ISIS Cheers Attacks

The Islamic State was quick to claim credit for this weekend's carnage in St. Cloud and New York. After the bombing in Manhattan, Islamists celebrated on social media. And while local authorities struggled to understand the motivation of St. Cloud slasher Dahir Adan, ISIS hailed him as "a soldier of the Islamic State."

Below are some updates to our earlier report.
 

• Dahir Adan was brought down by Jason Falconer, a former police chief and off-duty officer. Falconer is also an NRA Certified Instructor and owner of Tactical Advantage shooting range. Once again, a good guy with a gun stopped the bad guy. Were it not for Mr. Falconer's courage and expertise, the carnage at the St. Cloud mall could have been far worse.
   
• Ahmad Khan Rahami, the Afghan immigrant and naturalized American citizen believed responsible for the New York bombing, was captured in a shootout with law enforcement authorities. He was discovered sleeping in the doorway of a bar. When a police officer approached him, he pulled out a gun, shot the officer in the abdomen and then fled the sceen. (Thankfully, the officer was wearing a bullet-proof vest and was not seriously injured.) It didn't take long before other officers caught up with him.
   
• Rahami was not on any known terror watch lists. He reportedly made several trips to Afghanistan in recent years. One friend told reporters, "At one point he left to go to Afghanistan, and two years ago he came back, popped up out of nowhere and he was real religious, and it was shocking."
   
• In 2011, Rahami and his family sued the city of Elizabeth, New Jersey, for alleged discrimination and harassment of their restaurant. Police reports indicate that the restaurant was "known for criminal activity," and the family's lawsuit was summarily dismissed.
   
• Rahami carried out his attack in a progressive city where the left-wing mayor stopped the monitoring of mosques. The mayor did that because he said the surveillance was offensive to Muslims, which is exactly what Obama says.
   
• President Obama finally addressed the attacks today. He warned reporters to "refrain from getting out ahead of the investigation." Obama added, "At this point, we see no connection between [the Minnesota mall attack] and what happened here in New York and New Jersey."

  Really, Mr. President? Allow me to enlighten you: Radical Islamic supremacists are trying to kill us. That is the connection.
   

• White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest added to the delusion when he told MSNBC, "When it comes to ISIL (ISIS), we are in a fight -- a narrative fight with them. A narrative battle."

  A "narrative battle"? No, Josh, this is a very real battle with bombs and bullets, beheadings and genocide. The "junior varsity" team means to destroy us, and it's time we stopped worrying about narratives.

  About That Vetting. . .

  Can the Obama Administration actually adequately vet immigrants, migrants and refugees from countries that are hot beds of Islamic terrorism? I wouldn't bet on it. The confidence level in big government is virtually zero, especially when you consider current performance.

  The Associated Press reports that an inspector general's audit discovered that the Department of Homeland Security "granted citizenship to at least 858 immigrants from countries of concern to national security . . . who had pending deportation orders." Feel safer now?

  President Obama has exerted great efforts to release EVERY Gitmo terror suspect and send them "home" to Islamic countries. But our Homeland Security Department is accidentally granting citizenship to potential future jihadists!