundamentalist organizations were increasingly active throughout South America;
- Hezbollah, a Lebanese terrorist movement with ties to Syria and Iran, has been active since the early 1990’s in the Triple Frontier area;
- Hezbollah’s activities are moving northwards. In 2009 it was said to be active in Venezuela, and a few months ago it was claimed it’s been active in Mexico for ’15 or 20 years’, operating right on the US border near San Diego;
- Hezbollah is alleged to be actively allied with Mexican criminal cartels.
Of course, where one Islamic fundamentalist or terrorist movement is active, others may be expected. These groups don’t operate in splendid isolation from each other. They work on the principle of ‘you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours’, and co-operation between them is likely to escalate as counter-terrorist measures intensify.
Meanwhile, it seems that Federal authorities are living in cloud cuckoo land about our border security. Department of Homeland Security boss Janet Napolitano claims:
… our approach is working. We have strengthened the Southwest border in a way that many would not have thought possible. And our partnership with Mexico on border security is strong.
. . .
… the Southwest Border Initiative is working.
Illegal immigration is decreasing. Deportations are increasing. Crime rates are dropping.
There’s more at the link. However, her own Border Patrol officers vehemently disagree:
Agents patrolling America’s southern border are slamming Department of Homeland Security chief Janet Napolitano for giving the nation “a false sense of security”, after she claimed the border region is “better now than it ever has been”.
. . .
The National Border Patrol Council rejected Napolitano’s contention that peace has broken out on border with Mexico.
In a sign that the administration may be at odds with its patrol agents over efforts to secure the border, a statement posted on the council’s website commented: “If the border was better now than it has ever been, Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry would not have been brutally murdered by heavily armed Mexican criminals operations over 13 miles inside the United States. In some countries,” it added, “that is construed as an act of war.”
Terry was gunned downed in December near the border town of Rio Rico, Ariz.
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the nonprofit Center for Immigration Studies, tells Newsmax that Napolitano’s statements are “political spin”.
“The whole immigration-border issue is a sensitive one for this administration because no one believes they’re interested in border security – and with good reason,” Krikorian says. “And so they’ve had to go through all sorts of contortions to show they’re really not open border supporters. This is just part of that marketing campaign.”
But Krikorian tells Newsmax that as a former border governor herself in Arizona, Napolitano’s defense of the administration’s policies is becoming “something of a laughingstock”.
“Every time she says this people belie[ve] her even less,” Krikorian tells Newsmax. “She’s like Baghdad Bob during the [in]vasion of Iraq, saying there are no American tanks in Baghdad even as they’re driving by right behind her. It’s becoming something of a joke.”
Again, more at the link. A southern border sheriff agrees:
Border Sheriff Paul Babeu of Pinal County Arizona has a message for Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, who claims the U.S.-Mexico border is safer than ever – “That is an outright laugh!”
Last month, Janet Napolitano told an audience in El Paso, Texas that the security on the southern border “is better now than it ever has been” and that Mexican violence has not had a serious effect on neighboring towns.
According to Babeu, who had to reschedule his initial interview with The Daily Caller because of a shootout (with members of a drug cartel, fifty of whom were smuggling drugs in backpacks) and was on his way to visit a deputy injured by an illegal alien during the interview, violence in his county has increased dramatically, just in the last few years largely due to the drug cartels’ growing sophistication.
. . .
“They kill police chiefs, they kill judges, they kill journalists, and mayors of small communities. That violence clearly is coming to America,” he said. “We’ve had people that have been kidnapped, people that have been murdered, largely illegals. We’ve had, in Chandler, Arizona, a beheading that is now confirmed … So the violence isn’t coming here, the violence is here. It’s not going to get better; it’s going to get worse until we secure this border.”
Babeu said the best way to make the border safe is for the federal government to enforce the laws already on the books and allow him to do his job.
“Instead of helping us, they have actively fought us, taken us to court, insulted American citizens by putting up warning and danger signs due to drug and human smuggling and armed gunman and all of these kind of crazy things,” he said. “I’m finding that I have to do the job the Feds won’t do, and who would ever imagine that we would arrive at the point where it’s the job of the local Sheriff to fight foreign criminal drug cartels. It’s outrageous.”
Given a choice between believing a politician, or believing those at the tip of the spear, doing the work ‘on the ground’, guess who I’m going to regard as telling the truth? If you think it’s the politician, there’s a bridge in Brooklyn, NYC I’d like to sell you. Cash only, please, and in small bills.
The Air & Space Power Journal of the US Air Force published an article in 2008 which warned:
Two equally likely possibilities exist for future Islamic extremist activity in Latin America and the Caribbean. One possibility will allow for some warning, the other will not without increased vigilance. Either course of action would result in the loss of innocent lives.
The first scenario, and the one that we might have some advance notice of, is an attack by Hizballah. If relations between Iran and the US or Israel deteriorate, it is possible Iran would use its well-organized Hizballah group in the region as a surrogate to launch attacks against either Israel or the US, much like it did in Buenos Aires in the 1990s. Under this scenario, an attack could happen using local Hizballah sympathizers for logistics and support and the attack would likely take place in the region. With this scenario, counter-terrorist specialists would have some warning that an attack could take place based on the deteriorating relations with Iran, but would likely have little warning of where it would take place.
Another, equally likely scenario, but one that is harder for counter-terrorism professionals to plan against, would be a group of homegrown extremists planning and launching an attack against US interests either in the region or from the region in the US. This would be much like the JFK airport plot scenario. Without vigilance by US officials and officials in the region, it would be difficult to halt this type of plot. Increased vigilance and support from the populaces in the Caribbean and Latin America to report unusual activity is needed to help mitigate this threat.
Clearly, Islamic terrorist groups in Latin America and the Caribbean pose threats to US interests.
In the light of Al Qaeda’s latest threat, a third scenario is now on the table – perhaps in conjunction with one or both of the two identified by the A&SPJ article. A multiple strike would be relatively easy to arrange, and I suspect it would be all too effective, given how unprepared most US cities and agencies appear to be. How about this combination?
- A Beslan-type strike on a US school by a fanatical suicide squad;
- coupled with an attempt to smuggle a weapon of mass destruction into a US port, and detonate it there, by another terrorist group;
- plus a cross-border bombardment of a US city with rockets from Mexico.
If you think the latter suggestion is far-fetched, you clearly haven’t been watching what Hizbollah is doing from Lebanon, or Hamas from Gaza, in firing rockets into Israel. Islamic terrorists don’t even have to smuggle their own rockets into Mexico – they can get them from the drug cartels, who in turn are obtaining them from national armed forces in South America. They might even end up using US-made rockets against us!
As for what individuals can do to prepare for such a scenario, I think we should all look to our personal security measures, and improve them where necessary. I think it’s also time to bombard our elected representatives, on national, State and local levels, with our concerns, and try to galvanize them into action . . . before we find out the hard way that they aren’t prepared at all, as their subordinates are suggesting.
Trouble is, if that’s the case, they won’t pay the price in blood for their lack of preparedness.
We will.
Peter