We Now Get To Experience The Trial Of A Foreign Terrorist In Our Court System.

Accused Benghazi Ringleader Pleads Not Guilty in Federal Court

 An armed man waving his rifle as buildings and cars are engulfed in flames after being set on fire inside the U.S. consulate compound in Benghazi on Sept. 11, 2012. (Getty Images)

Saturday, 28 Jun 2014 04:01 PM

By Newsmax Wires

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The Libyan militant charged in the 2012 Benghazi attack pleaded not guilty to a federal terrorism charge Saturday before U.S. District judge in his first court appearance on U.S. soil.

Ahmed Abu Khattala entered his plea at the heavily guarded federal courthouse in Washington, D.C. He is charged in connection with the attacks on Sept. 11, 2012, that killed the U.S. ambassador to Libya and three other Americans.

U.S. special forces captured Abu Khattala in Libya two weeks ago, marking the first breakthrough in the investigation of the Benghazi attacks.A criminal complaint filed last year was unsealed after his capture.
U.S. officials had been questioning Abu Khattala aboard a Navy amphibious transport dock ship that brought him to the United States.
Abu Khattala, who charged with terrorism-related crimes, may face a judge as soon as Saturday for an initial court appearance at which the government would outline the charges against him. He almost certainly would remain in detention while the Justice Department sought a federal grand jury indictment against him.
The prosecution will be a further test of the Obama administration's commitment to try suspected terrorists in the American criminal justice system even as Republicans in Congress call for Abu Khatallah and others to be held at the U.S. detention facility in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.
A newly unsealed criminal complaint accuses Abu Khattala of killing a person during an attack on a federal facility, a crime punishable by death; providing federal support to terrorists resulting in death; and using a firearm in a crime of violence. U.S. authorities have said they are looking to identify and capture additional co-conspirators.
The violence on the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon quickly became a political flashpoint. Republicans accused the White House, as the 2012 presidential election neared, of intentionally misleading the public about what prompted the attacks. The White House accused Republicans of politicizing a national tragedy.
Abu Khattala, a prominent figure in Benghazi's circles of extremists who was popular among young radicals, acknowledged in an interview with The Associated Press in January that he was present during the storming of the U.S. mission in Benghazi. But he denied involvement in the attack, saying he was trying to organize a rescue of trapped people.
In the attack, gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades and stormed the mission, with many waving the black banners of Ansar al-Shariah, a powerful Islamic militia.
The compound's main building was set ablaze. Ambassador Chris Stevens suffocated to death inside and another American was shot dead. Later in the evening, gunmen attacked and shelled a safe house, killing two more Americans.
At the time, several witnesses said they saw Abu Khattala directing fighters at the site.
No evidence has emerged that Abu Khattala was involved in the later attack on the safe house.
Abu Khattala is one of just a few cases in which the administration has captured a suspected terrorist overseas and interrogated him for intelligence purposes before bringing him to federal court to face charges.
Those cases include Osama bin Laden's son-in-law, Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, who was arrested in Jordan in March 2013 and turned over to U.S. agents. A jury in New York City convicted him in March of conspiring to kill Americans.

The Associated Press and Reuters contributed.
© 2014 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

If You Think ISIS Wants To Limit Its Conquest To Iraq, You Are Asleep! Its Leader Once Was In Gitmo!

U.S. Ignored ISIS Threat, Homeland Could Be In Danger

June 17, 2014 by Sam Rolley

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SCREENSHOT

As Americans continue to try to understand how Iraq, a nation the U.S. occupied for more than a decade, is so rapidly becoming a playground for brutal Islamic extremists, defense and intelligence experts say that an American response to the extremist threat will be difficult to formulate because the necessary intel is lacking.

U.S. officials realize that the Islamic threat currently growing in Iraq could have direct implications for U.S. security, a notion demonstrated by the Navy’s mobilization of the aircraft carrier USS George H.W. Bush and two other U.S. Navy ships to the Persian Gulf Sunday. But as lawmakers and pundits discuss the prospect of a U.S. airstrikes with the goal of stalling the forward advances of brutal militants in the nation aligned with the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), top defense experts say that the recent rapid withdrawal of U.S. forces from key Iraqi assets makes it almost impossible to discern where the strikes are needed the most.

If forces inadvertently strike areas of Iraq where large-scale collateral damage is possible with minimal success in weakening the ISIS threat, there is a risk that the bombing could make matters worse in the country by making it easier for ISIS to radicalize Iraqis who were formerly possible U.S. allies.

“We don’t have boots on ground providing intelligence and we don’t have confidence in information that the Iraqi government provides, because they’ve [been] so heavy-handed in the use of force against Sunni villages,” Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), a senior member of the House Intelligence Committee, explained to The Daily Beast.

One fact that officials in the U.S. have not been overly excited to note, however, is that the United States’ national security apparatus has been aware of the growing ISIS threat for years.

Via The New York Times:

With just a few thousand fighters, the group’s lightning sweep into Mosul and farther south appeared to catch many Iraqi and American officials by surprise. But the gains were actually the realization of a yearslong strategy of state-building that the group itself promoted publicly.

The Times’ article goes on to note the existence of several pieces of ISIS propaganda, including a 2007 pamphlet that cited “trends in globalization as well as the Quran in challenging modern notions of statehood as having absolute control over territory.”

In other words, ISIS leaders believe that the actions they’re currently carrying out in Iraq could be similarly reproduced throughout the entire world. And reports indicate that the brutal extremists are already laying the groundwork to challenge the Western world’s power to defend itself.

Police in Spain on Monday said that they have detained as many as eight people in connection with an ISIS-linked terror cell led by a former Guantanamo detainee.

“It should be highlighted that the leader of this cell lived in Spain after passing through the Guantanamo military base, having been arrested in Afghanistan in 2001,” the Spanish ministry said, according to AFP.

The danger that similar cells are being formed in the United States is real, according to many officials watching the situation unfold in Iraq.

Trial Of Benghazi Mastermind In US Courts Is An Abomination!

Republicans: Hold Captured Benghazi Mastermind at Gitmo

Tuesday, 17 Jun 2014 04:02 PM

By Todd Beamon

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Republicans cheered the capture of Ahmed Abu Khattala, who played a key role in the 2012 Benghazi attacks that killed four Americans, but demanded that he be held at Guantanamo Bay and questioned thoroughly.

But that won't be happening, a White House spokeswoman said late Tuesday.

President Barack Obama has decided not to send Khattala to Guantanamo, said National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden.

"The administration’s policy is clear on this issue: We have not added a single person to the GTMO population since President Obama took office, and we have had substantial success delivering swift justice to terrorists through our federal court system," Hayden told The Hill in a statement.

Before that news broke, key Republicans weighed in on how Khattala should be dealt with.

"It is obviously good news that this terrorist is now in American custody," House Speaker John Boehner said in a statement. "I am grateful for the work of our military, assisted by the FBI, in capturing him.

"I look forward to hearing more details regarding the raid, and I expect the administration to give our military professionals time to properly gather any useful intelligence he has," the Ohio Republican said.

Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said that Khattala "needs to be interrogated, extensively" in the attacks that killed Ambassador Chris Stevens, information management officer Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods.

And four senators — John McCain of Arizona, Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, Marco Rubio of Florida and Ted Cruz of Texas — said that Khattala should be viewed as an enemy combatant and held at the U.S. prison camp at Guantanamo.

"Obviously he should be put on trial," McCain told The Washington Post. "I'd bring him to Guantanamo. Where else can you take him to?"

Graham told the Post that Khattala should not be read his Miranda rights.

"I hope we gather intelligence through the law of war interrogation," Graham said. "He should be going to Gitmo."

Rubio said in a statement that "the Obama administration should immediately transfer him to the military detention center at Guantanamo Bay for detention and interrogation.

"In order to locate all individuals associated with the attacks that led to the deaths of four Americans, we need intelligence," he said. "That intelligence is often obtained through an interrogation process."

And Cruz said in a statement that Khattala "has been openly defying the United States for more than 20 months.

"Now that he is in custody, the proper authorities should be given ample time to assess what intelligence he may have about ongoing terrorist operations against Americans.

"Khattala is a foreign terrorist, captured by our special forces overseas for his violent attack on a U.S. facility. He belongs in Guantanamo and in the military justice system, not in the U.S. civilian court system with the constitutional protections afforded U.S. citizens.

"Our top priority should be preventing future attacks and bringing to justice the other terrorists who participated in the murder of four Americans in Benghazi," Cruz said.

Khattala, the commander of the Ansar al-Sharia militant group, was captured Sunday in Libya south of Benghazi in a joint U.S. military and law-enforcement operation. He is to be prosecuted in the United States.

Formed during the Libyan Civil War in 2011, Ansar al-Sharia rose to prominence after the killing of Moammar Gadhafi. It also consists of the February 17th Martyrs Brigadeand other Islamic terrorist groups.

"I can confirm that on Sunday, June 15, the U.S. military — in cooperation with law-enforcement personnel — captured Ahmed Abu Khatalla, a key figure in the attacks on U.S. facilities in Benghazi, Libya, in September 2012," said Navy Rear Adm. John Kirby.

No civilians died in the raid, and Khattala was in U.S. custody at a "secure location outside of Libya," Kirby said in a statement.

The U.S. filed charges in federal court in Washington last year against Khattala and at least a dozen others in connection with the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi.

Only Khattala, who is expected to be arraigned in Washington, has been apprehended.

President Barack Obama signed off on the mission Friday night, the Post reported, and he confirmed on Tuesday that Khattala was heading to America to face charges.

"He is now being transported back to the United States," the president said.

"I say that, first of all, because we continue to think about and pray for the families of those who were killed during that terrible attack," Obama said at an event in Pennsylvania.

"But more importantly, for us to send a message to the world that when Americans are attacked, no matter how long it takes, we will find those responsible and we will bring them to justice," he said.

Khattala was long thought to be one of the leaders of the deadly attack, and he had openly granted media interviews since the assaults, but until now had evaded capture.

Republicans soundly praised Khattala's capture, but said it was also important the Obama administration work with Congress on providing specifics about the circumstances leading to his arrest and detention.

Last month, Boehner established a select committee to investigate the Benghazi attacks, which is chaired by South Carolina Rep. Trey Gowdy.

Gowdy, a former prosecutor, has since charged that he has evidence of a "systematic, intentional" effort by the Obama administration to withhold documents from Congress about the Benghazi attacks.

"The American people and the families of the victims deserve answers on this attack," New York Rep. Peter King, a member of the House Homeland Security Committee, said in a statement to the Post. "As with all detained al-Qaida-affiliated extremists, I hope Khattala will be treated as an enemy combatant and interrogated to the fullest extent possible.

"Obtaining information and intelligence from this terrorist must be our first priority," King said.

House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa called Khatalla's arrest "long overdue."

"Our military deserves credit for conducting a successful operation," the California Republican said in a statement. "There is evidence that he is one of dozens, if not hundreds of individuals, involved in the murder of four Americans in Benghazi.

"The Obama administration has an obligation to share whatever information he offers with Chairman Gowdy and the select committee about events before and during the Benghazi attacks."

Many GOP legislators said the president was wrong if he decided against holding Khattala at Guantanamo. None expressed support for torturing him.

"Once again, the president has made the wrong decision on how our nation should be handling terrorists that are a threat to Americans and our national security," Oklahoma Sen. Jim Inhofe said in a statement. "Instead of holding Khattala at Guantanamo Bay, where he can be properly interrogated for intelligence, it appears Khattala will be transferred to civilian custody at which time he will receive the same constitutional due process rights as any American citizen.

"The president is more focused on his legacy of closing Guantanamo Bay than preventing future terrorist attacks like what happened in Benghazi that took the lives of four American heroes."





Related Stories:

• Obama: Capture of Benghazi Mastermind 'a Milestone'
• GOP: 'Smoking Gun' Benghazi Email Proves White House 'Cover-Up'

© 2014 Newsmax. All rights reserved.

Bergdahl Exchange--A Major Error On Obama's Part. Americans Totally Against Trade.

U.S. PUBLIC ERUPTS OVER OBAMA'S BERGDAHL SWAP

'There is evidence that president has put the country at risk'

Published: 12 hours ago

 BOB UNRUH About | Email | Archive

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Editor’s note: This is another in a series of “WND/WENZEL POLLS” conducted exclusively for WND by the public-opinion research and media consulting company Wenzel Strategies.

Fifty-four percent of Americans say Barack Obama’s deal to swap five Taliban leaders for a detained U.S. soldier in the Middle East amounts to providing aid to terrorists – a violation of federal law – according to a new poll.

That result is just one of the factors that reveals a deep outrage across America over the deal through which Obama freed five terrorists who had been confined at Guantanamo Bay as too dangerous to release in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl, whose platoon-mates say he actually deserted his Army post before being taken by the Taliban.

The results are from a national survey of registered voters by Wenzel Strategies. It was conducted June 12-14 and has a margin of error of 3.95 percentage points.

“The country’s disapproval of the Obama prisoner exchange likely stems from the fact that they feel the national security of the U.S. should always trump the health and safety of one soldier,” said Fritz Wenzel, of Wenzel Strategies.

He continued, “And there is evidence in the survey data that Obama has put the country at risk with this trade.

“We offered respondents two chances to answer this question with a slight change in nuance. In one question, we posed it as Sgt. Bergdahl simply being held as a hostage, and in the second instance, we added language that highlighted his walking away from his post prior to his being taken captive, but respondents didn’t seem to care. In both instances, they said the security of the nation should take preeminence over the life of one soldier.”

The results had 78 percent of respondents stating that the security of the nation was more important than Bergdahl’s security, with not even 22 percent taking the opposite stance. Even 65 percent of Democrats held that majority position.

Wenzel also noted a powerful sentiment against Obama’s decision to take the action without notifying Congress, which also is required by the law.

“There is considerably anger over the flouting of U.S. law in Obama’s not notifying Congress about this deal-making before the trade took place,” he said. “Nearly two-thirds – 64 percent – said they disagree with the White House’s decision to go it alone on making the deal.

“Disagreement with Obama on this point is intense, as 54 percent said they ‘strongly disagree’ with the White House’s decision to keep Congress in the dark. This after almost two weeks in which the White House has executed a campaign to discredit the trustworthiness of Congress on such sensitive matters, a factor that leads one to conclude that Americans are not buying what the White House is selling,” he said.

“What is more is that a majority of Americans – 54 percent – said they think the Obama hostage deal amounts to Obama’s providing aid to a terrorist organization – the Taliban – by making the exchange. And on this point, even a majority of Democrats agree, as 50 percent said they agreed the trade did aid the Taliban, compared to 40 percent of Democrats who disagreed with that sentiment,” Wenzel said.

“Among Republicans, 62 percent said they agreed Obama had provided aid to terrorists. Gender differences are interesting on this question, as 57 percent of men said Obama had aided terrorists, while just 50 percent of women said the same thing. More blacks agreed (44 percent) with the sentiment than disagreed with it (35 percent), with the balance undecided on the question.”

He explained that the White House undoubtedly “expected this Bergdahl exchange to get the VA scandal off the front pages, and it has certainly done that, but not in the way the White House probably expected. Instead of being a bright and shining example of Obama’s skill on the world stage, the WND/Wenzel poll shows it is seen by a majority of Americans as a significant mistake – 60 percent of all registered voters nationally disagreed with Obama’s five-to-one trade to get the soldier back.

“As has been the case since the start of his second term, independent voters are strongly against the trade, as 65 percent said they oppose it. It is not surprising that just 14 percent of Republicans supported the exchange. Among Democrats, 64 percent said they agreed with the White House deal with the Taliban.”

The public has come to see the situation as an “ill-advised capitulation to a terrorist group,” he said.

“What the White House failed to do here, based on these poll findings, is to control this story from the outset. There is no way that, once having launched this story into the mainstream consciousness with its own Rose Garden ceremony, they could have stopped the media from covering the subsequent fallout,” he said.

There’s not a good outcome for the Obama administration, he suggested.

“The die has largely been cast on this as a serious foreign policy blunder, reinforced by the thought that these five Taliban leaders may well come back to haunt the U.S. much the way Obama’s walkaway from Iraq is also now blooming into a disaster of epic proportions.

“For a man who came into office promising to unite the world and heal old wounds, the meltdown in the Middle East must be disturbing to even Obama’s staunchest supporters. This survey shows the American public has lost all confidence in his leadership abroad, and that they are growing less and less likely to trust his judgment – if not his version of the facts.”

See detailed results of survey questions:

The return of U.S. soldier Bowe Bergdahl in exchange for the release and return to the Middle East of five high-level leaders of the Taliban has triggered a great deal of controversy across the country. How familiar are you with this news story that has developed over the past week or so?

Do you agree or disagree with President Obama’s decision to release the five high-level Taliban leaders in exchange for Army Sergeant Bergdahl?

If you HAD TO CHOOSE, which do you think is more important for the president to be concerned about – the health and safety of one U.S. soldier held as a hostage in Afghanistan, or the national security of the country?

If you HAD TO CHOOSE, which do you think is more important for the president to be concerned about – the health and safety of one U.S. soldier who walked away from his post and was subsequently kidnapped in Afghanistan, or the national security of the country?

President Obama did not consult with Congress before ordering the release of the Taliban leaders – as required by U.S. law – because, the president said, he was fearful for the health and safety of Sergeant Bergdahl. Knowing this about why Obama took the action he did, do you agree or disagree that Obama was justified in ignoring the law and bypassing Congress in releasing the Taliban leaders?

There is another federal law that prohibits any U.S. citizen from providing aid to a terrorist organization. The U.S. government has classified the Taliban as a terrorist organization. Knowing this, do you agree or disagree that Obama’s action to return five high-level Taliban leaders to the Middle East amounts to his providing aid to a terrorist organization?

Members of his own unit say Sergeant Bergdahl had expressed disgust for the United States mission in Afghanistan, had written of wanting to renounce his U.S. citizenship, and had walked away from his post in Afghanistan before he was captured by enemy forces and held for five years. Knowing this, are you more or less likely to support Obama’s decision to release the five high-level Taliban leaders in exchange for Army Sergeant Bergdahl?

Do you believe that President Obama knew about the allegations from his own unit members that Sergeant Bergdahl walked away from his post and of his desire to renounce his U.S. citizenship BEFORE he decided to release five high-level Taliban leaders in exchange for Bergdahl’s freedom?

Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2014/06/u-s-public-erupts-over-obamas-bergdahl-swap/#P3iYhX3sjdJHkJxW.99