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“A last-second deal in the massive government funding bill will add $1 billion to the World Trade Center health program and buy several years before it runs into a budget crunch,…

Supporters and advocates had hoped to pass a $3.6 billion measure authored by Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., that would have permanently plugged the hole and covered military personnel who are ill from responding to the Pentagon attack in 2001. The health program is facing a $3 billion deficit over the next decade.

The 9/11 health fund money was unexpectedly left out of the original version of the $1.7 trillion spending, prompting outrage from advocates and New York lawmakers.

Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell blocked that at the behest of several of his members, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer told the Daily News. …

Late Wednesday, Gillibrand and Schumer took a deal to get $1 billion to at least shore up the program. The money is being added as an amendment and will have to be voted on, but is expected to pass easily with McConnell’s support.

The move sparked both relief and anger. On one hand, the $1 billion probably pushes the worst problems for the health program until 2027. On the other, a stopgap like that does not fix the underlying formula used to fund the program, which helped cause the deficit.”

– Michael McAuliff, “Congressional Negotiators Agree to Add $1 Billion for 9/11 Health Fund in End-of-Year Spending Bill,” news.yahoo.com, December 21, 2022

“Congress will not consider additional funding for the World Trade Center Health Program, which has helped thousands of first responders access medical treatment for exposure to toxic debris after the September 11 terror attacks.

Since 2010, the program has helped fund the treatment of respiratory illness for first responders who were exposed to toxic debris from 9/11. …

The program covers the lifespan of all people exposed, including responders and survivors of the attack on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon, the Shanksville crash site.

While the program was reauthorized in 2015 and extended through 2090 with bipartisan support, it is estimated to be too cash-strapped to take on any new claims after October 2024.”

– J.D. Allen, “Funding for 9/11 Health Program Is Left Out of Federal Omnibus Bill,” wshu.org, December 20, 2022

“An unusual terrorism case in Chicago came to a close Thursday [11/24/2022] when a federal judge handed a seven-and-a-half-year prison sentence to a former DePaul University student who tried to aid the Islamic State with a computer script.

Before he was sentenced, Thomas Osadzinski, 23, told U.S. District Judge Robert Gettleman that, ‘I failed everyone, and I failed myself.’ …

The judge also gave Osadzinski 10 years of supervised release.

Osadzinski’s prosecution was believed to be the first of its kind when it began three years ago – a terrorism case brought against a U.S.-based defendant involving computer code. …

Prosecutors said Osadzinski designed a process that uses a computer script to make Islamic State propaganda more conveniently accessed and disseminated by users on the social media platform Telegram.

Defense attorney Joshua Herman argued at trial that Osadzinski acted independently. He said … ‘there must be coordination with’ or direction from, the Islamic State to find Osadzinski guilty. But Assistant U.S. Attorney Melody Wells argued there was ‘nothing independent about this.’ She told jurors Osadzinski had been responding to Islamic State propaganda, which urged supporters to ‘strive patiently in the digital arena.’

In the end, the jury convicted Osadzinski of attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State after a trial that featured roughly two weeks of evidence.”

– Sun-Times Media Wire, “Former Depaul Student Sentenced for Trying To Help Islamic State With Computer Program,” abc7chicago.com, November 18, 2022

Editor’s note: According to most historians of the Islamic State (also referred to as ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh), “the group emerged out of al-Qaeda in Iraq as a response to the U.S. invasion in 2003.” See Hassan Hassan, “The True Origins of ISIS,” theatlantic.com, November 30, 2018, for more information.

“A Danish woman evacuated from a Syrian detention camp last year was sentenced on Friday [11/18/2022] to three years in prison by a Danish court for aiding Islamic State militants and illegally travelling to and residing in conflict zones,…

The 35-year-old woman travelled to Syria with her husband in 2013. When trying to escape Islamic State’s so-called caliphate in 2018 with the help of human traffickers, they were captured by Kurdish forces, who sent her to the al-Roj detention camp in Kurdish-held territory in northeastern Syria due to their association with Islamic State. … The woman was separated from her husband during the escape attempt, and it is unclear what happened to him.

The woman pleaded guilty to aiding Islamic State by working as a housewife and to illegally travelling to and residing in a conflict area, her lawyer told Reuters. The woman accepted the three-year sentence.”

– Reuters, “Danish Woman Evacuated From Syrian Camps Sentenced for Aiding Islamic State,” reuters.com, November 18, 2022

Editor’s note: According to most historians of the Islamic State (also referred to as ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh), “the group emerged out of al-Qaeda in Iraq as a response to the U.S. invasion in 2003.” See Hassan Hassan, “The True Origins of ISIS,” theatlantic.com, November 30, 2018, for more information.

“A rough transcript of a 2004 interview George W. Bush and Dick Cheney gave to a government commission investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks provides a glimpse of the former president’s and vice president’s views of the seminal event that defined their eight years in the White House.

The April 2004 interview with the bipartisan 9/11 commission, which took place in the Oval Office, included discussion of intelligence warnings before the attacks and the events that unfolded on the day of Sept. 11, according to the copy of the 31-page document. It also describes Mr. Bush acknowledging that Air Force One had poor communications while he was on the plane shortly after the attacks began—and Mr. Bush’s assertion that he gave Mr. Cheney the authority to shoot down commercial airliners that were unresponsive.

The newly declassified document was released to the public Wednesday [11/9/2022]. …

The interview wasn’t recorded, but a note taker was present. The document was authorized for public release by the Interagency Security Classification Appeals Panel, a body of representatives from various federal departments. It contains few redactions.”

– Dustin Volz and Warren P. Strobel, “US Releases 9/11 Commission Interview with George W. Bush, Dick Cheney,” wsj.com, November 9, 2022

“A Pennsylvania man was sentenced yesterday [11/8/2022] to 208 months, more than 17 years, in federal prison, followed by a lifetime of supervised release, for attempting to provide material support to the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham, aka ISIS, a designated foreign terrorist organization.

Mustafa Mousab Alowemer, 24, of Pittsburgh, pleaded guilty in the Western District of Pennsylvania on Sept. 16, 2021 to one count of attempting to provide material support to ISIS in connection with his plan to attack a church in Pittsburgh.”

– United States Department of Justice, “Man Sentenced to More Than 17 Years in Prison for Attempting to Provide Material Support to ISIS,” justice.gov, November 9, 2022

Editor’s note: According to most historians of the Islamic State (also referred to as ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh), “the group emerged out of al-Qaeda in Iraq as a response to the U.S. invasion in 2003.” See Hassan Hassan, “The True Origins of ISIS,” theatlantic.com, November 30, 2018, for more information.

“A U.S. citizen was sentenced to 20 years in prison today [11/1/2022] in the Eastern District of Virginia for organizing and leading an all-female military battalion in Syria on behalf of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), a designated foreign terrorist organization.

According to court documents, Allison Fluke-Ekren, aka Allison Ekren, aka Umm Mohammed al-Amriki, and aka Umm Mohammed, 42, a former resident of Kansas, traveled overseas and, from in or about September 2011 through in or about May 2019, engaged in terrorist acts in multiple countries, including Syria, Libya and Iraq. Fluke-Ekren ultimately served as the leader and organizer of an ISIS military battalion, known as the Khatiba Nusaybah, where she trained women on the use of automatic firing AK-47 assault rifles, grenades and suicide belts. Over 100 women and young girls, some as young as 10 years old, received military training from Fluke-Ekren in Syria on behalf of ISIS.”

– United States Department of Justice, “American Woman Who Led ISIS Battalion Sentenced to 20 Years,” justice.gov, November 1, 2022

Editor’s note: According to most historians of the Islamic State (also referred to as ISIS, ISIL, and Daesh), “the group emerged out of al-Qaeda in Iraq as a response to the U.S. invasion in 2003.” See Hassan Hassan, “The True Origins of ISIS,” theatlantic.com, November 30, 2018, for more information.

“On Sept. 26, 2022, Yusuf al Qaradawi died at age 96 in Qatar. The spiritual leader of the Muslim Brotherhood, Qaradawi was the most well-known Muslim cleric in the West, infamous for his calls to murder Americans, Israelis, and others during the height of the Global War on Terror. Once called ‘the most popular and authoritative’ Sunni cleric in the world, Qaradawi’s death attracted little attention, at least as compared to his influence on world events. That reaction, perhaps even more than the death itself, is an important pronouncement: The post-9/11 era is over. …

‘Every person who has fought in these wars and left them,’ the war on terror veteran and writer Elliot Ackerman recently wrote, ‘has had to declare the war over for themselves.’ … There are no ticker-tape parades, and there will not be anything analogous to a ‘Victory in Europe’ day. The war against Islamist terrorism, while winding down, will no doubt continue.

But the forever war seems to have reached a turning point, leaving America searching to articulate its posture on the world stage. The muted attention given to Qaradawi’s death suggests the hateful cleric outlived the era he did so much to shape.”

– Sean Durns, “The End of the Post-9/11 Era,” washingtonexaminer.com, October 14, 2022

“The number of New York City firefighters who died from 9/11 related illness in the two decades since terrorists flew hijacked planes into the World Trade Center has surpassed 300.

The New York City Fire Department’s Uniformed Firefighters Association announced the deaths of three additional firefighters who responded to Ground Zero over this weekend [September 17 – 18, 2022]. …

This comes as the World Trade Center Health Program, which provides medical monitoring and treatment of WTC-related health conditions for 9/11 responders and survivors, is reportedly running on a $3 billion deficit. …

The FDNY lost 343 members 21 years ago from the attack on the World Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001.”

– Danielle Wallace, “NYC Firefighters Dead From 9/11 Related Illnesses Surpasses 300 as World Trade Health Fund Sits at $3B Deficit,” foxnews.com, September 20, 2022

“A federal judge found that 9/11 families and other U.S. victims cannot recover billions of dollars from the Central Bank of Afghanistan to satisfy judgments against the Taliban. The report and recommendation, handed down by Magistrate Judge Sarah Netburn on Friday afternoon [8/26/2022], is a victory for Afghan civil society groups, which argued in an amicus brief filed by the Center for Constitutional Rights that the $3.5 billion in blocked assets belong to the people of Afghanistan and should be used to alleviate the devastating humanitarian crisis there.

At issue are $7.1 billion that the previous government of Afghanistan placed in the New York Federal Reserve. President Biden froze the funds after the Taliban takeover in August 2021, and, in February, he signed an executive order effectively allocating half for humanitarian relief in Afghanistan, leaving half subject to litigation. A group of 9/11 families that won a 2011 default judgment against those responsible for the attacks had filed a motion arguing that more than $2 billion should be turned over to them. American victims of a 2016 attack in Afghanistan had filed a separate motion seeking $138.4 million, and other victims made similar claims against the remainder of funds.”

– Center for Constitutional Rights, “Judge Agrees With Afghan Groups: 9/11 Families Cannot Claim Billions From Central Bank of Afghanistan,” ccrjustice.org, August 29, 2022