Report claims to have found 57 more guns tied to Operation 'Fast and Furious'

A new report by Spanish-language news network Univision claims previously unreported weapons can be linked to the botched Operation  "Fast and the Furious," and that the U.S. supplied some of the weapons used in a massacre of young men in Mexico in 2009.

The report aired on the channel Sunday night in Spanish and a partial transcript was translated by Fox News. 

In the report, Univision identifies a total of 57 more previously unreported firearms that were bought by straw purchasers monitored by ATF during Operation "Fast and Furious," and then recovered in Mexico in sites related to murders, kidnappings and other actions by Mexican hit men and drug cartels.

The report also reveals that the Obama administration may have indirectly played a role in the 2009 massacre, where 18 young men were killed at a rehabilitation center in the violent border city of Ciudad Juarez. The massacre was reportedly ordered and carried out by Mexican hit men.

According to a Mexican army document obtained by Univision, three of the high caliber weapons used in the attack were linked to a gun tracing operation run by the ATF. The partial transcript obtained by Fox News did not specify whether this was Operation "Fast and Furious," or another similar ATF operation.

The "Fast and Furious" program caught the attention of Congress and the rest of the country after weapons from "Fast and Furious" were found at the crime scene of murdered U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry. 

One Justice Department official resigned and another retired after an inspector general report on the probe faulted multiple agencies for letting it get out of hand. Another 14 officials were forwarded for possible disciplinary action.

Source : foxnews[dot]com Read More

Al Qaeda affiliate, Islamist militia eyed in ‘coordinated’ consulate attack in Libya, sources say

The attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, last week was a joint operation orchestrated by an Al Qaeda affiliate in North Africa and the Islamist militia Ansar Al-Sharia, an intelligence source told Fox News, citing evidence collected so far in the investigation.

About 100 attackers carried out the "coordinated assault,” intelligence sources said, further discrediting earlier Obama administration claims that the deadly attack was a "spontaneous" outburst in response to an anti-Islam film.

Fox News' sources say the attack came in two waves and involved rocket-propelled grenades, as well as mortar fire, and both the consulate and safe house were attacked seemingly with inside knowledge.

Ansar Al-Sharia is not directly affiliated with Al Qaeda, but has sympathetic goals. Ansar has tried and failed to establish an Islamic state in eastern Libya. The militia is a name adopted by a handful of groups, including Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

A senior Arab government official told Fox News in December 2011 that it was an effort to “rebrand” because the Al Qaeda name had so much baggage.

Libyan officials are now "absolutely convinced" the attack was preplanned, sources say, adding to recent indications that Al Qaeda was involved, specifically a former Guantanamo detainee named Sufyan Ben Qumu.

Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Chris Stevens, were killed in the strike, which occurred on the 11th anniversary of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

White House Press Secretary Jay Carney and Susan Rice, the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, initially described the attack on the consulate as spontaneous with little evidence of a well-planned assault. Administration officials also pointed to the anti-Islam film that has fueled protests in the Mideast against the United States, suggesting the consulate attack may have begun as one of those protests and escalated.

But this week, the administration began shifting its explanations for the attack, with National Counterterrorism Center Director Matt Olsen testifying before the Senate on Wednesday that it was a "terrorist attack."

Carney followed up by saying for the first time Thursday that it was "self evident" that the attack was an act of terrorism, but President Obama seemed to backtrack a bit when pressed later that day by a TV interviewer. Obama did not reference terrorism, instead invoking the controversial film, which some analysts have said is being used as a tool of extremists to incite violence.

Qumu, the former Guantanamo Bay detainee, is a Libyan who was released from the U.S. prison in Cuba in 2007 and transferred into Libyan custody on the condition he be kept in jail.

He was released by the Qaddafi regime as part of its reconciliation effort with Islamists in 2010.

His Guantanamo files also show he has ties to the financiers behind the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. The declassified files also point to ties with the Libyan Islamic Fighting Group, a known Al Qaeda affiliate.

Fox News' Bret Baier, Catherine Herridge and Pamela Browne contributed to this report.

Source : foxnews[dot]com Read More

Consulate attack planned as 2-part militant assault, Libyan official says

A Libyan official said Thursday that the deadly attack on the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi was a planned, two-part operation that included a raid on a supposedly secret safe house -- an account that comports with what a top U.S. lawmaker told Fox News a day earlier. 

On Wednesday, House Intelligence Committee Chairman Mike Rogers told Fox News that the strike was a "coordinated, military-style" operation. 

Wanis al-Sharef, eastern Libya's deputy interior minister, then said on Thursday the attacks were suspected to have been timed to mark the 9/11 anniversary and that the militants used civilians protesting an anti-Islam film as cover for their action. 

He said U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens and another official were killed in the consulate, but that the attackers timed a second wave on the safe house just as Libyan and U.S. security forces were arriving to rescue evacuated consulate staff. 

He said that second wave killed two more Americans and wounded nearly 30 Libyans and Americans. 

The comments continued to contradict initial reports that the attack was a product of angry and violent protests over an anti-Islam film. 

Rogers told Fox News he has "no doubt" it was a planned attack and had nothing to do with the film. 

"It was a coordinated, military-style, commando-type raid," Rogers said. Based on his own briefings, Rogers said "military movements" were involved. 

"This was a well- planned, well-targeted event. No doubt about it," Rogers said. He said the Al Qaeda-linked Imprisoned Omar Abdul Rahman Brigades is one group being looked at by officials. 

Senior Obama administrations who discussed the attack late Wednesday could not say whether it was coordinated or spontaneous. 

But they, too, described a two-phase assault. 

They said the attack started at about 10 p.m. local time on Tuesday, when the main consulate building started taking fire. Shortly before midnight, everybody in that building was evacuated to a nearby annex. 

However, at midnight the annex came under fire as well. During the two-hour attack, officials said, two more Americans were killed. 

Fox News' Catherine Herridge and The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Source : foxnews[dot]com Read More

BlueToad Takes Credit for All those Leaked iOS Device IDs

Remember when the hacking collective Operation AntiSec published 12 million Apple Unique Device Identifiers (UDIDs) and claimed they'd stolen them from an FBI laptop?

Well, the data didn't come from the FBI, and as Apple is phasing out the UDID with iOS 6's new API, the hack was little more than an embarrassment for anyone.

The actual source of the stolen data came forward this morning with a public apology, after reaching out to and cooperating with the criminal investigation of the hack. BlueToad Inc., a digital publishing company that has released 139 iPhone apps and 150 iPad apps, acquired the UDID data through its regular, above-board operations, and did not have access to iOS users' account information or credit card numbers.

After cross-checking the published UDID list with the company's records, BlueToad CEO Paul DeHart told NBC with a "100% confidence level, it's our data." Given that the FBI denied having any Apple UDIDs on file, and that Apple denied ever giving them out, this certainly makes more sense.

Still convinced it's a conspiracy? Share your theory in the comments.

Jon Fox is a Seattle hipster who loves polar bears and climbing trees. You can follow him on Twitter and IGN. 

Source : feeds[dot]ign[dot]com Read More