McConnell notes that Fiona Woolf, the 686th Lord Mayor of London and only the second woman in history to hold that position, is both the ambassador for and a member of the Invisibles' Livery Companies and alleges she had a leadership role in the management buyout of Serco, where offenders were tagged for an MoD License to Kill, and the 1999 establishment of CMS to oversee extortion of US$92 trillion in assets from institutional investors in the Carbon Disclosure Project.
Readers might be curious as to how this woman became so powerful and seemingly in a position to deploy British operatives in ISIS snuff films while politicians look for a face-saving strategy.
McConnell suggests that readers should ask themselves why the Cameron government would have appointed Fiona Woolf – the ambassador for the British Invisibles – to investigate the role of U.K. institutions in the so-called Westminster Pedophile Ring but not to investigate Serco’s apparent deployment of British ISIS tagged offenders as snuff-film producers or jihadist 'madams' to run brothels full of thousands of kidnapped Iraqi women and girls taken captive from the Yazidi tribe.
Prequel 1: #2110: Marine Links White House Red-Switch Women to Invisibles' ISIS Woolf in Serco Override
Obama: ISIS Strategy, Golfing--Funny! (Cartoons)
BREAKING: ISIS Terrorists Behead British David Haines (VIDEO)
Serco... Would you like to know more?
"British hostage David Haines beheaded by Islamic State terrorists
Prime Minister David Cameron describes murder of British aid worker David Haines by Isil as 'an act of pure evil', as Foreign Office works urgently to verify video released by extremists
By Claire Duffin, and Tim Ross 1:15AM BST 14 Sep 2014
Islamic State has released a video showing the beheading of British hostage David Haines.
It comes just hours after his family issued a public plea for his captors to contact them.
The Foreign Office said it was "working urgently to verify" the video and offering Mr Haines's family support.
David Cameron, the Prime Minister, said: "The murder of David Haines is an act of pure evil. My heart goes out to his family who have shown extraordinary courage and fortitude."
He added: "We will do everything in our power to hunt down these murderers and ensure they face justice, however long it takes."
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Mr Haines, 44, was kidnapped last year as he delivered humanitarian aid in Syria.
His whereabouts were only revealed this month when he was shown kneeling in the sand, wearing an orange jumpsuit, in a video produced by jihadists of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) which also showed the murder of Steven Sotloff, an American journalist.
A masked man, who has become known as “Jihadi John”, said Mr Haines would be next if the West did not halt operations against Isil.
In the latest video, he is also wearing a orange jumpsuit and is kneeling on the sand.
It begins with a clip from David Cameron. A man believed to be Mr Haines then looks into the camera and says: "My name is Daivd Cawthorne Haines. I would like to declare that I hold you David Cameron entirely responsible for my execution.
"You entered voluntarily into a coalition with the United States against the Islamic State just as your predecessor Tony Blair did, following a trend against our British prime ministers who can't find the courage to say no to the Americans.
"Unfortunately it is we the British public that in the end will pay the price for our Parliament's selfish decisions."
In a statement, the Foreign and Commonwealth said: "We are aware of the video.
"We are working urgently to verify the content. If true, this is another disgusting murder. We are offering the family every support possible.
"They have asked to be left alone at this time."
Mr Cameron rushed back to Downing Street for crisis talks with his advisers, officials and intelligence chiefs on Saturday night. He arrived at No 10 just after midnight.
A spokesman said he would chair a COBR meeting on Sunday morning.
In the Haines family’s short statement - which was released earlier on Saturday by the Foreign and Commonwealth Office - the British captive’s relatives said: “We are the family of David Haines.
"We have sent messages to you to which we have not received a reply. We are asking those holding David to make contact with us.” No further details of their messages were released.
Mr Haines had worked for aid agencies in some of the world’s worst trouble spots, including Libya and South Sudan.
He was travelling in a car through northern Syria in March last year when he was abducted along with an Italian colleague, who was later released. He was working for a French aid organisation, Agency for Technical Co-operation and Development (Acted).
Mr Haines is believed to have been kidnapped by a gang which later sold him on to Isil.
His identity remained a closely guarded secret for 19 months in a bid to increase the chances of a negotiated release.
But the situation changed dramatically with the execution first of James Foley, another American journalist, and then Mr Sotloff with the subsequent appearance of Mr Haines in the second murder video. MPs reacted with horror and anger to the reports on Saturday night.
Ed Vaizey, a government minister and Conservative MP, said he was “so sad and angry” to hear reports of Mr Haines’s murder.
Stella Creasy, a Labour MP and shadow minister, said she was “shocked and horrified” to see reports
Dan Jarvis, another senior Labour MP, said he was “sickened”.
Tim Farron, President of the Liberal Democrats, said: “My thoughts and prayers are with David Haines' family and friends tonight.” Ed Miliband, the Labour leader, said: "I am sickened at the disgusting, barbaric killing of David Haines. "He was somebody whose only purpose was to help innocent people, themselves victims of conflict. “That ISIL would choose to kill him says everything about their warped logic and murderous ways. “Acts like this will not weaken but strengthen the resolve of Britain and the international community to defeat ISIL and their ideology. "
"My deepest condolences and thoughts are with his family as they cope with this terrible crime. And the hearts of the British people will go out to them."
Lord Dannatt, the former head of the Army, said the UK should respond by playing its role in the assault against IS promised by US president Barack Obama.
"What we absolutely need to do is not be cowed in any way by yet another foul murder of a hostage," he told Sky News.
"But to develop the strategy into a sensible military campaign in coalition with regional players such as Saudi Arabia, Jordan and other countries in the area.
"We can support them to confront, attack and defeat the Islamic State jihadi fighters ... and make sure this cancer is removed from the region before it spreads more widely." The United States also "strongly condemned" the killing.
In a statement, the White House said: "Our hearts go out to the family of Mr Haines and to the people of the United Kingdom. The United States stands shoulder to shoulder tonight with our close friend and ally in grief and resolve.
"We will work with the United Kingdom and a broad coalition of nations from the region and around the world to bring the perpetrators of this outrageous act to justice, and to degrade and destroy this threat to the people of our countries, the region and the world."
"'Twice as Many' British Muslims Fighting for ISIS Than in UK Armed Forces
By Madeline Grant and Damien Sharkov
Filed: 8/20/14 at 10:55 AM | Updated: 8/21/14 at 5:43 AM Filed Under: World, Islamic State, ISIS, Britain There are now more than twice as many British Muslims fighting for Islamic State than there are serving in the British armed forces, according to a British Member of Parliament (MP). Khalid Mahmood, the MP for Perry Barr in Birmingham, estimates that at least 1,500 young British Muslims have been recruited by extremists fighting in Iraq and Syria in the last three years.
Mahmood told Newsweek that this figure had been building since the start of the Syrian conflict: "If you look across the whole of the country, and the various communities involved, 500 going over each year would be a conservative estimate.”
Newsweek Magazine is Back In Print According to the Ministry of Defence, there are only around 600 British Muslims currently serving in the Armed Forces, making up approximately around 0.4% of total personnel. 4.3% of the British population are Muslim.
The UK Foreign Office said that they believe over 400 individuals have travelled to Syria since the uprising began, but said that they could not give exact numbers.
However Mahmood described such low estimates as “nonsense” and said that the British government was failing to deal with the problem of home-grown extremists. “We’ve not concentrated on the prevention work, we haven’t invested enough in de-radicalisation. It’s tragic, somebody’s got to wake up to it.”
The role of British jihadists fighting in the Middle East has been brought into sharp focus after Islamic State released a video showing the apparent beheading of US journalist James Foley by a masked jihadist who spoke with a British accent.
In June, three militants involved in an ISIS propaganda video were identified as Cardiff students Reyaad Khan, 20, Nasser Muthana, also 20, and his younger brother Aseel, 17. Conservative MP Nadhim Zahawi last week told Channel 4 news that a Kurdish leader told him that Islamic State fighters in Iraq had been carrying a Liverpool FC season ticket and a gym card from Ealing in London. He estimated the number of Britons fighting for Islamic State at as many as 700.
Ghaffar Hussain of anti-radicalization charity the Quilliam Foundation argued that the number of British Muslims being drawn to Islamic State and other organisations meant that the UK was “definitely” losing the fight against radical extremism.
"There are an unacceptable number of Britons fighting for jihadist forces over the world,” Hussain told Newsweek. “There are things the government can do to prevent this of course,” Hussain says. “There needs to be a greater effort in the way of civil society initiatives that discredit jihadist organisations in the UK and promote liberal democratic values."
Islamic States militants’ recruitment campaign has overtaken Al-Qaeda in its effectiveness online, targeting primarily young muslims, the Quilliam Foundation told Newsweek. “Their use of the internet is unlike anything we have seen before,” Charlie Cooper of the Quilliam Foundation said.
"Social media applications like Facebook and Twitter act as a facilitator to connect young radicalized Britons with jihadists in Syria and Iraq.”
Islamic State have so far run a very successful campaign of using public forums such as Twitter, Facebook and YouTube, whilst avoiding detection by authorities, with Quilliam reporting Islamic State supporters share resources on how to remain under the radar of the law.
Responding to the Islamic State video earlier today, UK-based radical Islamic preacher Anjem Choudary who is a vocal supporter of establishing a Caliphate under Islamic Sharia Law told digital radio station Fubar Radio that “it’s not important if it’s a British person carrying out the execution because you’re Muslim first and British second".
A Home Office spokesperson told Newsweek that the British government is aware of the threat of Islamic State recruitment campaigns in the UK, insisting “the police and security services are actively working to detect and disrupt terrorist threats. People seeking to travel to engage in terrorist activity in Syria or Iraq should be in no doubt we will take the strongest possible action to protect our national security, including prosecuting those who break the law.
"We also have a wide range of powers at our disposal to disrupt travel and manage the risk posed by returnees," the spokesperson said. The Ministry of Defence did not immediately respond to Newsweek's request for comment."
"How British jihadist 'madams' are running Isis brothels full of thousands of kidnapped Iraqi women Al-Khanssaa brigade is female-only militia set up by Isis in Raqqa, Syria 3,000 women and girls have been taken captive from the Yazidi tribe It's believed they're being forced into sex slavery in brothels for fighters
By AMANDA WILLIAMS FOR MAILONLINE PUBLISHED: 03:00 GMT, 11 September 2014 | UPDATED: 09:35 GMT, 11 September 2014
Thousands of Iraqi women are being forced into sex slavery in brothels run by a 'police force' of British women jihadis, it has been reported. As many as 3,000 women and girls have been taken captive from the Yazidi tribe in Iraq as Isis militants continue their reign of terror across the region. Sources now say that British female jihadis operating a religious police force called the al-Khanssaa brigade, that punishes women for 'un-Islamic' behaviour, have set up brothels to for the use of Isis fighters.
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Thousands of Iraqi women are being forced into sex slavery in brothels for Islamic State fighters and run by a 'police force' of British women jihadis, it has been reported A source told the Mirror: 'These women are using barbaric interpretations of the Islamic faith to justify their actions.
'They believe the militants can use these women as they please as they are non-Muslims. It is the British women who have risen to the top of the Islamic State’s sharia police and now they are in charge of this operation.
'It is as bizarre as it is perverse.'
The think tank MEMRI (the Middle East Media Research Institution) released a report saying that IS had taken many Yazidi women to be sold and used as sex slaves. The al-Khanssaa brigade is a female-only militia set up by the Islamic State in Raqqa, Syria, with a key figure believed to be Aqsa Mahmood, 20, of Glasgow, who fled to the country last year.
Academics at King's College London have identified three other British females as members of the group - and say there are about 60 UK women who have gone to Syria on jihad. Most of these women - including privately-educated Mahmood - are aged between 18 and 24, with al-Khanssaa said to be seeking out people engaging in Western culture in Raqqa. It is believed that US hostages James Foley and Steven Sotloff were both beheaded in the desert near Raqqa - and therefore the British women in al-Khanssaa could know who killed them.
Melanie Smith, a research associate at King's College's International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation, told journalists Robert Mendick and Robert Verkaik of The Sunday Telegraph: ‘Al-Khanssaa is a sharia law police brigade. This is Isis’s female law enforcement.
'We think it’s a mixture of British and French women but its social media accounts are run by the British and they are written in English.
'Given how small the community networks are - we know there are about 500 male British jihadis out there - it is quite likely these women move in the same circles as the British killer of Foley and Sotloff.'
Confusion reigns over the identity of the Islamic State executioner known as 'Jihadi John' after security experts last week appeared to dismiss suggestions he was a former rapper from London.
The masked man, who speaks with a clear London accent, was originally thought to be hip hop jihadist' Abdel-Majed Abdel Bary, but it is now understood to be another man. British women are reportedly being given major roles within al-Khanssaa because Islamic State chiefs see them as the most committed of the foreign female jihadis.
The Daily Mail reported yesterday how a growing band of young women have left their families in Britain to join the jihadi cause in Syria.
How British female jihadis are running Islamic State's religious police force that punishes women for 'un-Islamic' behaviour
Obama vows to 'degrade and destroy' Islamic State: President set to announce further airstrikes as he finally reveals strategy for dealing with militants Many have formed ‘intense friendships’ in the Islamic State stronghold of Raqqa. Academics at Kings College said they have seen a big uptake in the number of UK women going to Syria.
Among them are Salma and Zahra Halane, 16, twins from Manchester, and mother Khadijah Dare, 22, who is married to a Swedish jihadist. Another is Muslim convert Sally Jones, 45, from Chatham, Kent, an unemployed mother who has ranted online about how she wants to behead Christians with a ‘blunt knife’.
'I FEAR I'LL NEVER RETURN TO BRITAIN': JIHADI MOTHER WHO RAN AWAY The British mother-of-two who joined Islamic State extremists after running away to wage jihad with her toyboy husband fears she will never be able to return to Britain. Muslim convert Sally Jones, 45, of Chatham, Kent, who has spent a lifetime on state benefits, said she was now raising her ten-year-old son Jojo under the Islamic State. The unemployed mother, who was once an aspiring rock musician, claims to have joined bloodthirsty jihadis roaming the lawless border between Syria and Iraq. She married convicted computer hacker Junaid Hussain, 20, upon her arrival in Syria, and told journalist Dipesh Gadher of The Sunday Times: ‘I had been travelling for 24 hours… lol and we got married the very day I got here. My little boy became a Muslim too that very day.’ She added: 'Becoming a Muslim changed my life. I can’t help but be militant when all they do is kill us for being Muslim. 'You know they killed 1,220,550 innocent Muslims in the illegal Iraq war. The US and UK government - it’s that wot [sic] did it for me… It’s them that’s the terrorists, not us.' It is not clear how Mrs Jones - who has abused Jews and praised Osama bin Laden - obtained the inflated civilian death toll figure. Jones revealed that she had left her other son, aged 18, in Britain - but added that she will be jailed if she tries to return to the UK, saying: ‘I can't ever go back, they will throw away the key.'
Read more:
British jihadi women run 'brothels' for ISIS to rape Yazidi women"
"Can ISIS govern?
BY NEWS SOURCES ON AUGUST 25, 2014 LEAVE A COMMENT
The Economist’s Pomegranite blog: In between chopping off the heads of its adversaries, crucifying miscreants and committing acts of genocide, the Islamic State (IS), the al-Qaeda-minded extremist group that straddles Iraq and Syria and is being targeted by American airstrikes, is dealing with more mundane issues — such as the school curriculum. This month, August, IS called in teachers in Raqqa province in eastern Syria and set out new conditions for them to receive their salaries, says the Syrian Observatory of Human Rights (SOHR), a Britain-based group that has a network of informants in Syria. IS told the teachers to dedicate more hours to Islamic studies, as well as dropping subjects including philosophy and chemistry. The prompt for the rules appears to be that the government in Damascus has pulled the plug on the education budget of the region, 18 months after it was taken over by rebels opposed to Bashar Assad, Syria’s president.
The evolution of IS from insurgent group to a self-declared state straddling much of the Euphrates valley would not have been possible without careful financial and administrative management, alongside effective military tactics, exploitation of social media and an uncompromising ideology. The group operated a lucrative protection racket in Mosul, Iraq’s second city, long before it took it over on June 10th with the help of allied Sunnis disgruntled with the government in Baghdad. The funds helped to finance IS’s expansion into Syria in 2013.
IS may also have tapped into the pool of funds from Gulf Arab donors to Salafist and jihadist groups in Syria, but its Iraqi revenue streams gave it an edge over its rivals. The group’s takeover of the eastern Syrian city of Deir ez-Zor has given it access to a cluster of oilfields in that area that used to be operated by Shell and Total, Western energy companies, allowing it to sell oil, some allegedly to the regime in Damascus. Additional revenue comes from taxing farmers in both Syria and Iraq, and from various forms of extortion in the towns it controls, including levying jizya (tax) on Christians.
IS's mission is to create its own caliphate, but until now many of its sources of revenue have depended on its host states. In Iraq, the money that IS extorted from contractors, businesses and institutions ultimately derived from the expenditure of the central government in Baghdad. In both countries, IS's "subjects" include thousands of employees of the respective central governments, who are still drawing their salaries from the government and carrying out their functions.”
"CMS announces new office in Dubai , expanding global energy practice
CMS today announced the opening of a new office in Dubai - initially to service energy clients – consolidating its presence in the Middle East.
Head of Energy, Penelope Warne, comments: "A new hub of energy companies is emerging in Dubai to service major investment into Iraq, and this is stimulating demand for specialist lawyers in the region. Our lawyers on the ground are perfectly positioned to meet those needs and enable us to service other energy projects in the region.
"We have supported clients for a number of years through our offering in Lebanon and Baghdad. Having a physical presence in Dubai consolidates our Middle East offer and is a logical addition to our expanding global practice."
CMS' team in Dubai is led by Partners, Stephen Millar and Matthew Culver.
The firm’s global energy practice continues to go from strength to strength. The Dubai launch follows an office opening in Rio de Janeiro in 2010 and a large, growing presence in
CMS now operates in 28 countries, with 52 offices in Western and Central Europe and beyond. CMS was established in 1999 and today comprises 750 Partners and over 2,800 lawyers. CMS is headquartered in Frankfurt, Germany.
Recent notable deals for the energy team include advising:
Long-standing client, BP, in completing a deal to sell its interests in the Wytch Farm area in Dorset to Perenco UK Limited for up to $610 million. The sale included BP's interest in the Wytch Farm, Wareham, Beacon and Kimmeridge fields together with associated pipelines and onshore processing facilities at the Hamble terminal.
National Grid and ScottishPower, in entering into a ground-breaking subsea cable project with Siemens and Prysmian known as the Western HVDC Link Project. The 420km Western HVDC Link will provide a 2.2GW subsea link connecting the transmission network in the south of Scotland with England/Wales via a route which also takes it through Isle of Man and Northern Ireland waters. It is expected to be operational in 2016."
Yours sincerely,
Field McConnell, United States Naval Academy, 1971; Forensic Economist; 30 year airline and 22 year military pilot; 23,000 hours of safety; Tel: 715 307 8222
David Hawkins Tel: 604 542-0891 Forensic Economist; former leader of oil-well blow-out teams; now sponsors Grand Juries in CSI Crime and Safety Investigation
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