Breaking Overnight –   Suspects pinned down in an apartment in Saint-Denis suburb.  12:30am At least one policeman has been injured in a shootout with alleged terrorism suspects in Paris, during a pre-dawn police raid in the northern suburb of St-Denis.    1:00am Daily Mail reporting “several police hurt“.

The nature of the injuries are not known, and French police would confirm only that an operation was underway in the suburb.  Several large explosions.  One report of female suicide bomber who detonated herself.

  1:20am Citing police sources, French news channel BFMTV said the main target of the police operation in St-Denis was the suspected mastermind of the Paris attacks, Abdelhamid Abaaoud, (believed to have been in Syria but now apparently in France) the police believe they have him pinned down in the apartment.

The other two men in holed up with him in the apartment block were believed to be Salah Abdeslam, the subject of a major manhunt since Saturday, and an unidentified “ninth attacker” sought since Tuesday night.. (more…)

There are numerous pundits and political followers who are quite upset about President Obama’s news conference in Turkey where he stated his ISIS strategy “is working”.

An example of the punditry proclamations can be encapsulated within this commentary of CNN contributors as outlined by NewsBusters:

On Monday, CNN’s Christiane Amanpour and two of her network’s analysts blasted President Obama moments after he ended a press conference where he defended his anti-ISIS strategy. Amanpour underlined that Obama “something that was pretty incredible…that our strategy is working. People do not believe that to be the case. The only strategy that’s working is the strategy that he tends to dismiss — and that’s the ground troop strategy.

Sinjar, Tikrit, Kobani — those are the only ISIS strongholds that have been taken back by a combination of American intelligence and air power, and local ground forces.” (video at link)

Indeed, if you were to google search the various media reports about President Obama’s delivered position almost all of them reflect a similar sentiment.  Media scratching their heads and twisting into pretzel contortions wondering why Obama continues to proclaim his ISIS strategy is a success. (more…)

Whiskey Tango Foxtrot? – John Kerry Remarks to the Staff and Families of U.S. Embassy, Paris:

John Kerry – […]  In the last days, obviously, that has been particularly put to the test. There’s something different about what happened from Charlie Hebdo, and I think everybody would feel that.

There was a sort of particularized focus and perhaps even a legitimacy in terms of – not a legitimacy, but a rationale that you could attach yourself to somehow and say, okay, they’re really angry because of this and that.

This Friday was absolutely indiscriminate. It wasn’t to aggrieve one particular sense of wrong. It was to terrorize people. It was to attack everything that we do stand for. That’s not an exaggeration.  (Transcript)

Details sketchy and ongoing – German officials are stating they have concrete evidence an explosive device was planned to be detonated at soccer match today.   Now say false alarms – nothing found

BREAKING: German official says no explosives found and no arrests made in Hanover. https://t.co/tVpOcjqQZi

— Reuters (@Reuters) November 17, 2015

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The case of a missing Syrian Refugee who arrived in Louisiana reflects the weakness within the White House/State Dept. claim that security threats are not likely.   A recent Syrian refugee who was settled by Catholic Charities in Baton Rouge just disappeared.

WBRZ has reported that Catholic charities helped the refugee who settled in Baton Rouge, but also said the refugee left for another state after a couple of days, and they currently do not know where the refugee went since they do not track them.

“We’re at the receiving end,” Chad Aguillard, executive director of Catholic Charities, says. “We receive them, we welcome them into our community and help them resettle. There has been a lot of commotion and fear with Syrians. The fear is justified, but we have to check that against reality.”  (link)

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(Via Daily Mail) Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to hunt down and punish the terrorists responsible for downing a passenger jet over the Egyptian Sinai desert after it emerged a 1.5kg ‘home made’ bomb destroyed the aircraft.

Russian security services have admitted that they have found traces of explosives on a passenger jet which was blown up over Egypt’s Sinai peninsula killing all 224 people on board.

A $50 million reward has reportedly been offered for information leading to the killers.

The Airbus A321 disappeared 23 minutes after leaving Sharm el-Sheikh airport en-route to St Petersburg.  (more…)

There has been a lot of discussion recently over “border walls”, protecting geography and “refugees”. Perhaps it would be interesting to revisit this earlier report from January 2015:

1,000km border wall called the “Northern Border Security Project”

SAUDI ARABIA – Islamic State lists the capture of Saudi Arabia, home to the holy Muslim grounds of Mecca and Medina, as a key goal.

Just over a week ago, IS militants launched an attack on a Saudi border post, killing a senior Saudi general and two border guards, marking the first direct IS assault on Saudi grounds, The Telegraph reported.

In an effort to defend itself from the IS threat and further attacks, the kingdom launched a massive project to construct a “Great Wall” along it’s northern border with Iraq, where IS presence is heavy. (more…)

  UPDATE – List of States EXPANDS: Alabama – Arizona  – Arkansas  – Georgia  – Florida  – Idaho  – Indiana  – Illinois  – Iowa  – Kansas – Louisiana  – Maine  – Massachusetts  – Michigan  – Mississippi  – Nebraska  – New Hampshire  – New Jersey – North Carolina  – Ohio  – Oklahoma – South Carolina  – Tennessee – Texas  – Wisconsin

With admissions by the U.S. State Department and intelligence groups that it is impossible to vet Syrian refugees for terrorist connections, the number of states and state Governors, who have requested a halt to Syrian Refugee import has now expanded to sixteen Twenty Four:

Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Louisiana, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Ohio, South Carolina, Texas, Wisconsin (more…)

Several new items of information surfacing including an additional suspected terrorist added who was another Syrian refugee.  Ahmed Almuhamed and his brother Mohammed Almuhamed both traveled from Syria to France as “refugees”. The suspects currently named:

• Salah Abdeslam, 26 – urgently sought by police (pictured below)
• Mohammed Abdeslam – reportedly arrested in Belgium
• Brahim Abdeslam, 31 – named as attacker who died near Bataclan concert hall
• Omar Ismail Mostefai, 29, from near Paris – died in attack on Bataclan
• Bilal Hadfi, 20 – named as attacker who died at Stade de France
• Ahmed Almuhamed – “refugee” attacker who exploded vest at Stade de France
  
• Mohammed Almuhamed – “refugee” status unknown.
• Samy Aminour, 28, from France – status unknown.
  
• Three other attackers died during the assaults in the city

French Prime Minister Manuel Valls stated: ♦ Friday’s attacks by Islamist militants in Paris were planned and organized from Syria.  ♦ New terror attacks were being planned in France and other European countries.  ♦ 150 raids on suspected militants had been carried out across France early on Monday.  ♦ France was dealing with a “terrorist army”, rather than a single terrorist group.

(Via BBC) […] “We know that operations were being prepared and are still being prepared, not only against France but other European countries too,” he said, quoted by AFP news agency.

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