International
Afghan Evacuee Added to CIS National Security Vetting Failures Database
Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi displaying a pro-ISIS hand gesture common among ISIS militants. He posted this photo on a Tik Tok account while in Oklahoma, resulting in an account ban. Photo courtesy of an FBI complaint filed as part of his criminal court case.
From the Center for Immigration Studies
By Todd Bensman
Former CIA guard is charged with terrorism; assurances that he was vetted turn out to be untrue
An Afghan evacuee from the August 2021 fall of Kabul who stands charged with multiple terrorism offenses that include a mass-casualty firearms attack plot is the latest addition to the Center for Immigration Studies National Security Vetting Failures Database, bringing the total number of cases to 49.
In March 2023, the Center published the database collection to draw “remedial attention” to ongoing government vetting failures lest they “drift from the public mind and interest of lawmakers, oversight committee members, media, and homeland security practitioners who would otherwise feel compelled to demand process reforms”, according to an explanatory Center report titled “Learning from our Mistakes”.
The latest addition is Nasir Ahmad Tawhedi, who worked in Afghanistan as an outside guard for a Central Intelligence Agency facility and was authorized for air evacuation from a third country a month after the August 2021 fall of Kabul to Dallas, Texas, on a hastily approved humanitarian parole.
He was among nearly 100,000 mostly Afghan evacuees, of whom about 77,000 were initially admitted into the United States via humanitarian parole through a program called Operation Allies Welcome. All became eligible for more permanent Special Immigrant Visas (SIV) mainly intended to protect Afghans who collaborated with U.S. military operations from reprisals by the Taliban group that seized control of the country.
After arriving in the United States on September 9, 2021, on humanitarian parole, Tawhedi settled with his wife and infant near Oklahoma City on an SIV. He initially worked as a Lyft driver in Dallas and later as an auto mechanic in Oklahoma.
Some 37 months after arriving, in October 2024, the FBI arrested the 27-year-old Tawhedi and a juvenile co-conspirator — Tawhedi’s brother-in-law — for an alleged plot to conduct an Election Day terrorist firearms attack in the United States on behalf of the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS), a designated foreign terrorist organization still active in Afghanistan. The unidentified co-conspirator, an Afghan, entered the United States in 2018 also on an SIV, but little else is known about his vetting processes.
Their plot involved liquidating a house and personal assets to fund the repatriation of Tawhedi’s wife and child to Afghanistan and weapons necessary for him and the juvenile to conduct a mass-casualty attack during which they would be killed, a criminal complaint alleged. The pair obtained semi-automatic rifles and ammunition for the attack, although by then FBI undercover agents had penetrated the plot.
Shortly after the arrests, U.S. government officials claimed that Tawhedi was “thoroughly” vetted three times: first to work for the CIA in Afghanistan, then “recurrently” by DHS for the humanitarian parole status allowing him to fly into the United States, and then for the Special Immigrant Visa once he was settled, probably sometime in 2022.
No red flags turned up, they asserted, without providing evidence.
“Afghan evacuees who sought to enter the United States were subject to multilayered screening and vetting against intelligence, law enforcement and counterterrorism information. If new information emerges after arrival, appropriate action is taken,” a DHS spokesperson told Fox News Digital in October 2024.
But within weeks of making those assertions, U.S. officials reversed course and acknowledged that Tawhedi did not undergo the previously claimed vetting. The State Department, in fact, never vetted or approved Tawhedi, nor had he been very thoroughly vetted for his CIA guard post job in Afghanistan, they said. DHS did not “thoroughly” vet Tawhedi for humanitarian parole on a recurring basis as initially claimed about all Afghan evacuees, either, before allowing him to fly from the unknown third country into the United States.
The screening process for Afghan evacuees in the program includes probing for any possible ties to terrorism, ISIS, or the Taliban using databases the U.S. compiled over 20 years in Afghanistan that include data from applicant electronic devices, biometrics, and other sources.
It’s unclear when Tawhedin radicalized in ways that might have been detected. U.S. officials initially told U.S. media they believed that happened only after he was admitted into the United States. In court records, the FBI says Tawhedi’s initial crime — sending $540 in cryptocurrency to ISIS — occurred in March 2024. But his ties and extremist proclivities almost certainly predated the currency transfer.
Had Tawhedi been thoroughly vetting when he was supposed to be, red flags were more likely than not available to be found both before and after he arrived in the U.S.
For instance, adjudicators might have found pre-existing extremist ideological proclivities within Tawhedi’s immediate family because two brothers evacuated to France also were arrested in September 2024 for a terrorism plot there to attack a French soccer match or shopping center, according to numerous media accounts and information that surfaced during an October 2024 Oklahoma City federal court hearing. (The French and Americans collaborated on both cases).
Furthermore, court records reveal that Tawhedi maintained relationships with well-known ISIS figures that were sufficiently trusting to have enabled direct communications with them by phone and on encrypted apps.
In fact, Tawhedi trusted these operatives to care for his repatriated wife and child after he was killed in the U.S. attack and to gift substantial remaining funds from the sale of the Oklahoma house. Lastly, an FBI investigator in the October 2024 court complaint indicated that most extended family members in Tawhedi’s Oklahoma circle were aware of the plot, approved, and could still be charged as co-conspirators as of that time.
The fact that many family members in the U.S. and abroad felt this way about Tawhedi’s plans further indicates that their extremism pre-dated U.S. entry and might have red-flagged during face-to-face interviews, database checks, and other standard security vetting practices.
Underscoring the admitted Tawhedi vetting failure, a September 2022 DHS Office of Inspector General report found, in part, that U.S. Customs and Border Protection “admitted or paroled evacuees who were not fully vetted into the United States” and that, “As a result, DHS may have admitted or paroled individuals into the United States who pose a risk to national security and the safety of local communities.”
International
Australian PM booed at Bondi vigil as crowd screams “shame!”
Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese faced a wave of public anger Sunday when he appeared at a memorial vigil at Bondi Beach honoring the victims of last week’s brutal terrorist attack on a Hanukkah celebration. The Labor leader was met with loud boos, cries of “shame,” and jeers of “you are not welcome” from furious attendees who blame his government for failing to confront a rise in antisemitism.
Albanese, accompanied by his wife and security detail, appeared visibly rattled as shouts of “blood on your hands” rang out while he walked through the crowd. The hostility didn’t let up during the vigil itself—when the prime minister’s name was mentioned by a speaker, fresh boos erupted.
“Shame on You”
“You are NOT welcome”
Bondi, Australia – Australian Prime Minister @AlboMP heckled by mourners of Bondi Chanukah Massacre@theage @theheraldsun @australian @abcnews @SBSNews @cnnbrk @Jerusalem_Post @nytimes @BBCBreaking @9NewsAUS @10NewsAU @7NewsMelbourne pic.twitter.com/C2xusWFDxQ
— Menachem Vorchheimer (@MenachemV) December 21, 2025
Critics are now intensifying their attacks on Albanese’s left-wing administration, accusing it of turning a blind eye to Jewish concerns in the wake of Hamas’ October 7 rampage in Israel. Among them is Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who last week publicly condemned Albanese in an interview with Sky News Australia, saying the terrorist violence in Bondi was “preventable” and that his government had ignored clear warnings about a brewing antisemitic threat.
Footage unearthed by Sky News has only added fuel to the fire. In the video, a younger Albanese is seen at a pro-Palestinian rally standing beside signs declaring “Stop the Israeli Slaughter: Free Palestine Now.” During that demonstration, the future prime minister took aim at Israel’s military, aligning himself with anti-Israel activists. Reports also resurfaced showing that Albanese traveled to meet with the late PLO leader Yasser Arafat in 1998—on a trip reportedly funded by the Palestinian Authority.
Despite the growing discontent, Jewish leaders urged the community not to lose hope. David Ossip, president of the New South Wales Jewish Board of Deputies, opened the Bondi vigil by acknowledging the deep pain felt across the country, calling last week’s massacre a turning point. “We have lost our innocence… our nation has been stained,” Ossip said. But he pointed to the message of Hanukkah as a source of strength: “A single act of courage, a single flame of hope, can give us direction and point the path forward.”
That message stood in stark contrast to the political reality facing Albanese, whose approval ratings have been shaken by his perceived indifference and growing ties to far-left factions that demonize Israel. The backlash now confronting him is not just about a vigil—it’s about years of silence, a pattern of political posturing, and a government many feel has abandoned the people it claims to represent.
International
2025: The Year The Narrative Changed
By James Corbett
corbettreport.com
I kicked off 2025 with “The Pendulum Has Swung Again,” an editorial in which I noted how the lefty/progressive pieties of yore were being swept away by the righty/MAGA pieties of the new Trump and Change regime.
It didn’t take long for this narrative shift to be confirmed in grand style by The Great Resetter himself, Donald J. Trump:
I return to the presidency confident and optimistic that we are at the start of a thrilling new era of national success. A tide of change is sweeping the country, sunlight is pouring over the entire world, and America has the chance to seize this opportunity like never before.
Those are the bold words President Trump uttered in his inaugural address to the nation as he returned to the White House to begin his second administration this past January. And, like the bold words of so many politicians before him, they were a bunch of hot air.
After the Iran strikes betrayal, the Trump Gaza/”Board of Peace“ debacle, the Project Stargate fiasco, the Ukraine “peace plan“ disaster, the Venezuelan drug boat massacres, the “untalented Americans“ insult and, of course, the “Epstein hoax“ hoax, even the most die-hard MAGA hopium swillers have started to realize that Trump’s inaugural speech about a new “golden age” was the same old garbage that every President-to-be likes to spew on their first day in office.
But still, just because a politician is lying (i.e., his lips are moving) doesn’t mean that a dramatic “tide of change” hasn’t swept across the planet this year.
On the contrary. A remarkable shift has taken place in popular understanding and popular discourse in 2025. This shift has changed the conversation surrounding some of the core topics the independent media has been covering for years. The shift has nothing whatsoever to do with the politicians, academics, talking heads and other bloviators who presume to be “thought leaders” and “trend setters.” And, despite the best efforts of those who look for the storm cloud in every silver lining, this narrative shift is actually something to be celebrated.
So, hopefully you’ve heard my doom-and-gloom story of the year in New World Next Year 2026. Now, let’s end the year with a little holiday cheer by examining how 2025 became the year that Joe Sixpack and Jane Soccermom started tuning into conspiracy reality.
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MAHA
Historians of the future may very well note that 2025 was the beginning of one of the most consequential revolutions in recent history: the health revolution.
Last year the usual establishment mouthpieces were running fake news articles trying to “debunk” the fact that the Big Food cartel has been filling their products with synthetic chemicals, food dyes and other toxic crap.
But this year the gangsters of the Big Food syndicate—from Kraft Heinz and General Mills to PepsiCo to Kellogg to Tyson Foods, along with their retail accomplice, Walmart—are falling over themselves to announce the removal of those very chemical poisons from their products.
Last year, COVID vaccines were still officially deemed safe as mother’s milk and the health establishment was pushing boosters on everyone with a pulse.
But this year the FDA now officially admits that an unknown number of children have been killed by those vaccines and a comprehensive review of the entire childhood vaccination schedule has been ordered for the first time ever.
Last year, the WHO passed their scamdemic treaty, and the erection of the biosecurity state seemed like a fait accomplis.
But this year, faced with a $2.5 billion budget deficit and a loss in its reputation worldwide, the WHO—and, indeed, the entire biosecurity project—is in shambles.
But as bad as things are for Big Pharma and Big Food, they’re even worse for Big Climate.
THE COLLAPSE OF THE CLIMATE HOAX
Veterans of the climate hoax have been gobsmacked by the monumental implosion of the climate change narrative that took place this year.
Last year it was business as usual, with the Chicken Littles of the Malthusian, anti-human “climate emergency” narrative furthering their agenda with little perceptible opposition. They continued to argue for killing humans and killing pets and they continued building their $100 trillion carbon market, monopolizing the world’s resources under the guise of “saving Mother Earth.”
But this year the public, alert to the politicization of science exposed by the scamdemic, has finally begun to question and even push back on this pseudoscientific scam.
We saw early signs of this narrative tidal shift in the farmer protests of recent years and in the growing awareness that the greenwashed, virtue-signalling “Net Zero” platitudes of the politicians were in fact a smokescreen for a collective death pact signed by the Green Reaper himself.
But the “climate crisis” hoax didn’t just stall this year; it burnt to the ground.
It started with every one of the Big Six American banks withdrawing from the Net Zero Banking Alliance this past spring.
It continued with the stunning narrative about-face of climate agenda-pusher Bill Gates, who directly contradicted decades of his own fearmongering about weather gods to admit that climate change will not, in fact, lead to humanity’s demise.
And it culminated in the world-historic failure of COP30—the United Nations’ annual climate summit—which not only failed to produce any agreement of substance but which generated headlines like “The climate cult’s dissolution is inevitable.” Even the Los Angeles Times was compelled to declare that America is “finally waking up from its decades-long climate catastrophism stupor.”
If you had told the average conspiracy realist in 2024 that the climate cult would be on death watch by the end of 2025, he would surely not have believed you.
But what if you told that same 2024 truther that 2025 would also be the year that moved the Overton Window on 9/11 Truth?
9/11 TRUTH TURNS THE TIDE
January 1, 2025, dawned like every New Year since the catastrophic and catalyzing false flag attack of September 11, 2001. For New Year’s revelers in the conspiracy reality community, the thought that anyone within 100 miles of the corridors of power would be caught openly questioning the conclusions of The 9/11 Commission seemed as remote as it ever had.
But then ex-Congressman Curt Weldon came out to voice his opposition to the official 9/11 fairy tale.
And ex-Congressman Dennis Kucinich embraced the fight for 9/11 justice.
And CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou appeared along 9/11 Truth researchers and activists at a three-day conference dedicated to dissecting the government’s 9/11 conspiracy theory.
And, of course, the Chair of the US Senate’s Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations, Ron Johnson, has joined the ranks of those daring to question the events of September 11.
As Corbett Reporteers know by now, though, more important by far than the action of any of these individuals in staking their public reputation on 9/11 Truth is the narrative change that has taken place around the idea of 9/11 Truth. Today, pointing out that the US government’s explanation of 9/11 is a tissue of lies is no longer an automatic social death sentence. And, emboldened by these examples of 9/11 Truth-telling, millions more people are aware that there are serious, unanswered questions about the events of that day than were aware even a year ago.
And, best of all, an added bonus of the turning of this turning of the tide on 9/11 is that people are now questioning other false flag events and the illegal wars of aggression that those events have enabled.
CALLING OUT GENOCIDE
In years past, the default position of all establishment news sources has been to uncritically accept the Israeli narrative in any conflict between the Israeli government and the Palestinians. To the extent that Palestinian voices were even allowed onto such programs, it was to mock, denigrate and dismiss them as representatives of a savage, terror-supporting people.
That began to change during 2014’s Operation Protective Edge, an Israeli military incursion of the Gaza Strip that even the establishment media had to concede was characterized by war crimes and massacres. In subsequent years, reports on Israel’s ongoing war crimes, its apartheid against Palestinians and its rampant illegal behaviour gave rise to the BDS movement and a worldwide protest campaign.
But it wasn’t until 2025 that that long-simmering pot finally came to a boil. After the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other top Israeli officials late last year, more and more people came out this year to denounce Israel’s campaign of carnage in Gaza. Now it’s gotten to the point where the usual grifters, bandwagon-jumpers and literal sons of CIA agents that populate the ranks of the Mainstream Alternative Media have had to completely change their views on the genocide in Gaza.
And, as usual, politicians everywhere were compelled to jump in front of that parade and pretend to be leading it. Although the establishment press is loathe to admit it, a sea change has taken place on the international stage this year, with many long-time defenders of the US/Israel orthodoxy stepping out in defiance of the imperial consensus on occupied Palestine. Mexico led the way by recognizing the Palestinian state in February of this year, followed by Canada, Australia, the UK, France and several other countries later in the year.
It’s difficult to overstate how dramatic the change in public opinion on the situation in Palestine has been in 2025. Just as in the wake of 9/11, when Bush and the neocons managed to turn a tidal wave of public support and sympathy into worldwide hatred by using the event as an excuse to wage an illegal and immoral War of Terror, so, too, has Netanyahu and his band of Likudniks managed to turn near-worldwide sympathy and support over the (similarly suspicious) events of 10/7 into a wave of condemnation for a blatantly genocidal assault on Gaza. (Israel’s 9/11, indeed.)
It seems 2025 was the year that the magical spell the Zionists have cast over the world for generations—the one that deems all criticism of Israel to be “anti-Semitic“—was finally broken.
But after reading all this, we’re still left with the most important question: what does this all mean for the year ahead?
WHAT WILL 2026 BRING?
I could go on and on about the profound narrative shifts that have taken place this past year.
In fact, I haven’t even mentioned the spectacular downfall of Klaus Schwab and the utter abandonment of the “Great Reset” agenda. Who even pays attention to the WEF and their minions at this point?
And I haven’t talked about the public furor over the ongoing Epstein cover up and the confirmation that all sides of the phoney left/right political charade have a vested interest in keeping the public’s attention away from the topic of political pedophilia.
But I know what some of you are thinking: “James, how can you possibly be celebrating these narrative shifts? There are still problems in the world!”
Yes, thank you in advance to all those who will point out that:
- just because the Big Food cartel are removing food dyes from their products doesn’t make their products healthy; and
- just because the US government are going to review the childhood vaccination schedule doesn’t mean that they will end vaccination; and
- just because Gates has admitted that rising temperatures are not an existential threat doesn’t mean he will start promoting a pro-human agenda; and
- just because some politicians are promoting (partial) 9/11 Truth doesn’t mean any 9/11 perp is about to be frog-marched in an orange jumpsuit to the courthouse; and
- just because people are now emboldened to call Israel’s aggression against the Palestinians out for the genocide that it is doesn’t mean the genocide is about to stop; and
- just because Klaus Schwab is out doesn’t mean globalism is finished; etc.
I am well aware of all that, obviously.
But if that is your objection to the celebration of the narrative shift, then you haven’t understood the narrative shift.
The narrative shift isn’t about what politicians or academics or establishment puppets are saying or doing. It’s about what you and your neighbours and those around you are saying or doing.
Pleasse understand what it is I’m saying here.
Of course, not everyone is suddenly a super-awake Level 99 Jedi Truth Warrior who knows that the flat earth is being controlled by 12-dimensional lizard people from the planet Archon.
But more people than ever are ready and willing and able to hear about the toxins in the food and the poisons in the vaccines and concede the truth about the climate hoax and ask questions about 9/11 and call the genocide in Gaza a genocide in Gaza. This is a good thing.
The only thing the would-be rulers of humanity really fear is the idea that we—the great, teeming, unwashed masses—might one day wake up to the fact that humanity is being enslaved by a handful of people.
That we might discover that their control over us is primarily narrative control.
That we might decide to reclaim our power and write our own narrative.
And, to the extent that that is what has begun happening this year—even if it’s only the thinnest edge of that giant wedge—we are in fact winning.
But even if you don’t even see the faintest spark of hope in any of this yet, there is still one thing to keep in mind: the narrative shift I speak of is what we make it.
We are not helpless spectators who are watching this shift happening with no part to play in it. Rather, we are making things happen (or not) by participating in conversation with those around us. We are informing, educating and mentoring those who are just now waking up to reality . . . or we’re standing on the sidelines critiquing the efforts of those who are trying to do so.
What happens in 2026 is not a foregone conclusion. It will be the end result of the efforts we make today (or don’t make today) to encourage this narrative shift.
I know what side I’m on, and what I’m going to continue to do. And, with your support, I’m going to continue doing it.
Let’s make 2026 the year we put the first (if not the final) nail in the bastards’ coffin.
Merry Christmas, everyone!
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