Sunday, June 14, 2015

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Obama transfers six more Gitmo detainees, including alleged bin Laden bodyguards


Six detainees at the Guantanamo Bay detention center, including two alleged Usama bin Laden bodyguards, have been transferred to Oman, the Pentagon said Saturday.
The terror-related detainees are all from neighboring and embattled Yemen. They departed Friday from the U.S. detention center, at a Naval base in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, created in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks to get terror suspects off battlefields.
This is the first time in roughly the past five months that Guantanamo suspects have been transferred, as Congress considers new restrictions on such moves.
President Obama campaigned in 2008 to close the facility. The new transfers mark the departure of more than half of the 242 detainees who were at the facility when Obama was sworn into office in 2009. The number is now 116.
National Security Council spokesman Ned Price on Saturday repeated the Obama administration’s argument that keeping open the facility weakens national security by draining resources, damages U.S. relations with key allies and partners and emboldens violent extremists.
“As the president has repeatedly made clear, the administration is determined to close the” facility, he said. “We are taking all possible steps to reduce the detainee population at Guantanamo and to close the detention facility in a responsible manner.”
Congressional Republicans and other critics of releasing detainees argue they have the strong potential to return to the battlefield or commit other acts of terror.
“It’s extremely troubling that the Obama administration has sent six dangerous terrorists to Oman, which borders Yemen -- a country engulfed in civil war and that serves as the headquarters for al Qaeda’s most dangerous affiliate," said New Hampshire GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte, a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. 
"Even more disturbing is the fact that the administration has not provided sufficient assurances to Congress or to the public that these terrorists will not return to the battlefield. If they are not securely detained, no one should be surprised if they travel to Yemen and re-engage in terrorist activities," she said.
2016 GOP presidential candidate and Florida Sen. Marco Rubio said: "President Obama is once again putting his legacy above the safety and security of Americans. We need an effective detention program, not continued transfers of prisoners to countries without clear requirements for their monitoring to ensure they don't return to the battlefield."
Each of six the new transferees was unanimously approved through the 2009 Executive Order Task Force. And they were approved by six federal departments or agencies -- the departments of Defense, State, Justice and Homeland Security, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the Joint Chiefs of Staff.  

Still, Obama remains far from achieving his closure goal, with just a year and a half left in office and as Capitol Hill lawmakers threaten to make the movement of prisoners even harder.
The transfers to Oman are the first to be given final approve by Defense Secretary Ash Carter, who has been on the job four months.
The six new transfers are Emad Abdullah Hassan, who has been on hunger strikes since 2007 in protest of his confinement without charge since 2002.
According to court documents, Hassan said detainees have been force-fed up to a gallon at a time of nutrients and water.
He is accused of being one of many bodyguards for bin Laden, who led the al Qaeda terror group until killed by U.S. forces in 2011. Hassan also was allegedly part of a group planning to attack NATO and American troops in response to the 2001 invasion of Afghanistan.
The five other detainees sent to Oman were identified by the Pentagon as:
-- Idris Ahmad 'Abd Al Qadir Idris and Jalal Salam Awad Awad, also both alleged bodyguards to bin Laden;
-- Sharaf Ahmad Muhammad Mas'ud, whom the United States said fought American soldiers at Tora Bora before his capture in Pakistan;
-- Saa'd Nasser Moqbil Al Azani, a religious teacher whom the U.S. believes had ties to bin Laden's religious adviser; and
-- Muhammad Ali Salem Al Zarnuki, who allegedly arrived in Afghanistan as early as 1998 to fight and support the Taliban.
The Defense Department said it is grateful to the government of Oman for its “humanitarian gesture and willingness to support ongoing U.S. efforts to close the Guantanamo Bay” and that the U.S. coordinated with the Oman government to ensure the transfers took place consistent with “appropriate security and humane treatment measures."
The Oman News Agency reported early Saturday that the men would be living there “temporarily,” without elaborating. Sultan Qaboos bin Said approved the men being in the country to aid the U.S. while also taking into account the men’s “humanitarian circumstances,” the agency reported.
Oman's decision to accept the men comes as it has played an increasingly important role in mediations between the U.S. and Iran as world powers try to strike a nuclear deal over the Islamic Republic's contested atomic program.
All of the 11 detainees transferred this year have been from Yemen. At least 43 of the remaining 51 approved for transfer this year are from Yemen.
The administration won't send them home due to instability in Yemen, which has seen Shiite rebels known as Houthis take the capital, Sanaa, and other areas despite a campaign of Saudi-led airstrikes targeting them.
Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Yemen's local branch of the terror network that the U.S. considers to be the world's most dangerous offshoot of the group, also remains active in the country.
"We are working feverishly to transfer each of the 51 detainees currently approved for transfer," said Ian Moss, who works on detainee transfers at the State Department. "It is not in our national security interest to continue to detain individuals if we as a government have determined that they can be transferred from Guantanamo responsibly."
Some lawmakers want to impose stiffer requirements for transferring Guantanamo detainees to other countries. Obama has threatened to veto a House bill in part because of the Guantanamo restrictions.
An administration official said Oman agreed to accept the six Yemeni detainees about a year ago. But the defense secretary must give final approval to the move, and that has been a slow process at the Pentagon.
The U.S. administration official, speaking on a condition of anonymity without authorization to go on the record, told The Associated Press the Pentagon has sent no further transfer notification to Congress, which is required 30 days before detainees can be moved.

Gunman dead after firing on Dallas police outside headquarters


A crazed gunman armed with an automatic weapon and a shotgun fired on officers outside Dallas Police Headquarters early Saturday morning before being shot by a police sniper following an hours-long standoff.
Authorities later confirmed the suspect was dead.
Dallas Police Chief David Brown said at a press conference that the gunman-- who self-identified as being James Boulware, though police could not confirm that identity as of Saturday evening-- ranted in a 911 call after the attack about killing cops and came within seconds of doing so in the case of several officers in the line fire.
“We barely survived the intent of this suspect,” Brown said
He said it was extremely fortunate no officers were hurt.
“Some officers say we were lucky, I believe we’re blessed that our officers survived this ordeal,” the chief told reporters.
Investigators found a package containing pipe bombs near the headquarters building and the suspect told police he had C-4 explosives in his armored van, Brown said. The package exploded as an Explosive Ordinance Robot picked it up. “Lots of shrapnel was included in the pipe bombs that exploded-- screws, nails,” a police spokesman tweeted.
Two pipe bombs were also found in the van after the suspect was shot. When police detonated those devices, the gunman’s van caught fire and ammunition rounds went off inside.
Brown described a harrowing scene at police headquarters when the gunman pulled up around 12:30 a.m. and began firing, first with an assault rifle and then with a shotgun.
Bullets struck police squad cars, the inside of the building’s lobby and a second floor office. Brown said one officer avoided getting shot because he had just left his desk to get a soda.
“This suspect meant to kill officers and took time to discharge that weapon multiple times to accomplish (his) wanting to harm our officers,” Brown said.
While police would not identify the shooter, he reportedly was a man who was involved in a custody fight, who was arrested in May 2013 on charges of choking the child's mother, Fox4News.com reported.
The man reportedly made threats against the judge in the case.
Jim Boulware told Fox4News.com that the shooter was his son, James, and that he knew his son had acquired a number of firearms but did not know how he came to possess explosives, the Dallas news station reported.
Police initially reported multiple gunmen, perhaps as many as four. Brown said detectives now believe the suspect acted alone. He said there was confusion at first because the suspect shot at officers from different locations, giving the impression that others were involved.
As officers returned fire, the gunman fled in his vehicle, which appeared to have gun portals in the sides. The vehicle rammed a police cruiser during the getaway.
Officers chased the suspect 11 miles to the parking lot of a Jack in the Box in Hutchins near I-45. There police exchanged more gunfire with the suspect as officers surrounded the vehicle.
Brown said during the stand-off the suspect called 911 and in a nearly five minute call ranted angrily about wanting to commit violence against police officers.
“It was very high pitch anger towards our police department, police officers,” Brown said.
He said the rant was about how police had caused the suspect to lose custody of his child and about how police had accused him of “being a terrorist.”
Brown said the man was not on any terrorism watch list and the shooting did not appear to be terrorism-related.
Brown said eventually a SWAT team was brought in to negotiate with the man, using the phone number from the 911 call. The gunman told police that he was injured, but authorities could not confirm any injuries, Fox4News.com reported.
Brown said that during the “on-and-off” negotiations a police sniper shot out the engine block with a .50 caliber bullet to disable the vehicle.
He said at 5:07 a.m., more than 4 hours into the stand-off, shot the suspect through the front windshield of the van by a police sniper.
“They made the call and I believe it was the right call to take the correct action to stop his violence,” Brown said.
The chief said the bomb robot was being used to confirm he was dead. He said the robot was deployed out of fear the van may be rigged with explosives. He said police bomb technicians wanted to make sure the vehicle was not booby-trapped.
The suspect gave a name to police, identifying himself as James Boulware. “This is the name given, however it has not been confirmed that this is the person we are talking to,” Brown told reporters as the negotiations were taking place.
He said the suspect had three family violence cases against him and “some kind of custody issue.” He said the man had threatened judges handling his cases, but had not acted on those threats.
“His social media footprint is awfully concerning, but there’s no indication that he was planning this type of assault on a police facility,” Brown said.
Police evacuated residents near police headquarters for several hours. A suspicious briefcase found in a dumpster near a police substation was not a bomb, police said.
Ladarrick Alexander and his fiancée, Laquita Davis, were driving back toward the police station to their nearby apartment when they heard 15 to 20 gunshots in quick succession.
Seconds later, police could be seen swarming an unmarked van that appeared to have crashed into a police car, they said.
They turned around and were parked outside the police perimeter about two blocks away, where they heard the sound of one detonation at about 4:30 am and smoke coming up in the air.
Police headquarters is in a former warehouse district where a boutique hotel and several new apartment buildings have been opened.
"We don't see too much going around here at all," Alexander said.

Clinton formally launches 2016 campaign with focus on economic equality


Hillary Clinton on Saturday officially launched her 2016 presidential campaign, calling for a return to shared prosperity and asking American workers, students and others to trust her to fight for them.
Clinton made the announcement at an outdoor rally on New York City's Roosevelt Island, two months after announcing her campaign with an online video.
“You have to wonder: When do I get ahead? I say now,” Clinton told the crowd in a roughly 46-minute speech. “You brought the country back. Now it’s your time to enjoy the prosperity. That is why I’m running for president of the United States.”
The former first lady, U.S. senator from New York and secretary of state is the Democratic frontrunner in the 2016 White House race.
Also in the race are Sen. Bernie Sanders, of Vermont, former Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley and former Rhode Island Gov. Lincoln Chaffe.
She lost her 2008 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination to then-Sen. Obama.
Clinton, wearing her signature blue pantsuit, walked through the crowd en route to the stage for her speech.
She remarked that Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Four Freedoms are a “testament to our nation’s unmatched aspirations and a reminder of our unfinished work at home and abroad.”
Clinton also drew into focus what will likely be the key themes of her campaign including support for same-sex marriage, wage equality for women and all Americans, affordable college tuition and free child-care and pre-kindergarten.
“The top-25 hedge fund managers make more than all kindergarten teachers combined,” she said. “And they’re paying lower taxes.”
Clinton attempted to portray herself as a fierce advocate for those left behind in the post-recession economy, detailing a lifetime of work on behalf of struggling families. She said her mother's difficult childhood inspired what she considers a calling.
"I have been called many things by many people,” Clinton said.” Quitter is not one of them."
She said that attribute came from her late mother, Dorothy Rodham, in whom she would confide after hard days in the Senate and at the State Department.
"I wish my mother could have been with us longer," Clinton said. "I wish she could have seen the America we are going to build together ... where we don't leave any one out or any one behind."
Clinton was joined by her husband, former President Bill Clinton, and their daughter, Chelsea.
She also was critical in her speech of Republicans, suggesting they have reserved economic prosperity for the wealthy, in large part by cutting taxes for the country’s highest wage-earners.
She also accused them of trying to “wipe out tough rules on Wall Street,” take away health insurance from more than 16 million Americans without offering any “credible alternative” and turning their backs on “gay people who love each other.”
The Republican National Committee said in response that Clinton's campaign was full of hypocritical attacks, partisan rhetoric and ideas from the past.
"Next year, Americans will reject the failed policies of the past and elect a Republican president,” RNC Press Secretary Allison Moore said.
Republicans also argued Clinton devoted only about five minutes of her speech to foreign policy.
Clinton now heads to four early-primary states, starting Saturday night in Iowa where she will talk with volunteers and others about grassroots-campaign efforts for the first-in-the-nation caucus state.
The organizational meeting will be simulcast to Clinton camps across the country and serve as a blueprint for them all 435 congressional districts.
She then travels to New Hampshire on June 15, South Carolina on June 17 and in Nevada on June 18.
Clinton vowed Saturday to roll out specific policy proposals in the coming weeks, including ones on rewriting the tax code and sustainable energy.
In what was her first major speech of her campaign, she also cited President Obama, Roosevelt and her husband, saying they embraced the idea that "real and lasting prosperity must be built by all and shared by all."
Holding the event on an island between Queens and Manhattan raised some criticism about its accessibility by vehicle and public transportation.
The campaign estimated the event crowd, whose members needed a ticket, at 5,500. However, the number appeared smaller, and the overflow section was empty. 

Obama's failed trade agenda leaves wake of winners and losers set for Capitol Hill rematch


The stunning defeat of President Obama’s trade agenda has resulted in an odd mix of winners and losers headed for a rematch next week over an historic proposal that if passed would impact an estimated 40 percent of the global economy.
The agenda was defeated Friday when the GOP-led House voted against a bill, included in the overall proposal, to extended assistance to American workers impacted by previous trade deals, despite the president’s personal plea to chamber Democrats for their support.
The White House has dismissed the defeat as “procedural snafu.” But the 302-123 vote was clearly a loss for Obama, who unsuccessfully ventured Friday to Capitol Hill to garner support from progressive, pro-labor House Democrats, who so far have emerged as winners.
On Saturday, Obama, in his weekly public address, said that the workers’ aid, through the Trade Adjustment Assistance legislation, provides job-training, community-college education and other help for the tens of thousands of American workers each year who have been hurt by past trade deals -- “the kind we’re not going to repeat again.”
“For the sake of those workers, their families and their communities, I urge those members of Congress who voted against Trade Adjustment Assistance to reconsider,” he also said.
The assistance is set to expire in September.
The overall proposal, known as Trade Promotion Authority, would give the president the power to "fast-track" or negotiate trade deals that Congress could approve or reject, but not amend.
Obama hoped to use the authority to complete a sweeping pact with 11 Pacific Rim nations, which would constitute the economic centerpiece of his second term.
Pro-trade House Republicans, including House Speaker John Boehner and his leadership team, in a rare instance, support the Obama proposal. And they are vowing a rematch.
“This isn’t over yet,” said Wisconsin GOP Rep. Paul Ryan, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. “The people of this country need a faster economy. They need more opportunity. We need open markets. We need to write the rules of the global economy instead of having others do so.”
The worker-assistance bill was added to entice House Democrats to support the overall legislation.
However, it wasn’t enough for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, an ardent Obama supporter who accompanied the president in his closed-door meeting Friday with fellow Democrats.
Afterward, Pelosi said the nay votes cast by her and other House members was a “clear indication” that the chamber wants “a better deal for the American people.”
The California lawmaker, with strong backing from labor unions, also suggested the likelihood of the legislation passing would “greatly increase” if the chamber passes a “robust” highway bill.
However, Pelosi’s opposition to the proposal and her failure to garner enough votes from her caucus raises more questions about her leadership strength after roughly nine years as the chamber’s top Democrat.
Larry Hanley, international president of the Amalgamated Transit Union, the largest labor group representing U.S. and Canadian transit workers, said after the failed House vote: “This was a victory for the environment, labor, for working families and for democracy.
“But unfortunately, fast-track and TPP are not dead yet. … So, we need to keep the pressure up.”
Critics of the proposal argue largely that if passed it would send jobs overseas and put too many Americans out of work.
The margin of defeat Friday also raises questions about how Obama might be able to persuade at least 80 more Democrats to vote for the bill and secure passage.
However, the House passed a symbolic vote on the "fast-track" legislation 219-211 after the failed TAA measure, indicating the entire bill appears to have enough overall bipartisan support.

NY fugitives planned to be 7 hours away from prison after escape, district attorney says



New details about the meticulously planned upstate New York prison break reveal the pair of fugitive murderers expected to be 7 hours away from the Clinton Correctional Facility quickly after tunneling under it's imposing outer wall.
Joyce Mitchell, the prison seamstress who has been suspended and now charged for allegedly aiding Richard Matt and David Sweat escape, has been explaining how the plot was supposed to unfold to authorities.
"She was going to meet them at the power house," Clinton County District Attorney Andrew Wylie tells FOX News, referring to the nearby power plant that is in view of the maximum security facility. "They were going to pop out of the manhole, they were going to take off, and the three of them would be, you know, leaving the area."
We don't know, and Mitchell has apparently not shared, specific details about the next stop on the newly freed inmates itinerary. Just that it was far away.
"They were planning on driving approximately seven hours away in a wooded area where her vehicle would be needed-- a four wheel drive jeep," Wylie says.
A big surprise for Wylie so far has been the lack of positive leads, in a search that costs $1 million a day. But he says that briefings with agencies leading the search have suggested that unless and until traces of Sweat or Matt turn up elsewhere, full efforts here will continue.
As for other accomplices, it doesn't appear Mitchell's husband Lyle is thought to know much.
In fact, Wylie downplays intrigue surrounding the husband, and says that, "Based on the circumstances that we know, it doesn't seem probable that he was involved or was going to be involved in the escape."
"Why would you be involved in an escape where your wife is going to be leaving you with these two convicted felons?"

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