Terrorism Archives

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Seattle ferry "unusual behavior" persons: where are they from?

I don't want to get into the issue of the two persons who supposedly have been exhibiting "unusual behavior" on a ferry in the Seattle area except to point out that the photos (seattle.fbi.gov/pressrel/2007/public082007.htm) to me seem to say "We are from a land or neighboring lands formerly associated with the Soviet Union." I have a few leading possibilities, but what say you, bearing in mind that almost all people from whatever countries named are not terrorists or sympathizers thereto and that the people in the photo may be completely innocent, etc., etc., etc., etc.?

Posted at 09:56 PM

"Osama bin Laden May Have Chartered Saudi Flight Out of U.S. after 9/11"

From this:

Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released new documents from the Federal Bureau of Investigation ("FBI") related to the "expeditious departure" of Saudi nationals, including members of the bin Laden family, from the United States following the 9/11 attacks. According to one of the formerly confidential documents, dated 9/21/2001, terrorist Osama bin Laden may have chartered one of the Saudi flights.

The document states: "ON 9/19/01, A 727 PLANE LEFT LAX, RYAN FLT #441 TO ORLANDO, FL W/ETA (estimated time of arrival) OF 4-5PM. THE PLANE WAS CHARTERED EITHER BY THE SAUDI ARABIAN ROYAL FAMILY OR OSAMA BIN LADEN…THE LA FBI SEARCHED THE PLANE [REDACTED] LUGGAGE, OF WHICH NOTHING UNUSUAL WAS FOUND."

...Moreover, the documents contain numerous errors and inconsistencies which call to question the thoroughness of the FBI's investigation of the Saudi flights. For example, on one document, the FBI claims to have interviewed 20 of 23 passengers on the Ryan International Airlines flight (commonly referred to as the "Bin Laden Family Flight"). On another document, the FBI claims to have interviewed 15 of 22 passengers on the same flight...

Posted at 04:09 PM

NYT: the ACLU vouches for CAIR

Neil MacFarquhar of the NYT offers a two-screener about unnamed sources running down CAIR (Council on American-Islamic Relations). That's the organization whose spokesman said in 1993 that he'd like to see the U.S. adopt sharia law; the NYT fails to include that quote, and they also fail to find any links between CAIR and terrorist organizations. I'll leave it to others to discuss the various shortcomings in the article, only pointing out this:

CAIR and its supporters say its accusers are a small band of people who hate Muslims and deal in half-truths. Ms. Boxer's decision to revoke the Sacramento commendation provoked an outcry from organizations that vouch for the group's advocacy, including the American Civil Liberties Union and the California Council of Churches.

"They have been a leading organization that has advocated for civil rights and civil liberties in the face of fear and intolerance, in the face of religious and ethnic profiling," said Maya Harris, the executive director of the A.C.L.U. of Northern California.

Well, if a far-left, frequently anti-American organization that opposes our immigration laws and has an indirect link to the Mexican government and that was founded by a Communist vouches for them, then they must be OK! But, who will vouch for the ACLU? Quick, get the SPLC on the line!

In another context, I might assume that promoting the ACLU as the bearer of truth was simply liberal propaganda. However, in this case I think it was unintentional: the NYT is so very steeped in "liberalism" that they think the ACLU is actually in a position to vouch for anyone.

Posted at 07:42 PM

"CAIR Welcomes TSA Hajj Sensitivity Training"

Via this long article we learn that the U.S. Transportation Security Administration has issued a press release (shown above) with the wonderful news that the TSA has received "sensitivity training" from the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in regards to travelers on the Hajj. The release at the TSA's site is basically the same as that from CAIR. That organization is so bad that even Salon has done an expose on them and even - gasp - Barbara Boxer has distanced herself from them.

The press release quotes Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR:

"We welcome the fact that airport security officers nationwide will now be better informed about Islamic traditions relating to Hajj... This proactive effort on the part of the Transportation Security Administration demonstrates that there is no contradiction between the need to maintain airline safety and security and the duty to protect the religious and civil rights of airline passengers."

Here's an earlier quote from Hooper:

"I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future... But I'm not going to do anything violent to promote that. I'm going to do it through education."

Posted at 08:25 PM | Comments (1)

USA Today, Virgil Goode, and Muslim hearts and minds

The level of discourse swirling around Virgil Goode's comments regarding Muslim immigration is abysmally low. All of the sources that I've seen a) deliberatly misunderstand what Goode was saying by pointing out that Keith Ellison is not an immigrant, and b) deliberately avoid the main issue.

The main issue is immigration by Muslims, and what limits and requirements we should place on that. Should we allow unfettered immigration from Muslim countries? Would those who criticize Goode care to affirmatively argue for importing one million devout Muslims from Saudi Arabia, Yemen, and Pakistan? If they aren't willing to do that, then they're just doing a Politically Correct dance around the main issue.

A case in point is the USA Today editorial "Ugly voices tarnish debut of Congress' first Muslim: Swearing-in of Minnesota's Ellison is chance to win hearts and minds." Let's all join hands and sing it... together:

Keith Ellison's election to the House, as the chamber's first Muslim, provides the United States with a grand opportunity to showcase its credentials as a nation of opportunity, equality and diversity.

What a great story to tell the Muslim world...

Ellison upped the chance to polish America's image for religious tolerance, as well, when he said he'd use Islam's holy book, the Quran, at his ceremonial swearing-in this week.

...Tolerance and religious freedom are at America's heart. So is the nation's embrace of people from all countries and cultures.

Wonderful, wonderful words. Somewhat like a love sonnet I might write to a supermodel. She, unfortunately, might respond with a TRO.

In other words, if we import people who do not buy into said "tolerance and religious freedom", then we're negligently endangering said "tolerance and religious freedom". It's a two way street, but USAToday is only looking one way.

Posted at 12:36 PM | Comments (2)

"Keith Ellison for Dummies"

As many other sources have discussed, Rep. Virgil Goode (R-VA) recently sent a letter with the following:

"...We need to stop illegal immigration totally and reduce legal immigration and end the diversity visas policy pushed hard by President Clinton and allowing many persons from the Middle East to come to this country... I fear that in the next century we will have many more Muslims in the United States if we do not adopt the strict immigration policies that I believe are necessary to preserve the values and beliefs traditional to the United States of America and to prevent our resources from being swamped..."

This site isn't ready to fully endorse his statements, but we take a more historical, non-PC view of the matter.

In any case, these statements were in relation to newly-elected Congressman Keith Ellison, the first Muslim in Congress and a Democrat.

As might be expected, the completely non-liberal MSM has condemned Goode's comments and treated Ellison with kid gloves. Therefore, while I regret linking to Powerline, they've apparently been covering this matter from a more fact-based position, starting here. That has some puffball questions Wolf Blitzer asked him in a recent interview, as well as linking to their previous entries "Keith Ellison for Dummies" and "Louis Farrakhan's First Congressman."

Posted at 11:21 AM | Comments (1)

Silvestre Reyes knows less about terrorists than many bloggers

Is al Qaeda Sunni or Shia?

What about Hezbollah, are they Sunni or Shia?

Many bloggers could get those right (Sunni and Shia, respectively).

However, Democrat Silvestre Reyes - Nancy Pelosi's choice to be the new chairman of the House Intelligence Committee - did not know the answer to either question.

Posted at 12:05 PM | Comments (6)

Large cell phone purchases in Huachuca City and Tucson AZ; Nashville

From this:

...Reports of large numbers of cell phones purchased have occurred this month in Caro, Mich.; and Midland, Texas. Suspicious parties in those instances were of Middle Eastern descent.

Another incident under suspicion occurred on April 21 in Huachuca City. At 3:30 p.m., town police responded to the Dollar General Store on Highway 90 to a report of suspicious activity regarding two men purchasing more than 300 Tracfone-brand cell phones.

According to the Huachuca City dispatch records, two California men were traveling in a black 2001 Ford Explorer.

The vehicle contained about another 700 such cell phones in addition to those that were purchased at the Huachuca City Dollar General Store, Police Chief Dennis Grey said.

They weren't arrested because, obviously, buying a lot of cellular telephones isn't a crime. The FBI did, however, retrieve some of the discarded packaging. And, we're informed that not only could the phones be used to detonate bombs, but the lithium in the batteries can be used to make meth.

And:

Last weekend, a suspicious cell phone shopping spree took place in Tucson.

A concerned caller told the Tucson police dispatch that two men apparently of Middle Eastern descent purchased an unusual amount of cell phones at the Sam's Club in the 4600 block of North Stone, said Tucson police Sgt. Decio Hopffer.

And, the - dare I say it - statists at GovExec reprint an email from a reader without comment. I'm going to assume they do so sarcastically, although one person owning 12 cellphones would seem to be a bit odd:

I live in Northern Georgia and required transportation to Nashville, The VA sent a cab service to pick me up just south of Chattanooga and for 3 hours I listened as my driver talked to many different people via his many cell phones, I also had to listen to him explain the Koran and his religious beliefs. This only raised my level of awareness of his and many others involved in his group. I reported this to the VA upon my arrival, nothing was done other than the transportation personal calling the dispatcher of the cab company and complain of the cab driver pushing his religion on me. When it was time to return home I recieved yet another arab speaking driver who like the first had many cell phones, and for 3 hours the driver spoke to 30 different people on 12 different phones. I really don't think these people are family and he's not calling to ask whats for dinner. You have too many people talking about it and doing little to improve our security. Start taking a look right under your noses and see whats going on.

Why do I get the same feeling from this whole thing that I got from the whole Israeli Art Students craze?

Previously:
Do hundreds of cellphones imply terrorism?
Georgian illegal alien with 15 pre-paid cell phones held in Pennsylvania

Posted at 06:08 AM | Comments (1)

Do hundreds of cellphones imply terrorism?

There have been a few recent cases of those generally of Middle Eastern descent being detained or arrested with large numbers of cell phones in their possession. The case of the Georgian illegal alien in Pennsylvania from a few days ago.

And, from Caro, Michigan: Three men - apparently naturalized citizens from Texas via Palestine - bought 80 cell phones from a WalMart. The cops found 1000 other phones in their van. They also had a laptop "with store addresses and store logos".

And, from Marietta, Ohio: Two men from Dearborn, Michigan were stopped with several prepaid phones and have been arrested on an unnamed charge. A week earlier, another Middle Easterner from Dearborn was stopped with a large number of phones. Debbie Schlussel has been covering this story, however from a comment on that thread we get a possible more innocent explanation (something I already figured as a possibility):

What is going on is tracfones are sold in the US at a substantial subsidy and low minute intial purchase phones are way cheaper than buying phones outright.

Tracfone works on GSM and it is easy to remove the chips, unlock the phones subisidy lock (not in itself illegal) and ship the phones for a good profit. Indeed a HUGE number of new unlocked tracphones are sold in the US on EBAY everyday for about $20 over retail. bulk buying in lots of 10 to 20k is at $25 a unit...

Looking at walmart this week they had a tracfone on sale for an unusually low $15wiht calling credits -- and this phone is currently on sale on ebay for $60 new unlocked...

While those in the last incident also had more suspicious items such as flight and passenger information, and there are links between them and an airline worker. So, the purchases might have been for detonators, or they might have been designed to test our defenses or make us worried, or their boss might have just trying to make some money on the gray market.

Posted at 03:29 AM | Comments (2)

Nets, jets, and reverse colonization

Try to ignore the editorializing from a typically idiotic Wired writer in the following:

During a recent briefing at the time-honored Royal United Service Institute – the oldest military think tank in the world, founded in 1831 by the Duke of Wellington – Parry imagined a future, circa 2030, in which the war on terror is still rolling along and the terrorists are winning. He describes a world so ripped up by nets and jets that sovereign nation-states like the UK are collapsing economically, politically, even physically. Then there are the people of that future, who hop from country to country and bear allegiance to none. "Globalization makes assimilation seem redundant and old-fashioned," he noted, pointing out that, rather than dissolving into the melting pot of their host nations, immigrants are increasingly maintaining their own cultural identity. Jets and nets make this possible. "Groups of people are self-contained, going back and forth between their countries, exploiting sophisticated networks and using instant communication on phones and the Internet." The result, Parry says, is "reverse colonization," in which the developing world's teeming masses conquer Western nations, as surely as the Goths sacked Rome.

It's easy to pigeonhole Parry as an isolationist – and, indeed, much of the public response to his speech came from anti-immigration wackos who said, "We knew it all along." But he has plenty of forward-thinking company in these ideas. According to a loose school of "fourth-generation warfare" theorists, connected, globe-trotting terrorists are a bigger threat to the world order than hostile nations are. The technological drivers of globalization have enabled stateless barbarians to seize the initiative. You can't keep them out by blocking the border, and the harder you smash the failed states that nurture them, the more they thrive. At the first sign of weakness, these new-wave Vandals will log on to urge their diasporic compatriots to attack you on your own soil. Failing that, they'll hop on the next flight, pick up their baggage, and sidle into Starbucks to download the latest instructions from Abu Ayyub al Masri...

Posted at 12:30 PM | Comments (2)

Dubai still running 22 U.S. port facilities

From this:

It's been more than three months since Dubai Ports World agreed to sell its port operations at 22 U.S. ports. But as of today, all 22 of these terminal facilities remained under the control of Dubai Ports and the government of Dubai. You thought we weren't watching, didn't you? Bill Tucker reports.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

BILL TUCKER, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The bottom line of the Dubai Ports World deal is pretty easy to understand.

JOE MULDOON, FULLER & COMPANY: Since March 6th, Dubai Ports World has owned and controlled operations in 22 U.S. ports and that Congress now has dropped the provision that would prohibit their approvals.

TUCKER: The reference to Congress has to do with the House and Senate stripping out language, put in by the House, that specifically forbid DP World from owning or controlling operations in our ports. With the removal of that language, it's not clear if DPW even legally is bound to sell the properties. The announced agreement by Dubai Ports World to sell was voluntary.

But the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States says "CFIUS does, in fact, retain the authority to bring the company back into the CFIUS process if it acts inconsistently with its announced plan to sell to a U.S. buyer." DP world, in a recent letter to congressional leaders, assured them that the sale is proceeding as planned, which seems to be reassuring Congress for now.

REP. PETE KING (R), NEW YORK: They are making the best faith effort to find an American buyer and that progress is being made.

TUCKER: But as of yet, there has been no formal offer to sell, which is known as a prospectus, from DPW.

Posted at 04:49 AM | Comments (3)

"US computer infrastructure compromised by terrorist-owned company"

From this:

While Congress and the media focus on the potential dangers of a UAE-owned company running American port operations, any possible threat is dwarfed by the current insecurity of the US government's computer infrastructure, which has been compromised by a company with multiple connections to terrorist financing.

The company, once known as Ptech (now GoAgile), has been contracted to provide sophisticated computer software to several government agencies, including the Army, the Air Force, Naval Air Command, Congress, the Department of Energy, the Department of Justice, Customs, the FAA, the IRS, NATO, the FBI, the Secret Service, and the White House.

Shortly after 9/11, the company's primary investor, Yassin al-Qadi (al-Kadi), was identified by the US government as a specially designated global terrorist. Officials describe al-Qadi as one of Osama bin Laden's "chief money launderers," and say he transferred as much as $3 billion to al-Qaeda during the 1990s.

Al-Qadi is a wealthy Saudi with connections to banking, diamonds, chemicals, construction, transportation, and real estate. He once headed Muwafaq, an Islamic charity the US Treasury Department described as an "al Qaeda front that receives funding from wealthy Saudi businessmen."

He claims to be friends or friendly with Dick Cheney, but the article doesn't present any evidence that Cheney thinks the same way.

Posted at 02:23 AM | Comments (0)

Indianapolis Airport is run by BAA, a British company

Unfortunately, Drudge is threatening to "break" the news that Indianapolis Airport is run by the British company BAA, which also runs Heathrow, Gatwick, and other airports:

Since October 1, 1995, BAA Indianapolis LLC has had full operating responsibility for the six airports owned by the Indianapolis Airport Authority under a unique, performance-based, management contract. Indianapolis International is now the largest privately managed airport in the United States.

The apparent implication is that that makes the Dubai ports deal A-OK. Obviously, that's wrong for two reasons. First, there's quite a difference between a British company and a company owned by an Arab state with some questionable ties. And, any foreign control of our critical infrastructure should be looked at quite closely and avoided if possible.

UPDATE: Here's Drudge's report.

Posted at 09:49 PM | Comments (0)

Dick Morris: "[Bill] Clinton is a paid agent of the crown prince of Dubai"

From this:

Former President Bill Clinton is up to his eyeballs in dealings with Dubai, his former top political adviser has revealed. According to Dick Morris, author of the best-selling book, "Condi vs, Hillary," Clinton is a paid agent of the crown prince of Dubai, now involved in a firestorm over its deal to take over some of the operations at six major U.S. ports. "Bill Clinton is a senior adviser - a paid adviser - to a company called Yucaipa which recently set up a relationship with a group called the Yucaipa Investment group to set up a new company called DIGL," Morris said on "The O'Reilly Factor." "DIGL Inc. is in charge of managing the investments of the crown prince of Dubai throughout the world. Bill Clinton is paid by Yucaipa a percentage of the profits it makes, and Yucaipa said its profits have exceeded 40 percent in recent years. "He is a paid agent of the crown prince of Dubai. That in addition to the roughly million dollars they gave his library, in addition to the probably $600,000 in speaking fees he got, and in addition to the scholarships for Dubai children they endowed through his library.

In other news, Joe Lieberman and Susan Collins have this to say (nofollowpolicy):

A careful review of the "assurances letter" [from DPW to the Coast Guard regarding the latter's concerns] reveals that DP World is not, in fact, bound to provide the U.S. government with the information it would need to close the intelligence gaps the Coast Guard identified. … The language is weak. … Indeed, the assurances appear to amount to little more than a restatement of what the FBI or other law enforcement agency could gather anyway in the course of an investigation.

Posted at 12:03 PM | Comments (0)

Dubai: The man from Hope, UAE

At the same time as Hillary was complaining about the UAE ports deal, Bill "Bubba" Clinton was working behind the scenes to push it through and to get his friend and former press secretary, Joe Lockhart, to represent Dubai Ports World. link, link.

Anyone hear crickets?

Unlike others, this blog will continue to discuss this story, should it receive any more coverage in the press that is.

UPDATE: I forgot to mention that Bob and Elizabeth Dole are involved in a similar familial conflict of interest.

Posted at 09:10 AM | Comments (3)

Dubai: DHS, Treasury didn't check DPW's links to al Qaeda

From this:

A review of a United Arab Emirates-owned company's plan to take over a portion of operations at key U.S. ports never looked into whether the company had ties to al Qaeda or other terrorists, a key Republican lawmaker told CNN on Wednesday.

Rep. Peter King of New York, chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said officials from the Homeland Security and Treasury departments told him weeks ago that their 30-day review of the deal did not look into the question of links between DP World and al Qaeda...

I'm sure Rush, Insty, and Kevin Drum will be along any moment now to explain how this doesn't matter.

Posted at 04:01 AM | Comments (0)

Dubai: DPW takes on Lou Dobbs; Coast Guard had objections

The Coast Guard - at least initially - had questions on the deal (nofollowpolicy). The USCG says that it had all its questions answered by various intelligence agencies.

That causes Bush cheerleader Insty to once again ask what the problem could be. As does co-idiot Kevin Drum.

And:

Lou Dobbs reported today that "Dubai Ports World" officials have tried to silence him and get CNN to suppress his reports... Mark Dennis, spokesman for Dubai Ports World: "CNN won't shut up Lou Dobbs." ...They are refusing to give any more interviews to CNN or allow them to video tape their operations overseas. To CNN's credit they have refused to comply with their demands.

Posted at 09:46 PM | Comments (0)

Dubai: More ports than thought; poll; Thomas Kean; trading arms for national security?

Our "American" president continues to sell out this country: "22 ports in Arab deal, not just 6 as reported":

According to the website of P&O Ports, the port-operations subsidiary of the London-based Peninsular & Oriental Steam Navigation Co. (P&O), DPW will pick up stevedore services at 12 East Coast ports including Portland, Maine; Boston; Davisville, R.I.; New York; Newark; Philadelphia; Camden, N.J.; Wilmington, Del.; Baltimore, Md.; and Virginia locations at Newport News, Norfolk, and Portsmouth.

Additionally, DPW will take over P&O stevedoring operations at nine ports along the Gulf of Mexico including the Texas ports of Beaumont, Port Arthur, Galveston, Houston, Freeport, and Corpus Christi, plus the Louisana ports of Lake Charles and New Orleans...

Also, only 17 percent of Americans are in favor of Bush's scheme.

And, Thomas Kean from the 9/11 commission says the deal never should have been considered:

"From our point of view, we don't want foreigners controlling our ports... From their point of view, this is a legitimate company that had a legitimate bid and won, and here are all these congressmen saying all these things about not wanting this company. It looks to them like it's anti-Arab... I think this deal is going to be killed," Kean said. "The question is how much damage is this going to do to us before it's killed."

Here's a fact sheet on the deal from an industry association.

And:

"The UAE [arms] market is definitely important to the US," said Tom Baranauskas, a senior Middle East analyst at the Connecticut-based Forecast International, a leading provider of defense market intelligence services. "Just the order for 80 of the newest-generation F-16E/Fs alone was a major buy from the US," he said.

Posted at 11:02 AM | Comments (1)

"Did UAE Save Bin Laden?"

Here's more on our new port partners:

Before President Bush gets anywhere near casting his first veto to ensure that the government of the United Arab Emirates can manage elements of six U.S. ports, someone ought to put before him pages 137-139 of "The 9/11 Commission Report...

The story the commission tells is that [Richard C. Clarke] made a call to a high-ranking UAE official that may have inadvertently saved bin Laden from a U.S. missile strike. The commission’s reporting strongly suggests someone in the UAE government tipped off someone in Afghanistan, protecting bin Laden.

In early 1999, the Clinton Administration wanted to fire missiles at bin Laden without risking civilian casualties. Bin Laden played into our hands. Intelligence reports from Afghan “tribals” indicated he was frequenting a small hunting camp adjacent to a larger camp outside Kandahar, Afghanistan. Here U.S. missiles could score a clean kill.

But then officials from the UAE got in the way. The commission said:

"On February 8, the military began to ready itself for a possible strike. The next day, national technical intelligence confirmed the location and description of the larger camp and showed the nearby presence of an official aircraft of the United Arab Emirates. But the location of Bin Laden's quarters could not be pinned down so precisely... According to reporting from the tribals, bin Laden regularly went from his adjacent camp to the larger camp where he visited the Emiratis. The tribals expected him to be at the hunting camp for such a visit at least until midmorning on February 11. Clarke wrote to Berger's deputy on February 10 that the military was then doing targeting work to hit the main camp with cruise missiles and should be in position to strike the following morning. Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert appears to have been briefed on the situation.

"No strike was launched. By February 12 bin Laden had apparently moved on, and the immediate strike plans became moot. According to CIA and Defense officials, policymakers were concerned about the danger that a strike would kill an Emirati prince or other senior officials who might be with bin Laden or close by. Clarke told us the strike was called off after consultations with Director Tenet because the intelligence was dubious, and it seemed to Clarke as if the CIA was presenting an option to attack America's best counterterrorism ally in the Gulf. The lead CIA official in the field, Gary Schroen, felt that the intelligence reporting in this case was very reliable. The bin Laden unit chief, 'Mike,' agreed. Schroen believes today that this was a lost opportunity to kill bin Laden before 9/11...

Posted at 11:46 AM | Comments (0)

Insty reports: port deal no problem!

Instapundit reports that the port deal was much ado about nothing. Whew! I'm relieved that we don't need to worry about yet more Bush administration corruption and attempts to sell this country out to the globalist agenda. Everyone: relax!

Extra-special bonus: co-idiot Kevin Drum weighs in.

Previously: "Dubai company set to run U.S. ports has ties to administration"

Posted at 08:29 PM | Comments (0)

"Dubai company set to run U.S. ports has ties to administration"

I already reported this, but now that the MSM is covering it I guess it's official:

The Dubai firm that won Bush administration backing to run six U.S. ports has at least two ties to the White House.

One is Treasury Secretary John Snow, whose department heads the federal panel that signed off on the $6.8 billion sale of an English company to government-owned Dubai Ports World - giving it control of Manhattan's cruise ship terminal and Newark's container port.

Snow was chairman of the CSX rail firm that sold its own international port operations to DP World for $1.15 billion in 2004, the year after Snow left for President Bush's cabinet.

The other connection is David Sanborn, who runs DP World's European and Latin American operations and who was tapped by Bush last month to head the U.S. Maritime Administration...

And, of course: "Bush Says Dubai Port Deal Should Proceed, Threatens Veto"

Previously: "Dubai: Donald Rumsfeld not consulted despite being on CFIUS board"

Posted at 09:26 AM | Comments (2)

Dubai: Donald Rumsfeld not consulted despite being on CFIUS board

I think this tells you all you need to know (nofollowpolicy):

Donald Rumsfeld, as Secretary of Defense, is a member of Committee on Foreign Investments in the United States. As such, he was one of the people who, according to the Treasury Department, unanimously approved the sale on February 13. How could do that when he didn't even find out about the sale until last weekend?

Previously: "I changed my mind! The Dubai deal must go through!" (/satire)
"Dubai would control part of U.S. military shipments under Bush scheme"
Chertoff assures: massively unsafe, dangerous Dubai ports deal is safe

UPDATE: Now, Bush claims that he also didn't know about the deal until recently. This could be an excuse, but it's also quite possible that other members of his crew didn't bother to tell him.

White House counselor Dan Bartlett said Wednesday the UAE company, Dubai Ports, "is a reputable firm that went through a congressionally approved vetting process." He said the U.S. has "the necessary safeguards to make sure that the security of our country is in place" and that rejecting the deal would send "a dangerous signal to people overseas that America plays favorites."... "The president wants this deal to go forward because it was followed by the book and he wants Congress to understand that," Bartlett said on CBS' "The Early Show." He told Fox News Channel that Bush felt strongly that "we need to be adding strategic partners" in the Mideast.

The last might make some sense, but not with something closely linked with our security. Perhaps we could get those "strategic partners" to supply non-essential products having no relation to security.

Posted at 04:26 AM | Comments (0)

I changed my mind! The Dubai deal must go through!

I've just done a complete 180 on this whole deal of the Bush administration turning control of key ports over to a company controlled by a questionable foreign country with links to terrorism.

I now fully support the deal.

What changed my mind was this post over at what I used to refer to as InstaIjit. As "Glenn" points out, giving a country with terrorist ties deep control of our ports and even military shipping is necessary in order to show the Arab world that we're nice people.

The last thing I'd want to do is offend our friends in the Arab world, so therefore I fully support turning over a vital part of our infrastructure to this questionable foreign country.

Tomorrow: revisiting my comments about George Bush's plan to outsource border protection to the "good-hearted" workers of Mexico. Hugh Hewitt changed my mind: it just might work as long as we believe!

UPDATE: Dick Meyer, Editorial Director of CBSNews.com, read my mind and offers the comforting "In Defense Of Dubai".

Posted at 08:59 PM | Comments (3)

Dubai would control part of U.S. military shipments under Bush scheme

As discussed here (nofollowpolicy), the Bush scheme to sell off port operations in New York, New Jersey, Baltimore, New Orleans, Miami and Philadelphia to a company controlled by the United Arab Emirates has even more downsides than originally thought:

A major part of the story, however, has been mostly overlooked. The company, Dubai Ports World, would also control the movement of military equipment on behalf of the U.S. Army through two other ports. From today's edition of the British paper Lloyd's List:

[P&O] has just renewed a contract with the United States Surface Deployment and Distribution Command to provide stevedoring [loading and unloading] of military equipment at the Texan ports of Beaumont and Corpus Christi through 2010.

According to the journal Army Logistician "Almost 40 percent of the Army cargo deployed in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom flows through these two ports."

Now, let's take a look at this:

In mid-January, President Bush nominated a senior executive of Dubai Ports World, David Sanborn, to run the Department of Transportation's Maritime Administration. Mr. Sanborn had been running the company's operations in Europe and Latin America...

The Dubai purchase was approved by the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States, of which [Treasury Secretary John Snow] is chairman and which does not usually disclose information about its deliberations, said Brookly McLaughlin, a spokeswoman for the Treasury Department. Ms. McLaughlin declined to say when the committee began or ended its review of the deal or what national-security implications it considered...

Both Sanborn and Snow were previously with CSX. Snow was their CEO, and Sanborn was an executive with the CSX/Sea-Land division.

Obviously, the Bush administration is completely, absolutely corrupt.

Posted at 09:44 PM | Comments (5)

Chertoff assures: massively unsafe, dangerous Dubai ports deal is safe

Yes, I know it's Reuters, but broken clocks and all they seem to have gotten this right:

The Bush administration has failed to put adequate security conditions on a deal for a state-owned Dubai company to manage major U.S. ports, and it should not go forward pending a full investigation, a key Republican congressman said yesterday.

Lawmakers from both parties joined in criticizing the deal, and one called the administration "tone deaf" for approving it.

Rep. Peter King (R-N.Y.), chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, said that before the administration approved the sale of British firm P&O, which manages six U.S. ports, to Dubai Ports World of the United Arab Emirates, it failed to determine whether the company could be trusted...

As you might expect, an administration representative stepped forward to assure the Americans that the deal was A-OK:

"You can be assured that before a deal is approved we put safeguards in place, assurances in place, that make everybody comfortable that we are where we need to be from a national security viewpoint," [Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff] said on ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos."

Time and time again, the Bush administration has demonstrated that they're completely corrupt, incompetent, untrustworthy, and do not have America's best interests at heart. Hopefully hearings are held and this can be blocked before it becomes yet another legacy of their administration.

Posted at 07:17 AM | Comments (1)

Media Matters for America defending al Jazeera

Believe it or don't! MMFA is taking issue with a Fox graphic. In case it disappears, here's the full post:

Only on Fox: USMC captain in Control Room film labeled "TRAITOR?" for taking job at Aljazeera

During the October 11 edition of Fox News' Hannity & Colmes, the network suggested that former Marine Corps captain Josh Rushing may be a "traitor" for taking a job with Qatar-based news network Aljazeera. While co-host Alan Colmes was promoting Rushing's upcoming appearance on the show, saying that "a former U.S. Marine captain will be here to defend his decision to take a job at a television network that is frequently criticized for its anti-American coverage," a picture of Rushing appeared on the screen, with text below it asking, "TRAITOR?"

Rushing gained national attention after his appearance in Control Room, a 2004 documentary about Aljazeera filmed over a six-week period around the time of the 2003 U.S.-led invasion of Iraq. When Control Room was filmed, Rushing was a military spokesperson stationed at United States Central Command (CENTCOM) Forward Headquarters in Qatar; his increasing unease with the military's representations of the war was featured prominently in the documentary. Rushing, who resigned from the military after the Pentagon ordered him to cease granting interviews about the documentary, will appear on Aljazeera International, the forthcoming English-language news channel.

This was posted by "A.D.", who appears to be:

Anna Dimond has worked in research and production for a variety of media outlets and think tanks, including the Norman Lear Center, ABC News, and Air America Radio. Most recently, she worked as a documentary story producer for LMNO Productions in Los Angeles. She holds a bachelor's degree in political science from Barnard College and master's degrees in global media from the London School of Economics and the University of Southern California's Annenberg School for Communication. Dimond is a member of the Research Department at Media Matters for America.

Coming soon from MMFA: "Tokyo Rose was just misunderstood".

Posted at 08:45 PM | Comments (0)

"Terrorism's New Operating System"

Monsoor Ijaz:

What if terrorism's global operating system has evolved into a much more sophisticated nexus — untraceable state sponsorship acting in concert with highly intelligent, well-trained, and carefully chosen foot soldiers who Western analysts would never conceive as partners? What if its new operating software is like the AIDS virus, constantly mutating from one nameless, faceless protocol address to another, transmitting its deadly code without need for regeneration or further direction, and with the necessary but well-camouflaged logistical and planning support states can offer?

Imagine that a state seeking to redress strategic imbalances in the quantifiable military threats it faces from larger powers trains a new, heretofore completely unknown battery of terror masters. They move as businessmen and women, as mothers with families, as low-level functionaries in embassies — in short, as people not worthy of intelligence monitoring by the West's traditional antiterror infrastructure...

...Once willing local proxies are identified, they are injected with a viral code of highly specific intelligence data about potential targets, methods of attack, how to assemble and deploy locally the weapons required to carry out their deadly missions and a philosophically sustaining message from the messianic figures who inspire them from afar.

The foreign agent then disappears, untraceable and unlikely to ever be seen again in the infected environment, or to even be used by the state sponsor for future missions...

Posted at 03:58 AM | Comments (1)

No Sharia law in Canada

The Premier of the Canadian province of Ontario, Dalton McGuinty, has decided to abolish religious tribunals completely. Thus, there will be no Sharia law tribunals:

"I've come to the conclusion that the debate has gone on long enough," he said.

"There will be no Shariah law in Ontario. There will be no religious arbitration in Ontario. There will be one law for all Ontarians."

McGuinty said religious arbitrations "threaten our common ground," and promised his Liberal government would introduce legislation "as soon as possible" to outlaw them in Ontario.

"Ontarians will always have the right to seek advice from anyone in matters of family law, including religious advice," he said. "But no longer will religious arbitration be deciding matters of family law."

I'm oddly impressed; I was expecting them to declare themselves part of Saudi Arabia or something (in order to avoid appearing mean-spirited, eh). Did someone spike his Molson or something?

Previously: Women marching against Sharia law in Canada.

Posted at 10:42 AM | Comments (0)

Women marching against Sharia law in Canada

Canadian and European women are going to march against the use of Sharia law tribunals in Canada on Thursday, the BBC reports:

Islamic law could be used to settle civil and marital disputes under a proposal made by former Ontario Attorney General Marion Boyd.

Roman Catholic and Jewish arbitration tribunals already operate Ontario.

Opponents of Sharia law say allowing Islamic tribunals could lead to discrimination against women.

A protest march is scheduled for Thursday in Toronto, which is the capital of Canada's most populous and multi-cultural province...

The DUmmies confront Gramscism, aka multiculturalism, in this response.

Previously: "Stoned in Canada", which also has surprisingly common sense British response to a similar proposal there.

Posted at 03:23 AM | Comments (0)

Indicted U.S. terrorist wanted to bring Al Qaeda over Mexican border

WaPo:

An American student was charged yesterday in an al Qaeda plot to kill President Bush, with prosecutors alleging that Ahmed Omar Abu Ali and his confederates planned to use multiple snipers to shoot Bush or to blow him up in a suicide bombing.

The expanded indictment of Abu Ali, returned by a federal grand jury in Alexandria, also claimed for the first time that he proposed a plan to bring members of an al Qaeda cell into the United States through Mexico. They would then link up with Abu Ali to conduct terrorist operations in this country, the indictment said...

Abu Ali was arrested by security officials in June 2003 while studying at a university in Saudi Arabia. His family mounted a highly public campaign in the United States for his release. He was held until he was flown back to the United States in February to face charges.

Defense attorneys and Abu Ali's family have contended that any statements he made in Saudi custody were obtained through torture. Two doctors who examined Abu Ali found evidence that he was tortured in Saudi Arabia, including scars on his back consistent with having been whipped, defense lawyers have said in court papers.

Prosecutors have denied that Abu Ali was tortured. But if a federal judge concludes that he was, much of the evidence against him could be thrown out because it was obtained under duress. The torture allegations are expected to play a key role in a hearing scheduled to start Sept. 19...

Regarding the high-profile nature of this case, this page says:

CAIR director Omar Ahmad wrote a letter to then Secretary of State Powell demanding [Abu Ali's] "immediate release.

Also according to CAIR, Abu Ali's accomplice in this plot was killed in a 2003 shootout with Saudi police. His lawyer says that was the only witness to the plot. There's more on CAIR's support of Abu Ali in this search.

For more, see "The NY Times' Wahhabi Apologists" and "[The Abu Ali Case and] Balancing Liberties, Security".

Posted at 09:54 AM | Comments (0)

ABC/Disney bows to CAIR pressure, fires talker Michael Graham

ABC Radio has fired talk show host Michael Graham because of comments he made on his show about Islam. Graham worked at 630 WMAL in Washington D.C. From his site:

On July 25th, the Council on American-Islamic Relations demanded that I be "punished" for my on-air statements regarding Islam and its tragic connections to terrorism. Three days later, 630 WMAL and ABC Radio suspended me without pay for comments deemed "hate radio" by CAIR.

CAIR immediately announced that my punishment was insufficient and demanded I be fired. ABC Radio and 630 WMAL have now complied. I have been fired for making the specific comments CAIR deemed "offensive," and for refusing to retract those statements in a management-mandated, on-air apology. ABC Radio further demanded that I agree to perform what they described as "additional outreach efforts" to those people or groups who felt offended.

I refused. And for that refusal, I have been fired.

It appears that ABC Radio has caved to an organization that condemns talk radio hosts like me, but has never condemned Hamas, Hezbollah, and one that wouldn't specifically condemn Al Qaeda for three months after 9/11...

This had been supposedly over; in fact on August 2 Graham asked his listeners to stop complaining about the suspension. I don't know exactly what upset CAIR, but you can read more about his thoughts on Islam here.

You may remember Graham from when he attended an Open Borders rally and was allegedly jumped by not just peace-loving lefties but the cops as well.

Posted at 02:02 PM | Comments (2)

Is the Bush administration funding madrassas?

The DU (yes, I know) thread has some links and this official blurb:

"Accompanied by Zanzibar's First Lady, Shadya Karume, Mrs. Bush first visited the Al-Rahma Madrasa, where the two First Ladies met with school children and their teachers. The Madrasa is one of several pre-schools scattered around various villages in Zanzibar that have received over $200,000 this year through grants from the U.S. Agency for International Development. The funds are distributed through the Aga Khan Foundation to improve the quality of education by training teachers, especially in English, math and the sciences. The grants have also allowed more children to attend pre-school, who otherwise could not afford it. At the Al-Rahma Madrasa, the number of students this year increased from 55 to 67. The students greeted Mrs. Bush and Mrs. Karume with songs in English and Kiswahili."

Maybe they're the good kind of madrassas and not the, you know, foundries of terrorism kind of madrassas.

Posted at 07:28 AM | Comments (0)

Amateurish terrorist plot in Los Angeles?

Earlier this month Torrance police arrested two South L.A. residents for a series of armed robberies. However, after searching their apartment the cops found a list of possible terrorism targets, including three National Guard facilities.

Over to the NBC4 Investigative Unit and July 15th's "Possible Terror Evidence In Robbery Probe":

According to a senior official familiar with the case, when police searched Washington's apartment on West 27th Street, looking for evidence of the robberies, they instead found a list of targets and notes of an operation which detailed a need for cash, explosives, weapons, even remote control devices. Our informant tells us it was all part of a plot to blow up targets in the Los Angeles area... A local police source says Gregory Patterson may have worked at LAX; the airport was on the list of targets. LAX officials say they the FBI has asked them not to comment....

Both suspects are reportedly converts to Islam, and one is reportedly a current or former gang member:

A source close to the investigation says Washington and Patterson may be linked to a wider plot involving a prison-based gang called "Jimiyat Islam Sahid" or JIS. According to gang experts, JIS recruits former gang members such as the Crips in prisons such as Folsom, where Washington served time.

The L.A. Times offered the earlier "Suspect Possessed a Military Sites List", but, the NBC4 report covers more possibilities. NPR weighed in with yesterday's "FBI Investigates Suspected L.A. Homeland Threat".

Posted at 05:35 AM | Comments (0)

It's not called "al-Guardian" for nothing

An al-Guardian "trainee journalist", Dilpazier Aslam, appears to be involved or have been involved with the Islamist extremist group Hizb Ut Tahrir. Details here, via this.

Posted at 04:29 PM | Comments (1)

"Expert says London bombings well-planned"

Al Guardian via UPI:

A British defense expert says Thursday's bombings in London were executed by at least 24 people and designed to mirror bombings last year in Madrid...

Posted at 08:57 PM | Comments (2)

London subway and bus bombing open thread

Post news links and well-founded speculation regarding the bombs that appear to have been detonated on buses and in subway stations in London. Apparently there were six explosions in stations and three on buses.

At post time, the most detailed reports seem to be "'Multiple explosions' rock London", "London in chaos after blasts", and "Explosions cause chaos across London".

While there's no particular reason at this time to suspect Islamic terrorism, see "Terror on the dole" and "[Abu] Hamza seeks legal aid for citizenship fight". Attacks like this don't seem to fit the M.O. of, for instance, the IRA, window-smashing anarchists, or enviro-whackos.

UPDATE: It's now fairly clear that this is Islamic terrorism, although other possibilities can't be ruled out.

Note this from Tuesday: UK cleric Abu Hamza's trial opens. Over two years ago the British government started proceedings against him and closed his mosque. That was a few months after they raided his mosque. That link also describes how France sent many of their Algerians to the UK, and the latter country accepted them as legitimate asylum seekers.

Teenage asylum seekers are mentioned in 1/03's Ricin suspects were arrested in France then freed. And, from 5/03, see "Derision greets BBC plan to turn asylum into a game".

From 5/04: "Evidence, London link found in the Spanish bombings".

From earlier this year, see "'Rattled' Blair to set tough tests for migrants" and UK: "Few failed asylum seekers removed".

While those who planted the bombs or who blew themselves up might have come to London from another country specifically to commit this act, something like this cannot have been planned and executed without long-term, local assistance. Expect it to be found that at least those who assisted this act were there because of Britain's lax immigration and asylum policies.

UPDATE 2: Partial credit to CBS News for at least broaching this subject on their evening broadcast, even if their report occasionally ventured into CAIR territory.

Posted at 02:41 AM | Comments (2)

Our "homeland security president" strikes out again

From the NYT's "U.S. Borders Vulnerable, Witnesses Say":

The federal government's efforts to prevent terrorists from smuggling a nuclear weapon into the United States are so poorly managed and reliant on ineffective equipment that the nation remains extremely vulnerable to a catastrophic attack, scientists and a government auditor warned a House committee on Tuesday...

Dirty bombs, crude devices that widely spread low levels of radiation, are relatively easy to detect. But highly enriched uranium, a crucial ingredient in a nuclear bomb, could easily be shielded with less than a quarter-inch of lead, making it "very likely to escape detection by passive radiation monitors" now installed at ports and border stations, Benn Tannenbaum, a physicist and senior program associate at the American Association for the Advancement of Science, testified at Tuesday's hearing...

Nationally, less than a quarter of the radiation detection devices needed to check all goods crossing the borders have been installed, federal officials said. In New York, for example, none of the cargo that moves through the largest ship terminal or goods leaving the port by rail or barge are inspected for radiation, Bethann Rooney, manager of security for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, testified...

Members of Congress have also recently questioned a proposal by the Bush administration to spend $227 million in the coming year to create a Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, skeptical that it will do more than add a new layer of bureaucracy.

"I am not too hopeful about this situation," Representative Bill Pascrell Jr., Democrat of New Jersey, said.

Just remember: only George W. Bush can keep America safe.

Posted at 06:43 AM | Comments (0)

Ecuador busts Hezbollah funder

From "Ecuador Police Bust Alleged Cocaine Ring Suspected of Financing Hezbollah":

QUITO, Ecuador (AP) - Police broke up an international cocaine ring led by a Lebanese restaurant owner suspected of raising money for the Islamic militant group Hezbollah, which the U.S. government classifies as a terrorist organization.

Ecuadorean authorities declined to elaborate Tuesday on the group's alleged links to terrorist activities "until further investigation."

But an internal police report obtained by The Associated Press said preliminary evidence "confirms the relationship between this organization and the terrorist movement Hezbollah." The document said the gang sent "up to 70 percent of its profits to the Islamic group..."

Posted at 02:52 PM | Comments (0)

"U.S. Campaign Produces Few Convictions on Terrorism Charges"

The WaPo analyzes this statement from Our Leader:

"federal terrorism investigations have resulted in charges against more than 400 suspects, and more than half of those charged have been convicted."

And finds:

Among all the people charged as a result of terrorism probes in the three years after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, The Post found no demonstrated connection to terrorism or terrorist groups for 180 of them.

Just one in nine individuals on the list had an alleged connection to the al Qaeda terrorist network and only 14 people convicted of terrorism-related crimes -- including Faris and convicted Sept. 11 plotter Zacarias Moussaoui -- have clear links to the group. Many more cases involve Colombian drug cartels, supporters of the Palestinian cause, Rwandan war criminals or others with no apparent ties to al Qaeda or its leader, Osama bin Laden...

Posted at 07:45 AM | Comments (2)

Oriana Fallaci on trial; some "liberals" support her

From Reuters:

A judge has ordered best-selling writer and journalist Oriana Fallaci to stand trial in her native Italy on charges she defamed Islam in a recent book.

The decision angered Italy's justice minister but delighted Muslim activists, who accused Fallaci of inciting religious hatred in her 2004 work "La Forza della Ragione" (The Force of Reason)...

The "liberal" who posted this story at DU sounds a bit, well, "classical" in his liberalism:

I have to say that, independently of what Oriana Fallaci said, this is NOT a good development. This should not stand in a free society, and allowing a writer to stand trial because she "defamed" a religion is tantamount to censorship. By the way, Fallaci has not gone nearly as far criticising Islam as some of our domestic loudmouths like Coulter. To her credit, Fallaci was both a feminist activist and a war reporter (sort of an Italian Christianne Amampour) in the Middle East for a decade.

Furthermore, it's my humble opinion that charging this writer with "defamation of Islam" is tantamount of forcing Islamic laws into our societies. I may not fully agree with Oriana Fallaci, but she deserves full protection of the right to free speech that we defend in western civilization...

Surprisingly, some of the DUmmies agree.

Posted at 05:30 PM | Comments (2)

Venezuela got WMD from Spain

So far all that's been discovered is 30,000 Euros worth, but there might be more. The details are in Remember the Maine?

Spain's Europa Press news agency reports that Venezuela purchased "biological and nerve agents" as well as dual-use materials from Spain sometime during the first half of 2004. According to a report about defense expenditures obtained by Europa Press, Venezuela was the only country listed under the category of "states to which chemical warfare agents and radioactive materials were sold." An English translation appears here.

The accusation comes in the wake of Spain's announcement that it will sell conventional weaponry -- military transport planes and and patrol boats -- to Venezuela. I found the story through Iberian blogger Barcepundit...

UPDATE: From this: "Karl von Wogau, Chairman of the European Parliament Subcommittee on Security and Defence, today urged the EU's plenary session gathered in Strasbourg to ascertain whether or not the sale of weapons by Spain to Venezuela violates the Code of Conduct on Arms Exports of the European Union..."

Posted at 12:55 PM | Comments (2)

"Ex-PM: Hezbollah rally numbers manipulated"

WND has a scoop:

The giant Hezbollah rally that drew nearly half a million purported supporters of Syria's occupation of Lebanon included non-Lebanese citizens, Syrian workers, students and municipal employees coerced into joining the protest, former Lebanese Prime Minister Michel Aoun told WorldNetDaily in an exclusive interview this morning...

[Aoun said] "This was not a Lebanese showing, and many of those who actually were Lebanese were not there because they support Syria. We know that at least three Palestinian camps were present. And there are 700,000 Syrian workers inside Lebanon, many of whom are not even supposed to be there. They were urged by Syria to attend so it looks like many Lebanese are protesting. Plus Syria bused in their own citizens from Syria through the border into Lebanon to join the rally."

The former prime minister also accused Hezbollah and pro-Syrian Lebanese intelligence forces of coercing students and municipal workers to attend.

"They shut down the schools and all the government and public buildings and pressured students and workers to get to the rally," he said...

See also "How many of the 500,000 pro-Syrian demonstrators are Syrian guest workers?"

Posted at 12:23 PM | Comments (0)

Terror in flippers

There was a recent ABCNBCCBS report (I forget which) on the DHS or a similar agency releasing their latest terrorist profiling information. The report said that for the first time the government had indicated that terrorists could use scuba diving to perpetrate attacks or that scuba lessons could be one profiling data point like flying lessons. I've searched for this but can't find it.

In any case, this is hardly the first time a possible connection between scuba diving and terrorism has been discussed or warned about.

See "Terror alerts on small planes, scuba divers", "Feds scour local scuba training files in terror alert", "War On Error: The Terror Alert They Won�t Issue", or "Alert for terror scuba divers as FBI orders inquiry into missed clues". Those are all from 2002. In March 2004 we waded in with "Diving for conspiracies".

Posted at 11:31 PM | Comments (0)

Bush Knew! (As did Nixon, Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush I, and Clinton)

AP:

Nearly three decades before the September 11 attacks, a high-level government panel developed plans to protect the nation against terrorist acts ranging from radiological "dirty bombs" to airline missile attacks, according to declassified documents.

"Unless governments take basic precautions, we will continue to stand at the edge of an awful abyss," Robert Kupperman, chief scientist for the Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, wrote in a 1977 report that summarized nearly five years of work by the Cabinet Committee to Combat Terrorism...

Posted at 10:20 PM | Comments (0)

TROP Alert #439434529431

January 16, 2005 -- The father of a murdered New Jersey family was threatened for making anti-Muslim remarks online � and the gruesome quadruple slaying may have been the hateful retaliation, sources told The Post yesterday.

Hossam Armanious, 47, who along with his wife and two daughters was found stabbed to death in his Jersey City home early Friday, would regularly debate religion in a Middle Eastern chat room, one source said...

The other details seem to suggest this is a result of his online activities.

Posted at 09:36 PM | Comments (1)

"Extremist Group Raises Fears in Indonesia"

BANDA ACEH, Indonesia � An extremist Islamic group with alleged Al Qaeda has set up a relief camp on Indonesia's tsunami-stricken Sumatra island, raising concerns it could stir up sentiment against U.S. and Australian troops helping distribute aid.

The Laskar Mujahidin group posted a sign at its camp that read � in English � "Islamic Law Enforcement." Its members said Thursday they have been collecting corpses, distributing food and providing Islamic teaching for refugees here in predominantly Muslim Aceh province.

The presence of the extremist group, known for killing Christians in a sectarian conflict elsewhere in Indonesia, has generated fears that U.S. military personnel and others doing relief work could become terror targets.

It also underscores the fine line that foreigners, especially the U.S. military, must tread between being welcomed as Samaritans or viewed as invaders in a country where suspicion of outsiders runs deep...

Posted at 12:11 AM | Comments (0)

Iceland, Norway, Sweden and North Korea now safe for Westerners

From The rise of terrorism leaves much of world off-limits to Westerners":

LARGE swaths of the globe have become too dangerous for Westerners to visit or do business in, according to a report by a group of security experts.

The Middle East, much of the Islamic world and large parts of Asia and Africa are no longer safe, and attacks by Islamic militants against Western targets may increase, the RiskMap for 2005, published today by the Control Risks Group, says...

...more popular destinations make the second �high risk� category, including parts of Jamaica, Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe, India, Pakistan, Nepal, Indonesia and the Philippines. The only �high risk� area in mainland Europe is Kosovo...

...The only countries to have an "insignificant" security risk are Iceland, Norway, Sweden and North Korea...

Posted at 09:45 PM | Comments (0)

Everything's going to be just fine, authorities say

From the 9/30 San Diego Union-Tribune story "No threat seen to district; children are safe, police say":

A man arrested by U.S. authorities in Iraq had a computer disk in his possession containing a public report downloaded from a U.S. Department of Education Web site on crisis planning in school districts, including San Diego Unified...

That report has a few quote from authorities saying there's no danger, San Diego wasn't specifically targeted, etc. etc.

Now, from ABC's 10/7 report "School Warning":

Schools in six states in particular are being watched closely based on information uncovered by the U.S. military in Baghdad this summer, law enforcement and education officials told ABC News.

A man described as an Iraqi insurgent involved in anti-coalition activities had downloaded school floor plans and safety and security information about elementary and high schools in the six states, according to officials...

There's nothing in that report where authorities downplay the risk as in the first report. The ABC report names six specific towns in FL, OR, GA, MI, and NJ, but they fail to name the two towns in California.

Nevertheless, if this really happened, they would seem to refer to the same computer disk. In the first report the disk just contains a generic report, in the second it contains floor plans for specific schools. The discrepancies between the two reports are certainly curious.

UPDATE: As pointed out here, today's CNN report ("Disks in Iraq hold details about U.S. schools") says this: "the material was associated with a person in Iraq, and it could not be established that this person had any ties to terrorism. He did have a connection to civic groups doing planning for schools in Iraq." Further, TPM says that the states involved are swing states, which isn't correct for all of them.

UPDATE 2: Here's a Boston Globe report with the school details of the ABC report and the assurances that nothing's wrong of the SDUT report.

Posted at 10:29 PM | Comments (1)

"Paraguay Tri-Border Area Is Terror Haven"

Here's an AP backgrounder on the tri-border area in South America:

...Such chaotic scenes give life to the city's reputation of lawlessness and U.S. officials' description of the tri-border area where Paraguay, Brazil and Argentina meet as a key South American point for Islamic terrorist fund raising to the tune of $100 million a year. Yet few arrests have been made or assets frozen, and local officials told The Associated Press they are ill-prepared to fully track financial movements and they discount terror links...

The tri-border area - also known as the "Muslim Triangle" - was last mentioned in "Illegals from terrorist nations are crossing the border into Arizona."

Posted at 11:26 PM | Comments (0)

" Muslim freed by US issues terror threats"

OK, enough debate coverage.

From this:

Danish authorities said yesterday they might have to return a recently-released Guantanamo Bay prisoner to US custody after he said cabinet ministers were fair targets and vowed to travel to fight Russian forces in Chechnya...

Mr Abderahmane said the Danish prime minister and defence minister were targets...

"I urge the government to pack him off back to the Americans," said Pia Kjaersgaard, the leader of the Danish People's Party, the minority government's coalition partner.

Earlier she described Mr Abderahmane's statements as "high treason" and called for his imprisonment...

Posted at 09:15 PM | Comments (0)

That's a bit odd

From this:

[Lt. Col. Asad Khan, 44, of Avon, Conn.,] who commanded 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment with the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit in Afghanistan was removed from command Friday, a military spokesman said... No other details were released. No specific reason for the action was given...

From just nine days ago:

While hunting insurgents in Afghanistan, members of the 22nd Marine Expeditionary Unit benefited from someone with a personal understanding of the people and the land.

Lt. Col. Asad Khan, a Pakistani-born Marine officer, commands a reinforced version of the 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment. Called a battalion landing team, it's the 22nd MEU's ground combat element.

In 1972, Khan's parents emigrated from Pakistan through Afghanistan, and he has since returned to the area as a Marine Corps foreign area officer...

(Despite the category in which this post has been placed, his removal might have nothing to do with terrorism or supporting jihad, etc. He might have gotten a bit too "close" to the natives. Or, it could be entirely innocent or entirely unrelated to what he did in Afghanistan.)

Posted at 03:12 PM | Comments (4)

"Just 30mm guns to protect 300lbs of weapons-grade plutonium on open seas"

This page has the details which are rather scary: [This ships that will transport the plutonium across the Atlantic] each boast three 30mm cannons capable of tackling attacking boats and aircraft. Armed officers from the UK Atomic Energy Constabulary are also on guard against boarders... Jane's Foreign Report concluded that even with their 30mm guns the freighters were "capable of repelling only a lightly armed attack".

30mm is just over an inch, and, while there might be other ships in the convoy, the Coast Guard will not be among them. Whether our Navy will be is not stated.

Posted at 12:52 AM | Comments (7)

"Basayev Says He Was Behind Beslan"

Bearing in mind this is the Moscow Times relying on a Chechen website:

Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev claimed responsibility for the Beslan hostage-taking and four other recent attacks and defiantly threatened to carry out more.

Basayev said in a statement posted on a rebel web site Friday that the attacks -- which include two plane bombings, a Moscow metro suicide blast and a Moscow bus stop explosion -- were part of a campaign to end the Chechen conflict, start the withdrawal of federal troops from Chechnya and force President Vladimir Putin to resign if he "doesn't want peace."

As previously posted, this page says:

"[The DHS has just granted asylum to someone who's] the foreign minister-in-exile of the secessionist Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, and a former military adjutant to Chechnaya's generalissimo, Shamil Basayev."

Posted at 01:02 PM | Comments (1)

"Die Welt: Syria used chem weapons in Sudan"

Berlin, Germany, Sep. 15 (UPI) -- Syrian special forces used chemical weapons in June to kill dozens of people in Darfur, Sudan, the German newspaper Die Welt reported...

The Die Welt article is here (in German). It wasn't on their front page for some reason.

Posted at 03:54 PM | Comments (0)

One less peak to climb

BBC: N Korea says it blew up mountain:

North Korea has given its first explanation for the huge blast last week which prompted speculation that it had carried out a nuclear test.

The country's foreign minister, Paek Nam-sun, said the blast was in fact the deliberate demolition of a mountain as part of a huge, hydro-electric project...

Posted at 10:02 PM | Comments (1)

"Head of Dolly clone lab is found hanged"

The head of the science lab which created Dolly the sheep has been found hanging in his holiday home.

Professor John Clark, who was believed to have been suffering from depression was found in his remote cottage in the village of Cove, north of Eyemouth, on the Berwickshire coast.

Prof Clark lead the Roslin Institute in Midlothian, one of the world�s leading animal biotechnology research centres.

[He was apparently suffering from depression, he had taken time off work, one of his spin-off businesses had failed, etc.]

This appears to be somewhat less suspicious than other recent suicides and accidental deaths of top scientists.

UPDATE: There are a lot of links about the dead scientists here. Just remember the Lonewacko Linking Policy: linking doesn't imply endorsement.

Posted at 10:02 PM | Comments (0)

Terror in the Skies: Part VXXXXIDCXXXVCDIII

Annie Jacobsen is back with "Another Passenger from Flight 327 Steps Forward With Disturbing New Details":

A few days ago, WomensWallStreet.com received an important email. It was from Billie Jo Rodriguez, another passenger who was on Northwest Airlines flight 327 from Detroit to Los Angeles on June 29. Billie Jo is a Certified Public Accountant living in Oxnard, California. She had some additional, disturbing information about flight 327 that she felt someone needed to know. She had been so terrified by what happened on the flight that she sent two emails to the Department of Homeland Security telling them about the experience, but she hadn't heard back from them. Then, through a series of events, she heard about my article, "Terror in the Skies, Again?" She and I have had numerous conversations and she is willing to share her story on the record. The following interview is based on conversations Billie Jo and I have had, as well as a discussion she had with my editor...

She has an editor?

As is my usual practice, I only looked at the first page of this latest reincarnation of Flight 327. However, there might now be three other passengers - maybe two, maybe four - who noticed something strange.

Once again, these Syrians might have been terrorists, or they might have been playing a harmless prank, or their actions might have been completely innocent. Over and above that, the response of our government is quite interesting. Are they just playing dumb, or are they in fact dumb?

Check out the article if you want. I'm just fatigued by Flight 327. It's like the Kerry Cambodia thing. I just want to hear the bottom line, I don't care about the intervening bits.

Posted at 11:20 PM | Comments (0)

"Democratic leader calls for ending racial profiling of US Muslims"

Guess who's back in the news:

US House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi, Democrat of California, on Thursday called for an end to racial and religious profiling of American Muslims since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks against the United States. [via various legislation including: the End Racial Profiling Act, the Security and Freedom Ensured Act, and the Safe, Orderly, and Legal Visas Enforcement Act].

At a meeting in Washington with American Muslim leaders, Ms. Pelosi voiced her concern over the problems being faced by Muslims in the country.

Democratic Congressmen John Dingell and John Conyers of Michigan as well as Charles Rangel of New York and other congressional Democrats took part in the discussion...

The Pakistan Daily Times titles their report "Civil liberties body comes to aid of harassed Muslims". Earlier, Chief Charles "white man in a white van" Moose came out in support of the bill: "Famed ex-cop fights racial profiling". WND has the scoop on meeting in "Pelosi meets with group tied to Hamas".

Posted at 11:58 AM | Comments (0)

"if something doesn't go boom, nothing is going to be done"

From USA Today's "U.S. didn't warn Las Vegas of terror threats":

A year after the Sept. 11 attacks, the Justice Department obtained video surveillance tapes suggesting terrorists were targeting Las Vegas casinos but authorities never alerted the public as they discussed whether a warning might hurt tourism or increase the casinos' legal liability, internal memos show.

[Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman] said Monday he was never told about the tapes uncovered in Detroit and Spain in 2002, and had been assured by the FBI there were no credible threats against his city. "If I were told, I would certainly tell the public..."

But memos and e-mails between federal prosecutors, obtained by The Associated Press, say Las Vegas authorities were alerted to some of the footage by Aug. 30, 2002. Later, numerous local law enforcement officials were invited by a senior FBI agent to view the footage, but most spurned the invitation [out of a fear of incurring liability], the memos say...

The prosecutor said he later asked a Las Vegas police officer, who had seen the tape and flown to Detroit to help, why more wasn't done. "This officer told me that the amount of money that travels through Las Vegas on a daily, weekly and monthly basis � if something doesn't go boom, nothing is going to be done," he said.

Neither the mayor, the casinos, nor the local cops come off too good in the rest of the report.

Posted at 07:13 PM | Comments (0)

Terror in the Skies, Part 3.4035^100: My word processor doesn't have footnoting capability

Annie Jacobsen is back with a new roundup.

At the end of that article, she mentions Stuart Taylor's "Rashomon in the Skies: The Tangled Tale of Flight 327." I just scanned the first part of both, but I'd strongly suggest starting with Taylor's article before reading Jacobsen's. He provides a source who denies almost everything Jacobsen, her husband, and the two other passengers who've made statements have reported. I don't know who's telling the truth anymore, I just want out.

Frankly, it's not that I don't care, it's just the level of detail is a bit too much for someone who isn't personally invested in this matter.

Posted at 04:57 PM | Comments (0)

"Second passenger saw suspicious behavior" ("Terror in the Skies" Part #382)

From the WashTimes:

The second passenger, a frequent business traveler who asked not to be identified, provided a copy of her itinerary confirming she was on the June 29 Northwest Airlines Detroit-to-Los Angeles Flight 327...

The passenger, who was riding in first class, said the constant foot traffic and strange behavior she witnessed in the front cabin frightened her as much as it did Annie Jacobsen...

"I thought I was going to die," the second passenger told The Washington Times...

...[She] said the men were "up and down the aisles of the plane the entire time," and that one of the men pushed other passengers as he rushed toward the front lavatory. She said the man did not appear to be ill, and remained in the lavatory during her entire meal...

"There was more activity up and down the aisle through first class than I have ever experienced on any flight, including international flights," the second passenger said. "The most unusual part was that the flight attendants seemed to ignore what was going on..."

Posted at 11:15 PM | Comments (0)

Fill in the PC blanks

Here's the blogosphere's latest craze. Can you fill in the blanks in the following quote from the COUNTERTERRORISM ORGANIZATIONS WITHIN THE INTELLIGENCE COMMUNITY section of the 9/11 Commission Report?

The [________] Extremist CT Operations Group, the CTC operational arm, tracks al-Qa�ida and other [________] radical groups. In 1996, the CTC created [the Bin Ladin Issue] Station to target Bin Ladin and his network, [________________________]. The CTC�s [________] Extremist Branch also follows a range of radical [________] groups...

Posted at 09:50 PM | Comments (0)

Snopes on "Terror in the Skies"

From Snopes:

Claim: Reporter encounters terrorists on airline flight who are making a dry run at assembling a bomb on-board.

Status: False.

Really. As I wrote in a letter to Snopes, does that mean that the Snopes organization has done a thorough background check on the musicians and determined that they were in fact innocent musicians and had no relation to terrorism?

If not, there's no way Snopes can call this "false."

I suggested that they change the status to "undetermined," or at least provide a note saying that the cover story provided by the musicians checked out. Feel free to use their feedback form to suggest the same.

Posted at 07:23 PM | Comments (0)

"Al-Qaida May Have Had Network in California Long Before 9/11"

Or, they may not have. The L.A. Times spends an article offering speculation but no real scary bits.

The first visit to the U.S. by two of the 9/11 hijackers was to Los Angeles. Their first two weeks here are a mystery. However, they appear to have made acquaintances at the King Fahd mosque in Culver City. A former prayer leader at the mosque (and a Saudi consular official) was expelled last year because of links to terrorists. However, the article doesn't mention any direct connection between them and the prayer leader.

If you were from, say, Morrocco, and you went to the Morroccan district of a city, there's a good chance you could meet up with Morroccans who would take newcomers under their wing. Especially if they were from your part of Morrocco. As others in the article point out, that may have been all that was involved. Speculating...

Posted at 09:52 PM | Comments (0)

" Bali bombers may be freed by ruling"

No kidding:

The convictions of dozens of Islamists involved in the Bali bombings two years ago could be overturned after Indonesia's highest court ruled that the laws under which they were tried were unconstitutional.

The constitutional court in Jakarta yesterday declared that the terrorism legislation was invalid as it had passed into law months after the bombings, in which 202 people died, including 28 Britons.

There is, of course, the possibility that covert state or private enforcement might occur if they are indeed released.

Posted at 08:36 PM | Comments (1)

"CAIR's Phony Petition"

Daniel Pipes discusses CAIR's "Not in the Name of Islam" petition, calling it "CAIR's Phony Petition":

The petition indeed won CAIR a fistful of kudos. Among others, the Associated Press, United Press International, Religion News Service, Washington Post , and Philadelphia Inquirer wrote admiringly of it. I found not a single skeptical word on the topic.

But a close look finds this petition lacking in several ways...

...In conclusion, "Not in the Name of Islam" seeks to clean up Islam's image without doing anything of substance. It manages to do two things at once: impress naive Westerners without upsetting anyone in Hamas, Al-Qaeda, the Iraqi Islamist organizations, or other violent groups.

In this, the petition initiative fits CAIR's well-established pattern of obfuscation and insincerity.

I made similar points here.

Posted at 08:43 PM | Comments (0)

"Alleged Terror Threat Operates in DC Suburb"

From CNSNews:

Fourteen miles from the U.S. Capitol, a basement-run organization with alleged ties to Hamas and al Qaeda is a crucial link in the planning of any future terrorist attacks against the United States, according to several terrorism experts who analyzed documents and other information obtained in a CNSNews.com investigation.

The United Association for Studies and Research (UASR), based in Springfield, Va., is publicly identified as a Muslim think tank but has multiple ties [warning: PDF file] to the terrorism underworld, according to the CNSNews.com sources, who are both inside and outside government...

I don't know if there's any relation with the recently-raided Islamic Center also in Virginia ("Feds Search Virginia Islamic Center", update here).

Posted at 11:06 AM | Comments (0)

"U.S. Officials: Saddam's Hijack Drills Were Counterterror Ops"

From this:

State Department and CIA officials have quietly told reporters that they believe Saddam Hussein trained his elite troops in airline hijacking techniques before the 9/11 attacks � but they accept the Iraqi dictator's explanation that the drills were counterterrorism operations.

Speaking on condition of anonymity to the Knight Ridder news service, the officials challenged the credibility of two White House reports issued last year that had raised questions about whether activities at the notorious terrorist training camp Salman Pak were linked to the 9/11 attacks...

Posted at 09:24 PM | Comments (0)

"Radical imams trouble Europe"

The Chicago Tribune has an overview of Abu Hamza, al-Muhajiroun, and the general problems Europe is having accepting its new role as the future Eurabia.

Posted at 09:34 PM | Comments (0)

Stoned in Canada

From 'Protest rises over Islamic law in Ontario':

When Britain's Muslim community requested the right to use Islamic law to settle family disputes, the government's refusal was unequivocal.

No, the petitioners were told: This is one nation, with one justice system for all.

Until last fall, no Western jurisdiction allowed the 1,400-year-old body of religious law called sharia to take root inside its secular legal system.

Then the province of Ontario quietly approved its use. Under the 1991 Arbitration Act, sharia-based marriage, divorce and family tribunals run by the Islamic Institute of Civil Justice are expected to begin later this year. The move has so horrified many Muslim women that they're vowing to stop the tribunals before they start...

See also 'Life under sharia, in Canada?'

(Via this)

Posted at 10:29 AM | Comments (0)

Wireless transmitter found hidden beside Philadelphia train tracks

From this:

Action News has learned that last week SEPTA police recovered an infrared sensor that was carefully concealed along SEPTA's track bed near 34th and Powelton. The device, a commercially available wireless infrared transmitter made for home security use was discovered spray-painted black and tucked neatly in the trackside ballast. Such devices transmit a signal when something cuts across their infrared beam. And while there is no indication of any specific threat, investigators are concerned because the sensor has the potential to be used as a triggering device...

Posted at 12:44 AM | Comments (0)

U.S. 3/11 suspect released

From this:

An American lawyer who was arrested two weeks ago in connection with the terror attacks in Spain was set free Thursday after evidence pointed to another suspect in the deadly train bombings.

Brandon Mayfield, 37, was released soon after Spanish officials said fingerprints found on a bag near the bombing site were that of an Algerian.

Posted at 12:35 AM | Comments (0)

A translation of the Berg video

WND has excerpts from the Berg video in 'Berg video called
how-to-kill demo: Translator-expert sees jihadist message to Muslims worldwide'. The translation was done by "Joel Cohen, with a master's degree in Semitic languages from Princeton University and a student of the Quran at the University of Chicago." I'm going to assume he's not a native speaker; it would be better if it had been discussed with a few native speakers who are familiar with the accents of the area. Cohen says the message was not intended for the West, but for Muslims:

"The author goes at great pains to convince the Ummah (the body of Muslim believers) that the time for negotiations with unbelievers is over," explains Cohen, who adds the address was carefully crafted rather than delivered impromptu.

Along the way, the speaker refers to United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan, Arab League Secretary General Amr Musa, Bush, and Pakistani President Pervis Musharaf.

Conclusion:

"In the mind of the writer of this document, it's simply a call to kill all non-Muslims and those they perceive challenge Islam. By concluding with this ayat, he wants the Ummah to know that Nick Berg is not being killed simply because he is a prisoner. He is being killed because he is not a Muslim."

Meanwhile, Musharaf facing opposition to his attempts to liberalize Pakistan:

Mutahidda Majlis-i-Amal (MMA) Monday announced that it would strongly resist in case the government attempts to change blasphemy and Hadood laws, and alleged that US was behind the move to convert Pakistan into a secular state. �We will not allow to impose American agenda on 140 million people of Pakistan,� said the MMA Secretary General Maulana Fazlur Rehman here at a Press conference after the alliance�s Supreme Council meeting. The meeting, Fazl maintained, decided to call a national conference in June in order to invite all political forces to resist attempts that are meant to make the country as secular and liberal state. �We took a strong exception of General Pervez Musharraf�s recent statement on blasphemy and Hadood laws, and will not allow to change the existing Islamic provisions.�

Posted at 11:46 PM | Comments (0)

Thank gosh I'm just a blogger!

Top scientists have been having an awful lot of "accidents" these past few years. Not just Russians or Iraqis, but Americans and British as well.

The latest is Dr. Eugene Mallove, who received one or two doctorates from Harvard and "also taught science journalism at MIT and Boston University and previously was chief science writer at the MIT news office."

He was a cold fusion expert and published a magazine and ran a foundation dealing with that subject.

He had apparently suffered from cold fusion falling into disfavor for alledgedly political reasons. However, things seemed to be looking up, as this March 20, 2004 press release says:

Exciting news that has circulated for about a month in the low-energy nuclear reactions field (LENR, a.k.a. "cold fusion") has now been confirmed. The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) has agreed to perform a review of the entire "cold fusion" (LENR) question. The DOE has made a startling reversal of its past refusal to evaluate with a fresh look the large body of experimental evidence that now supports highly anomalous non-chemical magnitude excess heat phenomena in some hydrogen systems, plus associated nuclear anomalies. The details of how the review will be conducted and when it is to begin have not yet been released formally, but it is expected to be completed by the end of 2004...

He was a guest on Coast To Coast AM, and you can listen to an excerpt here (Window Media) or here (Real).

Unfortunately:

Mallove was discovered at the small 119 Salem Turnpike house at 10:55 p.m. Friday after police received a report of an injured person.

At the house, situated at the entrance to Interstate 395 in a primarily commercial area, police found Mallove unresponsive, the victim of an assault. He was later pronounced dead by medical personnel called to the scene.

Police said initial investigation indicated a robbery, during which a physical confrontation took place. Several unidentified items were taken from the scene and Mallove's vehicle was missing, according to a written statement released by Norwich police.

Several hours later, Mallove's 1993 green Dodge Caravan was found in the Foxwoods employee parking lot on Route 2 in Preston. The vehicle is easily identifiable by several large bumper stickers, including an American flag and his company Web site, www.infinite-energy.com, in the rear window. The New Hampshire license plate bears the registration INFNRG.

The "Foxwoods" mentioned above appears to be a casino, and the two locations appear to be about 5 miles apart.

Maybe it was just a random crime, or perhaps it's just the latest in a series.

There's more background in this article.

UPDATE: The Norwich Bulletin has an article entitled 'Killing sparks questions: Some colleagues wonder if scientist could have been slain over his research into cold fusion', although it just broaches the subject and doesn't go into specifics. A similar report in the Boston Globe doesn't cover the conspiracy angle: 'Police eye robbery in killing of scientist'.

Posted at 09:34 PM | Comments (2)

Ooooochen interessssno

I haven't seen the Nicholas Berg video, but I did scan through some of the many conspiracy theories. One of the more popular pages is this. That has aztlan.net as its source. While I usually completely trust aztlan.net as a news site, in this one case (and this one case only) I'm a bit skeptical.

However, consider the following (unverified) informatsia:

"...The terrorists in Berg's beheading video are communicating to each other in Russian ! One of them tells to the executioner who was cutting Berg's head: "Davay pozhivee!" meaning "Do it quicker !", or "Hurry up !" in pure unaccented Russian. Initially, I thought I was the only one who noticed it, but other Russian speakers confirmed it as well independently from me. So, who actually killed Berg ? BTW, "Allah o Akbar" they pronounce not with Arabic, but with a Russian-like accent. Also, their demeanor was not Arabic at all, but resembles that of people from the North Caucasus. Those were not Arabs!"

The source for that appears to be a poster at - gasp! - Democratic Underground. But, it is easily verified by those who've seen the tape.

Moving a bit up in the credibility category, consider the following from CNN:

Now, of course, the original claim was that Zarqawi is the actual man who performed this execution. Our experts listened to the accent, as you said, and they determined the accent is not Jordanian...

The CIA says it was Zarqawi who did the beheading, and Zarqawi apparently has a Jordanian accent...

The mystery deepens.

Posted at 01:43 PM | Comments (1)

Euro leaders to strip naked, spell out "peace" to celebrate D-Day

From the AP:

Against the backdrop of war in Iraq, world leaders will issue "a message of peace" when they gather in France next month to mark the 60th anniversary of the D-Day landings, the French war veterans minister said in an interview...

"There's a desire to gather on that day to say, even without saying it aloud: 'Never again. We are here so that there is a space on a global scale for peace,"' Mekachera said. "Otherwise it would make no sense. Why do all this if it is not a message of peace?"

Two world wars on its soil in the 20th century taught France there are no winners in armed conflict, he said.

"We paid a heavy price. The Americans, perhaps, had no war on their territory. Americans who did not fight the war, who did not come to Europe to fight, cannot perceive as much as we do the disastrous consequences of war," the minister said. "We became aware that in the end, those who lose the war and those who win it are all losers."

They'll never learn!

Posted at 05:59 PM | Comments (0)

Danish extremist group in big membership push

Details here. Previous coverage of Jihad in Europa here, here, here, here, and elsewhere in the blog.

Posted at 10:45 PM | Comments (0)

More on the American 3/11 suspect

It turns out that American 3/11 suspect Brandon Mayfield is an immigration lawyer, or at least took immigration cases.

His fingerprints were found on bags containing detonators used in 3/11, although according to his wife it was only a partial print. More here.

UPDATE: The NYT is saying there's been a rush to judgement.

Posted at 06:59 PM | Comments (0)

Was an American convert to Islam involved in 3/11?

From Newsweek's 'An American Connection':

FBI agents today detained a Portland, Ore., lawyer after receiving evidence from Spanish authorities that the man�s fingerprints allegedly were found on bomb-related evidence associated with the March 11 railway attack in Madrid...

The man was identified as Brandon Mayfield, a convert to Islam who is tangentially linked to one of the chief defendants in the so-called �Portland Seven� case � a suspected terror cell in Oregon whose six surviving members pled guilty last year of plotting to fight for the Taliban against U.S. soldiers during the war in Afghanistan.

Sources said that Mayfield had been under round-the-clock surveillance by the FBI for some time. According to law-enforcement sources, he was picked up by agents in Portland today and is being held as a �material witness� in a Grand Jury investigation � a status that allows the Justice Department to hold him in secret without formally filing charges against him...

Posted at 04:57 PM | Comments (0)

"Report Warns of Infiltration by Al Qaeda in U.S. Prisons"

From the NYT:

Groups promoting extremist brands of Islam have gained a foothold in American prisons, and counterterrorism officials believe Al Qaeda are likely to try to use the prisons "to radicalize and recruit inmates," according to a Justice Department investigation...

A classified addendum to the report details cases in which counterterrorism officials assert that people leading prison prayer sessions � including authorized chaplains, volunteers and inmates � may have ties to terrorist groups.

In a briefing Tuesday for Congressional officials, the inspector general's office said it found evidence that volunteers leading prayer services had been linked to people who showed up on terrorist watch lists, and that people associated with Al Qaeda had already managed to recruit support within the federal prisons, said Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.

Federal prison officials "were putting out the welcome mat to any group that wanted to infiltrate the prisons," Mr. Schumer said. "There was virtually no vetting of who would become a chaplain or a volunteer, and there was virtually no supervision. It was an invitation to danger..."

There are a few more links in my post from a couple days ago.

Posted at 11:17 PM | Comments (0)

"CAIR's war on conservative radio"

Michelle Malkin discusses CAIR's latest cries of victimization:

...The most recent target of CAIR's campaign to stifle critics of radical Islam is Boston-based radio talk show veteran Jay Severin. On April 23, CAIR issued a press release headlined: "Boston Radio Host Says Kill All Muslims; Islamic Civil Rights Group Calls for Host's Termination." On April 25, the Boston Globe parroted the charges in a story that quoted CAIR spokeswoman Rabiah Ahmed accusing Severin of saying on his show, "I've got an idea, let's kill all Muslims."

Just one teensy problem with the story. It wasn't true. On April 27, the Globe was forced to publish a correction admitting that Severin never said "kill all Muslims." CAIR, however, has refused to admit the fabrication and continues to call for Severin's termination...

Posted at 11:13 PM | Comments (0)

"Chinese diplomats rush past [Los Alamos National Laboratory] guards"

From this:

Two Chinese diplomats, away from their Los Angeles consulate improperly, recently sped their vehicle past a Los Alamos National Laboratory guard post near classified facilities...

U.S. officials said the incident involving the two diplomats was an intelligence-gathering mission, with the men probably testing Los Alamos security to see how guards react... The diplomats also might have been trying to recover material left by an agent or planning to meet with an agent, the officials said...

Posted at 10:21 PM | Comments (0)

"French court says imam can return"

The French have reversed themselves:

A Muslim preacher who was ejected from France on Wednesday for saying men should beat their wives is free to return, a Lyon court has ruled...

Posted at 12:27 PM | Comments (0)

France invents "French Islam"

From Reuters:

France must tackle the issue of training Muslim prayer leaders in a moderate "French Islam" that respects human rights and rejects terrorism, Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin says.

Speaking a day after he deported an Algerian imam for saying Islam let husbands beat adulterous wives, Villepin urged the country's prefects Thursday to expel any foreign preacher who advocated violence, hate, racism or abuses of human rights.

Only about 10 percent of imams in France are citizens and about half of all imams in the country speak French, experts say.

Most are imported from Arab countries, where some have been trained in radical Islamist views that clash with France's secular laws...

See also the 11/02 post 'Strange Preachers in the House of Saud'.

Posted at 10:12 PM | Comments (0)

"[Abu] Hamza seeks legal aid for citizenship fight"

From this:

Abu Hamza, the extremist Muslim cleric, has applied for legal aid to contest an attempt by the Home Office to strip him of British citizenship.

The Government had originally rejected his request for public funds to fight the case, which begins next Monday. But a review committee has now told the Legal Services Commission to "re-evaluate" that decision...

The only reason they should keep this guy around is so they can keep an eye on him and his "parishioners."

(Note also that the hyperlink appears in the Telegraph story just as it appears above. Other newspapers will hopefully follow their lead.)

Posted at 09:23 PM | Comments (0)

"Terror on the dole"

Interesting article about British Muslim extremists and their dreams of committing terrorism in Britain: 'Terror on the dole'. It includes the following:

The question is: how worried should we be? Is al-Muhajiroun nothing more than a repository for disaffected Muslim youths who have adopted an extreme interpretation of Islam - perhaps to cock a snook at the white establishment - but who are essentially posturing? Or does the group also perform a more sinister function, sucking in alienated young men and brainwashing the more impressionable into becoming future suicide bombers?

Britain could, of course, avoid having to ask itself that question by expelling as many of these people as possible and refusing entry to anyone else who might be a danger.

Posted at 12:16 PM | Comments (0)

Berkeley lecturer urges 'uprising' against U.S.

From WND:

A University of California at Berkeley lecturer speaking at an anti-war rally Saturday called for a Palestinian-style intifada, or uprising, against the United States in response to American actions in the Middle East...

An estimated 2,000 to 3,000 people attended the "emergency" action organized by the radical anti-war group International A.N.S.W.E.R. in response to the increased fighting in the Iraqi city of Fallujah...

The lecturer in Berkeley's Near Eastern Studies and Ethnic Studies Departments continued:

"Well, we've been watching intifada in Palestine, we've been watching an uprising in Iraq, and the question is that what are we doing? How come we don't have an intifada in this country?

Extra special bonus: he was "a translation consultant for the San Francisco Chronicle on stories relating to Islam, Muslims and world politics."

This type of stuff needs to be nipped in the bud. Please go to this page to send an email to the Chancellor of Berkeley.

Posted at 10:47 AM | Comments (0)

Lonewacko predicts...

Predictions made at 4/15/04 8pm PST:

- a poll will be held in Europe: "should Europe accept OBL offer of peace?"

33% will answer :yes"; 50% will answer "NO"; 17% will be undecided

- "peace" groups in the U.S. - including A.N.S.W.E.R. and NION - will formally announce their request for a peace agreement with OBL.

- "liberals" close to being (truly) mainstream "liberals" will allude to OBL's offer; the idea that OBL wants peace and can be dealt with will start at the far left and slowly work its way towards "mainstream" liberals.

(See also 'Dean Wheeler on the Spanish elections')

Posted at 07:22 PM | Comments (0)

"'Skyscraper' Suicide-Hijack Warnings Came During Clinton Era"

NewsMax lays all out the terrorist threats that were reported on during the Clinton era, ending with:

The above information is far more specific than anything reportedly revealed in the Aug. 6, 2001 briefing given to President Bush - and was available to President Clinton via published reports [if not through the intelligence briefings he routinely avoided] for most of his second term in office.

Posted at 04:17 PM | Comments (0)

The most important paragraph of the 8/6/01 PDB memo

The text of the 8/6/01 PDB has been released. This paragraph implies that the CIA and FBI are diligently working away:

The FBI is conducting approximately 70 full field investigations throughout the US that it considers Bin Ladin-related. CIA and the FBI are investigating a call to our Embassy in the UAE in May saying that a group of Bin Ladin supporters was in the US planning attacks
with explosives.

Condi and Ben Veniste agree there was no specific threat information. The information contained in this memo is quite vague and indicates that proper steps are being taken. What were they supposed to do, invade Afghanistan based on it?

Here's a digest of Condi's remarks.

Posted at 03:40 PM | Comments (0)

"[CAIR] sues critic for $1.35 million"

From this:

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has filed a $1.35 million lawsuit against the founder of a website that accuses the controversial lobby group of supporting terrorism.

The Washington, D.C.-based CAIR charges five statements made by its Internet critic, Anti-CAIR, amount to "libelous defamation."

Daniel Pipes is not affiliated with Anti-CAIR, but they've supported him and he supports them. As he points out, this lawsuit might be a major error as it will open CAIR up to the discovery process. If enough money could be found, I'm sure Anti-CAIR could hire high-powered attorneys who'd get some really interesting and damning information.

See the Anti-CAIR site for more information on this matter.

Posted at 01:03 PM | Comments (0)

"Bomb found on Spanish rail line"

It supposedly was made out of "10-12 kilograms (22-26 pounds) of what appeared to be the Spanish-made Goma 2 Eco explosive, which was used in the Madrid bombings and is widely used in mining operations..."

Recall that 200lbs. of Goma 2 was allegedly given to the Madrid bombers by a colleague or friend. The good news is that their supplies of it might be running low, although that might not mean much.

Posted at 04:26 PM | Comments (0)

Spain issues arrest warrants for 5 Moroccans, 1 Tunisian

The Reuters headline 'Spain Seeks Two-Time Bomb Suspect in Madrid Blasts' is a bit misleading. Mejjati was not one of those named on the arrest warrants:

Spanish investigators chasing suspects in the Madrid train bombings have identified as the suspected organizer a wealthy Moroccan also being sought in connection with bombings in Casablanca and Riyadh last year.

But the wanted man -- Abdelkarim el Mejjati -- was not among those who were the subject of an international arrest warrant, as sources close to the investigation said and Reuters reported earlier Wednesday.

Instead the Spanish judge investigating the Madrid train bombings, Juan del Olmo, issued six other arrest warrants for five Moroccans and one Tunisian.

Sources close the investigation held firm that Mejjati was perceived to be the organizer of the Madrid attacks that killed 191 people on March 11 -- and said del Olmo could still issue a warrant for him in the future...

Posted at 03:01 PM | Comments (0)

"Spain probes Morocco link, press names FBI suspect"

From Reuters:

Spain refused to comment on Tuesday on the possible role of an FBI-wanted militant who is reported to be under suspicion in the Madrid bombings.

Interior Minister Angel Acebes confirmed on Tuesday that investigators were examining the bombers' ties to the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group (GICM), an extremist group which is believed to have links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda.

Acebes would not speculate on the involvement of Abdelkarim el Mejjati, a Moroccan wanted in several countries who was the subject of an FBI worldwide alert last September.

Previous coverage of Mejjati here; a possible Balkans connection here.

North Africa analyst George Joffe, asked about the GICM soon after the March 11 attacks, told Reuters he had doubts about the operational existence of a group "whose name was probably coined as a cover for networks in Europe that include Algerians, Tunisians and Moroccans. When was the last time this group claimed responsibility for anything?"

...Known to the FBI as Karim El Mejjati, the 36-year-old comes from a prosperous family. He is the son of a Moroccan father and French mother, and according to acquaintances is married to an American of Tunisian origin...

It said Mejjati holds a French passport and his last recorded entry to the United States was between 1997 and 1999.

Posted at 12:19 AM | Comments (0)

A supposed Balkan connection to the Madrid bombings

I already linked to the LeMonde report saying that the alleged "orchestrator" of the attacks, Abdelkrim Thami Mejjati/Karim El Mejjati, was French-Moroccan. No other news source appears to be reporting about this. This old El Mundo story mentions him in relation to the Casablanca attacks.

One of the Madrid suspects lived in Germany.

Suspect Mohammed Bekkali grew up in Ireland.

There is also reportedly a link to the Balkans:

According to [investigation by the Italian authorities], mujahedin who participated in the Bosnian civil wars were imported from an al Qaeda training camp near Zenica to help with the bombings in Madrid, and other attacks possibly being planned for the future.

�Their road was from Zenica through Split to Ancona,� says the paper, citing Italian authorities who point to the Balkan map found in the Madrid apartment of Syrian-born terrorist mastermind Edin Barakat Yarkas, also know as Abu Dahdah, following the September 11th 2001 attacks. The map highlighted training camps and transport routes from Bosnia to Western Europe...

Posted at 03:46 PM | Comments (0)

French-Moroccan suspected of orchestrating the Madrid bombings

So reports LeMonde. French version here, translated version here. LeMonde reports that the Moroccans suspect him of involvement in the Casablanca attacks. After those attacks, he went to Spain, where they suspect him of having orchestrated the attacks. He was not the "inspirer" of the attacks, that was Zarqawi. His name is given as Abdelkrim Thami Mejjati, however, he appears to be the same person mentioned at this page under the name Karim El Mejjati.

Posted at 12:26 AM | Comments (0)

Muppets Bringing Peace to the Middle East

Remember the picture above of OBL with his henchman Bert from Sesame Street?

Well, Ernie and the rest of the Sesame Street gang are now working against Bert and working for peace:

...A programing experiment using the Muppet characters was launched six months ago and was widely welcomed by parents, educators and the media. But the Muppets are not without their critics in Israel, the Palestinian Authority and Jordan.

Sesame Workshop partnered with local producers to create "Sesame Stories," an adventurous initiative to use new and existing "Sesame Street" characters to foster respect and understanding among children in the region.

Gary Knell, president and chief operating officer of Sesame Workshop, says in an interview that producers knew that not everybody would be open to the idea of Elmo & Co. teaching Israeli kids to respect Palestinians and vice versa.

"It's a highly charged environment, and the press is going to reflect some of that," Knell says. "Yes, some Israeli reports accused us of being lackeys of the Palestinians, while another article accused us of being lackeys of the Bush White House and charged that Elmo was carrying the will of the White House to the Middle East. A Jordanian Internet site accused us of being Zionist lap dogs..."

Posted at 10:37 PM | Comments (0)

Spain Declassifies Intelligence Reports on Bombing Probe, Part 2

Earlier I posted about the declassified documents from the Spanish government. They are large PDFs, and only in Espanol.

However, here is a translation of some of them. I haven't verified the translation. See this page (in Spanish, but HTML) referenced in the comments at that post.

Posted at 01:14 AM | Comments (0)

Evidence, London link found in the Spanish bombings

According to the NYT's 'Spanish Judge Holds 3 Moroccans on Murder Charges':

A Spanish judge ordered Friday that three Moroccans be held on multiple provisional charges of terrorism and murder in the Madrid train bombings, as investigators uncovered new details suggesting that Europe's deadliest terrorist attack in 25 years was carried out on a slim budget by men who used a stolen van and explosives they got free...

...Mr. Zougam is believed to be an important link between a cell of Al Qaeda in Spain and a group of militants aligned with the Moroccan Islamic Combat Group, or GICM, a radical Islamist group blamed for suicide attacks last year in the Moroccan city of Casablanca.

A Spanish investigator said it was still unclear whether Mr. Zougam had placed any of the 13 bombs that were left on four trains or simply coordinated the provision of telephones and other supplies.

But another official said Mr. Zougam had been connected solidly to the plot: in a small cellphone shop that he operated with his brother in Madrid, investigators found a tiny piece of plastic that had broken off from a cellphone that was to have triggered an unexploded bomb recovered by the police.

On Thursday, the police arrested another five suspects, including at least three more Moroccans and a Spaniard. The role of the Spaniard, who has not been identified, may be one of the most striking yet uncovered. Spanish officials said the man was believed to have supplied the Moroccans with the blasting explosives they used in their bombs. According to Spanish news reports, the man was arrested in the northern coastal city of Oviedo and worked at a mine nearby.

But an investigator said the suspect had apparently given the terrorists the explosives free: he had been spent time in jail with one of the Moroccan suspects, to whom he gave more than 200 pounds of Goma 2, a nitroglycerin-based explosive, as a favor.

The bombers also economized on transportation, driving to pick up the explosives in a step van they stole in Madrid on Feb. 28 without apparently bothering to change the license plates, the investigator said...

A senior foreign intelligence official said a Saudi businessman had provided $70,000 to an accused Jordanian terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, who Moroccan officials believe had a role in the Madrid bombings. But the Spanish investigator said the initial calculus suggested that the expenses for material in the train bombings could have been less than $1,000, and that the suspects identified thus far appear to have lived very modestly...

There's background information on the attacks at Winds of Change.

From 'Scotland Yard chief reveals London link to Madrid bombings':

Sir John Stevens, the Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, has revealed there is a "definite link" between the terrorists who carried out the Madrid bombings and al-Qa'ida supporters based in Britain...

While he declined to give details of British links with the bombings in Spain, a senior anti-terrorist source revealed that one of the chief suspects in the bombings, a Moroccan man, had visited Britain. Jamal Zougam, 30, is thought to have travelled to London in search of funding and logistical help, including assistance in planning and supplying equipment and false identification papers for the bombers. He is known to have contacted a number of north Africans living in the UK...

One line of inquiry is his connection with the London-based Palestinian cleric Abu Qatada - described by a Spanish judge as Bin Laden's "European ambassador" - and his supporters. The 43-year-old Islamic preacher is being held at the top-security Belmarsh prison in London under anti-terrorism laws. He was granted asylum in Britain 10 years ago.

Another potential British link being investigated is Mr Zougam's involvement with the Syrian cleric Abu Dahdah, who has repeatedly visited this country and has met Mr Qatada. He is in custody in Spain where he is accused of being head of the country's al-Qa'ida network...

'Indians held linked to terrorists' says that the two Indians who were arrested with the three Moroccans mentioned above have been charged. As previously indicated, I believe they're Hindus.

Front Page Mag also has an interview with Victor Davis Hansen: 'Spain's Surrender'

Posted at 09:41 PM | Comments (0)

Is it really al-Zawahiri who's surrounded?

According to the about-as-credible-as-Pravda source DebkaFile:

DEBKAfile Reports Exclusively: Pakistan red-faced on discovering �high value� terrorist target its troops surrounded in Waziristan was not bin Laden�s No. 2 Zuwahiri but chief of Pushtun Ahmadi tribal federation. DEBKA sources estimate that any harm to Pushtun chief would spark wholesale tribal war offensive against Pakistan.

Posted at 02:41 PM | Comments (0)

Spain Declassifies Intelligence Reports on Bombing Probe

From the Reuters:

Spain declassified intelligence reports on Thursday in a bid to show it told the truth about deadly train bombings it initially attributed to Basque guerrillas but which are now suspected to be al Qaeda-linked.

Street demonstrations accusing the government of hiding the truth on election eve were cited as a factor leading to the surprise victory of [the socialists]...

``Since the terrorist massacre, the government has communicated absolutely all the truth to public opinion, without hiding, manipulating or delaying any information,'' government spokesman and Labour Minister Eduardo Zaplana said.

The documents cover the period 3/11 to 3/14. They're online here, however, they're large PDFs and they're in Spanish.

There's also a chronology of events related to the bombing here. That too is in Spanish.

UPDATE: A partial translation is available. See this.

Posted at 08:37 PM | Comments (0)

Is Germany shading the truth about its knowledge of the Spain bombings?

From Deutsche Welle:

In the days following the March 11 terror attacks that killed 201 people in Madrid, Spain's intelligence authorities kept a tight seal on evidence related to the investigation and misled allied intelligence services by providing false information pointing to involvement by the ETA, German public television reported Tuesday...

Three specific complaints are provided:

• the Spaniards said Titadyn was used, then they said it was Goma 2 Eco dynamite: "It wasn't until Monday, a day after Spain's conservative government suffered a surprising loss in the general election, that officials in Madrid admitted Goma 2 explosives were not a type previously used by the Basque separatists."

• "German officials were also not informed until after the election that the detonator found with the explosives was not a type used by ETA."

• "Moreover, after the arrest of three Moroccans and two Indians on Saturday, Spanish authorities continued to tell the German source in Madrid that a connection to Islamic circles could not be confirmed."

As for the third point, has a connection been confirmed? What is the definition of confirmed? Can't an Islamic connection be inferred simply by, let's be honest, their nationalities? Surely the Germans aren't that naive.

As for the second point, see this report from Friday:

"Rucksack bombs used in deadly Madrid train bombings were set off by mobile phone and contained copper detonators, which are not generally used by armed Basque separatist group ETA, a radio station has reported... The Interior Ministry could not immediately confirm the report."

I don't know exactly what time on Friday this was released, but I blogged it at 2pm PST.

So, the Germans might be telling a half-truth about that point. They might not have been informed, but it would appear that information was out there, and Reuters is a well-known news source.

UPDATE: I changed the title from 'Spain Allegedly Misled Germany Over Bombings'.

Posted at 02:02 PM | Comments (0)

Purported Al Qaeda Letter Calls Truce in Spain

This just in from the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades:

A group claiming to have links with al Qaeda said Wednesday it was calling a truce in its Spanish operations to see if the new government would withdraw its troops from Iraq , a pan-Arab newspaper said.

In a statement sent Wednesday to the Arabic language daily al-Hayat, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, which claimed responsibility for the Madrid bombings that killed 201 people, also urged its European units to stop all operations.

"Because of this decision, the leadership has decided to stop all operations within the Spanish territories... until we know the intentions of the new government that has promised to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq," the statement said.

"And we repeat this to all the brigades present in European lands: Stop all operations."

As described here, this same brigade claimed credit for both the Madrid bombings and the recent Northeast blackout. Their credibility is in question.

Posted at 01:45 PM | Comments (0)

Al Qaeda Opens First Embassy in Madrid

Developing...

Posted at 01:14 AM | Comments (0)

AP Enterprise: Evidence shows authorities knew since 2001 that key Madrid bombing suspect had contact with accused terrorists

From this:

Spanish authorities knew as early as 2001 that Jamal Zougam, a central suspect in the Madrid bombings, had contacts with accused terrorists linked to al-Qaida, an investigator told The Associated Press on Tuesday.

Despite his suspicious ties, Zougam maneuvered with ease in Spain while making extensive contacts with key militants, from the alleged leader of the Spanish al-Qaida cell to a Kurdish guerrilla group in Iraq, according to court documents and wiretapped conversations.

Zougam also traveled back and forth to his hometown of Tangiers, Morocco, which he left on April 20, 2003 -- just weeks before a deadly bombing in Casablanca, Morocco killed 45 people, including 12 attackers.

Zougam was placed under surveillance after the Casablanca bombings, Moroccan officials told AP. He was one of three Moroccans arrested over the weekend after Thursday's bombings in Madrid, which killed 201 people...

Posted at 12:19 AM | Comments (0)

Spain's response to terror

UPI has a "nuanced" analysis of the Spanish elections here:

In fact, Islamist fundamentalists may well think they have won, and that Thursday's slaughter moved the Spanish electorate to vote the way they intended them to. However, believing that would be wrong.

Thanks for your thoughts. However, don't tell us that believing it would be wrong. Tell it to them. See if they believe it.

Posted at 12:17 AM | Comments (0)

Sully fisks al-Guardian

Sully fisks an al-Guardian editorial here. The fisked article is here.

Posted at 12:14 AM | Comments (0)

Dean Wheeler on the Spanish elections

Here's a description from a guy who heard a radio interview with Dean Wheeler:

...I never had listened to him before, but he had on a guy named Dean Wheeler (sp?) from the Northern California Peace Symposium (couldn't find it on google). The two of them were talking about the terrorist attacks, and Wheeler had what I hope is a peculiar point of view - He is urging Al Queda to attack the United States sometime before the election so that the American Public can wake up (as the Spanish Public did) and see the disastrous policies of George Bush. This one time strike that he is calling for would hopefully not lead to a great loss of life, could be mostly symbolic, and he believes would lead to Kerry becoming the 44th President of the United States. Once Kerry is in office, Wheeler knows that the new president will take the first real step to making our country safer by sitting across from representatives from Al Queda at the bargaining table and try to reach a consensual agreement that would remove the danger from our country...

Did I mention Dean Wheeler is a character from the Phil Hendrie show? And here you thought that really was a leftie saying that.

(Via Xrlq.com)

Posted at 02:00 PM | Comments (0)

"Headscarf ban may cause attack on France"

From this February 25 article:

PARIS: French anti-terrorism experts are taking seriously a new warning from Osama Bin Laden�s right-hand man who accused France of �crusader enmity� for its ban on Muslim headscarves in schools.

Although the Al Qaeda number two, Ayman Zawahri, did not threaten �jihad,� or holy struggle or war, he said the headscarf ban was in the same league as �the burning of villages in Afghanistan, the destruction of houses over the heads of their inhabitants in Palestine, the massacre of children and the theft of oil in Iraq.� Zawahri made the attack in an audiotape that was broadcast Tuesday by Al-Arabiyah satellite television in Dubai.

He called the ban �a new sign of the enmity of the Western crusaders against Muslims even while boasting of freedom, democracy and human rights..."

�It�s an incitement to terrorist action,� said Antoine Sfeir, editor-in-chief of the magazine Les Cahiers de l�Orient, which deals with Middle East issues. He added that Zawahri, �the veritable brain of Al-Qaeda,� sees the headscarf issue as one around which Muslim communities can rally, in France and elsewhere in Europe...

One anti-terrorist expert said the notion of jihad includes the idea that Islam is under attack and needs to be defended. He said the headscarf ban �could be interpreted by radical Islamic militants as a new attack. One can ask whether the statement by Zawahri is not therefore an a priori justification for subsequent actions.�

Today, comes 'France threats linked to scarf ban':

Threats made by a Muslim group against France are linked to a controversial law that bans the wearing of headscarves in state schools, the newspaper that received the threatening letter said.

The two-page letter to Prime Minister Jean-Pierre Raffarin "threatens France with reprisal attacks following the February 10 adoption of the law banning the headscarf," Le Parisien news director Christian de Villeneuve said.

Posted at 01:34 PM | Comments (0)

I think we need to spin the results of the Spanish election

From the WaPo editorial 'The Spanish Response':

SPANISH VOTERS no doubt wished to rebuke the ruling Popular Party for its wrong-footed reaction to last week's terrorist bombing in Madrid, and its support for the United States in Iraq. Fair enough -- but it's hard not to be concerned about how the message was likely received outside the country, by the leaders of al Qaeda and other Islamic terrorist organizations. Before the bombing, the Popular Party was favored to win comfortably; after the devastating attack, and an al Qaeda statement saying its intent was to punish Spain for its role in Iraq, the election was swept by the opposition -- and its leader immediately pledged to withdraw Spanish troops and cool relations with Washington. The rash response by Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, Spain's prime minister-elect, will probably convince the extremists that their attempt to sway Spanish policy with mass murder succeeded brilliantly...

An editorial in The Scotsman says this among others:

For the first time in modern history, a democracy has put up its hands in front of terrorists and said: "We surrender." Can any thinking person - including the Spanish, when they come to their senses - imagine that having tasted such success, al-Qaeda will abandon its murderous tactics?

It's good to be able to further discredit the left in general or at least the anti-war left. However, it would be better to prevent giving AQ a victory.

One way to prevent that would be for Zapatero to come out strongly against terrorism. Another would be to spin the election as a result of the electorate being supposedly lied to and not as a reaction to the attacks themselves.

The first probably won't happen, and the second is probably false and too nuanced.

UPDATE: In their editorial 'A Vote for Terror,' the NY Post says, among others, "The plain fact is that the Spanish electorate displayed craven cowardice by electing the Socialists..."

UPDATE 2: From the AP report 'After Spain, questions about Nov. election':

...analysts believe the ballot box rebuke of one of President Bush's closest allies in the war in Iraq could embolden terrorists to try the same tactics in the United States to create fear and chaos.

"That's an amazing impact of a terrorist event, to change the party in power," said Jerrold Post, a former CIA profiler who directs the political psychology program at George Washington University.

"The implications of this are fairly staggering," agreed political psychologist Stanley Renshon of City University of New York. "This is the first time that a terrorist act has influenced a democratic election. This is a gigantic, loud wakeup call. There's no one they'd like to have out of office more than George W. Bush."

And, from "Poland, Italy next 'terror' targets?":

"[Germany is] not the number one target at the moment, but because of the German armed forces deployment in Afghanistan and in the Horn of Africa, we are certainly in the Islamists' sights...

I expect that the terrorists will work their way through the U.S. allies. Poland and Italy, which are in Iraq as U.S. allies, are among those in danger."

UPDATE 3: From 'The Fall of Spain?' in Front Page Magazine:

And then the bombings took place � and many Spaniards decided that capitulation is the best part of valor, that mindless fear and manipulation are more powerful than common sense, civic values and pride. Despite public disclaimers by the PSOE leader and next Prime Minister, Jos� Luis Rodr�guez Zapatero, a national period of mourning and a declared suspension of the electoral campaign, PSOE operatives in Estremadura and elsewhere were inciting masses of party militants and clueless students to demonstrate against the government. The slogans used tell it all, in full stupidity and mendacity: �We want the truth before voting,� �Our dead, your war,� and �The people does not believe the lies of the PP.� It all sounded as Dennis Kucinich was suddenly cloned.

Posted at 11:47 PM | Comments (0)

"Possible ties to Casablanca bombings invesigated"

This AP report details several links between members of various AQ-related groups, including one of the suspects in the Madrid bombing. There are other links listed here.

Posted at 11:36 PM | Comments (0)

"Political fallout likely to embolden al-Qaida"

From al-Guardian:

For the first time since the 1976 Montreal games, [Olympic] athletes from "high-risk" countries, including Britain, will be accompanied by armed guards.

The Olympics join a long list of potential targets for Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida or one of its satellite groups: the Nato summit in Istanbul, the US presidential elections, Britain at any time.

Al-Qaida and its sympathisers will be emboldened by the impact of what is now assumed to be its first attack in western Europe...

If it was al-Qaida, Spain will have become the first country "to have a prime minister owing his position to Bin Laden," said Jonathan Eyal, the director of studies at the London-based Royal United Services Institute...

Rohan Gunaratna, author of Inside al-Qaida, one of the most detailed accounts of the organisation to be published, predicted that al-Qaida would be intent on launching an attack in the US during the presidential election campaign. "They realise it will be difficult but they will try to do it. A group like al-Qaida has the ability to infiltrate," he said...

Mr Gunaratna said: "The al-Qaida strategy is to isolate the US because the US has, by building a coalition, weakened al-Qaida. One way to isolate the US is to target the countries helping the US. You can see they have attacked the British in Turkey, the French in Karachi, the Australians in Bali and the Italians in Iraq."

Posted at 09:37 PM | Comments (0)

"Experts fear Spain election will encourage attacks"

From this:

LONDON (Reuters) - Islamic militants will see the defeat of Spain's Popular Party and the country's planned withdrawal from Iraq as a victory for their cause, encouraging more attacks aimed at political ends, security experts say...

"Clearly, they thought very hard about the way in which they might achieve a massive political impact in Spain," said Paul Wilkinson, chairman of the Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence at Scotland's St Andrew's University.

"I think what it shows is that the very sophisticated and ruthless terrorists of the 'new terrorism' variety -- al Qaeda -- do think carefully about having a maximum strategic impact."

[David Claridge, managing director of Janusian Security Risk Management] said: "Amongst the Islamist community there clearly was discussion and thought around Spain as a potential target and Spain being vulnerable to terrorism as a means of causing political change."

Posted at 03:00 PM | Comments (0)

"The persistence of memory"

Tacitus has a good post concerning al Andalus here. See the previous post for some raw material relating to the same topic.

Posted at 02:18 PM | Comments (0)

The "Andalus syndrome"

From 'ANALYSIS-Al Qaeda Hijacks Spanish Election'

If al Qaeda did mastermind Spain's bloodiest bomb attacks, its militants could claim to have caused a spectacular election upset in Madrid, but some analysts said the defeated government only had itself to blame...

"If the al Qaeda network is behind these attacks, then you can certainly say that al Qaeda is responsible for removing the Popular Party from government," said Charles Powell, assistant professor at San Pablo-CEU University...

"If (British Prime Minister) Tony Blair ends up looking lonely (over Iraq) then that's his problem," said Carlos Berzosa, the rector of Madrid's Complutense University. "The Spanish people voted to live in peace."

Christopher Caldwell discussing 'Islam Today' by Cambridge professor Akbar S. Ahmed:

...for Ahmed the ideal model of an Islamic society is Muslim Spain. Which, incidentally, he seems to want back. It was Ahmed who coined the term "Andalus syndrome" to describe the "sense of injustice, of loss, of the cruelty of the world" that results from the realization that Islam does not now control every single scrap of territory it once seized. Needless to say, what Ahmed is expressing is not the human condition but a kind of irredentism peculiar to Islam. (And perhaps universal to it, if we're to judge from the disproportionate anguish that the very existence of Israel seems to occasion.) For all Osama Bin Laden's moaning about the Crusader impulse, it has probably been eight centuries since a Christian last wept over Islam's subjugation of the historically Christian lands of Syria, Anatolia, and North Africa...

(Click 'MORE' directly below to read much more raw material about the "Andalus syndrome")

From 'The Final Saladin':

Saladin's victories marked the turning point in Muslim fortunes because, according to later Islamic historiography, he could be represented as having converted what had merely been a series of fairly small skirmishes between Europeans and Arabs into a grander epic of jihad to repulse "Crusader Imperialism" and extend Islam's borders into the Christians' own backyard. Thus, bin Laden megalomaniacally fantasizes himself a new Saladin, a great captain who will not just repel but will actually crush the Christian West.

Bin Laden is not, as American equivocators would have it, merely annoyed about the America's "colonialist" occupation of Saudi Arabia or Washington's apparent support for Israel. No, his goal is both irrational and unrealistic, which makes it doubly dangerous. Irrational because it cannot be assuaged by "domestic reforms" or US political compromises; unrealistic because it fantasies creating a global Islamist empire. In his historically derived ideological utopianism, if little else, bin Laden is indeed a worthy heir to Hitler and Stalin.

From this:

Avenging the defeats of the past centuries and rebuilding the "umma" are bin Laden's central goals. Striking any country aiding the Anglo-American campaign in Iraq is al-Qa'eda's current priority... All these objectives would be served by attacking Spain.

From this:

Christopher Jones says: "I remember a televised interview with Osama (very possibly one of the first) where he even had a world map � la Hitler, in which the Islamic world and its future lebensraum was colored, you guessed it, in green. Al Andalus was very clearly seen in that color. Of course, there has always been some problems with the translation". RH: I am sure that Osama speaks for a lot of people in the Arab world.

From this:

What's it have to do with Spain? Virginia Postrel proposes a "Bin Laden Doctrine": "that no Muslim territory should ever become non-Muslim." Bin Laden opened his videotaped statement with this sentence: "Let the whole world know that we shall never accept that the tragedy of Andalusia would be repeated in Palestine. We cannot accept that Palestine will become Jewish." The "tragedy of Andalusia" refers to the conquering in 1492 of the Muslim Kingdom of Granada by the Catholic monarchs Ferdinand and Isabella. It was a central moment in the Islamic empire's quest for political and military power: Muslim expansion was not just checked; it was reversed. If Bin Laden truly wants to restore the original geographic dimensions of the caliphate, he may eventually look toward Spain. Of course, it's possible that Bin Laden's goals are more modest (modest being a relative word).

Here's an excerpt from Akbar S. Ahmed's 'Living Islam':

Muslims have yet to discover how to use the media to project ideas and images of their own culture and civilization. A perfect example comes from Muslim Spain. Although the King of Spain has dutifully apologized to Jews for what his ancestors did to them in the fifteenth century with the fall of Granada, he has not apologized to Muslims. It is known that he is keen to build bridges but still awaits a Muslim initiative on the matter. From this it appears that Muslims who are so acutely aware of the loss of Andalusia in their popular literary culture find it difficult to translate this into realpolitik and international diplomacy. The failure to do so has cost them heavy. They are always lagging behind in the world, and the injustices inflicted on them are barely mentioned.

From this:

The real issue, as Bernard Lewis has argued, is that Islamist terrorists and their sympathizers are in permanent and furious denial of the state of the contemporary Muslim world. We are getting close to Al Qaeda's real motivation, I believe, when bin Laden's chief deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, swears that "the tragedy of al-Andalus"--that is the reconquest of Spain by Christians, completed in 1492--must not be repeated. The Islamic world, once a united empire boasting the world's most advanced culture, is today a patchwork of mostly poor, despotic states that lag behind the rest of the world in political, economic, and cultural development. Modern Islamists are drastically out of step with the modern world; they know it and they hate it. They cannot be placated by any change in American policy, whether reasonable or far-fetched. They can only be satisfied by the reestablishment of an Islamic caliphate, governed by sharia, from Morocco to Indonesia. As such, American strategy in the "war on terrorism" (better described as a war on members of Al Qaeda and affiliated groups) is justifiably one-pronged, with that prong being the killing or capturing of Islamist militants.

From this:

...on Thursday, a muezzin is calling Spanish Muslims to prayer at the first mosque to be opened in Granada since the reconquista, the culmination of a 22-year-old project that has been plagued by controversy.

For those who built the Great Mosque of Granada, which looks out onto the once highly symbolic Alhambra Palace, its inauguration - attended by a string of Muslim and non-Muslim dignitaries - heralds a new dawn for the faith in Europe.

"The mosque is a symbol of a return to Islam among the Spanish people and among indigenous Europeans that will break with the malicious concept of Islam as a foreign and immigrant religion in Europe," says Abdel Haqq Salaberria, a spokesman for the mosque and convert to Islam.

"It will act as a focal point for the Islamic revival in Europe."

...At a time when the Islamic faith is viewed with some suspicion within Europe, Spanish Muslims are hoping to remind the continent of the vast cultural and intellectual contribution made by the Moors, to art and architecture, astronomy, music, medicine, science, and learning.

Their rule is also seen by some historians as an example of religious tolerance in medieval Europe.

The Moorish period in southern Spain saw Muslims and Jews living side-by-side. The city of Cordoba became a cultural centre for both faiths, while universities sprang up in cities across Andalucia. Trade and industry also flourished.

From 'The Corrosive Hagiography of Muslim Spain':

Celebratory announcements July 10, 2003 of a ��return of Islam to Spain� marked the completion of the new Granada Mosque1. Unfortunately, at a conference entitled, �Islam in Europe� that accompanied the opening of the mosque, some alarming statements were made by European Muslim leaders. For example, the keynote speaker at this conference, Umar Ibrahim Vadillo, a Spanish Muslim leader, implored Muslims to cause an economic collapse of Western economies (by switching to gold dinars, and ceasing to use Western currencies), while the German Muslim leader Abu Bakr Rieger told attendees not to adapt their Islamic religious practices to accommodate European (i.e., Western Enlightenment) values.

From Senator Joe Biden's Address to the People�s Congress of Libya:

Consider this: the combined gross domestic product of all Arab countries in 1999 was less than that of a single European country � Spain. Think about that for a moment. And then think back a thousand years. Spain was part of a great Arab empire which encompassed most of the Mediterranean and the Middle East. Why did you thrive then? It was not your armies alone. It was your ideas, your civilization, your culture, your openness. Why has this one small territory � then called Al Andalus, now called Spain � outpaced the rest of the Arab world combined today.

From this transcript of OBL's 'Letter to America':

What are we calling you to, and what do we want from you?

...The first thing that we are calling you to is Islam.

...You are the nation who, rather than ruling by the Shariah of Allah in its Constitution and Laws, choose to invent your own laws as you will and desire...

Not related to Spain, but informative nonetheless, is 'Bin Ladin: The Man Who Would Be Mahdi':

The first step in dealing with any self-proclaimed Mahdi would be for the United States and its Muslim allies to rely on Muslim scholars, preferably practicing Muslims themselves, to denigrate Mahdist claims, by portraying Mahdism as a kind of superstition, and by pointing out incompatibilities between the Mahdist claimant and the hadiths.

From 'History points finger at revenge for lost Moor kingdom':

Is Osama bin Laden dreaming of exacting revenge for the loss of Al-Andalus, the ancient Moorish kingdom in Iberia?

...While the authentiticy of the message [from the Abu Hafs brigade taking credit for 3/11] is open to doubt, there is no question that it reflects the thinking of Islamists, who hold that any land which has once been part of the Muslim community should forever remain under Muslim rule...

From Mark Steyn:

If Islamic terrorism were as rational as Irish or Basque terrorism, it would be easier. But Hussein Massawi, former leader of Hezbollah, summed it up very pithily: "We are not fighting so that you will offer us something. We are fighting to eliminate you." You can be pro-America (Spain, Australia) or anti-America (France, Canada), but if you broke into the head cave in the Hindu Kush and checked out the hit list you'd be on it either way.

So the choice for pluralist democracies is simple: You can join Bush in taking the war to the terrorists, to their redoubts and sponsoring regimes. Despite the sneers that terrorism is a phenomenon and you can't wage war against a phenomenon, in fact you can � as the Royal Navy did very successfully against the malign phenomena of an earlier age, piracy and slavery.

Or you can stick your head in the sand and paint a burqa on your butt. But they'll blow it up anyway.

From Andrew Sullivan:

But there's another obvious reason for the targeting of Spain. It was once in part a Muslim-controlled country. The agenda of bin Laden and other Islamo-fascists is to reconquer those regions in Europe and the former Soviet Empire for a new Islamic Reich.

From 'What Does Osama Bin Laden Want?':

Is there anything we can do to persuade Bin Laden to stop? The terror groups Americans are familiar with�Palestinian bombers and hijackers, IRA hard men�have desires we understand. They perform acts of terror in order to gain sympathy or sow fear. That sympathy or fear is a means to their end: political recognition, a state, compensation. They seek to participate in our world.

But Bin Laden and his followers are alarming because they don't want anything from us. They don't want our sympathy. They want no material thing we can offer them. They don't want to participate in the community of nations. (They don't really believe in the nation-state.) They are motivated by religion, not politics. They answer to no one but their god, so they certainly won't answer to us.

From 'After 500 years, Granada's Muslims get their mosque':

And history is alive in the memories of Muslims. The yearning for a return to Islam's cherished province of Al-Andalus is often the subject of Islamic poetry.

Osama bin Laden has frequently mentioned the Muslim claim on the territory that for many symbolises the apex of Islamic learning and culture.

Although widespread Spanish opposition to the project has subsided recently, nonetheless it took 22 years for the Granada city authorities to grant permission for the building, the first mosque built for native Spanish Muslims rather than immigrants since the reconquista.

Looking out across the Sierra Nevada mountains and the Alhambra, Abdul Haqq, 42, a Basque who converted to Islam 12 years ago, said: "Granada has historically been the capital of European Islam. Some people convert because of their search for their roots - others like me joined as a matter of faith."

At first, locals fiercely opposed the project. Proposals for an elegant building at the heart of Granada's oldest district, the old Muslim quarter, resulted in graffiti such as "Moros fuera" ("Moors out!").

From OBL's 10/03 speech:

"We reserve the right to retaliate at the appropriate time and place against all countries involved, especially the UK, Spain, Australia, Poland, Japan and Italy, not to exclude those Muslim states that took part, especially the Gulf states, and in particular Kuwait, which has become a beachhead for the crusading forces."

Posted at 01:50 AM | Comments (0)

Madrid Suspect Linked to 9/11 Figure

From the AP:

MADRID, Spain (AP)--One of the three Moroccans arrested in the Madrid train bombings is linked to a suspected al-Qaida member jailed in Spain for allegedly helping plan the Sept. 11 attack in the United States, according to court documents reviewed by The Associated Press. It was the latest suggestion that Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist group may have been involved in the bombings.

A Sept. 17, 2003 indictment mentions Jamal Zougam, 30, as a ``follower'' of Imad Yarkas, the alleged leader of Spain's al-Qaida cell who was jailed for allegedly helping plan the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on New York and Washington. Zougam has been arrested in the Madrid bombings. Yarkas, who has used the alias Abu Dahdah, remains in Spanish custody...

Spain's El Pais newspaper, citing the interior ministry, reported all three Moroccans have links to Yarkas...

The interior ministry identified the two Indian suspects as Vinay Kohly and Suresh Kumar.

The five were arrested after a cell phone and prepaid card were found in an explosives-filled gym bag on one of the bombed trains.

Friends of the Moroccans said the Madrid store where they worked sold cell phones but they insisted that the men would not have been involved in planning or carrying out the attacks.

I might be wrong, but based on their names I don't think the two Indians would be Muslims.

Posted at 02:56 PM | Comments (0)

Spanish socialists declare victory

Apparently, the socialists in Spain have declared victory. Analysts from the The Neville Chamberlain Institute for World Peace (calpundit.com/archives/003489.html) could not be reached for comment.

From this:

Many voters blamed outgoing Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's staunch support of the U.S.-led war in Iraq for [the terror attacks]. The government's initial response to the attacks further fueled popular anger, generating accusations that it had withheld information and attempted to manipulate public opinion about the terror attacks before the elections...

The ruling party's loss brings to power a party that was deeply opposed to the U.S.-led war against Iraq and that has promised to withdraw Spain's 1.300 troops there, unless there is a new United Nations mandate. The Socialist Party leader, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, has also promised to re-orient Spain's foreign policy, away from Aznar's strong embrace of the Bush administration and instead seek new friends from among Spain's anti-war European neighbors.

Before Thursday's attacks, the Popular Party had been comfortably ahead in the polls...

"I was going to vote for one side, and now I ended up voting for the other because of the attacks," said one voter, Manuel Yunta. "The thought that it could be al Qaeda behind the attacks changed my vote, because I blame the government for the massacre..."

And, from this:

Up to 7,000 demonstrators took to the streets on Saturday and accused the Popular Party (PP) of lying about who was responsible... The Spanish electoral commission said it had filed a lawsuit on behalf of the party claiming that the protests constituted a bid to influence voters on the eve of the election.

It's OK, the "liberals" have won, and there will be peace in our time.

Posted at 02:36 PM | Comments (0)

Spain to announce Muslim arrests over bombs

MADRID (Reuters) - Spain's Interior Minister Angel Acebes is set to announce the arrest of at least four Muslims in connection with a series of deadly bombings in Madrid, the web site of newspaper El Mundo says.

According to El Mundo, they've arrested three Moroccans and two East Indians, and they're questioning two Spaniards of East Indian ancestry. They had some sort of tie to the prepaid cellular phone found with the unexploded backpack bomb.

'Morocco struggles to tamp down radical Islam' has some background. It mentions the Salafia Jihadia group, which was responsible for the May 2003 bombings in Casablanca. The supposed masterminds of that group were arrested a few months before the bombings. 'Cyanide plot suspects linked with terror groups' mentions Moroccans arrested in Italy; they're suspected members of two other AQ linked groups. They apparently had cyanide and were trying to dig a tunnel into the U.S Embassy. This editorial mentions the Algerians arrested in London with ricin.

'Suspected Moroccan terrorists 'had map of London' says: "They were detained after officers found a kilogram of explosives and several maps in a building where the men were staying in the Rovigo, near Venice... Reports said the maps included plans of Padua's Basilica del Santo, the Nato base in Verona and London... A religious leader of Rovigo's Muslim community was among those arrested..."

This page has a chronology of arrests of Muslim terrorists in Spain.

The AP report 'Al-Qaida's tentacles sweep through nearly every major attack since Sept. 11' says:

� MOROCCO: Of the more than 900 people arrested after five nearly simultaneous suicide attacks on Jewish and Spanish targets in Casablanca on May 16, the government said 100 told interrogators they received training in Afghanistan. At trial, 20 confessed openly to passing through the Afghan camps, including Nouredine Nfia, alias Abu Mouad, who admitted in court to going to Afghanistan ''for combat training against the enemies of Islam and apostates.''

The prosecution claimed that Nfia met personally with al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and trained at the al-Farouq camp near the eastern Afghan city of Khost. The Moroccan government says it is certain of a link between the homegrown Salafiya Jihadia group accused in the bombings and al-Qaida. Moroccan officials say some 300 so-called ''Moroccan Afghans'' are believed to have returned home from the camps...

Posted at 11:26 AM | Comments (0)

Files raise possible al-Qaeda link to blasts

From the SMH via AFP:

Norwegian defence researchers had come across documents that could link al-Qaeda to the Madrid train bombings that killed 199 people, Norwegian television reported today.

Researchers with the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment who have specialised in digging up original al-Qaeda releases and interviews, told the NRK television channel they had discovered a document on an Arabic website last year outlining al-Qaeda strategies on how to force the United States and its allies to leave Iraq, and pointing to Spain as the "weakest link".

"It wasn't until yesterday when we were going through old material to find links to Spain that we understood what we were holding in our hands," project leader Brynjar Lia told NRK.

"We mainly had the impression that [the documents] referred to the situation in Iraq, but on closer examination we saw that they specifically refer to Spanish domestic politics and elections," due this Sunday, he added.

According to the TV report, page 42 of the Arabic document reads: "We have to make use of the election to the maximum. The government at the most can cope with three attacks."

The document also reportedly predicts that the other partners in the US-led coalition would follow like "pieces of domino" if Spain were to withdraw from Iraq...

It seems a bit tenuous; there's no real direct link between their old statements and the current attack.

Posted at 10:36 PM | Comments (0)

More on the "Koran van"

Here's more information on the white van found outside Madrid:

SPANISH police last night established a direct link between the white �Koran van� and an unexploded train bomb in Madrid...

Investigators found a mobile phone in the van � and have proved a link to another phone found in a sports bag packed with explosives on the train that was ripped apart at El Pozo station...

But sources close to Spanish authorities said they were still keeping an open mind as the Koran tape could have been planted as a smokescreen...

Last night a witness came forward to say he had seen three indivduals emerging from the van with their hair and mouths masked.

In Madrid, theories were gathering pace that ETA could have been working in league with Islamic terrorists...

But the holdall that did not explode contained explosives often used by Basque terrrorists...

A caller said [ETA] �has no responsibility whatsover for the Madrid attacks�. In the past it has been ready to admit its involvement...

Perhaps it wasn't meant to be this deadly, or perhaps their attempts to warn about the bombs beforehand hit a snag. They probably wouldn't take credit in those cases.

See earlier posts here and here.

There's also more on recent ETA activity in 'Recent incidents steer suspicion toward ETA'.

There's a Wiki on the attack here.

UPDATE: The NYT report 'Officials Still Divided on Whom to Blame for Madrid Bombings' has no new information except for this: "The ["Koran van"] also contained some documents in Arabic and an audiotape of readings from the Koran that one official said referred to the education of children."

The van appears to have been definitely linked to the bombing. While Arabic tapes are probably quite easy to obtain in Spain, the documents might be more difficult to get. If they're something that's easy to obtain that's one thing. But, if they're handwritten or custom-printed documents it might favor involvement by someone who speaks Arabic. Note, however, that the van was stolen, so they might have belonged to the van's owner.

Posted at 08:36 PM | Comments (0)

ETA, AQ, or ?

'Who's responsible - Eta or al-Qa'eda?' has some ideas, as does 'Was it ETA or Al Qaeda?'. 'Al Qaeda has had a long presence in Spain' has some background.

'Madrid detonators not commonly used by ETA - report' might be significant if true:

Rucksack bombs used in deadly Madrid train bombings were set off by mobile phone and contained copper detonators... Cadena Ser radio station quoted security sources as saying the bombs, which blew up on four trains killing 198 people, were activated by mobile telephones which had had their alarms set for 7:39 a.m. (6:39 British time) on Thursday.

The detonator in an unexploded bomb recovered by police contained a copper detonator whereas the detonators commonly used by ETA are made of aluminium...

The Interior Ministry could not immediately confirm the report.

Note also: 'In Spain: ETA and Al-Qaeda Forge New Anti-EU Alliance'. It's from October 1, 2001, and it says: "The Basque terrorist organization ETA and bin Laden's al-Qaeda cells have joined forces. Their shared goal: to organize and carry out an attack on the EU meeting scheduled for March 2002 in Barcelona..." However, no links to the original Spanish reports on which that report is based are provided.

This page has more AQ links to Spain, including the following:

Spanish authorities now fear that the Islamist and Basque radicals have formed an alliance of sorts. Some ETA terrorists visited the same Middle Eastern training camps as a number of Islamic extremists. Representatives from ETA and Osama Bin Laden reportedly met in Brussels, but there were frictions after the Islamic fundamentalists refused to continue the meeting in the presence of a Basque woman who preferred to stay. Spanish sources claim that Mohammed Atta, the suicide pilot from Hamburg who was the first to fly into the World Trade Center in New York, also tried to forge links between al-Qaeda and ETA terrorists. Just before Christmas 1999, ETA planned an attack on the Picasso Tower in Madrid. The American architect of the Picasso Tower was Minoru Yamasaki, who also designed the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center in Manhattan; but it is not clear whether ETA got the idea from Muslim extremists...

This Pravda report discusses a new Basque separatist group:

The new Basque militant group Euskal Borroka promises to expel Spaniards from territories that "are not theirs." The motto is The Basque country is for the Basques.

Euskal Borroka means "Basque fight" and this new group appears to be one of the most militant, if not the most, to have appeared in recent years. The new group speaks in terms of "ethnic cleansing", sending the non-Basques out of the Basque country to Spain.

In a letter addressed to councillors of the Partido Popular (PP, government), Euskal Borroka invited the "colony inhabitants of the municipalities" to voluntarily leave the Basque country because they are "occupying territory which is not theirs and which they hold be force of arms". The letter adds that all efforts will be made to expel the non-Basques from the territory.

'Spain Links Suspect in 9/11 Plot to Baghdad' discusses Muslim convert and AQ suspect Yusuf Galan; he was "also said to have monitored an election for Spain's radical pro-Basque independence party Herri Batasuna in 1989". This page seems to have more links.

UPDATE: See 'The explosive and the detonators of the pumps are not habitually used by ETA'. It says the bombs ("pumps" in the translation) aren't Titadine... (via this).

Posted at 02:15 PM | Comments (2)

Detonators and Arabic Tape of Verses From Koran Found Near Madrid

From the wires:

Police probing the Madrid terrorist attacks found a van with detonators and an Arabic-language tape with Koranic verses, and officials said they were not ruling out any line of investigation.
The van was found in the town of Alcala de Henares outside Madrid after a tip from neighbors. On the front seat police found seven detonators and the tape...

Three of the trains bombed Thursday originated in Alcala de Henares, and one passed through it...

UPDATE: Then there's this:

DUBAI (Reuters) - A letter purporting to come from Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network claimed responsibility for the train bombings in Spain on Thursday, calling them strikes against "crusaders," a London-based Arabic newspaper said. "We have succeeded in infiltrating the heart of crusader Europe and struck one of the bases of the crusader alliance," said the letter which called the attacks "Operation Death Trains." There was no way of authenticating the letter, a copy of which was faxed to Reuters' office in Dubai by the London-based al-Quds al-Arabi newspaper.

The letter bore the signature "Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades." The newspaper received similar letters from the same brigade claiming responsibility on behalf of al Qaeda for a November bombing of two synagogues in Turkey and the August bombing of the U.N. headquarters in Baghdad.

However, the same brigade has apparently made false or unsubstantiated claims in the past. They were one of three groups claiming credit for a Turkish bombing. They falsely claimed responsibility for the recent Northeast blackout.

On the other hand, the bombs were probably made with titadine, a form of compressed dynamite. This is referred to as an "ETA trademark." The ETA stole some titadine along with a Breton group in 1999. See also this and this.

More on this incident here. This article has quotes from a Janes analyst supporting the ETA theory, but other information not ruling out it being AQ or even a combination of the two groups.

Posted at 12:49 PM | Comments (0)

U.S. Probe Spots 9 Terror Suspects in Merchant Marine

Story here:

A 14-month investigation by the U.S. Coast Guard and FBI has uncovered nine merchant mariners with possible terrorist links, raising renewed concerns that U.S. ships and ports are vulnerable to attack...

Posted at 10:58 PM | Comments (0)

Diving for conspiracies

I've heard a couple things lately about the strange deaths of scuba divers or incidents involving scuba divers, but no details were provided and I didn't find anything with google. This is interesting due to al Queda's reported interest in diving: see 'Fears Persist of Al Qaeda Link to PADI Dive Center' and 'Al Qaeda Plans Underwater Attack'.

Thank gosh for Art Bell, who featured this organization on his show recently.

They point to these three cases:

'Diver Sighting Near Coast Guard Station Raises Concern' (Hawaii)

'Police seek public's help to ID diver' (Florida)

'Diver dead in Hudson' (New York)

None of them appear to be al Qaeda, except for perhaps the Hawaii one. And, I don't know if two deaths and one strange sighting are all that uncommon in the wacky undersea world of diving...

Posted at 11:25 PM | Comments (0)

Canada admits: We're terror haven

From WND:

The world's "most notorious" terrorist groups continue to operate in Canada, says a classified intelligence report written two years after Parliament gave police new powers and money to dismantle the country's deadly terror networks, reports the National Post.

In a 22-page assessment of the security threats facing the nation, the Canadian Security Intelligence Service said international terrorists are still using the country as a base for waging worldwide political and religious violence...

The CSIS report confirms a recent U.S. Library of Congress study that said Canada's welfare system, immigration laws, infrequent prosecutions and light sentences had turned the country into "a favored destination for terrorists."

Dozens of those who trained at Osama bin Laden's camps were citizens or residents of Canada. Unlike the United States, which has prosecuted American al-Qaida trainees, Canada has not brought criminal charges against those who attended bin Laden's terrorism schools.

The CSIS report confirms fundraising for terrorism has not stopped in Canada, even though halting the flow of money to such groups as al-Qaida, Hezbollah and Hamas was one of the chief aims of Canada's anti-terrorism bill...

Posted at 01:13 PM | Comments (0)

How did I know Ibrahim would be against it?

TalkLeft links to the NYT article "Bush Issues Federal Ban on Racial Profiling", which includes this line:

Arab-American and civil rights groups said the exemptions in the White House policy would give the authorities legal justification to single out Middle Easterners and others who may fall under suspicion, and they questioned whether the new policy � issued as "guidance" � would be aggressively enforced.

As soon as I read that, I immediately went into CAIR/Ibrahim Hooper watch-mode. Which Arab-American group could the NYT be referring to? Hmmm... There's no mention of the specific group here on Page 1 of the article.

But, turning to Page 2, well, there it is in all its "mainstream" glory:

Ibrahim Hooper, a spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said the new policy would do little to mollify Arab-Americans.

"There seem to be a lot of `buts' and `howevers' here that would allow profiling of Arabs and Muslims to continue," Mr. Hooper said.

He said he found the policy paradoxical in light of a report from the Justice Department this month criticizing the detentions of hundreds of illegal immigrants, most of them Middle Eastern, after the 9/11 attacks.

"This is a problem that's certainly widespread, and I don't think this policy does anything to help the situation," Mr. Hooper said.

If you aren't familiar with CAIR, see the post "Undesirable influence" and many of the other posts in the Terrorism category. One of the links is to this article:

CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper indicated in a 1993 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he supports [the U.S. adopting sharia law].

"I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future," Hooper told the Star Tribune. "But I'm not going to do anything violent to promote that. I'm going to do it through education."

CAIR is currently taking money from Saudis to put "educational" materials in U.S. libraries.

As for the NYT, while they're introspecting, perhaps they should review their "who do we go to for soundbites and how do we describe them" file.

Posted at 09:57 PM | Comments (0)

"Undesirable influence"

Here's a good backgrounder on the "undesirable influence" that CAIR and other "mainstream" groups have:

Readers of this column were not surprised by the news article that led the front page of Wall Street Journal last Wednesday. They are already aware that a number of Arab- and Muslim-American organizations and representatives that support Hamas and other militant Islamic (or �Islamist�) terrorist groups have gained unwarranted access to the White House and top Bush Administration officials...

Even those who have followed this story on these pages and elsewhere, however, might have been surprised at the response Karl Rove, President Bush�s top political advisor, gave the authors of the Journal article: ��What's the evidence� of undesirable influence? he says. �There's no there there.��

Actually, the evidence of undesirable influence is unmistakable to anyone willing to look for it. Past and present leaders of the American Muslim Council (AMC), the Council on American Islamic Relations, the Muslim Public Affairs Council and the American Muslim Alliance, for example, have publicly expressed support for those engaged in �armed struggle� against Israel and the United States... [more about the "Wahhabi Lobby", al-Arian, etc. etc.]

Posted at 10:14 PM | Comments (0)

"French Arrest Two Men in Sept. 11 Probe"

From this:

French authorities investigating the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks in the United States have arrested two men - a Moroccan and a German believed to be a top al-Qaida recruiter - in the last two days at the Paris airport, judicial officials said Thursday.

The officials said they believe there's a link between the two suspects.

On Sunday, Karim Mehdi, a 34-year-old Moroccan, was taken into custody at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris, the officials said on condition of anonymity. He had arrived from Germany and planned to leave to the French island of La Reunion off southeastern Africa.

Mehdi allegedly was planning a terror attack against a tourist complex on the island, the officials said. Further details about the site or timing of the attack were not immediately available.

On Monday, Christian Ganczarski was apprehended at the airport and was to appear before an anti-terrorism judge in the coming days, the officials said on condition of anonymity.

Ganczarski also allegedly had links to the April 2002 suicide bombing of a historic synagogue on Tunisia's tourist island of Djerba that killed 21 people, including 14 German tourists, the officials said.

(The previous entry linked to this article, which just mentioned Mehdi, and didn't have as many details as the one above.)

Posted at 01:18 PM | Comments (0)

"Let's Not Make Room For Islam In The Judeo-Christian Tradition"

Interesting column from Paul Weyrich here:

Leading Islamic organizations have started a drive to change the term "Judeo-Christian" to one that will mainstream their own religion. If the Islamic lobby has its way with this Politically Correct agenda item, we will soon be talking about how our country's society is based on "Judeo-Christian-Islamic values..."

We need to consider the record of the organizations that are attempting to gull Americans into swallowing the term "Judeo-Christian-Islamic values." They include the Council on American Islamic Relations, an organization that has learned to employ rights rhetoric to its advantage as it tries to paint Islam and its adherents in a glossy, all-American hue. CAIR is currently involved in trying to place texts and videos that are loaded with fulsome praise (and loads of whitewash) of Islam in American public libraries. These texts downplay or ignore the unattractive side of the religion, such as its historic inability to co-exist peacefully with other religions -- particularly Judaism and Christianity...

[...more on CAIR and the AMC...]

The news media has devoted great scrutiny to the rhetoric employed by American evangelicals about Islam while giving these groups a pass... [perhaps even worse, Bush met with them at least once, as has the CA GOP --lw]

The multiculturalists who are likely to race to make room for "Islamic" in the description of the values that have guided our country for the past 226 years should think hard about the ultimate goals of Muslim spokesmen like CAIR's Hooper and Ahmad. Particularly when the San Ramon Valley Herald also quoted Ahmad's assertion that "The Koran, the Muslim book of scripture, should be the highest authority in America, and Islam the only accepted religion on Earth."

It is not that they will succeed in subverting our country, turning it into an Islamic state complete with amputations for theft and stonings for adultery. However, the conditions in countries such as Saudi Arabia and Iran should make multiculturalists think hard about whether "Islamic" really deserves a place next to "Judeo-Christian..."

Posted at 01:27 PM | Comments (0)

Shawn Steel gets a belated correction

According to this:

Student journalists at the University of Southern California have backed off, ever so slightly, from an April 14 report on former California Republican Party Chairman Shawn Steel's supposedly anti-Islam remarks at a campus rally. Steel was quoted as saying that Islam "has a cancer growing inside it, which hates Jews, hates freedom and hates Western society. ... The disease of Islam must be rectified. It's kill or be killed."

In a clarification published Wednesday [apparently not available online yet --lw], the Daily Trojan newspaper said Steel's notes indicated that his remarks were directed at "an extremist faction within Islam and not Islam itself."

Blake Hennon, summer editor of the newspaper, said there was no tape recording of the remarks, but that he was "inclined to believe Steel on that point."

The episode had GOP leaders rushing to separate themselves from their outspoken former chairman. The new GOP boss, Palo Alto attorney Duf Sundheim, met with the Council on American-Islamic Relations to smooth things over.

Great way to smooth things over. For the truth about "mainstream" organizations like CAIR, see Salon's "Islam's Flawed Spokesman" report. According to this, the gent who drafted CAIR's first letter of condemnation has this to say: "He insists that Islam has a disease, and that is extremely offensive."

I knew from the start what Steel meant, and I think anyone with the ability to read headlines knows he's correct. However, several "liberal" bloggers gleefully took his remarks out of context. I'm sure they'll be all over the DailyTrojan's correction. Just you wait.

Posted at 12:41 PM | Comments (2)

"Plan to Capture Bin Laden Before 9/11 Was Called Off"

From this:

The FBI made secret plans to capture and arrest Osama bin Laden five years ago... federal agents seeking bin Laden had developed a plan to have a plane fly in and attack a compound in Kandahar, Afghanistan, where the terror leader was believed to have been holed up back in 1998...

But when the plan went up the chain of command for approval, it was killed by then-Attorney General Janet Reno.

"They came to the decision that this plan was probably too dangerous, that the loss of life on the ground would have been significant," Cloonan said. There was concern that people around the bin Laden compound would be killed."

Hmmm, killing people at compounds didn't seem to be a problem in other cases...

(via Croooow)

UPDATE: Hold the phone: according to "Reno Blamed for Clinton's Decision Not to Attack Bin Laden":

Former Attorney General Janet Reno is being wrongly blamed for ex-President Clinton's decision not to bomb Osama bin Laden's compound in Khandahar, Afghanistan, and the ex-president is apparently willing to let her take the fall... [speech from last year in which Clintion admits it was he who made the decision not to arrest OBL.

Posted at 08:26 PM | Comments (3)

"UC Berkeley benefactors tied to 9-11"

According to this:

The University of California at Berkeley's Center for Middle Eastern Studies runs two programs funded by groups and individuals the U.S. State Department links to terrorism, according to a campus student magazine...

In addition to his role as deputy prime minister and minister of defense, Al Saud chairs the government's Supreme Council of Islamic Affairs, which reviews and grants requests from Islamic organizations. Under Al Saud's leadership, the kingdom has funded organizations the U.S. and U.N. tie to terror, including the International Islamic Relief Organization, al-Haramain, Muslim World League and the World Assembly of Muslim Youth.

The International Islamic Relief Organization, or IIRO, has been implicated in the funding of al-Qaida and the Palestinian terror groups, Hamas and Islamic Jihad. The organization is led by Osama bin Laden's brother-in-law, Mohammed Khalifa, considered a major terror leader by the U.S.

The IIRO also has been tied to the 1993 World Trade Center Bombings, a plan to destroy New York's Lincoln Tunnel and Brooklyn Bridge, and plots to assassinate former President Clinton and the pope...

The principal benefactor of UC Berkeley's Al-Falah program is Xenel's CEO Abdullah Alireza, who is on the executive board of Dar al-Maal-Islami, a bank managed by Osama bin Laden's brother and acknowledged by the U.N. as a supporter of terrorism.

See also "Officials Deny Allegations of Center's Link With Terrorism"

Posted at 09:05 PM | Comments (0)

"Iranian actress given 74 lashes for kissing man on stage"

Straight from IRNA. She's in her 50s, he's a former student of her late husband, she kissed him on the forehead at an awards ceremony, street protest, she apologized, lashes were suspended, the wheel rolls on.

Posted at 06:26 PM | Comments (0)

Blogger arrested!

I predict we're going to be seeing a lot more stories like this in the future, and not just of Iranians.

Posted at 09:06 PM | Comments (0)

Fatwa Watch 2003

From this:

CAIRO, 6 April 2003 � Suicide attacks on the US-led coalition in Iraq are �permitted under (Islamic) religious law,� the sheikh of Al-Azhar, the highest Sunni Muslim spiritual authority, Muhammad Sayed Tantawi, said here yesterday... He also indirectly criticized the Iraqi and the Kuwaiti leaders.

Saddam Hussein should have accepted a call from the United Arab Emirates last month to resign in order to prevent war, he said. �Had this initiative gone through, it would have preserved the blood of many Muslims and we would not be seeing the massacres under way against the Iraqi people.�

On March 27, Syria�s Grand Mufti Sheikh Ahmad Kaftaro, the country�s top Muslim religious authority, called for suicide bombings against US and British troops in Iraq...

The top Palestinian religious authority yesterday banned Muslims from aiding the US-led war in Iraq. �All Muslim scholars in Palestine declare a fatwa (edict) forbidding any Muslim to participate in that aggressive war, or even to lend the voracious invaders a hand,� said the Al-Fatwa Supreme Council, an assembly of clerics from the West Bank and Gaza Strip...

Lebanon�s top Shiite leader urged Arabs and Muslims yesterday to resist any American governor or US-backed government set up to run Iraq immediately after the war. �We as Arabs and Muslims ... will not give any legitimacy to any government set up in Iraq under an American administration or through efforts by the American administration to project legitimacy on some who will act according to its instructions,� Sheikh Mohammed Hussein Fadlallah said in Beirut.

India: March 30: Darul Uloom, Deoband, one of the oldest and most prestigious religious schools of Sunni Muslims around the world has re-issued a fatwa asking Indians in general and Indian Muslims in particular to boycott consumer products of American and British companies in protest against the US-led attack on Iraq.

Iraq: March 29: Iraq's top Muslim cleric issued a fatwa or religious decree also calling for jihad

Another article on the Egpytian fatwa: Al-Azhar, Egypt's most prestigious Islamic institution, issued a fatwa (religious decree) this month that it is the duty of all Muslims to defend Iraq against foreign invasion. "If the enemy descends on the land of Muslims, jihad becomes an Islamic obligation ... because our Arab and Islamic community will be facing a new Crusade targeting our land, honor, faith and nation," it declared...

Amman, Jordan: A fatwa calling for the expulsion of American troops from Jordanian soil has been issued by the Islamic Action Front here, as thousands of people continue to protest against the killings of innocent civilians in Iraq.

Iraq: Confusion now shrouds a US claim on Thursday that Iraq's supreme Shi'a Muslim cleric had issued a religious decree calling on the populace not to impede coalition forces.

Pakistan: "Ulema belonging to various schools of thoughts describe Fidayee (suicide) attacks by Iraqis against coalition forces as in line with Sharia and say killed Fidayeen were "martyrs."

Also see 'Analysis: volunteers come to Iraq's aid'

Posted at 04:46 PM | Comments (1)

Send him to France

The British government is starting proceedings to strip Abu Hamza of his citizenship and expel him. Earlier in the year, the Finsbury Park mosque was raided and closed. He's since been preaching out front of it.

Posted at 09:31 PM | Comments (0)

"Pakistan still a major threat, say experts"

Article here. Was there a point in time that it wasn't a major threat?

"I don't think anybody above the assistant secretary level is paying any attention to this (problem)," Teresita C. Schaffer, director of the South Asia program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told United Press International.

Since Sept. 11, the Bush administration has portrayed Pakistan as a frontline ally in the war on terrorism, but critics say that the Pakistani government's cooperation has been spotty at best. Thousands of members of al-Qaida -- including Osama bin Laden -- are believed to have taken refuge in Pakistan under a political and military regime with strong ties to fundamentalist Islamic terrorist groups. Elements within the Pakistani military and intelligence agencies have connections with al-Qaida and the Taliban, and longstanding ties with numerous other terrorist groups that are working to undermine Indian control of the disputed Kashmir border region...

Posted at 11:38 PM | Comments (1)

"Islamic textbooks scapegoat Jews, Christians"

From SharkBlog comes the story 'Sowing seeds of hatred':

Textbooks widely used in New York's Islamic schools contain passages that are blatantly anti-Semitic, condemning Jews as a people, repeating old canards about the Jews wanting to kill Christ and faking their Holy Scriptures to mock God.

As you might have already guessed, there is something of a Saudi connection: one of the publishers was until recently a recipient of money from a Saudi foundation.

This is somewhat similar to the situation with those "free" Spanish-language textbooks the Mexican government provides to U.S. schools and libraries. Certainly, they don't cost the schools and libraries anything more than postage.

However, the textbooks supposedly have a different interpretation of the Mexican-American war, the rightful ownership of the U.S. Southwest, etc. etc. than the U.S. government's interpretation, making their social cost a bit high.

Posted at 11:19 PM | Comments (0)

"Million March announces jihad against US, allied forces"

Nothing like a good fatwa to start the day. Of course, when one sees a line like "Ulema belonging to various schools of thoughts describe Fidayee (suicide) attacks by Iraqis against coalition forces as in line with Sharia and say killed Fidayeen were "martyrs," one realizes where much of the problem lies. If there were, for instance, wacky Catholic priests advocating a bloody crusade against Islam, that could be countered in many ways, including finding other religious scholars to point out where they were wrong.

Posted at 11:39 PM | Comments (0)

"Arabs Warn US Against Widening Circle of Enemies"

This article cites several MidEast newspapers saying, in effect, "don't do what you apparently plan to do, even if right now you say you aren't going to do it."

Posted at 11:35 PM | Comments (0)

'America's Other War: On Liberty'

Sometimes it seems like all I do is read Insty and then link it here. Like, this link to a Dan Gillmore column about the 'Free Mike Hawash!' movement.

Posted at 05:21 PM | Comments (0)

"Suspect Testifies in Fortuyn Murder Trial"

According to this:

The man who confessed to killing Dutch anti-immigration politician Pim Fortuyn told a panel of judges Thursday that he acted out of concern for the country's Muslim minority.

Van der Graaf said he followed Fortuyn's career as a columnist for a popular national magazine and was concerned he was using "the weak parts of society to score points" and gain political power.

Muslims in the Netherlands were being used as "scapegoats," he said.

Thanks for your concern.

Posted at 02:25 PM | Comments (0)

"Calif. governor orders Guard to LAX"

Here. They'll just be patrolling the perimeter, not inside the airport itself.

Posted at 12:17 AM | Comments (0)

Ricin found in Paris railway station locker

More here and here. No word on why they opened the locker; perhaps it was abandoned or they got a tip.

UPDATE: There's more here.

Posted at 01:43 PM | Comments (0)

Some 9/11 conspirators entered via Mexico?

That's what this says:

Some of the terrorists who helped with the September 11th attacks are now reported to have entered the country through Hidalgo County. State Representative Kino Flores, who sits on the state homeland security board, in an exclusive with Newschannel Five tells us these terrorists are said to have helped with the operation. Since then, the Valley's International Crossings have been under a tight watch with all incoming traffic being closely monitored.

As I parse this, he's referring not to those who were on the planes, but those who assisted them and weren't killed in the attacks. I wasn't able to find any additional information on this, but I sent him an email and will report back if I receive a reply.

Posted at 10:25 PM | Comments (0)

'Case raises questions about Bonior's Islamist support'

According to this:

Nevertheless, Michigan's (former) Congressman David Bonior employed Abdullah al-Arian as an intern -- even though he was a Florida resident going to college in North Carolina.

Any sins of the father should not be visited on his children. But it is not every day a congressman hires as his intern the son of a man who advocates damning America and allegedly conducting terrorism...

After Sami al-Arian's arrest, Bonior confirmed the message, issuing a statement in support of al-Arian that called the government's actions "very, very strange." Bonior noted he and al-Arian had worked together to prevent the government's use of secret evidence in anti-terrorism cases. He says al-Arian's opposition to secret evidence shows he "cares very deeply about civil rights and civil liberty."

There's another interpretation. Bonior's support for al-Arian and working to frustrate government cases against terror suspects -- demanding undercover sources be exposed to the public (and to the risk of terrorist retribution) -- sends a clear message of support for the radical Islamist agenda...

The George Will column 'Baghdad Bonior' from 10/03/02 is interesting as well.

The recent column 'Speak To Me, Ibrahim!' has a few questions that Ibrahim Hooper of CAIR won't answer, such as:

[3] CAIR�s stated intention in the library campaign is to help Americans learn about Islam "as a religion of peace and justice." How is this goal consistent with financing from Wahhabis, a sect so fanatical and extremist that it sanctions violence against non-Muslims and even against Muslims it considers heretical?

Posted at 12:56 PM | Comments (0)

Our wacky neighbor Khalid

I read this article before about the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, including this part:

Those held included Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the suspected mastermind of the September 11, 2001 attacks, and 41-year-old Pakistani Ahmed Quddus... "Actually, he's a bit slow, he's not very clever, so I can't even begin to imagine that he could be involved with any terrorist organisation.

"He does not have any links with any terrorist organisation.

"They're saying such strange things about him in the press.

"He's been living in the neighbourhood for 15 years and everyone knows him to be a placid person," she said.

Ms Qudsia said her mother was a district administrator of Jamaat-e-Islami, Pakistan's largest Islamic political party, and her father a retired microbiologist who used to work for the United Nations and had lived abroad.

"He's a heart patient so we had to break the news gently to him," she said.

Aww. Qudus is a bit slow, and the dad's a heart patient. And we did what to them? We heartless bastardos!

Now, the first time I read this, I must have glazed over when I got to the bit about the microbiologist and his Islamist functionary wife.

Mark Steyn has more on them here:

The big-time terrorist was holed up in the home of a top World Health Organisation microbiologist, whose wife heads up one of the most radical Islamist political parties in the country. Is it normal for UN microbiologists to rent the spare room to terrorists known to be in the market for biological weapons?

There's a discrepancy between Steyn's characterization of them and the previous characterization, however, I think this deserves much more looking into by the U.N. or whomever.

Posted at 02:17 PM | Comments (0)

'Protest over Muslim prayer nothing new for Legislature'

Here's a followup to the story of WA legislator McMahan not attending the Muslim prayer:

She said she did it as a patriotic act to protest U.S. Muslim leaders who she said did not condemn strongly enough the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

After a barrage of media calls from around the country, McMahan issued a statement late yesterday saying her actions had been misrepresented.

"For personal reasons, I chose to remain off of the House floor during the Imam's prayer. This action was not meant to make any public statement," she said in the written statement.

"I feel like the Islamic leaders in this country have not been vocal enough in condemning what happened."

Oh, but they have! Of course, you just need to understand what they're saying, and bring a special dictionary with you to understand their "condemnations."

Posted at 12:36 PM | Comments (2)

al Arian links

To be sorted:

http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=31206
http://www.usf.edu/News/2001/arain/bushstate.htm
http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=24738
http://democrats.com/search.cfm?term=al-arian
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A44894-2003Feb21.html
http://www.nationalreview.com/frum/diary022103.asp
http://www.bushwatch.com/e-mail.htm
http://www.nypost.com/postopinion/opedcolumnists/54944.htm
http://www.washington-report.org/backissues/0798/9807028.html
http://www.freeman.org/m_online/sep96/emerson.htm
http://membersites.namezero.com/tbcjp.yahoo.com/academicfreespeech3/id13.html
http://216.239.53.100/search?q=cache:wBxfwW0ntTcC:www.tnr.com/111201/foer111201.html+Dr.+Yahya+Basha%3B+terrorist&hl=en&ie=UTF-8

Posted at 01:13 AM | Comments (0)

"Florida Professor Charged With Operating Global Terror Organization"

According to this:

A Florida professor and seven other men were charged Thursday with operating a global terrorist organization that the federal government says is responsible for the deaths of 100 people in and around Israel.

University of South Florida computer engineering professor Sami Al-Arian is the North American leader of Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Attorney General John Ashcroft said in announcing the federal indictment...

I was going to try to compile a list of his supporters, such as Salon's article 'The prime-time smearing of Sami Al-Arian'. However, apparently the Freepers have beat me to it, compiling a list of his supporters, such as this. (Bear in mind, this is just an indictment, and he hasn't been cleared or convicted.)

Posted at 01:04 PM | Comments (0)

Duct tape, Moroni, and you

The Department of Homeland Security's website about preparedness is now available at ready.gov.

It includes the bit about duct tape, as well as water, food, communications and other tips.

Posted at 02:30 PM | Comments (2)

Ships of Mass Destruction?

The article 'Al Qaeda's Nightmare Scenario Emerges' thinks OBL is still alive, and that, realizing AQ has been badly damaged, is planning to go out with a bang:

AQ has explosives expertise that is unsurpassed in non-military circles. It gets military-grade C4 charges from China and Iran; it employs Hezbollah and Hamas guerillas trained in the fine arts of detonation devices... and it has brainwashed legions of men who are willing to die for the cause...

Who's supplying the material and expertise? North Korea, and, surprisingly, our ally in the war against al Qaeda, Pakistan. Pyongyang--with a lot of help from China (which is supplying key chemicals to separate plutonium from depleted uranium) and Pakistan (which gave North Korea its uranium enrichment centrifuges and tutored its nuclear scientists)--will be able to churn out Coke cans of plutonium at the rate of one per week by the end of March...

In a worst case scenario, al Qaeda could construct a crude but effective nuclear device in weeks, if not a month, from Hezbollah C4, North Korean plutonium, and a little nuclear expertise from disaffected Pakistani scientists...

Add to this troubling possibility the fact that the terror group has resorted to the use of seafaring vessels to move its people around, and now has a fleet large and diverse enough that one or two could seamlessly move into a large harbor or congested waterway undetected, and a picture emerges of an unparalleled potential threat to the global economy from the paralysis that could be caused by a crude plutonium bomb exploding in the belly of an al Qaeda ship with bin Laden onboard...

But the target closest to bin Laden's heart likely remains a seaport that would allow him to go to his Allah in the belly of the Eagle--perhaps on the western seaboard of the United States...

There's more on the Iraq-AQ connection and the ships in 'Direct Links Detailed: Three Prisoners in N. Iraq Outline Links Between Al Qaeda and Iraq':

Two years ago, he says he was hired by an Iraqi intelligence officer, Othman Salman Daoud, to smuggle 30 refrigerator "motors" � which I took to mean "compressors" � from Iraq to Iran, where they were handed over to men he describes as Afghan members of al Qaeda. He was paid $10,000 each for the items, which usually contain the refrigerant gas Freon, but, in this case, contained something more mysterious. Shihab Ali was warned it was dangerous to himself, and to any children he might hope to have...

[Further, he says] he and a partner were given $16 million to go to the Gulf and buy some large ships, equip them with 500 kilos of high-explosive, and set sail under Iranian flags. The crews would slip away in motorboats after being replaced with men willing to commit suicide, who would then enter Kuwaiti waters, according to Shihab Ali, and ram the ships into American tankers or military vessels.

Today's 'Three mystery ships are tracked over suspected 'weapons' cargo' says:

Three giant cargo ships are being tracked by US and British intelligence on suspicion that they might be carrying Iraqi weapons of mass destruction...

Each with a deadweight of 35,000 to 40,000 tonnes, the ships have been sailing around the world's oceans for the past three months while maintaining radio silence in clear violation of international maritime law.

The article '15 Freighters Believed to Be Linked To Al Qaeda' has background information on AQ's ships and the shipping industry. 'Security at sea: Ship owners, insurers under pressure' has more background. The article 'Croatia searchs ship carrying explosives allegedly bound for Iraq' from 10/02 doesn't mention WMD.

Posted at 01:04 AM | Comments (1)

I have to come up with a new joke?

The jokes about duct tape were going so well. Now, I find out it was all disinformation?

Posted at 07:33 PM | Comments (0)

With enough shovels...

According to 'Feds Urge Americans Be Able To Seal Homes':

Insisting that the suggestion that Americans stockpile water, nonperishable food, and cash among other items was motivated by caution -- not specific information -- the feds also suggested ensuring houses have duct tape and plastic sheeting on hand to cover windows, doors and vents to the outdoors...

What, no shovels?

Also, Fox News reported on its Web site Tuesday morning that New York City police have been told to watch for unorthodox weapons -- specifically citing light bulbs, aerosal cans, soda bottles and mayonnaise jars among others -- that could hold biological or chemical weapons.

They were also told to keep an eye out for men who appear to have freshly shaved beards along with ill-fitting uniforms and unusual identifications, the cable news channel Web site reported.

Here's FEMA's 'Are You Ready' guide, and here's more on building earth shelters. Or, just make friends with Mormons.

Posted at 11:12 PM | Comments (0)

Osama and his wacky brothers

Drudge links to the article 'Exclusive: U.S. has al Qaida backers' list'. Some of this information is old, like the Batterjee link.

However, this part appears to be new:

one donation made by the "bin Laden brothers," according to the court document.

The bin Laden family controls a huge conglomerate of corporate interests ranging from real estate to heavy construction and is considered one of the wealthiest and most prestigious families in Saudi Arabia. The family claims to have disowned Osama bin Laden in the early 1990s...

Oops! I guess there's a brother or two more they forgot to disown. File this under Our Friends the Saudis.

Posted at 06:02 PM | Comments (1)

So, what did "OBL" really say?

There are conflicting reports, and the libs are all agog over those that leave some things out, and those that leave some things in.

Here's one report:

In an interview with al-Jazeera aired after the tape, U.S. State Department spokesman Richard Boucher said the recording shows that Iraq and al-Qaida "are bound by a common hatred."

"He threatens everybody in the Arab world except Saddam Hussein," Boucher said. "We are saying Iraq is giving a haven to this group..."

Powell said that on the tape, "bin Laden -- or who we believe to be bin Laden" ... "once again speaks to the people of Iraq and talks about their struggle and how he is in partnership with Iraq..."

The speaker on the tape said nothing about direct ties between al-Qaida and the Iraqi government -- saying his followers only share a common interest with Iraq, even though he denounced Saddam's secular, socialist al-Baath party as "infidels."

"It does not harm in these circumstances that the interests of Muslims and socialists crisscross in fighting against the Crusaders," he said. He urged Iraqis to fight the Americans whether or not Saddam remains in power.

Hmmm....

You'll note that Powell said "he is in partnership with Iraq" and not "he is in partnership with Saddam."

Here's another report.

I'll wait for the transcript, but I also doubt whether this is really OBL.

Posted at 03:02 PM | Comments (0)

Does Yassir Arafat laugh?

Also from Volokh, comes this letter to Arafat from... PETA. I can imagine the brays of laughter this letter produced.

Posted at 07:43 PM | Comments (0)

"Al-Qaeda has dirty bomb, UK says"

So sayeth this:

British officials have presented evidence which they claim shows that al-Qaeda has been trying to assemble radioactive material to build a so-called dirty bomb. They have shown the BBC previously undisclosed material backing up their claim...

For a second opinion, the BBC showed some of the material to an expert on al-Qaeda.

"I think this is genuine," said Dr Mustafa Alani, of the Royal United Service Institute...

Why the British government would release such top secret information has been questioned by some commentators in the Arabic world.

Abdel Bari Atwan, the editor of Al Quds al Arabi, said it was an attempt to revive fears in Britain and the US about 11 September.

"They would like to prove their point that there are links between Saddam Hussein and al-Qaeda," he said.

Iraq isn't mentioned in the article. But, then again neither are, say, Pakistani nuclear scientists.

Posted at 05:53 PM | Comments (0)

Fishing in Venezuela

A Judicial Watch client is suing Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez for allegedly sending $1 million to OBL right after 9/11. The complaint is here.

As to why the complaint brings up Cuba, socialism, and communism, I don't know. How is that relevant?

Also, while it mentions the $1 million that was given after 9/11, it doesn't go into details about the supposed "practical assistance and/or encouragement" that (I presume) they will want to show Venezuela gave before 9/11.

Also, thanks to JW, here's an article by Bill Safire about the Ansar al Islam group in Kurdistan providing a clear link between Saddam and al Queda. Interesting, but more proof needed. Having seen, for instance, a Kurdish report of a supposed meeting of Saddam and his top advisors, I'd take this with a tiny pinch of salt. I had something intemperate to say about one of the AQs mentioned in his article here. In his SOTU, Bush kinda creeped me out with his statement that we'd made some people disappear, but...

Posted at 12:32 AM | Comments (10)

The Brits get slightly smart

Either that, or the Finsbury Park mosque is no longer useful to them: Anti-terror police raid London mosque.

Geez louise, read this Q&A: North African terror in the UK
:

The reason why a lot of Algerians are here in the first place, why there is a network, is that in 1995 the French anti-terrorist people really cracked down, after a number of bombings in the Metro that were carried out by Algerians that killed eight people and injured well over 100.

Quite a few Algerian extremists sought refuge in the UK.

Britain let them stay here because the authorities didn't see them as a threat to the country, nor did they appear to be breaking any laws.

So they left them alone, and basically ignored them for the first year or two.

The authorities then woke up to the problem, because the French kept insisting these were dangerous people, and started monitoring them.

This from the land that gave us Oliver Cromwell.

Posted at 10:22 PM | Comments (0)

Death squads? What a country!

Relax. They're only going to go after the Bad Guys.

Posted at 08:33 PM | Comments (0)

Relax, the plague isn't what it used to be

UPDATE 2: The chief of the infectious diseases division of the department of internal medicine, was arrested late Wednesday on a complaint of making a false statement to a federal agent

UPDATE: They found the friggin' vials.

Plague samples were stolen from Texas Tech. It's also treatable with antibiotics. Presumably, TT knows the strain of plague and the best antibiotics to treat it. Although, if everything else is like their lax security, you never know. Wouldn't it have been Homeland Security's job to make sure that all such samples were locked up tight? Or, did they just release advisories, and it was up to places like TexasTech to determine the best way to secure their facilities.

While releasing this in the U.S. would have nothing near the impact of past instances of plague epidemics, if released in a third-world country without adequate stocks of antibiotics, this could have a far worse impact. Trying to infect farm animals would have an economic impact, but I don't think it would be devastating.

Supposedly 35 vials are missing. If a vial is the size of a small test tube, I guess that would about the size of a shoebox.

And, of course, there's always the possibility they're just missing and will turn up once the attic, the porch, the student's lockers, and the teacher's lounge has been searched.

Posted at 11:13 AM | Comments (0)

Christian suicide bombers?

According to this, "Palestinian Archbishop tells Christians to take part in Suicide attacks against Israel."

LA Times columnist Steve "Where's downtown?" Lopez has a column about the peace protest I covered Saturday. Perhaps he and the "middle-class" people he interviewed for the article would benefit from reading about the people behind ANSWER and Not in our Name.

And, here's more information on Norman Lear's 21-car garage, as well as the foibles of a few other of Arianna's celebrity friends. Arianna's forums are still not back online. Look, Arianna, if money's a problem, I'll help you out a little.

UPDATE: Even Arianna's email doesn't work:

Remote host said: 550 5.1.1 <arianna@ariannaonline.com>... User unknown

Posted at 10:57 AM | Comments (0)

Ricin suspects were arrested in France then freed

This article has the details. It's not a French-bashing article; it appears the French and the Brits were working together on the case. However, the details of the British handling of teenage asylum-seekers (a.k.a., "children") is somewhat alarming:

London plays host to 3,700 unaccompanied children, who are automatically put into social services care and provided either with foster homes, a place in a children's home or put up in B&B and rented accommodation.

The apartment where the ricin was found was rented to two such "children."

The first article also mentions that the Algerians are believed to have undergone "training programmes" in Afghanistan, the remote Pankisi Gorge region of Georgia and Chechnya, all of which have an al Queda connection. However, the link to Iraq that some want to draw remains to be discovered.

Posted at 10:15 PM | Comments (0)

Even yet more fun with CAIR

Here's a funny cartoon.

Posted at 04:51 PM | Comments (0)

Glenn adds 2 and 2 and comes up with 4 million

The Prof includes a few links about the arrests of North Africans in London who had small amounts of ricin. Somehow, he wants to tie this together with al Queda and Iraq. There might be a connection, but if the only connection they can find is the ricin, it's a pretty weak one.

a) ricin is easily produced, and b) other people have done wacky things with other poisons as well.

Posted at 02:38 PM | Comments (0)

More "Atrios"ities

"The FBI has concluded the information that led to a nationwide hunt for five men suspected of infiltrating the United States on Christmas Eve was fabricated by the informant, sources told ABCNEWS"

The Atriosians are going mad with delight, thinking that the terror alert was simply designed to distract us from the economy.

Of course, if the story had been true, and a terrorist act had been perpetrated, they'd be the first to say "why didn't you tell us?"

Posted at 08:30 PM | Comments (0)

Even more fun with CAIR

The reason I went to CAIR's site last night was looking for the article that Ken Layne has since covered.

I suggest writing the editor and letting him know what you think.

This article has a bit more information, including this:

CAIR spokesman Ibrahim Hooper indicated in a 1993 interview with the Minneapolis Star Tribune that he supports [the U.S. adopting sharia law].

"I wouldn't want to create the impression that I wouldn't like the government of the United States to be Islamic sometime in the future," Hooper told the Star Tribune. "But I'm not going to do anything violent to promote that. I'm going to do it through education."

Check your local library and perhaps local schools for some of those educational materials.

Posted at 12:32 PM | Comments (0)

More fun with CAIR

The CAIR home page includes a link to the story "With missionaries spreading, Muslims' anger is following":

As evangelical Christian emissaries have spread throughout the Muslim world, their presence has increasingly proved to be a lightning rod for anti-American sentiment while provoking the anger of native Christian sects and Islamic clerics...

Rather than enrage local authorities and risk their own deaths or expulsions, missionaries aimed for softer targets... One bishop said Bonnie Penner Witherall, the missionary killed by a gunman last month, combined preaching about Christianity with the distribution of toys and food to Muslim children...

Meanwhile, the other pages at CAIR whine about AmeriKKKa's need to accomodate diversity, hate crimes, and contain enough "yes, but" and ambiguously definable terms to fill a small book.

For instance, nowhere at the page above does CAIR define exactly what it means by "the innocent" or "fighting against tyranny or oppression."

Posted at 10:11 PM | Comments (0)

Venezuela and al Queda?

According to this article:

High-level military defectors reveal new terrorist links between Al Qaeda and Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez. The man who controls the largest oil reserves in the Western hemisphere gave $1 million to the world's most wanted terrorist right after the 9/11 attacks.

Consider the source, which is an anti-Chavez website. However, if confirmed, this could prove very interesting.

Posted at 10:40 AM | Comments (2)

FOREIGN GOVERMENTS ASSISTED 9/11 HIJACKERS

Instapundit has a post with that rather shocking supposition.

Of course, I covered this 10 days ago, but never mind that.

Posted at 04:43 PM | Comments (0)

More fun with Ramona Ripston

Sometimes the ACLU does good, sometimes it does bad. For instance, read this article: Hundreds of Muslim Immigrants Rounded Up in Calif.:

The head of the southern California chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union (news - web sites) compared the arrests to the internment of Japanese Americans in camps during the Second World War.

"I think it is shocking what is happening. It is reminiscent of what happened in the past with the internment of Japanese Americans. We are getting a lot of telephone calls from people. We are hearing that people went down wanting to cooperate and then they were detained," said Ramona Ripston, the ACLU's executive director

Actually, Ramona, things aren't as evil as you might want to portray them. Away down in Paragraph 14 of the article, we learn "INS spokesman Arcaute said those arrested had violated immigration laws, overstayed their visas, or were wanted for crimes."

So, unlike the Japanese-American citizens who were interned, the guys who are being arrested now are not only non-citizens, they've also broken one or more of our laws. Quite a huge difference.

If their rights are being violated, then by all means complain. But, don't complain (a.k.a. whine) just because the INS is doing its job.

Islamic community leaders said many of the detainees had been living, working and paying taxes in the United States for five or 10 years, and had families here.

Apparently then we need better education of immigrants to let them know that they can't just settle here in contravention to our laws.

The Iranian protesters said many of those detained were victims of official delays in processing visa and green card requests.

Evidence? Have you appealed? Filed a complaint of some kind?

Posted at 12:24 PM | Comments (2)

9/11: Who didn't know?

Apparently, one or more governments had foreknowledge of 9/11, as discussed by Senator Bob Graham, and analyzed here.

Could he mean someone in those governments, but not everyone? For instance, a security service who failed to inform anyone else in the government?

Could he be referring to Iraq or Afghanistan, and, if so, why haven't we been told that a million times?

Perhaps we're trying to protect our sources. Or perhaps, as the article suggests, the truth is too hot to handle. Could it be Israel, Saudi Arabia, Pakistan?

And, why couldn't it be lots of people? Apparently, Afghan immigrants in NYC knew at least a week in advance, as you'll recall if you remember the story of the high school student who pointed out the window of his school and said those towers won't be there next week.

If Israel knew, why wouldn't they score points and tell us? Perhaps they wanted us to respond as we're doing now, and invade Iraq and other Israel enemies. If, as one of the links in that article points out, the Israelis were following the hijackers 24/7, then they no doubt had a very good idea of what they were up to.

Then, there's this story:

Odigo, the instant messaging service, says that two of its workers received messages two hours before the Twin Towers attack on September 11 predicting the attack would happen

Posted at 01:21 PM | Comments (1)

Whose side is McDonald's on?

This short article lists a few of the things foreign McDonald's restaurants have done to deflect local anti-Americanism. Example:

Egypt 2001

Problem: Anti-American boycott sparked by U.S. support for Israel.

McSpin: Local outlets introduce the McFalafel, rolled out behind an ad jingle sung by Shabaan Abdel Rahim, best known for his chart-topping hit "I Hate Israel."

Posted at 11:15 AM | Comments (0)

Meet your victims. Or not.

This article discusses the:

State Department's "speakers program," which sends U.S. specialists abroad or arranges for them to speak to foreign audiences via digital video conference... Nine officers from the New York City Police and Fire departments were dispatched abroad to talk about their moving 9/11 experiences, but none was sent to a Muslim nation...

Many of the speakers... have either publicly minimized the threat posed by bin Ladenism or criticized the Bush administration's anti-terror or Middle East policies. Advocates of these positions -- while legitimate in a domestic political debate -- are hardly the sort of messengers the administration should want to promote in its diplomacy abroad.

The author goes on to say that the speakers shouldn't just be shills, but at the same time they shouldn't give aid to the enemy. I somewhat agree, unless somehow these people who are sent are Useful Idiots to us in some way or another.

I also think the author puts too much emphasis on policy issues. I've got a phrase for ya: Sell the Sizzle, not the Steak.

While it'd be good to convince our enemies or those on the fence using well-reasoned logical arguments, and that might be the way to reach the Muslim elites, a smart selling of America as a brand would work wonders.

Posted at 11:55 AM | Comments (0)

The Chechen terrorists phoned home

According to this article:

Russian security officials suspect that the Chechens who seized a Moscow theatre in October had wealthy Arab sponsors in Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states... Senior officials say they have traced a series of telephone calls from the gunmen to their "sponsors" in the Gulf.

During one call made to an unspecified Gulf state a financier asked for a video of scenes inside the theatre, and was told it could be made for a $1m fee.

"Several long telephone conversations were intercepted to Saudi Arabia, to the Emirates, and to Qatar.

"We can say for sure that the hostage-taking was financed from abroad, and the terrorists maintained permanent contact with their sponsors."

Further:

Russian security officials have been issuing warnings about the threat posed by Islamist extremists funded by wealthy Gulf state benefactors since the mid-90s

Well, the Russians have had a problem with Muslims for many years and with the Chechens specifically. Whether those were just conquests or not, the current methods used by the Chechens - and their fellow travellers - are certainly reprehensible.

Posted at 12:25 AM | Comments (0)

Now we know who's to blame for the Miss World riots

According to Miss World President Julia Morley, "What was a mistake was a journalist making a remark he shouldn't have made"

Of course she's going to disclaim pageant responsibility, but you'd think she'd be able to place the blame where it truly lies.

Miss Wales, in her own way, has a clearer perspective: "It is a shame a small minority of people spoiled it for everyone"

Unlike Muriel Gray quoted in the article, I think the show must go on. Otherwise the fanatics will have got what they wanted.

Posted at 05:21 PM | Comments (0)

What's the deal with Nigeria?

LGF has more on the Miss World contest's move to London, Arab News' (predictable) response to the violence, and Nigeria's attempt to get the World Cup.

Is this just an isolated incident, or part of a disturbing trend?

Slate had an article that was much more upbeat, in its own way, about Nigerian scammers:

Someday [Nigerian scam letters] will abate, when young, educated Nigerians have better economic prospects... when that day comes, there will be a thriving Internet culture for Nigerians to use for more legitimate purposes.

So, is Nigeria the home of a modern, electronic society, or are they mired a couple millenia back?

LGF includes a link to this article:

Angry Christians attacked Muslims

It wasn't just Muslims attacking Christians, but that's how it started and I'd imagine that's where most of the deaths come from.

Pageant publicist Stella Din said organizers decided to move the beauty pageant because "we didn't want any more bloodshed."

Deaths resulting from a beauty contest: they don't teach you these things in Publicist School.

Miss Canada capitulated, but, surprisingly, Miss France is still soldiering away.

And, the Religion of Peace in England wants you to know:

"It is wrong that it should happen in Britain, in Nigeria or in any country," Sajjad Khan, of the Islamic Liberation Party in Britain, told British Broadcasting Corp. radio on Saturday.

"I think the whole idea of having a beauty contest anywhere would be against many forward-thinking people of whatever faith and whatever ideology."

UPDATE: This mostly balanced article has background info on the Nigerian situation.

Posted at 12:11 PM | Comments (0)

First they came for the beauty queens...

The Miss World contest has been moved to London:

"Muslim opposition had already prompted organizers to postpone the finale until after the Islamic holy month of Ramadan."

Chanting 'Down With Beauty,' Nigerian Muslims Kill Dozens

Will London be any better?

Posted at 05:06 PM | Comments (0)

How to stop terrorism in 2 minutes or less

Let's say a shadowy figure, like, say, a former high up spy happened to privately make the highly unofficial statement to someone high up along the lines of "Hiroshima, Nagasaki, Medina, Mecca."

Highly plausible deniability, and perhaps something very good might come from it. Like, the end of money being funneled to terrorists, the end of Wahabbi expansion, and a severe crackdown on extremists.

Mutually Assured Destruction worked for decades, and it would probably work again. However, you need a rational actor, such as the Saudis.

Posted at 05:19 PM | Comments (0)

Convert to The Religion Of Peace (TM) - or else

Swordpoint conversions are so, like 14th Century. But:

A statement attributed to al-Qaida threatened more attacks in New York and Washington unless America stops supporting Israel and converts to Islam

Saying "Convert this" is left as an exercise.

Posted at 04:19 PM | Comments (0)

Can't we get, like, a little serious here?

This article says:

[The] head of Germany's international counter-terrorism unit... told a meeting of the German-Atlantic Society in Berlin last week that Abu Musab Zarqawi, an al Qaeda leader trained in the use of toxins, could be planning an attack in Europe.

"Something big is in the air," said Beth, noting that Zarqawi "has experience with poisonous chemicals and biological weapons."

Zarqawi, a Jordanian, has been sentenced to death in his own country for planning bombings. He is believed to have traveled extensively since the Sept. 11 attacks, including in Iran, Iraq, Pakistan, Syria, Lebanon and Turkey, European officials said. He is believed to have carried a poisonous substance disguised as an ointment into Turkey... He said the information was based in part on interrogation of al Qaeda suspects captured in Arab countries after visiting Europe in recent months.

Let's say there's something called the KGB or the Stasi. We find him and they or some other proxy takes care of him. Or neutralizes him in some other perhaps even less savory way, such as kidnapping his whole family or clan.

The Bulgarians or the Turks would seem to be able to help out here.

Posted at 11:28 PM | Comments (0)

Denial ain't just a river in Egypt, girlfriend!

(We'd like to take the opportunity to introduce our newest guest blogger, Oprah Winfrey. Oprah will take time out from her busy broadcasting schedule to make occasional entries here.)

CNN reports that Al Queda has claimed responsibility for the Bali bombing. Other reports have one of the perps confessing.

Someone better go back and correct the "belief that the US organised the explosions is not confined to a few harmless cranks. It is being voiced at every level of Indonesian society, from the barely literate men who sweep Jakarta's polluted streets to middle-class businessmen and educated �lites. It has been aired in serious newspapers and is being repeated, in private, at the highest levels of government." as described in this article.

The positive side to beliefs like these being proved wrong is, generally speaking, it reduces or destroys the credibility of those who voice these beliefs. While that might make strident idealogues more desperate, it also might help more moderate thinkers see things more clearly.

This is Oprah, signing off. Girlfriend.

Posted at 08:40 PM | Comments (0)

Random bits

Debbie Schlussel is representing Michigan Citizens Against Terrorism in their IRS Complaint against the ACCESS 501(c)3 org mentioned in this article.

Phyllis Schafly has an interesting article here.

The Fox poll she mentions might be this or this.

Posted at 12:23 AM | Comments (0)

Non-"liberal" coverage of immigration, Iraq, terrorism, multiculturalism, Los Angeles, California, privacy, and occasionally celebrities and wacky humor...

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• 2002: 9  10  11  12 

All Posts(links to each post by title)

• Seattle ferry "unusual behavior" persons: where are they from?
• "Osama bin Laden May Have Chartered Saudi Flight Out of U.S. after 9/11"
• NYT: the ACLU vouches for CAIR
• "CAIR Welcomes TSA Hajj Sensitivity Training"
• USA Today, Virgil Goode, and Muslim hearts and minds
• "Keith Ellison for Dummies"
• Silvestre Reyes knows less about terrorists than many bloggers
• Large cell phone purchases in Huachuca City and Tucson AZ; Nashville
• Do hundreds of cellphones imply terrorism?
• Nets, jets, and reverse colonization
• Dubai still running 22 U.S. port facilities
• "US computer infrastructure compromised by terrorist-owned company"
• Indianapolis Airport is run by BAA, a British company
• Dick Morris: "[Bill] Clinton is a paid agent of the crown prince of Dubai"
• Dubai: The man from Hope, UAE
• Dubai: DHS, Treasury didn't check DPW's links to al Qaeda
• Dubai: DPW takes on Lou Dobbs; Coast Guard had objections
• Dubai: More ports than thought; poll; Thomas Kean; trading arms for national security?
• "Did UAE Save Bin Laden?"
• Insty reports: port deal no problem!

My trip to Alpine County What not to do, again (September 1-2, 2002)

Boston Market Cornbread Temperatures Please help contribute to this important study (August 28, 2002)

Did The Gap Put Celebrities at Risk? An Open Web Letter to The Gap (May 20, 2002)

Humphreys Peak Arizona's highest point (May 19, 2001)

Go Heavy, Go Slow, Get Lost Bay Area highpoints (December 14, 2000)

Hubris in New England The highpoints of RI, CT, and MA (October 8, 2000)

Let's go to Utah Zion, Bryce, and Grand Canyon (August 14, 2000)

Your host, climbing Monkey Face (5.14d)

Your host's arm (circled)

Your host's hopelessly outdated conditioning progress

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