Beheading videos, SITE, and journalist "freedom fighters"
For the second time in a little over two weeks, a video of the beheading by a British-accented Islamic State jihadist of a U.S. journalist captured in Syria was distributed by the same organization. The most recent video images of orange jump suit-clad U.S. journalist Steven Sotloff being beheaded were released by the Search for International Terrorist Entities or "SITE," which also initially discovered and released the video beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley of GlobalPost.com.
As with the Foley video, U.S. intelligence initially refrained from validating the authenticity of the Sotloff video until it completed an examination of the Sotloff video. Obviously, the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies are well-versed on SITE's Israeli pedigree. As previously revealed by WMR, SITE is a Washington, DC-based research institute with links to Israeli right-wing Likud elements and Mossad. SITE is operated by Israeli intelligence asset Rita Katz and was also the source for a number of dubious videos of Osama Bin Laden, including one that only showed the Al Qaeda's lips moving but the rest of his body inanimate. In 2008, SITE released a video purportedly of Al Qaeda's number two, Ayman al Zawahiri. A number of experts determined the video was a fake.
WMR reported on September 9, 2007 that Katz is "an Iraq-born Jew who moved to Israel after her father was executed by Saddam Hussein's government for spying for the Mossad. She emigrated to the United States from Israel in 1997. Katz worked for the U.S. Treasury Department in its pursuit of Muslim charity funds in the United States in Operation Green Quest and as a consultant for the FBI. The main coordinator for Green Quest was the then-head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, Michael Chertoff."
In addition, WMR reported: "Katz once served as Research Director of the Investigative Project, another neocon outfit run by noted Arab and Muslim demonizer Steven Emerson, who was one of the first past the post to blame the 1995 Murrah Federal Building bombing on Arab terrorists."
Our report from 2007 continued: "[The latest 30-minute Bin Laden video] was obtained by the SITE Institute, a Washington-based group that monitors terrorist messages, and provided to the Associated Press."
The Israeli Foreign Ministry revealed that Sotloff was an Israeli citizen after his death. Moreover, Israel admitted going to great lengths to remove from the Internet any references to Sotloff's Israeli citizenship. However, after Sotloff's death was confirmed, an Israeli Foreign Ministry official sent out the following Twitter message: "Cleared for publication: Steven Sotloff was Israel citizen RIP." The Jerusalem Post reported that Sotloff worked for the Temple Beth Am in Florida. The synagogue is a Reformed Judaism day school in Pinecrest, south Miami-Dade County. Sotloff also worked for theJerusalem Report, a publication of the pro-Netanyahu governmentJerusalem Post, and which was formerly owned by arch-neocon Conrad Black's Hollinger Corporation and funded by multi-billionaire Zionism supporter Charles Bronfman. Sotloff also worked for Media Line and briefly lived in Israel in 2008. While there, Sotloff studied international relations at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzilya.
Herzilya is also the headquarters of Israel's Mossad. Media Line is a non-profit Israeli news website whose advisory board members include Marvin Kalb, formerly of CBS News; PBS's Judy Woodruff; Dean Patrick, former newsman for Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network and current Regent University Dean of the School of Communications; former CBS News reporter Murray Fromson; and Columbia Journalism School professor Ari Goldman.
Questions still surround what Foley and Sotloff were actually doing in Syria. Moreover, Foley had been embedded with jihadist guerrillas fighting against Muammar Qaddafi's government in Libya prior to his embedded status with Syrian Jabhat al Nusra-linked Islamist guerrillas fighting against Bashar Assad's government in Syria. In both cases, the CIA was training, arming, and funding the Libyan and Syrian guerrilla forces. Sotloff also was embedded with CIA-supported Islamist guerrillas in Libya and Syria. He also reported as a freelancer from Yemen and Egypt. Foley was embedded with U.S. military units in Afghanistan and Iraq. A photograph of Sotloff shows him embedded with Libyan Islamist fighters at the Al Dafniya front line on June 2, 2011. Getty Images copyright restrictions prevent WMR from including the photograph.
Concerns previously raised by WMR about the CIA's renewed use of journalists as spies were not assuaged after an American "film maker" friend of Foley and Sotloff appeared on various news programs to eulogize Foley and Sotloff after their beheading. The film maker, Matthew VanDyke told Al Jazeera on September 2 that he fought on the side of the Libyan rebels against Qaddafi as an armed combatant and was taken prisoner and held by the Libyan government forces for six months, as was Foley, before being released and given a one-year suspended sentence for illegally entering Libya. In VanDyke's case, he used his claim of being a journalist to enter Libya to fight as a combatant for the anti-Qaddafi guerrillas. It is exactly the type of situation, which puts every foreign correspondent in danger, that led to the CIA's ban on the use of journalists as spies. VanDyke also visited Iraq where he was reportedly "helping Christians," as was the U.S. military and CIA, against the Islamic State. VanDyke is said to be a resident of Baltimore and a native of Fenwick Island, Delaware. VanDyke describes himself not only as a "film maker" but also a "revolutionary."
According to Syrian State Television, VanDyke also fought with Free Syrian Army, which included the Jabhat al Nusra guerrillas affiliated with Al Qaeda. Most Jabhat al Nusra forces have now sworn allegiance to the Islamic State. Syrian TV described VanDyke as a terrorist who was fighting the Syrian government on behalf of the jihadist forces. VanDyke was, according to Syrian state TV, fighting alongside Islamist guerrillas in Aleppo. VanDyke calls himself an "Arab Spring freedom fighter" on his personal website. In August 2012, VanDyke announced he was going to join the Syrian uprising against Assad and "capture it all on film." After VanDyke began raising thousands of dollars on the Kickstarter on-line donation website, the company kicked him off. There were reports at the time that Kickstarter was being used by anti-Assad Syrian terrorist groups to also raise funds. Syrian state TV apparently nailed VanDyke in its description.
Matthew VanDyke's [above] association with Foley and Sotloff in Libya and Syria tarnishes the "journalism" credentials of both executed Americans.
More noteworthy is VanDyke's Master's degree in Security Studies fromGeorgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service. Georgetown is and always has been a prime recruiting center for the CIA. VanDyke, like Foley, was embedded with U.S. military forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Unusually, he traveled by motorcycle through Morocco, Mauritania, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq (where he lived from 2008 to 2009), Iran, and Afghanistan, countries not normally associated with motorcycle treks.
VanDyke has laughingly been described as a modern-day Che Guevara or a member of Spain's anti-fascist International Brigade. However, neither Guevara nor any self-respecting member of the International Brigade would ever have fought for CIA-sponsored guerrillas. In fact, VanDyke more resembles an off-beat Blackwater mercenary or a CIA provocateur like David Atlee Phillips or Frank Carlucci.
VanDyke's friendship with Foley and Sotloff on U.S.-sponsored battlefields embedded with CIA-enabled Islamist guerrilla groups raises the specter that one or more of these so-called "journalists" were performing missions not in keeping with the Journalist's Creed, particularly the following proviso:
"I believe that bribery by one’s own pocketbook is as much to be avoided as bribery by the pocketbook of another; that individual responsibility may not be escaped by pleading another’s instructions or another’s dividends."
VanDyke has been honored with all sorts of journalist awards, many from "concern" groups funded by global hedge fund tycoon and troublemaker George Soros. However, there is but one problem with giving awards for journalism to someone like VanDyke. He's not a journalist. At worst, he is a CIA operative using journalist credentials for covert purposes. At best, he is an agent provocateur who has put every legitimate journalist in the gravest of danger. As the case may be with VanDyke's friends Foley and Sotloff, such provocation of using journalists as U.S. intelligence agents likely cost both of them their lives.
For the second time in a little over two weeks, a video of the beheading by a British-accented Islamic State jihadist of a U.S. journalist captured in Syria was distributed by the same organization. The most recent video images of orange jump suit-clad U.S. journalist Steven Sotloff being beheaded were released by the Search for International Terrorist Entities or "SITE," which also initially discovered and released the video beheading of U.S. journalist James Foley of GlobalPost.com.
As with the Foley video, U.S. intelligence initially refrained from validating the authenticity of the Sotloff video until it completed an examination of the Sotloff video. Obviously, the CIA and other U.S. intelligence agencies are well-versed on SITE's Israeli pedigree. As previously revealed by WMR, SITE is a Washington, DC-based research institute with links to Israeli right-wing Likud elements and Mossad. SITE is operated by Israeli intelligence asset Rita Katz and was also the source for a number of dubious videos of Osama Bin Laden, including one that only showed the Al Qaeda's lips moving but the rest of his body inanimate. In 2008, SITE released a video purportedly of Al Qaeda's number two, Ayman al Zawahiri. A number of experts determined the video was a fake.
WMR reported on September 9, 2007 that Katz is "an Iraq-born Jew who moved to Israel after her father was executed by Saddam Hussein's government for spying for the Mossad. She emigrated to the United States from Israel in 1997. Katz worked for the U.S. Treasury Department in its pursuit of Muslim charity funds in the United States in Operation Green Quest and as a consultant for the FBI. The main coordinator for Green Quest was the then-head of the Justice Department's Criminal Division, Michael Chertoff."
In addition, WMR reported: "Katz once served as Research Director of the Investigative Project, another neocon outfit run by noted Arab and Muslim demonizer Steven Emerson, who was one of the first past the post to blame the 1995 Murrah Federal Building bombing on Arab terrorists."
Our report from 2007 continued: "[The latest 30-minute Bin Laden video] was obtained by the SITE Institute, a Washington-based group that monitors terrorist messages, and provided to the Associated Press."
The Israeli Foreign Ministry revealed that Sotloff was an Israeli citizen after his death. Moreover, Israel admitted going to great lengths to remove from the Internet any references to Sotloff's Israeli citizenship. However, after Sotloff's death was confirmed, an Israeli Foreign Ministry official sent out the following Twitter message: "Cleared for publication: Steven Sotloff was Israel citizen RIP." The Jerusalem Post reported that Sotloff worked for the Temple Beth Am in Florida. The synagogue is a Reformed Judaism day school in Pinecrest, south Miami-Dade County. Sotloff also worked for theJerusalem Report, a publication of the pro-Netanyahu governmentJerusalem Post, and which was formerly owned by arch-neocon Conrad Black's Hollinger Corporation and funded by multi-billionaire Zionism supporter Charles Bronfman. Sotloff also worked for Media Line and briefly lived in Israel in 2008. While there, Sotloff studied international relations at the Interdisciplinary Center in Herzilya.
Herzilya is also the headquarters of Israel's Mossad. Media Line is a non-profit Israeli news website whose advisory board members include Marvin Kalb, formerly of CBS News; PBS's Judy Woodruff; Dean Patrick, former newsman for Pat Robertson's Christian Broadcasting Network and current Regent University Dean of the School of Communications; former CBS News reporter Murray Fromson; and Columbia Journalism School professor Ari Goldman.
Questions still surround what Foley and Sotloff were actually doing in Syria. Moreover, Foley had been embedded with jihadist guerrillas fighting against Muammar Qaddafi's government in Libya prior to his embedded status with Syrian Jabhat al Nusra-linked Islamist guerrillas fighting against Bashar Assad's government in Syria. In both cases, the CIA was training, arming, and funding the Libyan and Syrian guerrilla forces. Sotloff also was embedded with CIA-supported Islamist guerrillas in Libya and Syria. He also reported as a freelancer from Yemen and Egypt. Foley was embedded with U.S. military units in Afghanistan and Iraq. A photograph of Sotloff shows him embedded with Libyan Islamist fighters at the Al Dafniya front line on June 2, 2011. Getty Images copyright restrictions prevent WMR from including the photograph.
Concerns previously raised by WMR about the CIA's renewed use of journalists as spies were not assuaged after an American "film maker" friend of Foley and Sotloff appeared on various news programs to eulogize Foley and Sotloff after their beheading. The film maker, Matthew VanDyke told Al Jazeera on September 2 that he fought on the side of the Libyan rebels against Qaddafi as an armed combatant and was taken prisoner and held by the Libyan government forces for six months, as was Foley, before being released and given a one-year suspended sentence for illegally entering Libya. In VanDyke's case, he used his claim of being a journalist to enter Libya to fight as a combatant for the anti-Qaddafi guerrillas. It is exactly the type of situation, which puts every foreign correspondent in danger, that led to the CIA's ban on the use of journalists as spies. VanDyke also visited Iraq where he was reportedly "helping Christians," as was the U.S. military and CIA, against the Islamic State. VanDyke is said to be a resident of Baltimore and a native of Fenwick Island, Delaware. VanDyke describes himself not only as a "film maker" but also a "revolutionary."
According to Syrian State Television, VanDyke also fought with Free Syrian Army, which included the Jabhat al Nusra guerrillas affiliated with Al Qaeda. Most Jabhat al Nusra forces have now sworn allegiance to the Islamic State. Syrian TV described VanDyke as a terrorist who was fighting the Syrian government on behalf of the jihadist forces. VanDyke was, according to Syrian state TV, fighting alongside Islamist guerrillas in Aleppo. VanDyke calls himself an "Arab Spring freedom fighter" on his personal website. In August 2012, VanDyke announced he was going to join the Syrian uprising against Assad and "capture it all on film." After VanDyke began raising thousands of dollars on the Kickstarter on-line donation website, the company kicked him off. There were reports at the time that Kickstarter was being used by anti-Assad Syrian terrorist groups to also raise funds. Syrian state TV apparently nailed VanDyke in its description.
Matthew VanDyke's [above] association with Foley and Sotloff in Libya and Syria tarnishes the "journalism" credentials of both executed Americans.
More noteworthy is VanDyke's Master's degree in Security Studies fromGeorgetown University's Walsh School of Foreign Service. Georgetown is and always has been a prime recruiting center for the CIA. VanDyke, like Foley, was embedded with U.S. military forces in Afghanistan and Iraq. Unusually, he traveled by motorcycle through Morocco, Mauritania, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Jordan, Syria, Iraq (where he lived from 2008 to 2009), Iran, and Afghanistan, countries not normally associated with motorcycle treks.
VanDyke has laughingly been described as a modern-day Che Guevara or a member of Spain's anti-fascist International Brigade. However, neither Guevara nor any self-respecting member of the International Brigade would ever have fought for CIA-sponsored guerrillas. In fact, VanDyke more resembles an off-beat Blackwater mercenary or a CIA provocateur like David Atlee Phillips or Frank Carlucci.
VanDyke's friendship with Foley and Sotloff on U.S.-sponsored battlefields embedded with CIA-enabled Islamist guerrilla groups raises the specter that one or more of these so-called "journalists" were performing missions not in keeping with the Journalist's Creed, particularly the following proviso:
"I believe that bribery by one’s own pocketbook is as much to be avoided as bribery by the pocketbook of another; that individual responsibility may not be escaped by pleading another’s instructions or another’s dividends."
VanDyke has been honored with all sorts of journalist awards, many from "concern" groups funded by global hedge fund tycoon and troublemaker George Soros. However, there is but one problem with giving awards for journalism to someone like VanDyke. He's not a journalist. At worst, he is a CIA operative using journalist credentials for covert purposes. At best, he is an agent provocateur who has put every legitimate journalist in the gravest of danger. As the case may be with VanDyke's friends Foley and Sotloff, such provocation of using journalists as U.S. intelligence agents likely cost both of them their lives.
