#and ahmed has said that's not the same as vetting on his part | Explore Tumblr posts and blogs

darklydeliciousdesires · 2 years ago

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Beyond the Blood Tie - Chapter Thirty Four.

Previous Chapters - One Two, Part One Part Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen Fourteen Fifteen Sixteen Seventeen Eighteen Nineteen Twenty Twenty One Twenty Two Twenty Three Twenty Four Twenty Five Twenty Six Twenty Seven Twenty Eight Twenty Nine Thirty Thirty One Thirty Two Thirty Three

Words - 5,367

Tag list - In the comments. Please DM to be added/removed

Warnings - 18+ content throughout. Minors DNI!

Ahmed's POV

"Hey big guy, hey," Miley greets me with as she arrives at Edie's house, three days after Angel died. I swing the door open fully and give her a big hug. "How is she?" She reads it in my face before I even reply, taking her boots and jacket off. It's Christmas Eve, and even though the sun is still bright, the colder snap has finally reached Nevada. It's only just stopped raining.

"Still the same, she's just lying there blankly. At least she's sleeping for the moment, though. She didn't get much last night," I reveal, with a long sigh through my nose. I've been looking after her for the last two days, this only being the early morning of the third. EZ just went to sleep in Edie's closet, standing in the corner for his rest like he was the night before, too. He knows Edie is probably safest here since no vampire without permission can enter her home, but he's sticking around all the same. I booked the week off work at short notice, something Tyrell was furious about and at first did not want to allow me.

"Tyrell, she has no one. No parents, no family at all in fact, apart from people like me and Aileen. Now she's got no boyfriend either, and she's in pieces, just so depressed. She needs someone to look after her, and it's gotta be me," I told him in his office.

"I can't be two punishers down, Ahmed. I don't fucking care who died, you can't take the time off," he told me, leaning back in his squeaky chair and folding his arms. I then asked if I could if I found a replacement, a stand in punisher to do my work for me. As it happens, I had a prior offer to cover for me, from an unexpected source when I went back to Charles and Ursula's place to fetch Edie's cell phone from the night before that she'd forgotten to take with her.

"And who are you going to find who has the poise and both physical and mental strength at such short notice?" he scoffed. Half an hour later, she walked through the door.

"Sissy Wiseman, a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Mr Cleaves," the vampire herself said to him, even offering her hand.

"Pardon me, Ms Wiseman, but I cannot have any old person walk into my establishment without being properly vetted or interviewed for a position as a punisher. I have rules to follow," he snorted, shaking her hand coolly and then nearly having his eyeballs roll out onto his paperwork at the strength of her grip.

"Oh come on, Tyrell. You've been liaising with the AVA about the possibility of recruiting a vampire punisher or two. You could make this happen," I interrupted with, while kicking myself that I just spoke to my boss like that. He's fired people for less.

"I have credentials too, and I have been vetted. Here, a letter of praise from the acting head of the Human Relations department of the AVA, Charles Cosgrove," she told him, handing over the papers.

"Charles Cosgrove? I thought he was a doctor, if he's the same Charles Cosgrove who wrote a sick note for Edie recently," he spoke with disbelief after reading the letter Sissy handed to him, eyeing her suspiciously.

"He's a brilliant vampire, and almost nine hundred years old. He has been many things throughout his life and death," she told him, with obvious affection and respect in her voice for Charles.

"And your own credentials?"

"I'm six hundred and seventy years old, and I'm a vampire. I also have brilliant control, and the ability not to exert my full power upon a human. Feel free to come into the chamber with me now and oversee it yourself. I do not require payment either. Believe me, you'd be doing me a favour right now. I have a lot of rage to work out on somebody," she spoke with confidence. Of course, she's pissed as hell about Angel's death, she'd known him for a long time. Ten minutes later and she was proving herself to Tyrell, while he stood watching in the control room with me and Aileen. She was excellent, and so it was arranged.

"Are those pancakes I smell?" Miley asks me, back in the here and now.

"Yup, and plenty of crispy bacon, too.” I went to the store last night and stocked up after EZ had awoken.

"Could Edie be tempted?" I shake my head as we walk through to the kitchen and tell her I tried before she went to sleep, and then pass Miley a plate. We go and eat outside, and I take a towel with me to dry off the chairs we then sit at, eating and watching my dog Drexl play with Icarus and Thor on the lawn. EZ brought Thor here yesterday after Charles called him to say he'd finally come home. He'd been missing since Angel died, and EZ thinks he went off trying to find his master. He did come home in a bit of a shabby state, so EZ and I bathed him with the aid of a hosepipe and half a bottle of dog shampoo. He wasn't impressed.

"Do you think we should put up her Christmas decorations for her? Edie loves Christmas, this place looks strange without all the glittery things and lights she'd usually string up around the house," Miley wonders aloud as I watch Thor and Drexl each tugging the end of a big rope, Icarus running around them in a circle yapping excitedly and occasionally grabbing the middle part of it.

I think on it, but ultimately shake my head, crunching through a mouthful of bacon. "I don't think she'd want that, she isn't exactly in a celebratory mood."

She nods, reaching to squeeze my arm. “Yeah, I guess you're right. How's his creator taking the news, by the way? Badly I'd imagine.”

"So badly she went to ground, and she won't come up until tomorrow evening, apparently," I tell her, picking up my coffee to take a big swig.

"What does that mean, going to ground?" I expected that question, since Miley knows very little about vampires, other than what Sasha and Edie tell her, which is mostly sexual.

"It means they bury themselves and switch off completely, they go into a deep state of rest, which is what she needed to do," I reply.

"Oh. I wish Edie could do the same. She must hurt so badly. It must be nice, to feel like somebody took your batteries out." I hadn’t thought of that, but yes, she’s right, in her obscure little way. I guess it’d only delay the inevitable, though. The grief would still be there waiting for her when she woke up again, into a world without Angel in it any longer.

We finish breakfast just in time before the heavens open once more, the rain pelting down, Miley taking the plates while I call Drexl and the wolves inside. Their play continues running around Edie's kitchen barking and skating across the tiled floor. I'm surprised they don't wake her up, and when it's coming up to 1pm I see she's sleeping through it. I'm glad of that. She likes being on vampire hours anyway, not that she does anything other than stare.

She won't even talk to anyone. She just nods or shakes her head to communicate. I suppose she just has to take her time with it, I don't know. I'm not even going to try to imagine what this kind of grief feels like for her, but I know it's hurting her very badly. Keeping ourselves busy, Miley and I tidy and do Edie's laundry, before I kill some time cleaning all her windows inside and out, except the inside of the one in Edie's bedroom, of course. At close to 4pm and with every window sparkling, I check on my buddy, finding her lying on her side, staring into space.

"Hey you, how'd you feel after your sleep?" I ask, hoping I get a reply. She just blinks, her face remaining as heartbroken looking as it was before she drifted off. “Okay, dude. I’m here when you want to talk. Love you.” Another blink. I shut the door again, leaving her to it. She'll talk when she wants to, when she's ready. I think the shock fully kicked in when she came to see Aileen at work. She came over last night before her shift and tried to get Edie to talk, but to no avail.

Coming back out, I see my dog ambling along from the kitchen to the lounge where I follow him to, laughing softly at him since he's completely out of breath. He lies flat out as he pants so much his body shakes, back and front legs stuck out comically as his big, floppy ears twitch. He then turns and crashes out onto his side. Yep, he's dog tired alright. Playing with two big, bouncy wolves all day when you're only a humble Pitt Bull will do that to you. I think I need to get him home.

"Would you mind staying with her tonight? I think I need to get Drex home so he can keel over in the comfort of his own bed," I ask Miley, who's smiling at Drexl over the top of her cup of tea.

"Sure, I can. You get off, I can only stay until nine in the morning though, as I gotta be at my folks place at 11am and it takes just under an hour to get to Mount Charleston, so I’ll need to go home and get ready, fetch the presents and stuff first," she explains.

"That's cool. Since my folks have gone on vacation as you know I was only going to Vic's place with Edie anyway, but I'll stay here. I'll go to the store and get some food for us on my way home tonight and see if I can find any turkeys left," I tell her with a small laugh. I doubt I'll be able to get her to eat any of whatever I do find, though. That's okay, I'll try all the same. I'm not giving up on helping her get through this, losing someone she loved so much.

I think the thing that's hardest for her is the fact that she claims she can still feel him, which is confusing her endlessly. She spoke to Charles about it and the guy who came with Ursula's creator and apparently, they set her straight though, said that it's a trick of the blood fooling her into thinking he's still alive. I can't imagine anything worse at the moment for her, being able to feel her lover's blood stirring within her yet having to keep on reminding herself that he's dead.

Drexl and I amble home at a slow pace, and I say hello to a few of the people in the neighbourhood as we do, wishing them a Merry Christmas. I see old Mr Garrett up on his roof rearranging some lights, his display just as bright and twinkly as ever without looking garish. The same cannot be said for Mr and Mrs Evans three doors down, with their huge inflatable Santa, snowmen and elves all littering their front yard. Yuck.

"Hey Ahmed, Merry Christmas to you and Drexl! Here, have a cookie each," the adorable ninety-seven-year-old Mrs Williams says to me as she comes ambling up the path with a tray of gingerbread men, offering the tray to me and taking a cookie to give to Drexl, who sits for it immediately. "He's such a good boy, yes!" she then gushes, stroking his head as he wags his tail happily and crunches through the cookie. I bend to give the tiny little old lady a kiss on the cheek and then continue walking, eating my highly decorated gingerbread man as I do.

If this was any other year, me, Edie, Miley, her brother and Sasha would all be out enjoying some pre-Christmas drinks, but we cancelled our plans after the devastating news Edie received out of respect. If there was just one thing I could give my heartbroken friend for Christmas, I'd give her boyfriend back to her, because I know he's all she really wants.

Edie's POV

You know that moment where you wake up, and just for a second you think everything is okay until it hits you like a tonne of bricks, why everything isn't okay? I got that fifteen minutes ago when I woke. Ahmed came in to see me, and Miley has just been in, too, both concerned, naturally, since I went on mute. I wanted to talk to both of them, yet I just couldn't find my voice. It's like it's out of my reach. I can't keep giving everyone the silent treatment though, especially when they're trying their best to look after me. It's rude of me to refuse to speak, but then again, I'm not really refusing. It’s like I have no choice, I just... I can’t.

Looking at my bedside clock I see that it's 4.30pm, and in half an hour the large vampire sleeping in my closet will awake and step out. I have to try and find my voice by then. I owe a great deal to EZ in the way he's stepped up to look after me since Angel's death, just as he promised me he'd do. He didn't have to at all. Angel, oh my darling, how I miss you. I've had one thing on my mind since he died, one thing that I was reminded of again when I dreamt about him a few nights ago, and that is the desire to know where exactly he died so I can go and find his ghost. I won't be able to see or hear him of course, but if I took another vampire with me, they could tell me what he's saying.

Just the thought of that reduces me to tears all over again though, Miley obviously hearing me and coming straight in. She sits down next to me and puts her arms around me immediately, stroking my greasy hair. I stink like a damned skunk at the moment, since I haven't even washed or cleaned my teeth for the last three days.

"I'm sorry, I just, I..." I begin.

"Shhhhh, don't you dare apologise. You cry all you need to sweetie," she soothes me with, hugging me tighter. Eventually, I rest my head down in her lap, feeling her long fingernails stroking my hair and scalp, which is very soothing. It still doesn't soothe the awful, all-consuming grief I feel inside, but I don't imagine that anything will. This is going to take me a long, long time to get over, losing him. I ache for him, and feeling the little bit of his blood left within me stirring up doesn't help matters at all. I wish it would go away. Some might think it's comforting, feeling the last traces of him glittering through my veins, but it isn't at all. It's horrible, and it's almost taunting too. 'You can feel him, but you will never, ever see him again.'

"Is there anything I can do for you, anything you want me to fetch for you that you need?" she asks softly after a few silent moments.

"Could you get me a juice please?" I ask as I sit up, slumping back against my pillows. Ahmed changed my bed for me the other morning when I was lying on the couch, after he put me there. The smell of Angel all over my sheets was making me hysterical, so he changed them for fresh and washed the others and the smell of my dead boyfriend away. It still hits me like someone throwing a brick right at my heart, when the words echo through my mind. My dead boyfriend.

"Sure, I can. Do you feel like having something to eat yet? I can make you a sandwich or something, Ahmed went and stocked your fridge yesterday.” God, they’re both so wonderful. Thank goodness for them.

"No, thank you. I'm not hungry." She nods, rubbing my knee affectionately before getting off my bed and exiting. That's been my standard reply when anyone has mentioned food. It's true though, I'm not hungry at all. I know I should eat, but I can't force food I do not want down. I hear a knock at my front door just as Miley opens my bedroom door again, and she runs in to pass me my juice before going to answer it. When she returns, she has Aileen with her.

"Hey lovely girl, how you feeling today?" she asks, carrying in a large, wrapped up Christmas present with her.

"I feel the same as I did yesterday," I sigh, watching her look at me with a little bit of surprise.

"Well, not exactly the same since you're talking to us, but I get what you mean. It was a silly question of me to ask, but you know I have to," she says, putting the gift down at the side of my bed and sitting down, reaching out to stroke my cheek. "I thought I'd bring your Christmas present over and see how you're doing. I was in half minds whether to give it to you, considering the circumstances. I don't want you to get even more upset than you already are, but when I asked Mike about it, he thought it might bring a little smile to your face, so here you are. Happy Christmas, sweetie."

I have to wonder why I might get upset about it until I begin tearing the paper, and then I see. Beneath it is a framed and beautiful oil painting of me and Angel, done from a photograph Aileen took of us in the bar one night. I'm looking at the candle in front of us, and he has his arm around me kissing my cheek. It's candid and beautiful, just like Aileen's photograph was.

"Oh Aileen, it's absolutely gorgeous. Rosie, you've outdone yourself here," I exclaim, referencing her daughter whose painting style I recognise instantly. She's done a couple for me in the past that I have hung around my home. She's a fabulous artist. A few tears fall down my cheeks as I take it in further, remembering how beautiful to me Angel was, and still is.

"I'm so glad you like it. She put a lot of her spare time into making it look perfect. It was meant to be for the both of you, but..." she trails off, her face saying anything else she could have added with actual words.

"I do, I love it. Thank you." Aileen doesn't stay for long, telling us she's taking little Chloe to see Santa at the mall and then racing back to begin preparing the Christmas day meal. When you've nine children and a grand total of twenty people coming to you for Christmas, well you've got to put in a lot of prep, I guess. Vic always starts the night before too. He called by the day before last, I think. I say I think because I'm having trouble remembering what day we're on half the time. Remember when Edward Norton's character in Fight Club said, 'when you have insomnia, you're never really awake and never really asleep', or words to that effect? That's how I feel. I don't feel like I'm ever one hundred percent awake or asleep. Just after Aileen leaves, my closet door opens and out steps EZ.

"You should go for a bath, you stink," he tells me, but not in a harsh way at all.

"I know, I will do too as I can't imagine a smelly human is pleasant to a vampire's nasal passages," I shrug, half smiling.

"It was more for your sake I suggested it, but if you don't feel like it then I'm not about to pick you up and throw you in the tub. All in your own time.” I nod, my half smile twitching a little more. "Have the wolves been out today?" he then asks.

"They're out right now, I think. Icarus would be here next to me if they weren't," I reply, when suddenly to speak of the devil, in he comes, followed by Thor.

"I'll take them for a walk. Remember, no opening the door to anyone you don't know," he instructs me before leaving, whistling for the wolves who then follow him out.

"Shall I put on a movie for us or something?" Miley suggests, a couple of seconds after he's left.

"No, not yet at least anyway. I'm going to take EZ's advice and throw myself headfirst into the bath. I'll be back in a bit," I tell her, getting up out of bed and heading to the bathroom. I plug the tub and turn on the hot water tap, cleaning my teeth as the water runs and then turning back to add a handful of bath salts. I'm in tears again when I see the cinnamon candles at the corner of the tub that Angel bought for me, and decide to put them in the bin. It's too painful, having memories of him and how wonderful he was dotted around my house. That beautiful painting that Aileen gave me for Christmas, I don’t even know when I'll feel ready and able to hang it up somewhere.

I feel so lost without him, so lonely and sad. I never expected this to happen, I truly didn't. Even if I had expected his death, it still wouldn't have made it any easier to deal with. I have no mourning place for him either, no body or remains to bury. He'd just be a pile of blood and organs on the floor though, so there wouldn't be much to commit to the ground as his final resting place. I suppose his last resting place is inside me, in my heart, where I'll keep him forever. I love him so much.

Feeling pathetic but not wanting Miley to rush and comfort me again, I cry quietly as I watch the water fill the tub, feeling like my heart is literally dying. I should have had so much longer with him than I had. I'm so glad I was his punisher, that I even met him in the first place, and then as a boyfriend I'm so thankful that I at least got that blissful time with him, where I fell in love with him more as each day passed.

Taking off my smelly clothes, I put them into the empty laundry basket before sliding into the tub. I don't expect the hot water to make me feel better, but strangely enough, it actually does. What doesn't make me feel better is feeling Angel's blood swell within me again, having to remind myself these little instances mean absolutely nothing at all, and he isn't coming back. I can't wait for them to go away and leave me to grieve in peace, these little flashes of his non-existent energy. I stay in the bath until somewhere around 8pm, just filling up the tub again and again after draining away some of the colder water, until I'm all wrinkly like E.T.

"Hey sugar, are you feeling a little fresher now?" Miley asks me once I've emerged, where I find her sitting down at my small and rarely used living room table playing a game of cards with EZ. I really have to take my hat off to him here, actually being social with my friend.

"I am, yes.” I confirm, turning to EZ. “Thanks for reminding me I stunk.” He then surprises me greatly by moving away from the table and patting his lap in an indication for me to sit on it. I do, and he puts an arm around me and kisses my shoulder before he and Miley continue their game. As it happens, he's teaching her how to play poker.

"Remember what I said about the poker face," he reminds her about five minutes later when she looks excited after picking up a card. She then puts on a face that's meant to be blank, but ends up looking constipated. That rouses the first chuckle from me since Angel died, and I needed it. After they're all done with their game I amble back to bed, Miley in tow and EZ telling us he's going to find himself a feed.

"I remember you said you'd never seen this in full before, so let's watch a classic, it's just about to start," she says, switching on my little TV in my bedroom and tuning in to the old movie Breakfast at Tiffany's, which she's right, I've only ever seen the first half an hour of it. As it turns out, I don't see it all again tonight either, drifting off to sleep about an hour into it. I wake up at 2am, clutching my chest with my heart beating rapidly. I can feel Angel's energy rising up strongly in me, so strongly it woke me up.

"This needs to fucking stop," I gasp, my eyes once again welling up. They're so sore from crying that when my salty tears begin to fall, they sting, causing me to cry more. I grab my cigarettes and creep out past the cot Miley is asleep on (which Ahmed brought with him to sleep on when he was here) before I head out to go and smoke outside.

"Interesting?" I ask EZ, pointing at the television screen in my lounge where a documentary is flickering on the screen.

"I've seen it before, but there's nothing much else of interest on. Do you mind if I read a few of your books?" he asks, picking up the remote and switching the TV off.

"Not at all, you help yourself to whatever you want to read." I say, gesturing to the bookshelf before going outside for my smoke. I sit and smoke three in a row before I feel myself beginning to calm down again, heading back in twenty-five minutes later to find the large vampire lying on my couch engrossed in a book about Napoleon that I myself haven't got round to reading yet. It was a present from Angel. It's yet another reminder of him, my lost and much missed love.

Getting back into bed, my heart begins pounding away again and as a result, means I cannot get to sleep at all, lying awake until 5am, when I begin to finally at least doze a little until 6am, getting up just as EZ creeps in to go to sleep in my closet, and I watch the sun rise on Christmas day. I don't feel very Christmassy at all, and that is how anyone will know something is wrong, since I notoriously love Christmas. I'm in no mood for pretty decorations and presents, though.

"Morning honey, have you been awake for long?" Miley asks, entering the lounge and stretching.

"I didn't sleep much. to be honest. Off and on, little naps really. My heart kept hammering in my chest and keeping me awake. I need some coffee; do you want a cup?" I think now is the time I need to kick my ass into a little productivity.

"Yes please.” She takes a seat while I haul myself up, heading for the kitchen. I get the fright of my life just as I'm about to leave the room, at the exact same time my heart begins to pound again, stopped in my tracks by the words Miley suddenly screams.

"Edie, oh my god, it's Angel!" she cries at the top of her lungs, turning to see her pointing out into my back yard where there, crawling through the grass, with his skin burning because of the sunlight, is my boyfriend. With every emotion from joy and relief to complete and utter amazement and disbelief, my feet propel me across the living room floor, running at the door and flinging it open before hitting the patio and then the turf, my eyes so full of overjoyed tears that I can hardly see where I'm going. When I drop at his side, I just don't know what to do and am hysterical all over again, Miley skidding to a halt by my side and demonstrating some quick thinking when she throws a blanket over him, covering his burning body from the sunlight.

I don’t even know what to do, making hysterical noises as my shaky hands reach for him, then pull back, my heart thundering. “Quick, we need to get him inside.” Miley states, taking over, grabbing his wrists while I take his feet and we run as fast as we possibly can with him, rushing through the lounge and getting him into my bedroom and onto the bed in a very impressive speed for two girls who are half the size of the vampire we’re carrying. Instinct completely takes me over as I turn him onto his back, unfolding the blanket and offering my wrist to his mouth, which he opens, but is just too weak to drop fang and latch on. God knows how far or for how long he travelled through the daylight to get to me.

"Get me a knife, quickly.” Miley nods, scrambling off my bed and running out, returning quickly with a big, sharp carving knife I then use to slit open my wrist, letting the blood drip into his slightly open mouth. My adrenaline is pumping so much it didn't even hurt, to slash my wrist open.

"Come on, honey, feed," I urge him, stroking his head as the tears stream from my eyes, breathing a sigh of relief when his lips begin to suck at the gash in my wrist. He's so badly burned that I soon realise it will take more than what I can physically give him for him to be able to heal properly, and tell that fact to Miley.

She just nods and takes my hand, pulling it away from Angel's mouth and offering her own wrist, which this time he has the strength to bite down upon, while I press my hand around my wound to stop myself from bleeding everywhere. She lets out a little squeak in pain when he bites into her wrist, but then sits calmly and lets Angel feed from her, watching him miraculously beginning to heal until he looks just as I remember him to, closing his eyes for a few moments before he opens them again, and looks right at me.

"Happy Christmas, baby," he speaks, after sealing Miley's wrist and mine too, making me break down in tears all over again as we hug, the relief that washes through me akin to some kind of supernova as he holds me tightly to his chest, and then kisses me over and over. I hear Miley leave us politely, while I lean against him, floating in bliss. I can’t believe that only a few hours ago I was wishing with everything within me that he could come back, and now here he is, holding me tightly as he moves me to lie on top of him, his hands stroking me all over as we kiss.

"Happy Christmas to you too, you're about the best present I could have wished for!" I exclaim, still crying.

"I asked Santa for a ride here in his sleigh, but that tubby bearded bastard wouldn't offer me one, said I'd scare the reindeer," he then jokes, making me laugh.

"I love you, so much," I tell him, now laughing and crying. I can't switch the tears off, I have too many emotions running through me.

"I love you more." In no time at all, it seems my worst Christmas ever has turned into my best, better than I could have ever hoped for. He’s home. He’s okay. I have my beloved Angel back.

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creepingsharia · 5 years ago

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How the 'Interpreter' Scam Brought 75,000 Iraqis and Afghans to America

In 2017, the 4,677 Iraqi and Afghan employees brought 13,713 dependents with them for a total of 18,390 refugees. Mostly Muslim.

By Daniel Greenfield

The latest battle over Special Immigrant Visas pitted Stephen Miller, President Trump’s senior advisor, against the Pentagon. The military brass was lobbying for 6,000 special immigrant visas for Iraqis who worked for American forces in the country. These visas were once again billed as helping “interpreters”.

That’s a lot of interpreters considering that there were only 5,200 American troops in Iraq.

How could there be more Iraqi interpreters for American troops than there are troops?

The Special Immigrant Visa scam has been sold for over a decade using the same claim that it’s needed to save the lives of Iraqi and Afghan interpreters who are risking death by helping American soldiers.

In one decade, the United States has handed out 75,250 of these visas to Iraqi and Afghan employees, and their dependents. Between 2007 and 2017, they represented 1 percent of all immigrant visas.

The truth is that the military brass has wrongly used the incentive of Special Immigrant Visas to recruit local personnel and cut costs by promising them resettlement in the United States. Considering the costs of resettling even the nicest Iraqi or Afghan families, it would have been cheaper to pay each of them a six-figure salary. But that would have come out of the defense budget. The SIV scam passes the buck to local cities and states, to ordinary taxpayers and communities who have to hire interpreters who speak Pashto to interact with the children of the interpreters who are swamping local school systems.

One Iraqi or Afghan employee brings a lot more dependents and expenses with him. In 2017, the 4,677 Iraqi and Afghan employees brought 13,713 dependents with them for a total of 18,390 refugees.

Those were the worst numbers since before Obama took office.

While conventional refugee numbers have been slashed, the number of Special Immigrant Visas for Iraqis and Afghans drastically shot up because the Pentagon was getting its way on immigration. Few of these visas were for actual interpreters. That number tends to be capped at 50 a year. Most of the SIV applicants coming in had to have only worked for a few years in often vaguely defined capacities.

Some were actual interpreters. Many more were cultural advisors and linguists.

All they have to do is claim that they received threats over their work for the US or the ISAF, the multinational force in Afghanistan, and they are resettled in the United States as refugees.

While the media has repeatedly accused President Trump of stopping interpreters from coming to this country even though they, allegedly, risked their lives, the number of SIV visas for Afghans and Iraqis shot up from 10,681 in 2014, to 14,383 in 2016, to 18,390 in 2017.

That's when Stephen Miller tried to slam on the brakes.

The media complains that visa processing isn’t fast enough. And that the lives of SIV applicants are at risk every day they’re living in their own country. But bypassing vetting puts American lives at risk.

As a measure of how bad the vetting is, Ali Yousif Ahmed Al-Nouri, the Emir of an Al Qaeda group in Fallujah, entered this country as a refugee and applied for disability. He then went to work as a military contractor on a California base, teaching soldiers deploying to Iraq about the local culture. That’s the typical sort of task that many SIV visas are provided for which require little more than English skills.

Was an Al Qaeda Emir employed by the US military in Iraq? Did Al-Nouri come here on an SIV visa? The answer is he probably did, but no one seems to be especially willing to ask or answer that question.

Bilal Abood came to the United States on an SIV visa. Like many SIV applicants, he had worked as a contract linguist in Iraq. Like most SIV applicants, he claimed to have faced threats because of his work.

Once in the United States, Abood began viewing ISIS beheading videos and tweeted, “I pledge obedience to the Caliphate Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.” That was the leader of ISIS.

"The United States is the enemy of Allah," he had said.

Jasim Mohammed Hasin Ramadon and Ali Mohammed Hasan Al Juboori, Mustafa Sataar Al Feraji, Ali Mohammed Hasan Al Juboori, and Yasir Jabbar Jasim, 5 Iraqis who who came to America on SIV visas, took part in the rape of an American woman in Colorado Springs who was abused so badly that there was blood splattered on the wall. Her mistake was sympathizing with the poor hapless refugees.

That’s our mistake as a country.

Ramadon, like the other SIV applicants celebrated by the media, had an NCO lobby for him. He appeared on Oprah, was featured in a book, and became a celebrity. Then he was hit with a restraining order for choking and threatening to kill his girlfriend. His crimes ended with the brutal rape of an older woman.

But the SIV lobby doesn’t care about the woman he nearly killed. Or the threat to Americans.

District Court Judge Tanya Chutkan, an Obama appointee involved in controversial decisions, like inventing a right to taxpayer-funded abortions for illegal migrants, ruled that the Trump administration must immediately start processing visa applications for SIV migrants and bring them to America.

Meanwhile the National Defense Authorization Act of 2020 provided 4,000 more SIV slots for Afghans.

Shutting down the SIV pipeline has been painfully difficult because the refugee program has broad bipartisan support from both Democrats and Republicans in Congress, and from military brass.

---------------------------------------------

Read it all.

#Legal #Immigration #Military #Islam #Muslim #Sharia #News #Politics #Travel

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smokinholsters · 5 years ago

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The Consequence of Anger - Part 2

This is an AU One Shot in two parts, it takes place about 2 years past 8:4 when Ty hits Ahmed.

Amy was happy to hug her back, the words said back at the table two years ago though remembered didn’t hold the same salty taste they did. Two years had gone by and she missed Alberta and being home.

She’d made peace with them all except for Ty who couldn’t let go soon enough and probably still hadn’t. Amy just couldn’t deal with the heartache of it anymore. She had done what needed to be done, it was best this way and she was ready to move on.

“Why didn’t you let anyone know you were coming, is everything Ok ?”

“It’s fine Lisa, the season’s over as is my contract and I didn’t renew.”

“He offered ?”

“I’ve had several offers aside from his, I wanted to come home.”

“Well, let’s get you settled and I’ll call Lou and your dad.”

“Not tonight Lisa, not my dad, give me one day of peace.”

“Then let’s not tell Lou till later. Georgie and Katie are home and Jack should be back from the herd soon.”

She didn’t get in before both Georgie and Katie gave her hugs and kisses with explanations about why she was home early and their promise not to tell Tim or their mom. Amy and Georgie had made peace once Georgie realized the sacrifice she had made. Georgie had also matured some and becoming a young woman came with a different perspective and attitude. That and the fact that the #metoo surge in awareness was becoming front and center didn’t hurt, from any perspective. Amy was naïve for way too long, she was not that Amy anymore.

She implored Lisa that the chicken she had out was fine and not to make a fuss over dinner. She was tired and just wanted a home cooked meal and relaxation, one day before life took over.

Amy came out when Jack got in and they sat having coffee. She had removed her makeup and changed into jeans, a tank and a flannel. They talked about Europe and several of the people they had met together when the couple visited. Invariably Ty’s name came up.

“Uhm Ty ?” Jack asked. “Have you given that any thought ?”

Amy smiled “not at all Grandpa, why would coming home to Heartland make me think of Ty ?”, she was laughing by the end of the statement. “What ? not funny ?”

“You know what I mean.”

“I guess we’ll talk but do you think there’s a point ?”

Lou walked in then and was as surprised as the rest and after going through the vagaries of jumping world contracts once again settled as the fourth at the small kitchen table.

“Lisa, I need a realtor, I have to find a horse property.”

“You’re not staying here ?”

“We going to go through this again Grandpa ? I think I can have 8 Warmbloods here weeks after I can house them comfortably in a place they can be trained. You and I both know that’s not going to happen here.”

“I’ll get you some names honey.”

Amy smiled at her, Lisa didn’t question her about it at all. “How’s things at Fairfield ?”

“Oh you know, let’s change the subject.”

“Anything I can help with, what’s the problem ?”

“Thoroughbred racing follows the economy, we rode high for a time but things are a bit tight right now, I’ve thought of selling.”

“Change focus, maybe board and train like Val, at least you’re not a witch.”

“Val’s not a witch Amy.”

“Thanks Grandpa, she put Mallen on me when I was 15, should we go on ?”

“She’s changed a little since then.”

“I’ve heard about the incident with Jesse I’m not supposed to know about Grandpa, have there been others ?”

“Do you care ?”

“I’d like to know what I did meant something Lou, so yes, I care.”

“He straightened up after that, though he lost the time he made up in vet school and graduated on time rather than early.”

“And he works with Scott and that Cass now ? Who’s with Caleb ?”

“That’s all the dirt.”

“And Ty ?”

“Do you want to know ?”

“Is he seeing someone ?”

“No.”

“Well, we’re not a couple Lou and no, I have not dated.”

“You plan on calling him ?”

“Or him me, I’m sure someone is bound to run into him.”

They got Lou to agree not to let Tim know and of course she almost botched it when he called her. Thankfully for Amy he didn’t just pull up for dinner.

“Who’s in the house at Fairfield Lisa ?” Amy asked the next morning when she found herself alone with her over coffee.

“No one though the cleaning company keeps it up.”

“Ok, I’m just going to say this, how much behind are you ?”

“I’m not comfortable discussing this with you Amy.”

“How about Ms. Fleming a strange Belgium investor in town who may have a proposition ?”

Lisa smiled “please Ms. Fleming, I’m all ears.”

“Diversify, train jumpers along with the thoroughbreds.”

“Go on ?”

“As I said, I can make a call and get 8 Warmbloods here in a few weeks, maybe a month, the faster I can stall and have a place to train them the faster I can get them ready and sold.”

“That’s long term.”

“So is a breeding program which is why I asked about the money, I can still fix horses and coach jumpers and I have money.”

“I have a horse I hope to sell soon that would pretty much bail me out but that would be even. $200,000 would see us through with some light to spare.”

“I have $200,000 dollars Lisa, maybe we can work together and I can stay at Fairfield ?”

Lisa stared at her for a second and then took a sip.

Amy smiled “Cat got your tongue ? Sit with your accountant and lawyer and Grandpa and we’ll talk, in the meantime, I’ll look at properties. Can I stay at Fairfield anyway Grandma ?”

Lisa laughed, “of course you can honey and we’ll definitely talk, partners though.”

“Thank god because I’ve gotten used to laying in a hot tub and refilling it if I’m not done” Amy said laughing “partners is fine, family is better I think.”

Lisa laughed along with her “I almost envy you.”

“Oh, feel free to come by and join in the fun.”

“I can just see the expression on Jack’s face showing up at Fairfield one day and me laying in the tub.”

They made a morning of it and Lisa walked Amy around Fairfield and then the house.

“Take the master Amy, it’s got the en-suite bath and the balcony.”

“It’s a lovely space but it’s your room Lisa.”

“It’s really not, is it the bed, we’ll order a new one.”

“That’s ridiculously unnecessary.” Amy laughed.

“I’ll stay in the master, thank you.”

They decided to have lunch at Maggie’s, Amy agreed to move in about a week or so once she got some personal stuff packed and a couple boxes from Europe that were on the way. She was also expecting Spartan and wanted him to be brought to Heartland first so she’d wait for that.

Jade welcomed and sat them. After a minute she took their orders. She stared at Amy for a few seconds before Amy snapped.

“What Jade, I remember you, why are you staring at me ?”

“No reason except Ty just walked in.”

“Did you text him because you’re acting as if you did ?”

“Uhm no, he usually comes in around now for lunch.”

“Is he carrying a shotgun ?”

“Uhm no.” Jade answered.

“Then get our food please.”

After she walked away Amy looked up at Lisa “what ?”

“Nothing, you Ok ?”

“Sure, you didn’t find that odd ?”

“Whatever it’s Jade, oop heads up. Ty, how are you ?”

“I’m fine Lisa, uhm Amy, I didn’t know you were back.”

“I got in yesterday on the sly, I didn’t let anyone know. How’ve you been ?”

“Uhm fine, you think maybe we could find some time to talk ?”

“Sure, I’m back on my old number.”

“Ok, well it’s good to see you.”

“You too.”

Ty nodded “well Ok then, I’ll call and we’ll set something up.”

Amy smiled and he nodded again and walked away.

“When did he become Caleb ?”

Lisa giggled “I think it’s the shock of just seeing you without notice Amy.”

“So he didn’t hit his head or anything, has the barber closed by the way, what is that mess on his head ?”

“It’s become a thing around here that hair business, I don’t know and I’m not too fond of it either.”

“One thing you can say about Europe, men take some pride in their appearance.”

“Can’t argue with that.”

It was a few days until Ty called. Before that Amy assumed that at one point he’d just show up at Heartland and mentioned it to Jack.

“He doesn’t come around much, your dad and he are like oil and water.”

“Could have seen that coming, the pot calling the kettle black.”

“So you meeting Ty ?”

“Maggie’s for breakfast tomorrow, don’t expect anything Grandpa.”

“You don’t miss him at all ?”

“I miss having sex with him, that’s not enough.”

“So you don’t love him ?”

“I’ll always love him Grandpa but I can’t just live the life he expects me to live because it makes him comfortable. Nor is there any payment in his mind that would ever make us equal as if there was a bill to pay.”

“No but maybe he …”

“It’s Ty Grandpa, he’s too full of himself to actually want more, he doesn’t feel deserving and never will and spending the rest of my life as his psychoanalyst doesn’t interest me. I’m sorry if that sounds harsh or it disappoints you. I expected a thank you and understanding from him and I got an endless circular argument. I know it seems that I landed on my feet and in one way, career-wise it has, but emotionally, mentally…..”

“I’m sorry Amy.”

“Life goes on Grandpa, there are no fairy tale endings. Us Flemings, we’re a broken lot no better or worse than the Bordens. Not a good mix.”

They delayed Spartan’s flight from Antwerp due to weather. Her friend Lara, a trainer with the French team had him and made the call. She had grown to love Spartan on rides with Amy and watching them do liberty and didn’t want him to suffer any undo fear. So on Friday morning when Amy met Ty for breakfast she would leave from there to the the airport with Scott.

It was awkward when Ty leaned over to kiss her. She looked at him sitting for a while until he smiled. “You set the rules, no talking about Europe.”

“What is all that ?” She asked pointing at his head.

“My hair, I don’t know, you don’t like it long ?”

“You don’t, well, comb it ?”

“Well, you know how my hair is.”

“Not when it’s short and groomed” she said it with her fingers pointing this way and that at his head.

“Ok whatever” Ty said exasperatedly “how are you ?”

“I’m fine Ty and you ?”

“I’m good, well excited I guess.”

“About ?”

“Oh I’ve been talking to these guys, well Bob Granger and I….”

“Wait Bob Granger ? Poacher Bob from the rescue ?”

“No, well yes, it’s a long story, anyway have you seen that thing about the Gobi bear ?”

“Yes, it’s absolutely gross.”

“Well Vets without Borders wants to send Bob and I to Mongolia to see what we can do.”

Amy sat and listened to him go on about helping the tribes with their herds and seeing if they can help with the bears.

“I’ll be gone about 4 months I think, give or take.”

“And Scott’s Ok with this ?”

“Yeah, we’ll put some things on temporary hold but he’s good.”

“Well, sounds like an adventure for sure.”

“Think we can get together and talk again or whatever when I get back.”

“Sure, I’ll be at Fairfield, I’m partnering with Lisa.”

“Really wow, that’s amazing, not starting up the business at Heartland again ?”

“There’s no room for me at Heartland and Lisa is actually excited and open to ideas.”

“I always thought you’d go back to fixing horses.”

Here we go Amy thought, “I‘ll be fixing horses at Fairfield Ty, just doing it alongside jumpers I’m training. One of the things I’m going to talk to Scott about this afternoon when we drive over to get Spartan.”

“Oh he didn’t mention it. So, uhm, I can call when I get back ?”

“You can always call me Ty.”

He smiled that crooked half embarrassed smile before leaning across the table for another weird kiss before getting up.

She watched him leave and walked over to the counter.

“How’d that go ?” Lou asked.

“Awkward as hell. He’s off to Mongolia, seems happy, what can I say ? I still think he’s spending too much time with Caleb and what’s with the hair ?”

The End.

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aion-rsa · 4 years ago

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Why Riz Ahmed Committed to Punk Rock and Sign Language in Sound of Metal

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First-time director Darius Marder has crafted one of the best movies of the year in Sound of Metal. Riz Ahmed (Rogue One, Venom) stars as Ruben, a recovering addict and heavy metal drummer who tours the country with his musical and romantic partner, Lou (Olivia Cooke). Their nomadic existence is upended when Ruben experiences a sudden, terrifying loss of hearing.

Told by doctors that he may have little to no chance of regaining his hearing, the drummer is convinced by Lou to check himself into a sober house for the deaf. The home is managed by a no-nonsense fellow addict and Vietnam vet named Joe (Paul Raci). Yet even as he settles into a new existence there, learning sign language and teaching drums to deaf children, Ruben is haunted by the urge to find a way to reclaim his old life.

Den of Geek spoke with Marder, who co-wrote the film with his brother Abraham. The director was inspired to prursue the movie by a project called Metalhead that he worked on with friend and collaborator Derek Cianfrance (The Place Beyond the Pines). Metalhead was a documentary/narrative hybrid about a real husband-and-wife noise duo called Jucifer, which Marder used as the springboard for Ruben and Lou’s fictional band, Blackgammon.

“Derek’s such an awesome filmmaker,” says Marder. “He and I, we’re actually quite different in that we come from very different places, very different upbringings, and even our taste is different in ways, but we have this commonality. We just really are interested in this cross section of raw visceral truth and where that meets fiction.”

Marder explains that Metalhead began life as a documentary about Jucifer but became a mash-up of documentary and fiction after the drummer developed mild tinnitus. That narrative thread, along with research and filming that Cianfrance did in the deaf community in Atlanta, provided the seed for what ended up becoming Sound of Metal.

One aspect of Sound of Metal that is apparent right from the start is the film’s authenticity, beginning with the underground metal and punk live circuit that is the basis of Ruben and Lou’s life when we meet them.

“I’ve played a lot of music in my life, and my brother’s a musician as well,” says Marder. “In my teens, I was really in more of that punk hardcore scene and more of the Fugazi and Sonic Youth world of it. But I think that there’s a real commonality in there of experience and visceral raw experience. That was my world from when I was young, so I get really hot and bothered by movies that pretend, that show this fake music and this fake musical experience–it’s just such a bummer.”

Marder adds, “But at the same time, I remember Derek saying to me, ‘I don’t know how you’re going to make this movie, how are you going to do that in a true way?’ That was really the challenge. It was a challenge that really inspired me, it lit me up, because the act of striving for something real is the greatest gift you can give any actor–the act of building something that’s physical and visceral. Almost misguidedly, I scared the living shit out of every single actor I ever met for this role. That was by design.”

The director informed potential stars that they would have to learn to play the drums for real, without resorting to cutaway shots or using another drummer’s hands or feet for the close-ups. The actors would also perform live at a real-life club (the Middle East in Cambridge, Massachusetts) in front of a real audience of, as Marder puts it, “actual music lovers that are specific to this subset of music.” Marder adds that his plan was to make the music sequences “impossible to fake.”

“Instead of saying, ‘I’ll make you look good,’ I’m saying, ‘You better make you look good. You have to own that and there’s no safety net.’ That’s the way we approached it. It’s actually the way we approached everything in this movie. It was the same with ASL (American Sign Language). You can’t just learn the lines, you have to be able to improvise with the deaf community in the same way that Ruben would after, say four to six months. You have to get to that level. That’s your job.”

The reality of living with deafness and becoming part of the deaf community was embraced fully by Ahmed, who took to that aspect of Ruben’s life with the same immersion that he used to approach Ruben’s musical abilities.

“Riz took a dive with ASL that I didn’t take,” recalls Marder. “I was too busy putting the film together. I was also spending a lot of time with the deaf community as I was doing that, but I never got to the level of proficiency with ASL that Riz did. But also Riz is 95 times smarter than I am. I think he must have a photographic memory. He’s extraordinary and his physicality is extraordinary. He doesn’t just learn ASL, he embodies it. Remember ASL is 50 percent in your face. Riz just took to it.”

While Ahmed dove immediately into learning ASL and educating himself about the deaf community, another crucial piece of the puzzle was finding an actor to play Joe, the sober house manager who was not deaf early in his life but lost his hearing in Vietnam.

“Finding Paul [Raci] was really hard,” reveals Marder. “That was a real gamble, and a very hard one because there’s some very nuanced aspects to the character of Joe that he’s playing. He’s late-deafened in the script, a Vietnam veteran, a person who came from hearing culture but went deaf later in life so he doesn’t have the deaf accent in his voice. So there was all these subsets to that character.”

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Although Marder initially looked for a deaf person to play Joe, he says that to get the movie financed he was “encouraged” to look outside the deaf community and meet with some name actors. “Probably the most alluring of them was Robert Duvall,” he admits. “I refused to have a meeting, partially because I said to the agent, ‘I’m not going to say no to Robert Duvall, therefore, I can’t meet with him because he’s not going to do what he can’t do.’ You cannot pretend this. I said, ‘I can guarantee you, he’s not going to want to spend three years learning sign language for a first time director.’”

It was soon after that Marder became aware of children of deaf adults (CODAs): “It wasn’t until I opened it up to CODAs that I found Paul [who is one], and Paul found me, and delivered the tape that just blew me away. Not only is he a two time Vietnam War veteran and has dealt with addiction and taught deaf AA groups, but the man’s been acting for 30 years. It was like finding a Picasso. It was like finding this outrageously talented person just hiding in plain sight.”

Raci’s performance in the film is so natural and so entwined with his own personal experiences that it just provided more verisimilitude to a movie already steeped in the real lives and journeys of people living with deafness. Marder tells us that much of his own experience making Sound of Metal can be summed up by a video he took one morning in Brooklyn, shortly after Riz Ahmed moved there to begin prepping for the shoot.

“I went to go get a coffee early in the morning, as is my pattern,” he remembers. “I go walking up to this coffee shop, I look to my right, and there’s Riz sitting at a table with Jeremy Stone, his sign instructor. They’re just talking in ASL, just having a full on conversation. I stood there watching this guy, on his own steam doing this, which he had been doing every day. I just thought, ‘This is the greatest gift. This is just so extraordinary.’ All those moments I just relish.”

Sound of Metal premieres this Friday, Dec. 4 on Amazon Prime Video.

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dragnews · 6 years ago

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Special Report: As sanctions bit, Iranian executives bought African…

LONDON/NAIROBI (Reuters) – In January, the Comoros Islands quietly canceled a batch of its passports that foreigners had bought in recent years. The tiny nation off the east coast of Africa published no details of its reasons, saying only that the documents had been improperly issued.

FILE PHOTO: An Iranian woman walks past an anti-U.S. mural on the wall of the former U.S. embassy in Tehran October 12, 2011. REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl/File Photo

But a confidential list of the passport recipients, reviewed by Reuters, indicates the move meant more than the government let on. Reuters found that more than 100 of 155 people who had their Comoros passports canceled in January were Iranians. They included senior executives of companies working in shipping, oil and gas, and foreign currency and precious metals – all sectors that have been targeted by international sanctions on Iran. Some had bought more than one Comoros passport.

Diplomats and security sources in the Comoros and the West are concerned that some Iranians acquired the passports to protect their interests as sanctions crimped Iran’s ability to conduct international business. While none of the people or companies involved faced sanctions, the restrictions on Iran could still make a second passport helpful. Comoros passports offer visa-free travel in parts of the Middle and Far East and could be used by Iranians to open accounts in foreign banks and register companies abroad.

The Iranian government does not formally allow the country’s citizens to hold a second passport. However, an Iranian source familiar with the buying of foreign passports said Iran’s Ministry of Intelligence had given the green light for some senior business figures to acquire them to facilitate travel and business transactions.

The Iranian government and its embassy in London did not respond to requests for comment.

Houmed Msaidie, a former Comoros interior minister who was in office when some of the passports were issued, said he suspected some Iranians were “trying to use Comoros to get around sanctions.” He said he had pushed for further checks before passports were granted to foreigners, but did not elaborate.

The U.S. Treasury declined to comment, saying it did not discuss current investigations.

Kenneth Katzman, a Middle East expert at the U.S. Congressional Research Service, said that Comoros was one of a number of African nations where Iran has tried to exert trade and diplomatic influence. “Having a Comoros passport would allow them to do things without being flagged as Iranians,” he told Reuters.

In all, more than 1,000 people whose place of birth was listed as in Iran bought Comoros passports between 2008 and 2017, according to details of a database of Comoros passports reviewed by Reuters. The majority were bought between 2011 and 2013, when the international sanctions were tightened, particularly on Iran’s oil and banking sectors.

Other foreigners who bought Comoros passports include Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis, Chinese, and a handful of Westerners.

International sanctions against Iran were eased following a deal struck in 2015 aimed at preventing Iran developing nuclear weapons. In May, U.S. President Donald Trump pulled the United States out of the agreement, saying it was “defective” and a “horrible, one-sided deal.” Since then, the U.S. Treasury has imposed fresh sanctions against people it links to Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, the nation’s missile program, some Iranian airlines and money transfer services. Further U.S. sanctions will take effect in August and November.

THE BUYERS

The Comoros Islands, a nation of about 800,000 people, began its program to sell passports in 2008 as a way of raising much-needed cash. The islands arranged a deal with the governments of the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Kuwait, who wanted to provide stateless inhabitants there known as the Bidoon with identity documents, but not local citizenship. The governments would buy the Comoros passports, and then distribute them to the Bidoon.

In return, the Comoros was meant to receive several hundred million dollars to help develop its economy, whose output amounts to just $600 million a year.

At the time, the Comoros was also forging ties with Iran. The islands’ president from 2006 to 2011 was Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi, who had studied for years in the Iranian holy city of Qom.

Sambi had Iranians amongst his bodyguards, according to locals who spoke to Reuters and to research by the think-tank Chatham House, and was dubbed the “Ayatollah of the Comoros” by some islanders. In 2008, he visited Tehran. At the time, then-Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was cultivating relations with African and Latin American countries as the West turned its back on Tehran. Ahmadinejad paid a return visit to the Comoros the following year.

FILE PHOTO: View of the Semlex Group headquarters in Brussels, Belgium January 17, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo

More than 300 Comoros passports were sold to Iranians while Sambi was in power, according to data reviewed by Reuters. Sambi, who has been questioned by Comoros law enforcement as part of its investigation into the economic citizenship scheme, did not respond to requests for comment.

Sambi has been under house arrest since May 19 after being accused by the government of inciting unrest. On June 23, Jean-Gilles Halimi, a lawyer acting on Sambi’s behalf, said the restrictions placed on Sambi were an attempt by the government “to get rid of a rival.”

The passport sales continued under Sambi’s successor, Ikililou Dhoinine, who held office from 2011 until 2016. Ikililou, who has no obvious links to Iran, did not respond to requests for comment.

According to the data reviewed by Reuters, Iranians who bought Comoros passports as sanctions squeezed Iran and while Ikililou held power included:

– Mojtaba Arabmoheghi, whom the government named in 2011 as one of the top managers in Iran’s oil industry. He obtained a Comoros passport in October 2014 when he was chairman of Sepehr Gostar Hamoun, an international trading company, which has not faced sanctions. In 2016, Arabmoheghi was also a commercial consultant to a UAE-registered company called Silk Road Petroleum. The financial director of the company, Naser Masoomian, also Iranian, acquired a Comoros passport on the same day as Arabmoheghi.

Arabmoheghi and Masoomian did not respond to requests for comment. Silk Road Petroleum did not respond to a request for comment sent via its website. Sepehr Gostar Hamoun could not be contacted via telephone numbers listed for it.

– Mohammad Sadegh Kaveh, head of Kaveh Port and Marine Services, acquired a Comoros passport in 2015. Kaveh and his family are one of the main operators of Iran’s port of Shahid Rajaee in Bandar Abbas, which handles most of Iran’s container traffic.

A spokesman for Kaveh Port and Marine Services, which has not been sanctioned, said Kaveh does not have a Comoros passport and that all the company’s services are in line with Iranian and international laws. Asked why Kaveh’s details appear in a database of Comoros passports, the spokesman said the information was “tendentious” and that it was possible someone else had used Kaveh’s name.

– Hossein Mokhtari Zanjani, an influential figure in Iran’s energy sector and lawyer who handles domestic and international disputes, acquired a Comoros passport in 2013. Zanjani could not be reached for comment.

As Reuters reported last year, another person who bought a Comoros passport was Mohammad Zarrab, a gold dealer who holds both Turkish and Iranian citizenship. He was indicted in 2016 by a U.S. court for using the U.S. financial system to conduct hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of transactions on behalf of Iran. His brother, Reza Zarrab, pleaded guilty to similar charges and was the U.S. government’s star witness in the trial of a Turkish banker also accused of sanctions busting.

The whereabouts of Mohammed Zarrab are unclear. His lawyer, who said he was unaware of a country called the Comoros Islands, said he would try to seek a response from Zarrab but did not supply one to Reuters.

CHANGE OF TACK

In early 2016, the Comoros adopted a different foreign policy, severing ties with Tehran and instead supporting Saudi Arabia and other Gulf nations at odds with Iran. That May, a new administration led by Azali Assoumani came to power in the Comoros and continued the new policy.

Under Assoumani, a parliamentary commission of inquiry was set up in 2017 to investigate the program providing citizenship to the UAE and Kuwait for the Bidoon. It has examined allegations by some of the islands’ politicians that the system was improperly implemented and undermined by corruption, with passports being sold beyond the original plan.

That investigation found, in a report published in early 2018, that the UAE informed the Comoros authorities as early as 2013 that hundreds of passports had been sold to foreigners outside the program for the Bidoon.

The issue emerged after UAE security services began spotting people who were neither Comorians nor Bidoon traveling through the Gulf country on Comoros passports, a source who took part in the Comoros investigation told Reuters. Many were Iranians, the source said. The UAE did not respond to requests for comment.

A Comoros security source said that the Comorian intelligence services had received reports of people with Comoros passports being killed on the battlefields of Iraq, Syria and Somalia in recent years. The source said this was an indication of how widely Comoros passports may have been sold.

Slideshow (4 Images)

The scale of the sales, which ran to hundreds of passports, began to worry international diplomats who monitor the tiny archipelago. An official with the U.S. State Department in the region who is familiar with the passports program told Reuters: “We believe that Comoros didn’t do any vetting on the people who got their passports.”

The Comoros government did not respond to requests for comment.

The United States now imposes more stringent checks on travelers from Comoros, the U.S. diplomat said. He added that French authorities are also concerned because thousands of Comorians reside in France and there is relatively regular travel between the two nations. A spokesman for the French foreign ministry said it was aware of the sale of Comoros citizenship but could not comment on it.

The sale of Comoros passports not only poses a security risk for the West but has also done less than expected for the island nation’s economy.

According to the parliamentary report, at least $100 million in revenues from the sale of passports was not received by the government and has gone missing. Foreign Minister Souef Mohamed El Amine told Reuters: “There was money that never reached the treasury. We need the money back from the people who profited – including the foreigners.”

The government has not said where it thinks the money might have gone.

BELGIAN RAID

The passports issued by the Comoros Islands were produced by a Belgian company called Semlex, which supplies identity documents to various African countries. In January, Belgian police searched the offices of Semlex in Brussels and the home of its chief executive, Albert Karaziwan, in connection with an inquiry into Semlex’s provision of passports to the Democratic Republic of Congo.

That investigation followed a Reuters report in April last year about Congo passports. The report showed how Congo’s government was selling new biometric passports to its impoverished citizens for $180 each, and that a large chunk of the revenues was going to a UAE company owned by a relative of the country’s president.

In May, Comoros law enforcement officials raided the offices of Semlex in Comoros as part of their investigation into passport sales.

Francois Koning, a lawyer representing Semlex and Karaziwan, said Karaziwan would not comment for this article and claimed, as he did with a previous Reuters article referring to Semlex, that unidentified third parties were manipulating Reuters with the aim of damaging Karaziwan and his company.

Koning said: “Semlex Europe has no role in the decision to issue passports. This is the sole prerogative of the Comoros authorities who are the only authorized representatives to do so.” He added that Semlex “is neither responsible nor to blame for the actions or acts” that are alleged in the Comoros parliamentary report on the sale of passports, “supposing they even took place.”

Some Comoros passports were marketed via a Dubai-based company called Lica International Consulting, according to an agreement between Lica and the Comoros Islands reviewed by Reuters. Lica’s representative in Dubai is a Frenchman called Cedric Fevre, an associate of Karaziwan. Fevre and Lica did not respond to requests for comment. Henri Nader Zoleyn, a lawyer representing Fevre, said he was not aware of any activities in relation to the Comoros citizenship scheme and his client had not sought any advice on the matter.

On its website, Lica listed as a partner a Dubai-based company called Bayat Group, which is run by Sam Bayat Makou, an Iranian. According to its website, Bayat Group specializes in providing citizenship from places such as the Comoros, Malta and St. Kitts in the Caribbean.

Makou himself acquired a Comoros passport in July 2013. That passport was one of those canceled by the Comoros government early this year. Makou said Iranians acquired Comoros passports because “Comorians have better visa-free access than Iranians” to many countries, particularly in the Far East. He said his firm had done some work with Lica, which he said was licensed by the Comorian government to market Comoros passports outside the program for the Bidoon.

Following talks in May with U.S. officials, the Comoros committed to sharing information about the passports issue with U.S. agencies.

A senior U.S. State Department official in Europe told Reuters: “We look forward to working with the government of the Comoros and other nations involved” to understand the activities that the sale of Comoros passports beyond the Bidoon scheme “may have facilitated.”

Last month, too, Comoros Interior Minister Mohamed Daoudou told local media that the scandal over the sale of Comoros passports had become an international problem. “It is a terrorism issue,” he said. “It is not just a question that involves lots of money but also security on an international level.”

Reported by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin in London and David Lewis in Nairobi. Additional reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara, Ali Amir Ahmed in Moroni and John Irish in Paris. Editing By Richard Woods

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newestbalance · 6 years ago

Text

Special Report: As sanctions bit, Iranian executives bought African…

FILE PHOTO: An Iranian woman walks past an anti-U.S. mural on the wall of the former U.S. embassy in Tehran October 12, 2011. REUTERS/Morteza Nikoubazl/File Photo

The Iranian government and its embassy in London did not respond to requests for comment.

The U.S. Treasury declined to comment, saying it did not discuss current investigations.

Other foreigners who bought Comoros passports include Syrians, Afghans, Iraqis, Chinese, and a handful of Westerners.

THE BUYERS

In return, the Comoros was meant to receive several hundred million dollars to help develop its economy, whose output amounts to just $600 million a year.

At the time, the Comoros was also forging ties with Iran. The islands’ president from 2006 to 2011 was Ahmed Abdallah Mohamed Sambi, who had studied for years in the Iranian holy city of Qom.

FILE PHOTO: View of the Semlex Group headquarters in Brussels, Belgium January 17, 2018. REUTERS/Yves Herman/File Photo

The passport sales continued under Sambi’s successor, Ikililou Dhoinine, who held office from 2011 until 2016. Ikililou, who has no obvious links to Iran, did not respond to requests for comment.

According to the data reviewed by Reuters, Iranians who bought Comoros passports as sanctions squeezed Iran and while Ikililou held power included:

CHANGE OF TACK

Slideshow (4 Images)

The Comoros government did not respond to requests for comment.

The sale of Comoros passports not only poses a security risk for the West but has also done less than expected for the island nation’s economy.

The government has not said where it thinks the money might have gone.

BELGIAN RAID

In May, Comoros law enforcement officials raided the offices of Semlex in Comoros as part of their investigation into passport sales.

Following talks in May with U.S. officials, the Comoros committed to sharing information about the passports issue with U.S. agencies.

Reported by Bozorgmehr Sharafedin in London and David Lewis in Nairobi. Additional reporting by Tuvan Gumrukcu in Ankara, Ali Amir Ahmed in Moroni and John Irish in Paris. Editing By Richard Woods

The post Special Report: As sanctions bit, Iranian executives bought African… appeared first on World The News.

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newstfionline · 8 years ago

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Not ‘Lone Wolves’ After All: How ISIS Guides Plots by Remote Control

By Rukmini Callimachi, NY Times, Feb. 4, 2017

HYDERABAD, India--When the Islamic State identified a promising young recruit willing to carry out an attack in one of India’s major tech hubs, the group made sure to arrange everything down to the bullets he needed to kill victims.

For 17 months, terrorist operatives guided the recruit, a young engineer named Mohammed Ibrahim Yazdani, through every step of what they planned to be the Islamic State’s first strike on Indian soil.

They vetted each new member of the cell as Mr. Yazdani recruited helpers. They taught him how to pledge allegiance to the terrorist group and securely send the statement.

And from Syria, investigators believe, the group’s virtual plotters organized for the delivery of weapons as well as the precursor chemicals used to make explosives, directing the Indian men to hidden pickup spots.

Until just moments before the arrest of the Indian cell, here last June, the Islamic State’s cyberplanners kept in near-constant touch with the men, according to the interrogation records of three of the eight suspects obtained by The New York Times.

As officials around the world have faced a confusing barrage of attacks dedicated to the Islamic State, cases like Mr. Yazdani’s offer troubling examples of what counterterrorism experts are calling enabled or remote-controlled attacks: violence conceived and guided by operatives in areas controlled by the Islamic State whose only connection to the would-be attacker is the internet.

In the most basic enabled attacks, Islamic State handlers acted as confidants and coaches, coaxing recruits to embrace violence. In the Hyderabad plot, among the most involved found so far, the terrorist group reached deep into a country with strict gun laws in order to arrange for pistols and ammunition to be left to be left in a bag swinging from the branches of a tree.

For the most part, the operatives who are conceiving and guiding such attacks are doing so from behind a wall of anonymity. When the Hyderabad plotters were arrested last summer, they could not so much as confirm the nationality of their interlocutors inside the Islamic State, let alone describe what they looked like. Because the recruits are instructed to use encrypted messaging applications, the guiding role played by the terrorist group often remains obscured.

As a result, any remotely guided plots in Europe, Asia and the United States in recent years, including the attack on a community center in Garland, Tex., were initially labeled the work of “lone wolves,” with no operational ties to the Islamic State, and only later was direct communication with the group discovered.

In at least 10 executed attacks, officials have found that the assailant was in direct communication with planners from the Islamic State.

While the trail of many of these plots led back to planners living in Syria, the very nature of the group’s method of remote plotting means there is little dependence on its maintaining a safe haven there or in Iraq. And visa restrictions and airport security mean little to attackers who strike where they live and no longer have to travel abroad for training.

Close examination of both successful and unsuccessful plots carried out in the Islamic State’s name over the past three years indicates that such enabled attacks are making up a growing share of the operations of the group, which is also known as ISIS, ISIL or Daesh.

“They are virtual coaches who are providing guidance and encouragement throughout the process--from radicalization to recruitment into a specific plot,” said Nathaniel Barr, a terrorism analyst at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, who along with Daveed Gartenstein-Ross wrote one of the first articles discussing the virtual plotters.

“If you look at the communications between the attackers and the virtual plotters, you will see that there is a direct line of communication to the point where they are egging them on minutes, even seconds, before the individual carries out an attack.”

Detailing this kind of plot direction has become a critical focus of counterterrorism officials in the United States and Europe, as they try to track terror planners who pose a lasting threat and to unravel the criminal networks that the group uses as middlemen to facilitate attacks.

Mr. Yazdani’s case presents one of the most detailed accounts to date of how the Islamic State is exporting terrorism virtually. This style of attack has allowed the terrorist group’s reach to stretch into countries as disparate as France and Malaysia, Germany and Indonesia, Bangladesh and Australia. And plots have been discovered in multiple locations in the United States, including in Columbus, Ohio, the suburbs of Washington and upstate New York.

“I fear this is the future of ISIS,” said Bridget Moreng, an analyst whose research on the virtual plotters was recently published in Foreign Affairs.

Investigation documents from Europe show that a growing share of attacks bear signs of contact with the Islamic State’s stronghold, even though the attacker was initially described as acting alone.

The first time that officials in Europe described an attack as having been “télécommandé,” or remote-controlled, was in the spring of 2015 after a young information technology student named Sid Ahmed Ghlam tried to open fire on a church in the Paris suburb of Villejuif. Instead, he shot himself in the leg.

When the police conducted a search of his car, they found his Lenovo laptop containing a series of messages showing how he, too, had been guided by a pair of handlers who provided both the weapons and the getaway car, according to hundreds of pages of police and intelligence records obtained by The Times.

“OK, brother, now pay attention,” one of the messages begins, instructing the then-23-year-old to head to the suburb of Aulnay-sous-Bois, where he would find the automatic weapons in a bag left in a locked car parked near a sandwich shop. “Search among the cars that are parked there near the big road and look for a Renault Mégane,” the message said. “Look at the front right tire--you’ll find the keys placed on top.”

The handler then instructed him to store the weapons in another car in a parking garage 10 miles away, a precaution in case his apartment was searched.

Later, French investigators said they had found that Mr. Ghlam’s handlers were French citizens who had traveled to Syria to join the Islamic State. They, in turn, tapped their criminal network back in France in order to arrange the logistics of Mr. Ghlam’s plot.

Seamus Hughes, the deputy director of the Program on Extremism at George Washington University, said the handlers were essentially “quarterbacking” the attack: “They’re from there, so they can essentially tell someone, ‘O.K., go 10 yards and go this way.”

Wiretaps, interrogation records and transcripts of chats recovered on suspects’ phones and laptops show that this level of guidance has occurred all over the world.

In Germany, a man who set off a bomb outside a music concert and a teenager who assaulted train passengers with an ax were both chatting with handlers until minutes before their respective attacks. The teenager’s handler urged him to use a car instead of an ax--“The damage would be much greater,” the handler advised--but the young man said he did not have a driving permit. “I want to enter paradise tonight,” the teenager said, according to a transcript obtained by a German newspaper.

In northern France, a pair of attackers who had been guided by an Islamic State cybercoach slit the throat of an 85-year-old priest. The pair did not know each other, and according to the investigative file, the handler had introduced them, organizing for them to meet days before the attack. Intelligence records obtained by the Times reveal that the same handler in Syria also guided a group of young women who tried to blow up a car in front of the Cathedral of Notre-Dame in Paris.

And investigations into attacks in Malaysia, Indonesia and Bangladesh reveal that the recruits were directly communicating with Islamic State handlers who molded the plots as they took shape and helped arrange logistics, in some cases wiring money.

In several, a pattern has emerged: The attacker initially tries to reach Syria, but is either blocked by the authorities in the home country or else turned back from the border. Under the instructions of a handler in Syria or Iraq, the person then begins planning an attack at home.

Law enforcement officials describe that sequence of events in one of the most recent foiled attacks in France, where a group of people are accused of plotting to hit the popular Christmas market in the city of Strasbourg, having been given the GPS coordinates of a location to pick up weapons. At least one of the five men arrested so far had been turned back from Turkey, French prosecutors said.

While a reliance on local amateurs has allowed the Islamic State to announce that it can stage terrorism around the world, it has also led to many failed attacks.

Instead of opening fire on a church, Mr. Ghlam shot himself in the leg. Instead of laying waste to a music festival this summer, the Islamic State recruit in Germany detonated his bomb prematurely, killing only himself.

The same thing happened the day before the end of Ramadan on July 2 inside a police compound in Indonesia, where another remotely guided attacker hit the switch on his crudely assembled suicide vest.

“He didn’t even knock over the flowerpot on the ledge next to where he blew himself up,” said Sidney Jones, director of the Institute for Policy Analysis of Conflict.

Indonesian officials say that the suicide bomber had been incited to attack by Bahrun Naim, a 33-year-old Indonesian man who is now one of the Islamic State’s most prolific cyberplanners, operating from the group’s capital in Raqqa, Syria.

Initially, Mr. Naim wired money to families in Indonesia to pay for travel to Syria, officials said. Later, the bank transfers he sent were to be used to buy the chemicals needed to build explosives, according to the interrogation records of his recruits.

In just over a year, the young men he guided attempted at least six attacks, targeting a police post, a Buddhist temple and a church, as well as foreigners visiting the country. In November, a college dropout who was being guided by Mr. Naim was arrested as he prepared to attack the Malaysian Embassy. In his home, the police recovered a quantity of explosives that could have resulted in a blast twice as powerful as the 2002 Bali bombing, which killed 202 people, the police spokesman told local news media.

Yet nearly all of the plots attributed to Mr. Naim have failed. And it was human error that finally led to the arrest of Amriki’s followers in Hyderabad.

The plot began to unravel in June after the men were instructed to collect a 10-kilogram bag of ammonium nitrate left beside a canal next to mile marker No. 9 on the Vijayawada Highway.

They returned to Mr. Mohammed’s home to begin preparing a bomb, but could not figure out how to replicate the steps in the instructional YouTube video sent to them by the handler. “We could not succeed in making powder, as it became jellylike paste,” Mr. Yazdani lamented, according to the transcript of his interrogation.

They tried using a tea strainer. They tried heating it longer. They began talking on their cellphones about their efforts to “cook the rice.”

By then, the police were wiretapping their calls and suspected that all the food talk was a crude attempt at misdirection. Early on June 29, the police banged on the door of Mr. Mohammed’s home.

In his bedroom, they found the half-cooked explosive inside his refrigerator.

#India #Islamic State #lone wolves #lone wolf attacks

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