ISIS WMD Directorate
After 9/11, the United States federal law enforcement and intelligence agencies began an unprecedented shift, refocusing on intelligence and surveillance abilities, rather than traditional crime-fighting. Robert Mueller, former Director of the FBI, broke down the Bureau’s transformation into a three-phase plan. By the summer of 2006, the FBI was entering the third and final phase, looking to solidify the changes made in the first two phases. Director Mueller announced unprecedented personnel changes, not only establishing new divisions within the FBI, but filling those positions with people from outside the Bureau. This was a stark shift from the decades long tradition of promoting from within the ranks.
On July 26, 2006, these changes were announced:
Vahid Majidi, a scientist formerly at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, would take command of the newly established weapons of mass destruction division.
Chief Information Officer Zalmai Azmi, whose resume includes a stint as a project manager at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, was given expanded duties in his role overseeing the bureau’s computer operations.
Kerry E. Haynes, a former CIA director of technical collection, was picked to run a new science and technology branch.
Donald E. Packham, a former BP senior executive, will oversee human resources and training.
Brief summary:
Vahid Majidi is an Iranian national. He immigrated here with his parents when he was 18 years old.
Zalmai Azmi is an Afghan national. He immigrated here as a teenager with his family also.
Kerry Haynes is a former CIA agent who specializes in “investigative technology” or in other words, surveillance. He also serves on the board of directors for a company called Signalscape. Joining him on that board is former NSA Deputy Director and a former FBI Deputy Assistant Director for Investigative Technologies.
Donald Packham, while not as obvious, could be the most disturbing of the lot. After leaving the Bureau, he took the position of Chief Human Resources Officer at the TCS Education System, an affiliate of the Higher Education Recruitment Consortium, or HERC. HERC is a nationwide far left university organization funded by the Tides Center, a George Soros funded group.
Vahid Majidi | DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE | MAY 11, 2017
From 2006 to 2012, Dr. Vahid Majidi served as the Assistant Director for the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Directorate at the Federal Bureau of Investigation. His Directorate was responsible for coordinating and managing FBI’s equities, activities, and investigations involving WMD. Specifically, the Directorate was charged with developing and executing an integrated approach to deny access to WMD materials and technologies, prevent WMD attacks, and respond to WMD threats and incidents.
Dr. Vahid Majidi became the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters in December 2013. In this position, he is responsible for all aspects of nuclear weapon surety and the management, integration, and coordination of activities relating to the acquisition and modernization of the nuclear weapons stockpile. His office approves procedures and requirements relating to all facets of the nuclear weapons logistics and establishes procedures for review, approval, and transmittal to the Department of Energy on nuclear weapons matters.
Just prior to joining the Department of Defense, Dr. Majidi served as the Chief Scientist for TASC Inc., and was the Director of University Multispectral Laboratories. His work focused on national security, homeland security, and issues concerning advanced technologies.
Weapons of Mass Destruction | FBI | MAY 19, 2017
In July 2006, the FBI created the Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) Directorate to build a cohesive and coordinated approach to incidents involving chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear (CBRN) material—with an overriding focus on prevention. The WMD Directorate proactively seeks out and relies on intelligence to drive preparedness, countermeasures, and investigations designed to keep WMD threats from becoming reality.
The WMD Directorate exists to ensure the FBI and partners are prepared to anticipate, mitigate, disrupt, or respond to WMD threats. With the continued evolution of the WMD threat and the possibility of an overseas origin or nexus, the Directorate advances WMD prevention activities by supporting international WMD capacity building, developing plans and policies at strategic and operational levels, developing partnerships, training, and conducting outreach endeavors. By improving WMD security on a global level, the Directorate protects U.S. interests abroad and keeps WMD threats outside our borders.
Vahid Majidi | IRANIAN OF THE DAY | AUG 23, 2008
Dr. Majidi was appointed by Director Mueller to serve as the Assistant Director for the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate. Dr. Majidi comes to FBI from Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL), where he served as the Chemistry Division Leader. The Chemistry Division at LANL is a premier scientific organization with extensive research capabilities essential to national security and civilian research programs. Chemistry Division’s strategic programs included nuclear weapons-related research, non/counter-proliferation, homeland security, isotope science, applied energy, and nanoscale science and engineering
FBI: 100 Percent Chance of WMD Attack | NEWSMAX | FEB 14, 2011
The probability that the U.S. will be hit with a weapons of mass destruction attack at some point is 100 percent, Dr. Vahid Majidi, the FBI’s assistant director in charge of the FBI’s Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate, tells Newsmax.
MAR 14, 2011 US Names Chris Stevens Liaison to Libyan Opposition ABC NEWS
(PARIS) — The Obama administration’s new liaison with the Libyan opposition will be diplomat Chris Stevens, who had been the number-two official at the U.S. Embassy in Tripoli until it was suspended when fighting began last month, according to two U.S. officials. Stevens attended Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s meeting in Paris Monday night with representatives of the Libyan opposition, as did U.S. Ambassador to Libya Gene Cretz, who has also had contacts with the opposition. President Obama told reporters Friday that his administration would appoint an official to maintain contact with the budding Libyan opposition, but officials had not revealed who it would be. The United States has yet to follow France’s lead in officially recognizing the Libyan opposition. Clinton told a Senate hearing last week that the United States was still trying to understand the makeup and intentions of the Libyan opposition based in the eastern city of Benghazi and led by the former justice minister.
Libya and weapons of mass destruction | WIKIPEDIA
Libya acceded to the Chemical Weapons Convention effective 5 February 2004[5] and began destroying its chemical munitions later that year,[6] but missed the deadlines for converting one chemical weapons production facility to peaceful use and for destroying its stockpile of mustard agent.[7] In October 2014, Libya asked for foreign assistance to transport its 850 tonnes stockpile of precursor chemicals for making nerve gas out of Libya for destruction.[8] In February 2015, Libyan military sources told media that unidentified armed men have captured large amounts of Libya’s chemical weapons, including mustard gas and sarin.[9][10]
The chemical weapons program was also actively maintained by Libya under the dictatorship of Muammar Gaddafi, but it was ostensibly decommissioned in the 2000s and early 2010s as Gaddafi sought to normalise relations with the Western world. Libya joined the Chemical Weapons Convention in 2004, and declared 24.7 metric tonnes of mustard gas, 1390 metric tonnes of chemical precursors for making sarin, as well as 3563 unloaded chemical weapon munitions(aerial bombs).[20][21]
The Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) supervised the destruction of Libya’s chemical weapons caches through February 2011, when it was forced to suspend its operations due to the uprising against Gaddafi and the resulting deterioration of the country’s stability. At this point the Libyan government had destroyed 40% of its precursor materials and 55% of its mustard gas, as well as 3500 chemical weapon munitions.[22]
The Libyan Conflict began in 2011. The “Civil War” is a myth. This conflict is 100% a CIA/Western backed coup with the majority of the fighting being done by foreign mercenaries. One key indicator that the NATO mission was NOT to help the Libyan people is the fact that one of the first NATO targets was the man made rivers which supplied most Libyans with their drinking water.
Libya had a vast chemical weapons program, and arsenals/facilities with hundreds and even thousands of tons chemical weapons and chemical weapons precursors. We have known that for years. Everyone in the intelligence community knew what would happen if the legitimate Libyan government was toppled.
Just as predicted, chaos engulfed the region, and now, several warring factions are fighting for control of Libya’s resources. Not only did Gadhafi have a vast arsenal of chemical weapons, but of conventional weapons also. We know as a matter of fact that ‘rebels’ acquired many of these. It is no different with the chemical weapons. Many of these simply vanished. It also turned out that they had more than we were aware of. As late as 2016, there were stories written about the chemical weapons stockpiles that still remained in the country. One such story was written by Greg Jaffe, and in it, he detailed a facility that had 500 tons of toxic, dual use chemicals, that were yet to be destroyed/removed. The facility was being guarded by Libyans.
MAR 30, 2011 Arming Libya rebels not allowed by UN resolutions, legal experts warn US THE GUARDIAN
The US is likely to be in breach of the UN security council’s arms embargo on Libya if it sends weapons to the rebels, experts in international law have warned. After Hillary Clinton said it would be legal to send arms to support the uprising, lawyers analysing the terms of the UN’s 26 February arms embargo said it would require a change in the terms for it not to breach international law.
“The embargo appears to cover everybody in the conflict which means you can’t supply arms to rebels,” said Philippe Sands QC, professor of international law at University College London. His view was backed by other experts in international law who said they could not see how the US could legally justify sending arms into Libya under the current resolutions.
Clinton told a press conference in London on Tuesday that this month’s UN security council resolution creating a no-fly zone and allowing strikes to protect civilians effectively amended or overrode the absolute prohibition on arms to anyone in Libya, “so that there could be a legitimate transfer of arms if a country should choose to do that”.
Asked whether the US itself would arm Libya revolutionaries, Susan Rice, the US ambassador to the UN, said: “We have not made that decision but we’ve not certainly ruled that out.”
February’s UN security council resolution 1970 on the arms embargo states that all member states must prevent the supply to the Libyan Arab Jamahiriya – the Libyan nation – of arms including weapons and ammunition, military vehicles and equipment, paramilitary equipment and spare parts. The embargo also relates to the provision of technical assistance, training or financial and bans the provision of mercenaries.
MAR 31, 2011 Exclusive: Obama authorizes secret help for Libya rebels REUTERS
President Barack Obama has signed a secret order authorizing covert U.S. government support for rebel forces seeking to oust Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, government officials told Reuters on Wednesday. Obama signed the order, known as a presidential “finding”, within the last two or three weeks, according to government sources familiar with the matter. Such findings are a principal form of presidential directive used to authorize secret operations by the Central Intelligence Agency. This is a necessary legal step before such action can take place but does not mean that it will.
“As is common practice for this and all administrations, I am not going to comment on intelligence matters,” White House spokesman Jay Carney said in a statement. “I will reiterate what the president said yesterday — no decision has been made about providing arms to the opposition or to any group in Libya.”
The CIA, which declined comment on the Obama authorization, has inserted small groups of clandestine operatives to gather intelligence for air strikes as part of a shadow force of Westerners that the United States hopes can help bleed Gadaffi’s military, The New York Times reported, citing unnamed American officials.In addition to the CIA operatives, dozens of British special forces and MI6 intelligence officers are also working in Libya, the newspaper said.
News that Obama had given the authorization surfaced as the President and other U.S. and allied officials spoke openly about the possibility of sending arms supplies to Gaddafi’s opponents, who are fighting better-equipped government forces. The United States is part of a coalition, with NATO members and some Arab states, which is conducting air strikes on Libyan government forces under a U.N. mandate aimed at protecting civilians opposing Gaddafi.
APR 3, 2011 For Qatar, Libyan Intervention May Be a Turning Point NEW YORK TIMES
DOHA, Qatar — Friendly to Iran even as it serves as a base for the American military, Qatar has long had one of the most creative foreign policies in this unstable region. But now, by sending its tiny air force to fly missions over Libya and granting other critical aid to the Libyan rebels in their fight for freedom and democracy, this very rich Persian Gulf emirate is playing a more ambitious and potentially more risky role. But for an absolute monarchy that was part of an alliance that supported Saudi Arabia’s move into Bahrain to crush democracy protests there, it is also somewhat incongruous.
A week ago, Qatar became the first Arab country to grant political recognition to the Libyan rebels, and its six Mirage fighter jets flying with Western coalition partners are giving the United States and European allies political cover in a region long suspicious of outside intervention.
Qatari officials say they are discussing ways to market Libyan oil from any ports they might hold in the future, to give the rebels crucial financial support, and they are looking for ways to support them with food and medical supplies. Qatar — the home base for the Al Jazeera satellite news channel, which is supported by the Qatari government — is also helping the Libyan opposition create a television station using a French satellite, to offset the state-controlled media.
Experts who follow Qatar say the current policies are consistent with two long-held objectives: to emerge as a world player despite its tiny size, and to play off its stronger neighbors, particularly Saudi Arabia and Iran, to protect its sovereignty and natural gas wealth. “They are staking a claim to being a leading voice in defining Arab nationalism for Arabs no matter their location,” said Toby Jones, a Rutgers University historian of the modern Middle East. He added that the nation’s leadership was seeking “to step out of the shadow of more powerful regional neighbors like the Saudis and Iranians.”
Western political and military leaders have praised the Qatari government, saying its intervention in Libya is a turning point for the region. “Qatar is essential at this time,” Gérard Longuet, the defense minister of France, was quoted by Agence France-Presse as telling Qatari and French pilots during a recent tour of a military base in Souda on the island of Crete. “This is the first time that there is such a level of understanding between Europe and the Arab world.”
For the past decade or so, Qatar has skillfully straddled the competing groups of allies in the region — Egypt and Saudi Arabia versus Iran and Syria — achieving a status of neutrality that has allowed it to broker political deals in Lebanon, Sudan and Yemen. At the same time, Al Jazeera has given a voice to dissidents, has rankled autocrats across the region, and has been both blamed and praised as a driving force behind the current “Arab Spring.”
Qatar, which sits upon one of the richest natural gas fields in the world, has donated hundreds of millions of dollars to victims of Hurricane Katrina, flooding in Pakistan and civil strife in Darfur. It won a bid to host the 2022 World Cup in recognition of its status as an oasis of stability and a global mediator.
APR 12, 2011 FBI “On Guard” for Libyan Terror Retaliation NEW AMERICAN
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is interviewing hundreds of Libyans in the United States and is on alert for possible terror attacks perpetrated by the Moammar Gadhafi regime or Libyan rebels with ties to terrorist groups, FBI Director Robert Mueller (photo, left) told Congress last week.
Among other steps, the federal government has been interviewing as many as 800 Libyans currently present inside American borders. At least some of them were working for the Gadhafi regime prior to the United Nations-backed Western intervention. Others may still be serving the regime as part of Libya’s foreign-intelligence apparatus. And some may be operating under various covers.
“We want to make certain that we are on guard for the possibility of terrorist attacks emanating somewhere out of Libya, whether it be [Gadhafi’s] forces, or in eastern Libya, the opposition forces who may have amongst them persons who in the past have had associations with terrorist groups,” Mueller told a House appropriations subcommittee.
The Bureau is conducting what it calls an “outreach effort” to speak with Libyans in the United States, including students at American universities. So far all the interviews have been “voluntary,” according to officials cited in news reports. Mueller told lawmakers.
There are individuals who were previously affiliated with the Libyan government who happen to be in the United States — they may have been here representing Libya and at various international institutions and the like. [T]o the extent that they have renounced or denounced [Gadhafi] and are willing to be interviewed and to give us information as to what may be happening in Libya, we will proceed with those interviews.
Mueller also said the FBI wanted to make sure that it identified Libyan intelligence operatives working in the United States to “ensure no harm comes from them.” Agents from at least 10 different field offices are reportedly involved in the interview campaign, which the FBI chief said “may alert us to any attempts at retaliation within the United States or elsewhere by [pro-Gadhafi] individuals.”
But Mueller is not the first high-ranking official to express concerns about the possibility of retaliatory terror strikes following U.S. military intervention against Gadhafi. Obama’s Terror Czar John Brennan warned about the possibility weeks ago.
“Gadhafi has the penchant to do things of a very concerning nature,” Brennan told reporters as the U.S. government was beginning its “humanitarian” bombing campaign. “We have to anticipate and be prepared for things he might try to do to flout the will of the international community.”
And the use of chemical weapons such as mustard gas, according to Brennan, was one of the threats. Gadhafi is known to possess weapons of mass destruction and has used terror attacks in the past.
APR 22, 2011 Is General Khalifa Hifter The CIA’s Man In Libya? BUSINESS INSIDER
As the United States and its allies get deeper into the confrontation with Qaddafi in Libya, it’s worth stepping back to consider what is actually taking place—and why. We’ve been told very little about the rebels seeking to supplant the dictator. But one in particular deserves our attention. General Khalifa Hifter, the latest person to head the rebel forces. There’s been little effort to look at Hifter’s background. One notable exception was the work of the always-diligent McClatchy Newspapers, which briefly inquired about his background in late March. That report does not seem to have generated much additional digging by other news organizations.
The new leader of Libya’s opposition military spent the past two decades in suburban Virginia but felt compelled — even in his late-60s — to return to the battlefield in his homeland, according to people who know him. Khalifa Hifter was once a top military officer for Libyan leader Moammar Gadhafi, but after a disastrous military adventure in Chad in the late 1980s, Hifter switched to the anti-Gadhafi opposition. In the early 1990s, he moved to suburban Virginia, where he established a life but maintained ties to anti-Gadhafi groups.
Late last week, Hifter was appointed to lead the rebel army, which has been in chaos for weeks. He is the third such leader in less than a month, and rebels interviewed in Libya openly voiced distrust for the most recent leader, Abdel Fatah Younes, who had been at Gadhafi’s side until just a month ago. At a news conference Thursday, the rebel’s military spokesman said Younes will stay as Hifter’s chief of staff, and added that the army — such as it is — would need “weeks” of training.
Libya: Chemical Weapons Secure According To U.N. Watchdog | WASHINGTON POST | SEP 7, 2011
THE HAGUE, Netherlands — Libya’s remaining chemical weapon stockpiles are believed to be secure despite the turmoil that has roiled the country since February, the chief of a U.N. watchdog said Wednesday. Ahmet Uzumcu, director general of the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons, said his inspectors are ready to return to Libya to oversee the destruction of Moammar Gadhafi’s poison gas supplies “when the conditions will allow us.” The organization had inspectors in Libya up until February verifying the destruction process but left as the anti-Gadhafi rebellion gathered intensity.
However, Uzumcu said Wednesday he had heard from sources that “remaining stockpiles of chemical weapons are secured.” He did not identify the sources. “Once the circumstances will permit, we hope the destruction (of the supplies) will resume,” he said.
In 2004, Gadhafi agreed to dismantle his weapons of mass destruction, and his regime underscored its commitment by using bulldozers to crush 3,300 unloaded aerial bombs that could have been used to deliver chemical weapons. Libya destroyed nearly 13.5 metric tons (15 tons) of sulfur mustard last year, about 54 percent of its stockpile. It received an extension to eliminate the rest by May 15, the organization said. Nearly 40 percent of the chemicals used to make sulfur mustard also have been destroyed since 2005, it said. Twice-yearly inspections have found no evidence of Libya reviving the chemical weapons program.
Uzumcu spoke to reporters after meeting with Iraqi Foreign Minister Hoshyar Zebari for an update on Baghdad’s efforts to destroy Saddam Hussein-era chemical weapons.
OCT 30, 2011 Libya’s Prime Minister Confirms Presence of Chemical Weapons FOX NEWS
OCT 31, 2011 Libya’s interim prime minister says rebels have found Moammar Khadafy’s chemical weapons cache NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
OCT 31, 2011 Libyan PM: Chemical weapons found EXPRESS UK
DEC 5, 2011 Government fails to keep eye on night-vision goggles in Mideast CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEGRITY
JAN 20, 2012 Libya’s Muammar Gaddafi had chemical weapon cache BBC
Security Incidents Prior to the Benghazi Attack | CBS NEWS | MAY 13, 2013
Before death, Amb. Stevens warned of “violent” Libya landscape | CNS NEWS | OCT 20, 2012
(CBS News) In the weeks before his death, U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens sent the State Department several requests for increased security for diplomats in Libya. Stevens and three other Americans were killed in a terror attack this past Sept. 11 at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi and a separate attack that same night on a safe house where consulate staff had been evacuated. Steven’s memos to the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, which is investigating attacks, show he personally pressed for strengthened security.
Ambassador warned Libya was “volatile and violent”
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton takes “responsibility” for Benghazi attack
On July 9, 2012, Stevens sent a “request for extension of tour of duty (TDY) personnel.” That refers to a 16-man military temporary security team with expertise in counter terrorism. They were set to leave in August, but Stevens asked to keep them “thru mid-September.”
On August 2, six weeks before he died, Stevens requested “protective detail bodyguard potions,” saying the added guards “will fill the vacuum of security personnel currently at post who will be leaving with the next month and will not be replaced.” He called “the security condition in Libya … unpredictable, volatile and violent.” It’s not known what happened to that request.
Piecing together White House response to Benghazi
On August 8, as the special security teams left Libya, another cable from Stevens says “a series of violent incidents has dominated the political landscape” and calls them “targeted and discriminate attacks.”
On September 11 — the day the Ambassador lost his life — he sent this Benghazi weekly report. It expressed Libyans’ “growing frustration with police and security forces who were too weak to keep the country secure.” Colonel Andrew Wood led the U.S. military team that left Libya in August. He testified before Congress last week. He told CBS News that Stevens fought losing another security team.
Watch: Ex-security team leader says Amb. Stevens was concerned over threats
Security dwindled before deadly Libyan consulate attack
CIA saw possible terror ties day after Libya hit: AP
“It was quite a degree of frustration on their part,” Wood said. “They were — I guess you could say — clenched-fist over the whole issue.” Friday, the State Department told CBS News an independent board is conducting a thorough review of the assault, and once they have the result, they can fully address the questions.
Former FBI Official: Trip Wires Are Foiling Plots | NEWSMAX | AUG 21, 2012
Trip wires developed by the FBI to warn of threats are rolling up terrorist plots and saving lives, Dr. Vahid Majidi, the former assistant FBI director in charge of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate, tells Newsmax.
To devise trip wires, the FBI in effect reverse-engineered a terrorist operation. It looked at a potential terrorist incident and then worked backwards to pinpoint all the elements a terrorist might require to achieve his goal. The FBI then had a roadmap of possible clues to an impending plot.
“We have a complete set of trip wires for chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats,” Majidi says.
The WMD Directorate was established to coordinate all elements of the FBI that deal with WMD cases. When FBI Director Robert S. Mueller III hired him in 2006 to head the WMD Directorate, he said to Majidi, “Your mission is prevention. I want you to think 24/7 prevention.”
Majidi was previously the chemistry division leader at Los Alamos National Laboratory. He is now director of the Energy and Technology Center at the University of Oklahoma’s University Multispectral Laboratory.
If the FBI finds that an outlet overseas is selling material that could be used for a weapon of mass destruction, it will work with foreign governments to close down the outlet.
“People don't realize that the FBI works with the entire U.S. government, including the CIA and Department of Defense, to identify things of concern anywhere in the world,” Majidi says. “Let’s say that you see a front company in a foreign country that is selling material to one of your adversaries, such as Iran. We notify the intelligence community, the Department of State. In some instances, if we give them clear evidence, the host country physically goes and shuts the company down.”
PONI Breakfast with Dr. Vahid Majidi | CSIS | JUN 11, 2014
Please join the Project on Nuclear Issues for a breakfast talk with Dr. Vahid Majidi, Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear Matters. Serving within the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Nuclear, Chemical, and Biological Defense Programs, Dr. Majidi is responsible for all aspects of nuclear weapon surety and the management, integration, and coordination of activities relating to the acquisition and modernization of the nuclear weapons stockpile. Dr. Majidi’s office approves procedures and requirements relating to all aspects of nuclear weapon logistics and establishes procedures for review, approval, and transmittal to the Department of Energy on nuclear weapons related matters.
Before his current assignment, Dr. Majidi served as the Chief Scientist for TASC Inc. and was the Director of University Multispectral Laboratories. He has also served as the Assistant Director for the Weapons of Mass Destruction Directorate at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, Chemistry Division Leader at the Los Alamos National Laboratory, and Chief Science Advisor to the Department of Justice.
Dr. Majidi will speak about his experience in the nuclear enterprise and his thoughts on its future. The breakfast will run from 9am-10:30am on June 11 in the Second Floor ExxonMobil Room at the Center for Strategic and International Studies.
JAN 28, 2016 Former Libyan Intel Chief: Islamic State in Possession of Muammar Gaddafi’s Chemical Weapons BREITBART
“It is no secret that these gasses exist in Libya. They have taken it. To be fair, IS is not the only one,” Ahmad Qadhaf al-Dam said in an Egyptian TV interview, translated by The Middle East Media Research Institute. The Times of Israel notes that al-Dam’s warning is consistent with claims from other Libyan sources, who warned in early 2015 that various extremist militias had discovered secret stashes of chemical weapons at forgotten military bases.
On paper, Libya committed to destroying its chemical inventory in 2014. Al-Dam describes that agreement as a “smart maneuver” to trick the West into lifting sanctions.
Al-Dam believes other militia groups might be sitting on weapons of mass destruction inventories looted from Gaddafi’s secret bases, but ISIS is actually using them. In fact, he claimed it was common knowledge in his circle that Libyan chemical weapons had been smuggled to Syria and deployed by the Islamic State, with the Assad regime falsely blamed for some of the attacks.
Other chemical strikes in Syria have been more convincingly pinned on the Islamic State, including a possible mustard gas attack on Kurdish Peshmerga fighters over the summer. These attacks were reportedly carried out using chemical munitions that ISIS looted from the Syrian military.
FEB 9, 2016 Top intel official confirms ISIS made, used chemical weapons FOX NEWS
The nation’s top intelligence official confirmed Tuesday that the Islamic State has succeeded in making and deploying chemical agents in Iraq and Syria — calling it the first such attack by an extremist group in more than two decades.
The confirmation of mustard gas use came during Director of National Intelligence James Clapper’s testimony before the Senate Armed Services Committee, where he spoke to the Islamic State’s growing sophistication online and in the battlefield.
He did not elaborate on where and when the chemical attacks occurred, though there has been mounting evidence the terror group was experimenting with chemical weapons.
“[The Syrian government] has used chemicals against the opposition on multiple occasions since Syria joined the Chemical Weapons Convention. ISIL has also used toxic chemicals in Iraq and Syria, including the blister agent Sulfur mustard,” Clapper said.
MAR 18, 2016 The Pentagon Wasted $500 Million Training Syrian Rebels. It’s About to Try Again. FOREIGN POLICY
President Barack Obama has signed off on a new plan to train Syrian rebels to fight the Islamic State, a move that comes just months after the Pentagon shut down a more ambitious train-and-equip program that burned through hundreds of millions of dollars with little to show for the effort.
The effort is part of a Pentagon push to capitalize on recent momentum in the long campaign in the Islamic State, which has been battered by coalition and Russian airstrikes, ground attacks by a Syrian army that has been refitted by Moscow, and ongoing assaults by U.S.-armed Kurdish, Yazidi, and Sunni Arab fighters. The militants have lost about 22 percent of the land they once controlled in Iraq and Syria in recent months, and Washington wants to move on the group’s capital of Raqqa sooner rather than later. And with no significant influx of U.S. or allied ground troops on the way, Pentagon officials believe that training local forces to take the lead is the best way forward.
AUG 19, 2016 Denmark agrees to help rid Libya of chemical weapons THE STAR
OCT 5, 2016 Obama DOJ drops charges against alleged broker of Libyan weapons POLITICO
The Obama administration is moving to dismiss charges against an arms dealer it had accused of selling weapons that were destined for Libyan rebels. Lawyers for the Justice Department on Monday filed a motion in federal court in Phoenix to drop the case against the arms dealer, an American named Marc Turi, whose lawyers also signed the motion.
The deal averts a trial that threatened to cast additional scrutiny on Hillary Clinton’s private emails as Secretary of State, and to expose reported Central Intelligence Agency attempts to arm rebels fighting Libyan leader Moammar Qadhafi.
Government lawyers were facing a Wednesday deadline to produce documents to Turi’s legal team, and the trial was officially set to begin on Election Day, although it likely would have been delayed by protracted disputes about classified information in the case. A Turi associate asserted that the government dropped the case because the proceedings could have embarrassed Clinton and President Barack Obama by calling attention to the reported role of their administration in supplying weapons that fell into the hands of Islamic extremist militants.
OCT 12, 2016 Arms dealer says Clinton and Obama accidentally gave guns to ISIS, Al Qaeda and Benghazi attackers – then tried to scapegoat him for their screw-up with failed $10m felony case DAILY MAIL
An American arms dealer claims he was made a scapegoat for an Obama and Clinton-led 2011 plot to arm Libyan rebels that saw arms flowing to Al Qaeda, ISIS and the Benghazi attackers. Marc Turi faced trial for illegally selling arms, but charges in the five-year, $10million case were dropped on October 5. That’s because, he told Fox News, Democrats were worried about political blowback for Clinton if it emerged that the government had accidentally put weapons in the hands of America’s enemies. ‘I would say, 100 per cent, I was victimized,’ he told the channel, ‘to somehow discredit me, to throw me under the bus, to do whatever it took to protect their next presidential candidate.’
Turi, 48, told Fox that the Obama administration had wanted to arm Libyan rebels to overthrow Muammar Gaddafi during the Arab Spring uprising, but were stopped by a UN sanction on arms sales to the country. He said he came up with a plan to sell weapons to US allies in Qatar and the United Arab Emirates who would then pass them on to Libya, but was cut out of the deal by Clinton’s State Department and the CIA, who transported the weapons themselves. Those weapons, he said, then went to just about everyone in Libya and Syria – friend and foe alike – after rebels got their hands on them. Fox News asked Turi whether Al Qaeda, Ansar al-Sharia (the group behind the Benghazi attack), or ISIS – which was formed in 1999 – got the weapons; he replied: ‘All of them, all of them, all of them.’ He says the Justice Department then attempted to scapegoat him, charging him with two counts of illegal arms dealing and two of lying on his State Department weapons application – despite him never actually selling anything.