A National Guard reservist has been arrested and charged in Federal court with attempting to carry out terror attacks for Al-Qaeda.
Nicholas Teausant, 20, was charged Monday with attempting to provide material to support a foregoing terrorist organization.
Teausant reportedly told an undercover FBI agent that he had been planning a terror attack on a Los Angeles area subway system in January but called it off because the FBI had been tipped to the attack. He then said he was going to attempt to join Al-Qaeda in Syria to fight against the Syrian government.
Teausant was arrested attempting to sneak into Canada so he could board a flight to Syria.
Teausant was listed in court as a student at San Joaquin Delta Community College and a member of the National Guard.
His family told reporters on Monday that “he’s not a terrorist. He’s not evil.”
Israel scrambled their jets to the Syrian border after Syrian fighter jets and a helicopter were spotted rushing toward the border.
A report on Israeli TV said that the jets made it to a few hundred meters of the border before they turned back when the Israeli aircraft arrived on site. There was no direct conflict between the two countries’ planes.
A source told Haaretz that while Syrian aircraft in the area is not uncommon, the massive amount of planes in a short time was unusual. The call for the Israeli jets to scramble in response is considered “very rare.”
The report on TV station Channel 2 said that the scrambling of the jets also came because Syria did not notify Israel of increases in plane activity. Syria claims that they need to bring their flights near the border as part of their fight against rebels attempting to overthrow the government.
The Israeli Defense Force said that they spotted terrorists at the Syrian border placing explosives on Friday.
The Muslim Brotherhood is now a terrorist organization in another major Middle Eastern country.
The group, already a terrorist organization in Egypt, is now officially a terrorist organization in Saudi Arabia.
The move is seen as a response by the Kingdom to the possibility that Muslim Brotherhood extremists from Syria will attempt to return to Saudi Arabia after the civil war ends.
In addition to the Brotherhood, Saudi officials also listed the Al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant as terror groups. The two groups are affiliated with al-Qaeda and have been proven to conduct terrorist attacks in Syria and Iraq.
The new Saudi declaration would make adopting their ideaology or promoting them in any way within the Kingdom would result in significant prison terms.
Amnesty International opposed the designation, saying that Saudi Arabia was trying to silence dissent, not stop terrorist groups from conducting actions in their nation.
Islamic terrorists in Syria are forcing Christians to sign documents agreeing to pay hundreds of dollars or be killed for refusing to convert to Islam.
The Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant, an al-Qaeda related terrorist group, has obtained a level of control in parts of Syria that they are giving Christians the options to convert to Islam or pay money to not be killed.
The agreement says that any Christian who doesn’t want to be killed has to pay four gold dinars twice a year, which amounts to about $500 American dollars per six months. The agreement says that middle class Christians will pay half the total and poor pays one quarter of the cost.
The agreement also puts heavy restrictions on Christians regarding their worship. While they will be able to worship, they cannot build new churches or replace any churches that are destroyed by government troops, Islamic terror groups or even ordinary Muslims.
Christians are also prohibited from stopping any Christian from converting to Islam who wishes to do so. They also cannot engage in commerce involving pork.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is expected to receive a less than friendly welcome at the White House tomorrow for a meeting with President Obama.
The President will tell Netanyahu that if he refuses to endorse Obama’s framework for peace with the Palestinians, Israel will face a bleak future and that time is running out for the country as a Jewish-majority democracy.
The President is also expected to tell Netanyahu he alone is the only Israeli that could lead his people away from the edge of oblivion.
The President said during a Thursday interview if Netanyahu rejects the Obama plan, he has to present an alternative approach. President Obama said that it would very hard for Netanyahu to provide a plausible plan.
The President also said in the interview that he believes Middle Eastern leaders in Iran and Syria know that he is serious about using force if they try to avoid agreements made with the international community.
A new report from three international war crimes prosecutors says the Syrian government committed the “systematic killing” of detainees under their control.
The report, which was leaked to the Guardian newspaper, shows that 11,000 detainees between March 2011 and August 2013 died at the hands of government jailers and military officials.
The source was a military police photographer who defected from the country in 2013. Before leaving the country, he collected memory sticks that contained thousands of photos of detainees killed while in custody.
The defector who is identified only as “Caesar” told investigators that he photographed as many as 50 bodies a day. He said the purpose of the photos was to allow a death certificate to be produced while denying their families access to the body. The cause of death was usually listed as a heart attack or “breathing problems.”
The report was commissioned by a London law firm on behalf of the government of Qatar which has claimed Syrian President Bashir al-Assad has committed multiple war crimes during the country’s current civil war.
The U.S. State Department has said for the first time they’re willing to hold discussions with Islamic extremist groups fighting the Syrian government.
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf said that the possibility of talks with the Islamic Front could not be ruled out.
We can engage with the Islamic Front, of course, because they’re not designated terrorists,” Harf told reporters. “We’re always open to meeting with a wide range of opposition groups. Obviously, it may make sense to do so at some point soon, and if we have something to announce, we will.”
Sources told Reuters that the U.S. is planning to meet with the commanders of the Islamic Front in an attempt to get them under a coalition with the Free Syrian Army.
The Islamic Front, while not called a terrorist group by the Obama Administration, has members with openly anti-American views and beliefs. The group has said they do not plan to bring a democracy to Syria but rather to install a state run by Sharia law.
Kentucky Republican Senator Rand Paul warned the administration working with the Islamic Front would be “funding allies of al-Qaeda.”
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons announced Friday that all of Syria’s unfilled canisters for use in chemical weapons has been destroyed.
The announcement marks a major step in the destruction of Syria’s chemical weapons abilities.
The destruction of the canisters were near the city of Homs which had been inaccessible due to fighting from the country’s civil war.
The experts from the OPCW also verified that buildings used to construct chemical weapons have been partially destroyed. The buildings will be completely razed.
The joint OPCW-UN team said they plan to remove most of toxic materials from Syria by the end of the year to meet the mid-2014 deadline for destruction of all weapons.
An official with the United Nations says evidence is growing against Syrian President Bashir al-Assad.
Navi Pillay, head of the U.N.’s human rights office, said a panel investigating the abuses in the Syrian civil war has found “massive evidence” showing the crimes were initiated at the highest levels of the Syrian government including the head of state.
Pillay later denied knowing the names on the investigator’s secret list of suspects but her remarks about a head of state being involved goes against all previous U.N. investigations into war crimes. Investigators, who work independently of Pillay’s office, have previously said evidence points to high levels of the government but did not implicate al-Assad.
The U.N. Human Rights Office says that accountability for war crimes should be part of any agreement ending the civil war.
The question about al-Assad remaining in power is a point of contention between the United States and Russia as the superpowers work to bring the sides of the war to the peace table.
A group of Islamists have captured the ancient quarter of the Christian town of Maaloula and are holding nuns hostage inside a monastery.
Reports say terrorists linked to the al-Qaeda affiliated al-Nursa Front stormed the Greek Orthodox monastery of Mar Thecla and are keeping the nuns hostage. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says the Islamists captured the town after four days of intense fighting.
The capture of the town reportedly was part of a rebel surge to obtain control of a central Syrian Highway between Damascus and Homs.
The government capturing the highway is seen as a key objective for the al-Assad government as it would allow the country’s cache of chemical weapons to be transported for removal and destruction.
“Security remains a key challenge for all. The destruction of a chemical weapons program has never taken place under such challenging and dangerous conditions,” Sigrid Kaag, head of the joint mission of the U.N. and Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons told OPCW delegates.