News of the World

[kyonides]

Atlanta 'Cop City' anarchy sees at least 35 'agitators' detained
part of an 'international group'

At least 35 people have been detained after demonstrators allegedly set fire to the construction site of an Atlanta public safety training facility that anti-police and environment activists dubbed "Cop City."

A group of "agitators" left the nearby South River Music Festival around 5:30 p.m. and descended on the construction site of the proposed Atlanta Public Safety Training Center "to conduct a coordinated attack on construction equipment and police officers," the Atlanta Police Department said in a statement.

Authorities noted how the group changed into black clothing and allegedly began to throw commercial-grade fireworks, Molotov cocktails, large rocks and bricks at police officers.
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"This wasn’t about a public safety training center. This was about anarchy, and this was about an attempt to destabilize. And we are addressing that quickly," Schierbaum told reporters.
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"Some of those arrested yesterday were from Massachusetts and New York and France and Canada. So this is a national network, an international group of people that are organized to come to our state to undermine a public safety training center," Georgia Attorney General Chris Carr said in an appearance on Fox News Monday morning.

Atlanta police said at least 35 people had been detained as of Sunday night. Carr said all but two were from out of state, and 23 individuals were charged with domestic terrorism.

Georgia's Bureau of Investigation had published the following article last December...

Five Arrested for Domestic Terrorism Charges
at Site of Future Atlanta Public Safety Training Center

Five people have been arrested and charged with domestic terrorism and other charges after a joint operation at the site of the future Atlanta Public Safety Training Center ... Yesterday, December 13, 2022, our agents assisted APD and other local, state, and task force members in an operation to remove barricades blocking some of the entrances to the training center.

Prior to yesterday’s operation, APD and other agencies had made several arrests over the past few months for the ongoing criminal activity at the site location. Some of the criminal activities include carjacking, various crimes against persons, destruction of property, arson, and attacks against public safety officials. Law enforcement continues to address the criminal acts committed by the individuals that continue to occupy the area of the proposed training site.

Yesterday, several people threw rocks at police cars and attacked EMT's outside the neighboring fire stations with rocks and bottles. Task force members used various tactics to arrest individuals who were occupying makeshift treehouses.
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After police cleared the area of concern, which included makeshift treehouses, they found explosive devices, gasoline, and road flares.

Gavin Newsom Left Blizzard Emergency for Baja California

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) reportedly left the state during the blizzard emergency for a personal trip to Baja California, according to a spokesperson quoted by San Francisco Chronicle‘s Emily Hoevan.
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It was not immediately clear where Newsom had gone, though he has previously vacationed in Cabo San Lucas.

Newsom belatedly declared a state of emergency last Wednesday, as Breitbart News reported — a week after the storms swept the state, trapping thousands of residents and visitors in California’s mountain communities.

He then left California, apparently on Thursday, before returning around midday on Sunday. He later claimed to have been working “today” on Sunday, though a photo of his watch showed him working during the evening.

While Newsom was away, communities continued to struggle with shortages of food, fuel, and medicine. The California National Guard troops that Newsom had mobilized failed to reach several mountain communities.
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In 2021, Newsom extended California’s state of emergency for coronavirus, then spent Thanksgiving at a villa in Cabo San Lucas that he had rented from a Russian oligarch who had previously pleaded guilty to tax fraud.

European Parliament President Demands West Send Warplanes to Ukraine
Pushes for EU Membership

European Parliament President Roberta Metsola called for EU governments to send fighter jets to Ukraine as she made a surprise visit to the country on Saturday to meet with President Volodymyr Zelensky.
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“Member States should seriously consider sending warplanes to Ukraine,” Metsola said at a briefing in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv, adding that she will continue to advocate for more military equipment to be sent to the war zone, German newspaper Die Welt reported.

The main point of her trip, however, was to advance the prospect of Ukraine joining the European Union, with Metsola saying that she hoped accession negotiations could begin as early as this year. President Zelensky, for his part, said that his government would do everything to try to meet the standards of admission into the bloc so negotiations could begin as soon as possible.

Finally, the European Parliament president’s agenda also included participating in the ‘United for Justice’ conference, which seeks to hold Russian figures to account after the war is concluded.

DHS Maintains Secret Domestic Intelligence Program

The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) secretly maintains a domestic intelligence program that allows agency officials to interview willing Americans without their lawyers present, raising civil liberties concerns, according to a report.

The secret program is called the “Overt Human Intelligence Collection Program” and enables the federal government to interview Americans in prison and jail, along with illegal migrants at immigrant detention centers, according to a trove of internal DHS documents reported by Politico.
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According to the report, an unnamed employee in the trove of documents allegedly said that the Overt Human Intelligence Collection Program’s office “is ‘shady’ and ‘runs like a corrupt government.’” A second document reportedly showed employees also claimed the program raised so many red flags that they wanted the program to pay for legal liability insurance.

Carrie Bachner, a former DHS undersecretary for intelligence, told Politico if the secret intelligence program exists to question Americans, it is immoral.

Ex-Soldier Gets 45 Years Behind Bars
for Plotting ‘Jihadist Attack’ on Unit:
‘He Betrayed the U.S. Military’

An ex-soldier from Louisville, Kentucky, will spend the next 45 years behind bars for planning an attack on other soldiers, the Hill reported Saturday.
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Ethan Phelan Melzer, aka Etil Reggad, 24, of Louisville, pleaded guilty to attempting to murder U.S. service members, providing and attempting to provide material support to terrorists, and illegally transmitting national defense information on June 24, 2022, before U.S. District Judge Gregory H. Woods, who imposed today’s sentence. According to court documents, Melzer planned a jihadist attack on his U.S. Army unit in the days leading up to a deployment to Turkey and sent sensitive details about the unit — including information about its location, movements, and security — to members of the extremist organization Order of the Nine Angles (O9A), a white supremacist, neo-Nazi and pro-jihadist group.

Woods described his crimes as “repugnant,” adding, “He betrayed the United States of America. He betrayed the US military,” he said in court moments before imposing the sentence, according to the New York Post.

Meanwhile, Melzer said he regretted everything, stating, “I wish I could say I’m sorry to my platoon.”

 Man, that's the weirdest and dangerous group I've ever heard about in my whole life indeed!

Jihadi Convicted in Saudi Court Pleads Guilty to Supporting ISIS in Tampa

Muhammed Momtaz al-Azhari, a 26-year-old U.S. citizen born in California who lately resided in Tampa, Florida, pleaded guilty last week to attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State.
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Al-Azhari is described by the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) as “a United States citizen who spent most of his life abroad and came to embrace dogmatic, Islamist/Salafist beliefs.” His travels took him to Saudi Arabia, where he was arrested for vocally supporting one of the Islamist militias fighting in Syria.
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After Al-Azhari completed his three-year prison sentence in Saudi Arabia and returned to the United States in 2018, he became a huge fan of ISIS and began rabidly consuming its propaganda. He was evidently determined to become one of the “lone wolf jihadis” ISIS was encouraging to “rise up” and perpetrate mass casualty attacks in the Western world.

According to the FBI’s charging documents, Al-Azhari settled in Tampa during the summer of 2019 and “acquired at least three firearms,” even though his felony conviction in Saudi Arabia should have prevented him from buying guns.

...and his eventual desire to buy heavier weapons like an AK-47.

Over the course of the next two years, the FBI kept a close eye on Al-Azhari while he accumulated an arsenal that included an Uzi submachine gun and a bulletproof vest. Agents watched as he scouted locations for a mass-casualty attack, including FBI headquarters in Tampa, the Honeymoon Island beach resort, and even the Pulse nightclub in Orlando – the site of jihadi Omar Mateen’s deadly rampage in June 2016. Al-Azhari was a great admirer of Mateen and even tried to learn where he was buried so he could pay respects at his grave.