Last week Islamic State (ISIS) released yet another video threatening America. The tendency in the media was to report it (where it was reported at all) while discounting the veracity of the threat, as well as downplaying ISIS’s ability to execute the threat.
Flashback! According to my recollection, the initial reporting regarding terror-related OTMs (other than Mexicans) crossing the southern border occurred in 2004. Associated reporting identified a confluence of Mexican drug cartels and radicalized Islamist groups making common cause to get OTMs across the Southern border.
Add to that reporting concerning the Tri-Border area of South America (Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina), where reports of Islamist activity began in 1992. This area is believed by many to have been the staging ground for the attacks against Jewish centers in Argentina. The presence of Hizballah is undisputed and the attacks were likely carried out under the direction of Imad Mughniyah, Hizballah’s terror mastermind.
Yesterday, Judicial Watch reported that an Islamic State camp exists just miles from El Paso Texas in an area known as Anapra, situated west of Ciudad Juarez in Mexico, and that an additional cell exists in Puerto Palomas, also west of Ciudad Juarez. (See here for earlier coverage from LU.) These areas are controlled by the Juarez Cartel and Barrio Azteca. Judicial Watch cited a Mexican field grade officer and a Mexican police inspector as sources for the report. ISIS’s partner in locating these cells and providing coyotes for the movement of Arabs across the border is none other than the Juarez Cartel.
Last week John T. Booker, AKA Mohammed Abdullah Hassan, was arrested in connection with a threat against Fort Riley in Kansas. Booker is reported to have planned the attack on behalf of ISIS. Judicial Watch reporting, meanwhile, identifies ISIS reconnaissance of regional universities, the White Sands Missile Range, Fort Bliss, and government facilities in Alamogordo, New Mexico as well as electric power facilities in New Mexico.
There are, and have been for some time, dots to connect here. Unfortunately, there is zero evidence – at least in the public domain – that this or the prior administration has indeed connected these dots and is engaged in aggressive action to address the connections.
Once again, the administration is involved in logical disconnects. If we are justified in the bombing campaign and the provision of “advisors” against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, why are we not attacking the problem just miles from our border? Mexican authorities, based on Judicial Watch reporting, must be aware of the presence of ISIS cells, and are likely inhibited by the ISIS association with major cartels, which in many areas of Mexico are significantly more powerful that the central and regional governments.
Perhaps it is time to determine the actual level of alliance with Mexico. In the face of jihadist threats miles from our border, is Mexico prepared to give aid and comfort to America – or her enemies?
