Islamic militia group says it has 'secured' US compound in Libya

An Islamic militant group said Sunday it has “secured” a U.S. Embassy compound in Libya’s capital city of Tripoli.
American personnel evacuated the area roughly a month ago amid ongoing fighting in the country.
An Associated Press journalist walked through the compound Sunday after the Dawn of Libya, an umbrella group for Islamist militias, invited onlookers inside.
Windows at the compound had been broken, but it appeared most of the equipment there remained untouched.
The breach of a deserted U.S. diplomatic post likely will reinvigorate debate in the U.S. over its role in Libya, more than three years after supporting rebels who toppled dictator Moammar Gadhafi.
A commander for the Dawn of Libya group said his forces had entered and been in control of the compound since last week.
"We've seen the reports and videos and are seeking additional details." a senior State Department official told Fox News late Sunday. "At this point, we believe the Embassy compound itself remains secure but we continue to monitor the situation on the ground, which remains very fluid."
"We continue to work with the Government of Libya and other parties on issues of concern. Our Ambassador and other officials remain engaged both in Washington and from our Embassy in Valetta, Malta, where Embassy staff from Tripoli were recently relocated," the official said.
No U.S. military or assets were guarding the property after the State Department pulled out.
On Sept. 11, 2012, U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens, former Navy SEALs Tyrone Woods and Glen Doherty, and State Department information management officer Sean Smith were killed in a terror attack on a U.S. outpost in Benghazi, Libya.
A video posted online showed men playing in a pool at the compound. In a message on Twitter, U.S. Ambassador to Libya Deborah Jones said the video appeared to have been shot in at the embassy's residential annex.
However, two sources with first-hand knowledge of the embassy and other U.S. facilities in Libya say the YouTube video in which the militia members are diving from a roof into pool was taken at the CIA annex in Tripoli that was abandoned when U.S. Embassy personnel and the ambassador pulled out July 26. It is about a mile away from the U.S. Embassy in Libya.
When CIA abandoned the annex in July, it would no longer be considered sovereign US territory.
Jones also said the compound appears to be "safeguarded," not "ransacked."
The fighting prompted diplomats and thousands of Tripoli residents to flee. Dozens were killed in the fighting.
On July 26, U.S. diplomats evacuated to neighboring Tunisia under a U.S. military escort. The State Department said embassy operations would be suspended until the security situation improved.
The Dawn of Libya militia is deployed around the capital and has called on foreign diplomats to return now that the fighting has subsided.

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Israeli soldier succumbs to wounds; Israel's Gaza death toll rises to 72

JERUSALEM –  The Israeli military says a soldier wounded in fighting in the Gaza Strip has died, bringing the Israeli military toll in the recently concluded conflict to 66.
The military says 20-year-old Sergeant Shachar Shalev died Sunday. He was wounded on July 23, six days after Israeli ground forces entered the densely populated coastal strip.
Six civilians were also killed on the Israeli side, including one agricultural worker from Thailand.
More than 2,100 Palestinians, mainly civilians, were killed during the 50-day war.
Israel and Hamas agreed last Tuesday to an open-ended truce. The cease-fire brought an immediate end to the fighting but left key disputes unresolved.

Obama under pressure to delay immigration action until after midterms

It's all about politics.

President Obama is reportedly mulling the possibility of delaying making changes to U.S. immigration policy until after the upcoming midterm elections, after Democrats in tough Senate races have argued that it could damage their chances in November.
The president had been expected to use his executive authority to ease deportations and give temporary work permits to millions of illegal immigrants. 
After Republicans in the House of Representatives voted down a version of immigration reform, Obama announced that he intended to act on his own before the end of summer in order to make what he said were urgent changes to the immigration system. Republicans claim that such moves would exceed his legal authority if he were to act without congressional approval.
However, The Wall Street Journal reports that White House officials are now debating whether to put off some or all of Obama’s policy changes until after the November election, after several Democrats running in tight elections in conservative states have urged the president to do so, claiming that such a move would damage their election prospects.
Democratic Senators Mark Pryor in Arkansas, Kay Hagan in North Carolina, Mark Begich in Alaska and Jeanne Shaheen in New Hampshire, all have called for immigration reform to be addressed by Congress, not by the White House, according to The Wall Street Journal.
Obama said in a news conference Thursday that his timeline for immigration reform was unclear, and said that the child-migration crisis could affect the timing of any announcement.
"Some of these things do affect timelines, and we're just going to be working through as systematically as possible in order to get this done," Obama said.
Obama also faces pressure from immigrant-rights advocates strongly urging the president not to back down and to move forward as planned, especially as he has already delayed action once in 2014.
However, Brad Dayspring, spokesman for the National Republican Senatorial Committee, said Mr. Obama's executive action on immigration would be unpopular no matter when he made it. 
"Whether President Obama declares executive amnesty in September, October or November, he has neither the legal authority nor the public support to do it," Dayspring told The Wall Street Journal.

Reid's name removed from center at Utah university from which he graduated

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid’s name has been removed from a Southern Utah University facility, following pressure from a conservative group to make the change.
The group received $40,000 in pledges over five days toward removing the Nevada Democrat’s name from the school’s Outdoor Engagement Center.
University President Scott Wyatt acknowledged Friday that he was under pressure from a group of conservatives to remove Reid's name but insisted that politics had nothing to do with his decision.
Reid’s name was removed last week from the front door of the facility, several months after two local elected officials and others met with Wyatt and told him about the campaign, Wyatt said.
He said he told the group to stop raising money and that pledge money would not be accepted to remove Reid's name.
Wyatt said he removed Reid’s name because "nobody" associated the senator with the outdoors. 
The center rents outdoor equipment to students, offers internship programs for students seeking outdoor careers and coordinates project-based learning activities for students. Reid graduated from the school in 1959.
Wyatt also said the school's 2011 naming of the center in Reid's honor generated no donations to it from the senator's friends as had been hoped. 
"The decision has nothing to do with politics," Wyatt told The Associated Press. "We're a university. We're full of Democrats and Republicans and Green Party members and Libertarians. We don't make partisan calls with regard to our esteemed alumnus.
"The leading factor is the center's leadership reported to me it created confusion. When people looked at the name, they didn't understand the connection (between the center and Reid). It was just a little difficult."
Reid issued a brief statement Friday.
"I was approached and asked to use my name and I was happy to, but there was no such agreement to have me raise funds for it," he said. "I'm not going to raise money to have my name placed on anything."
When the center was named for him, Reid touted his congressional record concerning public lands in Nevada, noting his role in the creation of Great Basin National Park, the designation of wilderness areas and an annual summit to protect Lake Tahoe.
At the time, he also criticized Utah's attempts to wrest control of public lands from the federal government.
Cedar City Councilman Paul Cozzens and Iron County Commissioner Dave Miller praised Wyatt's decision to remove Reid's name. They were among the group of conservatives who met with him last spring.
"This is a conservative base in southern Utah, and many people in southern Nevada also feel the same way," Cozzens told The Spectrum of St. George, Utah. "These people in Nevada do not espouse to Reid's political philosophies, and they told me they would not support the university or send any more of their children there ... so long as Harry Reid's name remained."
But Wyatt said plans call for a future center to be named for Reid on campus. The center's purpose will depend on who donates and their interests.
"Absolutely, he's one of our most distinguished alumnus," Wyatt said. "He's somebody we should all be proud of, regardless of politics ... . It's not Sen. Reid's concern as to whether we raise money (for the new center). It's ours."

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Mitch McConnell's campaign manager resigns

Senator Mitch McConnell’s campaign manager resigned Friday in the wake of a scandal involving former Texas Rep. Ron Paul’s 2012 presidential campaign, where he had been a top aide.
Jesse Benton said the decision to leave the staff of McConnell, R-Ky., “breaks my heart” but “inaccurate press accounts and unsubstantiated media rumors about me and my role in past campaigns” were becoming a distraction in McConnell’s efforts to win re-election in November.
His announcement stems from a political scandal in Iowa. Earlier this week, a former Iowa lawmaker pleaded guilty to federal charges stemming from his switch of support from one Republican presidential candidate to another before the 2012 Iowa caucuses.
Former state Sen. Kent Sorenson received thousands of dollars in "under the table payments" before switching loyalties from Michele Bachmann, whose Iowa campaign he headed, to Paul, then lied to federal investigators about the money, the Justice Department said. Prosecutors refused to say which campaign paid Sorenson.
Benton, a Tea Party insider, worked as a top aide to Paul.
In a separate statement Friday, McConnell's campaign said the senator "obviously has nothing to do with the Iowa presidential caucus or this investigation, so it would be inappropriate for his campaign to comment on this situation."
Benton was mentioned in documents gathered during an Iowa state ethics probe of Sorenson, a complaint to the Federal Election Commission and e-mails purported to be from the Ron Paul campaign obtained by the non-partisan Center for Responsive Politics, which monitors federal campaign finance issues, The Courier-Journal of Louisville reported.
McConnell, the Senate minority leader, is in a tight race for a sixth term against Democrat Alison Lundergan Grimes, Kentucky’s secretary of state.
Charly Norton, a spokeswoman for the Grimes campaign, said in a statement, "Sen. McConnell owes the people of Kentucky a full account of what he knew and when he knew it."
In his resignation statement, Benton said, “recently, there have been inaccurate press accounts and unsubstantiated media rumors about me and my role in past campaigns that are politically motivated, unfair and, most importantly, untrue... the press accounts and rumors are particularly hurtful because they are false.
“However, what is most troubling to me is that they risk unfairly undermining and becoming a distraction to this reelection campaign.”
He said his resignation would take effect Saturday.

Online posts show ISIS eyeing Mexican border, says law enforcement bulletin

EXCLUSIVE: Social media chatter shows Islamic State militants are keenly aware of the porous U.S.-Mexico border, and are “expressing an increased interest” in crossing over to carry out a terrorist attack, according to a Texas law enforcement bulletin sent out this week.
“A review of ISIS social media messaging during the week ending August 26 shows that militants are expressing an increased interest in the notion that they could clandestinely infiltrate the southwest border of US, for terror attack,” warns the Texas Department of Public Safety "situational awareness" bulletin, obtained by FoxNews.com.
The three-page bulletin, entitled “ISIS Interest on the US Southwest Border” and dated Aug. 28 was released to law enforcement on Thursday.
“Social media account holders believed to be ISIS militants and propagandists have called for unspecified border operations, or they have sought to raise awareness that illegal entry through Mexico is a viable option,” states the law enforcement bulletin, which is not classified.
It notes no known credible homeland threats or specific homeland attack plot has been identified. That assertion was underscored by Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, who said Friday that DHS and the FBI are "unaware of any specific, credible threat to the U.S. homeland" from Islamic State.
Despite assurances that no threat to American soil is imminent, the watchdog group Judicial Watch said Friday that Islamic State operatives are in Juarez, just across the border from Texas, and are planning to attack the United States with car bombs.
"Agents across a number of Homeland Security, Justice and Defense agencies have all been placed on alert and instructed to aggressively work all possible leads and sources concerning this imminent terrorist threat," Judicial Watch stated on its website.
The Texas law enforcement bulletin cites suspected fighters from the terrorist group previously known as ISIS and based in Syria and Iraq as eyeing a border crossing.
“The identities of persons operating these accounts cannot be independently verified; however the accounts were selected for monitoring based on several indications that they have been used by actual ISIS militants for propaganda purposes and collectively reach tens of thousands of followers,” states the bulletin. “One account was verified as belonging to an individual located in Mosul, Iraq.”
Some 32 Twitter and Facebook posts monitored by law enforcement over one recent week reflected interest in the southern border, according to the bulletin. The messages, which were forwarded thousands of times, included calls for jihadists to cross over from Mexico to carry out attacks and even alluded to a recent video by U.S. activist James O’Keefe, who was recorded coming across the Rio Grande valley in an Usama bin Laden costume.
The bulletin details numerous “calls for border infiltration” on social media, including one from a militant confirmed to be in Mosul, Iraq who explicitly beckons the “Islamic State to send a special force to America across the border with Mexico.”
“This Twitter account holder, who is the administrator of an ISIS propaganda trading group, stated that the time was right for such an action because ‘the US-Mexican border is now open large numbers of people crossing,’” the bulletin said.
Another message sent out via Twitter suggested that Islamic State fighters have already entered the U.S. via the border, warning that, as a result, “Americans in for ruin (sic).”
The Texas DPS bulletin comes on the heels of a federal Department of Homeland Security and Department of Justice Joint Intelligence bulletin dated August 22, a copy of which was also obtained by FoxNews.com.That bulletin, entitled “Online Reaction but No Known Credible Homeland Threats from ISIL and Its Supporters Following US Air Strikes,”addresses potential threats to the Homeland in response to recent US air strikes on the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) targets in Iraq and the murder of journalist James Foley.
This bulletin notes that while the FBI and DHS are unaware of specific credible threats against the U.S. from homegrown violent extremists, ISIL or other violent extremist groups overseas “we continue to assess that violent extremists who support ISIL have demonstrated the capability to attempt attacks on US targets overseas with little-to-no warning.”
The report also says that “because of the individualized nature of the radicalization process—it is difficult to predict triggers that will contribute to [homegrown violent extremists] attempting acts of violence…lone offenders present law enforcement with limited opportunities to detect and disrupt plots, which frequently involve simple plotting against targets of opportunity.”
“FBI and DHS assess that civilian deaths reportedly associated with these US military air strikes will almost certainly be used as further examples of a perceived Western war against Islam in English-language violent extremist messaging that could contribute to [homegrown violent extremist] radicalization to violence,” the report notes.
The FBI and DHS bulletin includes a section titled "ISIL Supporters Increasingly Using Social Media to Encourage Violent Acts against US Interests."
"ISIL and its online supporters have employed—and will almost certainly continue—Twitter “hashtag” campaigns that have gained mainstream media attention and been able to quickly reach a global audience of potential violent extremists, highlighting ISIL’s supporter message and encouraging individuals to commit acts of violence, in Iraq or in the West," the bulletin states.
"Several of the Tweets in response to the air strikes featured original and creative use of graphics—including a photo of the ISIL flag in front of the White House—and graphically rendered images depicting desecration of US monuments and landmarks."