Showing posts with label chemical weapons. Show all posts
Showing posts with label chemical weapons. Show all posts

Friday, April 7, 2017

Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog: PRESIDENT ORDERS STRIKES ON SYRIA AFTER CHEMICAL WEAPONS ATTACKS KILL CHILDREN.

Syria-USstrikes

New post on Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog

BREAKING: PRESIDENT ORDERS STRIKES ON SYRIA AFTER CHEMICAL WEAPONS ATTACKS KILL CHILDREN. Here’s the latest.

by joelcrosenberg
(Washington, D.C.) -- President Trump on Thursday night ordered U.S. military forces to launch strikes against Syrian targets after the Assad regime again used chemical weapons to slaughter Syrians, including scores of children.
The President should be commended for moving fast and hitting hard.
Now the big question: What will the President do next? Is this a one-off attack, or will the President order a series of attacks? What are the President's goals in Syria? He should destroy Syria's airfields and air force. He should create safe zones where Syrians can be protected from chemical weapons attacks and other attacks. And he must prove that he will hit Assad with tremendous force so no leader or terrorist believes they can use weapons of mass destruction with impunity.
More key questions:
  • What did Putin know, and when did he know it? Putin led the deal in 2013 to remove "all" chemical weapons from Syria. That's why President Obama said he didn't need to strike after Assad crossed the "red line" using WMD the first time. Clearly, not all the chemical weapons were removed. So what are the consequences of Putin's lies to the U.S. and the world?
  • When will Assad be handed over to stand trial for war crimes?
  • Where Russian advisors on the Syrian air base that was hit? Were any killed?
Expect the Israeli military to be on high alert for possible reprisal attacks.
I expect our key Sunni Arab allies -- notably Egypt, Jordan, the Saudis and most of the Gulf states -- to fully and publicly support President Trump's actions.
Here's the latest on the strikes -- please follow me on Twitter for the continuing updates.
"The United States launched nearly five dozen cruise missiles at a Syrian airfield early Friday in response to a chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians, the first direct assault on the Damascus government since the beginning of that country's bloody civil war in 2011," Fox News is reporting.
"It is in the vital national security interest of the United States to prevent and deter the spread and use of deadly chemical weapons," President Donald Trump said in a statement. "Tonight I call on all civilized nations to join us in seeking to end the slaughter and bloodshed in Syria, and also to end terrorism of all kinds and all types."
"Fifty-nine Tomahawk missiles targeted an airbase at Shayrat, located outside Homs," Fox noted. "The missiles targeted the base's airstrips, hangars, control tower and ammunition areas, officials said.
Pentagon spokesman Capt. Jeff Davis said initial indications were that the strike "had "severely damaged or destroyed Syrian aircraft and support infrastructure and equipment ... reducing the Syrian Government's ability to deliver chemical weapons."
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joelcrosenberg | April 7, 2017 at 3:07 am | Categories: Epicenter | URL: http://wp.me/piWZ7-7sT

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog: ISIS launches chemical weapons attack in Iraq injuring 600.

ISIS-flag

New post on Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog

As top officials warn ISIS will attempt “direct attacks” in U.S. homeland in 2016, ISIS launches chemical weapons attack in Iraq injuring 600. Here’s the latest.

by joelcrosenberg
There is a real and growing and chilling concern among top intelligence officials that ISIS is steadily developing the ability to launch massive, genocidal attacks against its enemies using chemical weapons. Whether ISIS is planning such attacks inside the U.S., in Europe or only within the Middle East, is not yet clear.
Ghastly attacks of precisely this sort are the premise of my two most recent novels,The Third Target and The First Hostage. When I began researching and writing the series, however, there was no actual evidence that ISIS possessed -- or had access to --  weapons of mass destruction. But the situation is changing for the worse.
Also last month, James Clapper, the Director of National Intelligence, told a security conference in Munich that ISIS has chemical weapons and wants to use them against the United States. "It is pretty clear that they [ISIS] have used this [chemical weapons] numerous times," Clapper said. "It is very clear aspirationally they would like to do more and it is a concern to us in the United States because the indications are that they would like to use chemical weapons against us.”
Now, just this week, we've learned that ISIS has just launched two attacks in the city of Kirkuk using chemical weapons. At least 600 Iraqis have been injured by the attacks. One little girl is dead. Hundreds of other Iraqis have fled for their lives. Iraq's Prime Minister is vowing revenge for the attacks.
Recently, U.S. special forces captured ISIS's chemical weapons chief. "Sleiman Daoud al-Afari was snatched close to a month ago in the town of Badoosh, north-west of the Isis stronghold of Mosul," reported the UK Guardian. "A senior Iraqi official said he was an industrial engineer in former dictator Saddam Hussein’s military and had been a member of Isis throughout all its earlier incarnations." This week, U.S. forces handed over the terrorist to the Iraqi government.
U.S., Iraqi and Kurdish forces have been attacking ISIS chemical weapons production facilities. It is likely that knowledge of these facilities came from intel provided by al-Afari.
But the risk is increasingly high that ISIS is planning "enormous and spectacular attacks" in Europe, the U.S., in Israel or in a Sunni Arab country, as a top British security official recently warned.
  • The Islamic State group has launched two chemical attacks near the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk, killing a 3-year-old girl, injuring some 600 people and causing hundreds more to flee, Iraqi officials said Saturday.
  • Security and hospital officials say the latest attack took place early Saturday in the small town of Taza, which was also struck by a barrage of rockets carrying chemicals three days earlier.
  • “There is fear and panic among the women and children,” said Adel Hussein, a local official in Taza. “They're calling for the central government to save them.” Hussein said a German and an American forensics team arrived in the area to test for the presence of chemical agents.
  • The wounded are suffering from infected burns, suffocation and dehydration, said Helmi Hamdi, a nurse at the Taza hospital. He said eight people were transferred to Baghdad for treatment.
  • U.S. and Iraqi officials said U.S. special forces captured the head of the ISIS unit trying to develop chemical weapons in a raid last month in northern Iraq.
  • The U.S.-led coalition said the chemicals ISIS has so far used include chlorine and a low-grade sulfur mustard which is not very potent....
  • The coalition began targeting ISIS' chemical weapons infrastructure with airstrikes and special operations raids two months ago, Iraqi intelligence officials and a Western security official in Baghdad told the AP.
  • Airstrikes are targeting laboratories and equipment, and further special forces raids targeting chemical weapons experts are planned, the officials said....
joelcrosenberg | March 15, 2016 at 8:49 am | Categories: Uncategorized | URL:http://wp.me/piWZ7-4rS

Tuesday, February 16, 2016

Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog: “The First Hostage” hits #1 on best-seller list one day after CIA director warns ISIS using chemical weapons.

FirstHostage-small

“The First Hostage” hits #1 on best-seller list one day after CIA director warns ISIS using chemical weapons.

by joelcrosenberg
ECPA-FirstHostage-#1
On the day after CIA Director John Brennan told the CBS News program "60 Minutes" that the Islamic State is using chemical weapons in Syria and Iraq, a novel about ISIS using chemical weapons against its enemies in the Middle East has hit #1 on a national best-seller list.
I'm pleased to report that The First Hostage has just become the nation’s #1 best-selling novel in the North American Christian book market, according to the Evangelical Christian Publishing Association. It is also the #7 of all Christian best-sellers, both fiction and non-fiction, this month.
In January, The First Hostage spent four weeks on the Publishers Weekly hardcover fiction best-sellers list. It also hit the USA Today list, though it did not hit the New York Times list.
This is the second in a series of thrillers about J.B. Collins, a fictional foreign correspondent tracking the threat posed by ISIS to the U.S., Israel, Jordan, and a group of other Mideast countries. The previous novel, The Third Target, was released in January 2015.
They are both the first -- and, thus far, the only -- novels in the world about the threat of the Islamic State.
On behalf of my wife and me -- and the entire Tyndale House Publishing team -- please let me say thank you so much for your enthusiastic support of this thriller, and The Third Target before it, which hit all the general market lists when it released last year and was also a #1 best-seller in the Christian market. We deeply appreciate how so many of you are blogging and Tweeting and writing on Facebook about both novels, and writing so many positive reviews on Amazon, B&N, Goodreads, and other book sites.
Since many of you keep asking, please rest assured that I am hard at work right now on the third novel in this J.B. Collins series. We expect this next one to release in January 2017 and I'll certainly keep you posted on my progress along the way.
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joelcrosenberg | February 15, 2016 at 3:11 pm | Categories: Uncategorized | URL:http://wp.me/piWZ7-4gQ

Saturday, February 13, 2016

Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog: CIA Director warns ISIS using chemical weapons & poses “a threat that keeps him up at night.”

JohnBrennan-60Minutes

Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog

CIA Director warns ISIS using chemical weapons & poses “a threat that keeps him up at night.” Here’s the latest.

by joelcrosenberg
In a chilling admission that the world's most dangerous terrorists now control some of the world's most dangerous weapons, CIA Director John Brennan went on the record this week to warn that the leaders of the Islamic State are actively engaged in producing chemical weapons and using them on the battlefield.
Brennan told CBS News that the use of WMD by the terror state is limited for now. But he said ISIS appears to be trying to figure out how to use poison gas on a much wider scale.
It is, CBS reports, "a threat that keeps him up at night."
This is not the first time we've seen open source news reports about ISIS' chemical weapons capabilities (see herehere and here, as examples.) But Brennan is the highest-ranking U.S. intelligence official to confirm the Islamic State's WMD capabilities.
The determination ISIS has to develop and deploy weapons that can kill on a mass scale is consistent with the ISIS's apocalyptic beliefs and objectives, as I've been warning for some time. It's also the heart of the plot lines in both of my most recent novels, The Third Target and The First Hostage in which a New York Times reporter discovers that ISIS has captured a cache of chemical weapons in Syria and is planning a genocidal attack soon to advance their End Times beliefs and hasten the coming of the Mahdi and a global Caliphate.
Nothing in the CBS report suggest Brennan is focused on the apocalyptic views of ISIS leaders. Perhaps the full interview will shed more light on the CIA's assessment of Apocalyptic Islam and how it's driving the actions of the Islamic State. That would be a positive development, though I can't say I'm expecting as much. Thus far, the Obama administration has refused to discuss the intentions, theology and/or eschatology of ISIS. I maintain, however, that it is difficult to defeat an enemy one doesn't fully understand or define.
Here's a video clip from Brennan's interview did with Scott Pelley of CBS News. The full interview is scheduled to air on Sunday night on "60 Minutes."
  • The Islamic State militant group (ISIS) has the capability to continue making small quantities of chlorine and mustard gas, according to CIA Director John Brennan.
  • The U.S.’s intelligence chief is due to appear in an interview on CBS News’s 60 Minutes program on Sunday but the channel released snippets from the interview late Thursday. In the interview, he said that ISIS has already used chemical weapons on the battlefield a number of times.
  • “We have a number of instances where ISIL has used chemical munitions on the battlefield,” he said, using an alternate acronym for the militant group.
  • Brennan said that despite the setbacks the group has faced because of the U.S.-led coalition campaign, it has retained the ability to develop deadly munitions.
  • “There are reports that ISIS has access to chemical precursors and munitions that they can use,” he said.
  • He also warned that the radical Islamist group may attempt to sell on the weaponsthat they develop into Western countries.
  • “I think there’s always the potential for that. This is why it’s so important to cut off the various transportation routes and smuggling routes that they have used,” he said....
  • “U.S. intelligence is actively involved in being a part of the efforts to destroy ISIL and to get as much insight into what they have on the ground inside of Syria and Iraq,” he continued.
  • U.S. Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said this week that ISIS’s development of chemical weapons was the first instance of an extremist group doing so since Japan’s Aum Supreme Truth cult used sarin gas in a rush-hour attack on the Tokyo subway in 1995.
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joelcrosenberg | February 13, 2016 at 5:19 am | Categories: Uncategorized | URL:http://wp.me/piWZ7-4fI

Thursday, January 14, 2016

Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog: “ISIS may be testing chemical weapons as terror group rapidly expands,” reports Fox News

ISIS-baghdadi


Joel C. Rosenberg's Blog

“ISIS may be testing chemical weapons as terror group rapidly expands,” reports Fox News in a headline ripped from #TheThirdTarget & #TheFirstHostage.

by joelcrosenberg
(Washington, D.C.) -- In a chilling story that seems ripped from the pages of The Third Target and The First Hostage, Fox News is reporting that "there is growing evidence that ISIS is experimenting with chemical weapons," and that "the number of foreign fighters [has] hit a new high."
Last year, just 20,000 foreign fighters were operating as part of the ISIS shock troops, Fox reports. Now that number has skyrocketed to 36,000, and they come from 120 countries.
Former deputy CIA director Mike Morrell, testifying before Congress on ISIS's development of chemical weapons capabilities, warned that Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi and the leaders of ISIS "have made two things very clear publicly in documents that have come out. One is that if they acquire these weapons they would use and they wouldn't care that the vast majority of those killed were civilians. and they have also provided a religious justification very similar to Al Qaeda’s, in fact I think it is identical to Al Qaeda’s justification for using such weapons."
This is not the first report of ISIS pursuing chemical weapons. I first cited a spate of news stories about this last August.
It should not be surprising that the Islamic State is pursuing the development and deployment of chemical weapons. Its leaders and members have apocalyptic, genocidal ambitions. They want to find ways to kill larger and larger numbers of "infidels." They want to bring about the end of the world as we know it, and usher in the coming of the their messiah known as the Mahdi, all to build a global Islamic kingdom or caliphate. Their fervency and urgency and their barbaric savagery is what is attracting so many foreign fighters.
This is the very premise of my latest series of political thrillers. Unfortunately, what I've written about as fiction is not fiction at all -- it's the ISIS game plan and it is extremely dangerous. President Obama and the presidential front-runners give no evidence that they understand the threat of Apocalyptic Islam. But it's time to take their heads out of the proverbial sand. The threat is real, and it's growing.
  • There is growing evidence that ISIS is experimenting with chemical weapons as the number of foreign fighters hits a new high, according to current and former government officials.
  • Photos taken by the Kurds in northern Iraq last summer and fall and reviewed by Fox News show burns and blistering on the skin that a source on the ground there said are consistent with the use of chemical agents. The agents were described as "odorless, colorless and absorbed through the clothing," causing burns or illness hours later.
  • "I think it's, could be a perfect testing ground," former FBI intelligence officer Timothy Gil Sr. said. "They (ISIS) were particularly interested in using these chemicals in confined space environments, soft targets like shopping malls and movie theaters."
  • Gill who is doing his own independent research for an upcoming international conference on weapons of mass destruction said there is a disturbing trend, that ISIS is using safe havens in Syria, Iraq and potentially Libya as laboratories to learn how chemical agents impact the battlefield, with the goal of sharing their expertise via social media with ISIS followers outside the region.
  • "It's enough to use in a crude weapon that could really push the panic button," Gill said. "This now provides an opportunity to say 'this is working, we're now going to push this out to any potential lone wolf, lone actor that may have a background in chemistry.'"
  • A doctor who was in northern Iraq last year and asked not to be identified for security reasons, said he treated Kurdish fighters whom ISIS used as "lab rats for WMD," adding that the variety of burns and illnesses over several weeks suggested to him that "mustard gas, precursors, as well as neurotoxic acids" were being tested....
  • While ISIS tries to broaden its use of unconventional weaponry, the terror group also has broadened its appeal. A US intelligence official confirms to Fox News the number of foreign fighters has hit a new high -- more than 36,000 from 120 countries since the conflict began in 2011, including at least 6,600 from Western countries.
  • A year ago, at the worldwide threat hearing on Capitol Hill, where the U.S. intelligence community publicly presented its global view on terrorism, the Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper said that since the conflict began, more than 20,000 foreign fighters from 90 countries had travelled to the region.  A key figure is the number of countries affected, with the extremist ideology now drawing followers from 60 percent of the world's nations.
  • During congressional testimony before the House Armed Services Committee Wednesday, former senior intelligence officials said ISIS is expanding.
  • "ISIS has gained affiliates faster than Al Qaeda ever did -- from nothing a year ago, there are now militant groups in nearly 20 countries that have sworn allegiance to ISIS," former CIA deputy director Mike Morell said.  "They have conducted attacks that have already killed Americans."
  • On the development of unconventional weapons, Morell added, "They have made two things very clear publicly in documents that have come out. One is that if they acquire these weapons they would use and they wouldn't care that the vast majority of those killed were civilians. and they have also provided a religious justification very similar to Al Qaeda’s, in fact I think it is identical to Al Qaeda’s justification for using such weapons."
  • The Special Presidential Envoy for the Global Coalition to Counter ISIL (ISIS) recently briefed reporters in Washington DC, emphasizing the overall trend line is in the right direction, pointing to progress securing the Turkish border to stem the flow of foreign fighters.
  • "This is a challenge like we've never seen before," Brett McGurk said, "The world has never seen something like this, upwards of 35,000 now foreign fighters from 100 countries all around the world supercharged by social media and Twitter and everything.
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joelcrosenberg | January 13, 2016 at 7:32 pm | Categories: Uncategorized | URL:http://wp.me/piWZ7-3TR

Saturday, November 21, 2015

Joel Rosenberg - Dynamic of U.S. presidential campaign changing in light of ISIS attacks in Paris

ThirdTarget-FirstHostageDynamic of U.S. presidential campaign changing in light of ISIS attacks in Paris & pursuit of chemical weapons. Here’s why. (Also: latest headlines seem ripped out of “The Third Target” & “The First Hostage” novels.)

by joelcrosenberg
ISIS-chemweapons-headlines(Des Moines, Iowa) -- The barbaric attacks in Paris by jihadists loyal to the Islamic State could the dynamic in the presidential campaign in a profound way.
So could the news -- just breaking in the last 24 hours -- that the Islamic State is actively pursuing the production of chemical weapons to advance their genocidal aims.
Such developments put into sharp relief the need to choose a new President who doesn't simply have a great tax reform plan, and a plan to grow the economy and create millions of jobs and reduce spending and balance the budget and reform entitlements. We certainly need a President who will defend the sanctity of innocent human life, and the sanctity of Biblical marriage. Those are vital issues. But so is national security.
  • We need a President who understands that Western leaders ignore the threat of Apocalyptic Islam at their peril.
  • We need a Commander-in-Chief who truly understands the magnitude of the threats posed by Radical and Apocalyptic Islam.
  • We need a President who has serious ideas about how to neutralize such threats, and has solid national experience that can assure us that he or she is really ready to confront this evil.
  • We need a President who sees Israel as a faithful ally -- not an adversary -- in this showdown with the jihadists.
  • We need a President who rejects the insane Iran nuclear deal, and the notion of allowing Russia and Iran to run wild in Syria.
  • Commander-in-Chief is not an entry level position.
  • There is no time for on-the-job training in the White House for a new President who has little or no experience thinking about foreign policy and national security issues.
  • The next President must come in ready for war -- because that's what we're in, and the stakes are simply too high to go with an untested outsider or newcomer.
So, good morning from epicenter of the U.S. presidential campaign. I just got into the Iowa capital around 1:40 this morning after a 27 hour journey (including numerous flight delays) from Israel.
I'm here at the invitation of several Evangelical Christian leaders to discuss the implications of recent events on their efforts to choose and coalesce around a presidential candidate. We're gathering tonight to attend a forum tonight with seven Republican presidential candidates in hopes of better discerning who could truly be ready to lead us and protect us in dangerous and dark times.
The event is hosted by The Family Leader, a pro-family organization that has had me to speak at several of their events in recent years on U.S.-Israel relations and the threats America faces at home and abroad. (for details, see here, and here)
Tomorrow, I have been invited to spend the day praying and fasting with Christian leaders and further discussing what we are seeing and hearing from the various presidential contenders. I hope to post more on this throughout the weekend.
For now, consider the following headlines, each of which seem ripped from The Third Target, and the forthcoming sequel, The First Hostage.
Chilling. Eerie, actually. But this is the world we live in at the moment.
Will you join me in praying and fasting for the Lord to graciously show all of us if He has a candidate He wants us to support, a president that He wants to raise up to get America back on the right track, stand with Israel, and counter the evil rising in the Middle East? Thanks, and God bless you.
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joelcrosenberg | November 20, 2015 at 3:57 pm | Categories: Uncategorized | URL:http://wp.me/piWZ7-3qC