ISIS Bans Christians From Leaving Raqqa, White House Warns Of Nuclear Terrorism, Beijing's Ominous Threat To Washington

Islamic State Bans Christians from Leaving Raqqa, Syria

The last remaining Christians in Syria’s Raqqa are being forbidden from leaving “under any condition” by the Islamic State (ISIS/ISIL) jihadists who control the de-facto capital of the terrorist group, as forces loyal to dictator Bashar al-Assad and their allies advance towards the city.

Raqqa Is Being Silently Slaughtered (RBSS), a group founded by journalists turned activists, revealed that ISIS has put out a new edict prohibiting both Christians and Armenians from leaving Raqqa, the terrorist group’s self-declared capital in Syria.

The revelation came over a month after various news outlets reported that Assad forces, backed by Russian airstrikes in addition to Iranian fighters and Iran’s terror proxy Hezbollah, are advancing towards Raqqa.

Syrian forces “have taken rebel ground near Aleppo and are now poised to advance on the ISIS stronghold of Raqqa province,” reported the Independent. Raqqa is the capital of a province that bears the same name.

Under mounting pressure, the Obama administration finally conceded in mid-March that ISIS has committed genocide against Christians and other religious minority groups in the areas it has conquered. The U.S. Congress voted unanimously to make the declaration days earlier. Initially, the Obama administration was reluctant to make the designation.

Currently, there are approximately 43 Christian families, made up of two to three persons, still residing in Raqqa, the activist group said in a statement on Twitter.

ISIS seized Raqqa in March 2013 in a battle against the Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate Nusra Front and Assad regime troops. The city became the first provincial capital to fall under ISIS control.

“The suffering of Christians began with ISIS control of Raqqa,” RBSS said on its website, referring to the treatment of Christians under the terrorist group, reports The Foreign Desk.

“ISIS looks at Christians as infidels loyal to the West more than their loyalty to their homeland which they live,” added the group.

White House Warns Of Nuclear Terrorist Attacks: The Four Ways They Could Strike...

Within hours of the Brussels attacks earlier this month we learned that rogue terrorists presumably operating under the banner of the Islamic State had set their sights on a high-value target so significant that it could have left hundreds of thousands of people dead.

According to investigators, the terrorists who carried out the attacks had been actively planning to take over and/or target a nuclear power plant. They went so far as to plant hidden cameras at the power plant director’s home so they could monitor his movements and even killed a security guard in the process.

The plan, which failed to come to fruition, called not just for suicide bombing several dozen civilians, but for turning Western Europe into radioactive wasteland for the next several thousand years.

The threat is most certainly real and senior officials from Europe to the United States are now warning of the potential for a large-scale nuclear attack:

Security officials warn that the ingredients for a nuclear device or a “dirty bomb” are alarmingly insecure.

“We know that terrorist organizations have the desire to get access to these raw materials and to have a nuclear device,” said Ben Rhodes, Obama’s deputy national security adviser.

The havoc such an attack could wreak in an urban area such as New York or London is concerning enough that leaders scheduled a special session on the threat during the two-day summit. U.S. officials said the leaders would discuss a hypothetical scenario about a chain of events that could lead to nuclear terrorism.

Officials have known for months that chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear (CBRN) weapons of mass destruction have been smuggled undetected into Europe. In December of last year Swiss police identified and arrested two terrorists suspected of transporting toxic chemical gases and explosives, which were believed to be part of a plot for a future attack.

At this point, with lax border security in Europe and the United States, the potential for coordinated and devastating attacks has grown exponentially. Moreover, as we learned with Brussels where the threat to their nuclear facilities was identified well in advance but nothing was done to improve security, the reality is that the bureaucracy inherent within our governments makes it all the more likely that terrorists will eventually carry out a successful attack using CBRN weapons.

The most likely scenario that security experts fear is that a group could get ahold of radioactive material, such as cesium or cobalt, for a dirty bomb that could be carried in a suitcase. Those materials are widely used in industrial, academic and hospital settings, with no consistent security standards across the globe. Last year, an Associated Press investigation revealed multiple attempts by black market smugglers to sell radioactive material to Middle East extremists.

And before you think we’re safe here in the United States and this is Europe’s problem, keep in mind that in the summer of 2014 there were multiple incidents of nuclear material being stolen from labs in Mexico. What’s of interest is that the materials stolen are exactly what officials described above –  Cobalt and Cesium-137 – both of which could be used to manufacture a radiological dirty bomb.

800,000 Migrants Lie In Wait In Libya, Ready To Break For Europe

A report from Libya claims there are at least 800,000 migrants on the coast waiting for the right moment to cross the sea to Italy, and the European Union (EU) plans a new summit to prepare for the next potential great wave of migrants.

Austrian paper Kronen Zeitung reports that French Interior minister Jean-Yves Le Drian claimed the number of migrants in North Africa waiting to cross the Mediterranean sea numbered in the “hundreds of thousands.” European Union foreign policy chief Federica Moghoerini confirmed the fears of the French official saying that the EU estimated at least 500,000 displaced people were waiting to flee to Italy. Ms. Mogherini was slammed by critics last week after she cried during a press conference following the Brussels attacks, with Members of the European Parliament calling for her resignation over the incident.

Libya has been a more or less failed state since the fall of Muammar Gaddafi in 2011, and has seen rebel fighters and Islamic State militants battle for control of the country. For months Libyan government forces have struggled to combat the two groups who use the migrant crisis to extort money from African migrants who want to come to Europe.

Mr. Le Drian said their is an urgent need for sides to come together and form a national unity government to control the borders or Europe risks hundreds of thousands of African migrants arriving when the weather on the sea improves.

He noted that the European mission to combat people smuggling from North Africa, code named Operation Sophia, has only a limited effectiveness.

The ships that track migrant vessels only have the ability to do so in international waters and not in Libyan territory. Mr. Le Drian says that a working government would benefit greatly by allowing EU ships to cooperate with Libyan officials to stop smuggling at the source rather than hope to find them miles out at sea.

In the past year around 200,000 people have crossed the sea from Libya into Italy. Around 3,700 of them were killed in accidents where makeshift rafts capsized, resulting in drownings. Some migrants, later identified as Christians, did not survive the trip for different reasons, as they were thrown off boats by Muslims before they could make it to shore. At least 15 Muslim migrants were arrested in one particular incident according to Italian police.

10,000 millionaires abandon France over Islam fears

As we’ve argued before; when a country fails to solve its problems, those who are capable of leaving will do so. There’s no reason for a person of reasonable wealth to stay in a nation that’s making his or her life miserable. That’s not rocket science; it’s just simple economics.

So, when you look at a nation like France, you might assume that the ugly trifecta of high taxation, high cost of living, and radical Islam is incentivizing the departure of the financially stable.  ...And you’d be right - if you placed the emphasis on radical Islam.

A new report indicates that thousands of wealthy people have decided to abandon France in the wake of the Paris attacks.  As reported by IBT, The study was “compiled by New World Wealth, an agency that gives information on the global wealth sector.” 

So, just how bad is it?

 According to the report, Millionaire migration in 2015, France topped the list of countries with maximum millionaire outflows as it lost 10,000 millionaires, or 3% of its millionaire population. Among the cities that saw maximum millionaire outflow, Paris, was at the top – losing about 6% of its millionaire population or 7,000 millionaires in 2015 to the UK, the US, Canada, Australia and Israel.

  “The large outflow of millionaires from France is notable – France is being heavily impacted by rising religious tensions between Christians and Muslims, especially in urban areas. We expect that millionaire migration away from France will accelerate over the next decade as these tensions escalate,” the report warns.

Beijing’s Ominous Threat to Washington Over South China Sea: ‘Be Careful’

Tensions continue to mount between the US and China with an escalation of aggressive posturing on both sides.

On Thursday, Beijing’s Defense Ministry issued a veiled warning to the US, regarding naval activity in the South China Sea and a newly signed agreement between the US and the Philippines: "be careful."

Tensions have risen between the US and China in recent months. There have been disputes over China’s handling of the North Korean sanctions regime, with American officials arguing that Beijing failed to implement the agreed-upon measures fully, and posturing by both sides regarding the long simmering dispute over territories in the South China Sea.

Earlier this month, the Philippines agreed to provide US forces access to five military bases, including some in the disputed South China Sea territories, at a time when China has moved to claim these territories by introducing military construction and civilian travel to several of the Spratly and Paracel Islands.





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