Tag Archives: terror attack

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FBI Says CA Shooting “Was Terrorism”, Wife Pledged Allegiance to ISIS

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San Bernardino- The FBI says they now believe that the mass shooting Wednesday in San Bernardino, California, was in fact a terrorist attack.  The agency claims that the couple, Syed Farook and his wife Tashfeen Malik attempted to destroy their digital footprint, including cell phones and computer hard-drives, before their deadly shooting with police.

In addition, the FBI says that Malik made a posting online in which she pledged allegiance to the head of ISIS, Abu Bakr al Baghdadi.

Meanwhile, attorneys for the Farook family held a news conference late Friday to explain that the family has been working with the FBI and has been privy to some of the FBI investigation.  The attorneys, Mohammad Abuershaid and David Chelsey, claim that the only evidence held by the FBI is flimsy.  In fact according to Chelsey, the FBI’s belief is based upon “One Facebook posting that was made under someone else’s name and account and was made on one website that the FBI has deemed as extremist.”

The attorneys also pushed back against the media saying that the narrative of this attack being ISIS inspired is being driven by media.  “When a Christian shoots up a Planned Parenthood there isn’t a rush to claim terrorism,” but when a Muslim is involved the media treats the story differently.

When pushed by reporters to explain why Farook and Malik would have targeted the center, the attorneys said that some co-workers had made fun of Farook’s beard.

As we have reported, according to the San Bernardino Sheriff the couple’s home was an ammunition stockpile.  Police say they found 12 pipe bombs, 3,000 rounds of bullets and tools to used to make explosives.

Inside the Inland Region Center where the shooting took place, the couple reportedly fired between 65 and 75 rounds.  Police also say they found more than 1,600 bullets inside the couple’s car.

Tashfeen Malik came to the United States in 2014 from Paskistan with her then fiancee Farook under a fiancee Visa.

 

Civil Liberties, Featured, Foreign Policy, International

France Applies Emergency Anti-Terror Laws to Confine Activists

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FRANCE, November 29, 2015– Ahead of planned United Nations climate talks, the French government is utilizing emergency laws put in place after November’s Paris terror attack to hold climate activists under house arrest.

Immediately after the November terror attacks, the French government declared a state of emergency based on a rarely used 1955 law that allows the state to conduct warrantless searches of private property, impose curfews, restrict public gatherings and movements of people, confiscate weapons at will and take over the press.

Legal activist Joel Domenjoud said he had been served with a restraining order describing him as a “principal leader of the ultra-left movement,” a title he disputes, only a couple hours after a judge refused to hear an appeal against the ban on the climate demo Domenjoud had petitioned for. A neighbor informed Domenjoud that a swam of police were lined up the stairs waiting for him to arrive home.

“I feel angry about it because I think they made a big mistake,” Domenjoud said. “They weren’t looking for people like us activists– or if they were, it shows that they can target people for no reason at all and our civil liberties are in danger.”

On Saturday, Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve confirmed that the French government had used the recently enacted emergency laws to place at least 24 Greenpeace activists under house arrest.

Cazeneuve claimed the activists are suspected of planning violent protests at the talks which kicked off on Sunday- a day ahead of the opening ceremony- and is scheduled to run through December 11.

“These 24 people have been placed under house arrest because they have been violent during demonstrations in the past and because they have said they would not respect the state of emergency,” said Cazeneuve.

Meanwhile, Greenpeace France director Jean-François Julliard says the activists under house arrest had never committed violent acts, nor had they ever been charged with anything.

“We have the feeling that [the government] wants to stifle criticism from the militants, but they are going about it in the worst possible way, this is repression,” Julliard said on BFM television.

Several sources claim that officers have also raided three squats in Paris- and more across the country- seizing computers, documents and personal items.

Regardless of the threat of house arrest, some climate protesters still took to the streets.

According to the Interior Ministry, more than 300 people have been placed on house arrest since the declaration of a state of emergency just over two weeks ago.

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Editor’s Pick, Featured, US

Meet The Boston Bomber Juror Who Is Having Second Thoughts

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By Casey Harper – A juror in the trial of the Boston Bomber is having second thoughts.

Kevan Fagan, one of the 12 jurors who sentenced Dzhokhar Tsarnaev to death in May, said that if he had known that many family member’s of the victims didn’t want the death penalty, it probably would have changed his vote.

“If I had known that, I probably — I probably would change my vote,” Fagan said in the interview with WBUR. “But then again, if I knew that I wouldn’t be on the jury either.”

But Fagan was not allowed to read media reports of the trial, so he didn’t know.

“If I went out of my way and disrespected the judge and went against his orders about researching things. That wouldn’t have been very fair or judicious of me,” Fagan said.

Fagan said he would have especially been swayed by the fact that the family of the youngest victim, an eight-year-old boy, wanted the bomber to get life in prison.

Prosecutors used the death of the boy to argue that Tsarnaev should receive death.

Prosecutors also pointed to evidence that Tsarnaev planned the attack and was motivated by anger over the U.S. actions in Muslim countries, something he wrote on the side of a boat just before his capture.

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