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Twin girls die after being left in hot car; drunk father charged with manslaughter Associated Press / August 5, 2016 A father was charged with manslaughter Friday in the deaths of his 15-month-old twin girls, who were left in a hot car in their west Georgia town. Witnesses heard screams and saw Asa North running from the parking lot in front of his home, carrying the toddlers to an inflatable kiddie pool out back. He and his neighbors tried to revive them with water and ice packs, but they were too far gone. Outside temperatures were in the 90s shortly before police were called at about 6:30 p.m. Thursday. North, 24, is charged with two counts of involuntary manslaughter and two counts of reckless conduct. "I think possibly alcohol was a factor in some of his decisions that day, and maybe played a factor in this," said Carrollton police Capt. Chris Dobbs, who identified the girls as Ariel North and Alaynah North. A man with North had been drinking heavily, and "we believe the father had been drinking that day also," Dobbs said. Police tested North's blood-alcohol level and were awaiting results from a lab, he said. The girl's mother was at Grady Memorial Hospital in Atlanta at the time, visiting her sister, who had been in a serious car crash Wednesday, Dobbs said. "I guess he forgot about the kids and left them in the car," said Donnie Holland, the twins' uncle. "He should have took care of them kids better than that, what he did. He should have never been in the house asleep. He should have got the kids out of the car the time he got out of the car, you know." It wasn't immediately clear who discovered that the twins were unresponsive in their child seats in the back of the SUV. "The neighbors heard some screaming — I guess coming from the father — and saw him running around back with the two children," Dobbs said. Arriving officers performed CPR after finding people trying to cool the girls off in the baby pool. "One of the neighbors got some ice packs out of the freezer and carried it out there," Dobbs said. The twins were pronounced dead at a hospital. Autopsies were being done at the Georgia Bureau of Investigation crime lab. The twins died as prosecutors in another metro Atlanta county prepare for the murder trial of Justin Ross Harris, 35, who is accused of intentionally leaving his toddler son to die in a hot SUV for about seven hours in 2014. Harris' trial was moved to the coastal Georgia city of Brunswick after a judge agreed with defense lawyers that an impartial jury could not be found in the Atlanta area. The trial is expected to begin in September. .

More like Ford Australia-designed global Ford Ranger is (finally) coming to the North American market, the only global region that Ford has excluded it from. There are 2 diesel options, the 2.2L 4-cylinder and the 3.2L 5-cylinder. Will both be offered in the US market? While the 3.2L is a blast, I can assure all that the 2.2L has plenty of power to satisfy most people's expectations, with of course the better fuel economy. Hopefully its SUV stablemate, the Everest, will join it. I hope they don't rebadge it as Bronco. The Bronco is a signature Ford product, but the Everest is not a Bronco. The appearance is all wrong, for being a Bronco. About Iveco, that was years ago. Any non-compete clause has expired, and that would have only pertained to the (western) European market. I predict the new-for-2016 Avon Lake F-650/750 will retain the steel Super-Duty cab until the next refresh. And since it's a low-volume, low-priority product, that could be 5 years down the road.

Reuters / August 5, 2016 Consumer Reports urged the Justice Department to hike compensation for 475,000 owners of Volkswagen diesel vehicles that skirt U.S. emisisions rules, and allow owners who opt for a fix the right to later reconsider the decision. In comments filed on Friday on the proposed agreement, Consumer Reports said the buyback offer undervalues retail prices [no surprise there] and urged the use of values that "would lead to buyback offers for consumers that would be at least several hundred dollars higher." Consumer Reports also wants owners who opt for a fix to be able to change their mind and instead sell the car back to Volkswagen because the car may perform differently once a fix is performed. The public comment period for the Volkswagen consent decrees ends on Friday. U.S. District Judge Charles Breyer granted preliminary approval on July 26 to the settlement, which includes the largest-ever U.S. automotive buyback offer, and set an Oct. 18 hearing to grant final approval. Volkswagen agreed to spend up to $10.033 billion on the buyback for 2.0-liter vehicles that emit up to 40 times legally allowable pollution. It has agreed to separate settlements worth $5.3 billion to offset excess polluting, boost clean vehicles and compensate more than 40 U.S. states. Consumer Reports said it generally supported the settlement, but urged "regulators to wield robust oversight of Volkswagen to ensure that the company implements its recall, investment, and mitigation programs appropriately" and it called on "federal and state officials to assess tough civil penalties and any appropriate criminal penalties against the company in order to hold it fully accountable." VW still faces fines for violating the U.S. Clean Air Act and a potential consent decree that would subject it to oversight by an independent monitor, and must resolve the fate of 85,000 3.0 liter polluting vehicles. It also faces new civil suits from New York, Maryland and Massachusetts for violating state environmental laws as well as an ongoing Justice Department criminal investigation.

Nice clean clothes and shoes. No ordinarily prudent person would say these trendy, mostly well-dressed individuals fit the description of "refugees". Where are the women, the mothers? Where are the children? The majority of the alleged refugees are well-fed able-bodied young men (Hmm)...........who want to come "milk" the west, without any respect for it. .

US poised to take in 10,000 Syrian refugees by September Associated Press / August 5, 2016 After a slow start, it appears increasingly likely that the Obama administration will hit its goal of admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees [economic migrants and terrorists] into the United States before the end of September. State Department figures show that 2,340 Syrian refugees arrived last month in the United States. That's more than what occurred during the entire seven months after President Barack Obama directed his team to prepare for 10,000 admissions from the war-torn country. Total admissions for the current budget year, which ends Sept. 30, now come to about 7,900, and the vast majority of them are Sunni Muslims, records show. If the pace from June and July continues this month, the target should be reached with a couple weeks to spare before Obama heads to the United Nations to urge world leaders to admit more refugees and to increase funding for relief organizations. The U.N. General Assembly is holding a summit to address the large movements of refugees and migrants that stems primarily from conflicts in the Middle East and Africa. Obama would have been hard-pressed to make the case for other countries to do more with the U.S. failing to reach a goal that amounts to only about 2 percent of the 480,000 Syrian refugees in need of resettlement. [Are they actually in need of resettlement?…..Or should those able bodied men being staying and fighting for their country?] Organizations that help relocate Syrian refugees said the White House and other administration officials have grown increasingly confident of hitting the target. "They put more resources on it, which is allowing more individual's to be processed and therefore able to travel," said Stacie Blake, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants, one of nine groups that help resettle Syrian refugees. Obama's call for 10,000 entries this year was criticized by most Republican governors and the GOP presidential candidates, who argued that the government lacked an adequate screening system to prevent suspected terrorists from slipping into the U.S. Extremist attacks in Europe and the U.S. have increased concerns about immigration. An Associated Press-GfK poll conducted in early July showed that 69 percent of Republicans say they favor the temporary ban on Muslim immigration. Overall, Americans opposed such a ban by a margin of 52 percent to 45 percent. [And yet every American we know is for the ban….hmm] Rep. Vern Buchanan, R-Fla., sent a letter to Obama on Thursday calling on him to stop accepting Syrian refugees as a matter of national security. "We are seeing a clear pattern in which a number of recent attacks have been carried out by ISIS terrorists with ties to Syria," Buchanan said. He cited the killing of a French priest, the murder of a German woman with a machete and a bombing at a German music festival as examples. The White House has emphasized that the screening process for refugees takes 12 months to 18 months and includes in-person interviews and a review of biographical and biometric information. The administration also has said it is focused on bringing in refugees who are in the most desperate situations, such as families with children and those in need of medical care. In the year prior to Obama's new target, the U.S. accepted about 1,680 Syrian refugees. Secretary of State John Kerry, speaking with reporters during a visit to Buenos Aires, Argentina, said the United States has developed "sufficient methods" of screening would-be refugees. "We are very comfortable that we are bringing people in who will be a great plus to our country." Kerry said. Kerry said that "not one event in the United States, of terror" has been committed by a refugee allowed to resettle in the U.S. But two Iraqi refugees were arrested in 2011 for plotting to send weapons and money to al-Qaida operatives fighting against U.S. troops back in Iraq. The scheme was foiled, but the case did leave jitters about whether extremists could slip in among the Syrian refugees. "We believe ... the people who are fleeing Syria are the most harmed by terrorism. They are parents. They are children. They are orphans," Kerry said. "It is very important that we do not close our hearts to the victims of such violence." Kerry also applauded Argentina's pledge to resettle 3,000 Syrian refugees in the South American country and said the United States is committed to working with the government there on security issues.

Trade Trucks AU / August 5, 2016 As it closes in on a decade on Australian roads, Hino says its 300 Series Hybrid still tops the market Hino Australia is celebrating its 300 Series Hybrid’s continued market success as the truck heads towards a decade on the road. Since its launch in 2007, the diesel-electric light-duty truck has topped the hybrid sales market in Australia with 481 units sold. Hino Australia chairman and chief executive officer Steve Lotter says the sales stem from a more environmentally-conscious consumer and transport industry. "Global demand for a low greenhouse gas emission truck gave us the perfect opportunity to provide our proven hybrid solution to Australian businesses," Lotter says. "We stepped into a truck market unfamiliar with diesel-electric technology and implemented the world's best hybrid system thanks to our Toyota Group connection." That connection sees the integration of an electric motor found in the Toyota Hybrid Synergy Drive system – seen in consumer vehicles such as the Prius and Camry Hybrid – into the 300 Series trucks. According to Hino, independent tests in 2012 found the hybrid models reduce fuel consumption, CO2 emissions, and costs by 21 per cent in pick-up and delivery roles in metropolitan Sydney. Over the course of 100km, Hino says operators saved approximately 6.66 litres of fuel and 179.35 grams of CO2 emissions. "The research and development by Toyota and our global Hino counterparts ensured our product delivered on our promise of quality, durability and reliability," Lotter says. "For our local customers, recognising that the Hino Hybrid helps save fuel and increase the bottom line has made it the preferred choice for fleets of all sizes." The hybrid and electric topic has been on the tongue of many truck manufacturers in recent times with Telsa and Mercedes-Benz announcing truck plans, Scania trialling its hybrid truck on Swedish electric highways, and Adgero speaking about its new regenerative braking-powered UltraBoost ST at ComVec 2016. .

Terrorist Suspects in Europe Got Welfare Benefits While Plotting Attacks The Wall Street Journal / August 3, 2016 Belgian financial investigators looking into recent terror plots have discovered a disturbing trend: Some of the suspects were collecting welfare benefits until shortly before they carried out their attacks. At least five of the alleged plotters in the Paris and Brussels terror attacks partly financed themselves with payments from Belgium’s generous social-welfare system, authorities have concluded. In total they received more than €50,000, or about $56,000 at today’s rate. The main surviving Paris suspect, Salah Abdeslam, collected unemployment benefits until three weeks before the November attacks—€19,000 in all. At the time, he was manager and part-owner of a bar, which Belgian officials say should have made him ineligible. Many of the participants in a disrupted Belgian terror plot also had been on the dole, according to the judge who sentenced more than a dozen people in the so-called Verviers cell last month. Police thwarted the plot early last year, finding explosives, weapons and police uniforms after a shootout that killed two people. The revelations raise a difficult conundrum for Europe. On one hand, the modern welfare state is a primary tool for combating poverty as well as integrating immigrants. On the other, officials are working hard to find and stop potential sources of revenue for those bent on committing terrorist atrocities. “We’ve identified that the benefit system is vulnerable to abuse for terrorist financing purposes,” said Tom Keatinge, director of the Centre for Financial Crime and Security Studies at the Royal United Services Institute in London. “What are we going to do about that?” European governments may want to give benefits in the form of vouchers, or re-examine their hands-off approach to how people spend their benefits, Mr. Keatinge said. “If you’re paying benefit to people in certain parts of Brussels, maybe you need to be a little more observant about who you’re paying to, and what they might be doing with it.” All of the Paris and Brussels terror suspects known to have received welfare were EU citizens. Philippe de Koster, director of Belgium’s Financial Intelligence Processing Unit, said security and welfare officials need better coordination to avoid benefits being paid to “people suspected of financing terrorist activities.” That would require a change in law, because currently benefits can be cut only after a person is convicted of terrorism, or the suspect leaves the country. Mr. de Koster, whose agency investigated the financial side of the Paris and Brussels attacks, said there is no evidence that welfare benefits were used by the alleged plotters to directly finance those attacks. But, he said, “social-welfare benefits provided them with livelihoods and indirect support for their terrorist activities.” In some cases, Mr. de Koster said, suspects transferred welfare money onto prepaid debit cards that later were used in the twin attacks. Stemming terror financing has been a major goal of governments around the globe. While the focus has been on depriving Islamic State of oil revenue and other macro financing sources, officials also are trying to cut off local funding avenues for small-cell and lone-wolf attacks. The task is difficult because the sums are so small. Officials have estimated it cost less than €30,000 to carry out the Paris attacks, and less than €3,000 for the Brussels attacks. The Tunisian immigrant who mowed down scores of people in Nice, France, paid €1,600 to rent the truck used in the attack, prosecutors said. Government officials have identified student-loan fraud, insurance scams and robbery as among the money sources for terror suspects in the West. Islamic State itself suggested welfare benefits as a financing source, in a 2015 manual called “How to Survive in the West: A Mujahid Guide.” In a section headed “Easy Money Ideas,” the manual suggested “if you can claim extra benefits from a government, then do so.” European countries including Belgium, France, Netherlands and Denmark collectively have cut off hundreds of people from welfare after discovering they had traveled to Syria to fight with Islamic State. Legislation pending in the Netherlands would make it easier to cut off suspected foreign terrorist fighters after a finding by intelligence services. “We don’t want violent jihadist activities to be funded by Dutch taxpayers,” Minister of Social Affairs Lodewijk Asscher has said. People who return from Syria and are prosecuted won’t get benefits restored; those who aren’t prosecuted must reapply. In Belgium, officials last fall found that seven suspected foreign fighters who had left the country and 15 returnees from Syria were receiving unemployment benefits. Five proven to be in Syria were cut off, officials said, but there were no legal grounds to suspend payments to the others. Since the Brussels attacks in March, checks by officials have become more frequent, one Belgian official said. One in April by the National Employment Office, conducted after revelations by the public broadcaster, found that 14 terrorism detainees had received benefits while in prison. Fred Cauderlier, the Belgian prime minister’s spokesman, said a law was changed following the Paris attacks to prevent people convicted of terrorism from receiving benefits while in jail. He defended his country’s welfare system and said it would be an “offensive intellectual shortcut” to say that welfare benefits sponsored the Paris and Brussels attacks. “This is a democracy,” he said. “We have no tools to check how people spend their benefits.” In Belgium, people exiting prison often receive social benefits to help reintegrate into society. This was the case with Khalid el-Bakraoui, who served two years in prison before blowing himself up in the Maelbeek subway station in Brussels in March. Bakraoui was given jobless benefits in early 2014, after a stint in prison for armed robbery and carjacking. In total, he collected about €25,000 in unemployment, medical and other benefits, according to one of the people familiar with the case. He wasn’t shut off until last December, when Belgian authorities issued a warrant for him in connection with the Paris attacks. He went underground, and using fake IDs rented several hide-outs used by the Paris and Brussels attackers. He later was glorified by Islamic State as one of the main organizers of the March massacre in the Belgian capital. .

Heartbreaking? This group intentionally decided to illegally enter the United States, rather than applying at their U.S. Embassy to immigrate legally. Ignoring U.S. immigration law, they paid a bribe to climb into the back of a trailer that can not be opened from the inside. As of today, have all of those 39 illegal immigrants been deported? Note that the government and media have now replaced the term “illegal immigrant” with the softer “undocumented immigrant” language, because they don’t want to infer these people are........”illegally”........in the United States. The common American citizen, born and raised in the United States, is expected to follow our nation’s laws. We may not agree with them, to various degrees, but we are expected to obey our laws........and we do. With that in mind, why are “illegal” immigrants, individuals who have committed the very serious crime of crossing our borders illegally, repeatedly given amnesty and allowed to stay, many at the expense of the U.S. taxpayer. Clearly, there is a double standard. If "illegal" immigrants, criminals by definition the moment they illegally entered the United States, are immune from U.S. law, would not natural-born U.S. citizens be afforded immunity from U.S. law as well? By allowing illegal immigrants to remain, an bizarre act of ignoring our established immigration laws, a tangled web is inherently woven.

Watauga Man Accused of Smuggling People Into Texas for Profit NBC Dallas/Fort Worth / October 8, 2015 A Watauga, Texas man has been indicted by a federal grand jury, accused of smuggling undocumented [i.e. illegal] immigrants into Texas for financial gain, according to the Department of Justice. On Sept. 18, deputies with the Frio County Sheriff's Department and agents with the U.S. Border Patrol responded to a 911 call from someone who said they saw several people exiting a tractor-trailer parked at a convenience store in Frio County, southwest of San Antonio. When authorities arrived, they found 39 undocumented [illegal] immigrants, including 28 men, seven women and four children, from Guatemala, El Salvador and Mexico, officials said. "We see hands sticking out of a little rear door on the trailer," said Frio County Sheriff's Sgt. Jerry Reyna. "Very heartbreaking. The youngest that was in there was a 13-year-old little boy. As soon as he jumped out of the trailer he said, 'Thank you so much. Thank you for saving us,'" said Frio County Sheriff's Deputy Aaron Ramirez. They took the accused driver, 33-year-old Drew Christopher Potter, into federal custody. He has been charged with one count of conspiracy to commit alien smuggling for financial gain and three substantive counts of transportation of undocumented immigrants. "According to the indictment, Potter conspired to transport undocumented aliens for private financial gain," the DOJ said. Police said the trailer was a refrigerated unit, but it was not working properly, and temperatures were well above 100 degrees inside. "There was a little siding in that trailer, where you could tell they were trying to make a hole to get some air," Ramirez said. Potter remains in federal custody, officials said. If convicted, he faces up to 10 years in federal prison and a maximum $250,000 fine for each count. .

Land Line / August 4, 2016 A Fort Worth trucker who pleaded guilty to smuggling 39 undocumented immigrants in the back of his trailer has been sentenced to more than three years in federal prison. U.S. District Court Judge Xavier Rodriguez sentenced 34-year-old Drew Christopher Potter to 41 months in prison during a sentencing hearing on Aug. 3. Potter had pleaded guilty in April to conspiracy to transport undocumented immigrants. In addition to the jail time, Potter was sentenced to three years of supervised release, according to court records. According to the criminal complaint, Potter was arrested Sept. 18, 2015, at a Road Ranger convenience store at Highway 57 and Interstate 35 in Frio County. The complaint states that a concerned citizen called 911 after witnessing multiple people exiting the rear of Potter’s tractor trailer. All 39 individuals were later taken to area hospitals and treated for dehydration. Potter told investigators with Homeland Security that he had picked up what he initially thought was an abandoned trailer at the request of two men who hired him via an ad on Craigslist and had previously paid him $800 on two separate occasions to drive the trailers from Laredo to San Antonio. Potter claimed that when he stopped to buy a drink at the Road Ranger, he noticed the trailer was moving and that when he opened the door, people started jumping out of the trailer. Police arrived shortly thereafter. .

So for July in Brazil: Overall market heavy truck sales are down 8% market, Volvo is down 31%.........but Scania is up 16%. Another wonderful day to be a Scania distributor.

Dagens Industri / August 4, 2016 According to the Brazilian Association of Automotive Vehicle Manufacturers (ANFAVEA): Volvo registrations of new heavy trucks over 15 tons in Brazil plunged 31 percent to 340 vehicles in July, compared with the same month last year. Compared to June 2016, July 2016 registrations rose 15 percent. The total number of new heavy truck registrations in Brazil fell 8 percent to 1,537 vehicles in July, compared with the same month last year. Compared to June 2016, July 2016 registrations rose 34 percent. Scania registrations of new heavy trucks (over 15 tons) in Brazil rose 16 percent to 372 vehicles in July, compared with the same month last year. Volvo registrations of new medium-heavy trucks in Brazil plunged 49 percent to 136 vehicles in July, compared with the same month last year. The total number of new medium-heavy truck registrations in Brazil was 1,268 vehicles in July.

MAN Truck & Bus Press Release / August 4, 2016 .

Hackers arrested after stealing more than 30 Jeeps in Texas Autoblog / August 4, 2016 It seems the news regarding vehicle hacking continues to get worse, especially when it comes to products from Fiat Chrysler Automobiles. Last year, a Jeep Cherokee in St. Louis, Missouri, was wirelessly hacked from Pittsburgh. Nissan had to shut down its Leaf app because of vulnerabilities. Now, a pair of hackers in Houston, Texas, stole more than 30 Jeeps over a six-month period. The two were arrested by police last Friday while attempting to steal another vehicle. ABC 13 in Houston reports that police had been following Michael Arcee and Jesse Zelay for several months but were unable to catch them in the act until now. The two were using a laptop to connect to and start a vehicle. It's unclear if the connection was through OBD II or USB or if the software they used has anything to do with the UConnect infotainment exploit from last year. In April, this surveillance video showed the theft of a Jeep Wrangler Unlimited. It was this footage that first led the police to Arcee and Zelay. The police began to follow and record the pair. That investigation eventually led to Friday's arrest. Both are charged with unauthorized use of a motor vehicle. In addition, Arcee is charged with felon in possession of a weapon and possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance. According to ABC 13, Homeland Security is investigating more than 100 stolen FCA vehicles that they believe were hacked using similar software. After their theft, the vehicles were brought across the border to Mexico. FCA is currently conducting an internal investigation into the matter. .

Taxpayer footed US weapons found abandoned in Aleppo, Syria RT / August 4, 2016 A vast quantity of western (mostly US) -made weapons and ammunition have been discovered in the Bani Zaid district of Aleppo. The area was recently abandoned by fighters from the Jabhat Fateh al-Sham (formerly Jabhat al-Nusra). It is considered a terrorist group by the UN and is not part of the cessation of hostilities in Syria. The group recently rebranded itself while breaking its ties with the global terror network Al-Qaeda. The majority of the weapons appear to be of US origin and include US-made anti-tank missiles system (TOW 2A), American UN0181 missiles, as well as US-made 81mm mortars and ammunition. Some of the boxes containing weapons are labeled with the letters ‘USA’. Among other weapons that can be seen in the video are a 57mm infantry mortar of a type produced in Germany, and rocket-propelled grenades (RPG) made by the Czech Republic. Security analyst and former UK counter terrorism intelligence officer Charles Shoebridge said the video appears to be “genuine”. “The United States has openly announced in the last year or so, that it is supplying anti-tank missiles, and anti-tank missiles of a type I should say that do appear to be in this video, the TOW as they are known,” to ‘moderate opposition’ in Syria, he said. Shoebdrige added that “as predicted from the start” such weapons end up “in the hands of extreme rebel groups”. In October last year a Pentagon-trained group of Syrian rebels known as Division 30, handed over their US delivered weapons to al-Sham terrorists. Shoebdrige said Washington does not resort to any “proper scrutiny” while delivering weapons to the ‘moderate’ rebel factions in Syria. That’s despite “almost certainly knowing that they will end up in the hands of the groups such as al-Nusra.” Shoebdrige doesn’t expect any change in America’s stance, noting that such groups are one of the most “effective fighters” against the Syrian government. In November 2015, the Free Syrian Army’s 1st Coastal Brigade, a US-backed rebel group, fired a U.S.-made TOW missile at a Russian helicopter on the ground. The rescue helicopter was on a search mission for the pilots of the Su-24 jet shot down by Turkey in Syria on November 24. The FSA has received US Tow missiles among other weaponry. Also in November, rebels attacked journalists with a US-made anti-tank missile. . .

Obama warns of small-scale ISIS attacks in the U.S. Reuters / August 4, 2016 President Barack Obama on Thursday touted progress he said the United States and its allies had made in the military campaign against Islamic State, but warned that the militant group still can direct and inspire attacks. The United States is leading a military coalition conducting air strikes against Islamic State in Iraq and Syria, where the group seized broad swathes of territory in 2014. It has succeeded in breaking Islamic State's grip on some towns, although it still controls its two de facto capitals, Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria. The president, criticized for suggesting Islamic State was made up of amateurs, presented a more measured assessment on Thursday. He said the last two years of the U.S.-led air and ground campaign have proved that the extremist group can be beaten in conventional military fights but that it has shown the ability to carry out damaging, small-scale attacks. "I am pleased with the progress that we've made on the ground in Iraq and Syria," said Obama, but he added: "We're far from freeing Mosul and Raqqa." While the campaign against Islamic State in Iraq, Syria and now Libya is making significant gains, the group is adapting, reverting to high-profile attacks and using the internet to recruit and train, and to encourage "lone wolf" attacks. "They've seen the degree of attention they can get with smaller-scale attacks using small arms or assault rifles," Obama said. "The possibility of either a lone actor or a small cell carrying out an attack that kills people is real." The United States must do a better job of disrupting Islamic State networks that can carry out attacks far from the group's bases in the Middle East, Obama said. "Those networks are more active in Europe than they are here, but we don't know what we don't know, and so it's conceivable that there are some networks here [in the U.S.] that could be activated," he said. "How we react to this is as important as the efforts we take to destroy ISIS, prevent these networks from penetrating," he said, using an acronym for the group. "When societies get scared they can react in ways that undermine the fabric of our society." COORDINATING WITH RUSSIA In Syria, where the United States is [finally] exploring options to cooperate with Russia militarily to defeat Islamic State, Obama said Russia's and Syria's most recent actions have raised doubts about their commitment to a pause in the conflict. This week, a Syrian rescue service operating in rebel-held territory said a helicopter dropped containers of toxic gas overnight on a town close to where a Russian military helicopter had been shot down hours earlier. http://www.bigmacktrucks.com/topic/41827-syria/?page=3#comment-341272 The opposition Syrian National Coalition accused President Bashar al-Assad of being behind the attack. Assad has denied previous accusations of using chemical weapons. The twin U.S. goals in Syria have been to end the violence that has claimed some 400,000 lives, according to United Nations estimates, and to seek a political process to replace Assad, whom Obama has said "must go." Proposals for the United States and Russia to cooperate in Syria would have them share intelligence to coordinate air strikes and prohibit the Syrian air force from attacking rebel groups considered moderate. But U.S. military and intelligence officials have called the plan naive and said U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry risks falling into a trap that Russian President Vladimir Putin has laid to discredit the United States with moderate rebel groups and drive some of their fighters into the arms of Islamic State and other extremist groups. "The U.S. remains prepared to work with Russia to try to reduce the violence and strengthen our efforts against ISIS and al Qaeda in Syria, but so far Russia has failed to take the necessary steps," Obama said, adding that he was not confident Russia or Putin could be trusted.

How a Secretive Branch of ISIS Built a Global Network of Killers The New York Times / August 3, 2016 A jailhouse interview with a German man who joined the Islamic State reveals the workings of a unit whose lieutenants are empowered to plan attacks around the world. Believing he was answering a holy call, Harry Sarfo left his home in the working-class city of Bremen last year and drove for four straight days to reach the territory controlled by the Islamic State in Syria. He barely had time to settle in before members of the Islamic State’s secret service, wearing masks over their faces, came to inform him and his German friend that they no longer wanted Europeans to come to Syria. Where they were really needed was back home, to help carry out the group’s plan of waging terrorism across the globe. “He was speaking openly about the situation, saying that they have loads of people living in European countries and waiting for commands to attack the European people,” Mr. Sarfo recounted on Monday, in an interview with The New York Times conducted in English inside the maximum-security prison near Bremen. “And that was before the Brussels attacks, before the Paris attacks.” The masked man explained that, although the group was well set up in some European countries, it needed more attackers in Germany and Britain, in particular. “They said, ‘Would you mind to go back to Germany, because that’s what we need at the moment,’” Mr. Sarfo recalled. “And they always said they wanted to have something that is occurring in the same time: They want to have loads of attacks at the same time in England and Germany and France.” The operatives belonged to an intelligence unit of the Islamic State known in Arabic as the Emni, which has become a combination of an internal police force and an external operations branch, dedicated to exporting terror abroad, according to thousands of pages of French, Belgian, German and Austrian intelligence and interrogation documents obtained by The Times. The Islamic State’s attacks in Paris on Nov. 13 brought global attention to the group’s external terrorism network, which began sending fighters abroad two years ago. Now, Mr. Sarfo’s account, along with those of other captured recruits, has further pulled back the curtain on the group’s machinery for projecting violence beyond its borders. What they describe is a multi-level secret service under the overall command of the Islamic State’s most senior Syrian operative, spokesman and propaganda chief, Abu Muhammad al-Adnani. Below him is a tier of lieutenants empowered to plan attacks in different regions of the world, including a “secret service for European affairs,” a “secret service for Asian affairs” and a “secret service for Arab affairs.” Reinforcing the idea that the Emni is a core part of the Islamic State’s operations, the interviews and documents indicate that the unit has carte blanche to recruit and reroute operatives from all parts of the organization — from new arrivals to seasoned battlefield fighters, and from the group’s special forces and its elite commando units. Taken together, the interrogation records show that operatives are selected by nationality and grouped by language into small, discrete units whose members sometimes only meet one another on the eve of their departure abroad. And through the coordinating role played by Mr. Adnani, terror planning has gone hand-in-hand with the group’s extensive propaganda operations — including monthly meetings in which Mr. Adnani chose which grisly videos to promote based on battlefield events. Based on the accounts of operatives arrested so far, the Emni has become the crucial cog in the group’s terrorism machinery, and its trainees led the Paris attacks and built the suitcase bombs used in a Brussels airport terminal and subway station. Investigation records show that its foot soldiers have also been sent to Austria, Germany, Spain, Lebanon, Tunisia, Bangladesh, Indonesia and Malaysia. With European officials stretched by a string of assaults by seemingly unconnected attackers who pledged allegiance to ISIS, Mr. Sarfo suggested that there may be more of a link than the authorities yet know. He was told that undercover operatives in Europe used new converts as go-betweens, or “clean men,” who help link up people interested in carrying out attacks with operatives who can pass on instructions on everything from how to make a suicide vest to how to credit their violence to the Islamic State. The group has sent “hundreds of operatives” back to the European Union, with “hundreds more in Turkey alone,” according to a senior United States intelligence official and a senior American defense official, both of whom spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss intelligence. Mr. Sarfo agrees with that assessment. “Many of them have returned,” he said. “Hundreds, definitely.” Vetting Recruits The first port of call for new arrivals to the Islamic State is a network of dormitories in Syria, just across the border from Turkey. There, recruits are interviewed and inventoried. Mr. Sarfo was fingerprinted, and a doctor came to draw a blood sample and perform a physical examination. A man with a laptop conducted an intake interview. “He was asking normal questions like: ‘What’s your name? What’s your second name? Who’s your mom? Where’s your mom originally from? What did you study? What degree do you have? What’s your ambition? What do you want to become?’” Mr. Sarfo said. His background was also of interest. He was a regular at a radical mosque in Bremen that had already sent about 20 members to Syria, at least four of whom were killed in battle, according to Daniel Heinke, the German Interior Ministry’s counterterrorism coordinator for the area. And he had served a one-year prison sentence for breaking into a supermarket safe and stealing 23,000 euros. Even though the punishment for theft in areas under Islamic State control is amputation, a criminal past can be a valued asset, Mr. Sarfo said, “especially if they know you have ties to organized crime and they know you can get fake IDs, or they know you have contact men in Europe who can smuggle you into the European Union.” The bureaucratic nature of the intake procedure was recently confirmed by American officials after USB drives were recovered in the recently liberated Syrian city of Manbij, one of the hubs for processing foreign fighters. Mr. Sarfo checked all the necessary boxes, and on the third day after his arrival, the members of the Emni came to ask for him. He wanted to fight in Syria and Iraq, but the masked operatives explained that they had a vexing problem. “They told me that there aren’t many people in Germany who are willing to do the job,” Mr. Sarfo said soon after his arrest last year, according to the transcript of his interrogation by German officials, which runs more than 500 pages. “They said they had some in the beginning. But one after another, you could say, they chickened out, because they got scared — cold feet. Same in England.” By contrast, the group had more than enough volunteers for France. “My friend asked them about France,” Mr. Sarfo said. “And they started laughing. But really serious laughing, with tears in their eyes. They said, ‘Don’t worry about France.’ ‘Mafi mushkilah’ — in Arabic, it means ‘no problem.’” That conversation took place in April 2015, seven months before the coordinated killings in Paris in November, the worst terrorist attack in Europe in over a decade. While some details of Mr. Sarfo’s account cannot be verified, his statements track with what other recruits related in their interrogations. And both prison officials and the German intelligence agents who debriefed Mr. Sarfo after his arrest said they found him credible. Since the rise of the Islamic State over two years ago, intelligence agencies have been collecting nuggets on the Emni. Originally, the unit was tasked with policing the Islamic State’s members, including conducting interrogations and ferreting out spies, according to interrogation records and analysts. But French members arrested in 2014 and 2015 explained that the Emni had taken on a new portfolio: projecting terror abroad. “It’s the Emni that ensures the internal security inside Dawla” — the Arabic word for state — “and oversees external security by sending abroad people they recruited, or else sending individuals to carry out violent acts, like what happened in Tunisia inside the museum in Tunis, or else the aborted plot in Belgium,” said Nicolas Moreau, 32, a French citizen who was arrested last year after leaving the Islamic State in Syria, according to his statement to France’s domestic intelligence agency. Mr. Moreau explained that he had run a restaurant in Raqqa, Syria, the de facto capital of the group’s territory, where he had served meals to key members of the Emni — including Abdelhamid Abaaoud, the on-the-ground commander of the Paris attacks, who was killed in a standoff with the police days later. Other interrogations, as well as Mr. Sarfo’s account, have led investigators to conclude that the Emni also trained and dispatched the gunman who opened fire on a beach in Sousse, Tunisia, in June, and the man who prepared the Brussels airport bombs. Records from French, Austrian and Belgian intelligence agencies show that at least 28 operatives recruited by the Emni succeeded in deploying to countries outside of the Islamic State’s core territory, mounting both successful attacks and plots that were foiled. Officials say that dozens of other operatives have slipped through and formed sleeper cells. In his own interactions with the Emni, Mr. Sarfo realized that they were preparing a global portfolio of terrorists and looking to fill holes in their international network, he said. He described what he had been told about the group’s work to build an infrastructure in Bangladesh. There, a siege by a team of Islamic State gunmen left at least 20 hostages dead at a cafe last month, almost all of them foreigners. Mr. Sarfo said that for Asian recruits, the group was looking specifically for militants who had emerged from Al Qaeda’s network in the region. “People especially from Bangladesh, Malaysia and Indonesia — they have people who used to work for Al Qaeda, and once they joined the Islamic State, they are asking them questions about their experiences and if they have contacts,” he said. In his briefings with the German authorities, Mr. Sarfo raised the possibility that some of the recent attackers in Europe who pledged allegiance to the Islamic State’s leader during their assaults might have a more direct link to the group than officials believe. Mr. Sarfo explained that the Emni keeps many of its operatives underground in Europe. They act as nodes that can remotely activate potential suicide attackers who have been drawn in by propaganda. Linking them are what Mr. Sarfo called “clean men,” new converts to Islam with no established ties to radical groups. “These people are not in direct contact with these guys who are doing the attacks, because they know if these people start talking, they will get caught,” he said of the underground operatives. “They mostly use people who are new Muslims, who are converts,” he said. Those “clean” converts “get in contact with the people, and they give them the message.” And in the case of some videotaped pledges of allegiance, the go-between can then send the video on to the handler in Europe, who uploads it for use by the Islamic State’s propaganda channels. The intelligence documents and Mr. Sarfo agree that the Islamic State has made the most of its recruits’ nationalities by sending them back to plot attacks at home. Yet one important region where the Emni is not thought to have succeeded in sending trained attackers is North America, Mr. Sarfo said, recalling what the members of the branch told him. Though dozens of Americans have become members of the Islamic State, and some have been recruited into the external operations wing, “they know it’s hard for them to get Americans into America” once they have traveled to Syria, he said. “For America and Canada, it’s much easier for them to get them over the social network, because they say the Americans are dumb — they have open gun policies,” he said. “They say we can radicalize them easily, and if they have no prior record, they can buy guns, so we don’t need to have no contact man who has to provide guns for them.” Training Days Since late 2014, the Islamic State has instructed foreigners joining the group to make their trip look like a holiday in southern Turkey, including booking a return flight and paying for an all-inclusive vacation at a beach resort, from which smugglers arrange their transport into Syria, according to intelligence documents and Mr. Sarfo’s account. That cover story creates pressure to keep things moving quickly during the recruits’ training in Syria, and most get a bare minimum — just a few days of basic weapons practice, in some instances. “When they go back to France or in Germany, they can say, ‘I was only on holidays in Turkey,’” Mr. Sarfo said. “The longer they stay in the Islamic State, the more suspicious the secret service in the West gets, and that’s why they try to do the training as quickly as possible.” Mr. Sarfo’s language proficiency in both German and English — he studied construction at Newham College in East London — made him attractive as a potential attacker. Though the Emni approached him several times to ask him to return to Germany, he demurred, he said. Eventually, Mr. Sarfo, perhaps because of his burly build — 6-foot-1 and around 286 pounds when he arrived in Syria, though he has lost weight since then — was drafted into the Islamic State’s quwat khas, Arabic for special forces. The unit only admitted single men who agreed not to marry during the duration of their training. In addition to providing the offensive force to infiltrate cities during battles, it was one of several elite units that became recruiting pools for the external operations branch, Mr. Sarfo said. Along with his German friend, he was driven to the desert outside Raqqa. “They dropped us off in the middle of nowhere and told us, ‘We are here,’” he said. “So we’re standing in the desert and thought to ourselves, ‘What’s going on?’” When the two Germans looked more closely, they realized there were cavelike dwellings around them. Everything above ground was painted with mud so as to be invisible to drones. “Showering was prohibited. Eating was prohibited, too, unless they gave it to you,” Mr. Sarfo said, adding that he had shared a cave with five or six others. Even drinking water was harshly rationed. “Each dwelling received two cups of water a day, put on the doorstep,” he said. “And the purpose of this was to test us, see who really wants it, who’s firm.” The grueling training began: hours of running, jumping, push-ups, parallel bars, crawling. The recruits began fainting. By the second week, they were each given a Kalashnikov assault rifle and told to sleep with it between their legs until it became “like a third arm,” he said. The punishment for failing to keep up was harsh. “There was one boy who refused to get up, because he was just too exhausted,” Mr. Sarfo told the authorities. “So they tied him to a pole with his legs and his arms and left him there.” He learned that the special forces program involved 10 levels of training. After he graduated to Level 2, he was moved to an island on a river in Tabqa, Syria. The recruits’ sleeping spots now consisted of holes in the ground, covered by sticks and twigs. They practiced swimming, scuba diving and navigating by the stars. Throughout his training, Mr. Sarfo rubbed shoulders with an international cadre of recruits. When he first arrived at the desert campus, he ran laps alongside Moroccans, Egyptians, at least one Indonesian, a Canadian and a Belgian. And out on the island, he learned of similar special units, including one called Jaysh al-Khalifa, or the Army of the Caliphate. A 12-page criminal complaint indicates that the Islamic State tried to recruit at least one American into that unit, but he declined to enroll. The man, Mohamad Jamal Khweis, a 26-year-old from Alexandria, Virginia, traveled to Syria in December, only to be captured by Kurdish troops in Iraq in March. In his debriefing with the FBI, he explained that early on, he was approached by members of the unit. “During his stay at this safe house, representatives from Jaysh Khalifa, a group described by the defendant as an ‘offensive group,’ visited the new ISIS recruits. The representatives explained that their group was responsible for accepting volunteers from foreign countries who would be trained and sent back to their countries to conduct operations and execute attacks on behalf of ISIL. The group’s requirements, among other things, were that recruits had to be single, would train in remote locations, must be free of any injuries and had to stay reclusive when returning to their home countries.” The Big Man As he progressed through the special forces training, Mr. Sarfo became closer with the emir of the camp, a Moroccan, who began to divulge details about how the Islamic State’s external operations effort was structured, he said. Mr. Sarfo learned that there was one outsize figure behind the group’s strategies and ambitions. “The big man behind everything is Abu Muhammad al-Adnani,” he said. “He is the head of the Emni, and he is the head of the special forces as well,” Mr. Sarfo added. “Everything goes back to him.” Born in the town of Binnish in northern Syria, Mr. Adnani is said to be 39, and is the subject of a $5 million bounty from the State Department’s Rewards for Justice program. But details about his life remain a mystery. There are very few available photos of him, and the one used on the State Department’s website is years old. Mr. Sarfo explained that when recruits to the special forces finished all 10 levels of training, they were blindfolded and driven to meet Mr. Adnani, where they pledged allegiance to him directly. Mr. Sarfo was told that the blindfolds stayed on the whole time, so that even Mr. Adnani’s best-trained fighters never know what he looks like. To the world, Mr. Adnani is better known as the official spokesman of the Islamic State, and the man who put out a global call this year for Muslims to attack unbelievers wherever they were, however they could. “Adnani is much more than just the mouthpiece of this group,” said Thomas Joscelyn, a senior fellow at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies in Washington who tracks the group’s leadership. “He is heavily involved in external operations. He is sort of the administrative ‘yea’ or ‘nay’ at the top of the pyramid,” who signs off on attack plans, the details of which are handled by his subordinates. During his time in Syria, Mr. Sarfo was contacted by other German fighters who wanted him to be an actor in a propaganda film aimed at German speakers. They drove to Palmyra, and Mr. Sarfo was told to hold the group’s black flag and to walk again and again in front of the camera as they filmed repeated takes. Syrian captives were forced to kneel, and the other German fighters shot them, showing an interest only in the cinematic effect. One turned to Mr. Sarfo immediately after killing a victim and asked: “How did I look like? Did I look good, the way I executed?” Mr. Sarfo said he had learned that videos like the one he acted in were vetted by Mr. Adnani himself in a monthly meeting of senior operatives. “There’s a vetting procedure,” he said. “Once a month they have a shura — which is a sitting, a meeting — where all the videos and everything that is important, they start speaking about it. And Abu Muhammad al-Adnani is the head of the shura.” Mr. Sarfo said he had started doubting his allegiance to ISIS during his training, after seeing how cruelly they treated those who could not keep up. Making the propaganda video provided his final disillusionment when he saw how many times they recorded each scene in the five-minute film. Back in Germany, when he had been inspired by similar videos, he had always assumed they were real, not staged. He began plotting his escape, which took weeks and involved sprinting and crawling in a field of mud before crossing into Turkey. He was arrested at Bremen Airport, where he landed on July 20, 2015, and he voluntarily confessed. He is now serving a three-year term on terrorism charges. The Lieutenants Among the Islamic State’s innovations is the role of foreigners, especially Europeans, in the planning of attacks. Mr. Sarfo’s account agrees with investigation documents and the assessments of terrorism experts, who say that French and Belgian citizens like Mr. Abaaoud are more than just operatives and have been given managing roles. “It’s a creative and interesting operational road map, to be able to lean on someone like Abaaoud, who has his own network abroad,” said Jean-Charles Brisard, chairman of the Center for the Analysis of Terrorism in Paris. “They gave him the autonomy regarding tactics and strategy, even if the operation as a whole still needs a green light from the Islamic State’s leadership.” Looking at the current leaders of the Emni, investigators have homed in on two in particular. They go by the aliases Abu Souleymane, a French citizen, and Abu Ahmad, described as Syrian. Both are considered top lieutenants of Mr. Adnani, according to the senior American defense official and senior intelligence official. The two men play a direct role in identifying fighters to be sent overseas, in choosing targets and in organizing logistics for operatives, including paying for smugglers to get them to Europe and, in at least one case, sending Western Union transfers, according to European intelligence documents. A glimpse into the possible role of Abu Souleymane came from one of the hostages held by suicide bombers inside the Bataclan concert hall in Paris in November. After gunning down dozens of concertgoers, two of the suicide bombers retreated into a hallway with a group of hostages, forcing them to sit against the windows as human shields, said the hostage, David Fritz-Goeppinger, 24. In the two-and-a-half-hour standoff that ensued, Mr. Fritz heard one of the bombers ask the other, “Should we call Souleymane?” The second operative appeared annoyed that the first had asked the question in French, and ordered him to switch to Arabic. “I immediately understood that, yes, this was the individual, maybe not the individual who had organized the attack, but who held a place in the hierarchy above them,” said Mr. Fritz. His testimony is also included in a detailed, 51-page report by France’s antiterrorism police. “They were absolutely, like soldiers,” awaiting orders, he said. Souleymane, whose full nom de guerre is Abu Souleymane al-Faransi, or Abu Souleymane the Frenchman, is believed to be a French national in his 30s who is of either Moroccan or Tunisian ancestry, according to Ludovico Carlino, a senior analyst with IHS Conflict Monitor in London. Mr. Carlino says he believes that Souleymane was promoted to be the top terrorism planner for Europe after Mr. Abaaoud’s death. A snapshot of the other senior leader, Abu Ahmad, appears in the account of a man who investigators have concluded was supposed to be part of the team of Paris attackers: an Algerian named Adel Haddadi. Mr. Haddadi said he and another member of the team, a former Lashkar-e-Taiba member from Pakistan named Muhammad Usman, were separated from two other attackers after they reached Greece by boat. Mr. Haddadi, 28, and Mr. Usman, 22, were eventually arrested in a migrant camp in Salzburg, Austria. The two men sent alongside them became the first suicide bombers to detonate their vests outside the Stade de France during the November attacks. After arriving in Syria and being routed to the international dormitory there in February 2015, Mr. Haddadi worked as a cook in Raqqa for months before a member of the Emni came to see him, according to French and Austrian investigation documents. “One day, a Syrian came into the kitchen to see me and said that someone called Abu Ahmad wanted to see me,” Mr. Haddadi was quoted as saying in the Austrian record of his interrogation. He was driven to a five-story building, where another Syrian holding a walkie talkie radioed Abu Ahmad. They waited for hours before the Syrian got orders to drive the recruit to the next location. In the street, a Saudi man wearing all white was waiting, and asked Mr. Haddadi to go on a walk. After 300 yards, they reached an empty apartment building and sat down. “I was scared, I wanted to leave, but he talked the whole time,” Mr. Haddadi told the authorities. “He said only positive things about me, that Daesh trusted me and that I now needed to prove myself worthy of that trust. He said that Daesh was going to send me to France,” Mr. Haddadi added, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State. “The details, he said, I would get them once I arrived in France.” Sometime after that, Abu Ahmad arrived. Mr. Haddadi described him as a Syrian man between 38 and 42 years old, slim with a long, black beard, and dressed all in black. He was, Mr. Haddadi said, “the giver of orders.” Abu Ahmad brought Mr. Haddadi together with three other potential attackers, with the last man, Mr. Usman, being introduced just a day before they all set out for Europe. Mr. Haddadi and two of the other men were native Arabic speakers, and Mr. Usman spoke enough Arabic to communicate with them, the interrogation documents said. The day of their departure, Abu Ahmad came and gave them his Turkish cellphone number, instructing them to store it in their phone as “FF,” to avoid registering a name. He gave Mr. Haddadi $2,000 in $100 bills, and they were driven to the Turkish border. A man met them in Turkey to take their photographs, and returned with Syrian passports. Another smuggler arranged their Oct. 3 boat trip to Leros, Greece. All of these logistical steps, as well as Western Union money transfers, were organized by Abu Ahmad, one of the senior lieutenants running the Islamic State’s efforts to export terror. Until his arrest in December, Mr. Haddadi remained in touch with Abu Ahmad through messages on Telegram and via text messages to his Turkish number, according to the investigation record. Abu Ahmad’s Turkish number was found somewhere else, too: written on a slip of paper in the pants pocket of the severed leg of one of the suicide bombers at the Stade de France. Video - http://www.nytimes.com/2016/08/04/world/middleeast/isis-german-recruit-interview.html?_r=0

Woman dies after trying to save grandchildren from sex offender The Columbus Dispatch / August 4, 2016 The man told Candy Arthurs and her two grandchildren that he was looking for a lost drone, and the trio was happy to help him look for it. But shortly after they began searching their Hilltop neighborhood June 23, Jeremy Mullins, 7, and Kourtnee Mullins, 8, started walking into an alley with the man, who turned out to be a convicted sex offender. Though it's unclear what happened next, Arthurs — who always said she'd sacrifice her life for her grandchildren — confronted the man. He stabbed her in the heart with a large knife and also stabbed Jeremy in the shoulder, Columbus police say. Wednesday morning, Arthurs, 45, died at Mount Carmel West hospital from the wound she suffered six weeks ago. The attacker, Kristopher T. Amos, 29, has been charged with murder and was in the Franklin County jail Wednesday night. Amos, who lives in the 200 block of North Wayne Avenue, just down the street from Gibson's house, is a registered sex offender and twice was found guilty of child enticement with a sexual motivation, in 2010 and 2011. During the first incident, Amos tried to lure children into the shower area of a YMCA. He'd been charged with two counts of felonious assault after the June 23 stabbing, but he wasn't arrested until 10 a.m. Wednesday, after he was charged with murder. He was picked up at his employer on Worthington Road. After her mother and son were stabbed, Gibson's neighbors on the Hilltop told her that Amos also had solicited their children for help, claiming he lost a drone. He was carrying a remote control with him. Arthurs' death is the city's 58th homicide this year. .

Man in Charlotte recruiting for ISIS, planning training compound The Charlotte Observer / August 4, 2016 A man who had lived in Charlotte about a month was arrested Thursday, accused of trying to recruit domestic terrorists for ISIS and claiming to be planning a secret training camp on U.S. soil. Erick Jamal Hendricks, 35, used social media networks to contact and recruit Americans for the cause of ISIS, and appeared to have ties to a 2015 attack at a Texas event mocking pictures of the prophet Muhammad. Hendricks was obsessed with security while connecting on social media sites, unbeknownst that he’d been communicating with an FBI undercover operative and others who’d agreed to cooperate with investigators. In a March 2015 meeting in Baltimore with others he believed to be part of his ISIS ring, Hendricks said he had land in Arkansas where he could “get off the grid” and prepare for bloody battle with law enforcement. Three months later, Hendricks told the FBI operative that he wanted to construct a training center “hidden in plain sight … Farm, house, garden, tunnels.” In communications with others, Hendricks claimed to have 10 operatives in the United States and hoped to raid military depots for weapons. Until being charged Thursday with providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization, a crime that carries a sentence up to 15 years, Hendricks only had minor traffic infractions on his record. Hendricks grew up in Woodson, Arkansas, near Little Rock, and until recently had been living in Virginia. Began in Ohio Hendricks’ case appears to have dovetailed with an arrest in Ohio in June 2015. Federal authorities said that an unidentified man in the Cleveland area tried to buy an AK-47 assault rifle and ammunition from an undercover officer. He later pleaded guilty to attempting to provide material support to a designated terrorist organization and two counts of being a felon in possession of a firearm. He had an extensive criminal record including four felony convictions for drug trafficking. He entered into a plea agreement with the federal government that allowed for a reduced sentence if he cooperated with investigators. He told the FBI that he had been contacted by Hendricks through social media in the spring of 2015 as a possible ISIS recruit after pledging allegiance to ISIS and indicating on social media he would be interested in conducting attacks in the United States. Hendricks told the man he “needed people” and wanted to meet with him. Hendricks also told the man that there were “brothers” in Texas and Mexico; that he was attempting to “get brothers to meet face to face;” and that he wanted “to get brothers to train together.” Hendricks tested the man’s religious knowledge and commitment to Islam, asking whether he’d be willing to commit “jihad,” to die as a “martyr” and his desire to enter paradise. The Ohio man took this to mean that Hendricks was seeking recruits for a terrorist attack in the U.S. and to find out if the man was a suitable candidate. Hendricks also criticized the Ohio man for his involvement in selling marijuana, saying it was an affront to Muslim faith. On his Facebook page, Hendricks wrote in 2014: “I have not smoked one blunt or dranked one drop of liquar; or had one single, solitary act of sex outside of marriage; or defiled my body with the prohibited meat (meat) in almost 15 years.” FBI informant Hendricks had also been talking through social media to someone working undercover for the FBI. On April 16, 2015, Hendricks told the FBI operative to download the document “GPS for the Ghuraba in the U.S.” Among other instructions, the document encouraged followers to die as martyrs rather than be arrested and jailed. “Boobie trap your homes,” “lay in wait for them” and to “never leave your home without your AK-47 or M16,” the document advised. Hendricks kept in contact with the FBI operative and at least two other confidential informants on the federal payroll, authorities say. He changed online identities regularly and instructed them on security protocols so they wouldn’t be detected by federal investigators. At one point, Hendricks told the FBI operative that he worked full-time as a recruiter and “It’s hard to sift through brothers” and “Allah chooses only the few.” Attack on contest On April 23, 2015, Hendricks contacted a man named Elton Simpson through social media. Along with Nadir Hamid Soofi, Simpson launched the ISIS-inspired attack on the “First Annual Muhammad Art Exhibit and Contest” in Garland, Texas on May 3, 2015. It followed the January 2015 attack on the French humor magazine Charlie Hebdo, which had run mocking cartoons of the prophet Muhammad. Creating depictions of Muhammad is forbidden in Islamic beliefs. Simpson and Soofi wounded a security guard and were killed by Garland police guarding the event. Hendricks had been in touch with Simpson through social media and urged the FBI’s undercover operative to attend the contest on the day of the attack. Hendricks asked the operative on the day of the attack through social media questions about security: “How many police/agents?”, “Do you see feds there?’ “Do you see snipers?” Hendricks asked through messages. Hendricks’ next court appearance, a detention hearing, is scheduled for Tuesday in Charlotte before U.S. Magistrate David Cayer. .

Glad we could help you. It's hard to operate a Mack in Nigeria without any acceptable after-sales support.

Looking at the engine, what is that Renault engine's model number?

Ottawa-Brimont "Commando" (the French Unimog) 4-wheel drive 4-wheel steer center pivot Brimont ETR articulated 4x4 built at Rethel, Ardennes, from 1974 to the end of the 90s. They had a distribution agreement with Ottawa between 1986 and 1998. Brimont was taken over by Legris Potain Poclain PPM in 1989. CAT distributor Bergerat Monnoyeur bought the Brimont off-road vehicle unit in 1987. In 1989, the company was called Brimont PM. Off-road vehicle production ended in 1993. Brimont today is a small trailer manufacturer. http://s3.e-monsite.com/2011/03/16/786277084x4-brimont-bergerat-monnoyeur-pdf.pdf http://s3.e-monsite.com/2011/03/16/23346963brimont-p-l-12-5-pdf.pdf http://www.monnoyeur.com/Website/site/eng_accueil.htm

Sorry, I do have E6/672 2V specifications. .

I realize you're in Nigeria, but you should try to purchase a used Mack "TS442" service manual on Amazon.com I only have E6 4V information, but the dimensions you're seeking are the same. .