On Friday, Grommet and his parents
drove 17 hours from Fort Campbell, Ky., to South Carolina, where Matty
had been living since 2013. (Grommet had to sign a non-disclosure
agreement to keep the identity of the South Carolina “owner” secret).
Pamela Geller / Atlas ShrugsAs America veers towards Islamic Sharia law in order to cater to the demanding minority of Muslims, citizens are seeing not only an attempt to include and appease Muslims, but an infringement...
“The
Western world thinks there is no ISIS in their countries — that all the
jihadis have gone to fight and die in Syria. But this man said, ‘No. We
are sending our fighters to take their places.’”ISTANBUL — Extremist fighters have been brought into mainland Europe, hidden amid boatloads of Syrian refugees, according to a veteran smuggler who claims to have done so himself.
The smuggler, who has been given the pseudonym Hassan here, said in an interview with BuzzFeed News that since the summer he has sent more than 10 Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) fighters into Europe.
Hassan’s claim was impossible to verify — and Western officials said they’d seen no evidence that such a scenario was taking place. His testimony, plus that of a second human trafficker who offered a similar account, marked the first time someone claiming direct involvement has said publicly that such a plan is underway.
Hassan has worked in the trade for more than three years. He charges $2,500 for each refugee he sends to Europe from Turkey, shipping them by boat to Greece. He said he views it as “humanitarian work,” on top of the profit he makes. But he said he had grown uncomfortable with the dark turn this work has taken since he began allowing ISIS fighters to mix with the refugees on his crowded speedboats.
Hassan said the fighters were all Syrian or Iraqis posing as refugees. He believed they remained loyal to ISIS and were prepared to launch terrorist attacks in Europe. “They are waiting for their orders,” Hassan said. “Just wait. You will see.”
Fears of an ISIS attack in Europe have centered on the danger posed by the continent’s own citizens. Around 3,000 Europeans have joined ISIS, according to the European Union’s counter-terrorism chief, and there are longstanding concerns that some may return to sow terror at home. Recently, there have also been rumblings of an ISIS threat among the unending torrent of Syrian refugees. Some Western officials reportedly believe that ISIS has considered the same plot that Hassan described.
One official with the British government stressed that any potential threat from ISIS should be kept “in perspective.”
“We’re talking about millions of people that need help,” the official said. “We should not get to the stage where we start to fear Syrian refugees as a terrorist threat in Europe.”
There's no question that she was smart, she was dedicated, she understood the issue and people were a little intimidated by her. There were several meetings where she basically walked in and let everybody have it, very different from what the president would do. If she thought something was going wrong, she'd say it. She was much more confrontational in that sense.
I'll never forget, Pat Griffin came out of that meeting and his eyes were that wide and he said, 'You will not believe what I've just been through.' I said, 'What are you talking about?' I had been at another staff meeting. He said, 'I can't believe it, I can't believe what I've just been through.' I said, 'What's the matter?' He said, 'The first lady just tore everybody a new *******.' I said, 'Really?' It was that first experience.
When I became chief of staff, recognizing that she was an important factor, I went out of my way to make sure I briefed her on what was going on as chief of staff. But if she ultimately believed that you had the capacity to do a job, she backed off. She served as what I would call a chief of staff-in- waiting, in the sense that if she felt the chief of staff or whoever was not doing the job, she was prepared to protect the president. And she was very good at that.
The Obama presidency is a failed presidency. He has
presided over one of the slowest economic recoveries in history. His
foreign policy has been a disaster. ObamaCare is a mess. And it’s hard
to lay the blame off on anyone else. The president didn’t make
Republicans part of any of his decisions and most of the time he ignored
congressional Democrats as well.
Washington’s state’s healthcare exchange shut down after the first few hours of open enrollment on Saturday, as state officials and software engineers tried to resolve a problem with tax credit calculations.Because of these glitches, officials at the Washington Healthplanfinder decided to shut the site down after just a few hours.
About a thousand people who bought insurance the first time around are still having problems getting their payments credited and that money transferred to their insurance companies.All the government can say is, "Thanks for your patience."
