'I want to execute. I want to behead,' says US man arrested at airport on way to join LeT

Agencies
February 9, 2019

Washington, Feb 9: A 29-year-old New York City man has been arrested while he was about to catch a flight to Pakistan to join the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), in a dangerous sign that the Pakistan-based terror group, which carried out the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, has expanded its tentacles in the US.

In another instance of growing influence of the LeT in the US and radicalisation of American youths, a teenager in Texas was charged by the FBI with using social media to recruit people on behalf of the terror group and send them to Pakistan for terrorist training.

Federal prosecutors on Friday announced that they arrested the Manhattan man, Jesus Wilfredo Encarnacion, on Thursday night at John F Kennedy International Airport as he was about to board an international flight with Pakistan being his final destination.

Prosecutors say Encarnacion went online to try to join the terrorist organisation. Encarnacion allegedly told an unnamed co-conspirator in November that he wanted to hook up with Pakistani terror group which carried out the 2008 Mumbai attacks that killed 166 people.

"I want to execute. I want to behead. Shoot," Encarnacion told an undercover agent, the complaint alleges.

"Encarnacion allegedly attempted to travel to Pakistan to join a foreign terrorist organisation and conspired with another individual to provide that organisation with material support," said Assistant Attorney General John Demers.

Encarnacion aka "Jihadistsoldgier", "Jihadinhear", "Jihadinheart" and "Lionofthegood," plotted to travel to Pakistan to join and train with LeT, said US Attorney Geoffrey Berman.

"Encarnacion not only expressed a desire to "execute and behead people," he scheduled travel and almost boarded a plane so he could go learn how to become a terrorist," said FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge William Sweeney Jr.

In the southern state of Texas, 18-year-old Michael Kyle Sewell was charged by the FBI with using social media to recruit people on behalf of the LeT and send them to Pakistan for terrorist training.

The arrest of the New Yorker and the charges against the Texas teenager - who do not appear to be of South Asian origin as has been the case in previous such arrests - has set the alarm bells ringing among the law enforcement agencies in the US.

The arrests have thrown the spotlight on issues of homegrown terrorism and radicalisation of American youths, a situation that authorities have dreaded post Mumbai-terrorist attack.

Based out of Pakistan, the LeT is a UN and US designated global terrorist organisation and has carried out several terrorist attacks inside India, including the Mumbai terrorist attack in 2008 that took the lives of 166 people including several Americans.

"These organisations are using the internet and social media to appeal to the most barbaric impulses in people, and train them to kill," Sweeney Jr added.

According to NYPD Police Commissioner James O'Neill, one of Encarnacion's stated motives for travelling overseas was to get the training and experience he believed he needed to someday return to the United States and carry out attacks.

Meanwhile, Sewell, who encouraged and recruited an individual to join the LeT hails from Fort Worth city and met the man.

"Sewell allegedly used social media to recruit and encourage an individual to travel overseas to join a foreign terrorist organization and conspired with that person to provide material support to that organisation," Demers said.

According to the criminal complaint, Sewell provided the co-conspirator with contact information of an individual he believed could facilitate the travel to Pakistan.

Unbeknownst to Sewell and his partner, the facilitator was an undercover FBI agent, the federal prosecutors said.

Sewell had even coached the co-conspirator on how to convince the facilitator that he was sincere in his desire to fight for the LeT, they added.

The teen also contacted the facilitator to vouch for the co-conspirator's authenticity and told both of them that he would kill the coconspirator if he turned out to be a spy.

The co-conspirator then contacted the facilitator and made arrangements to travel to Pakistan, the criminal complaint said.

Comments

Abdullah
 - 
Sunday, 10 Feb 2019

This is total bias.  US is trying to defame islam and muslims.  the man arested seems to be a jew or christian.  How come he is joining LeT which is no more existing now.  US is trying to fool to divert attention of people from failure of Trump Govt.   

Rashid
 - 
Saturday, 9 Feb 2019

Probabaly marketing for ISIS is finished.. now i think it is the plan either to target islam thru LET or to destroy Pakistani economy which is trying recover under Imran khan.

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News Network
June 2,2020

Jun 2: A new female billionaire has emerged from one of Asia's most-expensive breakups.

Du Weimin, the chairman of Shenzhen Kangtai Biological Products Co., transferred 161.3 million shares of the vaccine maker to his ex-wife, Yuan Liping, according to a May 29 filing, immediately catapulting her into the ranks of the world's richest.

The stock was worth $3.2 billion as of Monday's close.

Yuan, 49 this year, owns the shares directly, but signed an agreement delegating the voting rights to her ex-husband, the filing shows. The Canadian citizen, who resides in Shenzhen, served as a director of Kangtai between May 2011 and August 2018. She's now the vice general manager of subsidiary Beijing Minhai Biotechnology Co. Yuan holds a bachelor's degree in economics from Beijing's University of International Business and Economics.

Kangtai shares have more than doubled in the past year and have continued their ascent since February, when the company announced a plan to develop a vaccine to fight the coronavirus. They slipped for a second day Tuesday following news of the divorce terms, losing 3.1% as of 9:43 a.m. in Hong Kong and bringing the company's market value to $12.9 billion.

Du's net worth has now dropped to about $3.1 billion from $6.5 billion before the split, excluding his pledged shares.

The 56-year-old was born into a farming family in China's Jiangxi province. After studying chemistry in college, he began working in a clinic in 1987 and became a sales manager for a biotech company in 1995, according to the prospectus of Kangtai's 2017 initial public offering. In 2009, Kangtai acquired Minhai, the company Du founded in 2004, and he became the chairman of the combined entity.

China's rapidly growing economy has been an engine for the country's richest, and Du is not the only tycoon who's had to pay a steep price for a divorce. In 2012, Wu Yajun, at one point the nation's richest woman, transferred a stake worth about $2.3 billion to her ex-husband, Cai Kui, who co-founded developer Longfor Group Holdings Ltd. In 2016, tech billionaire Zhou Yahui gave $1.1 billion of shares in his online gaming company, Beijing Kunlun Tech Co., to ex-wife Li Qiong after a civil court settlement.

Sometimes, a goodbye can be time-consuming too. South Korean tycoon Chey Tae-won's wife filed a lawsuit in December asking for a 42.3% stake in SK Holdings Co. valued at $1.2 billion. That would make her the second-largest shareholder of the company should she win the case, which is still ongoing.

The most expensive divorce in history is that of Jeff and MacKenzie Bezos. The Amazon.com Inc. founder gave 4% of the online retailer to Mackenzie, who now has a $48 billion fortune and is the world's fourth-richest woman.

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News Network
May 28,2020

New Delhi, May 28: With 6,566 more coronavirus cases and 194 deaths reported in the past 24 hours, India's COVID-19 tally reached 1,58,333 on Thursday, according to the Union Ministry of Health and Family Affairs.

The number of active coronavirus cases stands at 86,110, while 67,692 people have recovered and one patient has migrated, it said. The death toll due to the infection has reached 4,531 in the country.

Maharashtra is the worst affected state with 56,948 cases. Tamil Nadu has recorded as many as 18,545 cases while Gujarat and Delhi have recorded 15,195 and 15,257 coronavirus cases respectively.

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Agencies
June 7,2020

Boston, Jun 7: Dozens of scientists doing research funded by Mark Zuckerberg say Facebook should not be letting President Donald Trump use of the social media platform to spread both misinformation and incendiary statements.

The researchers, including 60 professors at leading US research institutions, wrote a letter to the Facebook CEO on Saturday asking that he consider stricter policies on misinformation and incendiary language that harms people," especially during the current turmoil over racial injustice.

The letter calls the spread of deliberate misinformation and divisive language the researchers' goal of using technology to prevent and eradicate disease, improving childhood education and reform the criminal justice system.

The researchers' mission "is antithetical to some of the stances that Facebook has been taking, so we're encouraging them to be more on the side of truth and on the right side of history as we've said in the letter, said Debora Marks of Harvard Medical School, one of three professors who organized the letter.

The other organisers are Martin Kampmann of the University of California-San Francisco and Jason Shepherd of the University of Utah.

All have grants from a Chan Zuckerberg Initiative program working to prevent, cure and treat neurodegenerative disorders including Alzheimer's and Parkinson's disease. The initiative is run by Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

They said the letter had more than 160 signatories. Shepherd said about 10% are employees of Chan Zuckerberg foundations.

The letter objects specifically to Zuckerberg's decision not to at least flag as a violation of Facebook's community standards Trump's post that stated when the looting starts, the shooting starts after unrest in Minneapolis over the videotaped killing of George Floyd, a black man, by a white police officer.

The letter's authors called the post a clear statement of inciting violence.

Twitter had both flagged and demoted a Trump tweet using the same language.

The Associated Press emailed the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative press office for comment. It did not immediately respond.

Some Facebook employees have publicly objected to Zuckerberg's refusal to take down or label misleading or incendiary posts by Trump or other politicians. But Zuckerberg who controls a majority of voting shares in the company has so far refused.

On Friday, Zuckerberg said in a post that he would review potential options for handling violating or partially-violating content aside from the binary leave-it-up or take-it-down decisions I know many of you think we should have labeled the President's posts in some way last week, he wrote.

"Our current policy is that if content is actually inciting violence, then the right mitigation is to take that content down not let people continue seeing it behind a flag. There is no exception to this policy for politicians or newsworthiness.

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