You just knew this would be the response in Australia

 Australia to tighten gun laws after Bondi Beach Hanukkah massacre

The Muslim father and son alleged shooters reportedly owned six firearms legally under the already severely restricted laws since 1996 which have reduced firearm ownership in Australia to 25% of households.

The shooters' rampage went on for many minutes before police arrived to engage and stop them, in widely shared video on the site formerly known as Twitter.

AI says about 813k Muslims live in Australia, where over four million legal, registered firearms are owned by civilians in the country of 27.5 million. 

Australia plans tougher gun laws after police say father and son killed 15 at Bondi Beach

 ... The incident has raised questions whether Australia’s gun laws, among the toughest in the world, need overhaul, with police saying the older suspect had held a firearms license since 2015, along with six registered weapons. ... 

Two flags of militant group Islamic State were found in the gunmen’s vehicle, ABC News said, without citing a source. ...

Jews number about 150,000 of Australia’s population of 27 million, with about a third estimated to live in Sydney’s eastern suburbs, including Bondi.

 

Why isn't co-conspirator 1 charged in the crimes of Ali and Mahmoud? Why the discrepancy of 2 arrested in the one story, 3 in the other?

Is it because co-conspirator 1 is the FBI informant who suborned these two into plotting a terrorist act?

And how did these young men have all this money to buy, legally by the way, all the weapons and gear mentioned in the stories? 

2 US citizens arrested in alleged ISIS-inspired Halloween plot: DOJ

Two men were arrested on Friday for allegedly plotting an ISIS-inspired Halloween attack in Michigan, according to court records unsealed on Monday. ...

The FBI was first alerted to the men after a 2024 review of one of the unnamed co-conspirator's phones. When that person returned to the United States, a Customs and Border Protection officer searched the phone and found "Google searches related to 'ISIS' and the 'Islamic State,' and pictures of what appear to be Co-conspirator 1 in military-style clothing with weapons," documents said.

While the co-conspirator was traveling abroad, Ali and Mahmoud participated in a group call "discussed traveling overseas to join Co-conspirator 1 and then later traveling together to Syria to join ISIS," the documents said. ...

Michigan terrorism suspects were plotting to attack Ferndale, feds say

Three days after announcing their arrests on social media, the federal government brought criminal charges against two metro Detroit men, alleging they plotted to carry out a terror attack over Halloween weekend in Ferndale, except the FBI got to them first.

According to a criminal complaint filed on Monday, Nov. 3, Mohmed Ali and Majed Mahmoud, both 20, are charged with having AR-style rifles, shotguns and handguns that would be used in a conspiracy to commit a terror attack and provide material support to the Islamic State (ISIS) terror organization. ...

According to the complaint, the investigation into the defendants goes back a year, and includes an undercover FBI informant who secretly recorded conversations involving a group of Michigan men who the government says planned and trained for months to carry out an attack in Michigan over the Halloween weekend. ...

Mahmoud and Ali are among five men initially encountered by law enforcement on Oct. 31. Three of the men were arrested and two were questioned and released. The men — ages 16-20 — were arrested in predawn raids in Dearborn and Inkster that drew praise from Michigan's governor, the state attorney general and the president of the United States. ... 

So the FBI's great Michigan Halloween terror plot was a conspiracy among teenagers to get together to smash pumpkins?

BUT YOU SAID IT WAS ISLAMIC STATE EXTREMISM!

 

Michigan lawyer says a Halloween terror plot that FBI Director Kash Patel described never existed

A Michigan defense lawyer is disputing FBI Director Kash Patel’s allegations that his 20-year-old client and four other young suspects were planning to carry out a terror attack on Halloween weekend. ... 

The investigation involved discussion in an online chat room involving at least some of the suspects who were taken into custody, according to two people briefed on the investigation who could not publicly discuss details. They spoke to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity. The group allegedly discussed carrying out an attack around Halloween, referring to “pumpkin day,” according to one of the people. The other person briefed on the investigation confirmed that there had been a “pumpkin” reference. ...

Since the 9/11 terror attacks, the FBI has foiled several alleged attacks through sting operations in which agents posed as terror supporters, supplying advice and equipment.

Taliban blunders story by NBC is complete rubbish designed to absolve the Taliban: What the Taliban did was intentional and precisely gives them the cover these naive reporters bought hook, line and sinker

In their push to retake Afghanistan, the Taliban made the security situation much more precarious by breaking prisoners out of prisons — including hardcore fighters housed at Bagram Air Base, Taliban officials acknowledged to NBC News.

Two Taliban leaders said in an interview that their biggest blunder was “releasing thousands of prisoners, among them hardcore Islamic State commanders, master trainers and bomb-makers. They were very trained people, and they are now organizing themselves.”

The Taliban itself was never designated by the U.S. government as a terrorist organization, but the Haqqani network, which has close ties to Al Qaeda and Pakistani intelligence, has long held that distinction.

More. 

The idea that the Taliban is not a terror organization is a lie, a fiction maintained by our lunatic US State Department and its friends in the press.

White House: Yes, The Taliban Is a Terrorist Organization   

GOP accuse Obama of "negotiating with terrorists," WH says Bergdahl was POW.

By JOHN PARKINSON and LEE FERRAN

June 4, 2014, 6:19 PM

But Tuesday White House National Security Council spokesperson Caitlin Hayden noted that the Taliban was added to the list of Specially Designated Global Terrorists (SDGT) by executive order in July 2002, even if it is not listed as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) by the State Department. Either designation triggers asset freezes, according to the State Department, though they can differ on other restrictions imposed on the target organization. The Treasury Department told ABC News the Taliban is still on their SDGT list.

As Trump pulls 2,000 US troops out of Syria, 5,000 ISIS fighters remain, 5,200 US troops still in Iraq

Reported here:

ISIS RETURN: Islamic State kill 700 in terror horror - 5000 jihadists holed up in Syria

Trump calls war on terrorism a battle between good and evil

Full transcript of remarks in Saudi Arabia here.

Gee, sounds just like Bush (and ISIS) and conservative talk radio is thrilled.

Typically, this rhetoric is used to justify treating the evil as less than human, which is what ISIS does, or sending American troops abroad in search of monsters to destroy. But we're 16 years into Afghanistan now, with no end in sight, and the monsters just keep reproducing themselves.

This is not to suggest moral equivalence, but only that the West continues to delegitimize the "Islamic" in Islamic State in order to keep the military-industrial complex busy.

The goal of war, rather, is supposed to be to end the enemy's ability to wage it. We haven't been serious about that, and I don't think Trump will be either.

Either end it, or quit it, but carrying on like this is bankrupting the country.

Enough. 

What do ISIS and The DC Swamp have in common?

Reliance on encrypted messaging.

They are both using encrypted messaging to organize, plot and attack their enemies, the chief common one being Donald J. Trump.

From the New York Times story here:

They vetted each new member of the cell as Mr. Yazdani recruited helpers. They taught him how to pledge allegiance to the terrorist group and securely send the statement. ...

Because the recruits are instructed to use encrypted messaging applications, the guiding role played by the terrorist group often remains obscured. As a result, remotely guided plots in Europe, Asia and the United States in recent years, including the attack on a community center in Garland, Tex., were initially labeled the work of “lone wolves,” with no operational ties to the Islamic State, and only later was direct communication with the group discovered. ...

“If you look at the communications between the attackers and the virtual plotters, you will see that there is a direct line of communication to the point where they are egging them on minutes, even seconds, before the individual carries out an attack.” ...

One of the Islamic State’s most influential recruiters and virtual plotters was known by the nom de guerre Abu Issa al-Amriki, and his Twitter profile instructed newcomers to contact him via the encrypted messaging app Telegram. Among those who sought him out, asking for instructions on how to reach Syria, was Mr. Yazdani, who had convinced himself that it was his religious duty to move his family to the caliphate. ...

The Hindi-speaking handler guiding the men in Hyderabad also insisted on using a kaleidoscope of encrypted messaging applications, with Mr. Yazdani instructed to hop between apps so that even if one message history was discovered and cracked, it would reveal only a portion of their handiwork. As soon as Mr. Yazdani indicated he was willing to undertake an attack, the handler instructed him to download ChatSecure, a messaging app to be used when they spoke by phone. When he used his laptop, he was told to contact the handler via Pidgin, another encrypted tool. He was told to create an account with Tutanota, a secure email service. And the handler taught Mr. Yazdani how to use the Tails operating system, which is contained on a USB stick and allows a user to boot up a computer from the external device and use it without leaving a trace on the hard drive.

As usual The New York Times projects its own ludicrousness onto others

Here, where what's ludicrous is that The New York Times can't bring itself to say that the confessed devotee of Islamic State actually killed the 49 people, who somehow ended up dead:

“Right now, what we want to do is have a good conversation where we calm things down and we talk about solutions,” Speaker Paul Ryan explained in retreating from an issue — the ease with which terrorism suspects can buy guns — that Republicans had vowed to take up after a confessed devotee of the Islamic State last month opened fire in an Orlando nightclub, where 49 people were killed.

Mr. Ryan’s words deserve close inspection. They’re ludicrous. 

"Michigan Man" (aka "Not the face of Islam") arrested in terror plot against Christian church

Mlive reports here:

A 21-year-old man charged in federal court with illegal firearm and drug possession is also accused of making threats and planning a terrorist attack on a church congregation.

Khalil Abu-Rayyan has not been charged with crimes directly related terrorism, but the complaint filed against him in Detroit federal court includes allegations of threats made to a Detroit church and a Dearborn police officer.

The FBI has been watching Abu-Rayyan, of Dearborn Heights, since May 2015, because of what federal agents called "increasingly violent threats he has made to others about committing acts of terror and martyrdom -- including brutal acts against police officers, churchgoers and others -- on behalf of the foreign terrorist organization Islamic State of Iraq and Levant."

Descended from Piltdown man, news media hoaxsters call Muslim terrorists "Maryland man" and "Pennsylvania man"

Reconstructed skull of the hoax "Piltdown Man"

From WaPo here:

'A second was Mohamed Elshinawy, a Maryland man accused of receiving at least $8,700 from the Islamic State overseas and planning to use the money to carry out attacks in the United States. He told prosecutors that a childhood friend had connected him through social media with an Islamic State operative. ... The third was Jalil Aziz, a Pennsylvania man who was arrested for allegedly providing material support to the Islamic State, by spreading its propaganda on social media and for seeking to help the group’s supporters travel to Syria to fight. Aziz also encouraged other Islamic State supporters he communicated with to use U.S.-based encrypted messaging applications, prosecutors said.'

Mohamed Elshinawy was born in Egypt

Jalil Aziz' country of origin is unknown. No US school has a record of the 19-year old.

Rank and file British coppers say Trump's right, say places in London, Birmingham, Preston, Yorkshire, and the Midlands generally are no-go areas

The Daily Express reports, here:

Serving officers in terrorist hotspots including London and Birmingham said that forces are becoming increasingly nervy over the rising threat of Islamic State (ISIS) inspired attacks, with some telling staff not to wear their uniforms in their OWN patrol cars. ... [F]ear of Islamist extremism within Britain’s police is widespread despite the protestations of the authorities. ... [An] officer with Lancashire police said that officers have to “contact local community leaders to get their permission” before they are allowed to patrol in Muslim areas of Preston. And a policeman posted in Yorkshire said police top brass were so afraid of potential terrorist attacks he had been ordered not to wear police uniform in his own patrol car. ... Meanwhile in an interview last year Tom Winsor, Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary, warned that there are “cities in the Midlands where the police never go” because local communities refuse to engage with law enforcement.

Turkey is not an honest player, whether as a member of NATO or in the fight against ISIS, funneling extremists to Syria

From The New York Times, here:

"Turkey wants Mr. Assad gone, and has allowed its border with Syria to be an easy crossing point for Syrian rebels, including those the West regards as terrorists or radical Islamists; Russia wants to prop up Mr. Assad and his government. While Moscow says it is attacking the Islamic State, for the most part Russian planes and troops have been attacking the Syrian rebels, some of whom are supported by the United States and the West, who most threaten Mr. Assad’s rule."

Obama is a complete hypocrite defending Turkey's right to secure its border against air incursions by Russia. Turkey's border is deliberately porous, feeding fighter after fighter into the flames of the conflict. Turkey is a main point of entry for ISIS volunteers.

No wonder it appears to Putin that the whole of NATO is in support of ISIS.

And to others it will appear to be a grand anti-Semitic conspiracy orchestrated by a pro-Islamic American president, with the notorious Jens Stoltenberg at the helm of NATO defending Turkey's downing of the Russian SU-24:

"At a huge demonstration in central Oslo to protest Israel's independence on April 20, 2002, former Labor Party prime minister Jens Stoltenberg addressed pro-Palestinian groups waving Nazi flags. Without blinking, he endorsed their cause. 'There is one occupant, and one occupier,' he told them."

Trump pulls the trigger, runs for president as a Republican

[H]e said he'll be "the greatest jobs-president that God ever created" . . ..

He said he will: "repeal and replace the Big Lie, Obamacare";

"build a great, great wall on our southern border, and I will have Mexico pay for that wall" ("nobody builds walls better than me");

and "find the General Patton or … General MacArthur" in the U.S. military to fight the Islamic State.

More here.