Terrorist Associations .......

[Casey]

We'll just continue this....

Terrorist Associations
http://www.afghanistanwar.com/showthread.php?t=26118

[Casey]

European Islamic Militants Linked to Iraq - Garzon
Sat Feb 26, 2005 9:47 AM ET

By Daniel Trotta

MADRID (Reuters) - Armed Islamist militants that operate in Europe are also helping support the armed insurgency in Iraq, one of Europe's foremost experts on such groups told Reuters.

Spanish High Court Judge Baltasar Garzon, who has been investigating Islamist militants in Spain since 1991, warned that groups such as the Algerian Salafist movement and the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group were particularly dangerous for Europe.

"They are groups that have membership inside and outside Europe and in any case we have to keep close watch on the relationship these groups have with others like Ansar al-Islam," Garzon told Reuters in an interview late on Friday.

"It's obvious that this type of terror groups are perfectly operative ... The threat from this type of terrorism is real, it's constant, it's current and it will continue to be."

Ansar al-Islam is one of the most active and best known groups attacking the U.S.-led occupation forces in Iraq.

Garzon said the Iraq war had inspired the recruitment of new holy warriors "in general," but declined to characterize that recruitment in Europe.

Garzon, who on Monday begins nine months' leave to teach at New York University, has conducted several investigations into suspect Islamist activity including one probe that led him to charge Osama bin Laden with mass murder.

He had been following a suspected al Qaeda cell in Spain at the time of Sept. 11 attacks in 2001, and then ordered the arrest of the suspects for fear they might also attack. The trial of some two dozen of them is due to begin within months.

Garzon said it was impossible to measure how serious the Islamist militant threat was.

But ever since the early 1990s they have "set up bases in key points" of Europe, where they have fabricated false identity papers and raised money for jihad in Bosnia, Chechnya, Algeria and now Iraq, Garzon said.

A year ago, one group became the first to launch a serious attack in Western Europe with the Madrid train bombings, for which more than 70 people have been arrested, around half of whom are still in jail or under court supervision.

In his just published book "A World Without Fear" Garzon notes that in January 2004 bin Laden ordered followers to attack occupation forces in Iraq, where Spain had 1,300 troops sent by the former conservative government, but said the Madrid train bomber did "not necessarily" take it as an order target Spain.

"The idea of committing a major attack could have come from within the (Madrid train bombing) group itself or it could have come from abroad ...

"It's not important who the bosses are. There may not have been any, or there may have been an emir who acted as a catalyst and indoctrinated the others, but it doesn't even have to been an emir. The groups could have acted on their own or in coordination with others," Garzon said.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2005-02-26T144735Z_01_L26278377_RTRIDST_0_INTERNATIONAL-SECURITY-SPAIN-GARZON-ISLAMIST-DC.XML

[Casey]

This may be a little premature for an association but, I don't really think so. It's been heading that way for awhile.


New terror alliance eyed in Valentine’s Day blasts
By Edith Regalado and Christina Mendez
The Philippine Star 02/16/2005

DAVAO CITY – The government is eyeing the possibility that several groups have formed a new terrorist alliance that could have been responsible for the Valentine’s Day bombings.

The name of al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah (JI) has come up anew in the wake of the bombings.

Sources in the intelligence community said yesterday JI-trained militants may have linked up with renegade supporters of Muslim rebel leader Nur Misuari to carry out last Monday’s bombings in Makati City and Mindanao.

In Manila, police officials did not rule out the possibility that the group has also linked up with the Abu Sayyaf and some elements of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front.

http://www.afghanistanwar.com/showthread.php?p=2077721#post2077721

Related:
Jemaah Islamiyah
http://www.afghanistanwar.com/showthread.php?t=10099

[Casey]

Philippines sees terrorism links growing

By PAUL ALEXANDER
ASSOCIATED PRESS WRITER

With the ruins of the American barracks in the background, Philippine President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, left foreground, and Armed Forces Chief Gen. Efren Abu, center foregound, salute during rites Wednesday March 2, 2005 marking the 60th anniversary of the raising of the U.S. flag by Gen. Douglas MacArthur, Supreme Allied Commander in the Pacific in World War II, that signal the liberation of Corregidor Island from Japanese forces 41 kilometers (26 miles) west of Manila. The liberation of the heavily fortified island on March 2, 1945 is considered one of the most brilliant military tactical operations in the last Pacific war. (AP Photo/Bullit Marquez)
MANILA, Philippines -- Contacts between Philippine Islamic extremists and their international counterparts are growing, as shown by the increased sophistication of bombs used in recent terror attacks, the president's top spokesman said Wednesday.

Intelligence reports have long suggested that the deadly Abu Sayyaf group and other local Islamic extremist groups have links to al-Qaida and the Southeast Asia regional terror network, Jemaah Islamiyah.

"There are signs that these contacts are becoming closer, and they are able to exploit situations like the conflict in Sulu at a moment's notice," Silvestre Afable told The Associated Press.

He noted that after a major military offensive against Abu Sayyaf and their compatriots on Sulu province's Jolo island, Abu Sayyaf claimed responsibility for a trio of bombs that went off in Manila and two other cities on Feb. 14, killing eight people and wounding more than 100 others.

Two suspected Abu Sayyaf members have been arrested for the attack on a bus in Manila's financial district, with one tearfully admitting involvement during a TV interview.

While the regional Jemaah Islamiyah reportedly has a constant presence in the country's troubled south, officials believe it is largely providing training instead of calling the shots, said Afable, communications director for President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo.

"And training means training in making bombs," he said.

The government also is concerned about new groups - particularly former Christians who have converted to Muslim fundamentalism - that have joined the bloody Islamic insurgency, he said.



"The common denominator is still Islam, and when Islam is involved in a conflict anywhere in the country, you have these groups coming out of the woodwork and planting bombs, making trouble, because they feel that they can advance their cause at the time," Afable said. "Their propaganda is becoming more sophisticated now."

Several suspected Jemaah Islamiyah members have been arrested in the country. Officials say they have broken up some of the group's key financial conduits and about 20 Indonesian members were largely on the run in the country's south.

But the arrests of three suspected members - two Indonesians and a Malaysian - in southern Zamboanga city in December alarmed security officials because they appeared to be members of a previously unknown terror cell and carried $7,000 to finance possible terrorist training and attacks.

"As to what triggers ... these bombing activities, I think they do these more on an autonomous basis and we do not see that there is a very strong hand, a centralized command of JI giving commands to these groups to do this thing on this day, in this place," Afable said, referring to Jemaah Islamiyah by its initials.

Jemaah Islamiyah has been blamed for nightclub bombings in Bali, Indonesia, that killed 202 people three years ago and the bombing of J.W. Marriott hotel in Jakarta that killed 12 people on Oct. 12, 2002.

Afable also said the government was very concerned about the rise of new groups, particularly the so-called Balik-Islam composed of Christian converts.

He called it dangerous because "it lends a new facet to their (Islamic extremists) claim for legitimacy" and makes people want to know why young Christians have become terrorists.

Afable, who is also the chief government negotiator in peace talks with the Muslim separatist Moro Islamic Liberation Front, said the long-term issue is addressing the root causes of the insurgency.

The keys, he said, are easing the south's wrenching poverty while ensuring that former combatants switch to a constructive role in building the region.

http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/national/apasia_story.asp?category=1104&slug=Philippines%20Terrorism

[Casey]

Not so premature after all.....

US: Evidence of MILF-JI ties strong
By Jose Katigbak STAR Washington Bureau
The Philippine Star 03/10/2005

WASHINGTON — Despite repeated denials by the secessionist Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), evidence shows it has strong links with Jemaah Islamiyah and provides the Indonesian terror group training facilities in its area of control in Mindanao, an updated US report on terrorism in Southeast Asia said.

"Evidence, including the testimonies of captured Jemaah Islamiyah leaders, has pointed to strong links between the MILF and JI, including the continued training of JI terrorists in MILF camps," said the Congressional Research Service report.

The report, first issued in November 2003 and updated last month, said the training appears to be important to Jemaah Islamiyah’s ability to replenish its ranks as more and more of its members are arrested. The updated version of the report, disclosed by the State Department’s Foreign Press Center on Tuesday, said there has been considerable debate over the relationship between Jemaah Islamiyah and the al-Qaeda terrorist network.

Although many analysts at first assumed Jemaah Islamiyah is al-Qaeda’s Southeast Asian affiliate, recent reporting — including leaks from interrogations of captured Jemaah Islamiyah and al-Qaeda operatives — has shown that the two groups are discrete organizations with differing, though often overlapping, agenda.

Whereas al-Qaeda’s focus is global and it definitively targets Westerners and Western institutions, Jemaah Islamiyah is focused on radicalizing Muslim Southeast Asia, the report said. "That said, the two networks have developed a highly symbiotic relationship. There is some overlap in membership. They have shared training camps in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Mindanao."

It said joint military exercises between the Philippines and the United States in the southern Philippines in 2002, during which the United States deployed nearly 1,200 troops, weakened the Abu Sayyaf and reduced its estimated strength to between 300 and 400.

But new evidence has surfaced that the Abu Sayyaf — considered a terrorist group by the Philippines, the United States and the European Union — is active in Manila as well, the report said. The Abu Sayyaf is believed to be responsible for the Valentine’s Day bombings that killed 13 people and wounded over 100 in the cities of Davao, General Santos and Makati.

Ties between the MILF and the al-Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiyah were first reported in 2002 by American broadcaster Cable News Network (CNN), citing intelligence documents it had obtained.

It reported that Saudi terror mastermind Osama bin Laden had asked the MILF leader Hashim Salamat in the early 1990s to set up JI training camps in the Philippines. By 1998, the MILF had at least one training camp for al-Qaeda fighters inside the MILF’s sprawling base Camp Abubakar in Maguindanao province in Mindanao, CNN said.

Further, al-Qaeda’s ties with the MILF reportedly date back to the Soviet war in Afghanistan when the MILF reportedly sent 1,000 guerrillas to help the Afghans fight the Soviets.

In 1995, Omar al-Faruq, a Kuwaiti, entered the Philippines using a false passport and visited the MILF and helped set up the training facility in Central Mindanao, CNN reported. About 1,000 Indonesians reportedly were trained at the camp, which was designated as "Camp Hudeibiah." Later a second training camp, called "Camp Palestine," was set up also at Camp Abubakar, in Maguindanao province. Abubakar fell in a massive military offensive in 2000 but no al-Qaeda training camps were reported.

Al-Faruq, who is now in US custody, confessed that he was al-Qaeda’s senior representative in Southeast Asia.

CNN reported that Al-Faruq even stayed with the MILF for three years before moving to Indonesia, where he began recruiting terrorists for al-Qaeda. He was arrested in June 2002 by Indonesian authorities, from where he allegedly had been working to unite militant groups from several countries in Southeast Asia for al-Qaeda’s cause.

Al-Qaeda transferred its operations to Southeast Asia after the fall of its bases in Afghanistan due to the 2001 US invasion, CNN reported, citing intelligence sources. The region reportedly now has the "highest concentration" of al-Qaeda operatives outside Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The 12,500-member MILF has been waging a decades-old guerrilla campaign to set up an independent Islamic state in Mindanao.

Despite denials from the MILF, persistent reports have linked the rebels to Jemaah Islamiyah. The government is currently resuming peace negotiations with rebels.

In 2003, the Arroyo administration contemplated designating the MILF as a terrorist organization following two bomb attacks in Davao City and an attack on the town of Siocon in Zamboanga del Norte early in the year.

It also threatened to request the US government to include the MILF in its list of terrorist organizations, a move that would put a squeeze on its sources of funds. The government backed down after a categorical renunciation of terrorism from Salamat, who died in July 2003 from a heart attack.

The MILF is the only rebel group in the country not yet considered a terrorist group by the government.

In 2002, the United States and European Union added the Communist Party of the Philippines and its armed wing, the 9,000-strong New People’s Army, to their list of terrorist organizations. The CPP protested the terrorist tag, saying it was a legitimate revolutionary movement. It has been waging its guerrilla war since 1969, making it one of the world’s longest communist insurgencies.

Moves to pass an anti-terrorism law were set in motion again following the Valentine’s Day bombings and the government got expert advice from a team of United Nations experts in drafting the legislation.

The UN team offered to help the Philippine government in defining "terrorism" within an international legal framework, the Department of Foreign Affairs said.

The Philippines does not have an anti-terrorism law and moves to enact such legislation have been stalled by the definition of terrorism itself.

In the absence of an anti-terrorism law, Malacañang issued a guideline in 2002 defining "terrorism" as the "premeditated use or threatened use or actual use of violence or means of destruction perpetrated against innocent civilians or non-combatants or against civilian or government properties, usually intended to influence an audience."

Its purpose is "to create a state of fear that will aid in extorting, coercing, intimidating or causing individuals and groups to alter their behavior. Its methods, among others, are hostage-taking, piracy or sabotage, assassination, threat, hoaxes, and indiscriminate bombings or shootings," the guideline stated.

http://www.philstar.com/philstar/NEWS200503100410.htm

[Occupant]

Gee....Imagine that! :D

[Casey]

March 11 and Al Qa'ida
El Pais Spain | FERNANDO REINARES

A year after the March 11 massacre, what we know about it enables us to better understand the structure of international terrorism and its strategy. The scope and dimensions of the phenomenon go far beyond that of the organization itself, apparently constituted in the late 1980s in Afghanistan, and consolidated in the 1990s in Sudan. Its objective, according to the ideologists of Jihad violence, consists in the establishment of a caliphate in line with the rigid Salafist conception of the Islamic creed.

The first component of international terrorism, Al Qa'ida itself, once it lost the sanctuary it enjoyed in Afghanistan as a result of the US intervention there, seems to have decentralized or even become inoperative. Yet it may conserve a capacity for coordination, and an availability of funds, that is a good deal greater than is often supposed.

The second component is made of up of different armed Islamist organizations of national scope, more or less associated with Al Qa'ida. It is these groups that carry out many of the incidents that are annually attributed to international terrorism, actual cadres of Al Qa'ida being reserved for attacks of an especially spectacular nature.

A great number of self-constituted, relatively autonomous local groups, which tend to relate to neighboring ones in nearby territories, constitute the third element in the current network of international terrorism. These smaller groups follow the ideological line set by the neo-Salafist Jihad, by way of Internet or the news media. Thus the terrorist phenomenon has grown complex and diffuse, and highly unpredictable. Resting as it does on a wide and varied grassroots base with variable internal articulation, the loss of consistency in its vanguard has barely affected its symbolic relevance. From its beginnings, the movement was created as a basis for fostering a wide array of neo-Salafist Jihadist organizations in different Arab and Islamic countries. Meanwhile, Al Qa'ida itself, perhaps contrary to the intention of its founders, seems to be progressively more absorbed in this dynamic.

In the case of March 11, there seems to be sufficient evidence to suggest that the culprits behind of the massacre, and their modus operandi, reflect this tripartite configuration of international pan-Islamist terrorism. Many of the people apparently involved in the attack are individuals of North African origin, socialized in the world of neo-Salafist Jihadism, within local circles held together by ties of friendship, neighborhood or family. There were also, it seems, terrorists belonging to organizations explicitly linked to Al Qa'ida, such as the Moroccan Islamic Combatant Group. Finally, the relations between certain people suspected of involvement in the massacre, and others previously suspected of connections with the first Al Qa'ida cell set up in Spain - some of them related to the central nucleus of this terrorist organization - suggest the existence of possible connections with the decision-making circle led by Osama Bin Laden.

But March 11 also has to do with the dual strategy designed by the leaders of Al Qa'ida, especially by Ayman al Zawahiri, given that the neo-Salafist concept of Jihad was redesigned about a decade ago, in a defensive as well as an offensive sense. This consists basically in practising violence, which its authors see as a holy war, against the so-called enemy at home, as well as against the enemy afar. In other words, against leaders who rule Islamic countries in disregard of the precepts of the Koran; and also against western societies which the neo-Salafists see as belonging to the infidels, especially Jews and Crusaders. Their interests are targets for violence, within and without the Muslim world. Under this last heading come lethal, indiscriminate attacks, such as those of March 11. This forces us to think of the improbable, but increasingly possible prospect of use by international terrorism of bacteriological, radiological or nuclear weapons.

Besides, the Atocha attack tells us a lot about the terrorist masterminds' ability to profit from our objective and circumstantial vulnerabilities, and of the faults in our security systems that enable them to pick suitable targets, as well as social and political situations they may perceive as favorable for exploitation. The threat to European countries in general seems to originate mainly, though not entirely, from North Africa, or from immigrant communities of that origin in Europe. It also seems to be connected to common crime, organized or not, and it is far from being on the wane. Before March 11, similar attacks were attempted in countries around us, and nothing suggests that such attacks will cease, whatever the pretexts that may be used. In other words, international terrorism stemming from the global neo-Salafist Jihad is still a serious problem for Spain and for the rest of the European Union.


http://www.elpais.es
© 2005 El Pais

http://www.iht.com/getina/files/231290.html

[Casey]

Islamist groups join Zarqawi's al Qaeda in Iraq - Webhttp://www.reuters.co.in/locales/images/clear.gif
Wed March 16, 2005 7:56 AM GMT+05:30


DUBAI (Reuters) - A little known Islamist group has pledged allegiance to Jordanian militant Abu Musab al- Zarqawi, Washington's most wanted man in Iraq, according to a statement posted on the Internet on Tuesday.

The group calling itself the Brigades of Islamic Anger (http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1808)said it had joined al Qaeda Organisation for Holy War in Iraq "in response to the orders of God and his Prophet to seek unity and to intimidate God's enemies".

"We have pledged allegiance (to Zarqawi), to hear and obey, for good and bad and never to rest or resign. We are going ahead on the path of jihad (holy struggle), never to abandon jihad or fighting until God's laws rule the country and the people," the Arabic-language statement said.

A group calling itself the Brigades of God's Anger said last August it kidnapped two relatives of interim Iraqi Defence Minister Hazim al-Shaalan and demanded that U.S. forces leave Iraq's Shi'ite holy city of Najaf.

It was not immediately clear if it was the same group. In a separate statement, a previously unknown Islamist group calling itself the Brigades of Abu al-Yaman al-Madaeni (http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1746) said its fighters operating in Salman Pak area, southeast of Baghdad, also had pledged allegiance to Zarqawi. Osama bin Laden appointed Zarqawi as his deputy in Iraq after the Jordanian pledged allegiance to the overall al Qaeda leader in October and changed the group's name from Tawhid wal Jihad. Zarqawi's group is blamed for Iraq's bloodiest suicide bombings and hostage beheadings.



http://www.reuters.co.in/locales/c_newsArticle.jsp?type=worldNews&localeKey=en_IN&storyID=7912772

[Casey]

The New Head of Jihad Inc.?

Intelligence Officials Say Jordanian Terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi May Be Emerging as Osama Bin Laden Successor

By ALEXIS DEBAT





Mar. 28, 2005 - However big a shock a recent suicide bombing in Doha was to the Qataris, it was far from unexpected in Western capitals, where intelligence agencies had discreetly put out a travel warning through their respective embassies.

The emirate, a key ally in the Bush administration's war on terror, has been high on the terrorist target list ever since it became home to the U.S. Central Command's operational headquarters in early 2003. Just five days before the March 19 blast, which killed a British teacher and wounded 12 others, the State Department issued a general warning to all Americans travelling in the Gulf that "extremists may be planning to carry out attacks against Westerners and oil workers" in the region. What did surprise intelligence officials was the name of the group which claimed responsibility for the bombing: Jund al-Sham ("Soldiers of the Levant").

Although the group said that this was its first statement, Jund al-Sham is the same name as a group started by the Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Intelligence officials believe it may be a sign that Zarqawi is beginning to attack targets outside Iraq, and may, in fact, be emerging as a replacement to Osama bin Laden as the operational leader of the global jihad. Analysts are concerned that Zarqawi may now begin to redeploy his cadre of militants who, having gained important combat experience in Iraq, are capable of carrying out deadly missions elsewhere.

According to Jordanian government sources and European intelligence documents, Zarqawi first set up Jund al-Sham in Afghanistan in late 1999 with $200,000 in startup money from bin Laden. The group's objective was to operate in a geographical area known as the "Levant," which encompasses Egypt, Israel and the Palestinian territories, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan where al Qaeda's presence was deemed too weak. Headed by Zarqawi, Jund al-Sham federated about 150 jihadis, including Jordanian Islamic militants exiled by the Jordanian government earlier that year, as well as various recruits from Syria (some holdouts of the Syrian Muslim Brotherhood), and Lebanon (mostly Palestinian refugees of the movement "Asbat al Ansar"). These militants were trained in explosive, guerrilla warfare and chemical weapons techniques at a training facility ("Al Matar Training Camp") operated by Zarqawi near the Afghan city of Herat, close to the Iranian border.

The Beginning of a New Phase?



The group's stated objective, according to Jordanian intelligence documents, was a compromise between Zarqawi's obsession to destabilize the Jordanian monarchy and bin Laden's desire to conduct major terrorist operations in Israel. From Herat and Kabul, where the organization had its headquarters, its members started planning several terrorist operations, including the "Millennium Bombings" in Jordan in December 1999. Most of these plots were fortunately uncovered by the Jordanian intelligence which had sent its own recruits to "join" Jund al-Sham in Afghanistan in 1999. After 9/11 and the U.S. intervention in Afghanistan, the organization was visibly disbanded and most of its members, including Zarqawi himself, fled back to their home countries through Pakistan or Iran.

Cut off from al Qaeda's financial support, Jund al-Sham somehow survived in 2002-2003 through its financial and logistical networks in Europe, Jordan, Syria and Iran, where terrorist "mogul" and former protégé of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards' Al-Quds corps, Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, provided some help to Zarqawi himself during their contacts in Iran between November and December 2001. Even though most of its leaders, including Zarqawi, played a significant role in the insurgency campaign in Iraq, Jund al-Sham was believed scattered for all intents and purposes, and its objectives (the establishment of a Caliphate in the Levant) postponed to a later date, when the jihad in Iraq would have, as Afghanistan did in the 1980s and the late 1990s, produced a new generation of fighters.

Last week's bombing in Doha may signal the beginning of that phase. Even though very little is known at this point about the Egyptian computer expert who exploded his car next to the Doha English Speaking School, Jund as Sham's comeback on the global terrorist scene in a country so remote from its initial area of operation seems to validate a number of developments recently picked up by U.S. and Iraqi intelligence services. This information is increasingly interpreted as indicating that Zarqawi, has emerged as the most important operational leader of the global jihad and even a possible replacement to bin Laden as the figurehead of the movement.

New Networking



Although far from complete, the global investigation into last year's Madrid bombings showed for example that Zarqawi, through senior associates in Syria, Italy and Spain, has taken over most of al Qaeda's remaining European networks. These have been put to work since 2003 to recruit and send volunteers to fight the jihad in Iraq. Last summer, Pakistani military units operating around Gandola in South Waziristan discovered what they described as six "terrorist training facilities" of various size. In several of them, the Pakistanis recovered documents indicating that Islamic militants had been trained there and sent to join Zarqawi's organization in Iraq, Syria and Jordan. Among these documents, according to Pakistani government sources, was the passport of one of Zarqawi's family members.

None of these trends, however, is more significant in validating the thesis that Zarqawi is growing in prominence than two recent developments. The first is bin Laden's purported message to Zarqawi, in which he showed his admiration for the Jordanian and urged him to take the lead in the global jihad and start planning operations in the United States. The second, no less significant, was the taped speech by Saleh al Aufi on March 17 (which, according to some U.S. intelligence officials, gave a green light to the Doha bombing), in which the man named by Saudi authorities as "Al Qaeda's commander in Saudi Arabia", specifically pledged allegiance to Zarqawi, in terms that left very little room for interpretation about his desire to place himself under the Jordanian's command. Moreover, according to recent European intelligence reports, there already are serious indications that Zarqawi's networks in Iraq are experiencing serious operational difficulties, and have started sending some of their recruits back to their home countries not only in the Middle East but also in Europe.

While it is too early to crown Zarqawi as the new head of "Jihad Inc.," and even if, according to Jordanian intelligence, he still very much aspires to that role, the thread of evidence indicating that he is fast moving in that direction is growing steadily. At a time when "Al Qaeda in Iraq's" toll is rising, its leaders arrested, and the overall foreign fighters phenomenon is increasingly isolated from the rest of the Sunni community in Iraq, there are more and more signs that Zarqawi has strengthened his control over parts of al Qaeda's "leftovers," and started putting in place the kind of global infrastructure with which to realize its global ambitions. While this could be a fairly encouraging tipping point in the Iraqi insurgency, it could emphasize a very significant shift in the larger war on terror: the regeneration of a global terrorist network which, far from being defeated, has learned from its operational failures and from the tactics of its enemies, In Iraq and elsewhere, to grow stronger, stealthier and deadlier.

Alexis Debat, a former French Defense official, is a terrorism analyst and consultant to ABC News.


Copyright © 2005 ABC News Internet Ventures


http://abcnews.go.com/International/print?id=610353

[Casey]

Al Yaman Al Mdaeni 's father battalion joins the Al-Qaeda Network in Mesopotamia (http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1746)
http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=1746


Al-Qaeda Network declares the joining of the conquerors group in Iraq under its flag (http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=943)

http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=943

[Casey]

Archive

Saddam & AQ; fact or fiction
http://www.afghanistanwar.com/showthread.php?t=10600

[Casey]

CIA disputed claims of Iraq-Al Qaeda link: papers


WASHINGTON, April 16: A top Democratic senator on Friday released formerly classified documents that he said undercut top US officials' pre-Iraq war claims of a link between Saddam Hussein and the Al Qaeda network.

"These documents are additional compelling evidence that the intelligence community did not believe there was a cooperative relationship between Iraq and Al Qaeda, despite public comments by the highest ranking officials in our government to the contrary," said Senator Carl Levin.

The declassified documents undermine President George W. Bush's administration claims regarding Iraq's involvement in training Al Qaeda operatives and the likelihood of a meeting between September 11, 2001, hijacker Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague in April 2001, Levin said in a statement.

In October 2002 Bush said: "We've learned that Iraq has trained Al Qaeda members in bomb-making and poisons and deadly gasses." But a June 2002 CIA report, titled "Iraq and Al-Qaeda: Interpreting a Murky Relationship," said "the level and extent of this is assistance is not clear."

The report added that there were "many critical gaps" in the knowledge of Iraq-Al Qaeda links due to "limited reporting" and the "questionable reliability of many of our sources," according to excerpts cited by Levin.

The October 2002 National Intelligence Estimate on Iraq's weapons programmes said much of the information on Iraqi training and support for Al Qaeda was "second-hand" or from sources of "varying reliability."

And a January 2003 CIA report indicates some of the reports of training were based on "hearsay" while others were "simple declarative accusations of Iraqi-Al Qaeda complicity with no substantiating detail or other information that might help us corroborate them."

In December 2001, Vice President Dick Cheney said Atta's meeting with an Iraqi intelligence officer in Prague was "pretty well confirmed." But, according to Levin, a June 2002 CIA report says: "Reporting is contradictory on hijacker Mohammed Atta's alleged trip to Prague and meeting with an Iraqi intelligence officer, and we have not verified his travels." And a January 2003 CIA report says "the most reliable reporting to date casts doubt on this possibility."

Levin requested the documents' declassification in April 2004 as part of his minority inquiry within the Senate Armed Services Committee into Iraq intelligence failures.-AFP

http://www.dawn.com/2005/04/17/int2.htm

[Casey]

U.S. Says Lesser Groups Helping al-Qaida

By WILLIAM C. MANN
The Associated Press
Thursday, April 28, 2005; 3:11 AM


WASHINGTON -- Despite being weakened by the pressure of U.S. and other forces, al-Qaida remains the main terror menace facing the United States, the State Department says.

At the same time, however, lesser-known terror operations, some affiliated with al-Qaida, others merely inspired by its goals, are taking up some of the slack as Osama bin Laden's network loses central leadership and foot soldiers, the department said in its first "Country Reports on Terrorism."

"There is a declining role for a significantly degraded al-Qaida and a rising role for groups inspired by al-Qaida," State Department counsel Philip D. Zelikow said Wednesday at a briefing on the document.

The report cited as examples the March 2004 bombings of commuter trains in Madrid and an Algerian terrorist leader's announcement of fealty to al-Qaida.

The incidents "illustrate what many analysts believe is a new phase of the global war on terrorism, one in which local groups inspired by al-Qaida organize and carry out attacks with little or no support or direction from al-Qaida itself," the report said.

The report expanded on testimony to the Senate Intelligence Committee in February by CIA Director Porter Goss. He spoke of gains against al-Qaida and its affiliates but warned that they remain dangerous.

The country reports especially credited Pakistan for its work in curtailing the effectiveness of al-Qaida.

"Al-Qaida leadership was degraded through arrests and ongoing Pakistani operations to assert greater control along the border with Afghanistan where some al-Qaida leaders are believed to hide," the report said. "Numerous al-Qaida and affiliated foot soldiers were captured or killed during the year."

Still, it said, "many senior al-Qaida leaders remained at large, continued to plan attacks against the United States, U.S. interests and U.S. partners."

Additionally, the fugitives "sought to foment attacks by inspiring new groups of Sunni Muslim extremists to undertake violent acts in the name of jihad," it said.

Jointly with the State Department report, the new National Counterterrorism Center issued a compilation of international terror incidents in 2004 with numbers of incidents and victims.

It said 651 significant international terrorist attacks caused 9,321 casualties worldwide, including 1,907 deaths. The dead, wounded or kidnapped included 103 Americans or 1 percent of the total.

On Tuesday, Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Calif., said the 651 attacks were triple the 2003 number but told Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice the report probably understates the toll. Zelikow said this count is not precisely comparable to last year's, because the terrorism center put greater manpower and resources into the project than the State Department had.

Until now, the State Department has included figures with its annual "Patterns of Global Terrorism," based on definitions of terrorism established by Congress.

Last year's report caused problems for the department after it was learned that it greatly understated the number of terrorist incidents. On Wednesday, House Democratic leaders asked the department's acting inspector general, Cameron Hume, to investigate whether the mistakes were politically motivated.

The National Counterterrorism Center is working on a new count, to be released in June, that will use new definitions of terrorism. "It is going to be a much more comprehensive data set," said John Brennan, the center's interim director, and will likely to count more incidents.

As an example of the rules under which the State Department operated and which his center used for the data released Wednesday, Brennan said the report lists only one of two Russian airliners that suicide bombers blew out of the sky last year.

The one that counted had an Israeli aboard. The other had all Russians, making it a domestic incident.

"It makes no sense to have the definition of terrorism depend on checking the nationality of all the victims," Brennan said.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/04/28/AR2005042800112_pf.html

[Casey]

ALGERIA: NEW AL-QAEDA CELL SEEKING SALAFITE ALLIES

Algiers, 11 May (AKI) - A statement published on several Islamist internet forums has announced the creation of a new al-Qaeda cell in Algeria. In the document, signed by previously unknown Abu Suheib Maliani, there are references to forming an organised group called al-Qaeda of the Jihad in Algeria. The name takes its lead from Jordanian militant Abu Musab Al-Zarqawi, who calls his group al-Qaeda of the Jihad in Iraq.

The signatories appear to be seeking to become the officially designated al-Qaeda cell in Algeria and are asking the combatents of the Salafite Islamist formations hiding in the mountains to join a "new project" and not to accept the Algerian government's offer of a pardon.

In the threatening message, the militants outlined their terrorist objectives: "From day one we say that we are not responsible for attacks on innocent people and Algerian civilians. Our targets are Jews, Christians, important figures, embassies and foreign interests - they are the real objective we ask the nation to unite against and to strike wherever they are".

The chief of Algeria's General Amnesty Commission (CNGAG) , Abdel Razzak Ismail, said last month that at least 400 terrorists are prepared to lay down their arms as part of a general pardon for members of militant groups, state-armed militias and the security forces implicated in human rights abuses.

President Abdelaziz Bouteflika has asked Algerians to back an amnesty to try to end the 13 years of violence involving Islamic militants, in particular the Salafite Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC) and the Armed Islamic Group (GIA). As many as 200,000 people are believed to have died in the conflict, which re-erupted after the government annulled elections that hardline Islamists were poised to win in 1992.



(Ham/Fmk/Aki)

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=8.0.165564548&par=0#

[Casey]

just think I'll put this here......

A greeting from Algeria mountains to the militants in the world
A greeting from Abi Mosaab Abdul Wadoud Amir the Salafist Group for Call and Combat in Algeria to the militants in the world

He said that Allah kept and supported it :

(.....My hot greeting faces

To the fighting sheikh Abi Abdullah Osama Bin Laden that Allah kept

And to the sheikh Mullah Mohamed Omar that Allah kept

And to sheikh militant Ayman Zawahiri that Allah kept

And to the dear brother the champion leader Abi Mosaab Al Zarkoi that Allah kept

And to the patient brothers the lions couching in Chechnya Abi Hfs and the sword Allah kept them

And to the braves grasping the embers in Palestine

And to all tolerant patient militants everywhere

[ Oh you who believe be patient you and you endured and they were stationed and avoided Allah hopefully you succeed ] .

And Allah invoked peace upon our prophet and on its family and accompanied it and greeted .
And peace, mercy and blessings of Allah be upon you .

( this peace sent it that Allah kept at the end of the videotape, on the occasion of the meeting of the apostate referees to the Arab League in Algeria )

سلام من جبال الجزائر إلى المجاهدين في العالم
سلام من أبي مصعب عبد الودود أمير الجماعة السلفية للدعوة والقتال في الجزائر إلى المجاهدين في العالم

قال حفظه الله ونصره:

(..... أوّجه سلامي الحار

إلى الشيخ المجاهد أبي عبدالله أسامة بن لادن حفظه الله

وإلىالشيخ الملا محمد عمر حفظه الله

وإلى الشيخ المجاهد أيمن الظواهري حفظه الله

وإلى الأخ الحبيب القائد البطل أبي مصعب الزرقاوي حفظه الله

و إلى الإخوة الصابرين الأسود الرابضين في الشيشان أبي حفص والسيف حفظهم الله

وإلى البواسل القابضين على الجمر في فلسطين

وإلى كل المجاهدين الصابرين المصابرين في كل مكان

[ يا أيها الذين آمنوا اصبروا وصابروا ورابطوا واتقوا الله لعلكم تفلحون ].

وصلى الله على نبيّنا , وعلى آله وصحبه وسلم .
والسلام عليكم ورحمة الله وبركاته.

( هذا السلام أرسله حفظه الله في نهاية الشريط المصور ,بمناسبة ملتقى الحكام المرتدين للجامعة العربية في الجزائر)

[Casey]

http://www.eastandard.net/images/default/images/lines/horizontal_header_grey.gif
Sunday June 5, 2005
http://www.eastandard.net/images/default/images/lines/horizontal_header_grey.gif

Security alert

After making an attempt on the life of Somalia PM, the terrorists are said to have moved into Kenya and intelligence officers are following leads to their capture .

Kenya’s security forces are on high alert following information that two groups linked to terror mastermind Osama bin Laden may have entered the country.

The two terror groups, Al-Itthad-al-Islamiya and Al-Takfir W’al Hijra are linked to Mr Musab al Zarqawi, a close ally of bin Laden.

Kenyas’ security apparatus, say sources, has information to the effect that Zarqawi previously had terror cells in both Kenya and Somalia.

But the security sources were quick to state that they are in control of the situation. "As long as we have a clue on what could be going on, there is no cause for panic. It would have been a different story if we did not know what is happening," the sources said.

The sources say the two groups were responsible for the attempted murder of Somalia Prime Minister Mohamed Ali Gedi last month.

Gedi, who has since returned to Kenya, narrowly escaped death when a grenade exploded at the Mogadishu stadium just as he was preparing to address a rally. He was quickly whisked away and flown back to Kenya where he has been living since the transitional Somali government was elected last October.

Also living in Kenya is Somalia President–elect Abdullahi Yusuf.

Sources in Kenya’s Intelligence community say that after a period of inactivity in the region, Zarqawi, who is blamed for most bombings in Iraq, may have revived his contacts, hence the new alert. Zarqawis’ Kenyan link is suspected to be the conduit for passing money to terror recruits at Kiamboni in Somalia and operates under the fake name of Abdul Karim.

According to the sources, Zarqawi first established contacts in Kenya at Lamu and at Ras Kiamboni, in the South of Somalia, 1996. Ras Kiamboni, an Indian Ocean island, is a stone’s throw away from the Kenyan islands of Siyu and Faza near Lamu.

Both Kenya and the US intelligence concur that Zarqawi, at the behest of Osama bin Laden, was the key planner and financier of the twin terrorist attacks on the American embassies in Nairobi and Dar-es-Salaam on August 7, 1998, that left close to 200 people dead. Zarqawi is one of the most wanted terrorists in the world. The US government has a 25 million dollar (Sh2 billion) prize on his head.

Kenya and US Intelligence believe Fazul and a Yugoslav national were masterminds of the bombing of the Paradise Hotel on November 22, 2002. Fifteen people were killed in the attack.

Four alleged accomplices of Fazul are already undergoing trial before Nairobi Chief Magistrate Aggrey Muchelule.

Ras Kiamboni is believed to be the hideout for Al-Ittihad operatives which is a cell within bin Ladens’ Al Qaeda network. Security sources say Kiamboni has a secret training camp for terrorist cells courtesy of bin Laden and his sidekicks, Zarqawi and Fazul.

Another suspected link to Zarqawi is Hassan Awil, a graduate of Al-Awal University in Baghdad. He is on record as vowing that the Somali government currently in Nairobi would settle in Mogadishu "only over his dead body."

Awil is suspected to have had a direct hand in the bombing at Mogadishu stadium three weeks ago and in which the Somali prime minister-elect narrowly escaped death.

Muslim clerics seeking to establish an Islamic state in Somalia set up Al-Itihaad in 1980s. Following the ouster of President Said Barre and the disintegration of the Somali state in 1991, the Al-Itihaad formed it’s own militia with its main training camp at Ras-Kiamboni. Terror activities by the group first came into limelight in 1996 when Ethiopian authorities claimed the group had attempted to assassinate an Ethiopian cabinet minister and attacked hotels in the capital Addis Ababa. And last week, Ethiopia Prime Minister Meles Zenawi alleged that the group has re-activated operations with targets in his country and Kenya.

http://www.eastandard.net/print/news.php?articleid=22060

[The 801]

Islamabad Blast: Gilgit-Related
B. Raman

The explosion in the midst of a Shia congregation at a shrine in Islamabad on May 27,2005, which resulted in the death of 25 Shias and injuries to about 80 others has been attributed by the local police to an unidentified suicide bomber. No organisation has so far claimed responsibility for the blast, but the needle of suspicion strongly points to the Sunni extremist Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), which is the militant wing of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP).The shrine is dedicated to a 17th century Sufi saint, Shah Abdul Latif Kazmi, popularly known as Bari Imam. Bari Imam is considered the patron saint of Islamabad.

The LEJ is a member of Osama bin Laden's International Islamic Front (IIF) for Jihad against the Crusaders and the Jewish People. The SSP, formerly known as the Anjuman-e-Sipah-e-Sahaba, has been in the forefront of the anti-Shia violence and acts of terrorism since the 1980s in retaliation for the political and religious assertiveness of the Shias of Pakistan following the triumph of the Islamic Revolution in Iran in 1979.

The LEJ played an active role in the 1990s in helping the Taliban and the Al Qaeda in carrying out a massacre of the Shias (Hazaras) of Afghanistan. This had its impact in Pakistan, resulting in an aggravation of the tensions between the Sunnis and the Shias and an escalation in the acts of violence and terrorism directed against each other.

Suspicions entertained by the LEJ that the Shias (Hazaras) of Balochistan had played a role in helping the authorities in the arrest of Khalid Sheikh Mohammad (KSM) at Rawalpindi in March,2003, led to anti-Shia terrorism spreading to Balochistan in July,2003. According to the Americans, KSM had co-ordinated the 9/11 terrorist strikes in the US on behalf of bin Laden.

Reprisal attacks by the LEJ and other anti-Shia groups against the Shias in other parts of Pakistan have been stepped up following the revival of the movement for the independence of the Northern Areas (Gilgit and Baltistan) last year. The revived movement initially started as a campaign by the Shias of Gilgit against the school curriculum.

The LEJ and other Sunni fundamentalist groups retaliated with a campaign against the local Shia political and religious leaders in Gilgit. They also started a campaign against the Aga Khan Foundation, which is very active in the educational and other social fields in the Northern Areas. They accused the Foundation of trying to secularise the local educational system by de-emphasising the religious aspect in the schools controlled by it.

During the first four months of this year alone, 35 persons, the majority of them Shias, have died in acts of terrorism in the Northern Areas. Prominent among those killed in these acts of terrorism were Agha Ziauddin Rizvi, a highly respected Shia religious leader of Gilgit, in January,2005, and the retaliatory killing by the Shias of Sakhiullah Tareen, the Inspector-General of Police of the Northern Areas, and four of his bodyguards in March, 2005.

The "News", the prestigious Pakistani daily, reported as follows on May 1,2005: " The situation (in the Northern Areas) is far from stable as even the Government officials, including those of the Army, the Northern Light Infantry and the police were identified and murdered while travelling in buses in areas falling under the control of rival sectarian militia. Casualties due to bomb explosions, ambushes and sniper firing in Nultar have become a daily routine and so is the blockade of the Karakoram Highway ( to the Xinjiang region of China). The Government has failed to enforce its writ. "

The cycle of attacks and retaliatory attacks have continued despite the claim of the Pakistani authorities that normalcy has been restored following their acceptance of the Shia demand for a change in the school curriculum in the Northern Areas. The worsening situation in the Northern Areas has had its impact in Sindh and Pakistani Punjab where a large number of Shias from the Northern Areas live and work. There have been suicide attacks by the Sunni extremists in Shia places of worship in these two provinces resulting in the deaths of dozens of innocent Shias. The Shias have retaliated through the targeted killings of individual Sunni leaders in other parts of Pakistan.

While the killing of the Shias by the LEJ and other anti-Shia organisations has been indiscriminate, the reprisal attacks by the Shias have avoided Sunni places of worship. Concerned over the escalating violence, Gen.Pervez Musharraf banned the Sunni and Shia sectarian organisations on August 14,2001. This was followed by a ban on their militias, including the LEJ, in January,2002. The US State Department also designated the LEJ as a Foreign Terrorist Organisation (FTO) in 2003.

Despite these actions, the LEJ continues to be as active as before in the Northern Areas, Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan. This is largely due to the considerable support for it at the lower and middle levels of the Pakistani military-intelligence establishment and the police. Alarmed by the increasing resort to suicide terrorism in the Pakistani territory not only by the LEJ, but also by other Pakistani jihadi organisations associated with the Al Qaeda in the IIF, the Government pressurised a group of 68 religious leaders to issue a fatwa against suicide terrorism on May 17. While the fatwa condemned suicide terrorism in Pakistani territory, whether directed against Muslims or non-Muslims, against Pakistanis or foreigners, it refrained from condemning suicide terrorism in India, Iraq, Afghanistan and Palestine.

Even this fatwa has had no effect as evident from the Islamabad blast of May 27,2005.Till the 1970s, the village where the targeted Bari Imam shrine is located used to be known as Noorpur Shahan. Small groups of people used to come there once a year to pay their respects to the memory of the much-revered sufi saint, who belonged to the Shia sect. A four-day religious festival used to be held on the occasion. While on the first three days, the festival used to attended by all Muslims---Sunnis as well as Shias--- the last day was largely attended by Shias from nearby areas.

As the shrine started attracting devotees from other parts of Pakistan, the income from the earnings during the festival increased and the village came to be known as Bari Imam. The annual festival used to be free of religious or sectarian poison until the late Gen.Zia ul-Haq seized power in 1977 and imposed his military rule in the country. As the income of the shrine increased, the right to control it became an increasingly contentious issue and Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), on the orders of Zia, started interfering in the internal affairs of the shrine in order to assist its surrogates seize control of the management.The Zia regime imposed Raja Akram, a Barelvi Sunni, as the custodian of this Shia shrine. He was murdered in February last for reasons, which are not clear.The control of the shrine, which used to be in the hands of the descendants of the Shah family,and their supporters in the village, passed into the hands of Muslims brought from outside with the ISI's protection. As the local villagers resisted, more and more Muslims were brought from outside and settled in the area, thereby reducing the original inhabitants to a minority in their own village.

While this politicised a largely religious festival, it did not introduce the sectarian poison. The Sunnis, who control the shrine, belong to the Barelvi sect, which is in a majority in Pakistan. It is reputed to be a largely tolerant sect, which does not look upon the Shias as apostates and has generally been getting along well with the
Shias.

The anti-Shia campaign and violence in Pakistan have been largely the handiwork of the Sunnis belonging to the militant Deobandi-Wahabi sects. They denounce the Shias as apostates and have been carrying on a campaign for nearly three decades for declaring the Shias as non-Muslims and Pakistan as a Sunni State. The Deobandis and the Wahabis are in a minority in Pakistan, but enjoy tremendous influence because of the support of the military-intelligence establishment and the seemingly inexhaustible flow of funds from Saudi Arabia for them.

The Deobandis and the Wahabis, assisted by the ISI and the American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), spearheaded the jihad against the Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s. After the withdrawal of the Soviet troops, the CIA discarded them, but the ISI continued to patronise them and diverted them to India to wage a jihad against the Indian securitry forces in Jammu & Kashmir (J&K) and other parts of India. The ISI also used many of these jihad-hardened Deobandis and Wahabis for assisting the Taliban to capture power in Kabul in September,1996.

When Osama bin Laden shifted to Afghanistan from the Sudan in 1996 and formed his International Islamic Front (IIF) in 1998, many of the Deobandis and Wahabis flocked to him. Their organisations such as the anti-Shia Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LEJ), its offshoot the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen (HUM), the HUM's two offshoots the Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami (HUJI) and the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JEM) and the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) became members of the IIF and accepted bin Laden's leadership.

All these organisations except the LET are strongly anti-Shia and share the LEJ's characterisation of the Shias as apostates. The LET, though strongly influenced by the Wahabi ideology, at least openly avoids giving the impression of being anti-Shia. Antri-Shia violence and terrorism have been a defining characteristic of the Pakistani society ever since 1979, when the local Shias, inspired by the success of the Islamic Revolution in Iran, became politically and religiously assertive. To counter them, Zia used the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and its ISI-trained cadres. The LEJ was an offshoot of the SSP.

http://www.observerindia.com/analysis/A443.htm

[Casey]

Seven Egyptians put on Qaeda, Taleban UN ban list
(Reuters)

1 October 2005

UNITED NATIONS - UN Security Council members have approved seven of the 20 people Egypt proposed for a UN sanctions list of persons or groups associated with terror organisations, council diplomats said on Friday.

Among the seven, at least one resides in Britain - Hani Yousef al-Sibai, head of the Maqrizi Center for Historical Studies in London, who called the July 7 bombings in London a ”great victory” in an interview with Al Jazeera, the Arab television network.

Accusations against the seven were not immediately available. The council has imposed travel and financial sanctions against people who participate or are associated in with Afghanistan’s former Taleban rulers or Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda network.

Egypt earlier in the year submitted 20 names but the United States, Britain and Denmark thought the data was too thin and only approved seven of them on Friday, the envoys said.

Also on the list is Egyptian Ali Sayyid Muhamed Mustafa al-Bakri, said to be an Al Qaeda member and expert on explosives; and Abdullah Muhammed Rajab Abd al-Rahman, reported to have been jailed in Egypt 15 years ago.

The Security Council imposed sanctions against the Taleban in November 1999 for harboring bin Laden after the 1998 bombings of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. The sanctions were then broadened to include Al Qaeda.

Currently on the Security Council list are more than 140 individuals associated with the Taleban and 182 people and 117 businesses or groups linked to al Qaeda.

All 191-UN members are required to abide by the travel and financial sanctions against those on the list. The bans also include an arms embargo.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/theworld/2005/October/theworld_October8.xml&section=theworld

[Vancouver]

http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/committees/1267/tablelist.htm#alqaedaind
is the current list of UN-banned Qaida-linked individuals. Midhat Mursi
http://www.rewardsforjustice.net/english/wanted_captured/index.cfm?page=Midhat_Mursi
is also among the seven new names.

[al-Canine]

Al Qaeda exploits 'blue-eyed' Muslim converts

Source: Reuters
By Jon Boyle and Mark Trevelyan

PARIS/BERLIN - What prompts someone to convert to Islam and to sign up for global "holy war" in the name of Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda?

Security agencies are asking that question with increasing urgency as they confront a growing catalogue of actual or attempted attacks in which Muslim converts are suspected of playing prominent roles.

Richard Reid, the convicted British "shoebomber" who tried to set off explosives in his footwear on a 2001 trans-Atlantic flight, was a petty criminal who first turned to Islam during a spell in prison.

Christian Ganczarski, a German suspected of involvement in a 2002 bombing in Tunisia, converted at 20 before embarking on a jihadist career in which, investigators believe, he became a close associate of bin Laden's.

Other high-profile militant converts include Jamaican-born Germaine Lindsay, one of four suicide bombers who killed 52 people in London in July, and Briton Andrew Rowe, jailed for 15 years last month for possessing terrorist materials.

Frenchman Lionel Dumont, a suspected Rowe associate and another convert, will go on trial in December accused of a series of attacks in the 1990s, including an attempt to bomb a Group of Seven summit in Lille.

"It's striking, the number of converts engaged in terrorist activities," said Michael Taarnby, a researcher at the Danish Institute for International Studies who has studied the recruitment and radicalisation of Islamist militants.

Jean-Louis Bruguiere, France's top anti-terrorism judge, told the newspaper Le Figaro in an interview: "The converts are undeniably the toughest. Nowadays the conversions happen more quickly and the commitment is more radical."

"AMERICAN TALIBAN"

The phenomenon is not confined to Europe.

John Walker Lindh, dubbed "the American Taliban", was convicted and jailed in 2002 for fighting alongside the Afghan militia, and U.S. citizen Jose Padilla has been held for more than three years as a suspected enemy combatant in connection with an alleged "dirty bomb" plot.

In Australia, British-born Muslim convert Jack Roche was jailed for nine years in 2004 for conspiring to bomb the Israeli embassy in Canberra.

In interviews with Reuters, European experts said the vast majority of those who converted to Islam did so for legitimate personal reasons. Some convert in order to marry Muslims.

Many converts were drawn, the experts said, by the appeal of a universal faith that transcended national and ethnic barriers, offered a sense of belonging and brotherhood and provided a new identity, including the choice of a Muslim name.

However, a small fraction were extremists who saw in radical Islam a vehicle to challenge and overthrow the existing world order, said Olivier Roy, research director of the French National Centre for Scientific Research.

"If you are a youngster in the French suburbs, your mates are second-generation Muslim immigrants and you want to wage war against society, the system, where do you go?" said Roy.

"Thirty years ago, you joined the Maoists, the Trotskyists, the far left, the Baader group, Action Directe. Today, where do you go? Bin Laden."

A German intelligence official cited cases where radical foreigners had acquired residents' status by marrying local women, complicating authorities' attempts to kick them out.

"It gives them more security in their legal status. If they're married to a German woman, it's very hard to expel them," he said.

DRIFTERS AND SMALL-TIME CROOKS

Some of the best-known extremist converts whose cases have come to trial were drifters on the margins of society.

David Courtailler, a Frenchman convicted last year of abetting terrorists, was drawn into radical circles when he converted to Islam at a British mosque and was approached by a stranger there who gave him money and an air ticket to Pakistan.

Reid, Rowe and Ganczarski all had records as small-time thieves or drug dealers.

"They are people who feel devalued, despised and by becoming terrorists they suddenly become supermen, heroes," said Roy.

Once they converted, the experts said, such people often moved towards violence quickly, driven partly by a need to prove themselves. They might also be more easily manipulated by extremists because they lacked the cultural grounding to distinguish between true and distorted versions of Islam.

"Basically, you can tell them just about anything and they're willing to believe it," Taarnby said. "They're not asking the right questions. They're just accepting what they're being told at face value."

BELOW THE RADAR

The advantage for militant groups -- and the problem for security agencies -- is that converts can often move more freely and attract less suspicion than people of obviously Middle Eastern appearance.

"Thanks to their physical appearance they can penetrate targets in Europe much more easily without being spotted," said Roland Jacquard, head of the International Terrorism Observatory in Paris.

In theory, white Europeans attending radical mosques would be easy for intelligence services to identify. "But when they are taken on by terrorist organisations, they are asked to ensure they don't draw attention to themselves in that way," Jacquard said.

Such individuals are insiders who understand perfectly the nature of the Western societies they are trying to subvert, Jacquard said. "They know the mentality, the lifestyle that the terrorist organisations want to strike."

He said al Qaeda's recruitment of "blue-eyed" Europeans dated from the Bosnian war.

"Now, when you take Muslim converts whose mother and father are French, English, Spanish or Italian and who live in society normally, with society's habits, they are absolutely undetectable."



© 1998-2001 Reuters Limited.

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L05240622.htm

[Casey]

Al-Qaeda chief sets up UK network


THE head of Al-Qaeda in Iraq has established a new terror network in Britain which is recruiting young Muslim fanatics to fight coalition troops.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi has recently set up the group to recruit and train would-be suicide bombers and gunmen, counter-terrorism officials have said.

The new group, Ansar al-Fath — Partisans of Victory — is an offshoot of Ansar al-Islam, an organisation that is to be banned under new anti-terror rules announced by Charles Clarke, the home secretary, last week.

Ansar al-Fath provides logistical support to foreign fighters in Iraq and uses the internet to find new recruits for Zarqawi.

Government officials say a “steady trickle” of about 70 young Muslim men have travelled to Iraq from Britain in the past two years.

They warn that some newly trained “professional jihadists” have returned here and may be planning attacks.

The American government has offered $25m for Zarqawi’s capture dead or alive — the same as the bounty for Osama Bin Laden.

Zarqawi was implicated in the beheading in Iraq last September of Ken Bigley, a British contractor.


The remaining five men out of 10 detained in anti-terrorism raids in Croydon, south London, Derby and Wolverhampton last weekend were released yesterday. Another was set free straight after the raids and the other four last Wednesday. Those released by police yesterday are now being detained by the immigration service.


http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2087-1827987,00.html

[Casey]

I am putting this here as it appears this latest threat to the Phillipines is a combination of the local Communist Party rebels (New People's Army) which may or may not be acting with Jemaah Islamiah whose trail of attachment to Abu Sayyaf (among others) and al Qaeda has been noted.

Manila police raise alert for Southeast Asia games

By Manny Mogato
MANILA (Reuters) - The Philippines will put Manila's 17,000 police on full alert for Sunday's opening of the Southeast Asian Games, fearing a possible attack by Muslim or communist rebels, the capital's police chief said on Wednesday.

About 7,000 athletes and officials from the 10-member Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN) and East Timor are taking part in the biennial games, first held in 1959.

Vidal Querol, director of Manila's police force, said the heightened state of alert would begin at 6 a.m. on Thursday (2200 GMT on Wednesday).

"We were concerned over terrorist threats and from the communist party's call for heightened attacks by the rebels," he told reporters.

"We are deploying about 5,000 police officers just to secure the games' venues and their hotels. We'll make sure no untoward or embarrassing situation would spoil the games."

Querol said the police chiefs of four other regions outside the capital, where some of the games' major events are to be staged, were expected to place their units on full alert.

Communist rebels from the New People's Army on Wednesday attacked a mobile telephone relay tower in Quezon province but were repulsed by soldiers guarding the facility in Lucban town.

The attack came a day after rebels tried to destroy cellular sites in two Quezon towns, triggering clashes in which three soldiers died.

Philippine security forces are also fighting four Muslim rebel groups.

Abu Sayyaf, the smallest of the four, is suspected of having links with al Qaeda and the regional militant network Jemaah Islamiah and has been blamed for a wave of bombings in the south and Manila since 2002.

Abu Sayyaf claimed the worst terror attack in the mainly Roman Catholic country -- the bombing of a ferry near the capital in February 2004 that killed more than 100 people.

General Generoso Senga, the military's chief of staff, said some 2,200 soldiers would provide extra security to Southeast Asian Games events on two central islands and in four areas of the main island of Luzon.

"We dedicated about eight helicopters in different venues and some ships for the security and transport of officials," Senga told reporters, adding that army bomb-sniffing dogs would be made available to the police.

He said army and police intelligence units had received no specific threats against the games.

"In general, these terrorists would attempt to disrupt and do something that will catch the attention of the world," Senga said. "We'll be hosting an international event and we won't allow them to sabotage or embarrass our country."

The Philippines is hosting the regional games for the third time. Ending on Dec. 5, the 41 events include badminton, boxing, athletics, ballroom dancing, billiards, chess and traditional disciplines such as arnis, a Philippine martial art.

Copyright © 2005 Reuters

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2005/11/23/worldupdates/2005-11-23T165948Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-224778-1&sec=worldupdates

[Vancouver]

From National Post (Canada):

Bin Laden WMD chief once lived in B.C.
Judge upholds detention of Egyptian associate

Stewart Bell
National Post

Saturday, November 26, 2005
Osama bin Laden's chief weapons of mass destruction broker is a former resident of a Vancouver suburb, a Federal Court judge disclosed yesterday in ruling on a related case.

In a 105-page decision handed down in Ottawa, Judge Eleanor Dawson said Canadian intelligence investigators had determined that Mubarak Al Duri, an Iraqi, had once lived in Richmond, B.C.

The ruling does not say when Al Duri, whom the judge said was "reported to be Osama bin Laden's principal procurement agent for weapons of mass destruction," had lived in Canada.

But she said Al Duri had associated with Toronto-based terror suspect Mohamed Mahjoub after December, 1995, and may have also associated with terrorist Essam Marzouk, who lived in B.C. until 1998.

The disclosure was contained in a court decision concerning Mr. Mahjoub, a suspected high-level member of Egyptian terrorist faction Vanguards of Conquest who was arrested in Toronto in June, 2000.

Mr. Mahjoub had asked the court to order his release while he fights efforts to deport him to Egypt. But Judge Dawson wrote there was sufficient evidence that Mr. Mahjoub remains a threat.

Releasing Mr. Mahjoub could endanger public safety and national security, said the judge, who ruled that Mr. Mahjoub would stay in custody for the time being.

While the judge found Mr. Mahjoub's lengthy detention was "deeply troubling," she said that to release him would be irresponsible "because, in the context of national security, failure can carry tragic consequences."

Ottawa opposed Mr. Mahjoub's bid for freedom. "The government is pleased that the court has dismissed Mahjoub's application and upheld his detention. Our position continues to be that he is a danger to society," said Zuwena Robidas of Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Canada.

Among the evidence cited by the judge was Mr. Mahjoub's "significant contacts" with other international Islamic terrorists, including Al Duri, Ahmed Khadr, Ahmed Agiza and bin Laden himself.

She also mentioned he had been in contact with Essam Marzouk, an al-Qaeda training camp supervisor and a member of the cell that bombed two U.S. embassies in Africa in 1998. Marzouk is a former B.C. resident.

"This evidence shows that Mr. Mahjoub had access to individuals who were very highly placed and influential in the Islamic extremist movement," the judge wrote.

She said she had also relied on confidential information that "goes far beyond guilt by association." Under Canadian law, much of the intelligence evidence used to deport terrorists is heard in camera.

In the early 1990s, bin Laden hired Mr. Mahjoub to run Al Thimar Al-Mubaraka, a 400,000-hectare irrigation project that the United States contends was used to finance al-Qaeda.

Mr. Mahjoub's immediate supervisor at the time was Al Duri. Mr. Mahjoub said he only ran the farm and had no involvement in terrorism, but the judge found his account "implausible."

Five years after flying to Canada and making a refugee claim, Mr. Mahjoub was arrested for terrorism in 2000. He told Canadian authorities he had not been in contact with Al Duri since leaving Sudan, but a search of his home turned up a paper with Al Duri's home and cellphone numbers.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service says Mr. Mahjoub is wanted by Egypt for terrorism and since coming to Canada he has maintained contact with "individuals associated with the international Islamic terrorist milieu."

"The service also believes that the degree of Mahjoub's dedication to the cause, and Mahjoub's support for the Al Jihad/Vanguards of Conquest terrorist agenda, is such that he would resort to violence and would direct others to resort to violence if he was ordered to do so by leaders such as Osama bin Laden."

The judge noted that Mr. Mahjoub had repeatedly lied to investigators and to the court, that he had not renounced violence or the Islamic extremist cause, and that if freed, he could "re-associate" with extremists.

Several Canadians had offered to post a bond to secure Mr. Mahjoub's release, but the judge said she was not confident that "would be sufficient to neutralize the danger that I believe Mr. Mahjoub's release would pose."

Demonstrators in Toronto have called Mr. Mahjoub's arrest an example of Canada's "Islamophobia."

[Casey]

Bomber in shift from JI to al-Qa'ida
Sian Powell, Jakarta correspondent
January 31, 2006


FUGITIVE Bali bomber Noordin Mohammed Top has distanced himself from Jemaah Islamiah and aligned himself to Osama bin Laden's al-Qa'ida militants.

Top now claimed to run a new southeast Asian militant Islamic organisation called Tanzim Qaedat al-Jihad, national police chief General Sutanto told the Indonesian parliament last night.

The name has resonance in both Britain and Iraq - where militants in organisations with similar names have claimed responsibility for recent atrocities.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qa'ida in Iraq and one of the world's most wanted men, is head of Tanzim Qaedat al-Jihad fi Balad al-Rafidin -- which literally means the Organisation of the Base of Jihad in Iraq/Land of the Two Rivers.

The Britons who claimed responsibility via the internet for the bombings on London's Underground last July signed off as Tanzim Qaedat al-Jihad fi Eropa - or The Organisation of the Base of Jihad in Europe.

Top, with the now-slain militant Azahari bin Husin, has been blamed for a series of attacks in Indonesia, including the Australian embassy bombing in Jakarta in 2004 and the blast at Jakarta's Marriott Hotel in 2003.

The pair were also thought responsible for the Bali restaurant bomb attacks late last year, in which three suicide bombers with backpacks blew themselves up, killing 23 people, four of them Australians.

Regardless of the continuing activity, a rift in the JI network had been apparent for some time, said terror expert Sidney Jones, southeast Asia project director with the International Crisis Group.

Many in JI had become disenchanted with the network's violent ways and lack of progress, she added.

However, simply because Top had sent a message regarding his new group Tanzim Qaedat did not mean he had split entirely with JI, Ms Jones said, because he could be affiliated with both simultaneously.

Nor, she added, did the name's resemblance to the Iraqi and European groups mean that Top had closer ties with them.

"It's probably that he's deliberately aping that. I don't think it necessarily indicates there's any direct connection."

General Sutanto told parliamentarians that Top had claimed the Tanzim Qaedat al-Jihad network, or Organisation for the Basis of Jihad, encompassed Indonesia, Malaysia, Brunei and The Philippines. The police chief said the claim came in a message from Top in which he claimed responsibility for last year's Bali restaurant bombings.

Indonesian police have recently detained at least six men thought to have assisted Top in his terrorist attacks by providing shelter and transport.

One of the suspects, Subur Sugiarto, was thought to be a close associate of Top's, and videotaped the messages in which the Malaysian threatened the West with more attacks.

Top has long been regarded as expert in the recruitment of suicide bombers.

It is thought he will continue to mount attacks until he is caught or killed.

Ms Jones said Top continued to pose a menace for Westerners, regardless of his affiliations.

"I think he's still dangerous," she said.

"But it doesn't mean there's a link with al-Qa'ida.

"It's clear this guy has downloaded international websites all the time."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,17990347%255E2703,00.html

[Casey]

Changing face of global terror...
MADRID: They rose up quickly to take up Osama bin Laden's call for jihad, ruthless men in their 20s and 30s heralded as the next generation of global terror.

Two years after they were identified as Islamic terrorism's young frontline leaders, five of the dozen militants are dead, targets of a worldwide crackdown that claimed its biggest victory with the killing this week of Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, Al Qaeda's frontman in Iraq.

Manhunts in Asia, Africa and Europe have pushed most of the rest deep underground; they are believed to have found refuge in places like the wartorn chaos of Somalia or the thick jungles of the southern Philippines.

While there will always be somebody willing to take up Al Qaeda's call to arms, analysts say the newcomers have fewer connections than the men they are replacing, less training and sparser resources.
And their degree of mutual allegiances - the likelihood that they will seek to avenge or protect each other - remains uncertain as well.
"There are more people popping up than are being put away," said Magnus Ranstorp, a terrorism expert at the Swedish National Defence College in Stockholm.
"But the question is whether the new ones have the fortitude to take up the mantle and carry the struggle forward. I don't see that they have."
A 2004 analysis named the dozen as frontline leaders, their hands stained with the blood of attacks from Bali to Baghdad, Casablanca to Madrid.

Al Zarqawi, who sat atop the 2004 list as the biggest threat after Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman Al Zawahri, died on Wednesday when US forces in Iraq dropped two 500-pound bombs on his hideout northeast of Baghdad.

Tom Ridge, the former US Homeland Security chief, cautioned that governments can only reduce the risk from terrorism, not eliminate it.

"There will be a successor to Bin Laden, as there will be a successor, unfortunately, to Zarqawi," he said in a speech in Paris.

"There will be a successor to Al Qaeda."

But Ranstorp said it was far from clear if Al Zarqawi's replacement will have the contacts, resources or capacity to match the Jordanian terrorist's effectiveness at the helm of the biggest group of Iraqi insurgent forces.
"I'm not convinced that there is somebody ready to step in and fill Zarqawi's shoes," he said.
"There may be, but it will take some time."

Globally, security forces have also had considerable success. Four of the other top 12 young militants in the 2004 list have met violent ends - in shootouts in Saudi Arabia, under US bombardment in Fallujah, or in an Algerian terror sweep.

The seven who remain at large are on the run, and none have been able to match Al Zarqawi's success at launching large-scale attacks since mid-2004.

Counter-terrorism officials warn that others have since emerged as equally or more dangerous, and that the global fight against Islamic militancy is far from won. But tracking the fate of the 12 terror leaders gives an insight into the ever-changing landscape of Islamic militancy, and the short life-expectancy of those who choose to take up arms in this way.

On the roll call of dead militant leaders is Nabil Sahraoui, who took over the North African Salafist Group for Call and Combat in a 2004 coup, and quickly announced that he was merging it with Al Qaeda. Sahraoui didn't have much time to savour his power play. The militant in his 30s was gunned down by Algerian troops that same year in a massive sweep east of Algiers.

Habib Akdas, the accused ringleader of the 2003 Istanbul bombings and another figure on the list, died during the US bombardment of Fallujah in November of that year, according to the testimony of an A Qaeda suspect in US custody. Turkish security forces believe the account and say Akdas, who was also in his 30s, is dead.
Syrian-born Loa'i Mohammad Haj Bakr Al Saqa, who has emerged as an even more senior leader of the bombings, but who was not included in the 2004 list of top terror suspects, is sitting in a Turkish jail awaiting trial on terror charges.

Two other men who were on the list met their ends at the hands of security forces in Saudi Arabia.
Abdulaziz Al Moqrin, 30, who rose from high school dropout to become Al Qaeda's leader in the kingdom, was cornered and killed by security forces in Riyadh in 2004, shortly after he masterminded the kidnapping and beheading of American engineer Paul M Johnson.

In 2005, Saudi forces shot and killed Abdelkrim Mejjati, a Moroccan in his late 30s who was believed to have played a leading role in the May 2003 bombings in Casablanca that killed more than 30 people. Mejjati came from a privileged background, attending an exclusive French school in Morocco before turning to terrorism. He was sent to Saudi Arabia on orders from Bin Laden, becoming one of the kingdom's most wanted men.
For most of those that remain at large, life is anything but easy.

Amer El Azizi, a Moroccan-born Al Qaeda recruiter in Spain, has disappeared entirely, though Spanish intelligence officials who had his wife under surveillance say that in 2003 the woman fled Spain for Morocco, and later turned up in London and then Afghanistan.



http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=145980&Sn=WORL&IssueID=29083

[Casey]

I believe the statement says that the succesor to al-Zarqawi will be announced next month.

http://wincoast.com/forum/showpost.php?p=692623&postcount=103

[Casey]

Russia publishes list of terrorist organisations
19.07.2006 18:44:51


The Prime Minister of Russia Mikhail Fradkov signed a decree on publication of the single federal list of organizations recognized as terrorist structures in the country.

The Head of the Department for Fight Against Terrorism of the Federal Security Service (FSB), Major-General Yuriy Sapunov, in turn, said that the list included 17 organisations. Sapunov added that Jund Ash-Sham and Islamic Jihad – Jamaat Mojahed were the last two to join the list.

Providing the reasons for the publication of the names of organizations, he said that "organizations that are recognized as terrorist structures, not only kill and organize terrorist attacks and explosions, they launder money and move it through official financial structures."

Below is the full list of these organizations:

1. Military Majlis-ul-Shura of the United Mujahideen Forces of the Caucasus (Chechnya, Head - Shamil Basaev)
2. Congress of the Peoples of Ichkeria and Dagestan (Chechnya, Heads – Shamil Basaev, Movladi Udugov);
3. Al-Qaeda(Base, Afghanistan, Head – Osama bin Laden);
4. Asbat al-Ansar (Lebanon);
5. Al-Jihad (Holy War, Egypt);
6. Al-Gamaa Al-Islamia (Islamic Group, Egypt);
7. Al-Ikhwan Al-Muslimin (Muslim Brothers);
8. Hizb ut-Tahrir al-Islami (Islamic Liberation Party);
9. Lashkari Taiba (Pakistan);
10. Jamaat-e-Islami (Islamic Group, Pakistan);
11. Taliban movement (Afghanistan);
12. Islamic Party of Turkistan (former Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan);
13. Jamiat al-Islah al-Ijtimai (Social Reform Society, Kuwait);
14. Jamiat Ihia at-Turaz al-Islami (Islamic Heritage Revival Society, Kuwait);
15. Al-Haramein (Two Holy Places, Saudi Arabia)
16. Jund Ash-Sham (Soldiers of Damascus)
17. Islamic Jihad – Jamaat Mojahed

http://news.uzreport.com/mir.cgi?lan=e&id=15260

[Casey]

Bin Laden forges tactical alliance between al Qaeda and Hezbollah

By MARIA RESSA
ABS-CBN News and Current Affairs Chief

Intelligence reports, telephone intercepts, court documents as well as books and other open sources document a tactical alliance between the Middle East's two most dangerous terrorist groups, Hezbollah and al Qaeda, which began in the late 1990’s.


According to Rohan Gunaratna, in his book Inside Al-Qaeda:Global Network of Terror, al Qaeda forged ties with Iran and Lebanon as well as Hezbollah to carry out Osama bin Laden’s goal of uniting Shia and Sunni terrorist groups against a common enemy.
That is supported by interviews with intelligence officials conducted by ABS-CBN as well as court documents and telephone intercepts obtained by ABS-CBN.


The primary link, like in most of al Qaeda’s efforts, began on the personal front – with bin Laden, befriending and working closely with Hezbollah’s military chief, Imad Mughniyah, one of the world’s most wanted terrorists.


That relationship grew and led to training sessions conducted by Hezbollah for al Qaeda operatives.


It first became public in 2000 when a former US soldier, who pleaded guilty to conspiring with bin Laden to bomb the US embassies in Africa, alleged that Mughniyah, Hezbollah and bin Laden met in Sudan to plan the 1998 East Africa bombings.


Al Qaeda’s goal is to unite as many Muslim groups as it can into a global Islam versus West war – Samuel Huntington’s "clash of civilizations." The training camps in Afghanistan provided a good foundation for the spread of its radical ideology, military training and bomb-making skills. According to al Qaeda propaganda videotapes and literature seen by ABS-CBN, 9/11 was meant to inspire marginalized Muslims around the world to rally around that cause.


That was followed by numerous open source reporting of al Qaeda’s attempts to unite Muslims around its ideology. Pravdareported that an October 2002 meeting in Bosnia between Islamic extremist groups, including al Qaeda and Hezbollah, aimed to consolidate the fight against the United States. In 2003, The Washington Post reported that US authorities claimed a meeting took place in Lebanon in March 2002 between al Qaeda, HAMAS and Hezbollah.


The cooperation between Shia and Sunni groups did not take place just in the Middle East.


Gunaratna claims that the first signs in Asia were seen in links between "Hezbollah and al Qaeda associate groups such as the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF), which facilitated and supported Hezbollah’s operations in the Asia-Pacific in the late 1990’s." In a telephone interview with ABS-CBN, an MILF member confirmed the working relationship between Hezbollah and the MILF.


Terrorism analyst Rommel Banlaoi, who teaches at the Philippines National Defense College, concurs, saying, "Al Qaeda and Hezbollah worked together in 1999-2000. In fact, there was one Indonesian member of Hezbollah who was arrested [at the Ninoy Aquino International Airport]."


Intelligence documents obtained by ABS-CBN name the Indonesian – Pandu Yudhawinata, who trained in MILF camps and was arrested after police monitored the phone calls of an MILF leader working with Muslim charities.


Many of those charities, intelligence officials tell ABS-CBN, were penetrated and exploited by the Qaeda-Hezbollah alliance.


The MILF denies any operational ties with al Qaeda, but former MILF chief Hashim Salamat admitted in an interview with the BBC that the MILF did receive funding from bin Laden in the late 1980’s.


Another intelligence document obtained by ABS-CBN also links Hezbollah to the Abu Sayyaf, whose members were trained by Qaeda operatives beginning in the late 1980’s.
The document states, "a letter intercepted on 21 January 1995 established the connections between the Abu Sayyaf and the pro-Iranian Shia Hezbollah."
It states the leaders of the two groups trained together in Syria and confirms Hezbollah’s links to al Qaeda.


Hezbollah has repeatedly denied it has links to al Qaeda, saying this is propaganda spread by US intelligence. But the same charge is made by at least two other governments in Southeast Asia – with the links to the MILF and Abu Sayyaf documented by Philippine intelligence.

http://www.abs-cbnnews.com/storypage.aspx?StoryId=47552

[candypreet]

very good thread

[Casey]

Al Qaeda links with Kashmiri militants grow stronger
Amir Mir
Sunday, August 20, 2006 00:22 IST


LAHORE: The recent arrests of several Al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan and Britain have provided Western intelligence agencies with considerable information about the organisation’s structure and operations, negating Pakistan President General Pervez Musharraf’s claims that the Qaeda network in Pakistan has been smashed.

Pakistan continues to breed new terrorists, and there has been an infusion of young blood into the Al Qaeda.

A senior Pakistani intelligence officer said the organisation relies on a web of informal relations with several jehadi organisations in Pakistan for access to operational collaborators and individuals to execute attacks.

He said Al Qaeda, which mostly recruited Arabs to carry out terrorist operations, is now recruiting militants from local jehadi groups, including Al-Badr (backed by the Jamaat-e-Islami), Kashmiri outfits Harkat-ul Mujahideen and Jaish-e Mohammad, and the Sunni group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi. Most of these groups had, until recently, focused their energies on Kashmir.

However, it now seems that those pursuing the anti-Western cause and the Kashmir cause have developed strong links. The new groups are small, receive funding from Al Qaeda, and attack Western targets.

Al Qaeda now operates in small independent groups of 10 or less members, creating an operational command that keeps on working even if there is a bust. The officer cited the example of one such group headed by Attaur Rehman, who masterminded a series of terrorist attacks in Karachi.

Though the group received orders from senior Al Qaeda leaders, it had no direct link. Therefore, Rehman’s arrest could not help unearth other cells.

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1048257

[candypreet]

good information casey

[Petronas]

Al-Qaeda member: Hizbullah backed by evil
08.27.06, 22:22

A speech allegedly made by Sheikh Abu Abdul Rahman has surfaced on a jihadi pro al-Qaeda website in which Rahman is cited as condemning the "infidel Hizbullah" and "the most corrupted regimes of Syria and Iran." The speech was posted on the Islamist Muntada internet forum, frequently used by British Muslim al-Qaeda sympathizers, and was described as being a "summary of an address by Sheikh Abu Abdul Rahman speaking from Lebanon."

It is unclear whether the speaker identified as Rahman on the forum is a reference to al-Qaeda's second in command in Iraq, Abu Abdul Rahman al-Iraqi, and whether the senior al-Qaeda figure actually delivered the message from Lebanon. The statement does, however, represent the seething resentment of Sunni al-Qaeda, directed at what it sees as an attempted Shiite takeover of the jihad campaign in the Middle East.

In the speech, Rahman espoused anti-Semitic conspiracy theories inspired by the Russian forgery, the protocols of the elders of Zion: "We know very well from our history that the Jews target to occupy Lebanon, Syria and even the north of the Arabian peninsula even up to Iraq to the river of Furaat (Euphrates)." However, he then turns his wrath to Hizbullah, Iran, and Syria, calling them "infidel entities," and arguing that they are preventing Sunni jihadis from attacking Israel.

'Hizbullah not fighting for Allah'

"We need to know the reality, and we already know how Hizbullah do not fight for the sake of Allah. They declare themselves that they
fight for the sake of Lebanon, are backed by the most corrupted regimes – Syria and Iran – and backed by the most evil people," Abdul Rahman was cited as saying.

"We cannot be fools to die for nationalism and tribalism, if two entities of Kuffar (infidels) fight that does not bother us. What bothers us is if we side with any one of them," he added.

"Hizbullah has been the shield for the northern border of Israel, just like the eastern and southern shield is Jordan and the western shield is Egypt. These shields are all to prevent any Mujahideen (holy warriors) from entering Israel or to attack them," the message said.

Abdul Rahman claimed that Israel was actually focusing on "the Sunni and Palestinian Mujahideen in Lebanon rather than Hizbullah who will escape disarmament by joining the Lebanese army."

"We remember when al-Qaeda launched rockets from southern Lebanon, it was Hizbullah who rose to defend Israel and condemned it and threatened to cut the hand of those responsible if they caught them," the statement said.

Rahman also complained that Muslims were being led to disregard warfronts launched by Sunni jihadis around the world: "The mistake of many Muslims is that because of this one story, they have forgotten about Somalia while the enemy forces are preparing to enter Mogadishu, they forgot about Sudan and Darfur, they forgot about Afghanistan, China, Iraq, Kashmir."

"Lebanon is a battle between two kuffar (infidel) entities but those losing out are the innocent people caught in between who are not part of the conflict. The people should be patient, we do not fight for land or rock; we fight for the word of Allah to be the highest in that land, we fight in the Muslim lands to make the word of Allah the highest, not for the word of the kuffar regimes to be the highest. We need to believe decisively that all of Muslim land is our land: Iraq, Afghanistan, Lebanon and Palestine and all others," the message said.

"We should let Israel and Hizbullah weaken each other so that the Muslims can benefit in the long run and will use the opportunity to prepare for the future. The Muslims need to invest this war for the long war to liberate the whole of Palestine and all Muslim lands, and not to let the kuffar choose our battlefield nor let the media set our agenda," the statement concluded.

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3296432,00.html

[Casey]

February 20, 2007
HP-271

Treasury Designates Hizballah’s Construction Arm

The U.S. Department of the Treasury today designated Jihad al-Bina, a Lebanon-based construction company formed and operated by Hizballah. Jihad al-Bina receives direct funding from Iran, is run by Hizballah members, and is overseen by Hizballah's Shura Council, at the head of which sits Hizballah Secretary General Hassan Nasrallah.

"Hizballah operates Jihad al-Bina for its own construction needs as well as to attract popular support through the provision of civilian construction services," said Stuart Levey, Treasury's Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence (TFI). "We will take action against all facets of this deadly terror group."

Jihad al-Bina has used deceptive means to seek funding for projects from international development organizations. In cases when intended solicitation targets were thought to object to the group's relationship with Hizballah and the Iranian government, the organization employed deceptive practices, applying in the name of proxies not publicly linked to Hizballah. Following the summer 2006 conflict with Israel, Hizballah used Jihad al-Bina to raise funds for the terrorist organization and to bolster the group's standing by providing construction services in Southern Lebanon.

"At the same time that we are targeting Hizballah's construction company, the U.S. Government is also working to ensure that legitimate reconstruction efforts, led by the Lebanese Government, succeed," Levey continued.

In addition to the $230 million in humanitarian reconstruction and security assistance pledged by President Bush in August 2006, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced an additional $770 million in aid to Lebanon at the January 25, 2007 Lebanon Donors' Conference in Paris, France. The aim of this assistance is to help all the Lebanese people rebuild their lives and country, while strengthening Lebanon's sovereign, democratic government and helping to ensure lasting peace.

Today's action prohibits transactions between U.S persons and the designated entities and also freezes any assets those entities may have under U.S. jurisdiction.

Identifying Information

Jihad al-Bina
AKAs: Jihad al-Binaa'
Jihadu-I-Binaa
Construction for the sake of the holy struggle
Construction Jihad
Struggle for Reconstruction
Jihad Construction Institution
Jihad Construction Foundation
Jihad al Binaa Association
Holy Construction Foundation
Jihad Construction
Location: Beirut, Lebanon
Bekaa Valley, Lebanon
Southern Lebanon

Background on Hizballah
Hizballah is a Lebanon-based terrorist group, which, until September 11, 2001, was responsible for more American deaths than any other terrorist organization. Hizballah is closely allied with Iran and often acts at its behest, but it also can and does act independently. Though Hizballah does not share the Syrian regime's secular orientation, the group has been a strong ally in helping Syria advance its political objectives in the region.

Iran and Syria provide significant support to Hizballah, giving money, weapons and training to the terrorist organization. In turn, Hizballah is closely allied with and has an allegiance to these states. Iran is Hizballah's main source of weapons and uses its Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps to train Hizballah operatives in Lebanon and Iran. Iran provides hundreds of millions of dollars per year to Hizballah.

The Majlis al-Shura, or Consultative Council, is the group's highest governing body and has been led by Secretary General Hasan Nasrallah since 1992. Hizballah is known or suspected to have been involved in numerous terrorist attacks throughout the world, including the suicide truck bombings of the U.S. Embassy and U.S. Marine Corps barracks in Beirut in 1983 and the U.S. Embassy annex in Beirut in September 1984. Hizballah also perpetrated the 1985 hijacking of TWA Flight 847 en route from Athens to Rome, and has been implicated in the attacks on the Israeli Embassy in Argentina in 1992 and a Jewish cultural center in Buenos Aires in 1994. The U.S. Government has indicted a member of Hizballah for his participation in the June 1996 truck bomb attack of the U.S. Air Force dormitory at Khobar Towers in Saudi Arabia. Most recently, in July 2006 Hizballah terrorists kidnapped two Israeli soldiers, triggering a violent conflict that resulted in hundreds of civilian casualties in Lebanon and Israel.

On January 25, 1995, the Annex to the Executive Order 12947 listed Hizballah as a Specially Designated Terrorist (SDT). The Department of State designated Hizballah as a Foreign Terrorist Organization (FTO) in 1997. Additionally, on October 31, 2001, Hizballah was designated as a Specially Designated Global Terrorist under Executive Order 13224.

Please visit the following links for more information on the Treasury's efforts to stem the flow of support to Hizballah.

Treasury Targets Hizballah Fundraising Network in the Triple Frontier of Argentina, Brazil, and Paraguay (December 2006)
http://www.treasury.gov/press/releases/hp190.htm

Treasury Cuts Iran's Bank Saderat Off From U.S. Financial System (September 2006)
http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/hp87.htm

Treasury Designation Targets Hizballah's Bank (September 2006)
http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/hp83.htm

Treasury Designates Key Hizballah Fundraising Organization (August 2006)
http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/hp73.htm


http://www.treas.gov/press/releases/hp271.htm

[Casey]

Jadid al-qaeda
Bangladesh

http://wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=58606

[Casey]

Pakistan probes ‘Qaeda’ claim on blasts

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Web posted at: 5/19/2007 1:22:46
Source ::: AFP

ISLAMABAD • Pakistani investigators yesterday probed a claim by a previously unknown group calling itself Al Qaeda in Afghanistan that it carried out a suicide blast in Peshawar which killed 25 people.

http://wincoast.com/forum/showpost.php?p=1064369&postcount=279

[Casey]

Army of Islam - Jaish al-Islam
Gaza

http://wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?p=1064474#post1064474

[Casey]

Fatah al-Islam
Lebanon

http://wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=19752

At this point are denying relationship with al Qaeda.

[Petronas]

Anyone having access to the magazine "Proceedings" (articles not available online as far as I know) might want to check out the article "Terrorism in Southeast Asia" on pp. 40-43 of the April 2007 issue. It contains sections on Jemaah Islamiyah, Abu Sayyaf and the MILF.

[Casey]

Vol. 8, No. 7 20 August 2008

Al-Qaeda Affiliate - Jaish al-Islam - Receives
Formal Sanctuary in Hamas-Ruled Gaza
Lt. Col. (res.) Jonathan Dahoah Halevi

Except for Fatah, the other Palestinian terror organizations in Gaza enjoy full freedom of movement under Hamas rule. Offshoots of Al-Qaeda in Gaza include Jaish al-Islam (the Army of Islam), the Army of the Umma, and Fatah al-Islam. Following a series of violent clashes, Hamas and Jaish al-Islam established a joint committee to regulate relations between the groups and to solve disputes between them. In essence, Hamas recognized Jaish al-Islam as a legitimate armed movement inside the area under Hamas jurisdiction.


In a previous agreement between the two groups, Hamas had given Jaish al-Islam $5 million and more than a million Kalashnikov bullets in compensation for its freeing of BBC journalist Alan Johnston. Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas warned about the emerging trend, telling Al-Hayat on February 26, 2008: "I believe that Al-Qaeda is present in the Palestinian territory of Gaza. It is the Hamas movement that brought Al-Qaeda in and it abets the entry and exit [of militants]....I believe that they are allies."


French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner confirmed in July 2007 that Hamas was in contact with Al-Qaeda. However, he clarified that their connection was not the result of Western policy to isolate the Hamas regime.


Hamas has established a terror hothouse in Gaza designed to continue the jihad against apostates, pursue the struggle against Israel, secure the overthrow of the Abbas regime in the West Bank, and assist the efforts of the parent movement, the Muslim Brotherhood, in overthrowing the moderate regimes in the Middle East headed by Jordan and Egypt.


Hamas Welcomes Islamist Terror Groups in Gaza

Hamas is continuing to consolidate its rule in Gaza. More than a year after its military coup and takeover of the institutions of the Palestinian Authority, no significant signs of opposition to Hamas rule are discernible. On August 2, 2008, Hamas once again demonstrated its power when it attacked the compound of the Hilles clan in Sajaiya, toppling one of the last remaining Fatah strongholds in Gaza. Furthermore, since Israel's disengagement from Gaza in August 2005, Hamas has openly welcomed a host of Islamist terror groups, including organizations that openly identify themselves as Al-Qaeda affiliates.

Israel is monitoring developments in Gaza with concern. On July 27, 2008, Prime Minister Olmert expressed his apprehension that in Gaza "a reality is taking shape that in five years we are going to ask ourselves how we allowed this to happen?"1 Intelligence evaluations regarding the situation in Gaza are gloomy. In surveys presented to the government in July 2008, the head of the Israel Security Agency, Yuval Diskin, pointed to the strengthening and accelerated arms buildup of Hamas under the cover of the cease-fire agreement with Israel. It was reported that Hamas is equipping itself with longer range missiles that could strike Kiryat Gat and perhaps even Ashdod, is continuing to smuggle war materiel across the Egyptian border, is mining extensive areas in the Gaza Strip, is building bunkers, and is raising the level of training and preparation of Hamas forces. Diskin added that since the lull, four tons of explosive materials, fifty antitank missiles, light weaponry, and materials for manufacturing rockets (iron pipes and gunpowder) had entered Gaza.2

Islamic Terror Organizations and Al-Qaeda Affiliates in Gaza

Except for Fatah, which is considered an enemy of Hamas in the battle for governmental legitimacy in Gaza, the other Palestinian terror organizations enjoy full freedom of movement under Hamas rule. The most prominent of these groups are Islamic Jihad (directly tied to Iran), the Popular Resistance Committees (an extreme Islamic organization with leanings toward Al-Qaeda), Al-Ahraar (a terror organization established and controlled by Hamas), the Abu Ali Mustafa Brigades (of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine of George Habash), and the offshoots of Al-Qaeda in Gaza: Jaish al-Islam (the Army of Islam; an Al-Qaeda branch in Gaza), the Army of the Umma (identified with Al-Qaeda), and Fatah al-Islam (an additional branch of Al-Qaeda). Jaish al-Islam strongly identifies itself with Al-Qaeda, posting statements and videos on jihadi websites along with photos of Osama bin Laden, and adopting his agenda.3

Some sixteen terror organizations in Gaza have accepted the authority of Hamas by their agreement to the cease-fire agreement with Israel that went into effect on June 19, 2008. Some of the groups that are identified with Al-Qaeda, or that are considered its tributaries, maintain close ties with Hamas. The Popular Resistance Committees, an organization that was in contact with elements of Al-Qaeda and whose leaders even adopted the dress code of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, has become a strategic ally of Hamas. It accepts the authority of the Hamas leadership and on the operational level is a partner to many joint terror activities.4

The freedom of action enjoyed by the Popular Resistance Committees can be inferred from the open training camps for its activists, as well as the unmolested manufacture of rockets at its local workshops. A CNN television crew documented a PRC military training exercise in August 2008 and presented a first-hand account of the group's new Nasser IV rocket, which it claimed had a range of 25 km. and could reach the port city of Ashdod.5

Hamas-Jaish al-Islam Relations

Relations between Hamas and Jaish al-Islam have fluctuated in recent years. The zenith of coordination and military cooperation between the two groups found expression in a joint action carried out in June 2006 during which an IDF position in Israeli territory near the Gaza border was attacked and Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit was abducted and brought into the Strip. Jaish al-Islam also adopted Al-Qaeda's modus operandi of abducting foreigners in Gaza including two Fox News journalists, Steve Centanni and Olaf Wiig.6

Tension between the two groups grew as a result of the May 2007 kidnapping of BBC journalist Alan Johnston by Jaish al-Islam (which was later forced and bribed by Hamas to free him). At the time, Jaish al-Islam had demanded the release from a British prison of Abu Qatada, one of the spiritual heads of Al-Qaeda in Europe. The mastermind of the kidnapping had fought with Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan.7 Local power struggles also erupted between the two groups and Jaish al-Islam voiced criticism of the penetration of Shiite Iranian influence in Gaza under the protection of Hamas.

In addition, Jaish al-Islam expressed its opposition to the cease-fire with Israel, and has demanded the immediate application of Islamic Sharia religious law in Gaza. Activists of Jaish al-Islam have been involved in a series of terror attacks directed against Christian targets in Gaza and some have been arrested by Hamas. This issue somewhat soured relations between the groups, which came at a time when the Hamas government had launched a diplomatic offensive in an effort to gain international legitimacy for its rule.8

Hamas has had fluctuations in its overall relationship with Al-Qaeda, more generally. There have been European voices, like former Italian Foreign Minister Massimo D'Alema, who charged that the Western effort to isolate the Hamas regime has been responsible for driving it into the arms of Al-Qaeda. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner confirmed the existence of Hamas-Al-Qaeda contacts, but he rejected the notion that they were a product of Western pressures against the Hamas regime in Gaza.9

Hamas Reaches a Formal Agreement with Jaish al-Islam

The last round of violent confrontation between Hamas and Jaish al-Islam also took place on August 2, 2008. The battle zone was the al-Sabra neighborhood in Gaza. Hamas forces attacked the homes of Jaish al-Islam activists suspected of involvement in planting the explosive charge that lead to the death of five senior Hamas activists on the Gaza seacoast.10

Following a series of violent clashes, Hamas and Jaish al-Islam established a joint committee to regulate relations between the groups and to solve disputes and crises between them. Mumtaz Durmush, the leader of Jaish al-Islam who openly admitted ties with Al-Qaeda, participated in meetings with Hamas representatives that led to the final agreement to establish the joint committee. Abu Hassan al-Maqdisi, a senior member of Jaish al-Islam, divulged to a German news agency that, as a result of the talks with Hamas, agreement had been reached on all outstanding issues between the two groups.11 In essence, Hamas recognized Jaish al-Islam as a legitimate armed movement inside the area under Hamas jurisdiction.

In a previous agreement between the two groups, Hamas had given Jaish al-Islam $5 million and more than a million Kalashnikov bullets in compensation for its freeing of BBC journalist Alan Johnston. Jaish al-Islam also received formal recognition from Hamas as a legitimate jihadi organization, and it was agreed that joint actions carried out in the past would not be revealed.12

In the meantime, Palestinian Authority leader Mahmoud Abbas (Abu Mazen) warned about the emerging trend, telling Al-Hayat on February 26, 2008: "I believe that Al-Qaeda is present in the Palestinian territory of Gaza. It is the Hamas movement that brought Al-Qaeda in an