al-Qaeda News [Archive] - It's Happening Forums

Casey

02-24-2005, 11:39 AM

The remaking of al-Qaeda
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - More than four years since the launch of the campaign to catch Osama bin Laden "dead of alive", the US has initiated a new phase in the "war on terror" to counter perceived threats from al-Qaeda generated by a new breed of operatives spawned in the post-September 11 era. Unlike the pre-September 11 al-Qaeda, the structure, central command, depth and whereabouts of the latest incarnation remain largely a mystery.

An Asia Times Online investigation based on interviews with well-placed sources in Pakistan who have been in coordination with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) at a very senior level attempts to shed some light on today's threat from al-Qaeda.

What is known is that the al-Qaeda network has been battered over the past few years, with curbs on its ability to access money and coordinate. Out of this, though, new groups have sprung up worldwide, strongly politically motivated, patient and with the broader perspective of toppling pro-US governments. This development has not gone unnoticed in Langley, Virginia - CIA headquarters - which has advised Washington to develop a counter-strategy to be on a "war footing" all over the world in the shape of alliances with Europe and a powerful North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) presence in South and Central Asia and the Middle East.

Almost as a publicity stunt to announce its newfound determination, the United States has launched a massive US$57 million campaign in Pakistan's press and electronic media (and in other countries), drawing attention to the world's most wanted man and reaffirming the $25 million bounty on bin Laden's head.

Though there have been claims in the media of a good response to the advertisements, the media blitz is just the first salvo in a broader battle.

The US campaign to catch bin Laden began in earnest in the last months of 1999, when the administration of president Bill Clinton started serious dialogue with Pakistan, offering an aid package in return for Islamabad allowing US forces to use its land and air space. Bin Laden was then in Afghanistan as a "guest" of the Taliban, operating jihadi training camps, and had been linked to the 1998 bombings at US embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, in which more than 200 people died.

However, General Pervez Musharraf took over as president in a bloodless coup on October 12, 1999, which interrupted the dialogue. But the US revived a deal with Pakistan in November 2000 in which Saudi Arabia was also involved (see Osama bin Laden: The thorn in Pakistan's flesh (http://www.atimes.com/ind-pak/CH22Df02.html), August 22, 2001) to bring bin Laden to trial in Saudi Arabia. But before this initiative could bear fruit, the attacks of September 11, 2001, took place.

The US has subsequently spent untold millions of dollars trying to catch bin Laden. Indeed, his trail has gone completely cold since last September when a tip placed him in the Bush Mountains in Shawal, North Waziristan, in Pakistan's tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan. But he could not be found, despite a comprehensive search operation. Now all operations in Waziristan to root out him and his supporters have been suspended and it is strongly believed he is no longer in Pakistan. And he left no clues as to his next destination.

The new campaign
Well-placed people Asia Times Online spoke to maintain that the new phase of the "war on terror" has started across the world, but unlike the present campaign in Pakistan, the aim is not to trace bin Laden, but rather his "links".

After interrogations of several people arrested in the past few months in Balochistan - prominent among them being Sharifal Misri, an Egyptian said to be an important link to bin Laden - it has emerged that thousands of youths in many countries have taken inspiration from bin Laden's calls for jihad against the US. However, that was not the end of the matter. Many of these youths have managed to organize themselves into independent anti-US groups, and through interaction in various places in Europe and the Middle East with like-minded people have ultimately made contact with al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda itself has stopped all operations pending a new phase. In the meantime it is focusing on developing these new links - the very links that the US is now after.

"Most of al-Qaeda's cells have either been caught or exposed, and they just cannot operate. The present threat is the fast-growing network inspired by Osama bin Laden. This new network is loosely connected [to al-Qaeda] among the top brass, but for sure is associated with it, and the US and Pakistan are both looking forward to catching this new network and their links to reach bin Laden. The network is not in Pakistan and Afghanistan alone, but all across the world," explained a well-placed contact who has 35 years of experience in the counter-intelligence and internal-security business. He spoke to Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity.

"There is no indication that they are from a specific community or ethnic group. They can be anyone, even blonds from the West. They are predominantly Western-educated, and not so much from Islamic seminaries," he added.

A case study
A case in point is that of a US citizen by the name of Ahmed Abu Ali, 23. He was indicted in the US Federal Court near Washington on Tuesday after being held in Saudi Arabia since June 2003. He faces six charges, including plotting to assassinate President George W Bush and supporting al-Qaeda's terrorist network.

This assassination charge might appear somewhat far-fetched, but investigations into his life substantiate a strong inspiration from al-Qaeda and its program, which he aimed to follow. Abu Ali, who grew up in the Washington suburb of Falls Church, did not enter a plea during his initial appearance, but said through his lawyer that he had been tortured while in Saudi custody.

His family and friends describe him as a mild-mannered boy active in northern Virginia's Muslim community, but the 16-page indictment accuses Abu Ali of conspiring to kill Bush either by getting "close enough to the president to shoot him on the street" or by "detonating a car bomb". Abu Ali "obtained a religious blessing ... to assassinate Mr Bush", the charges read. It is also alleged that Abu Ali wanted to "become a planner of terrorist operations like Mohammed Atta and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, well-known al-Qaeda terrorists associated with the attacks on September 11, 2001".

The indictment, however, insists that Abu Ali made contact with al-Qaeda members between September 2002 and June 2003 and received training in the use of weapons, including hand grenades and other explosives, as well as in document forgery. The indictment said he discussed an assassination attempt with at least two other conspirators, one of whom gave him the religious blessing. He also allegedly tried to make his way to Afghanistan to fight against Americans, but could not get there because he was denied the visa he needed to cross through Iran, the indictment said.

The indictment refers to 11 co-conspirators who were in Saudi Arabia with Abu Ali, but neither their names nor their nationalities were disclosed. The document says at least two of the 11 were on a public Saudi government list of 19 people suspected of plotting terrorist attacks in the kingdom. The list came out days before a series of bombings in May 2003 in Riyadh killed 34 people, including nine Americans. Abu Ali was arrested by Saudi authorities on June 9, 2003, on suspicion of involvement in the bombings. He had been studying at the University of Medina.

A Federal Bureau of Investigation search of his home in Falls Church shortly after his June 2003 arrest turned up Arabic audio tapes promoting violent jihad and the killing of Jews; an undated, two-page document praising Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and the September 11 attacks; a book written by al-Qaeda chieftain Ayman al-Zawahiri that characterizes democracy as a new religion that must be destroyed by war; and a copy of Handguns magazine with a subscription label bearing the name Ahmed Ali.

Without pre-judging Abu Ali, US intelligence believes that he is a typical model of the new al-Qaeda-inspired generation and "links" in days when the traditional al-Qaeda has been curtailed.

New plans
Piecing together information obtained by Asia Times Online, there does not appear to be an al-Qaeda threat in the near future on the scale of the US embassies in Africa or small-scale bomb attacks. Instead, the focus will be pressure to topple pro-US governments in Muslim states and to kickstart the faltering resistance in Afghanistan. The aspiration is to once again make the country a hub for global mujahideen, as it was in the anti-Soviet years of the 1980s.

The US response can be expected to manifest itself in a stronger alliance with Europe, which will include intelligence sharing. Construction work has already begun on a new NATO base in Herat in west Afghanistan, and US officials have confirmed that they would like more military bases in the country, in addition to the use of bases in Pakistan. NATO bases in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East are also in the cards.

"Three years of active participation in the war on terror have got me to the realization that we only searched out and cut branches, only for them to be replaced with new ones, and this goes on and on. Now we enter a phase when we are standing in the complete dark with no mark of the enemy, yet he is around and is ready to strike at his time of choice, when, where and how nobody knows," said a senior field official involved in intelligence analysis. "After having a theoretical education in counter-intelligence at Langley and in London, and having done several joint ventures with Western agencies, the present threat has only one answer. And that is justice in the Middle East."

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GB25Df04.html

Casey

02-24-2005, 04:05 PM

Al-Qaeda bomb, CD factories smashed: Prez

Agence France-Presse
Islamabad, February 24, 2005|16:52 IST

Pakistani forces have destroyed a network of Al-Qaeda factories churning out powerful bombs and propaganda compact discs and videos, key US ally President Musharraf said on Thursday.
Without giving details, Musharraf said militants had been forced to run for the hills after a series of military operations in lawless areas bordering Afghanistan, and crackdowns in major cities.

"Everything was in place, even where they were manufacturing explosives -- IEDs (improvised explosives devices) were being manufactured," General Musharraf told reporters during a rare question and answer session.

"Their command structure was there, major communications structure, their psychological warfare, their computers, their CDs being produced to create psychological effects, their logistics bases," he added.

"All that has been taken over. Now they are on the run in the mountains and we dominate the valleys."

But Musharraf gave no details on when the operations were carried out, exactly where, and what quantities of materials were seized.

Pakistan has stood side-by-side with the United States since the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States which killed almost 3,000 people and for which Al-Qaeda claimed responsibility.

Musharraf said security forces had captured about 700 Al-Qaeda suspects since late 2001 when Pakistan started its crackdown. Most are thought to have been handed over to the United States.

"Their back has been broken, they are on the run," Musharraf said. He did not say where he thought Al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden might be hiding.

US officials believe bin Laden and other key militants have been sheltering somewhere along the mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001.

The US embassy in Pakistan has recently placed television, radio and newspaper ads offering up to 25 million dollars for information on bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri and other henchmen.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/7598_1255671,000500020000.htm

Casey

02-27-2005, 10:43 PM

PBS Frontline

al Qaeda's New Front
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/

Watch online
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/view/

Windows Media Player
Real Player

Introduction

In the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, the locus of the investigation quickly shifted to Europe and the network of radical Islamic jihadis who are part of "Eurabia," the continent's expanding Muslim communities. Since 9/11 America has been spared what authorities feared and expected: a second wave of attacks. Instead Europe, once a logistical base for Islamic radicals and a safe haven, has itself become the target.

On March 11, 2004, the Islamic jihadis made it clear once and for all that there was a new front in their war. Madrid's morning commuter trains were ravaged by simultaneous explosions. Nearly 200 people were killed and thousands injured. Only a faulty detonating device saved thousands more from death in the packed central train station. Since 9/11, European law enforcement and intelligence agencies have foiled dozens of Islamist terrorist plots. In "Al Qaeda's New Front," FRONTLINE, The New York Times and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation's documentary program the fifth estate join forces to investigate the realities of "Eurabia," and the peculiar problems faced by Western governments in confronting this gathering threat.

The key reality faced on the other side of the Atlantic is the 18 million Muslims whose ranks are expected to swell to 20 percent of Europe's population in the next 15 years. This community of immigrants who share religious and ethnic bonds has largely failed to integrate into European societies. Many are poor and subject to bigotry; they have lived in Europe for years and many were born there, yet often feel that they are not full members of society. This sense of alienation is deepened by the ubiquity of television with its non-stop images of their suffering brethren in Palestine, Iraq, and Chechnya. Inspired by local radical imams and jihadist Web sites, disenfranchised European Muslims are taking up the cause of jihad.

With full-scale war between the U.S. military and Islamic insurgents in Iraq -- which is just a two-and-a-half day drive from Berlin -- the reality of a war between Islam and the West is a domestic problem for Europe. The dream of the European Union, the end of all borders, has had unintended consequences. It means that a terrorist can travel freely once he has gained entry, leaving law enforcement with the nearly impossible task of tracking clandestine warriors as they slip in and out of countries with literally no restrictions.

That ease of movement presents America with an ongoing threat: a visa waiver program that makes travel by any citizen or permanent resident of Europe into the United States virtually unrestricted.

Since 9/11, intelligence sharing between the United States and most of Europe's governments has reached unimagined levels. But within the European Union itself difficulties persist as each country continues to have its unique laws and civil rights protections.

While Europe girds itself for more attacks, all of the top counter-terrorism officials interviewed for this report warn that the threat is only growing -- in part, they lament, because America's strategy of going to war in Iraq has created a new intense threat from combat-hardened veterans of that insurgency and a large immigrant population with growing sympathy for their cause.

From Bali in the Pacific to Beslan in remote Russia, the images deliver a stark message: nobody is safe in a war without borders -- a war now threatening to boil over in the heart of Europe.
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/front/etc/synopsis.html

Casey

02-28-2005, 06:24 PM

Pak's defence Secretary warns of 'Al-Qaeda reorganizing':

[World News]: Karachi, Feb. 26 : Pakistan's Defence Secretary Lieutenant General (Retd) Hamid Nawaz today said that different reports have
confirmed that Al-Qaeda was getting organized again and the issue is aggravating in lieu of cooling down.

While talking to reports on the eve of passing-out parade of the airport security forces here, he told that Pak-US cooperation for elimination of Al-Qaeda forces was going on. However, Osama bin Laden's whereabouts was yet unknown, The News quoted Nawaz as saying.

When asked if Al-Qaeda could manage to possibly get nuclear weapons, he said: "To avert Al-Qaeda from getting the nuclear weapons it is inevitable to keep Al-Qaeda under tight control."

Terrible situation in Iraq and Afghanistan after US carried out colossal assaults on them has set people's feelings ablaze to a
great extent.(ANI)
http://news.newkerala.com/india-news/?action=fullnews&id=78263

Pakistan says it has “broken the back of Al Qaeda”(AP)
26 February 2005

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Pakistani security agencies have “broken the back” of Al Qaeda by dismantling its network and arresting hundreds of suspects in recent years, a Cabinet minister said on Saturday.

“The remnants of Al Qaeda are on the run. Their network is no more intact. They are scattered and not in a position to even plan attacks,” Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao told reporters in this northwestern city of Pakistan, bordering Afghanistan.

Pakistan is a key ally of the United States in its war on terror and Sherpao’s comments came two days after the country’s President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Pakistani security forces have destroyed Al Qaeda-linked militants’ “sanctuaries and communication systems” along the border with Afghanistan.

However, he said Pakistan still had no clue about Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts.

On Saturday, Sherpao said Pakistan is trying to root out terrorism and due to “brilliant performance of our security agencies, the Al Qaeda leadership is no more effective.”

Sherpao said Pakistani security agencies had recently arrested more terror suspects, but gave no details.

Pakistan has arrested more than 700 Al Qaeda suspects since Sept. 11, 2001 attacks in the United States. Among them was Al Qaeda’s top leader Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, who was captured from a city near the capital, Islamabad in March 2003.

In March 2002, Abu Zubaydah, once bin Laden’s top terror coordinator, was caught in the city of Faisalabad. In July 2004, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian Al Qaeda suspect on the FBI list of most-wanted terrorists for his alleged role in the 1998 US Embassy bombings in east Africa that killed more than 200 people, was arrested from the eastern city of Gujrat.

The majority of the suspects were later handed over to the US officials.
http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2005/February/subcontinent_February915.xml&section=subcontinent

NYC

02-28-2005, 06:46 PM

Pak's defence Secretary warns of 'Al-Qaeda reorganizing':

Pakistan says it has “broken the back of Al Qaeda”(AP)
26 February 2005

Glad to see that's cleared up

Casey

02-28-2005, 06:58 PM

Glad to see that's cleared up
Yes, good thing, eh?

Trust Pakistan military and government to be split when there is action going on.

al-Canine

02-28-2005, 10:13 PM

Imprisoned terrorists still advocating terror

1993 World Trade Center bombers write letters exhorting jihad

By Lisa Myers & the NBC investigative unit
Updated: 7:52 p.m. ET Feb. 28, 2005

It was 12:18 p.m. on Feb. 26, 1993, lunchtime, when the van exploded. The massive bomb rattled the World Trade Center, leaving a giant crater in the underground garage. Six people were killed, and more than 1,000 were wounded.

At the time, it was the worst act of terrorism ever committed on American soil. Three Islamic extremists were among those convicted, each sentenced to more than 100 years in prison.

Former prosecutor Andy McCarthy convicted others involved in the attack.

"It's difficult to imagine people who are more evil or inclined to do more mass homicide," says McCarthy.

So the men were sent to America's most secure federal prisons, eventually ending up at Supermax in Colorado, supposedly unable to do further harm.

Or so we thought. Letters and articles obtained by NBC News show that while behind bars, the 1993 bombers continued their terrorist activities. They wrote letters to other suspected terrorists and brazenly praised Osama bin Laden in Arabic newspapers.

According to confidential Spanish court documents obtained by NBC, at least 14 letters went back and forth between the World Trade Center bombers and a Spanish terror cell.

In February 2003, bomber Mohammed Salameh writes: "Oh God! Make us live with happiness, make us die as martyrs, may we be united on the Day of Judgment." The recipient, Mohamed Achraf, later allegedly led a plot to blow up the National Justice Building in Madrid and is awaiting trial.

In July 2002, a letter Salameh sent from prison is published in the Al-Quds newspaper, proclaiming "Osama Bin Laden is my hero of this generation."

"He was exhorting acts of terrorism and helping recruit would-be terrorists for the jihad," says McCarthy, "from inside an American prison."

The letters to the bombers spoke of the need to "terminate the infidels" and said, "The Muslims don't have any option other than jihad."

Among those corresponding is a man charged with recruiting suicide operatives in Spain. Spanish officials accuse him of using letters to and from the U.S. bombers as a recruiting tool.

All this while the Bureau of Prisons reassured the public that terrorists were under control.

"We have been managing inmates with ties to terrorism for over a decade by confining them in secure conditions and monitoring their communications closely," said Harley Lappin, the Bureau of Prisons director, in October 2003.

Today, federal prison officials refuse to comment directly on what other law enforcement officials call a horrible lapse, saying only that inmates' letters are "monitored" and "inspected."

So how did this happen? Federal officials tell NBC that the Justice Department failed to restrict communications to and from the three bombers because key officials didn't consider them all that dangerous.

Michael Macko lost his father, Bill, in the trade center bombing and attended the 12th anniversary memorial on Feb. 26.

"If they are encouraging acts of terrorism internationally, how do we know they're not encouraging acts of terrorism right here on U.S. soil?" asks Macko.

That's just one of the many questions now being scrutinized by the Justice Department.

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7046691/

Casey

03-01-2005, 02:07 PM

Al-Qaeda Made Biological Weapons in Georgia — French Minister
Created: 01.03.2005 17:34 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 17:34 MSK, 3 hours 15 minutes ago

Terrorists from al-Qaeda have been making chemical and biological weapons in Georgia’s Pankisi Gorge, French Interior Minister Dominique de Villepin said on Tuesday.

Speaking at a world conference on bio-terrorism in Lyons that was organized by Interpol, he said that “several al-Qaeda cells have been trained in Afghanistan where they have learned to use biological agents including anthrax, ricin and botulism toxins. Later, after the fall of the Taliban regime, those groups continued their experiments in the Pankisi Gorge, on the territory of Georgia, bordering Chechnya,” Interfax news agency reported.

The minister added that al-Qaeda terrorists “were able to use the religious aspect of the war” in Chechnya.

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/03/01/villepin.shtml

Casey

03-01-2005, 04:04 PM

al-Qaeda News Archive
http://www.afghanistanwar.com/showthread.php?t=5008

Casey

03-02-2005, 04:18 PM

al Qaeda in Lebanon
http://www.afghanistanwar.com/showthread.php?p=2024074#post2024074

Casey

03-12-2005, 02:05 PM

Al Qaeda Slams 'Infidel' Conference in Spain
Sat Mar 12, 2005 4:47 AM ET

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda Organization in Iraq has slammed as a gathering of infidels an international conference to mark the first anniversary of the Madrid train bombings, and said Islam will prevail.

United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan told the three-day conference in the Spanish capital Thursday the world must quickly take concerted action against terrorism and deny extremists the chance to carry out a nuclear attack.

"How many times do the infidels meet in solidarity against Islam and jihad (holy struggle) ... and stand in the same trench with one thing on their minds; to fight Muslims and abuse them," the group said in a statement posted on a Web site used by Islamists Saturday.

The group is behind some of the deadliest attacks in Iraq, including suicide bombings and the kidnapping and beheading of foreign hostages.

Around 20 heads of government, including Spanish Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, attended the conference organized to mark the anniversary of the March 11, 2004 attacks by Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda group that killed 191 people.

Annan called on U.N. members to put aside wrangling over the definition of terrorism that has for years obstructed agreement on an anti-terrorism treaty.

U.S. Attorney General Alberto Gonzales told the conference that the fight against terrorism was being won "by nations that cherish freedom and democracy coming together to defend and project these values."

Al Qaeda's branch in Iraq said the group was obliged to "terrorize the enemies of God" in a relentless struggle and that it was certain of victory.

"No matter what you prepare, o you infidels, you will be defeated and will never be victorious because God has promised us victory," it said in the statement.

Washington says bin Laden has asked al Qaeda's leader in Iraq Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to plan attacks in the United States.

http://today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2005-03-12T094705Z_01_N12480818_RTRIDST_0_INTERNATIONAL-SECURITY-SPAIN-ALQAEDA-DC.XML

Casey

03-30-2005, 01:15 AM

LECTURE
Doran: al Qaeda stresses long term

Tom Senn
Princetonian Staff Writer

Al Qaeda is not so much focused on an immediate radical Islamic revolution in the Middle East as they are on laying the groundwork for such a revolution, Near Eastern Studies professor Michael Doran GS '97 told a packed Dodds Auditorium on Monday.

"They have a tremendous longterm view of things," Doran said. They seek to influence the state in the direction of radical Islam over time, he added.

Doran is a leading scholar on Middle East issues, including terrorism, U.S. foreign policy and the Arab-Israeli conflict. His lecture, titled "Al Qaeda's Grand Strategy (and Ours Too)," highlighted the sophistication and patience of the radical Islamic network infamous for orchestrating terrorist attacks throughout the world, most notably those on Sept. 11, 2001.

Doran also said that al Qaeda pays attention to public opinion and has spent the last 50 years analyzing politics and figuring out how radical Islamic movements have failed in the past. "It makes them much more dangerous and much more sophisticated than previous generations," Doran said. "Because of this sophistication, I don't think they're going away any time soon."

While some scholars said recently that al Qaeda is fighting an ideological battle with the West, Doran said that the organization's primary objective is not to destroy but to provoke the United States.

"Al Qaeda is carrying out a struggle for a new order in their region," Doran said. "It's about relationships between Muslims first and foremost and [the United States is] secondary. This is not simply an ideological fight."

Doran said the al Qaeda objectives include drawing Americans to be involved in the Middle East. "Bringing the war right to the heartland has a polarizing effect in Islamic society," he said.

Al Qaeda hopes that this polarization will allow them to attract a certain segment of youth to their side, primarily young, idealistic men, Doran said.

"I think they're going to lose," Doran said of al Qaeda, adding that the network's defeat will not be achieved immediately.

"Our ideology is not bad — freedom, economic development, democracy — but if you look at all the problems in the Middle East, you can see that democracy alone will not fix them," Doran said. "Even if recent positive events continue, there is still a lot of fertile soil for radical Islamic groups to operate."

"I was really interested to hear him [Doran] talk about structure," said Katrina Rogachevsky '07, who attended the lecture. "People talk about al Qaeda as if it's just chaos, but it was interesting to hear that it has an overarching purpose that is very thought-out and that it has real longterm objectives."

"He puts it clearer than anyone I've heard that it's not just them versus the West," Sarah Karam '07 said. "It is a regional struggle for power within the Middle East and Muslim world."

The lecture was organized by the Wilson School.

http://www.dailyprincetonian.com/archives/2005/03/29/news/12473.shtml

Ono

03-31-2005, 02:24 PM

Al-Qaida Web message offers missile tutorial
Terrorist tells 'brothers' how to fire the weapon

By Lisa Myers & the NBC investigative unit
Updated: 8:33 p.m. ET March 30, 2005

An Internet posting obtained by NBC News — written mostly in Arabic — details how to fire a shoulder-fired missile and how to overcome security measures.

NBC terrorism analyst Evan Kohlmann says it was posted five days ago on an Internet location used by Iraq's top terrorist, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.

"We've seen plenty of material on radical Islamic Web sites dealing with shooting down military aircraft in combat zones," says Kohlmann. "However, this is the first time I've ever seen the deliberate targeting of civilian aircraft leaving U.S. airports."

NBC News will not reveal many of the details. There's a sketch of a terrorist on a rooftop shooting a missile at a plane, and information on possible evasive tactics. Much of the information appears to have been taken from the Web site of a U.S. magazine. There are also maps showing flight paths and new security perimeters from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport.

New York officials say they take this seriously and have alerted security at the airport. The FBI is still analyzing the information, but terrorism experts tell us there's no suggestion this poses any immediate threat.

"What concerns me is the acknowledgement by Zarqawi's people that we have vulnerability in our airports, of the launching of missiles against commercial airliners," says Charles Slepian, a risk analysis expert.

Al-Qaida has tried to shoot down a plane. In 2002, terrorists fired missiles at an Israeli airliner in Kenya. And a launcher tube was found near a U.S. airbase in Saudi Arabia.

How tough would it be to pull off an attack in the United States?

"The hardest thing for al-Qaida to do in order to carry out one of these attacks is to smuggle both the shooters and smuggle the weapons into place," says James Chow, an analyst with the Rand Corp. who has authored a study on shoulder-fired missiles.

The Internet posting ends with a provocative message: "This is what I have FOR now. I hope it is useful for my dear brothers."

URL: http://msnbc.msn.com/id/7339768/

The 801

04-07-2005, 08:20 AM

Did Osama bin Laden order beheading of three Britons?
By Daniel McGrory

THE families of three Britons beheaded by Islamic terrorists are hoping that their killer will finally reveal if Osama bin Laden ordered their captives’ murder.
Authorities in Chechnya are questioning one of the kidnappers who had agreed to release the telephone engineers in exchange for a £3 million ransom. Days later in December 1998 the men were murdered and their severed heads left by the side of a road.

Darren Hickey, 26, Rudi Petschi, 42, Peter Kennedy and a New Zealand colleague, Stanley Shaw, 58, had been tortured during their 64 days in captivity.

Russian security officials say that Chechen Interior Ministry police arrested a suspect this week in connection with the murder of six Red Cross workers. The suspect, Adam Dzhabrailov, is said to have admitted his role in the slaughter of the Western engineers, who were installing a mobile phone network in Chechnya.

Officials in Moscow say that Dzhabrailov, 31, is being held at a secret location while he is questioned about the alleged role of al-Qaeda’s leader in the murders. There are claims that bin Laden paid the kidnappers more than £30 million to drive all Western workers out of Chechnya and to intensify their attacks against Russian forces.

Last night Noel Hickey, Hickey’s uncle, said: “There have been so many unanswered questions for so long. At the time the families were told a deal for their release had been agreed. Then the next thing we hear the men were executed in this horrible way. It won’t bring back Darren and the others or end their families’ suffering but I hope that at last we are told the truth — whatever it is.”

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office said last night that it was waiting to learn the outcome of the Russian investigation. “We are in close touch and will keep the families informed,” a spokesman said.

The suspected killer was captured on Monday during a security sweep. Vladimir Kravchenko, Chechnya’s acting Prosecutor-General, said: “Dzhabrailov in his confession told us in detail about the kidnapping and execution of the three Britons and one New Zealander. We will carefully check his testimony about his role in this.”

The UK-based engineers were abducted on October 3, 1998. A captive held with them said that they were given a pitcher of water and a loaf to share each week. They also had to watch videos of beheadings carried out by Islamic militants.

They were apparently beheaded in a disused factory near the capital, Grozny, and their remains driven outside the city. Their bodies were found 100 yards from where the severed heads were dumped in potato sacks.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1557836,00.html

The 801

04-19-2005, 10:52 AM

Alleged Daniel Pearl killer says met bin Laden twice: report
(AFP)

19 April 2005

ISLAMABAD - An Islamic militant sentenced to death for the murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan said in a rare interview published on Tuesday that he met Osama bin Laden twice in Afghanistan.

British-born Sheikh Omar also admitted he was “involved” in kidnapping Pearl in 2002 but said he did not take part in his brutal murder, according to the latest edition of the English-language magazine Newsline.

The magazine said it had obtained written answers from Sheikh to questions smuggled into his cell while he was at Adiala Jail in the northern town of Rawalpindi, near Islamabad. He has since been moved to another prison.

“Yes, I met him twice in Afghanistan,” Sheikh said when asked if he had met the Al-Qaeda chief, the first time the 31-year-old has admitted encountering bin Laden. He did not say when the meetings took place.

But he added that he did not agree with all bin Laden’s methods and was now committed to Mullah Mohammed Omar, the one-eyed, fugitive head of Afghanistan’s Taliban regime, as the “overall leader of all mujahideen (holy warriors)”.

Sheikh expressed no regret for his actions, saying only that he had “some causes of anxiety, such as the fact that my son is growing up without me -- he’s three years old now”.

His lawyer, Mohsin Imam, said he was not aware of the interview and could not verify its contents.

Sheikh’s appeal against his conviction for plotting the abduction and murder of Wall Street Journal correspondent Pearl in the southern city of Karachi is pending in a Pakistani court.

The High Court of Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital, is due to take up the appeal on May 13. He was convicted by an anti-terrorism court in July 2002 and sentenced to death.

Sheikh was held briefly at Adiala in connection with the probe into an abortive attempt on the life of President Pervez Musharraf in December 2003, and is now at Hyderabad jail in southern Pakistan.

Pearl, the Journal’s Bombay-based South Asia correspondent, disappeared in Karachi on January 23, 2002, while working on a story into the murky underworld of Pakistani militant groups.

One week after Sheikh’s arrest was made public, a graphic video depicting the gruesome decapitation of Pearl was delivered to the US consulate in Karachi.

Sheikh told the magazine Pearl was “an informer, an American spy.”

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2005/April/subcontinent_April589.xml&section=subcontinent

Petronas

04-24-2005, 11:04 AM

al-Qaeda Messaging/Attacks Timeline - v2.0

IntelCenter has released the "al-Qaeda Messaging/Attacks Timeline v2.0". The timeline covers statements and other significant public and semi-public communications by al-Qaeda and its affiliates. The timeline also covers significant attacks by al-Qaeda and its affiliates. This version covers the period from January 2003 to 22 April 2005. ... To download the public PDF version of the report, please click here.

http://www.intelcenter.com/

Summarizes time intervals between Al Qaeda public messages (including author, type of message and content) and attacks, as well as locations of attacks. Note the recent decrease in the level of overt Al Qaeda activity shown by this summary: 6 1/2 pages for 2003, 5 pages for 2004, only 1/2 page for the first third of the current year.

Casey

04-27-2005, 09:57 AM

Saudi Al Qaeda branch makes Internet comeback
(AFP)

27 April 2005

DUBAI - Al Qaeda’s Saudi branch posted its Sawt Al-Jihad online magazine Wednesday after a hiatus of several months, dedicating it to clashes earlier this month between militants and security men in the kingdom.

The 29th edition of the magazine, which runs to more than 40 pages, includes an editorial by Saud al-Otaibi, written before he was killed in the April 3-5 clashes and who is described by the authorities as Al Qaeda’s chief in Saudi Arabia.

In the article, Otaibi denied Saudi authorities had “eliminated jihad (holy war)” in the kingdom and urged “those who could not join the mujahedeen (warriors) in the Arabian peninsula” to make their way “to Iraq or another front for jihad”.

They should “target Americans and kill the enemies of God among the crusaders and apostates in the peninsula of the Arabs or elsewhere”.

Fifteen suspected Al Qaeda militants were killed in the three-day gunbattle with Saudi security forces in the Al-Qassim region, a haven for Islamist militants some 320 kilometres (200 miles) north of Riyadh.

The dead also included Abdel Karim al-Mejati, the presumed Moroccan mastermind of the Madrid train bombings in March 2004.

The gunbattle was the bloodiest in a nearly two-year-old campaign by security forces against Islamist militants behind a spate of attacks in the oil-rich Gulf kingdom.

The violence has claimed at least 221 lives, according to an official toll.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/middleeast/2005/April/middleeast_April731.xml&section=middleeast

Casey

04-29-2005, 06:03 AM

Remote targets, and near ones too

The trajectory is becoming clear: as Al-Qaeda spreads outwards, Arab regimes are increasingly likely to share the brunt of its violence, writes Diaa Rashwan* (http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/740/op44.htm#1)

Producing an accurate description of Al-Qaeda is deceptively easy. Certainly, the information is accessible; since 11 September 2001, thousands of pages of print in hundreds of periodicals have been given over to the task of analyzing the aims, composition, funding, tactics and innumerable other aspects of this organisation. The hard part is sorting out the chaff from the wheat in all this abundant material, a task made all the more difficult because of the tendency of many writers to regurgitate commonly accepted information and perceptions without questioning their sources or double- checking the facts.

At least we can take it as given that Al-Qaeda belongs to that stream of international militant Islamist movements that espouse jihad against what they perceive as the external enemies to Islam and the Muslim people. In this it differs from such domestically grown jihadist movements, as the Gama'a Islamiya and Jihad Organisation in Egypt, which targeted the regime within their own country. The focus on the "remote" as opposed to the "near" enemy, as Al-Qaeda members have put it, combines with another fundamental principle to form the effective substance of its battle cry. This principle is expressed in the exhortation to all people of the Islamic world to work together to liberate all parts of Dar Al-Islam from foreign occupation and to support any Muslim people in their wars against foreign aggressors.

These two ideas combined in practice for the first time in modern Islamic history during the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 when various regional and international powers--the US above all--sought to incite tens of thousands of Muslim youths to go that country to fight the communist invaders. Never before had the call of jihad been used so concertedly to recruit Muslims from around the Islamic world to defend a remote Muslim country against foreign aggression.

This applies even to the war against the Zionist occupation of Palestine in 1947 and 1948. In spite of the cherished place of that nation in the Muslim mind, containing as it does the holy Al-Aqsa mosque, volunteers to fight in Palestine came only from the Arab world, even if they did include political Islamists such as members of the Muslim Brotherhood. No non-Arab Islamic nation participated, even though there existed at the time influential Islamist groups in India and Pakistan, such as that led by Abul A'la Al-Mawdudi.

In other words, the ideological motivation for volunteering was political (in defense of Arab nationalism) rather than religious as has been the case since the war against the Soviet Union in Afghanistan.

Jihad can either be defensive, to protect Dar Al-Islam and the Islamic creed from foreign invasion, or offensive, to bring other areas and peoples into Dar Al-Islam. The former is a duty incumbent upon all Muslims, the latter a duty incumbent upon the "Islamic state". Clearly, defensive jihad was the rallying cry behind the volunteer drive to fight in Afghanistan and has remained the guiding philosophy of Al-Qaeda movement and its affiliates.

In 1979, the then 22-year-old Bin Laden arrived in Afghanistan to join thousands of mujahideen from around the Islamic world in the fight against the Soviet occupation. The following ten years were critically formative in the life of this exceedingly wealthy youth, for whom defensive jihad became synonymous with the entire concept of jihad and the ultimate demonstration of his faith, as he understands it. Only two years after his return to Saudi Arabia 1989, following the Soviet evacuation from Afghanistan, the second Gulf war broke out. To Bin Laden, the US had suddenly become the prime aggressor against Dar Al-Islam, a belief that has guided his actions until today.

It can thus be said that Bin Laden was politically and operatively born in the Afghan war and that the second Gulf war confirmed his vision of himself as an international Islamic freedom fighter whose sole mission was to combat those he identified as a threat to Islam and Muslim interests as he perceived them. His jihad was never directed "internally"; that is to say towards overthrowing a specific government and establishing in its place an Islamic regime.

The concept of external jihad had also come to dominate the thinking of other militant Islamists who had shared Bin Laden's Afghan experience and who sought to repeat it, this time against the new enemy, the US. Yet there is no evidence of an Al-Qaeda-like organisation coming into being during the period of Bin Laden's stay in Saudi Arabia until his expulsion, nor in Sudan until he was forced to leave that country also in 1995.

It was only following the return of the Saudi dissenter -- with the huge personal financial resources at his disposal and in the company of a collection of Islamists from around the world, most of whom were on the run from security authorities in their own countries and a few of whom were looking for a new holy war to fight -- to Afghanistan, which was now almost fully under the control of the Taliban movement, that thoughts turned to giving the dream of international jihad a concrete organisational structure headed by Bin Laden and his companions.

It was somewhere between 1996 and 1998 that Bin Laden and his entourage made their first attempt to found this organisation, drawing on their experience and the friendships and connections they had made during the Afghan war.

On 12 February 1998, the "International Islamic Front for Holy War against Jews and Crusaders" issued a declaration decreeing that "waging war against the Americans and their military and civilian allies is a religious duty incumbent upon every Muslim capable of this in any country where this is possible."

The declaration was the first official indication of the coalescence of an organisational structure that would later become known as Al-Qaeda. It was signed by Osama Bin Laden, Ayman El-Zawahri, in the name of the Egyptian Jihad Organisation, Rifai Ahmed Taha for the Egyptian Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya (which later withdrew from the front), Mir Hamza for the Ulama Society in Pakistan, leader of the Pakistan- based Ansar Movement, Fadl Al-Rahman and Abdel- Salam Mohammed, leader of the Jihad Movement in Bangladesh.

Nevertheless, it should be noted that of these Bin Laden was the only person who did not sign on behalf of an existing organisation, which suggests that Al-Qaeda had not yet been established. It is impossible to imagine that he would not affix the name of the organisation he founded to a document that declared war against the mightiest power on earth.

On 7 August 1998, Bin Laden and his cohorts mounted two massive simultaneous bombing attacks on American embassies in Kenya and Tanzania claiming hundreds of dead and wounded. That neither the organisational structure nor the name of their new organisation had yet been finalised is indicated by the fact that responsibility for these bombings was claimed by a new, previously unheard of organization, one never to be heard of again: the "Islamic Army for the Liberation of Holy Places".

The statements issued by this organisation contained several paragraphs that had appeared in the International Islamic Front declaration and suggest that it was one or more of the co- founders of that group that were behind the two bombings. Although the name "Qaeda" appeared in several American reports and press statements at that time, there exists no document, declaration or statement to indicate that the signatories of the International Islamic Front declaration were leaders or members of an organisation bearing that name.

Most likely, the appearance of that name in those American sources stems from the fact that Qaeda -- meaning "base" -- was the name assigned to an administrative and financial staging point in Afghanistan for militant Islamists recruited into the war against the Soviet occupation. The term would thus have been used to refer generally to Bin Laden and his associates who operated that staging point rather than to a paramilitary or political organisation that actually existed at the time of the American embassy bombings.

One can only suppose that around the turn of the millennium Bin Laden and his associates were still in the process of setting up their new organisation. On 30 October 2000, they launched an attack on the USSS Cole, anchored off of the Yemeni port city, Aden, causing the death and injury of dozens of American marines. Even by this time, neither Bin Laden nor any of his close partners had revealed the name of their new organisation or officially acknowledged their activities, including the bombing of the US warship.

The turning point in the concretisation of Al-Qaeda as a jihadist organisational structure seems to have occurred in the course of the following year. In a videotape broadcast on 7 October 2001, which coincided with the beginning of the American-led war against Afghanistan in pursuit of the perpetrators of the hijack bombings against New York and Washington, Bin Laden, the Kuwait dissenter Suleiman Abu Gheith and Ayman El-Zawahri announced that they were, respectively, the leader of Al-Qaeda, its spokesman and the leader of the Egyptian Jihad. By the end of the following month, statements issued by Zawahri, Bin Laden and other associates made it clear they had settled upon the name "The Jihad Qaeda", obviously signaling a merger between the Zawahri-led break-off wing from the Egyptian Jihad organisation and the groups surrounding Bin Laden, which had been referred to collectively as Al-Qaeda in previous years.

Hardly had the new Al-Qaeda organisation officially declared itself than it was subject to a severe battering in the course of the American invasion of Afghanistan, waged in the name of the US-led international war on "terrorism". Following the toppling of the Taliban regime, numerous Al-Qaeda leaders were killed, arrested or put to flight. In tandem with these developments, however, there emerged a form of bifurcation in the handling of Al-Qaeda as a concept and organisation. At one level, Al-Qaeda was the actual organisation--"Jihad Qaeda"-- the emergence of which as the apparent successor to the International Islamic Front for Holy War against Jews and Crusaders discussed above.

This Al-Qaeda is hierarchically organised with various forms and levels of ideological and operational line-of-command and coordination structures and has clear theoretical and practical perceptions of its aims and strategies. In addition, its membership is geographically identifiable; it can be said to be concentrated in an area extending from Afghanistan and Central Asia, through a part of the Indian subcontinent and down to the Arabian Peninsula and east Africa.

The US is hunting down the leaders of this organisation throughout the world, and has succeeded in apprehending a good many of them, such as Khaled Sheikh Mohammed, Ramzi Bin Al-Shiba, Abu Zubeida, Abdel Rahim Al-Nashiri, Tawfiq Bin Attash, Munir Al-Mutasaddaq and Zakariya El-Mousawi. It has also killed many others, most notably Mohammed Atef (Abu Hifs Al-Masri), military commander of the organisation.

These coups combined with the ongoing campaign against them have undoubtedly weakened the ability of the Jihad Qaeda to mount major operations outside Afghanistan, its primary base, the headquarters of its top leaders (such as Bin Laden and El-Zawahri), and the most important arena in their battle against American forces and the US's local allies.

At a second level, however, "Al-Qaeda" became that vast amorphous "network" of organisations, groups and individuals attributed to the jihadist movement in particular, and radical Islamist movements in general. Ever since the US declared its ambiguously defined "war on terrorism", Islamists of even the most moderate hue have become subject to daily threats and harassment. Not surprisingly, this approach has enraged Islamist groups around the world and provoked the more radical among them to use whatever means at their disposal to damage American interests abroad.

Although there is no concrete evidence of any connection between these groups and the Jihad Qaeda -- apart, that is, from a shared hostility to the US and an espousal of violence -- every operation they mount against US, Israeli or Western targets in general serves the Jihad Qaeda campaign against the US. This organisation, therefore, hastens to capitalise on this by issuing vaguely worded statements that give the impression that it was responsible for some of these operations, which, in turn, has led the US to expand its definition of Al- Qaeda to include individuals and groups who, in fact, have nothing to do with it.

To further confuse matters, the US occupation of Iraq has engendered an environment conducive to the spread of Islamist extremism and militant groups throughout the Arab and Islamic world, although with greater intensity in the Middle East and the Gulf region in particular. Developments inside occupied Iraq combined with the intensity of the global war against terrorism, its deliberate distortions and misinformation, reproduce the ideas and strategies that led to the creation of the Jihad Qaeda on an unprecedented scale.

As a result, the Arab and Islamic world is now teeming with what we might term Al-Qaeda clones. One might compare Al-Qaeda to a transnational company that allows others to use its "trademark" as long as those others first subscribe to its ideas and quality standards and second, affix the Al-Qaeda logo to their product. It is in this sense, if any, that Al-Qaeda "branches" have sprung up in many countries of the Arab and Islamic world, pursuing the same objectives as the "mother company" and emulating its modus operandi but without there being an actual direct organisational link with it.

The Internet has been highly instrumental in the spread of this phenomenon. Fatwas (religious rulings) and paramilitary expertise and know-how are readily available to aspiring Al- Qaeda clones via hundreds of sites. Undoubtedly, too, the high- profile operations the original Al-Qaeda has undertaken in various parts of the world against overwhelming security odds have encouraged fledgling radicals and extremist groups to similarly establish their jihadist credentials and qualify for membership in the vast amorphous Al-Qaeda "network". That Bin Laden and Zawahri are still at large and continue to make occasional videotaped proclamations has also been a source of inspiration to those groups while simultaneously contributing to the perpetuity of the Al-Qaeda organisation itself.

Add to the foregoing an international environment increasingly charged over the past two years with military conflict, political disputes and ideological clashes and the consequent augmenting sense of worldwide instability and chaos. This sense is particularly acute in the Middle East because of the Iraq situation and the ongoing plight of Palestinians and because of the many severe domestic problems that are coming to a head in the course of profound changes that are affecting political and economic ways of life and modes of cultural, religious and ethnic expression.

The growth of violence and terrorism is a manifestation--though by all means not the only one -- of this political and psychological unrest. The mounting anger and despair felt by many youths combined with the spread of extremist interpretations of Islamic scriptures have driven thousands into the embrace of militant organisations with many deployed on major suicide attacks against, primarily, American and Western targets, as we have seen recently in Riyadh, Casablanca and various parts of Iraq.

The blend of desperation and religious fanaticism was also behind the recent spate of kidnappings and brutal slaughtering of foreigners in complete defiance of the spirit of Islam and explicit strictures pertaining to the treatment of prisoners of war.

Moreover, these same feelings appear to be propelling small extremist groups further down the dark and endless tunnel of fanatical violence. We have recently begun to see an incipient resurgence in the targeting of Arab and Muslim regimes, in the course of which the perpetrators no longer discriminate between Muslim and non-Muslim victims. This trend has received encouragement by a new development in the jihadist rhetoric of Jihad Qaeda leaders, which now links the war against the external enemy (the US) with the war against the internal one (Arab regimes); or as they put it in their exhortations to their followers, the "remote enemy" and the "near enemy" must be fought at the same time.

* The writer is managing editor of the annual The State of Religion in Egypt Report , issued by Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.

http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/2005/740/op44.htm

Ono

05-03-2005, 05:53 PM

Al Qaeda eyed chemical hit on U.S. base in Spain-paper

An al Qaeda cell based in France planned a chemical attack on an U.S. naval base in Rota, Spain, newspaper ABC reported on Tuesday.

Algerian Said Arif, extradited to France from Syria last year, has admitted his cell was plotting a chemical attack on the southern Spanish base controlled by the United States since 1953, the Spanish daily reported. However, authorities did not know how they were going to carry out the attack, ABC said. No one at Spain's Interior Ministry was available to comment on the report, which did not cite sources.

The paper said Arif was considered a lieutenant of Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al Qaeda's leader in Iraq. Zarqawi himself was accused of planning a chemical attack last year in his native Jordan, which authorities thwarted. Arif was extradited to France last June from Syria, where he had fled after escaping French police raids in December 2002, the Spanish daily said. He was linked to a group of suspected Islamists arrested in Barcelona in January 2003, the paper said. The government said at the time those suspected al Qaeda members were planning a chemical attack.

http://www.eitb24.com/noticia_en.php?id=57775

The 801

05-08-2005, 10:27 AM

Yea, Yea, it's debka. But an interesting point of view. - 801

Abu Faraj al-Libbi Arrest in Pakistan Points to Young al Qaeda

From DEBKAfile Special Correspondent in Pakistan

May 7, 2005, 12:13 AM (GMT+02:00)

The high profile arrest Monday, May 3, of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, 40, the man responsible for al Qaeda’s operational planning and execution in Pakistan, was followed three days later by the capture of 18 members of his network.

He was taken after a gun battle in the Mardan Division of Pakistan's North Western Frontier Province which borders Afghanistan. DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources sayal-Libbi, a Libyan national aged 40, moved to Mardan recently from his Waziristan hideout when a Pakistani Army military operation made it unsafe. The new Mardan hideout was raided by officers of the ISI-Inter-Service Intelligence. They were acting on a tip from none other than the head of US Central Command, who paid a surprise visit to Pakistan on the morning of May 3 and conveyed the information to president Pervez Musharraf.

Several hours later, al-Libbi was bagged.

The raid, which yielded the arrest of four other foreigners whose nationalities have not been disclosed, turned into a chase when two of the suspects fled on a motorbike. One, clad in a Burqa, was later identified as al-Libbi, The chase involving three vehicles ended when security officials overpowered the man driving the bike. They also fired at the second fugitive, but he ran towards a half-built house, jumped into an adjoining house and locked himself in a room.

When efforts to break open the door failed, police lobbed a teargas canister inside the room through smashed windowpanes. "From the smoke-filled room emerged a young man, hands up and head slightly bowed. He was unarmed and later identified as al Qaeda's chief operational commander in Pakistan, Abu Faraj Al Libbi," a police official said. When he was frisked, nothing but a cell phone was found on him. But before the police could talk to him, intelligence officials whisked him away, bundled him into a double-cabin pick-up with tinted panes and drove off. Some officials said that Libbi and his four comrades were immediately flown to Rawalpindi for preliminary interrogation.

Al-Qaeda's new generation

American counter-terror experts told DEBKAfile that lacking a dedicated infrastructure to recruit militants for terrorist operations in Pakistan, al Qaeda was using informal connections with local militant groups to obtain logistical support as well as operational collaborators. Before September 11, 200, the sources said, Osama bin Laden targeted the US, while his lower-profile Pakistani allies -- radical groups such as Lashkar-e-Toiba, Jaish-e-Mohammad and Harkatul Mujahideen - would concentrate on Indian-administered Kashmir.

But heavy pressure on al Qaeda from President Musharraf, who in turn is leaned on by America, has caused al Qaeda and these groups to fuse their efforts more fully. Local groups are fighting back with attempts to physically eliminate Musharraf, by sheltering fugitive al Qaeda leaders and by organizing regional attacks against American targets.

DEBKAfile’s intelligence sources also reveal that, since entering its second term, the Bush administration has quietly initiated a new phase in the war on terror, adjusted to counter perceived threats from the new and deadly al Qaeda breed spawned since 9/11. Very little is known about the new structure, its central command, and whereabouts. “No longer is the US global effort focused on the hunt to track down Osama bin Laden; instead, the search is on for his links,” say the sources.

In any event, most of the earlier al Qaeda cells have either been caught or exposed and are no longer able to operate effectively. They have been replaced with a fast-growing network which takes its inspiration from Osama bin Laden and Dr. Ayman Al-Zawahiri. Running it to ground, US and Pakistani intelligence agencies both believe, will uncover its links to the two leaders. Debriefings of the latest crop of al Qaeda detainees begin to lift the veil on the new structure’s organization and reveal it as tight and tough with very few weak points. But no clue to the top men’s whereabouts has been elicited.

The underground al Qaeda core in Pakistan provides administrative support to its local operatives besides arranging finances for operations. It employs a good number of "foot soldiers," drawn from the virtually bottomless pool of ad hoc members, which also provides manpower for the more senior levels. These operatives are connected by personal relationships to the level above them and are at its disposal. The most prominent feature of the new al Qaeda breed of terrorists is that they belong to a younger generation with strong links to the old guard – often in the form of blood or friendship ties to senior al Qaeda members.

The original al-Qaeda network was manned by zealots in their 40s or 50s, who shared the experience of fighting Soviet occupation troops in the 1980s. American intelligence sleuths believe that age and common combat experience bonded them together. The new recruits - who seem to be rising fast in the hierarchy to occupy posts left empty by leaders arrested or killed - are in their 20s or 30s.

Al-Libbi at 40 appears to have been a link between the old guard and the young generation.

Al-Qaeda's changing modus operandi

Intelligence findings have remarked changes in al-Qaeda’s pattern of operation. Small independent groups of five to ten members operate under a command that keeps on working even after a major bust. Pakistani officials cite one such group as an example of the new face of Islamic militancy in Pakistan. Its head, Attaur Rehman, a member of the middle-class and graduate of Karachi University, was arrested in June 2004 for masterminding a series of terrorist attacks in the city. Attaur was associated with Islami Jamiat Tuleba, the student wing of Jamaat-e-Islami. He later broke away from the Jamaat to form his own militant group, Jundullah (Army of God), which draws its cadres from the educated and professional classes.

Although Jundullah reportedly receives orders from senior al Qaeda leaders, it has no direct connection to al Qaeda or any other group associated with the network. That is why, police officials say, the arrest of Attaur and his accomplices could not lead them to other al Qaeda cells. They describe Jundullah as a well-entrenched al Qaeda group comprising a few dozen hardcore militants, most in their 20s and 30s. "Jundullah is one of the new and fiercest of the terrorist groups behind the recent spate of violence in Karachi. It hit the headlines after a daring attack on the motorcade of Corps Commander Karachi Lt Gen Ahsan Saleem Hyat in June 2004. Now serving as Vice Chief of Army Staff, Hyat narrowly escaped death, but 11 people, including eight soldiers were killed on the spot.

Jundullah is believed to be one of several small terrorist cells that emerged after the government's crackdown on radical Islamist elements. An estimated 20 cells, most splinters of the banned militant outfits, are active in Karachi. In recent months, this city has become the most important hotbed of terror in the country.

Many perpetrators of the recent local attacks received their training in camps in the lawless tribal region of Waziristan. They are attempting to cash in on the rising popular disaffection against the Musharraf government’s domestic and foreign policies to expand their support.

The capture of the Libyan is of prime importance to the war on terror in that it knocks out al Qaeda’s senior player in Pakistan, a country which is pivotal to the terror movement’s worldwide enterprise. His activities in recent years were confined to that country and did not extend to other parts of the world.

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1023

Petronas

05-16-2005, 01:59 AM

Evolution of Jihadi Video (EJV) v1.0

The report looks at the evolution of jihadi video from one of the first produced videos by the Chechen rebels to the now more than a dozen different jihadi groups releasing video material. It breaks out the seven types of jihadi videos and the intended audiences. The report also contains stills from numerous videos and descriptions of 18 different jihadi video releases.

http://www.intelcenter.com/

Contains link to download 36 page public PDF version of the report.

Petronas

05-31-2005, 02:09 AM

Al Qaeda bust's a blow to terror
May 26, 2005

WASHINGTON - The capture this month of one of Al Qaeda's top commanders has led to the arrests of at least 17 more suspects, including a trusted "courier" for the group's top leaders. The courier, terrorist hunters hope, may bring them one step closer to Osama Bin Laden. A notebook seized during the May 2 capture of Abu Faraj al-Libbi had coded entries, including names, and is being analyzed by a joint FBI and CIA exploitation unit in Virginia, sources said. Al-Libbi has clammed up since his arrest, but at least 17 people - including some named in the notebook - have been rolled up.

One who was grabbed is an Uzbek operative who is suspected of being assigned to carry messages between top Al Qaeda leaders, a senior Pakistani official told the Daily News. Officials have learned the Uzbek was in the U.S. prior to the Sept. 11 terror attacks to help an associate under arrest, another source said. Details of the trip were not available. A U.S. counterterrorism official confirmed that the Uzbek man "was a courier" for al-Libbi. The source also said the presence of an Uzbek in the top ranks of the terror group proved reports of a rift in Al Qaeda between Arabs and Uzbek fighters "is wrong." Uzbek and Chechen operatives of Al Qaeda have been known to marry into Pashtun tribal families in Pakistan's craggy northern frontier, ensuring their loyalty and protection. The CIA has long suspected Bin Laden was hiding there, along the border with Afghanistan.

But the Pakistani official said there are growing suspicions Bin Laden joined his son Saad in Iran long ago, since "there are no rumors he's been seen" in Pakistan's rough terrain. The official - a Pashtun from the region where Bin Laden is supposedly eluding capture - expressed surprise no one in Pakistan has ratted him out to collect the $50 million U.S. bounty. The Pashtun "are very greedy," the official said.

Ex-CIA counterterrorism chief Vince Cannistraro said it's "very plausible" that Bin Laden is holed up somewhere in Iran. "There would've at least been strong rumors and reports" of Bin Laden in Pakistan's northern frontier, he said, "and there haven't been any. They don't know where he is," Cannistraro added.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/wn_report/story/313062p-267829c.html

The 801

06-03-2005, 01:27 PM

ANALYSIS-Al Qaeda links seen in Pakistan, Afghan bloodshed
03 Jun 2005 08:08:34 GMT

Source: Reuters

By David Brunnstrom

ISLAMABAD, June 3 (Reuters) - Authorities see al Qaeda links in suicide attacks that killed 44 people in Pakistan and Afghanistan in the past week that appeared aimed at showing Osama bin Laden's network remains a potent force.

But officials and analysts say they have yet to find evidence the bombings were coordinated by a central figure, least of all by bin Laden himself.

On Wednesday, a suicide bomber detonated explosives in a mosque in the Afghan city of Kandahar as mourners gathered to pay respects to assassinated anti-Taliban cleric Abdullah Fayaz.

It was the first ever suicide attack on a mosque in Afghanistan. It came two days after a suicide attack on a minority Shi'ite Muslim mosque in Karachi in neighbouring Pakistan and five days after a similar attack on a Muslim festival in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

Pakistani editor and commentator Najam Sethi said the attacks were clearly aimed at destabilising Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, two of President George W. Bush's main allies in his global war on terrorism.

"It's a backlash against the campaign against al Qaeda and political Islam in Afghanistan and Pakistan under the aegis of the United States," he said.

"I don't think these are incidents without any relationship," he said. "But it's not that some supreme leader is coordinating all these attacks. This does not mean Osama bin Laden is orchestrating all these attacks."

The governor of Afghanistan's Kandahar province, Gul Agha Sherzai, blamed al Qaeda for the blast there and said the dead bomber appeared to be an Arab.

Pakistani intelligence officials said the attacks in Pakistan both appeared to be the work of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a militant groups with close links to al Qaeda.

The violence followed the arrest in Pakistan last month of Abu Faraj Farj al Liby, a Libyan U.S. counter-terrorism agents say became al Qaeda's third-most important figure two years ago.

STILL A THREAT

A Pakistan intelligence official said there was suspicion al Qaeda was trying to show it it was still a threat after Musharraf said recently al Qaeda's back had been broken.

"The suicide attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan could possibly be reactions to the arrest of al Liby," said one intelligence official, who declined to be identified.

But analysts said there was a lack of hard evidence to show the attacks were jointly planned.

"It's a possibility, yes; whether it's a probability, I'm not sure," said Pakistani strategic analyst Shaukat Qadir.

A spokesman for the U.S. military in Afghanistan, Colonel Jim Yonts, said the possibility of a connection was being investigated, but no link had been found.

While some senior al Qaeda leaders have been caught since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, bin Laden remains at large, perhaps, according to U.S. officials, hiding on the rugged Afghan-Pakistan border.

Analysts say a crackdown on al Qaeda in Pakistan, which has resulted in hundreds of arrests, and the U.S.-led campaign in Afghanistan had forced militants to operate in small, isolated groups. Sophisticated U.S. eavesdropping has made communication between these cells dangerous.

More bomb attacks were a reflection of the success of the U.S. and Afghan campaign against the Taliban insurgency, Afghan Interior Ministry spokesman Lutfullah Mashal said.

"The enemies of peace and stability have been defeated in the frontline of war and now they're focusing on soft targets."

Pakistani Rahimullah Yusufzai, an expert on Afghanistan, noted that anti-Taliban cleric Abdullah Fayaz was killed the same day pro-government tribal leader Faridullah Wazir was killed in Pakistan.

"It shows targetted killings are going on here and in Afghanistan and the same is happening in Iraq. But it does not necessarily mean they are cooperating with each other," he said.

While militants might not be able to cooperate, they were getting inspiration from one another and adopting similar, increasingly brutal tactics, Yusufzai said.

"It's a dangerous trend." (Additional reporting by Robert Birsel in KABUL and Tahir Ikram and Zeeshan Haider in ISLAMABAD)

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/ISL90036.htm

The 801

06-03-2005, 01:33 PM

Pakistan ISI officials know where’s Bin Laden
6/2/2005 7:30:00 PM GMT

"He's hiding in Pakistan in the northern tribal areas above Peshawar", Schoren claims

The Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf may not be knowing where would al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden be hiding within Pakistan's territorial limits, but ISI officials are aware about his whereabouts, according to CIA officer Gary Schroen, who spearheaded U.S.' search for Osama in Afghanistan.

Pakistan's tribal regions would explode upon news of the death or capture of Bin Laden, which makes President Musharraf afraid of the internal political consequences of finding Al Qaeda chief that he doesn't even want to know where is he, Schroen said.

"I think the philosophy of the Taliban, this fundamentalist view, is popular there. So Bin Laden, I think, strikes them as heroic. He fought a jihad against the Russians, and he's bloodied America's nose time and again," the CIA veteran said, adding that regardless of how much reward money America offers, "Bin Laden would not be captured and handed in".

Schroen claims that Musharraf wasn’t helping the U.S. forces to seriously crackdown on the Bin Laden. "He's hiding in Pakistan in the northern tribal areas above Peshawar - an area that is rugged, hilly, heavily forested. The U.S. government and the U.S. military are not authorized by the Musharraf government to enter there unilaterally. As long as he stays in place, it is going to be almost impossible to find him," Schroen was quoted by The Daily Times as saying.

Schroen said earlier that he had developed two plans to capture or kill Osama (in 1998 and then a year later), but both were turned down by the CIA.

He said "I can only speculate, but it is based on almost 20 years of dealing with the Pakistani military and ISI officers. I think at some level, probably the colonel level, there are officers probably in ISI who know where Bin Laden is, "A man of that caliber (Bin Laden) could not be hidden out for that many years without word getting out in the community. So, I think some people probably know within ISI and the military." according to the paper.

Yesterday President Pervez Musharraf said that Pakistan is handing over Abu Faraj al-Libbi, the recently captured Al Qaeda suspect to the U.S.

Al Libbi, a Libyan, didn’t provide the Pakistani authorities with any useful information about Osama bin Laden, President Musharraf said.

In Washington, a U.S. State Department spokesman said that the U.S. government is talking to Pakistan about Libbi, but it has not discussed anything about his extradition.

Libbi, was caught in Karachi on 2 May after a gunfight.

He is accused to have attempted to assassinate President Musharraf twice.

Libbi, described as No 3 man in al-Qaeda's network, did not reveal anything that indicated he had contact with Laden, President Musharraf said.

http://www.aljazeera.com/cgi-bin/news_service/middle_east_full_story.asp?service_id=8671

Let's face it, this is old news to the regulars here at Itshappening. - The oldtimer 801

1001

06-03-2005, 04:24 PM

Greetings to the Old-Timer :add09: The 801

from 1001

(know you from chat)

The 801

06-06-2005, 08:35 AM

First, greetings 1001, glad to see you again. Same shit, different year, here. But the fight goes on, exposing our insidious enemy.

Here is an interesting one....
( this piece also appears as the 'dropping the dead donkey" piece on Debka this week....but this is from a different source)

TERRORISM: ALGERIAN SALAFITE WEBMASTER ARRESTED IN SYRIA SAYS EXPERT

London, 25 May (AKI) - An Algerian extremist believed to manage the al-Qaeda-aligned Salafist Group for Preaching and Combat (GSPC)'s website has been arrested in the Syrian capital Damascus, an expert on Islamic extremism said on Wednesday. Hani al-Sebai, director of the London-based al-Maqrizi Institute for Historical Studies, announced Sakir Adil's arrest in a message posted to centre's website. According to al-Sebai, Adil was seized from a Damascus internet cafe and bundled onto a flight for Algeria. As well as being the alleged webmaster for the GSPC - one of Algeria's main Islamic terrorist groups - Adil is also accused of being a GSPC 'correspondent' for websites belonging to the Kurdish Islamist militant group Ansar al-Sunna and other terror groups.

Adil, originally from the eastern province of Skikda, has already been imprisoned in Algeria three times since he was 17, accused of having supported various jihadist groups. He left Algeria in 2003 and moved to Syria, where he was living until his arrest.

Last week, the GSPC claimed responsibility for bomb attacks in two different locations in which 12 Algerian soldiers died and seven were injured. One of these two attacks took place in Skikda, when militants detonated a home-made bomb as a military patrol was passing, injuring 7 soliders, the leading Arabic-language newspaper El Khabar reported.

El Khabar quoted security experts as saying the GSPC has intensified its attacks to sabotage a general amnesty expected to be offered to rebels and members of the armed forces this year. Despite the recent flare-up, extremist violence has tailed off sharply in the past few years, bringing back much needed investment to the country.

The GSPC denied responsibility for an infamous roadblock massacre of 14 people south of the capital on 13 April. The group, along with the other principal militant group, the Armed Islamic Group (GIA), is the main police suspect for the killings. In recent weeks, government forces have launched a major manhunt in Islamic strongholds in eastern and western Algeria.

Militants - including the GSPC and the GIA - took up arms in 1992 and waged a campaign of violence after the government annulled elections that a hardline Islamist party was poised to win. The 13-year-long conflict has cost up to 200,000 lives and an estimated 30 billion dollars in damages.

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=8.0.170968434&par=0

Casey

06-07-2005, 11:48 AM

Hot on the trail of al-Qaeda
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - The high-profile arrests of al-Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, the most recent being Abu Faraj al-Libbi, have led to intense speculation that the really big names could be next: Tahir Yuldash of the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, Ayman al-Zawahiri, and the biggest catch of them all, Osama bin Laden.

But Asia Times Online investigations reveal that these top figures in the international struggle against the US are not together in one place, and remain a step ahead of their pursuers.

Pakistani intelligence agencies indicate that Shabkadar (a town near Peshawar in Pakistan's North West Frontier province), and Bajur and Mohmand agencies (two federally administered tribal areas) have been under close surveillance for more than a month as strong information emerged about bin Laden being in the vicinity, or in adjoining areas - Nanghar and Nooristan - across the border in Afghanistan.

http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/images/pak-afghan-border-3.gif

In Shabkadar and Bajur especially, the Pakistani military increased its presence and conducted exhaustive search operations. These activities did not meet with any resistance as the local tribals, though sympathetic to Arab fighters, would not put themselves in a conflict situation with the Pakistani army. (This in stark contrast with the South and North Waziristan tribal areas, where similar military intervention has met with fierce and bloody resistance.) Al-Qaeda sympathizers, nevertheless, might have spread the word in advance of the operations.

According to analysis based on information extracted from detainees and ground checks in the Pakistani tribal areas, bin Laden was likely recently in Nooristan in Afghanistan for meetings with close aides. Nooristan is a rugged, remote mountainous region where the population is Salafi. The area was previously the stronghold of a famous commander of the anti-Soviet resistance of the 1980s, Abdul Aziz Nooristani, who later also fought in Bosnia. Veteran Afghan mujahideen leader and former Afghan premier Gulbuddin Hekmatyar also dwelled in Nooristan for some time after returning from exile in Iran in 2002.

Ever elusive
That al-Qaeda's top members remain on the loose can in some ways be attributed to the training cadres receive. They are well versed in withstanding interrogation and in engaging their interrogators by appealing to their religious sentiments - at least in the short term. This buys other members vital time to change their positions, an intelligence operator told Asia Times Online.

Meanwhile, there have been reports that Yuldash was sighted in the Afghan region of Birmal, where he is believed to have grouped dozens of guerrilla fighters of Chinese, Pakistani, Afghan, Uzbek, Chechen and Arab origin. They have been engaged in acts of sabotage in Paktika province, notably a recent attack on Argon in which two US soldiers were killed. US convoys and their military bases are constant targets.

Some of the world's most difficult terrain starts at Argon and continues to Birmal and then Shawal (part of which is in Afghanistan and part in Pakistan). It is wholly pro-Taliban. Guerrillas carry out attacks and then melt into the local population, either in Birmal or in the thick forests of North Waziristan across the border. Recent US bombing in North Waziristan followed guerrillas being chased by US gunships and fighter aircraft - some stray bombs and missiles landed in Pakistani territory.

Zawahiri, bin Laden's deputy, has also reportedly been seen in different places in the past few weeks, from Zabul (Afghanistan) to South Waziristan. Both foreign and Pakistani intelligence agencies conclude that the frequent sightings indicate that Zawahiri is acting as the main go-between among Arab, Uzbek, Chechen, Pakistani and Taliban fighters in Afghanistan.

These intelligence agencies believe that Khost, Paktika, Paktia and Zabul will emerge as the key hotbeds of the Afghan resistance. About a dozen murders in and around South Waziristan of pro-government tribal leaders indicate that the nerve center is again near South Waziristan.

http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GF07Df01.html

Casey

06-09-2005, 09:59 PM

Al-Qaeda redirects to new regions - Russian defense minister

June 09, 2005 Posted: 23:37 Moscow time (19:37 GMT)

BRUSSELS — Al-Qaeda has redirected its terrorist activities to new regions, above all, Southeast Asia, Northeast Africa, Latin America and Central Asia, Russian Defense Minister Sergei Ivanov said at a session of the Russia-NATO Council. Tensions in regional conflict zones may lead to further escalation of terrorism, he said. "One of the hardest international problems, is undoubtedly, connected with the tensions in regional conflict zones which pose the threat of Islamic radicalism and terrorism escalation," Ivanov said. According to him, Russia gives a positive assessment of the implementation of the anti-terrorism plan of actions of the Russia-NATO Council. Recent developments have confirmed that joint efforts of all the Council's structures are needed for proactive fight against terrorism, he added. RIA Novosti (http://en.rian.ru/)

Source URL: http://www.russiajournal.com/news/cnews-article.shtml?nd=48324 (http://www.russiajournal.com/news/cnews-article.shtml?nd=48324)

The 801

06-10-2005, 10:05 AM

A little old, but hey, its everybody's favorite karachi bureau chief Syed...

The remaking of al-Qaeda
written by: Syed Saleem Shahzad, 28-Feb-05

KARACHI - More than four years since the launch of the campaign to catch Osama bin Laden "dead of alive", the US has initiated a new phase in the "war on terror" to counter perceived threats from al-Qaeda generated by a new breed of operatives spawned in the post-September 11 era. Unlike the pre-September 11 al-Qaeda, the structure, central command, depth and whereabouts of the latest incarnation remain largely a mystery.

An Asia Times Online investigation based on interviews with well-placed sources in Pakistan who have been in coordination with the US Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) at a very senior level attempts to shed some light on today's threat from al-Qaeda.

What is known is that the al-Qaeda network has been battered over the past few years, with curbs on its ability to access money and coordinate. Out of this, though, new groups have sprung up worldwide, strongly politically motivated, patient and with the broader perspective of toppling pro-US governments. This development has not gone unnoticed in Langley, Virginia - CIA headquarters - which has advised Washington to develop a counter-strategy to be on a "war footing" all over the world in the shape of alliances with Europe and a powerful North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) presence in South and Central Asia and the Middle East.

Almost as a publicity stunt to announce its newfound determination, the United States has launched a massive US$57 million campaign in Pakistan's press and electronic media (and in other countries), drawing attention to the world's most wanted man and reaffirming the $25 million bounty on bin Laden's head.

Though there have been claims in the media of a good response to the advertisements, the media blitz is just the first salvo in a broader battle.

The US campaign to catch bin Laden began in earnest in the last months of 1999, when the administration of president Bill Clinton started serious dialogue with Pakistan, offering an aid package in return for Islamabad allowing US forces to use its land and air space. Bin Laden was then in Afghanistan as a "guest" of the Taliban, operating jihadi training camps, and had been linked to the 1998 bombings at US embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, and Nairobi, Kenya, in which more than 200 people died.

However, General Pervez Musharraf took over as president in a bloodless coup on October 12, 1999, which interrupted the dialogue. But the US revived a deal with Pakistan in November 2000 in which Saudi Arabia was also involved (see Osama bin Laden: The thorn in Pakistan's flesh, August 22, 2001) to bring bin Laden to trial in Saudi Arabia. But before this initiative could bear fruit, the attacks of September 11, 2001, took place.

The US has subsequently spent untold millions of dollars trying to catch bin Laden. Indeed, his trail has gone completely cold since last September when a tip placed him in the Bush Mountains in Shawal, North Waziristan, in Pakistan's tribal areas on the border with Afghanistan. But he could not be found, despite a comprehensive search operation. Now all operations in Waziristan to root out him and his supporters have been suspended and it is strongly believed he is no longer in Pakistan. And he left no clues as to his next destination.

The new campaign
Well-placed people Asia Times Online spoke to maintain that the new phase of the "war on terror" has started across the world, but unlike the present campaign in Pakistan, the aim is not to trace bin Laden, but rather his "links".

After interrogations of several people arrested in the past few months in Balochistan - prominent among them being Sharifal Misri, an Egyptian said to be an important link to bin Laden - it has emerged that thousands of youths in many countries have taken inspiration from bin Laden's calls for jihad against the US. However, that was not the end of the matter. Many of these youths have managed to organize themselves into independent anti-US groups, and through interaction in various places in Europe and the Middle East with like-minded people have ultimately made contact with al-Qaeda.

Al-Qaeda itself has stopped all operations pending a new phase. In the meantime it is focusing on developing these new links - the very links that the US is now after.

"Most of al-Qaeda's cells have either been caught or exposed, and they just cannot operate. The present threat is the fast-growing network inspired by Osama bin Laden. This new network is loosely connected [to al-Qaeda] among the top brass, but for sure is associated with it, and the US and Pakistan are both looking forward to catching this new network and their links to reach bin Laden. The network is not in Pakistan and Afghanistan alone, but all across the world," explained a well-placed contact who has 35 years of experience in the counter-intelligence and internal-security business. He spoke to Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity.

"There is no indication that they are from a specific community or ethnic group. They can be anyone, even blonds from the West. They are predominantly Western-educated, and not so much from Islamic seminaries," he added.

A case study
A case in point is that of a US citizen by the name of Ahmed Abu Ali, 23. He was indicted in the US Federal Court near Washington on Tuesday after being held in Saudi Arabia since June 2003. He faces six charges, including plotting to assassinate President George W Bush and supporting al-Qaeda's terrorist network.

This assassination charge might appear somewhat far-fetched, but investigations into his life substantiate a strong inspiration from al-Qaeda and its program, which he aimed to follow. Abu Ali, who grew up in the Washington suburb of Falls Church, did not enter a plea during his initial appearance, but said through his lawyer that he had been tortured while in Saudi custody.

His family and friends describe him as a mild-mannered boy active in northern Virginia's Muslim community, but the 16-page indictment accuses Abu Ali of conspiring to kill Bush either by getting "close enough to the president to shoot him on the street" or by "detonating a car bomb". Abu Ali "obtained a religious blessing ... to assassinate Mr Bush", the charges read. It is also alleged that Abu Ali wanted to "become a planner of terrorist operations like Mohammed Atta and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, well-known al-Qaeda terrorists associated with the attacks on September 11, 2001".

The indictment, however, insists that Abu Ali made contact with al-Qaeda members between September 2002 and June 2003 and received training in the use of weapons, including hand grenades and other explosives, as well as in document forgery. The indictment said he discussed an assassination attempt with at least two other conspirators, one of whom gave him the religious blessing. He also allegedly tried to make his way to Afghanistan to fight against Americans, but could not get there because he was denied the visa he needed to cross through Iran, the indictment said.

The indictment refers to 11 co-conspirators who were in Saudi Arabia with Abu Ali, but neither their names nor their nationalities were disclosed. The document says at least two of the 11 were on a public Saudi government list of 19 people suspected of plotting terrorist attacks in the kingdom. The list came out days before a series of bombings in May 2003 in Riyadh killed 34 people, including nine Americans. Abu Ali was arrested by Saudi authorities on June 9, 2003, on suspicion of involvement in the bombings. He had been studying at the University of Medina.

A Federal Bureau of Investigation search of his home in Falls Church shortly after his June 2003 arrest turned up Arabic audio tapes promoting violent jihad and the killing of Jews; an undated, two-page document praising Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar and the September 11 attacks; a book written by al-Qaeda chieftain Ayman al-Zawahiri that characterizes democracy as a new religion that must be destroyed by war; and a copy of Handguns magazine with a subscription label bearing the name Ahmed Ali.

Without pre-judging Abu Ali, US intelligence believes that he is a typical model of the new al-Qaeda-inspired generation and "links" in days when the traditional al-Qaeda has been curtailed.

New plans
Piecing together information obtained by Asia Times Online, there does not appear to be an al-Qaeda threat in the near future on the scale of the US embassies in Africa or small-scale bomb attacks. Instead, the focus will be pressure to topple pro-US governments in Muslim states and to kickstart the faltering resistance in Afghanistan. The aspiration is to once again make the country a hub for global mujahideen, as it was in the anti-Soviet years of the 1980s.

The US response can be expected to manifest itself in a stronger alliance with Europe, which will include intelligence sharing. Construction work has already begun on a new NATO base in Herat in west Afghanistan, and US officials have confirmed that they would like more military bases in the country, in addition to the use of bases in Pakistan. NATO bases in Iraq and other parts of the Middle East are also in the cards.

"Three years of active participation in the war on terror have got me to the realization that we only searched out and cut branches, only for them to be replaced with new ones, and this goes on and on. Now we enter a phase when we are standing in the complete dark with no mark of the enemy, yet he is around and is ready to strike at his time of choice, when, where and how nobody knows," said a senior field official involved in intelligence analysis. "After having a theoretical education in counter-intelligence at Langley and in London, and having done several joint ventures with Western agencies, the present threat has only one answer. And that is justice in the Middle East."

Syed Saleem Shahzad, Bureau Chief, Pakistan, Asia Times Online. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

http://www.worldsecuritynetwork.com/showArticle3.cfm?article_id=11029

Casey

06-15-2005, 01:16 AM

Iraq's al Qaeda warns against talks with govt-Web
14 Jun 2005 16:27:47 GMT

Source: Reuters
DUBAI, June 14 (Reuters) - Iraq's al Qaeda vowed to kill anyone negotiating with the U.S.-backed Iraqi government in a Web statement on Tuesday, a sign the group was worried about possible divisions among its Sunni Muslim allies.

The group led by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was responding to what it said were reports that tribal leaders in Iraq's third-largest city Mosul, the scene of frequent outbreaks of guerrilla violence, were seeking talks.

"Liars claim that the sheikhs of tribes in Mosul plan to hand over mujahideen (holy fighters) and assist the crusaders and apostates, and we do not know which tribes or sheikhs they speak of," the Sunni Muslim group said.

"We will impose God's punishment on anyone who stands by the crusaders or becomes their ally or supports them. The righteous swords are unsheathed and hunger for blood," it said in a statement posted on an Islamist Web site.

The Iraqi government said on Sunday some rebels had approached it looking for peace terms but gave no details of who had made contact.

Zarqawi issued a similar warning in an audio tape attributed to him in April, referring to reports that U.S. and Iraqi officials had offered to negotiate with some militants.

Zarqawi's group is the deadliest among several waging an insurgency against U.S. forces and the Iraqi government. Rebels include secular nationalists from Saddam Hussein's ousted Baath party and foreign Islamists.

The Shi'ite-led Iraqi government has often said it is willing to talk to rebels who stop fighting.

"We reiterate that there will be no dialogue with the Jews and Christians other than the sound of bullets, blood and fire," Al Qaeda Organisation for Holy War in Iraq said in a separate Web statement. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L14566938.htm

Casey

06-17-2005, 09:07 PM

Prince Nayef discloses investigations into al-Qaida burning three copters in al-Qasim
Saudi Arabia, Politics, 6/17/2005

Al-Qaida organization in the Arab peninsula claimed responsibility for what it called an operation to burning three helicopters in al-Qasim airport in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in May.

A statement by the organization said that members of what it called the group of "martyr Saeed al-Oteibi" infiltrated to the airport, situated to the north of the capital Riyadh, disguising in workers uniform, and set fire in three helicopters before they withdrew from the site safely.

The statement indicated that these planes took part in several operations to chase what al-Qaida described as al-Mujahideen and searching for them. The organization explained that it deliberately delayed the release of this statement so as people would know that the authorities hide facts.

Replying to a question by the Saudi daily al-Watan daily on a suspicion of criminal motives for burning the three planes in al-Qasim airport, the minister of the interior Nayef Bin Abdul Aziz said that investigations continues to know the implications of the incident.

Al-Qaida organization was exposed to painful security attacks by the Saudi security forces since more than two years, when several members of its leadership were killed, especially the leader of the organization in the kingdom, Abdul Aziz al-Muqarran, together with three of his partners on June 18, 2004 following the issuance of picture of the death of American engineer Paul Johnson after his kidnap.

Worthy mentioning that the attacks which mostly targeted foreigners and alleged by al-Qaida organization in Saudi Arabia since May 2003, resulted in killing more than 100 persons and injuring hundreds.

http://www.arabicnews.com/ansub/Daily/Day/050617/2005061719.html

The 801

06-20-2005, 08:55 AM

Who knows if this is real or not. for your review....

Opening New Battle Fronts
The Al-Qaida Strategy To the Year 2020

Published In Arabic By Al-Quds Al-Arabi | English Translation © 2005 Jihad Unspun

As a global war rages, al-Qaida has shed its earlier image of a disorganized group of “extremists” and is viewed more and more as a sophisticated organization with clear and concise policies, well defined strategies and carefully laid plans for their implementation.

While JUS remained skeptical of the very existence of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and of bin Laden’s last tape where he deviated from his previous positions, the Al-Qaida Strategy To The Year 2020 has surfaced that puts an end to these controversies. This strategy gives us a clear indication that the events that are transpiring today were preplanned, not a reaction to the American agenda, but by Al-Qaida strategists with the specific goal to open up a broad based Jihad front. Indeed, the tail is wagging the dog.

Al Qaeda organization has put together a strategic working plan for a broad Jihad front that spans the areas of Afghanistan, Iraq, and Iran passing through Lebanon. The time has come to discuss the ways in which the American administration and Al-Qaida oppose one another. A quick internet search reveals that Al-Qaida has a definite and well developed plan to affect events in the region that can not be ignored. The first step in its long-term strategy, which was to involve the United States in a regional conflict, was just a prelude to widening the struggle to other regions and Al-Qaida had developed strategic plans for the steps to be taken in the aftermath.

Events appear much more coherent than heretofore. Reports from the Pentagon and the US State Department have begun to suggest a long and tedious battle with the Mujahideen in Iraq, a collapse of their position in Afghanistan, and similar developments in Iran, southern Iraq and Pakistan. These views are substantiated by the total failure of the intelligence war against Al-Qaida; these efforts have failed to entrap anyone of significance in the organization, and have done nothing to disrupt the layers of communications across the seas and borders between Kabul, Tehran and Baghdad.

It appears also that the existence of a “strategic kitchen”, or planning group for the organization, touted by some experts on Al-Qaida and Jihad is true. The strategic kitchen is believed to be the ultimate source of Al-Qaida's thinking and military philosophy. Some knowledgeable sources assert that the 'kitchen' operates at higher levels than even Osama bin Laden and Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri. For reasons known only to only to themselves, the “Shadow Leaders” in the organization have successfully leaked information now circulating in certain Arab capitals as well as in the offices of American decision makers, including the existence of a plan named “The Al-Qaida Strategy Up To The Year 2020” which is being adhered to meticulously.

Al-Qaida, again for unknown reasons, recently released information concerning two important matters; the first being the strategic thinking behind the September 11th attacks and the second being the disclosure of the first step in regionalizing the conflict. According to Al-Qaida media experts, the announcement made by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi to join Al-Qaida and the subsequent acceptance by Osama bin Laden was not by accident but rather a deliberate move in this context.

Mention must be made here of the general cleverness and brilliance of the electronic war being waged by the organization that cannot go unnoticed. The impact of the timing and the substance of the information war, however complicated it may be to deliver, reaches all countries in the region, including Turkey, Iran, Syria, and Lebanon.

Some analyist have concluded that all communiqués are written, edited, reviewed and leaked by an Egyptian by the name of Muhammad Mekkawi, a former war strategies expert in the Egyptian army. Mekkawi has been credited with introducing Bin Laden and al-Zawahiri in the mid 1990’s and is shrouded in mystery. He does not appear to play a direct role in the group’s leadership and his location is unknown, leading some people to suggest that perhaps he is in fact al-Zawahiri himself, or even Bin Laden. However, some experts believe that Mekkawi is a genuine third person superior to both Dr. al-Zawahiri and Sheikh Osama bin Laden. They further believe that he is the brains behind Al-Qaida’s long term strategic plan that was put in motion September 11, 2001 and that extends to the year 2020.

Whatever the truth about the mysterious Mekkawi, the man uses the internet to freely communicate pronouncements; many of which have proved accurate. He also gives substantial and credible analyses not only of current events, but also of both short and long range developments planned for implementation in the future.

According to the Mekkawi strategy, the September 11th attacks accomplished a fifth of their secondary objectives but their direct and central goal was completely realized; that was to provoke the “The Ponderous American Elephant” into invading the Arabian Peninsula and meeting it with a preplanned war of attrition, with provisions for all foreseeable eventualities. According to the Mekkawi strategy, the timing of the September 11th attack was carefully chosen by Al-Qaida based on the following two criteria:

The recognition that during the final months of the Clinton Administration, Al-Qaida had was considered a global enemy of America and had become the focus of American hostility.

The time had come for Al-Qaida to initiate a long-term strategy of Jihad to rid the Islamic nation and Muslims of oppression of all sorts, ultimately including Israel.
In order for the objectives and timing to be realized, the American Elephant had to be subjected to a painful and humiliating blow that would provoke it to invade without hesitation. Al-Qaida foresaw that the September 11th attack would draw an immediate response of a full scale attack on Afghanistan, with a subsequent attack on Iraq that would in turn be followed by renewed hostilities with Syria, Lebanon and ultimately Iran.

Another goal in having the United States send its troops into Asia and the Arabian Peninsula was to goad a second “Giant Elephant” into wakefulness; that elephant being the Islamic Nation as a whole. According to the Mekkawi strategy, the only way to wake the Islamic Nation up was to bring large numbers of American troops to the region and the best way to achieve that was the attack of September 11th. Provoking the occupation of Iraq with all the ensuing killing and destruction was seen as the only way to escalate the conflict into a full scale confrontation between America and Arabs and Muslims.

The strategy here was that this would arouse a religious reaction and the need to avenge the slaughter but the pragmatic side of it is even more interesting. Researchers concluded from Al-Qaida messages on the web of what took place in Afghanistan was specifically planned and executed according to Al-Qaida's carefully laid plans, and not according to those of the Americans

Al-Qaida dispersed its trained army inside Afghanistan and prepared for the evacuation of its top leaders prior to the onset of the American invasion. It also moved a large number of Mujahideen outside of Afghanistan, to Iran and Iraq, to be exact.
A direct confrontation with the invading Americans would have been disastrous. Instead Al-Qaida’s strategy was to wear the Americans down, engaged them in hit and run skirmishes across Afghanistan and that draw them into a difficult and complicated war of attrition in the nearly impassible mountainous areas. This account agrees with what is known of American military reports: there was no direct confrontation between Al-Qaida and the American military; what took place were isolated actions, most notably the engagement in Tora Bora. Furthermore, all of the organization’s top leaders and military lieutenants evaded capture.

It is fair to say that Al-Qaida’s goal of sparking the Arab World into action has been accomplished. Al-Qaida has succeeded in drawing America into expanding its military presence with the alibi of the so called “war on terror”. This has hit a sensitive nerve in the Arab and Muslim World and resulted in a general detestation of America just as planned and predicted by Al-Qaida.

Objective analysis suggests that the success of Al-Qaida's activities in Afghanistan resulted from the following essential preparatory steps:

A careful analysis of current events, especially in relation to political agendas.

Continuing careful negotiations (the terms of which remain unknown) with the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Convincing Iran that in the end, the benefit would be twofold: first removing Saddam Hussein and then engaging the Americans.
From these points one can reconstruct Mekkawi’s planning, the shadow leader of Al-Qaida. Zarqawi, accompanied by limited number of military lieutenants working in parallel with an administration and recruiting group, left Afghanistan to Iraq long before the American attack and were not involved in the fighting there.

Zarqawi’s duties in Iraq were carefully circumscribed. According to viewers of the only known televised account of Zarqawi’s life, he was ambitious to the point of accusing even Bin Laden of being too moderate. The expert opinion is that Bin Laden capitalized on Zarqawi’s stance and carried out a clever psychological game with Zarqawi to meet his own objectives. Bin Laden convinced him that the decisive battle was near and would be fought as Zarqawi wished. Bin Laden also provided him with one of Al-Qaida’s top experts in the field of evasion, an Egyptian young man who was brought to Afghanistan by Dr. Ayman Zawahiri and was ordered to head for Iraq, via Iran, with some of Zwahiri’s aids, most of whom are Jordanians. Zarqawi was instructed to take his group to the Kurdish part of North Iraq to join the Egyptian and his group, keeping undercover while awaiting further instructions.

One can conclude from Mekkawi’s electronic messages that Al-Qaida knew beforehand that Iraq would be the next battle front and had indeed prepared its response ahead of time. It was on that basis that Zarqawi left Afghanistan for Iraq.

While Zarqawi and his group were hiding quietly in northern Iraq, waiting for further instructions, he dispatched some representative to Baghdad and others to Amman to recruit capable youths to join his group in Iraq.

At that point, the Jordanian government smelled a rat. Officials in Amman began to notice Zarqawi-style activities during that time period and subsequently sent an envoy to Iraq to inform Saddam Hussein that Zarqawi was in his country. A public announcement to that effect was actually made by the then Jordanian Prime Minister, Ali Abu Al-Ragheb. But at the same time, Saddam’s security apparatus was already holding meetings with Zarqawi’s representatives who offering their help in case the Americans invaded Iraq. They assured Iraqi officials that their group would not operate inside the country unless Iraq was attacked by the Americans.

According to sorces Saddam Hussein’s government feigned acceptance of Zarqawi’s offer and allowed him some freedom of action in Baghdad in return for his promise. This was a ruse; they agreed to let Zarqawi and his group operate freely in Iraq with the purpose of leading them to trust the Iraqi Security Services and relax their guard. In this way, it was supposed the Zarqawi group could be easily captured and possibly be used as bargaining chips with the Americans. This plan was recommended by the Egyptians who further suggested that Baghdad might be seen to join the supporters of the American 'war on terror' by giving Zarqawi to the Americans or killing him and destroying his group that may garner some goodwill with the Americans to avoid the planned invasion of Iraq.

George Bush gave Saddam Hussein's officers neither opportunity nor time to negotiate a deal to hand over Al-Qaida operatives and so Zarqawi escaped the danger. Mekkawi saw this escape as divine intervention; a major factor in the birth of the second stage in the strategic war against the Americans as Iraq became a second battle ground.

By the time the war on Iraq began and the subsequent fall of Baghdad, Zarqawi had put together a complete organization in Iraq and he and his experts left the dangerous zones to blend into the mass of ordinary Iraqi citizens. It was reported that Zarqawi obtained large sums of money from senior Baath members on the eve of the fall of Baghdad. With the help of a Kurd, an Egyptian, and two Jordanian aids, Zarqawi was able to create the foundation for a Jihad organization in the Land of the Two Rivers. In this, Zarqawi was driven by his ambitions; ambitions which Bin Laden knew how to direct. The central command of the Al-Qaida organization has allowed Zarqawi to become the unchallenged leader of Al-Qaida in Iraq where his trained and able fighters are now concentrated. The Zarqawi group was able to cooperate well with other resistance Baathist groups and gain the sympathy of the Iraqi public. The group was also able to get their hands on sizable amount of cash that was left behind by Saddam Hussein and his top lieutenants.

It is reasonable to say that Al-Qaida strategy has now advanced to page two of the plan. The zone of confrontation with the Americans has expanded to cover the area between Afghanistan and Iraq, taking full advantage of a 'neutral' Iran that has no present interest in opposing with Al-Qaida. As far as the movement of Al-Qaida members through its territories is concerned, Iran’s policy has been one of “We don’t see, we don’t hear, we don’t talk.”

It is clear that the second phase of Al-Qaida's Strategy To The Year 2020 is now unfolding in Iraq. The question now becomes what is the nature of the remaining pages of their strategy?

There is no easy answer to this question but the patterns and style of the mysterious Mekkawi offers some good clues. The picture that emerges from his pronouncements suggests a disciplined operation aimed at expanding operations in the area, capitalizing on the Iranian and Shia involvement, and opening a regional war with the Americans to counter their global attacks on Islam and Muslims. This regional war will create a 'Jihad Triangle of Horror' to smack the Americans right in the face. This triangle of horror starts in Afghanistan, runs through Iran and South Iraq to connect with South Turkey, South Lebanon and Syria.

How is this to happen?

It is no longer appropriate to think of Al-Qaida as an 'organization' in the usual sense of the word. Al-Qaida has evolved into an ideology that transcends geographical borders and travels through the atmosphere using satellite communications. As its planners expected, other groups have emerged in other countries to emulate their ideology and tactics, exactly as has happened in Morocco, Somalia and even Yemen.

By converting Al-Qaida to a set of guiding principles and away from atypical organizational structures that are well known to security forces and with individual units able to operate without direct instructions, the global scope of Al-Qaida's impact has been greatly facilitated. The decision to have field and local commanders operate independently has proved very important. Their autonomy in planning, choice of targets and tactics has created a very flexible system that has become highly successful in lands fertile for Jihad, such as Iraq.

According to Al-Qaida’s theoretical strategies, Iran cannot sit on the fence indefinitely with respect to Jihad against America. Iran is itself a strategic and tactical military target for the Americans, and sooner or later there must be a confrontation between the two. Al-Qaida leaders believe that the American administration has set the following five objectives as preconditions for their military confrontation against Iran (with of course the spurious Iranian nuclear threat as casus belli):

Ending the Palestinian uprising (Intifada)

Extinguishing all Iranian influence on the Mujahideen groups in Palestine. The level of Iranian influence varies from group to group. It is very strong in the Islamic Jihad Movement, much less so in Hamas, and limited to an isolated wing of the Fatah Movement. They are currently trying to put this objective into effect, but see a direct military confrontation between the Mujahideen and the Palestinian authority as a necessity for its completion.

Withdrawing Syrian troops from Lebanon and making sure the election in Iraq is successful. This objective is crucial and must precede the next objective.

Bringing Hezbollah in Lebanon under control.

Securing all of the oil fields throughout the Gulf area, and all waterways which are possible routes of invasion that must be guarded against reciprocal Iranian attacks in advance of an American military campaign against Iraq.
According to an Al-Qaida think-tank, this last objective will require enormous financial and personnel resources, in addition to the already extensive military presence that is being supported. And this, say Al-Qaida leaders, will surely send the American military budget into bankruptcy

http://www.jihadunspun.net/strategy_apr2005.htm

Ugg - 801

The 801

06-25-2005, 12:06 PM

New Information on Al-Qaeda "Cop Killers"
24/06/2005
By Sultan Al-Ubaythi

Jeddah, Asharq Al-Awsat- An official in the Saudi Interior Ministry revealed new details, on Tuesday, about the militants, kamal Foudah, and Monsur Al-Tibeythi, suspected of killing a police chief, in the city of Mecca , last Saturday. The latest information confirms Asharq Al Awsat’s own investigation into the murder of Major Mubarak al Sawat.

The source indicated that Foudah, a Saudi citizen, aged 45, had visited Afghanistan on four occasions, since 1987. He was arrested, in 1991, in the Eastern region for heading a five member gang that stole considerable sums of money, video equipment, and personal belongings from five houses in the area. Foudah justified his crime by blaming his infidel victims. He was sentenced to five years in jail.

For his part, Monsur Al-Tibeythi, aged 23 and also a Saudi national, is a university drop out who was arrested for car theft last year, the source added.

In a statement released to the media, the Ministry of Interior said police had also confiscated weapons and ammunition, including those used to murder al Sawat, in addition to a computer, a camera, a phone, money and documents proving the suspects ascribe to militant ideologies.

Retired General Major Yayha al Zaidi, a specialist in security matters, applauded the police force’s swift response, adding that they are in control of the Kingdom’s security. He said, “The public needs to know that the authorities are able to respond quickly. Security missions vary between investigation, intelligence gathering, and technological duties. It is difficult for a criminal to escape justice, especially if he is already known to the authorities”, as was the case with Foudah.

He confirmed Foudah was a militant “immersed in extremist ideology” whose criminal record and repeated visits to Afghanistan are “evidence of deviant beliefs”. Al Zaidi added that it was “unconceivable for [anyone] arrested for robbery to claim to defend religion”. Rather, the former general believed, Foudah’s behavior should be attributed to “attempts to fund his fundamentalist beliefs”.

Al Tibeythi had quit university after swapping his English language classes for Islamic studies. His tale should “serve as a warning for all parents. It is important children are provided with care and attention when growing up” al Zaidi said.

Al Zaydi’s belief that “confused people such as Monsur can be easily misled” was confirmed by the suspect’s neighbors in the al Hawiya district, with one claiming al Tibeythi suffered from his parents separating.

When asked about the militant tactic of targeting security officers in the Kingdom, al Zaidi said “terrorists are convinced everyone is an infidel. They can only understand reality through their own narrow perspective. Whoever targets police forces, whose only aim is peace and security has no principles or morals.”

http://www.asharqalawsat.com/english/news.asp?id=555&section=1

The 801

07-08-2005, 08:22 AM

The Afghan-Arabs Part One

29/06/2005

Asharq Al-Awsat has obtained a rare manuscript entitled, 'The Story of the Afghan-Arabs: From the Entry to Afghanistan to the Final Exodus with Taliban', written by a man who lived in close proximity to the most important moments of the drama. The writer reveals a number of secrets and explains many ambiguities in the activities of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda. In thorough detail, he recounts the struggles of the "hawks and the doves" within the organization, on issues such as weapons of mass destruction and the desperate efforts made by Osama bin Laden to obtain a "dirty bomb" from the Russian arsenal, through his correspondence with Khatab, the leader of the 'Arab Mujahideen' in the Caucasus.
Asharq Al-Awsat has obtained the manuscript through a mediator, but only after difficult and protracted negotiations.

The author, who is considered by fundamentalists in London to be the leading ideologue of Al-Qaeda, and one of the first batch of "Arab Afghans" who lived and worked in Qandahar, exposes the widely conflicting perceptions of Bin Laden's inner circle with regards to weapons of mass destruction and the most suitable methods to be adopted in the confrontation with America.

Asharq Al-Awsat is certain that the author had documented his experiences as they unfolded in front of him, from the vantage point of his membership to the Shura (Consultative) Council which constituted Bin Laden's inner circle and his close relationship with Mullah Omer, the deposed ruler of the Taliban. In deference to a request from those close to the author, Asharq Al-Awsat would not disclose his name, under the present circumstances.

The man, related by marriage to many prominent leaders of Al-Qaeda, gives his account of the "Arab Afghans" from their entry to Afghanistan to their final exodus with the Taliban. He talks of the "crazy attraction" that Bin Laden used to feel for the media in general and in particular, the international media, as well as his disdain for the advice of Mullah Omer and his flexible tactics with the hawks of the organization under the leadership of his senior aide and right hand man, Abu Hafs Almasri.

The author recounts the crushing blows taken by Al-Qaeda, the most important of which was the death of Mohamed Atef, otherwise known as Abu Hafs Almasri.

The manuscript covers the encounters between Bin Laden and his close associates and by way of repetition, it reiterates a statement made by Bin Laden in which he claims that "America would not be able to sustain more than two or three of his painful blows", referring to the attack on the US Coal, the bombing of the two American embassies in East Africa and the 9/11, 2001 attacks.

The author acknowledges, however, that after 9/11 matters "took an unexpected turn compared to what bin Laden thought would happen. Instead of buckling under his three painful blows, America retaliated and destroyed both the Taliban and Al-Qaeda.

Bin Laden's misguided motives in seeking weapons of mass destruction were also mentioned in the manuscript. The author stated that "Bin Laden used to think that America was weaker than what many of the hawks around him thought. He mentioned that in many meetings attended by a wider circle of followers, by citing the Beirut incident of 1983 when an attack against the Marines prompted the Americans to flee the country and a similar attack in Somalia that caused the Americans to leave in a «shameful disarray and indecorous haste.»

The author dicusses the final stages of the life of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan saying, "It was a tragic example of an Islamic movement under a catastrophic leadership. Despite their knowledge that their leader was taking them to the abyss, everyone was succumbing to his will and taking his orders with suicidal submission."

The author also discusses the period of Afghani Jihad under Abdalla Azzam and Bin Laden and the most important trends and activities of each of them, the crucial battles fought by the Arabs during that period and those of which deeply influenced their military and organizational perspectives. There is also a hint that the level of individual training of Al-Qaeda members had developed so much that it now included hijacking of airplanes and assassinations during a time when there was actually no urgent need for such operations.

Details were also given of the assassination of Abdalla Azzam, the spiritual mentor of the "Arab Afghans" and a bold bid was made to clear up the ambiguities and to fill in the gaps of missing information surrounding the killing. In the aftermath of the assassination of Azzam a period of extensive chaos, internal disputes and strife had emerged, pitting Arab fighters against one other in the last days before their overall eviction from Afghanistan.

The author further states that Abu Hafs Almasri the defense chief of Al-Qaeda and the leader of the hawks within the organization, had tried to resign from his post on numerous occasions in protest against Bin Laden's way of containing and neutralizing the demands of the people. He said that Bin Laden's methods are similar to those of the Arab rulers in invalidating the zeal of youthful fighters, gradually tempering their Jihadist aspirations, ultimately divesting them of their content and using them in service of his own needs.

Abu Hafs Almasri is confirmed by the author to be one of the three founding leaders of Al-Qaeda along with Bin Laden and the Egyptian Abu Obeida Albanshiri, who died in the Victoria Lake area in 1996 while on a mission crafted by himself and Abu Hafs oblivious to Bin Laden. Albanshiri was hunting for required material for the construction of an atomic bomb after he resigned all his positions in Al-Qaeda.

One of the most distinguished parts of the book is entitled 'The Flood of Blood from Mazar Sharif and Jebel Siraj, to Nairobi and Dar Assalam', in which the author records the differences between Bin Laden and Mullah Omer, the disappointment sustained by the latter and the final rift between the two men. He shows how Mullah Omer was the target of an assassination attempt by the means of a car bomb and the suspicions of the involvement of the security forces in Qandahar in an attempt that carried the imprints of the Pakistani security. In one chapter the writer talks of 'Steps in the Direction of War' and in another about 'Oil and Opium' where the author discusses in detail the opium agriculture in Afghanistan, and the role of the Taliban in trade.

He recounts the "Qandaharian" openness of Mullah Omer when he said "I will not surrender a Muslim to an Infidel", with reference to the American demand of the Bin Laden's hand over to America after the attacks on the two American Embassies in Nairobi and Dar Assalam. He says that that sentence defined, in no uncertain terms, the relationship between Taliban and the US. Once it had been expressed, war became a certainty, and America, which came to be locked eyeball to eyeball with Afghanistan, was not expected to blink. The downfall of the Taliban was sealed even if that demanded direct American intervention. Some Arab extremists warned the Taliban at the time that their refusal to extradite Bin Laden was equivalent to a declaration of war against America, the timing of which remained a decision to be made by the Americans.

The author adds that "The fundamentalists finally discovered from their experience in Afghanistan something of which they remained oblivious for centuries, that absolute individual authority is a hopelessly defective form of leadership and an obsolete way of organization that would end in nothing but defeat."

http://www.asharqalawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=3&id=627

The 801

07-08-2005, 08:24 AM

The Afghan-Arabs Part Two
01/07/2005

The author of the book which is based on the Afghan-Arabs, from their
arrival in Afghanistan until their departure after the collapse of the Taliban regime, reveals secrets and mysteries of Al-Qaeda Shura Council meetings and exposes the ways in which its hawks and doves were looking to acquire weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

The Muslim fundamentalist leader, who wrote the book based on the activities of the Al-Qaeda leadership, reported that during Tora Bora meetings, it was said that "the USA is a dishonest ruthless rival, who will only retreat when facing a strong rival. The USA will show no compassion towards its rival if it starts to collapse but will simply finish this rival off completely."

Discussions about WMD focused on the necessity of balancing power in the face of the American superpower, which has invaded Muslim lands. Al-Qaeda leaders asserted within that meeting that the rebalance should come through acquiring WMD. There was considerable debate about their use in the "enemy's lands" as some of them preferred using them on the "enemy's lands" and claimed that the battle, or at least part of it, against this enemy should take place on its lands. The author says that Al-Qaeda leaders discussed the issue of civilian victims by using WMD and that this has become inevitable since the Second World War. They concluded that civilians have become a major target because they represent an integral part of the overall scene, further adding that most of the victims of the Second World War (60 million dead) were civilians who were deliberately targeted by the warring armies and that the USA nuclear bombs that hit Japan were directed towards cities and not military build-ups.

The author, who is a prominent theoretician of the Afghan-Arabs, talked about the protests of the "doves" in the Bin Ladin majlis (council) against this viewpoint. They said that they called for placing every battle in its particular geographical domain. The Palestine battle, for instance, should be fought in Palestine and the Afghanistan battle should be fought within the Afghan lands. Those who supported this viewpoint came up with the justification that confining a battle to its particular geographical domain would help them gain international sympathy including the sympathy of those nations whose governments work against Al-Qaeda. They also stated that striking the lands of these nations would make them more radical and inclined to radical military procedures that might be adopted by their governments.

"Doves" versus "hawks" in Al-Qaeda

The author said, "The hawks protested against the doves' view on this matter. They concluded that public opinion in the world or the US is useless because these nations essentially are opposed to Islam and Muslims, the proof of which is the rise of the popularity of the American president every time he threatens or orders an air strike. Every time Israel launches against the Palestinians, Israel gets more popular and attains more financial support. However, when there is a Western minority looking at things in a rational way, this is an exception that no one should rely upon."

According to the author, the doves of Al-Qaeda Shura council would ask, "What if the enemy responds to the Mujahideen artificial WMD strikes by using real WMD against civilians?" To this the hawks answered with another question, "Who says they don't do that now?" They went on to say, "Look at the impact of WMD. It causes nothing but destruction to the people and environment. Let's look at what happened in Iraq. The number of Iraqis killed by the US and Britain so far is over 2 million. This number of victims exceeds what could have been caused by four of the types of bombs used against Hiroshima. Areas contaminated with radioactive materials in Iraq are double that of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.

We are facing a process of change in the way genocide is carried out by the US, Israel and the West, against Muslims. There was a consensus among the majority of Al-Qaeda leaders on the gravity and sensitivity of the issue of WMD. They believe that the US wants

Muslims in particular to understand that this issue is sensitive and extremely dangerous in order for them to develop a self-deterrence sense that prevents them from even thinking about, let alone reading or writing about it.

The US says that the most serious danger facing the world today is that "terrorists" acquire WMD. Al-Qaeda leadership says that the US exaggerates and confuses the public by using misleading and damaging terms. For instance, the Mujahideen are not terrorists in any way and they have neither acquired nor developed these types of weapons.

Moreover, the techniques and knowledge that is available to the Mujahideen only allows them to produce primitive things. As for the West's WMD, they are incomparable in terms of efficiency and superiority. The overall picture resembles a shepherd who uses whichever materials are available to him, such as stones and branches, to imitate a skyscraper like the World Trade Centre in New York. However, our shepherds neither like imitating by using insufficient materials, nor do they seek to acquire these building

equipments.

The US invasion of Afghanistan and the swift collapse of the Taliban regime proved that the required confrontation in the face of America (and Israel) is much bigger than the capability of the present Islamic force in the entire Muslim arena.

It maybe that the Islamic movement has already suffered from an intellectual as well as an organizational defeat before it even started its battle against America otherwise known as the Great Satan).

Jihad is a bigger and a more serious issue that should not be left to the Jihadist groups alone. Jihad is more than just an armed battle. Narrow-minded mentalities towards issues such as religion and politics are incapable of developing their conflict with America, which represents the general picture of "devils" intellectually and militarily.

Bin Ladin's proof

The author says that radicalism pushed Bin Ladin to believe that the US is much weaker than what some of the hawks around him believed. He reiterated his belief in several meetings referring to the "fleeing" of the Marines from Beirut following the bombing of their headquarters there in 1983, as well as what he described as the humiliating escape of the Marines from Somalia. He also cited the less well known incident of the hotel bombing in Aden, which forced the US to change its plans of using this place as a supply base for "Operation Restore Hope" in Somalia. The author said that Bin Ladin heard from witnesses that the Yemeni president, Ali Abdalla Salih, said had it not been for the Aden bombing, his government would not have been able to do anything to prevent the US from establishing that base in Aden. It seems that some of his Saudi followers, who visited America, confirmed to Bin Ladin his illusions that the US is collapsing and that all that is required is a few strong blows for it to withdraw from the Arab peninsula.

You are the Emir, do as you please!

Such an opinion is not only wrong but is also dangerous. It encourages recklessness and causes disorganization, characteristics which are unsuitable for this battle of existence in which we confront the greatest force in the world, USA. It is therefore necessary to consider the real nature and the size of this battle as well as preparing it in a way that takes into account its danger and, consequently, mobilizing the Mujahideen and the Muslim masses for an extended and a long-term battle that requires great sacrifices. It was necessary to prepare for the worst scenarios that could come of this battle rather than dreaming of an easy victory.

This shortcoming definitely led to our defeat as we were prepared materially and psychologically only for an easy short-term battle, this is exactly what happened.

Some of Bin Ladin's young Saudi supporters would frequently tell him that if anyone should be king, it would be him. His followers came to the conclusion that following a path contrary to his would be pointless. After heated debates, they would tell him "he is the Emir" and they would say this and obey his orders, even though they knew that his decisions would have are catastrophic effects. The last months in the life of Al-Qaeda (in Afghanistan at least) represented a tragic example of an authoritarian-ruled Islamic movement.

As for the WMD, Bin Ladin disagreed with the issue, as he would repeat his theory that the US will not be able to endure two or three strikes from him. However, Bin Ladin could not publicly declare his rejection to the idea, probably out of his extreme respect for those who were working with him. Another reason was that Bin Ladin's right hand man, Abu Hafs Al-Masri, the second man of Al-Qaeda was a prominent hawk and a staunch supporter of the idea of acquiring new abilities, especially WMD. However he was unsure about the "strategy" of using these types of weapons so he decided to postpone his thoughts on the matter until they actually acquire the weapons themselves, as he believed that talking about WMD before acquiring them was "pointless".

Abu Hafs was in charge of the WMD plan and worked very hard to make advances on this front, but Bin Ladin's opinion dominated in the end. Abu Hafs’ project had then come to a halt. Neither he, nor Bin Ladin achieved anything but they never either stopped trying to acquire WMD. US investigations in Afghanistan proved that such weapons were non-existent, as it was American propaganda that inflated this matter in the first place. Despite the importance of the issue, the bubble eventually burst.

Chechnya on the way of WMD:

A manual written in English was found in Al-Qaeda private library in Khartoum, Sudan, about how to produce a dirty bomb. When it became known that the necessary radioactive materials to produce the bomb were available in Kabul, the book in question disappeared. It was likely that those who took the manual attempted to monopolize this kind of knowledge in order to outdo their competitors.

In Kabul, there was some radioactive materials confiscated from smugglers who brought them from Tajikistan as well as other quantities left by the Soviets in Afghanistan; some of these were used for medical purposes, but the use of others was unknown.

Taliban officials were very cautious and strict about their nuclear

secrets. They often preferred to deal with and confide in Pakistanis rather than Arabs. Pakistanis paid little money, but in turn, they received many radioactive materials of which they knew the real value of. These materials might have helped Pakistan in its nuclear enterprise, which appeared several years after following those developments. The remainder of the Taliban’s radioactive materials, which they allowed Arabs to check, was in fact counterfeit. It was then that the Taliban authorities started to cooperate with Arabs in seeking radioactive materials, but this happened only after Kabul's markets dried up completely.

Khattab versus Bin Ladin:

The Russian military campaign in Chechnya ended in a clear Russian defeat. An ambiguous agreement was signed between the two parties, however the Chechens lost their spectacular leader Jawhar Dodaiev, who was then succeeded by a weak leadership. Many conflicts and disputes emerged after the death of Dodaiev. Unfortunately, the Saudi national Khattab, who was supported by a number of field commanders, was involved in these conflicts and disputes. Khattab, who was killed in March 2002, was strongly supported by a group which was loyal to one of the Saudi religious scholars who also provided him with money and fighters.

Khattab succeeded in forming an investment and economic force in the

Gulf States. He also succeeded to a large extent, in controlling the

movements of Arabs in Chechnya; moreover, he used to have his own media apparatus that linked him with the outside world.

In short, Khattab's position and status in Chechnya until the second

Russian military campaign in 1999 were stronger than that of Bin Ladin's in Afghanistan.

Contact started between Bin Ladin and Khattab, each trying to recruit the other to his own plan. Bin Ladin believed that Khattab joining his Jihad against the Americans was a religious obligation, because Khattab is from Hijaz. Moreover, Bin Ladin also believed that Khattab was a newcomer Mujahid until 1989 in Jalalabad, whereas Bin Ladin was commander in chief of the Arab forces in Afghanistan. Khattab emerged only after Bin Ladin left Jalalabad and was arrested in Saudi Arabia.

Khattab believed that he was about to liberate another country from the Russians. He also believed that he had a comprehensive program to

liberate central Asia as well as some parts of Chechnya, especially the Republic of Daghistan, where Salafists and puritans reinforced their position. With them, Khatteb planned to seize control quickly of Daghistan. Discussions were continuous between the two Saudi wings in Chechnya and Afghanistan, but there was little progress.

A warning from the hawks to Khattab:

Al-Qaeda hawks in Afghanistan warned Khattab saying that previous experiences with the Russians in Chechnya indicate that they organize successive military campaigns. They informed him that if the Russians are defeated, they quickly organize another military campaign relying on Russia's adequate material and human resources. They also warned him that it is necessary that he and his fighters prepare themselves for a new Russian military campaign, in which Moscow will try to learn from its mistakes in the previous campaign. The warning was concluded by asking Khattab and his men to pay attention to the fact that Chechens are geographically isolated from the other Muslim nations, especially those who can help; the hawks also warned that «verbal assistance» of the Arab nations is plain «nonsense».

The Al-Qaeda hawks also warned that the Arab volunteers' movement was temporary and under the vigilant eye of the US especially in Azerbaijan. Khattab and his men have also been warned by the hawks that the US has an interest in embarrassing Russia and mounting pressures on Moscow by the Arab volunteers so that the Americans can control oil of the Caucasus.

Another issue that the Al-Qaeda hawks highlighted in their warning is that if the Russians win the coming session in Chechnya, Chechens will face genocide similar to that carried out by the Serbs against Muslims in the former Yugoslavia.

The hawks concluded this issue by saying that the Chechen population

(750,000) cannot face the Russian killings and the forcing of Chechens to flee. The only way to protect the Chechens against this danger is to obtain WMD. The hawks indicated in their warning letter that it is the Chechen Mujahideen who were able to obtain these weapons ready-made from the scattered arsenal of the former Soviet Union, or by seeking the help of former experts, who worked during the Soviet era and are now suffering from unemployment. They also drew attention to the point that Chechnya Mujahideen are by law Russian citizens and that the Chechen-Chechen mafia is able to obtain anything in Russia.

Khattab paid no attention to the warning letter from the hawks, as his plans were ready to be acted upon within the region, which he believed would eventually fall into his hands. He also replied with little attention to Bin Ladin's call to join Jihad against the Americans. The Russians launched a huge and well-prepared military campaign as a response to the failed Khattab-led campaign against Daghistan with a limited number of Chechen military commanders. As a result, the Mujahideen government in Grozny fell and the fighters were assertively chased into the surrounding mountains. Russian troops drove the majority of local people to flee to neighboring countries, especially Georgia.

A Chechen Mujahideen delegation arrived in Afghanistan seeking assistance from the Afghan government and the Arabs there. The delegation members asked if there were any WMD available in Afghanistan so that they could use it in Chechnya against the Russians in order to stop the mass killing of the Chechens.

The Arab leadership in Afghanistan had a program similar to that of

Khattab that is defeating the US in a quick and easy battle that does not need WMD. Two years later, Afghanistan was lost and so was Chechnya. As for the ambitious plans of Saudi jihadist leadership, they too failed.

http://www.asharqalawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=3&id=649

The 801

07-08-2005, 08:25 AM

The Afghan-Arabs Part Three

06/07/2005

In this part, the author of the book focuses on the overall political atmosphere following the arrival of Osama Bin Laden in Jalalabad in 1996 and the failure of Mullah Omer in silencing Bin Laden, who is obsessed with the international media. The author believes that arrival of Bin Laden in Afghanistan was the biggest challenge facing the Taliban movement at the time.

The author, who had close ties with both Bin Laden and Mullah Omer, says that Bin Laden had involved the Taliban in confrontations and thrown it into hostile political atmospheres that it never expected to get involved in. The Taliban, at least during this particular period, was not interested in such an experience, as it still had not established itself firmly in the country.

Bin Laden did not consider the interests of the Taliban movement, whose leadership decided to protect him against the strongest superpower in the world. He was not even aware of the scope of the battle in which he opted to fight, or was forced into fighting. Therefore, he lacked the correct perception and was not qualified to lead.

Consequently, the Taliban was defeated and Afghanistan was lost, which historically holds the strongest fortresses of Islam. It was defeated due to a series of losses, which culminated in the catastrophe caused by Bin Laden in Afghanistan. This catastrophe is often compared to that of the disaster of Arabs and Muslims in the 1948 war against the Jews, which Arabs call Nakba, and 1967 war, from which they have invented the term Naksa.

The greatest challenge facing Taliban:

Bin Laden's arrival, or rather his return, to Afghanistan for the second time in May 1996, was the greatest challenge that the Taliban had to face. The tragedy that Bin Laden caused Islam is no less than those caused by other leaders. As the proverb goes, "Those who work without knowledge will damage more than they can fix and those who walk quickly on the wrong path will only distance themselves from their goal."

More American than Clinton:

Attempts to handover Osama bin Laden following the bombing of the US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in August 1998, dominated the events of that period. One of the Arab ambassadors in Islamabad, who was described as "more American than the American president" requested on behalf of the USA that the new Taliban ruler surrender Bin Laden. This request was made immediately after the Taliban took control of Jalalabad and just before the new ruler settled into his new office.

Both the request and the ambassador were referred to Qandahar, as the issue of Bin Laden's handover was the responsibility of Mullah Omer (the commander of the faithful). The ambassador emphasized to Mullah Omer that he wanted Bin Laden to be handed over to the US informing him that Bin Laden was no longer a Saudi citizen and that he was not charged with any particular crime against the US.

Mullah Omer made his point very clear saying, "I will not hand over a Muslim to an infidel." This quote determined the fate of Afghan-American relations and consequent to this, war became inevitable.

Some Arab radicals warned the Taliban leadership that they had principally declared war on the US, the timing and circumstances of which, would be decided by Washington. They further added that the "crusader West" decided over two hundred years ago to exclude Islam from state politics.

Mulla Omer failed to silence Bin Laden:

At that time, Bin Laden was obsessed with the media, the international media in particular. Mullah Omer could not restrain Bin Laden's words.

Many Afghan ministers visited Bin Laden in his winter residence in a village called Arab Khail that he established on land that he borrowed from a close friend in the Najm Al-Jihad area. Afghan ministers, most of whom were young, used to travel from Kabul to Jalalabad, sometimes just to visit and socialize with Bin Laden and other times to discuss technical matters related to their ministries especially in relation to farming, electricity and construction. They were aware of his background and experience in these fields, but they might have been hoping that he would heavily invest in building the Afghan Islamic emirate, as he did in Sudan.

Although Bin Laden would advise these visitors, they only came because of orders from Mullah Omer, whose underlying message for Bin Laden was that he was one of them but should not speak to the media. However, Bin Laden was prepared to sacrifice Afghanistan and Mullah Omer, in exchange for making his statements.

Bin Laden's obsession with the international media:

Bin Laden began to appear in the international media frequently. The Independent's renowned reporter Robert Fisk visited Bin Laden and interviewed him in Jalalabad which was his first interview following his arrival from Khartoum back to Afghanistan. American broadcasting channels joined in and so did the London-based Arabic press. Al-Quds daily editor-in-chief, Abdul Bari Atwan, interviewed Bin Laden in Tora Bora and was the first to know of Al-Qaeda’s role in fighting the American troops in Somalia.

Bin Laden's statements caused wide controversy. Appeals made by

Mullah Omer and other Taliban officials such as the prime minister and the foreign minister, failed to stop Bin Laden's controversial statements to the international media or to control his obsession with the media. Their appeals were unsuccessful at a time when the Taliban had not yet established itself.

Animosity from the Taliban "hawks" towards Bin Laden:

A group within the Taliban leadership resented Bin Laden's behavior. On one hand, the Taliban movement had successfully begun to extend its control to more areas but on the other hand, the emerging Arab presence started to attract the attention of international Islamic movements following Bin Laden's audacious statements to the international media. Mullah Hasan Omer, a member of the Taliban Shura (Consultative) council, believed that Bin Laden became the person who was to decide foreign policy of the Taliban, and that his statements to the international media caused American, Pakistani and Arab reactions. They also believed that Europe and the United Nations, influenced by the US, moved against the Taliban. This faction within the Taliban believed that the best action to take was to expel Bin Laden because of his repeated rejection of orders from Mullah Omer the commander of the faithful who had asked him not to give interviews to the international media.

Mullah Mohamed Hasan was the most outspoken amongst the Taliban's anti-Bin Laden "hawks". In private, he said, "There is no need for those Arabs as they are our rivals". He talked about a sectarian rivalry between the Afghan and the 'Afghan-Arabs', because the latter had supported Sayyaf and Hikmatyar during the Jihad. He also added that the 'Afghan-Arabs' fought with Hikmatyar against the Taliban. They are, he said, "Muslim Brothers who are enemies of the Taliban".

Mullah Mohamed Hasan questioned why they should tolerate the crises of the Arabs. Other anti-Bin Laden "hawks" also questioned whether he had been sent by the US to be used as a justification to destroy the Taliban. This conspiracy theory was present among a number of the Taliban leaders who were against Bin Laden’s presence in Afghanistan. Opposition to Bin Laden from the Arabs was for different reasons. Some of them believed that Bin Laden's statement declaring war against the US was issued before the Taliban controlled Kabul. They also said that declaring Jihad is an important and a crucial issue that should be discussed with the ruler Mullah Omer. Without discussions, meetings or coordination an inevitable confrontation will eventually take place between Bin Laden and the Arabs, on one side, and Afghanistan on the other side. They also argued that the Arabs were only guests, that they were the weaker side and that they might be forced to leave Afghanistan if Bin Laden fails to keep his controversial comments out of the media.

Afghanistan…the last refuge:

During the past two years, a meeting was held before the Arabs were

expelled from Afghanistan, in which they were told that they and Bin Laden had to respect that Afghanistan is the only place in the world that accepts their residency without being threatened internally or externally. There was no argument regarding the responsibility of Mullah Omer to rule the country, Bin Laden's disobeying of Mullah Omer's authority, or the attempt of forming a parallel state inside Afghanistan.

Apparently, Bin Laden disagreed on these matters, but he proved to be the only person in Afghanistan who believed to have the right and ability to do as he pleased.

http://www.asharqalawsat.com/english/news.asp?id=703

al-Canine

07-11-2005, 08:21 PM

Al-Qa'ida warned of attack five weeks before bombings

12jul05

AL-QA'IDA threatened to launch attacks in Europe in an internet warning, posted five weeks before the London terrorist bombings, that British intelligence services claimed to have no knowledge about.
But the Spanish secret service did not forward the May29 message to Britain's MI5 spy agency until the weekend - two days after the attacks.

The Spanish national intelligence centre, called CNI, sent a copy of the Arabic-language message, signed by "Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades - European division", to MI5 on Saturday, according to Spain's El Mundo newspaper.

The same group - named after an al-Qa'ida leader who was killed in Afghanistan - claimed responsibility for the Madrid train bombings of March 11 last year, in which 191 people died, and twin bombings in Istanbul in November 2003 that killed 63 people.

The message, entitled "Letter to mujaheddin in Europe", states in part: "We now call on the mujaheddin around the world to launch the expected attack." Spanish intelligence officials believe this was a reference to the attacks in London last Thursday, which claimed at least 49 lives and wounded more than 700.

The revelation came as it emerged that the severed head of a man had been found near the bus torn apart at Tavistock Square in the London bombings, strengthening suspicions that a suicide bomber was behind the blast. Suicide attacks in Israel have shown that a head is often the only remnant of a suicide bomber, as an explosion close to the torso can force the head to fly up, remaining intact while the rest of the body disintegrates.

London's Daily Telegraph reported yesterday that the head found near the bus had almost certainly been blown out of the upper deck where a rucksack-sized bomb is believed to have been planted on a seat. The head may be that of an innocent passenger who picked the bomb up just before it exploded, but police have believed from the start that the bus could have been hit by a suicide bomber.

A spokeswoman for the Metropolitan Police yesterday refused to discuss it. "At this stage we still cannot rule a suicide bomber out or decide there was one," she said.

Police said privately that a decapitation did not provide any conclusive evidence one way or the other.

One passenger who got off the bus just before the explosion had noticed a nervous young man behaving oddly on the bus and frequently dipping into a bag at his feet.

Investigators are convinced three other terrorists escaped after leaving bombs on three Underground trains about 47 minutes before the bus blast.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair yesterday rejected Opposition calls for an inquiry into whether the bombings could have been prevented, saying it would disrupt the hunt for the perpetrators.

Home Office Minister Hazel Blears said the "last thing" the security services needed was an inquiry, as they were too busy with a massive investigation into the bombings.

"They have disrupted a lot of operations. It is impossible to anticipate everything," she said.

A spokesman for Mr Blair, who was due to present an update on the bombings in a statement overnight, said: "The Prime Minister has confidence in the intelligence services and he won't be holding an inquiry."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,15900507%255E601,00.html

Ono

07-11-2005, 09:28 PM

Omg!

The 801

07-18-2005, 09:00 AM

Interesting early history....

The pawns who pay as powers play
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - In the complex undercurrents that dictate the ebb and flow of Pakistani politics and policy, yesterday's hero can very quickly become today's scoundrel. Just ask Sheikh Rashid Ahmed.

Sheikh Rashid is leader of the Pakistan Muslim League and minister for information in the administration of President General Pervez Musharraf, with whom he enjoys a very cozy relationship.

Sheikh Rashid's world was rocked recently when Kashmiri militant leader Yasin Malik, on a visit to Pakistan, praised Sheikh Rashid's services for the mujahideen fighting in Kashmir and recalled that he used to provide military training to militants.

Sheikh Rashid strongly denied running any such training camp and maintained that he was only running a humanitarian camp for refugees from Jammu & Kashmir.

In an effort to throw some light on these startling revelations, and equally strong denials, Asia Times Online spoke to Khalid Khawaja, a former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) official who was dismissed from the service by the late dictator General Zia ul-Haq because of his outspoken nature.

Khalid subsequently became a close associate of Osama bin Laden, and played an important behind-the-scenes role in both regional and national politics. Before the US attack on Afghanistan in late 2001, he was a part of the back-room diplomacy between the US and the Taliban, which failed miserably.

Asia Times Online: The heroes of the past are the terrorists of the present. Everything changes dramatically, so that someone like Sheikh Rashid, who was once proud to take part in Kashmir's struggle, is now afraid he will be labeled a terrorist if he admits that he ever supported armed struggle in Kashmir. Why? [Sheikh Rashid and Khalid were interviewed together on television and Rashid not only denied that he had ever run a training camp, but also refused to identify Khalid as an old friend.]

Khalid Khawaja: In fact, the issue is terrorism. It is states and governments which sponsor terrorism to begin with, and subjects become the ultimate victims, and then a vicious cycle of terror rotates. In this state-sponsored crime there is no exception, and Pakistan, India, the US and Israel all have the same role.

Many of us call it a battle between East and West, between the Islamic and Judeo-Christian world, but it is neither of these. It is in fact the ruling regimes that want to dictate their will, and then they exploit [people] in various ways. Sometimes in the garb of monarchy, sometimes for democracy, and sometimes for dictatorship.

Ninety percent of people accept to be ruled, but there always remain some elements who refuse to succumb. They fight for freedom and resist till their last. However, in this conflict of two minorities - those who impose their will and those who resist it - the majority remains the sole victim. Yet people talk about Islam versus Christianity or Judaism. The basic theme remains the same. There is a group of people who want to impose their will, whether they happen to be Christian or Muslim, and there is a group of people who want to resist, and there is a silent majority which is trampled in between.

This is exactly the interpretation when we talk about Pakistan and India in the perspective of Kashmir. In fact, Pakistan was never sincere with Kashmiris. It was a selfish military strategic maneuver to bleed India. Whatever was done, it was for "Pakistanism". Meaning to impose Pakistan's strategic agenda in the region. We just used religion and jihad. It was just a ploy to engage Indian forces in Kashmir and keep their financial resources squeezed.

ATol: Did not Pakistan morally support the Kashmiri struggle so that the Muslim population would get its rights?

KK: What are you talking about? Indian Muslims enjoy more rights than Muslims enjoy in Pakistan. There are hundreds of Pakistani people, including army-men, clerics, scholars and common people, who have been missing from their homes for over two years. It is a known fact that they were picked up by intelligence agencies. They were never tried in any court of law. Several of them were killed without any trail. Even the British system of justice during British India days was better, when nobody was kept in detention without trial. We ask, okay, don't give us the rights that free nations have, but at least give us those rights people had during the time of the British Raj.

A few years ago, a Muslim was picked by an Indian intelligence agency. Prominent Muslim leader and scholar Maulana Asad Madani met the governor of the province and protested. The governor said that this kind of interrogation was common in Pakistan, "So why do you protest in India?" Asad Madani reminded the governor in very strong words that this was not Pakistan, but India, and one had to produce a person in court, so eventually the Muslim was produced.

The biggest curse in Pakistan is things done in the name of patriotism. I do not buy this theory. Patriotism is a vague term until it is allied with a proper ideology. I remember Colonel [Syed] Farooq's words [Farooq was a Bangladeshi officer who took part in the killing of Sheikh Mujib Rehman - Bangladesh's founding father - and his family in 1975] when he visited Pakistan in the late 1980s. He said that before the partition of British India [1947] he was a loyal citizen of the East India Company, then Pakistan, and even joined the Pakistan army. Then he became a loyal citizen of Bangladesh, and he said he may become loyal to something else in the future. Therefore, patriotism for a piece of land is nonsense.

ATol: What happened in Afghanistan?

KK: In Afghanistan's case, a similar game was carried out on a massive scale when Muslim youths from all over the world were brought in by Pakistan and the US [to fight against the Soviets in the 1980s]. They were tools for the empires' proxy war. The name of jihad was used. The state religion in those days supported jihad against India [in Kashmir] and the USSR [in Afghanistan]. However, once jihad was established, the states did not have any way to convince Muslims that jihad was only against the USSR and India, and not against the US.

Now, again, it is a question of a state imposing its will. The message is clear: if you are against us, we will kill you and your sympathizers. In this state terrorism, there is no exception, be it Christianity, Judaism, Islam, Pakistan, India, the US or Israel. All are the same.

You talk about terrorism by individuals, but you do not discuss what they were in the past and why they became terrorists. In fact, it is state terrorism which starts it all. A state recruited Muslim fighters all across the world and gathered them in Afghanistan. The US tried to kill them with a cruise missile attack in 1998 [in retaliation for terror attacks on US embassies in Africa]. That terrorism was unaccounted for, yet several innocent women and children were killed by a proven US attack. It had yet to be proven that the 9-11 incident was carried out by Osama, but the US attacked Afghanistan and targeted all. When the reaction came, and helpless people became suicide bombers, they were called terrorists.

I have the example of Ahmed Saeed Khadr's family. The whole family was Canadian, and they came to Afghanistan to take part in the country's rehabilitation. First his 14-year-old son Omar Khadr was arrested in Afghanistan. He was taken to Guantanamo Bay. It is narrated in the US media and all information is available on the world-wide web how he was sexually abused in prison by US soldiers. His second son Abdul Karim was shot in the back by US soldiers, and was paralyzed. Another son, Abdul Rahman, agreed to become a US informer. The stories were published by the US media that despite his services, he was also shabbily treated. Ahmed Saeed Khadr and his family, including his wife, granddaughter and two daughters, took refuge in South Waziristan [in Pakistan]. They were not spared by Pakistani authorities. Ahmed Saeed was brutally killed. His wife and daughters were brought to Islamabad and then set free. They were homeless. Nobody was ready to give them a house for rent.

The families of the worst kind of criminals are not deprived of this basic right. Our government did so. Ahmed Saeed's family demanded his body be handed over. The government of Pakistan even refused that demand. Now just get into the shoes of the victim and think how many options you would have if you faced such consequences.

Now Minister of Information Sheikh Rashid comes on TV every day and proudly announces that we have killed so many foreign militants. This is the same minister who privately ran a similar military training camp in the past and prepared militants. Had he been out of government, he would have been labeled a terrorist, but since he is part of the government agenda, he is okay. In this fight of interests, only pawns are crushed. India and Pakistan fought proxy wars, the victims were innocent Kashmiris who were raped, detained and killed, or those who sacrificed their lives in armed struggle. Now the two countries are friends and the victims are those who sacrificed their lives for armed struggle. Now they are terrorists.

When two elephants fight, it is the grass that gets crushed. When two elephants make love, it is again the grass that gets crushed. Whether states fight with each other or make friendships, it is only the tools who became victims.

ATol: Explain how Sheikh Rashid started the training camp.

KK: The story starts in 1986-87, when out of emotion I wrote a letter to General Zia ul-Haq saying that he was a hypocrite and he was only interested in ruling Pakistan, rather than imposing Islamic law in the country. General Zia immediately ordered my dismissal from my basic services in the Pakistan air force, where I was a squadron leader, and from the ISI, where I was deputed at the Afghan desk. I went to Afghanistan and fought side-by-side with the Afghan mujahideen against Soviet troops. There I developed a friendship with Dr Abdullah Azzam [a mentor of bin Laden], Osama bin Laden and Sheikh Abdul Majeed Zindani [another mentor of bin Laden's]. At the same time, I was still in touch with my former organization, the ISI, and its then DG [director general], retired Lieutenant General Hamid Gul.

After General Zia's death in a plane crash [1988], elections were announced and there was a possibility that the Pakistan People's Party [PPP] led by Benazir Bhutto would win, which would be a great setback for the cause of jihad. We discussed this situation, and all the mujahideen thought that they should play a role in blocking the PPP from winning the elections. I joined my former DG Hamid Gul and played a role in forming the then Islamic Democratic Alliance comprising the Pakistan Muslim League and the Jamaat-i-Islami. The PPP won the elections by a thin margin and faced a strong opposition. Osama bin Laden provided me with funds, which I handed over to Nawaz Sharif, then the chief minister of Punjab [and later premier], to dislodge Benazir Bhutto. Nawaz Sharif insisted that I arrange a direct meeting with the "Sheikh", which I did in Saudi Arabia. Nawaz met thrice with Osama in Saudi Arabia.

The most historic was the meeting in the Green Palace Hotel in Medina between Nawaz Sharif, Osama and myself. Osama asked Nawaz to devote himself to "jihad in Kashmir". Nawaz immediately said, "I love jihad." Osama smiled, and then stood up from his chair and went to a nearby pillar and said. "Yes, you may love jihad, but your love for jihad is this much." He then pointed to a small portion of the pillar. "Your love for children is this much," he said, pointing to a larger portion of the pillar. "And your love for your parents is this much," he continued, pointing towards the largest portion. "I agree that you love jihad, but this love is the smallest in proportion to your other affections in life."

These sorts of arguments were beyond Nawaz Sharif's comprehension and he kept asking me. "Manya key nai manya?" [Agreed or not?] He was looking for a Rs500 million [US$8.4 million at today's rate] grant from Osama. Though Osama gave a comparatively smaller amount, the landmark thing he secured for Nawaz Sharif was a meeting with the [Saudi] royal family, which gave Nawaz Sharif a lot of political support, and it remained till he was dislodged [as premier] by General Pervez Musharraf [in a coup in 1999]. Saudi Arabia arranged for his release and his safe exit to Saudi Arabia.

That was a typical situation, when Osama was famed for his generosity, and even politicians like Ghulam Mustafa Jatoi, who was president of the National People's Party and president of the Islamic Democratic Alliance, and then interim prime minister, were also after me to arrange meetings with the "Sheikh".

Then Nawaz Sharif introduced me to Sheikh Rashid, and he took me to his Freedom House camp near Fateh Jang Road near Rawalpindi. He asked me to get support from Arabs. I took several of my Arab friends to his training camp, and they provided him with some money, though they were not satisfied with the environment.

The youths were mostly trained to fire AK-47 rifles, but there was no arrangement for the ideological training of youths. That was the point on which the Arabs objected, that it is ideological training that makes a difference between a mercenary and a mujahid. Rashid was the least bothered about ideological training, he was interested in money - Rs50,000 per person. Some money was provided to Rashid, and he claimed that he procured AK-47 guns with that money. How many, I do not remember.

ATol: What you are saying means that it was all a fraud in the name of jihad?

KK: Jihad needs strong justification, and when it is launched it requires piety in character. We as Muslims believe that if a person is wrongly killed it amounts to the killing of entire humanity.

ATol: What do you say about suicide bombers who carry out random attacks?

KK: They are reactionaries whose reactions are illustrations of anger and frustration, but we cannot call it Islam at all. In their behavior, although they are Muslims, they are the same as [Pentagon chief Donald] Rumsfeld, [President George W] Bush and [Vice President Dick] Cheney, who, in reaction to 3,500 killed people in New York, made a full season of killing people in Afghanistan and Iraq. The way the US imposed war on Afghanistan, the real mujahids, like [Taliban leader] Mullah Omar and Osama went into the background, and the leadership is in the hands of those who do not know what jihad is all about. They are just venting their frustration against the US.

Syed Saleem Shahzad, Bureau Chief, Pakistan, Asia Times Online

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GF22Df04.html

The 801

07-18-2005, 09:13 AM

South Asia
Jun 18, 2005

The making of a terrorist
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - Two and a half years ago, Pakistan's most-wanted person, Asif Ramzi, was found dead, along with five others, following an explosion in a bombing-making factory in Korangi, a satellite district of the southern port city of Karachi.

Ramzi was wanted in connection with the killing of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl and the June 2002 bombing of the US consulate in Karachi.

This incident alerted the security agencies of both the US and Pakistan to the emergence of Korangi, as well as neighboring Landhi, as a new breeding ground for the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, and consequently a new target in the "war on terror". The Landhi-Korangi area already had notoriety as a "no-go area".

The Lashkar-i-Jhangvi is the militant offshoot of the banned Sunni sectarian group Sepah-i-Sahabah, which although not directly affiliated with al-Qaeda, its members have a kinship, as many of them trained together in al-Qaeda camps in Afghanistan during the rule of the Taliban in that country.

A road to terror
From the bustling artery of Sharah-i-Faisal in Karachi, when a car turns at Gora Qabrustan (a Christian Cemetery of British India times) toward Korangi Road, the driver breathes a sigh of relief as a smooth, broad road offers a swift drive to the expressway that connects the southern districts to the central and eastern parts of the city.

However, this is just 15-minute ride. Before the expressway, one turns off into Korangi, a veritable ghetto where one can almost smell the fear and tension. By the time the sun goes down, gangs of armed youths have taken to the streets, where they rule until dawn - frequently letting off shots into the air to announce their presence and authority to officials, and the local population.

Welcome to the hunting grounds of Korangi and Landhi.

The discovery of Ramzi's bomb-making factory in Korangi in December 2002 has been followed by dozens of arrests of members of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi with connections to the area. In the most recent incident, a man identified as Tehseen was arrested in connection with a suicide attack on a Shi'ite mosque in Karachi in which several people were killed, including two of the attackers. Tehseen was injured when guards at the mosque fired at him. He is from an extremely poor family in Korangi.

Rooted in depravation
Korangi and Landhi were established in the early 1960s for displaced families that had come from British India after the partition of 1947, and which were living in squatter settlements near founding-father Muhammad Ali Jinnah's mausoleum in the heart of the city.

Bureaucrats at the time were well versed in British ways - they knew the art to building colonies. Small housing units were set along a network of broad roads, complemented with schools, dispensaries, basic health units and playgrounds. The generation raised in the early 1960s in Korangi and Landhi was ambitious, and despite their poor background, many reached the top ladders of the corporate, social and sporting worlds, while others established themselves at lower and middle levels in government offices.

By the 1980s, though, Korangi and Landhi had changed. As people prospered, they shifted to better neighborhoods, and their cheap houses were filled by an altogether different community, including Bangladeshis, people from Myanmar and a huge Pashtun population. The latter worked as unskilled laborers in the industrial areas that had sprung up in the vicinity.

However, displaced families from India still made up the largest and most dominant component of Korangi and Landhi, which became the strongest pillar of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement (MQM) when it was launched in 1985 in Karachi. The MQM was a national movement created to protect the rights of displaced families from India.

The MQM's militant wing established arms dumps, torture chambers and training centers in Landhi. This area was inaccessible to police and very well guarded by armed youths. No strangers were allowed in the area, which was called Mohajir Khail. (Mohajir means immigrant, from British India, and Khail is a Pashtun word which shows that, like the North West Frontier province's tribal areas, Mohajir Khail was also inaccessible to law-enforcing agencies.)

The MQM used Mohajir Khail to torture their political opponents belonging to the Pakistan Peoples' Party, the Jamaat-i-Islami, and other ethnic groups, such as the Pashtuns and Sindhis.

The Mohajir Khail was destroyed in 1993 by the Pakistani army, which also engineered a split in the MQM, leading to the formation of a faction led by Afaq Ahmed (now in jail). Subsequently, an army operation was conducted in the whole of Karachi, including Landhi and Korangi. The army arrested members of the MQM led by Altaf Hussain (who later went into exile in London to escape cases against him) and posted rangers in the area, but at the same time, the men in uniform patronized the faction of Ahmed. The cases against Hussain included killings, abductions, extortion, and burning the national flag. Now his party - renamed the Muttahida Quami Movement - is part of coalition governments in federal and provincial administrations.

As a result of the army action, the area became the hotbed of gang wars, where guns ruled and outsiders dared not enter. Every day, two or three bullet-riddled bodies would be found in gunny bags.

Religion, the poor man's addiction
The mid-1990s saw severe economic depression in Landhi and Korangi, with markets closed for five days of the week. In job advertisements, companies clearly stated that candidates from Landhi and Korangi need not apply as they knew that because of the chaotic conditions in these areas workers would never be punctual. Schools and stadiums were occupied by the Pakistan Rangers, who often remained silent spectators as the gangs fought each other.

When the Taliban movement emerged in the mid-1990s, men from the Bangladeshi and Myanmarese populations in the area responded enthusiastically, as the clerics in their mosques were mostly pro-Taliban. Within a year, many men from both factions of the MQM joined different militant organizations, top of which was the Sepah-i-Sahabah. Thus, an already heavily militarized area due to its gang politics became a paradise for jihadis as well.

The banned Sepah-i-Sahabah was an anti-Shi'ite organization founded by Maulana Haq Nawaz Jhangvi. It has been renamed Millat-i-Islamia. Sepah-i-Sahabah sermonized against the beliefs of Shi'ites but did not call for their massacre. However, when many Sepah-i-Sahabah heads were killed by Shi'ites (this still goes on - the most recent was Maulana Azam Tariq, a member of the National Assembly and a pro-President General Pervez Musharraf person) a breakaway faction called Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, which believes in the killing of Shi'ites, was formed by Riaz Basra. Basra was rounded up by Pakistani security agencies when he tried to enter Pakistan after the Taliban retreated in 2001. After an unannounced detention, he died in what is believed to be a stage-managed encounter with the authorities.

Since the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi was banned and most of its members were wanted, they left Pakistan and took refuge in Afghanistan during the Taliban's time. There they interacted with Arab Afghans. When the Taliban fell, they returned to Pakistan, bringing with them many Arab friends to whom they gave shelter and sanctuary. Later, they carried out several joint terror actions in Pakistan.

Amjad Farooqui, who was involved along with al-Qaeda's Abu Faraj al-Libbi in assassination attempts against Musharraf, was a leader in the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, as was Ramzi. Invariably, they all took sanctuary in the thickly populated areas of Korangi and Landhi.

US outsmarts all
Since September 11, 2001, the US has invested millions of dollars in Pakistan to help track down al-Qaeda members and other terror suspects. Some of this money has gone to the Pakistani police, and some has been invested in a network of informers called Spider. But as long as no-go areas such as Landhi and Korangi existed, where police and rangers could not go freely, success was limited.

So US intelligence came up with a plan. It used the Altaf Hussain group's network in the MQM to counter jihadis and militants, leading to the arrest of many wanted people, to the extent that many militants have been rooted out from the area.

A case study
This correspondent has interacted with many people from the Landhi and Korangi area, and one in particular stands out. Let's call him Akhtar, a man in his late 20s. He is not a militant, although circumstances conspired to push him in that direction, just like many who did turn out to be militants.

When Akhtar started going to his nearby mosque in Korangi four years ago, everybody in his family was happy that he had separated himself from the drug addicts and goons of the neighborhood, as well as from the ethnocentric parties of the area known for their terror, militancy and extortion. They were satisfied that Akhtar was now on the right path and would lead a straight life.

Akhtar grew a beard and insisted that he interact with all religious circles in the mosques. He was a tolerant human being, searching for pearls of virtue wherever he could find them.

However, after four years, during which time Akhtar's personality was molded and he became known for his piety and his tabiligi (preaching) activities, a police unit came looking for him, not to hear his wisdom, but to inform his family to hand over the "sectarian criminal" in a few days, or face the music. Akhtar happened to be out of town preaching at the time.

Akhtar met this correspondent through a friend, as he believed that newspapers were his last hope.

"Yes, Korangi and Landhi are two points where many suicide bombers and members of the Laskhar-i-Jhangvi stay, but you cannot write a story in isolation or without enumerating the causes which made this area with its destitute population a breeding ground for terror groups," Akhtar said.

"Our misfortune starts from our birth place, that is Landhi and Korangi, which became the nucleus of crime from the mid-1980s. Armed youths roamed around freely. Two military operations were conducted in the area, which gave a free hand to the police to rough up the whole population. They used to arrest criminals, but also innocent suspects, which they only let go after their poor families paid a bribe.

"That was the environment in which I grew up. My friends were either members of ethnocentric parties, as one could not survive without their association, or those who fell into drug addiction," said Akhtar. "The first time when I was picked up, I happened to have associated with members of a breakaway faction of the MQM, that is, the Afaq group. During interrogation, I was badly tortured. Later, the Afaq group's leaders secured my bail and I came out of jail. Now I was 'member' of the Afaq group.

"That is exactly the time when police and rangers were playing a game of hide and seek in Landhi and Korangi. Youths were put in police lockups without their cases being registered, and they were badly tortured. There was a time when the government crushed one faction of the MQM and patronized the other faction, and then the other way around. The youths changed their loyalties accordingly. In such an environment, two prominent groups emerged and attracted hundreds of youths who were tired of arrests and tortures. One is the banned Sepah-i-Sahab, and the other was the Jaish-i-Mohammed.

"Maulana Masood Azhar [chief of the now banned Jaish-i-Mohammed] quite often came to our neighborhood, with over a dozen armed guards. His speeches were truly impressive, but more impressive was his protocol and police security. Many disgruntled youths joined Jaish-i-Mohammed, and many joined Sepah-i-Sahabah. Some were inspired by their teaching, and some came in search of protection from police raids.

"I was neither in the Sepah-i-Sahabah nor in the Jaish. I was a peaceful talibligi [Muslim preacher]. However, since the leaders of these groups were regular visitors to the mosques in the area, I was a regular listener of their lectures, and in that way I was part of their circle and kept friendly ties and social interaction, but not as a member.

"After 9-11, the situation changed. All ethnocentric groups, which previously had been under official scrutiny, were given a respite, and organizations like the Sepah-i-Sahaban and the Jaish-i-Mohammed came under fire and were banned.

"Instead of neighborhoods, mosques and seminaries were the target, where police and intelligence officials carried out daily raids. As a result, all members of those banned organization went underground. Many stopped their activities, but several joined militancy in the name of the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi.

"The police game of extortion and bribery, played with members of the ethnocentric parties in the past, was now played with members of sectarian and jihadi organizations. In the past, all Mohajirs [immigrants from India] were culprits, whether they belonged to any party or not, but now all mosque-goers were guilty of terror.

"The law-enforcing agencies created a hellish situation. Many people who did not have the money to bribe their way out of trouble knew that they could be killed in a fake encounter [police have a reputation for extrajudicial killings in which suspects are shot in what is officially termed as 'retaliatory fire'.] Therefore, many choose to become suicide bombers, because they know that either way their fate is death.

"There are people like myself who are suspects and who were given an option list by the police, including 'gentle' arrest and then freedom after paying a bribe - or else be ready for a 'fake encounter'. I am again standing at a crossroads, like I was some years back when I was detained as a suspect by the police and then my release was secured by an ethnocentric party. But in return I became a member. Now I have to either collect money to bribe corrupt police, or join a sectarian group to get a safe sanctuary to hide and then make myself mentally ready to be killed in police encounter, or in a suicide attack."

Syed Saleem Shahzad, Bureau Chief, Pakistan Asia Times Online

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GF18Df03.html

The 801

07-18-2005, 03:21 PM

London Terror Inquiry Heads Secretly to the African Sahara

From DEBKA-Net-Weekly 214 Exclusive Updated by DEBKAfile

July 18, 2005, 3:05 PM (GMT+02:00)

The British authorities have mounted a tremendous publicity effort to emphasize that Pakistan and Egypt are the central areas of interest in their investigation of the July 7 transport bombings that killed 55 Londoners. This is a diversionary tactic.

Much of the intelligence offered to the media is irrelevant to the inquiry. There is nothing that was not known to British and US intelligence from early 2004 in the fact that three of the four bombers were of Pakistan origin and some studied at medressas run by Muslim extremists linked directly to terrorism. Even the fact that they visited Pakistan last year or were in contact with Muslims in Queens, New York, does not lead to the masterminds who sent them to their deaths on July 7. Even terrorists phone or visit relatives. As for the Egyptian biochemist Magdi Mahmoud al-Nashar from Leeds, the Egyptian security authorities who are not known for their gentle handling of al Qaeda suspects have found no ties between him, al Qaeda and the London bombers. There was seemingly nothing to find beyond the fact that he rented them his apartment after a meeting at a local mosque. Yet British detectives are in Cairo day after day waiting to be allowed to interview the scientist.

The British government is feeding the public with a daily dose of suggestive, diversionary data for two purposes. One is to stop the mouths of Tony Blair’s enemies and throw off their efforts to link the attacks to Britain’s involvement in Iraq alongside the United States. This ploy was set back Monday, July 18, when the influential Chatham House came out with a report claiming Britain had been placed at magnified risk of terror attack by its role in Iraq and cooperation in the worldwide US-led offensive against al Qaeda. This contention was fiercely contested by the British defense and foreign ministers.

The other purpose is to deflect attention from the leads followed by the inquiry to the real source of the attacks.

Last Friday, July 14, DEBKA-Net-Weekly 214 (Al Qaeda’s Zone 9: The Blue-faced Men of the Sahara) revealed that a top-secret gathering took place Wednesday, July 13, in one of the most out-of-the-way towns in the world, Nouakchott, capital of Mauritania. It was attended by linchpins of the services responsible for the war on al Qaeda, the American Central Intelligence Agency, the British domestic and foreign secret services, MI5 and MI6, and the security chiefs of Algeria, Mali, Mauritania and Niger.

Last week too, a senior British official who specializes in intelligence and terrorism Kim Howells was dispatched to Morocco.

Add these moves to the earlier DEBKAfile finding that the explosives came from Serbia and it is clear that the real investigation is focused on West Africa, the Balkans and the Middle East – not Pakistan and Egypt.

The Nouakchott meeting was indeed called by British anti-terrorist services after their experts concluded that the team of terrorists that blew up three Tube trains and a bus in London on July 7 received their orders, explosives and operating funds from al Qaeda’s West Africa arm.

Very little is known about this remote wing of the Islamist group known as the West African Jam’a functions from deep inside the Sahara Desert under the command of Mukhtav bin Mukhtar, known also as the Blind One because he is one-eyed.

Al Qaeda refers to this area of operations as Zone 9 and it is one of the most remote, bizarre and hazardous of all its sectors.

West African Jam’a members live in hiding among the strange Tuareg tribes, no more than a million strong, of the Sahara desert. Predominantly nomadic, these Berber-speaking people roam mostly through the northern reaches of Mali near Timbuktu and Kidal. The Tuareg are often referred to as the Blue Men of the Desert for their men’s indigo-dyed robes and blue face veils.

These tribesmen have many uses for the fundamentalist terrorists.

1. They range across seven African countries: Algeria, Mali, Burkina Faso, northern Benin, large parts of Niger, Nigeria and Mauritania. Al Qaeda operatives traveling with the Tuareg have access to terrorists and smugglers away from prying eyes. In all these places, except for Algeria, security is lax.

2. For a terrorist moving around in northwest Africa, the blue veil is the perfect disguise.

3. Al Qaeda agents have learned some of the Tuareg tribes’ Berber dialects and use them as a form of internal code to guard their secrets from Western ears.

The West African Jam’a stages terrorist attacks only very rarely. Al Qaeda experts believe that even those few are carried out to divert attention from their main missions in the Sahara, which are the smuggling of arms, money and drugs.

For instance, al Qaeda’s drug shipments from Afghanistan to Europe, a primary source of funding for terrorist attacks, are routed by the West Africa Jam’a through the Sahara. Some people in counter-terror agencies believe that if anyone knows where al Qaeda has stowed its nuclear materials, it would be bin Mukhtar, who rules the West African wing of the terror organization and is also exceptionally well-connected with Russian, Central Asian, Balkan and Persian Gulf mafias.

Because of Its functions and connections, the West African Jam’a is al Qaeda’s operational arm in the international crime world.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly reports that British intelligence has mapped the route by which the explosives used in London reached the British Isles in the last two years:

Stage One

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, or another senior terrorist planner located in the Middle East, employed Jordanian, Syrian or Lebanese crime mobs to relay the money for purchasing explosives to the Serbian Mafia in Belgrade, which specializes in the acquisition of illicit weapons. Al Qaeda transferred directives to the London bomb team by the same route.

Stage Two

The purchased explosives – only a part of the consignment was used, in the view of British investigators – were shipped from the Balkans to West Africa and conveyed by local smugglers to al Qaeda agents of the West African Jam’a living among the Tuareg.

Stage Three

The explosives were divided into small packages for dispatch to the UK. Some of the merchandise was carried by smugglers boats sailing from Africa to Spain or Gibraltar, some through Algeria or Morocco.

DEBKAfile’s counter-terror sources add the British authorities have not traced the unused portion of the explosives and are trying to find out if they are still in Britain, stored ready for fresh terrorist attacks, or have been sent on to other parts of Europe. The two communiqués claiming Qaeda responsible for the London blasts specify that Italy and Denmark are next in the terrorists’ sights. Terrorism experts deduce that the missing explosives as well as funds were destined for those countries by the same route as they reached the UK – another indication that the London attacks were not an isolated incident but like the Madrid bombings last year, part of a general al Qaeda European offensive mounted from Muslim Africa and possibly masterminded from the Middle East.

Atlhough the Nouakchott conference delved into the mystery surrounding the identities of the masterminds who directed the bomb blasts and the intelligence teams which prepared them, the British have no clues as to who they are. None of the intelligence experts present doubted that the commander had visited London to inspect and approve the bomb sites some time in 2004 or even late 2003. Surveillance teams would have followed him and taken many trips on the underground to test timetables and select routes for synchronized targeting.

http://debka.com/article.php?aid=1056

Debka warning issued here....

The 801

07-25-2005, 03:26 PM

Makes sense...

Zarqawi Dilutes Iraq Netowrk, Leads New Al Qaeda Offensive in Europe and Middle EastFrom DEBKA-Net-Weekly of July 15 Updated by DEBKAfile

July 23, 2005, 8:49 AM (GMT+02:00)

DEBKAfile’s terrorism sources note Al Qaeda struck in Sharm al Sheikh Friday night, July 22, just 24 hours after US secretary of state Rice landed in the Middle East. At least 59 people were killed, 200 wounded in a series of al Qaeda car bomb attacks minutes apart. Britons, Dutch, Spaniards, Qataris, Kuwaitis and Egyptians were among the casualties. One Israeli was initially reported with minor injuries.

Egyptian police say there were 4 to 7 car bombs – starting at the Old Market area and following in Naama Bay near the Ghazala Gardens and Moevenpick hotels. The bars and market were packed. People fleeing from one explosion were trapped in another.

Last October, al Qaeda struck resorts in northern Sinai resorts including Taba Hilton killing 34, among them 13 Israelis.

On July 15, DEBKA-Net-Weekly 214 reported that al Qaeda was diluting its Iraq force for a major terror offensive in Europe and Middle East engineered by Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and on its recommendation.

The countries targeted were named as Britain, Italy, France, Denmark, Russia – with the UK and Italy at the top of the list; and, In the Middle East, Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and Israel. Zarqawi in one recent release: Israel is in our sights – and very soon.

Al Qaeda’s ability to carry out tightly coordinated strings of attacks very close together in different parts of the world has shocked many terrorism experts. According to our sources, the organization’s networks are now operating across the Middle East, Europe and West Africa from a headquarters established by Zarqawi in Iraq’s western province of Anbar. This large area bordering Syria, Jordan and Saudi Arabia has passed under his control. To relay operatives, instructions, explosives and funds to the bomber teams on the ground, the Jordanian terrorist is working with Middle East criminal smuggling rings linked to European and African mafias.

The car bombs blown up at Sharm el Sheikh bore Egyptian customs marks, indicating they were imported from outside Egypt. One fairly easy route would be the sea car ferry connecting Sharm el Sheikh to the Jordanian port of Aqaba.

Exerpts from DEBKA-Net-Weekly July 15.

While the Bush administrations prepares a troop buildup in Iraq, al Qaeda is engaged in the elaborate logistic process of shifting 1,000-1,200 terror combatants out of Iraq and getting them ready to fight on new warfronts. Everything is done in total secrecy. The terrorists are first repatriated to their countries of origin and provided with new passports and identities, before going on to join networks in Europe and the Middle East.

Reporting exclusively on these surreptitious movements, DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s Al Qaeda and counter-terror experts estimate that the terror group has already kicked off its new offensive. The coordinated bomb blasts on three London Tube trains and a bus on July 7 was one of its initial strikes – although not the only one - and there are more are to come.

At least two major attacks already carried out in London and Damascus herald the new terror offensive:

The Syrian authorities have never released any figures or details of this attack. Scores are believed to have died and hundreds injured, including holidaymakers from Gulf Arab states, when a busload of armed men opened fire on the teeming cafes and restaurants of the Mount Qassioun resort overlooking the Syrian capital. DEBKA-Net-Weekly reveals here for the first time that it was the work of a Jordanian crime mob known as the Semadi Gang. They were aided by several al Qaeda adherents who were resting in Syria from their terrorist activity in Iraq.

Our counter-terror experts describe the Mount Qassioun attack as a landmark in al Qaeda methods as well as marking the onset of its Middle East offensive.

The gangster Muhammed Sharif Semadi who planned the operation has a lurid past. He spent time in a Jordanian prison where he got together with inmates associated with al Qaeda. After his release, he took his mob to Iraq and joined up with a fellow Jordanian, al-Zarqawi and persuaded him to press Jordanian criminal elements into service for the first time as terrorists. This influx would boost the terrorist network’s ranks while making use of the gang’s far-flung connections with crooks across the Middle East and Europe.

This experiment work so well, that DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s counter-terror experts report that Zarqawi has hooked up with another three large Jordanian crime outfits.

One is the Jerabiya Gang, which based in the south Jordanian town of Maan, a notorious stronghold of Muslim extremists. Another is the Mustafa Abu Roman Gang from Salt and a third is a mixed Palestinian-Jordanian group called the Kuwait Returnees, which engages in criminal activities to support adherents, but whose basic philosophy is religious and extremist.

Most of its members are Palestinians deported from Kuwait in 1992 after the Gulf War for collaborating with Saddam Hussein. One sub-faction calls itself “Disappointed with the Palestinian Revolution” and is dedicated to overthrowing Mahmoud Abbas.

Zarqawi designed an ambitious multiple attack for Jordan as his crowning venture. It did not come off. The scheme had four parts: One, to blow up the Iraqi-Jordanian oil pipeline from Kirkuk to Zarqa; two, to torch the hundreds of American and Jordan tanker trucks waiting outside Jordanian pumping stations including H4. The Jordanian-Iraqi border terminals were to have been attacked at the same time and the villages around the terminals and oil pipeline set on fire.

Four would have emanated from the first three: the cutoff of the main energy lifeline from Jordan to the US army in Iraq and Baghdad.

Jordanian intelligence got wind of the danger in time and aborted the plot.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly’s anti-terror sources reports that Zarqawi placed one of his lieutenants, Abu Abd al Raham al-Afghani in charge of this operation. His real name is believed to be Ismail Abu Awda. The man on the ground in Jordan was to have been Fahd Faiqi, a Saudi Arabian aged 26, who lives in Jordan and acts as Zarqawi’s main contact with Jordanian crime gangs.

It was not the only success chalked up by Jordan’s intelligence services. However, the information elicited from the dozens of detained members of Zarqawi’s networks and the frequency of the major attacks thwarted – an average of one every three or four weeks - sheds a sinister light on the Jordanian master terrorist’s immediate plans.

He and al Qaeda are edging the focus of their operations out of Iraq into new arenas.

The extensive operational network al Qaeda and its top-flight operations chief have laid down in Jordan is matched in Syria. This organization, according to our sources, goes under the name of The Organization of Syrian Fighters” (Tanzim Jund al Shem). Many of its Syrian members fought in Afghanistan in the late 1980s and early 1990s and have joined the terror war against US forces in Iraq.

Al Qaeda-Syria has two commanders: Abu Rida al Shemi, a Syrian extremist close to Zarqawi. He was falsely reported killed in battle in the west Iraqi Anbar Province; and Abu Huzeifa, about whom nothing is known.

All Qaeda’s Syrian logistical infrastructure depends largely on pacts its Iraq commander struck with elements of the two Iraqi tribes, the Rawi and the Dulaim, which straddle the two countries and whose sub-groups are scattered around the Middle East.

According to intelligence estimates, Zarqawi holds on to Anbar – a territory roughly the size of Texas - with a little more than 5,000 men, of whom roughly 1,000 are Saudi and Yemeni zealots, 300 Jordanian and an unknown number of Syrians, Moroccans and Palestinians. His firm grip on Anbar persuaded the al Qaeda hierarchy in Pakistan and Afghanistan that 1,000 men could be expended from other parts of Iraq and diverted to the new terror offensive outside Iraq.

In a message to his superiors, revealed here for the first time, Zarqawi offered his estimate that after three years of joint combat, Iraqi insurgents ought to be capable of running the guerrilla war against the Americans on their own. He therefore recommended reducing the terror organization’s involvement in Iraq to the minimum needed to retain its control and focus on preserving al Qaeda-Iraq’s grip on Anbar Province for use as a territorial base and springboard for attacks in other parts of the Middle East and Europe.

These attacks will aim at engulfing additional territories in the region and toppling regimes.

The onset of the new al Qaeda offensive in London, Syria, Jordan and now Egyptian Sinai, indicates that Zarqawi’s superiors gave him the go-ahead.

http://debka.com/article.php?aid=1059

rectar

07-26-2005, 07:08 AM

Jerusalem may be in his sights very soon then...I shall say now that he is AQ #1 military man and obl is the religious mentor....

Ono

07-27-2005, 12:59 AM

Al Qaeda posts video of Algerian diplomats
27 July 2005

DUBAI: Iraq's al Qaeda group has posted a video of two kidnapped Algerian diplomats after it vowed to kill them, according to an internet posting.

The video showed two blindfolded men. One of them identified himself as Ali Belaroussi, the chief of the Algerian mission. "I live in the capital Algiers," he said. The other man said he was Azzedine Belkadi.

A statement from Al Qaeda in Iraq accompanying the video, which showed no militants, said their "confessions" would be posted soon.

Al Qaeda, led by Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, has said it would kill the two diplomats and said this would be "the fate of the ambassadors and the envoys of all infidel governments."

Algerian minister of state without portfolio Bouguerra Soltani said the government was hopeful of a positive outcome.

"We are still expecting a happy ending. I'm still hopeful," Soltani told a news conference in Algiers.

"We have taken action. We are doing this work secretly. We have sent a delegation to Iraq ... and made contacts with all influential parties that could do something to secure the release of our diplomats," he added.

AdvertisementAdvertisementGuerrilla strikes have driven diplomats from the Iraqi capital, undermining the US-backed government's efforts to gain support among Arab countries.

On Monday Algeria pulled its last diplomatic staff out of its embassy in Baghdad.

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/0,2106,3359040a12,00.html

Ono

07-27-2005, 04:36 PM

Link to claim by Al Qaeda on Algerian kidnappings:

http://www.globalterroralert.com/pdf/0705/zarqawi0705-5.pdf

Link to AQ Shariah 'verdict' on Algerian diplomats:

http://www.globalterroralert.com/pdf/0705/zarqawi0705-6.pdf

Communiaue from Algerian Salafist Group (GSPC) on kidnapping of Algerian diplomats:

http://www.globalterroralert.com/pdf/0705/gspc0705-3.pdf

Catwoman

08-31-2005, 04:26 PM

Zarqawi's Strategy in Iraq - Is there a "New Al-Qaeda?"
By Reuven Paz

Introduction
In the past two years the Jihadi insurgency in Iraq became the main element in the strategy of Al-Qaeda worldwide, and in the Middle East and Europe in particular. The U.S. administration and the British government are trying to reduce the importance of Iraq in the traditional global strategy of Al-Qaeda, but reality, and above all the effect of the threat of the Jihadi insurgency in Iraq over the Arab world, show the opposite.

Jihadi scholars, who analyze the insurgency from time to time, either for propaganda or indoctrination, do their best to present the Iraqi issue as part of a very well planned strategy. Moreover, there is an effort to present Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi as a strategic genius as part of his glorification, but always as integral part of Al-Qaeda. A new analysis in this series was posted on August 29, 2005 on a Jihadi forum by the ‘Indocrinal Branch’ (Qism al-I`lam al-Taw`awi) of Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF), which is a little different from previous such analyses. The new analysis, titled “The Military Policy of Qa`idat al-Jihad in Iraq” is written by a Saudi unknown scholar—Abu Abdallah Ahmad al-`Imran from Najd.[1] It is interesting to note here the focus on Najd, the cradle of Wahhabiyyah and of the Saudi kingdom in its two phases—in the 18th and 20th centuries—and not on Saudi Arabia. The focus on Najd in addition to the Hijaz as a separate region appears also in another part of the document. This is an attempt, on one hand, to present the Saudi Kingdom as an illegal entity, ruled by an illegal dynasty, and also to emphasize the significant role of Najdis in the Iraqi insurgency.

Zarqawi – The Glorification of a Genius Strategist
Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi left Afghanistan right after the fall of the Taleban regime to Kurdistan in order to plan and prepare the forthcoming insurgency, which he, according to the author, had anticipated. From Kurdistan he established training camps and arsenals of weapons in various parts of Iraq already during Saddam Hussein’s rule, but refrained from fighting until after the fall of Saddam and the start of the American occupation. Zarqawi tried to avoid any contact with the Baathist regime and any future accusations in this field. Zarqawi wanted to start his insurgency under circumstances of a “clean sheet.” Later on he took an oath of loyalty to Osama bin Laden, and became the Amir of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, but not only in Iraq — in the entire Middle East and North Africa. At least to his followers Zarqawi is THE leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arab world, or as the author names it in another place — “the region of Sykes-Picot.”[2]

Zarqawi, according to the document, has sketched a well-organized strategic plan, which is in legal term with Islamic rules. The plan is as follows:

1. Isolating U.S. forces in Iraq, through two main lines of activity:

• Attacking Arab translators who work for the American forces and administration in Iraq, in order to prevent any understanding between the Americans and the Iraqi public; and to block intelligence information supplied by Iraqi elements. In one word—to “leave the U.S. army in Iraq ‘deaf.’

• Targeting the new Iraqi policemen and members of the National Guard, since they became a “shield” for the Americans. By doing so they make the U.S. forces more vulnerable to Jihadi attacks. This is the main present strategy, in addition to attacks against Iraqi military camps, in order to kill “those who prefer life in this world instead of the next one.”

2. Targeting Arab and foreign diplomats, who are not considered secured according to Islamic rules. Those diplomats are not representatives of their countries to Al-Qaeda, but to an infidel regime, and hence, should be killed. This comes to justify the killing of the Egyptian and Algerian diplomats in recent months, and a warning to all other Arab countries. “All the Arab and foreign countries should know that their diplomats are legal targets to be attacked by the Mujahidin of Al-Qaeda in Iraq, who are fighting a sacred fight against the ‘Crusader alliance.’”

3. Attacking the Shi`i groups, “the symbol of heresy of the sons of Al-`Alqami.”[3] The author is focusing on a new Iraqi force—Badr Brigades (Faylaq Badr)—“which is assisted by Iran, Syria, and other foreign elements.” He points at its dangerous role against the Mujahidin, and calls for the “elimination of this organization, its commanders, members, and clerics, including Al-Hakim and Sistani. Otherwise, this organization might be disastrous for the Sunnis and for Islam in general.” The removal of these elements should take place before the American withdrawal from Iraq, to prevent a war with the Shi`is afterwards. Fighting the “`Alqamis” has two targets—revenge for the Shi`i atrocities against the Sunnis; and to clear the way for the Mujahidin, after the American withdrawal, to establish the “true Islamic Sunni government in Iraq.”

Iraq – The Model for Global Jihad
According to the author, the West knows well that a victory of the Jihadi insurgency in Iraq means that “the Jihad will move to the rest of the Middle East and the other Arab countries, and from there will become worldwide in the form of a global Jihad movement.” Therefore, the Saudi government prepares itself to deal harshly with the “Iraqi veterans,” for whom they have a new term—“the new generation”—meaning Al-Qaeda members returning from Iraq, where “Even the least of them was trained in composing explosives and car bombs.”

The document ends with quite a new interesting statement:

“Qa`idat al-Jihad in Iraq is the re-establishment of another Al-Qaeda, which will export Jihad to the rest of the world as the mother Al-Qaeda did in Afghanistan. Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi has such capabilities that the mind cannot imagine. He had prepared for fighting the Americans over a year prior to the American occupation in Iraq. He built the camps and arsenals, and recruited supporters from Najd, Hijaz, and Yemen, to be his agents in each city of these regions. In addition, he built his camps in Heart and recruited people from Al-Sham (Syria, Lebanon, and Jordan), who became his official advisers.”

Conclusion
The document is interesting for several new elements. But it should be noted first that its circulation by the GIMF provides it the nature of an official statement by Al-Qaeda, and hence, increases its significance. The author is unknown, but he is a Saudi from Najd, and the focus on the “independence” of Najd and the Hijaz, and the Najdi patriotism relating the Mujahidin, is interesting too. In the opening of the document the author also emphasizes that after Zarqawi moved to Kurdistan “many brothers from “the Land of Al-Haramain” joined him in Iraq, since he was very famous in Afghanistan.” Zarqawi, the Jordanian, receives here the status of a hero, primarily by the Saudi supporters of Al-Qaeda.

Furthermore, the “official” status given to the document by GIMF is an escalation of another phenomenon, which developed in the past year—the intensive glorification of Zarqawi, sometimes even more than of Bin Laden. The latter is mentioned here only once, even though he is given a new title, which the Jihadists started to use lately—Sheikh al-Islam—a title reserved so far only to the ideological father of militant Jihad—Ibn Taymiyyah of the 14th century. Zarqawi, “the Amir of Al-Qaeda all over the Middle East and North Africa” is also given here a new leading phase of the “new Al-Qaeda”—the Iraqi one—which is replacing the “mother movement in Afghanistan.” Do we witness here a change of roles in the leadership of global Jihad? Is Bin Laden thrown to the Pantheon of history by the “new generation,” as the Saudis calls it, which grew up on the stories from Afghanistan, but is eager to join or support the present Jihad in Iraq?

The enthusiasm that emerges from Iraq is also influencing another field—the Islamic debate over Takfir (excommunication), suicide bombings, and massive killing of Muslims. Zarqawi and his “military strategy” in Iraq attract harsh criticism by clerics who were regarded by the older generation of Al-Qaeda, including Zarqawi himself, as leading mentors—Abu Basir al-Tartusi, who recently published a fatwa against suicide bombings; Abu Muhammad al-Maqdesi, who criticized Zarqawi in public; Muhammad al-Mas`ari, one of the fathers of the oppositionist Saudi reform movement in London; and others who advised Zarqawi and his Sunni supporters in Iraq to reconsider their strict opposition to the new Iraqi constitution, and the planned elections.

It seems that there is a developing crisis in the relations between the older generation of Jihadi-Salafi clerics and scholars and their operative protégés. Zarqawi and his colleagues in Chechnya, Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, or Kashmir, will always find new and younger clerics to back their strategy from an Islamic point of view. Finding the ‘proper’ authority among the hundreds of graduates of Saudi Wahhabi Islamic universities should not prove too difficult. Such a split occurred for example between the two Saudi scholars, Safar al-Hawali and Salman al-Awdah, and their younger followers in the past three years in Saudi Arabia. In this case Hawali and al-Awdah lost their appeal and influence over the Saudi supporters of Al-Qaeda, were pushed aside, and became part of Ulamaa al-Salatin — the clerics of the government. They could not be divorced from the negative image Arab governments have in the eyes of the Jihadis.

The recent reactions in Jihadi forums against these debates and criticism over Zarqawi and his strategy by his supporters are in many cases insulting and disrespectful. The main motive is: “let the Mujahidin decide their policy, since they are in the front of Jihad and not the clerics.” This is a new style of discourse, if we look back to the criticizing but most respectful letters of Bin Laden to Sheikh Abd al-Aziz ibn Baz, or of Sheikh Yousef al-Uyeri to Dr. Safar al-Hawali. The “new generation of Iraqi Arabs” is rude and much more self-confident than their fathers of the “Arab Afghans,” especially that they have a new kind of a king — Abu Mus’ab al-Zarqawi.

Above all, the strategy of Zarqawi, yet derived from Bin Laden’s, is to change the face of the “old Middle East,” the one based upon the Sykes-Picot agreement of 1916. The center of the change is Iraq. What Bin Laden failed to do in Saudi Arabia against the American presence there in the 1990s, Zarqawi is implementing in Iraq in the 2000s. The splinters of his insurgency in Iraq are falling in other Arab and European countries. But, his biggest success seems to be the on-going and growing support for him in the ranks of “the new generation” despite the criticism.

* * * NOTES * * *

[1] Abu `Abdallah Ahmad al-`Imran, Al-Siyasah al-Qitaliyyah li-Qa`idat al-Jihad fi bilad al-rafidhayn, August 29, 2005. See on-line in: http://www.al-saf.net/vb/showthread.php?t=14567
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[2] The Sykes-Picot agreement of May 1916 divided the Middle East into British and French areas of influence, and is the basis of the geo-political borders of modern Middle East. In the Arab World this agreement is one of the greatest symbols of Western imperialism in the region. In Islamists’ eyes, this is one of the worst imperialist acts of the global conspiracy against the Muslims.
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[3] Mu’ayyed al-Din ibn al-`Alqami was a Shi`i minister of the last Sunni Khalifah of the Abbasid Empire during the Mongol occupation of Baghdad in the 13th century. He was accused of high treason and of assisting the Mongol army of Hulagu. He became in Islamic Sunni history a symbol of Shi`i high treason against the Sunnis. In recent years he has had a leading role in the discourse of the Jihadi Salafis against the Shi`ah in Iraq. `Alqam in Arabic also means one of the most bitter plants – Colocynth.
(back)

# # #

Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center
THE PROJECT FOR THE RESEARCH OF ISLAMIST MOVEMENTS
(PRISM)
OCCASIONAL PAPERS Volume 3 (2005), Number 5 (August 2005)
Director and Editor: Reuven Paz.

The Project for the Research of Islamist Movements is part of the Global Research in International Affairs (GLORIA) Center. Site: www.e-prism.org. Email: reupaz@netvision.net.il. All material copyright Reuven Paz unless otherwise stated. Credit if quoting; ask permission to reprint. GLORIA is part of the Interdisciplinary Center, Herzliya, ISRAE

experiencediz

09-01-2005, 03:56 PM

Al-Qaeda claims London attacks
01/09/2005 20:06 - (SA)

Dubai - Qatar-based Al-Jazeera TV said on Thursday it had received a videotape in which al-Qaeda claims responsibility for the July 7 London bombings.

Fifty-six people - four of them suicide bombers - died in the attacks.

Al-Jazeera showed footage of one of the bombers, Mohammad Sidique, and of al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri, who it said described the rush-hour bombings on underground trains and a bus as a "slap" on the face of British Prime Minister Tony Blair.

•Al-Qaeda claims London attacks (http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-090105britbombs_wr,0,3013921.story?coll=la-tot-promo&track=morenews)

Black Flag

09-04-2005, 11:39 AM

In the Name of Allah, the Benificent, the Merciful
The praise of Allah who made for each thing a reason, then breaking the oppressors and their killing wasted, and the prayer and the greeting on our prophet Mohamed, that above by the sword a flag, and it told about the jihad an argument and a verse and on its family and its friends with the science and the knowledge .

And till now :
He said that rose { ...And is still who disbelieved she injures them by what made a beating or solves near their house until the promise of an Allah comes Allah does not break the date } the Chapter of Thunder any 31

A pleasant of the Islamic nation, and its fighting sheikh Osama Abi Abdullah, and our prince the religion is Muhammad Omar, and the sheikh Ayman Zawahiri, a pleasant of Al-Fallujah people and the executor and a new is Walkrabla, a pleasant of our family in Palestine, a pleasant to the Islamic nation and its good news with the destruction of the hamlet head America, then there she is the collapse signs apparent on it, every day Al Qouara befalls them or near their houses, { then that their houses are empty by what wronged in that to a sign to a people that knows }, { and what we wronged but they themselves were wronging }
A short time ago America hits who wants and kills who wants and starves who wants and today it begs the oil and the food, has become due that was jealous Allah on America, and the prayer of the oppressed was answered, { then we opened the gates of heaven by a torrential water ( 11 ) and exploded the land eyes then it met the water on a matter it has been estimated } Al Qmraya sura is 12

Allah is Allah with the invitation O lover Mohamed's nation peace be upon him, the victory signs have appeared in the horizon, and revealed the great anger on the people the unjust, has reached their thousands dead, and their billions losses, then the invitation the invitation to the support of your religion, by the militants hands or by a support from Allah { and we await you that Allah injures you by torture from it or by our hands then they awaited we are with you waiting } the Chapter of Repentance is the verse of 52
, the inability of the people of earth is from the Muslims about defending their religion, Lord are to the oppressors Lbalmrsad

And this a call to the Arabs tyrants : there she is the dear raids the revengeful, it comes in succession on the oppressors, eclipsed and a flood and hurricanes, and the merciful soldiers from the militants, grab Allah enemies everywhere, and another soldier { and what knows Lord soldiers except he and she is nothing but an anniversary of the human being }, { say O a people you work on your position I am working then you will know who had the house consequence it the oppressors do not succeed }

Oh Allah on you by the head of the hamlet America
Oh Allah I count them number and kill them they wasted and does not leave from them one
Oh Allah he tortured them by our hands and with torture from you O the Lord of the Worlds
Oh Allah sent on them the flood and the extermination O the Lord of the Worlds
Oh Allah dismantling our prisoners tie oh Allah freeing our brothers capture in the crusaders prisons and their tails
Oh Allah support the militants everywhere
Oh Allah keep the leaders of jihad and militants Abi Abdullah Osama and the religion Muhammad Omar and the sheikh Ayman Zawahiri
Oh Allah who wanted by them a badness then I make the disaster spread over it until he slaughters himself by its hands O the Lord of the Worlds
Oh Allah the writers house is the clouds's course of the Conqueror of the parties defeat them and support us against them
Oh Allah the writers house is the clouds's course of the Conqueror of the parties defeat them and support us against them
Oh Allah the writers house is the clouds's course of the Conqueror of the parties defeat them and support us against them
And in the end

{ that from the villages news we narrate it to you from them standing and harvest, and what we wronged but they wronged themselves then what their gods that call without Allah from a thing for what the order of a Lord came saved from them and what they bestowed not Ttbib, and also taking a Lord if they took the villages and she is unjust their taking is painful and strong } the Chapter of Hud is Aya 100-102
And the praise of Allah the Lord of the Worlds
The Al-Qaeda network in Mesopotamia Sunday 30 of Rajab is the agreeing 1426 4 / 9 / 2005

The Iraqi Maysara father
( the media department by the Al-Qaeda network in Mesopotamia )

Petronas

10-31-2005, 09:08 PM

Iran 'lets al-Qaeda roam free'
October 27, 2005

IRAN is permitting around 25 high-ranking al-Qaeda members to roam free in the country's capital, including three sons of Osama bin Laden, a German monthly magazine reports. Citing information from unnamed Western intelligence sources, the magazine Cicero said in a preview of an article appearing in its November edition that the individuals in question are from Egypt, Uzbekistan, Saudi Arabia and Europe.

They are living in houses belonging to Iran's Revolutionary Guards, the report said. "This is not incarceration or house arrest," a Western intelligence agent was quoted as saying. "They can move around as they please."

The three sons of Osama bin Laden in Iran are Saeed, Mohammad and Othman, Cicero reported. Another person enjoying the support of the Revolutionary Guards is al-Qaeda spokesman Abu Ghaib, the report said.

Iran first said late last year that it had arrested and would try a number of foreigners suspected of having links to al-Qaeda, a loose network of military groups that Washington blames for the attacks of September 11, 2001 and bomb attacks in Spain, Indonesia, Egypt and elsewhere.

The report in Cicero also accused the Revolutionary Guards' secret service of offering logistical support and military training to senior al-Qaeda leaders. Iran has repeatedly denied any link to or support of al-Qaeda. Britain and the United States suspect Iran of supporting insurgents in Iraq, a charge Tehran has vehemently denied.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0%2C5744%2C17050611%25255E1702%2C00.html

The 801

11-03-2005, 12:52 PM

A must read...

Amazing stuff by my favorite journalist outside of William Safire. This guy is wired to Al-Qaeda like no one else. I suggest you put his name on your google custom news and you will read some real wild stuff.

Al-Qaeda goes back to base
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - Al-Qaeda is in the process of a decisive ideological debate that could see the highly secretive group restructured within a year, with bases in Iraq and Afghanistan, and adopting a more open, centralized, approach.

Two issues lie at the heart of the matter. The first is whether al-Qaeda achieves its aims by "fighting against evil", or whether it "fights against evil and its allies", according to contacts familiar with the group who spoke to Asia Times Online.

The second issue involves al-Qaeda's lack of a physical base, a matter of concern to Islamic scholars, following its retreat from

Afghanistan and subsequently being forced out of hideouts along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border.

Regarding the discourse on al-Qaeda's enemy, on one side a major portion of al-Qaeda wants to remain true to the original goal of ousting foreign forces from the Persian Gulf region and ending the occupation of Muslim territories; on the other, a powerful group led by Egyptian Abu Amro Abdul Hakeem, also known as Sheikh Essa, who has strongly influenced elements in Pakistan and Saudi Arabia, believes that the targets should be extended.

In al-Qaeda jargon, there are dajal (anti-God) forces, and there are pro-God forces. The US and its European allies are dajal forces, and remain the primary target of the majority in al-Qaeda.

Sheikh Essa argues that the Muslim leaderships in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, Egypt and, not least, Pakistan should not be considered pro-God forces, as they are now.

Saudi Arabia and Pakistan are central in this debate. Sheikh Essa fervently believes that the Pakistani military is as bad as that of the US, and thus should be categorized as an anti-God force whose leader, President General Pervez Musharraf, sides with the US with full conviction.

The October 8 earthquake in South Asia, which has claimed tens of thousands of lives, most of them in Pakistan-administered Kashmir, has added incendiary clout to Sheikh Essa, whose followers now claim that the disaster was God's revenge against Pakistan, especially as it took place exactly on the fourth anniversary of the launch of US air sorties from Pakistani bases to strike against Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda had a strong presence.

The Sheikh Essa faction has other reasons to hate the Pakistani establishment as it is seen as having betrayed the al-Qaeda cause by handing over hundreds of al-Qaeda members, and even their children and wives, to US authorities; this following Pakistan's reversal of its support for the Taliban and the Pakistani army being sent into the tribal areas to root out foreign fighters and members of the Afghan resistance.

Osama bin Laden has always resisted taking the fight to Muslim countries. According to scholars such as Saad al-Faqih, who is considered very close to al-Qaeda, bin Laden understands that a major blow against Saudi Arabia would bring down the regime, but the ensuing chaos and mayhem would be reason for the US to justify sending its troops into the holy land.

The senior al-Qaeda leadership believes that only Musharraf is "pro-God" , and not the Pakistani Army; therefore for the time being they want to leave Pakistan alone and keep their focus on the US.

Asia Times Online contacts close to al-Qaeda say that recently the top leadership has become alarmed at the widening split within the organization and has begun consultations with all major Islamic jihadi groups and scholars.

Pending the results of these deliberations, expected by the end of this northern winter, a definitive and final word on the real course of the struggle will be reached, after which major decisions are expected on the shape and nature of al-Qaeda.

Back to base
Many among Islamic groups, scholars and educated masses in the Islamic world are sympathetic with al-Qaeda's struggle against US imperialism, but they have serious reservations over its shadowy nature and its methods of operation, many of which, they believe, go against the tenets of Islam.

From the days of the Prophet Mohammed it has been established that neither the message of Islam nor its struggle is a secret. Therefore, Muslim scholars are agreed that an Islamic state is a prerequisite before - and from which - jihad can be waged.

This places al-Qaeda in something of a spot, as nowadays it has no "home base" from which to wage jihad. In discussions in the past several months with prominent scholars and a top leader of an Islamic group (followed by Asia Times Online contacts), al-Qaeda leaders argued that they were fighting a defensive jihad as Afghanistan had been attacked and occupied, followed by Iraq. Since they don't have a piece of land in their possession, al-Qaeda has had to conduct irregular and guerrilla warfare.

However, the contacts maintain that the al-Qaeda leadership is optimistic that by the start of summer next year they will be in control of significant "space" in Iraq and in Afghanistan, which would legitimize their jihad in the eyes of scholars.

This would include appointing an ameer (commander) whose name would be announced, and al-Qaeda's irregular fighting would be organized under one command. The existing setup of small, virtually independent cells would be subsumed under the single command, and no one would operate on their own, as has been the trend since al-Qaeda lost their base in Afghanistan following the ouster of the Taliban in late 2001, and the intense pressure of the US-led "war on terror", which saw many communication and financial links severed.

The cells would fall under single commands in Iraq and Afghanistan, from where they would be directed for external operations, such as launching attacks on the US.

If al-Qaeda prevails over its internal conflicts and adopts the strategy as outlined above, it would be a major turning point not only for the organization, but for the whole of the Muslim world and beyond.

Dawa (Islamic message), hijra (evolution from an enemy state into an Islamic state) and jihad are the three stages based on the life of the Prophet Mohammed to bring about revolution in society.

In essence, al-Qaeda, which means means "the base" in Arabic, is in search of a physical base, like the mujahideen had during the Soviet resistance period in Afghanistan in the 1980s, when they grabbed all rural Afghanistan, or like the one al-Qaeda had two years ago when it moved into the Shawal and Shakai areas near South and North Waziristan on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, before being driven out by combined US and Pakistan efforts.

Once new bases are found - al-Qaeda confidently believes this will be done in Iraq and Afghanistan - the process of dawa, hijra and jihad will begin, and many presently peripheral Islamic groups across the world will pour into these two countries for a reinvigorated campaign against US forces.

Syed Saleem Shahzad, Bureau Chief, Pakistan Asia Times Online. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

Petronas

11-06-2005, 11:52 AM

Bin Laden wants whites
Sunday, November 6, 2005

AL-QAEDA are recruiting WHITE terrorists to attack the West, it was revealed yesterday. Osama Bin Laden’s fanatics reckon they can avoid detection more easily. Six websites with known links to al-Qaeda are carrying recruiting appeals and terrorist training manuals in ENGLISH.

Terror author Neil Doyle, who specialises in tracking Bin Laden’s organisation on the net, said: “These sites are trying to attract white converts to Islam. There are references to joining up for jihad, together with English language versions of al-Qaeda terrorist handbooks. “Al-Qaeda has previously avoided English — believing it to be the language of infidels.”

The terrorists’ internet mouthpiece talks of the “next al-Qaeda soldier” and warns: “They are a group of your sons born in Europe from European parents — Christians who studied in your schools. They blend into the streets of Europe and America. They ate pork and persecuted the Muslims. But al-Qaeda brought them in.” Al-Qaeda recruited British-born Jack Roche, 52, in Australia. He was jailed for plotting a terror attack.

http://www.thesun.co.uk/article/0,,2-2005510315,00.html

Casey

11-09-2005, 08:42 AM

2005-11-09
Why Al-Qaeda will live on?
Analysts claim Al-Qaeda's ability to transform itself into source of inspiration has ensured it will remain threat in long run.
By Michel Moutot - PARIS
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Al-Qaeda has defied a global crackdown since September 11, 2001 and is now assured long-term survival even after the death or possible capture of its leader, analysts say.
Arresting or capturing Osama bin Laden would change nothing in Al-Qaeda, said Michael Scheuer, former head of the CIA's Bin Laden unit.

"Al-Qaeda is now a well-established, 17-year-old firm; indeed, the parts of it that developed from mechanisms that supported the Afghans against the Soviets have been operating for 25 years," Scheuer said.

"In short, Al-Qaeda is now what its founders intended: a reliable, professional organization that has demonstrated long-term durability."

Al-Qaeda's propaganda success was underscored, analysts said, by the fact that young people integrated into British society and with no apparent link to classic terrorist structures were believed to be behind the July 7 bombings on the London transport network and an attempted copycat attack two weeks later.

"From Al-Qaeda's first day to the present, Bin Laden's priority has been to incite and instigate Muslims to support and participate in a defensive jihad against the United States and its allies," said Scheuer.

"He and his lieutenants have spent large amounts of money, time and imagination to build a world-class media and propaganda apparatus," he said.

"Today, that apparatus is in full operation."

Hunted by the world's law enforcers, Al-Qaeda's ability to transform itself into a source of inspiration has ensured it will remain a threat for years to come, agreed Bruce Hoffman, chair of counterterrorism and counterinsurgency at US risk analysis group RAND.

"The phenomenon that we have seen in London and Spain, the diasporas becoming more involved in terrorism, represents a strategic choice made by Al-Qaeda several years ago when they began to actively cultivate diaspora communities for membership in the movement," Hoffman said.

"It is part of Al Qaeda's long term strategic vision that reaches far into the future," he said.

Al-Qaeda had become more of a source of inspiration to its followers than an operational force, Hoffman said.

"It mattered more to capture Bin Laden four years ago than now, because he is now more a figurehead than anything else," he said. "The movement he created will live on, I think he desired it that way from the start."

French criminologist Xavier Raufer, author of recent work "The Enigma of Al-Qaeda", said it was no longer possible to be a clandestine terrorist and at the same time run an organizational network.

"So you withdraw from the world, like Bin Laden, into the mountains and without any electronic contact. And to continue to exist on the international level you have to be scattered, with the least amount of organization possible," Raufer said.

"Of course, it would be important if someone like Bin Laden was arrested and brought to justice. But that would not mean any fewer attacks at the end of the year. Something has been unleashed and whether it is stopped or not does not depend on the life of a single man."

http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/features/?id=14979=14979&format=0

Petronas

11-16-2005, 01:47 AM

A Bridge Too Far
By MAAMOUN YOUSSEF
AP 14/11/05

Contributors to Islamic Web sites known for enthusiastically supporting al-Qaida have reacted angrily and with unprecedented criticism to last week's hotel bombings in Jordan, saying that the targeting of Muslims and the public outrage that followed have damaged the reputation of the insurgent group. One regular contributor suggested Monday that al-Qaida in Iraq, which claimed responsibility for the suicide bombings that killed 60 people, "reconsider its mistakes." Another writer, in an article republished on several sites, directly criticized group leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and offered him advice for the next attack.

The postings were a startling turn for the Web sites, where anonymous or pseudonymed writers regularly glorify al-Qaida's terrorist operations in discussion forums and where religious propaganda -- including recruitment attempts -- and militant statements are posted. "We hope al-Qaida reconsiders the mistakes of the operation," wrote Sami, a regular contributor to the Islamic forums. "By God, we are shedding tears of blood because of the many negative aspects attached to the operation," he wrote. "I swear to God it was a big mistake in which al-Qaida will pay a heavy price."

An article by a writer calling himself Al-Murshid, or "the guide," appeared on several sites, urging al-Zarqawi to avoid any "military operation" that might harm innocent Muslims. "This is both a (religious) task and a pragmatic tactic. ... Acts where many innocent Muslims lose their lives make us lose a lot of popular support," he wrote. "The death of the innocent Muslims in this attack ... was a fact that lived with each Jordanian. Now people say al-Qaida kills innocent Muslims."

In the days after the triple hotel bombings residents of Amman and other cities in Jordan held angry protests condemning al-Qaida in Iraq and demanding al-Zarqawi's death. The bombs killed 60 people -- including three Iraqi suicide bombers -- more than half of them Arabs. The vehement protests -- in which thousands shouted "Burn in hell, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi!" and "Death to al-Zarqawi, the villain and the traitor!" -- prompted the group to issue a second statement to justify the killing of Muslims, alleging that the hotels were dens for Western and Israeli intelligence agents.

Contributor Fawz Al Islam said the attack made the media "portray the mujahedeen as cannibals. I have noticed a split (in opinion) in many jihad Web sites." Other writers accused al-Qaida of being too hasty in issuing the claim of responsibility, particularly because the mention of a female bomber led Jordanian intelligence to search for the woman after finding the bodies of three male bombers only. The female suspect was arrested on Sunday and gave a televised statement about her role in the attacks.

"The thing that most saddened me was the organization's insistence on issuing three statements about the operation, which only benefited the enemies of the nation on military, information and field aspects," al-Murshid wrote in his article, which was highlighted on one site with four stars to draw attention to it. He also criticized the selection of the venue, timing and means of the attacks, and suggested that light weapons should be used in the attacks to avoid killing innocent people. Al-Murshid advised al-Zarqawi to work to regain the confidence of his supporters by announcing that "the killing of Muslims has saddened the organization and that shedding Muslims' blood is forbidden." "Muslims in Jordan are the ones who best realize the effect of Amman's explosions on ordinary people and (al-Zarqawi) cannot fully realize that effect," he said.

A contributor signed Prime Negotiator agreed, lamenting the fallout in Jordan. "Go to Amman and hear, unfortunately, a lot of people cursing al-Zarqawi everywhere," he wrote. "With this act, al-Qaida destroyed its great assets of Jordanian appreciation for its jihad in Iraq." The protests against the attacks were held even in al-Zarqawi's hometown of Zarqa and the southern city of Maan, known to be a hub for Muslim fundamentalists. "The Jordanian people's confidence in al-Qaida became zero," Prime Negotiator wrote, complaining that the only beneficiaries of the attacks were Jordanian intelligence, the CIA and Israel's Mossad.

http://www.ocnus.net/artman/publish/article_21383.shtml

The 801

12-03-2005, 06:41 PM

Obscure al-Qaida Chemist Worries Experts

By CHARLES J. HANLEY, AP Special Correspondent 5 minutes ago

ALEXANDRIA, Egypt - He's a mystery in a red beard, with a strange alias and a degree in chemical engineering. In the hands of this alleged al-Qaida operative, it's a specialty that summons visions of poison gas and mass terror.
click here

Al-Qaida is "wedded to the spectacular," notes U.S. counterterrorism analyst Donald Van Duyn, and elusive Egyptian chemist Midhat Mursi was said to be exploring such possibilities when last seen, brewing up deadly compounds and gassing dogs in
Afghanistan.

Van Duyn's
FBI and other U.S. agencies are interested enough in Mursi to have posted a $5 million reward this year for his capture. Egypt's government reportedly is interested enough to have seized and locked up his two sons in an effort to track down the father.

The U.S. reward poster says the alleged bombmaker, also known as Abu Khabab, literally "Father of the Trotting Horse," may be in Pakistan. But "we don't think there's really a good fix on where he is," Van Duyn said in a Washington interview.

"Nobody knows," said Mohamed Salah, a Cairo expert on Islamic extremists. "He could be in any country, under another ID. Or he could be on the Afghan-Pakistani border, with Zawahri."

Unlike fellow Egyptian Ayman al-Zawahri,
Osama bin Laden's deputy, Mursi is largely an unknown figure. "Here in Egypt, his name doesn't represent anything for us," said Diaa Rashwan, who follows Islamic militancy for Cairo's Al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies.

A son of Alexandria's al-Asafirah, a noisy seaside district of rutted streets and crowded housing, Mursi, 52, graduated from Alexandria University in 1975, say the Islamist researchers of London's Islamic Observation Center. It was a period when Muslim militancy flared in this Mediterranean city, as zealots burned liquor stores and other "non-Islamic" trgets.

Salah, who writes for the pan-Arab daily al-Hayat, said it isn't known what Mursi was doing in the 1980s, but he was not among scores of defendants in the terrorism conspiracy trials that followed President Anwar Sadat's 1981 assassination, the young men considered the core of Egyptian militancy.

The London center says Mursi left Egypt in 1987 for Saudi Arabia, and then Afghanistan, where Egyptian militants joined the war against Soviet occupation.

In 1998, Zawahri's group, Islamic Jihad, merged with bin Laden's al-Qaida, bringing what Rashwan says were at least 100 experienced Egyptian militants into al-Qaida ranks. But the director of the Islamic Observation Center questions whether Mursi was among them.

Yasser al-Sirri says the Egyptian chemist did "consult" with bin Laden's group, but "my information is that he is not a member of al-Qaida."

After the U.S. invasion in 2001, computer files uncovered by reporters in Afghanistan showed that by 1999 the man referred to as Abu Khabab, armed with a "startup" budget of $2,000 to $4,000, was working to develop chemical and biological weapons in Afghanistan.

His most notorious work was recorded on videotape, eventually obtained by CNN in 2002, showing dogs being killed in gas experiments. Intelligence sources said a voice heard on the tape was Mursi's, the cable network said.

Experts believe the gas was hydrogen cyanide, used in gas-chamber executions. But
NATO chemical weapons specialist Rene Pita says that compound has long been viewed as an unsatisfactory mass-casualty chemical weapon because of its instability and low density.

Journalists in post-invasion Afghanistan found the "Abu Khabab laboratory," part of al-Qaida's Darunta complex 70 miles east of Kabul, to be a rudimentary site lighted by a single bulb among disorderly boxes of test tubes, syringes and vials.

Specialists doubt al-Qaida could produce sufficient amounts of sophisticated chemical weapons, such as nerve agents, without a large-scale, even state-sponsored operation. "Those were very crude labs in Afghanistan," said Washington expert Jonathan Tucker, of the Monterey Institute for International Studies.

Even before discovery of his Afghan operation, Mursi was quietly being hunted as an al-Qaida bombmaker, Salah said. He said the Egyptian was suspected of having helped train suicide bombers who attacked the destroyer
USS Cole in Yemen, killing 17 American sailors.

Five months after that October 2000 attack, Egyptian authorities arrested Mursi's son Mohamed as he flew into Cairo with a fake Yemeni passport, Cairo's al-Ahram Weekly reported at the time.

"That indicates the family was in Yemen," said Salah. "Abu Khabab must have gone to Yemen. Why Yemen? Because of the USS Cole."

Then, early last year, another son, Hamzah, was deported from Pakistan into Egyptian custody, said London's al-Sirri. Mohamed at least is believed still held, Salah said, as authorities apparently seek to extract information or pressure the father.

The Egyptian Interior Ministry declined to discuss the continuing hunt for the mysterious Abu Khabab, about whom so little is confirmed that of 14 descriptors on the U.S. "Rewards for Justice" poster — from "Height" to "Status" — 10 are followed by "Unknown."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051203/ap_on_re_mi_ea/al_qaida_s_chemist

Petronas

12-06-2005, 01:44 AM

Are they trying to say that they can't be found because they are able to hide so well with the help of the Iranian autorities?

IRAN: TEHRAN DENIES AL-QAEDA'S PRESENCE
Dec-05-05 12:53

Tehran, 5 Dec. (AKI) - The Iranian government has denied the presence of al-Qaeda in the country. "No al-Qaeda leader can currently be found in the Islamic Republic," Ali Larijani, the secretary of the High Council of National Security of Iran and the man behind the foreign policy of the new Iranian government, has said. "All the members and leaders of al-Qaeda who took refuge in our country, following the American bombardment of Afghanistan, have been indentified and returned to their countries of origin," said Larijani, who is also Iran's chief nuclear negotiator.

Arab and Western sources, contrary to what Ali Larijani has stated, are convinced that many of the leaders of the terrorist organisation are still present as refugees in Iran, where they continue to reside thanks to the protection of Islamic militia and certain extremists groups close to the new Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who came to power after the June presidential elections.

The same sources speak of the presence in Iran of the eldest son of the Osama bin Laden, Saad, as well as al-Qaeda's spokesperson, Suleyman Abu Gaith, and the Egyptian, Saif al Adel, one of the United States' most wanted terrorists who is believed to be a high-ranking member of al-Qaeda.

Contrary to what Ali Larijani has stated, in August of 2004, the Iranian minister of intelligence of the previous government of Mohammad Khatami had admitted to the presence in Iran of many al-Qaeda leaders whose arrests and trial were imminent. However the then minister of intelligence refused to provide a list of the al-Qaeda members in Iran. According to a 2 December report by the Israeli Debka Net Weekly website, al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden is alive and and running new terrorist training camps in Afghanistan.

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Security&loid=8.0.236430862&par=0

Casey

12-08-2005, 01:11 PM

Moroccan source: Terrorist cell reveals plans for establishing Al-Qaeda in North African countries

08/12/2005
By Ahmad Al-Arqam

Asharq Al-Awsat, Rabat - Investigations carried out by the Moroccan security services after the arrest of a terrorist cell that was made up of 17 members have uncovered the cell's terrorist plans. These plans included restructuring the Al-Qaeda organization in Saudi Arabia following the Saudi security forces' success in finding and arresting a number of its activists. The cell also planned to have the extremist Algerian Salafist Group for Call and Combat (GSPC) rejoin Osama Bin Ladin's organization and set up an Al-Qaeda branch in the Maghreb countries (Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia) as a base for attacks to be launched on the countries that support US administration.

The investigations showed that Moroccan Mohamed Raha, the militant who helped the fighters infiltrate into Iraq across the Syrian border, insisted on concentrating on the importance of restructuring Al-Qaeda's organization in Saudi Arabia and to creating Al-Qaeda in the Maghreb countries in the same way that Abu-Mus'ab al-Zarqawi's has established Al-Qaeda in Iraq.

Security sources said that Raha contacted Khaled Abu-Basir al-Jazairi, responsible for establishing Al-Qaeda in Europe with its supporters in Belgium, the Netherlands, France, Spain, Britain, Denmark, and Germany, to send urgent messages to Bin Ladin to draw up a comprehensive plan for implementing the intended operations.

The investigations also showed that Moroccan Khaled Azik was first asked to deliver the messages to Bin Ladin, especially after Azik revealed his success of previous missions such as the infiltration of some Arab fighters into Iraq via Syria, and seeing the wife of one Chechen leader from Istanbul to Damascus. However, at the last moment, Abu-Basir al-Jazairi expressed fears that the Iranian security authorities had already discovered Azik who was due to cross Iran's borders through to Afghanistan. Instead, he decided to assign the task to Abu-al-Bara al-Sa'udi, a member of Al-Qaeda responsible for collecting funding for the fighters in Afghanistan.

The first message talked about the necessity for new Al-Qaeda elements in Saudi Arabia to replace others that had been captured by the Saudi security authorities. The same message revealed that these new elements were already in the country and were simply awaiting a response from Al-Qaeda's leaders.

The second message talked about a plan to have the GSPC join Al-Qaeda officially, to pledge allegiance to Osama Bin Ladin, and unite the ranks of the religiously committed youths wishing to take part in "jihad"' in the North African Arab countries under the GSPC's banner.

The third message sought to establish an Al-Qaeda organization in the Arab Maghreb countries similar to that in Iraq and to unite the North Africans of Europe.

The security investigations showed that the methodology behind ensuring the plan's success was based on attracting volunteers and sending them to Algeria to undergo military training in the GSPC's camps. They would be trained in the use of weapons and the manufacturing of explosives. Furthermore, they would take part in the Algerian group's operations against the Algerian security forces. Volunteers would be sent to Syria after having completed this training to set up a base on Syrian soil, and to enter Iraq to carry out suicide operations.

The same investigations also indicated that the Moroccan volunteers would return to Morocco after completing their military tasks in the Middle East and become sleeper cells waiting for instructions from Al-Qaeda to carry out terrorist acts targeting the security and intelligence centers, parliament, tourist establishments, naval and commercial ships, and foreign interests, especially those of Jews.

According to the plan, Al-Qaeda's terrorist cell was planning to launch its operations in either Morocco or Algeria and if successful, would have called itself "Qaedat al-Jihad in the Arab Maghreb Countries".

A Moroccan security source said that common method of the extremist religious groups is to attract religiously committed youths and teach them the methods of terrorists. These start with meetings held in various places to watch videos and hear tapes talking about the suffering of Muslims and Arabs in Iraq, Palestine, Chechnya, and other countries. Once they have absorbed these ideas, the youths are sent to camps for quasi-military training and in the end, are used as human weapons to carry out the plans of the international terrorist organizations.

http://aawsat.com/english/news.asp?section=1&id=2978

The 801

12-08-2005, 01:16 PM

Petronas, That's all the confirmation that I need...

Here's something to lighten your day...

Taken for a ride in the 'war on terror'
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - Since the onset of the "war on terror", the US has detained more than 3,000 people worldwide in a network of secret prisons established by the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) in a number of regions, from Southeast Asia to North Africa, South Asia and Eastern Europe.

Revelations of this policy have drawn a flood of criticism, with allegations that prisoners held in such countries at the CIA's behest could have been subject to unlawful interrogation.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking in Germany, began her tour of Europe this week with the admission that the

US had made "mistakes" in the "war on terror". While insisting that the US did not "condone" torture, she said, "We recognize that any policy [such as rendition of prisoners] will sometimes result in errors."

She could well have been referring to Pakistan, a key ally in this endeavor.

Ever since signing on for the "war on terror", the administration of President General Pervez Musharraf has been under constant pressure to clamp down on the many al-Qaeda-linked and Afghan resistance figures known to have taken shelter in the country.

Pakistan has generally tried to please, at times a little too hard. In the past four years it has rounded up many thousands of suspects, most of whom had nothing to do with terrorism but were simply there to make up the numbers.

But US "intelligence" is catching on.

"The Americans are not fools [in this game] any more. They understand the gimmicks and now they do not take any interest in such pseudo al-Qaeda people," said Khalid Khawaja, one-time close friend of Osama bin Laden and also a former Inter-Services Intelligence official. He now operates the non-governmental organization Defense for Human Rights, which provides legal relief for families affected by the "war on terror".

The case of Abdullah Khadr is a good illustration. He was roughed up in Pakistani custody before being released and returned to Toronto, Canada, a free man. But only after the US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) refused to accept him.

The 24-year-old Canadian, whose brother is the only Canadian held in the US detention center in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, is the oldest of Ahmed Said Khadr's four sons. The senior Khadr, an accused terrorist financier, was killed in a 2003 shootout with Pakistani forces.

"Abdullah Khadr was questioned at the airport by RCMP [Royal Canadian Mounted Police] investigators, then dropped off at his grandparents' home in Scarborough [a suburb of Toronto] and told he was a 'free man', according to his relatives and lawyer," the Toronto Star reported.

Though US officials told the Star that they might seek to have charges laid against Khadr and have him extradited to the US to face trial, security sources in Pakistan revealed that Abdullah would only have been released from Pakistan after being thoroughly scanned, and the US refused to take him as there was no evidence against him.

According to security officials who spoke to Asia Times Online, there is now a long list of such detainees in Pakistani custody, held under various charges. They are carefully scrutinized by US intelligence, and if found clear they are sent back to their countries of origin.

"Pakistan has flooded CIA planes with hundreds of accused in the past several months. Of those hundreds, only a few dozen have been found guilty. The rest became a liability and were subsequently released," an official said.

These include Mohammed and Khalid, sons of Shiekh Essa, who leads a group in al-Qaeda that believes in violence against Muslim regimes that are allied with the US. Abdur Rehman, a Pakistani, was also recently handed over to Egypt after he was presented to the FBI, which found him a "waste of time".

Earlier, three Dutch-Pakistani brothers, Sajeel Shahid, Adil Shahid and Sohail Shahid, were kept in detention for a long period by Pakistani authorities, but when the US found them useless they were handed over to the Dutch government, and they now live in the Netherlands as free citizens. Sohail Shahid was chairman of the Software Control Board and Adil Shahid was a software advisor in the Pakistani armed forces. As Sajeel Shahid ran a madrassa , they all landed in trouble.

"This is a racket by Pakistani and all other Muslim governments to trade support for their dictatorships in the garb of al-Qaeda arrests. Most of them turned out to be pseudo and therefore exposed the intentions of these regimes. Every now and then they carry out operations in which they show hundreds of people rounded up, and then they present them to the FBI," said Khawaja.

"But now the Americans understand this. Western governments' behavior is far more humane than the so-called Islamic dictatorial regimes.

"I was interviewed by the Canadian media and they are telling me that Abdullah Khadr is moving around on the Canadian streets as a free man. On the contrary, when the US releases Pakistanis from its Cuban prison, even after much screening, they are immediately detained at the airport [in Pakistan] and locked in prisons for months," said Khawaja.

Arrests and operations have invariably preceded all of Musharraf's foreign trips, especially to the US. His present visit to the Middle East was also preceded by a major crackdown on militants in Pakistan.

The most interesting was the alleged killing of Hamza Rabia, said to be a senior al-Qaeda commander. Though the US doubted his killing and al-Qaeda denied it, the Pakistani interior minister termed Rabia's death "100% fact", while the minister of information said it was "200% correct". Not to be outdone, while in the Middle East for an extraordinary summit of the Organization of Islamic Conference in Mecca, Musharraf said it was "500% certain" that Rabia was dead.

With such fluctuating odds, who's betting on Pakistan producing the goods for the US?

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GL09Df01.html

Petronas

12-09-2005, 02:48 PM

Women of Al Qaeda
By Christopher Dickey
Newsweek
Dec. 12, 2005

Jihad used to have a gender: male. The men who dominated the movement exploited traditional attitudes about sex and the sexes to build their ranks. They still do that, but with a difference: even Al Qaeda is using female killers now, and goading the men. ...

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10315095/site/newsweek/

Since it is a long article, I am just posting the link.

1001

12-11-2005, 01:55 PM

Al-Qaida Leader Praises Taliban Attacks

Al-Qaida Leader Praises Taliban Gains in Afghanistan, Urges Muslims to Wage Holy War Vs. West

By PAUL GARWOOD
The Associated Press

CAIRO, Egypt - Dec 11, 2005

Al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri has praised Taliban leader Mullah Omar for winning back control of large regions of Afghanistan and urged Muslims to wage holy war against the West, according to a tape that surfaced on Sunday.

The 48-minute tape, entitled "Impediments to Jihad" and containing a still photo of a white-turbaned al-Zawahri, was believed to have been made at about the same time as a Sept. 19 video attributed to the al-Qaida deputy.

The latest tape, which carries English subtitles and could not be immediately authenticated, was obtained by IntelCenter, a government contractor that does support work for the U.S. intelligence community.

In it, al-Zawahri credited Mullah Omar with leading a three-year campaign "against the Crusaders and apostates in Afghanistan" and taking control of "extensive parts of eastern and western Afghanistan."

The hard-line Taliban regime was toppled by U.S.-led forces in late 2001 when it refused to turn over al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden and stop offering a haven to the group following the Sept. 11, 2001 terror attacks on the United States.

The latest tape appeared to be a rallying call to Muslims to attack Western interests.

It cited various militant campaigns and attacks for Muslims to follow, such as the Palestinian resistance against the Israelis in the Gaza Strip, opposition by anti-U.S. insurgents in Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks carried out by 19 plane hijackers.

"The key to victory is in our hands, and in turn, the primary cause of defeat is in ourselves," it said.

Ben Venzke, chief executive at the IntelCenter, said the tape was produced by the shadowy al-Sahab Media Production House, a purported al-Qaida media organization. But he declined to say how his organization obtained it, citing confidentiality agreements with the U.S. government.

Venzke said al-Zawahri's Sept. 19 video was unique for giving increased prominence to the Taliban.

"But this latest one even goes beyond that with al-Zawahri pledging allegiance to the Taliban," he said. "The whole thing is an address to Muslims, saying armed jihad and struggle is the only way and that they have to suffer to do it."

Al-Zawahri also bemoaned the lack of support for al-Qaida-linked militants in Saudi Arabia, saying the mujahedeen had suffered "defeat" amid a high-profile anti-terror campaign by Saudi authorities.

"These idolatrous regimes achieve victory over us because each one of us wants to save his own skin and avoid harm for himself," al-Zawahri said on the tape.

"As long as this malignant illness continues to survive within us, there is no hope for victory and there can only be more defeats, tragedies, disasters and betrayals."

Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, has been struck by multiple bombings and attacks since 2003 and has since waged a fierce crackdown against militants.

Al-Zawahri and bin Laden are believed to be hiding in the mountains along the Pakistani-Afghanistan border. Pakistani troops are cooperating with the United States in the search for the pair.

Copyright 2005*The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

Copyright © 2005 ABC News Internet Ventures

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1394926

This seems to be another tape than the tape al-jazeera aired by mistake..

Petronas

12-11-2005, 02:09 PM

"These idolatrous regimes achieve victory over us because each one of us wants to save his own skin and avoid harm for himself," al-Zawahri said on the tape. "As long as this malignant illness continues to survive within us, there is no hope for victory and there can only be more defeats, tragedies, disasters and betrayals."We must be doing something right!

1001

12-11-2005, 02:18 PM

Al-Qaida Leader Praises Taliban Attacks

This still image made from video and released Sunday, Dec. 11, 2005 by IntelCenter, a government contractor that does support work for the U.S. intelligence community, shows Al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri praising Taliban successes in Afghanistan against U.S.-led forces and urging Muslims around the world to take part in a holy war against the West. The new tape, which could not be immediately authenticated, is about 48 minutes long and was believed to have been made at about the same time that the last tape attributed to al-Zawahri, a Sept. 19 video, was issued. (AP Photo/IntelCenter)

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/051211/481/xhj10112111252

1001

12-11-2005, 02:25 PM

We must be doing something right!

Al-Zawahiri´s words were taken out of context...

The 801

12-12-2005, 10:53 PM

Analysis: Key al-Qaeda player seized
By Gordon Corera
BBC security correspondent

Abu Faraj al-Libbi
Pakistan had put a bounty on Libbi's head
The arrest of Abu Faraj al-Libbi could prove to be significant not just for Pakistan but also for the broader international struggle against al-Qaeda.

Intelligence sources believe he is a major player in the organisation and that this could prove the biggest detention in more than two years.

He had been on a list of six "most wanted" individuals in a Pakistani poster campaign last year for his alleged involvement in two attempts to kill President Pervez Musharraf in December 2003.

Bounty

Pakistan offered a reward of 20m rupees ($340,000) for information leading to his arrest.

But he was seen as not just an al-Qaeda operational commander for activities within Pakistan but also further afield.

QUICK GUIDE

What is al-Qaeda?

It is thought that, after the capture of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in Rawalpindi in March 2002, Libbi, who had been Mohammed's close associate, took over as an international operations planner for al-Qaeda.

The al-Qaeda hierarchy has always been fluid and complex so talk of him being number three in the organisation is hard to confirm, but there have been reports that he was involved in sending messages to al-Qaeda cells overseas with instructions to carry out attacks last year - including against the US.

Planner

That international aspect was emphasised in US President George W Bush's statement, when he described Libbi as a "a top general for Bin Laden.

"He was a major facilitator and a chief planner for the al-Qaeda network," he said.

"His arrest removes a dangerous enemy who was a direct threat to America and to those who love freedom."

US officials have also indicated that the arrest came through joint co-operation with Pakistani authorities.

The hope will be that Libbi's capture leads on to more intelligence about these cells and any other international networks, as well as operations in Pakistan.

That may lead to some debate over in whose custody he is placed.

Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was transferred to US custody and is now held as a "ghost detainee" at an undisclosed location.

His interrogations have played a major role in helping the US understand the 11 September 2001 plot and are heavily referenced in the report of the commission looking into that attack.

Suspects

Given Libbi's international role and links to Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the US may well want to speak to him and hundreds of suspects have been handed over by the Pakistanis to the Americans.

PAKISTAN'S KEY ARRESTS
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed
Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, above, Rawalpindi, March 2003
Omar Saeed Sheikh, February 2002
Abu Zubaydah, Faisalabad, March 2002
Ramzi Binalshibh, Karachi, September 2002
Naeem Noor Khan, Lahore, July 2004
Khalfan Ghailani, July 2004, Gujrat
Amjad Hussain Farooqi - shot dead in September 2004

But, in this case, the Pakistani authorities have indicated to the BBC that because of his involvement in the domestic assassination plots, they intend to keep hold of him.

There will also be some hope that Libbi may have been in contact with Osama Bin Laden or Ayman al-Zawahiri and that he may help in the hunt for these two key figures.

In a BBC interview this March, President Musharraf said that his country's intelligence services had their strongest indication of the al-Qaeda leader's whereabouts about eight to 10 months earlier but that they had lost the trail.

Bin Laden last appeared in a video just before the November US election and is suspected to be hiding along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border - perhaps even the area where Libbi is reported to have been picked up.

Pakistan says that it has rounded up around 700 suspects and last summer captured and killed a number of suspected senior al-Qaeda operatives with international links - its hope will be that Libbi leads them on to some more.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/4514409.stm

Casey

12-13-2005, 01:56 PM

Security Forces Claim Top Al Qaeda Agent Killed in Russia
Created: 13.12.2005 14:55 MSK (GMT +3), Updated: 14:55 MSK, 5 hours 41 minutes ago

MosNews

Russian special services have killed the chief representative of al Qaeda in Russia, a mercenary called Dzhaber, head of the regional headquarters of the counter-terrorism operation in the North Caucasus, Col.-Gen. Arkady Edelev, was quoted by the Trud newspaper as saying.

The terrorist was killed in the village of Avtury in the Chechen internal republic at a guerilla winter base.

Dzhaber was described as the mastermind behind recent terrorist attacks in the republic, providing money for them and working out plans.

It is widely known that many al Qaeda mercenaries train rebels in Russia’s Caucasus and even take part in raids on Russian territory. Several Beslan attackers were confirmed as being Arabs. Their work was coordinated by the Arab mercenary Abu-Dzeyt, who was on the international wanted list and was killed on Feb. 16, 2005. He was the organization’s “official” envoy to Russia — in charge of distributing cash funds provided by al Qaeda to radical Islamists in the Northern Caucasus.

Another two mercenaries, often mentioned in the news before they were killed by Russian troops, Hattab and Abu Walid, were also foreigners believed to have carried out major raids and hostage-takings.

http://www.mosnews.com/news/2005/12/13/alqaedarussia.shtml

Petronas

12-15-2005, 12:52 AM

Petronas

12-15-2005, 04:43 PM

Ties That Bind : Iran and Al-Qaeda
July 5, 2005

This is a briefing note by Christopher Brown at the Hudson Institute, laying out evidence for a relationship between Bin Laden and Iran dating back over two decades.

Casey

12-15-2005, 08:50 PM

Has anyone else seen this?

DEBKA-Net-Weekly
December 14, 2005, 9:07 PM (GMT+02:00)

Al Qaeda has disseminated its first ever religious tract focusing on Israel as the warfront to come after Iraq. It calls on all Muslims to join the fight to bring the “Sons of Zion” low.

http://www.debka.com/
There is a video causing a bunch of hoopla for the past week or so, it is a huge file and not much text as to what it is about. If there is any info I'll let you know.

The file name is sooner

Petronas

12-17-2005, 01:48 AM

Purported al-Qaida Video Outlines Attack
Fri Dec 16,10:05 AM ET

CAIRO, Egypt - Dozens of al-Qaida in Iraq fighters who attacked Iraq's notorious Abu Ghraib prison in April planned to knock a hole in the prison wall and topple guard towers with a series of car bombs to free detainees and hit U.S. forces, according to a purported al-Qaida video. The April 2 attack on the prison, west of Baghdad, left one attacker dead and more than 40 U.S. soldiers and 13 prisoners wounded. Dozens of militants failed to break in after attacking the facility with rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and car bombs.

The eight-minute video, signed by the spokesman of al-Qaida in Iraq and posted on an Islamic militant Web forum Tuesday, shows a satellite photo of the facility, with U.S. troop positions and "interrogation booths" marked in English, as a voice-over outlines the plans of the attack. A ticker along the bottom of the well-produced video streamed photos of abuse of detainees by U.S. soldiers at the facility, including a famed image of a naked prisoner being dragged on a leash by a female guard. The images of abuse and sexual humiliation at the prison have sparked outrage among Iraqis and across the Arab world since they first emerged in early 2004. Later in the video, militants are seen firing rockets, and Abu Ghraib is filmed from what appears to be a field some distance away. A large mushroom cloud — the kind raised by vehicle bombs — is seen, as are several plumes of smoke.

Voices resembling those of al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi and al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden — apparently old speeches from previous statements — play in the background over some of the images. The identity of the voices could not immediately be confirmed. "This is Abu Ghraib prison, let it speak," says the voice purportedly belonging to al-Zarqawi. "Defense of the Muslim land begins with fighting on the starting line in Iraq," says the purported voice of bin Laden.

The video's authenticity could not be verified. Al-Qaida in Iraq and other militant groups often put out videos of their attacks as propaganda aimed at drumming up support and encouraging Iraqis and other Arabs to join the insurgency against U.S. and Iraqi forces. Such videos often have old speeches by bin Laden or al-Zarqawi as a soundtrack to inspire followers.

A statement with the Web posting said the video was part of a "full set," still to be released, showing attacks by the "Brigade of Aisha, Mother of the Faithful," a previous unknown cell of al-Qaida in Iraq fighters. The voiceover explaining the plans for the attack says it had two aims: "First is to release our brothers from this prison. The second is raise the morale of the mujahedeen across Iraq if God lets us succeed in this operation."

The plan for the attack involved more than 50 fighters assaulting the prison from four sides, he explains. From the south side, fighters were to knock a hole in the wall and "knock down towers" with a truck bomb, then drive an explosives-filled tractor through the hole. From two other sides, militants would engage the security forces as a distraction. Then, on the northwest side, attackers would break open the wall again with a vehicle bomb, then send two more car bombs through the hole "into the American forces to destroy their headquarters." The signal to launch the attack was to be a barrage of rockets on Abu Ghraib.

U.S. authorities have not given exact details about what happened in the April 2 attack, so it was not known how closely the attackers stuck to the plan outlined in the video. But the plan was typical of well-coordinated assaults al-Qaida has carried out in the past. Several times it has used the technique of breaking through a security wall with one suicide bomber, then driving a second through the hole to attempt to hit the target inside. The video shows men, said to be the suicide attackers who drove the suicide vehicle bombs, reading the Quran together in a room before the operation.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20051216/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iraq_al_qaida_video;_ylt=Ahs975D9EgZVBY6VUU6oc6Vva A8F;_ylu=X3oDMTA5aHJvMDdwBHNlYwN5bmNhdA--

Petronas

12-17-2005, 12:20 PM

al-Qaeda Messaging/Attacks Timeline
v3.2

IntelCenter has released the "al-Qaeda Messaging/Attacks Timeline v3.2". The timeline covers statements and other significant public and semi-public communications by al-Qaeda and its affiliates. The timeline also covers significant attacks by al-Qaeda and its affiliates. This version covers the period from January 2003 to 13 December 2005.

http://www.intelcenter.com/qaeda-timeline-v3-2.pdf

Petronas

12-17-2005, 01:52 PM

Fascinating interview with the head of MIRA (Saudi opposition), on future targets of Al Qaeda in Saudi Arabia, jihadi use of the internet, Afghanistan, and Zarqawi. Full text posted under "Egypt" in Breaking News.

New Security Realities and al-Qaeda’s Changing Tactics: An Interview with Saad al-Faqih
December 15, 2005
http://jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2369847

The 801

12-20-2005, 08:38 AM

Iraq’s Zarqawi Sets up Gaza Branch at Palestinian Base

DEBKAfile Exclusive Report

December 19, 2005, 1:37 PM (GMT+02:00)

Since early December, a branch of Abu Musab al Zarqawi’s al Qaeda in Iraq has been running a forward base in Gaza City preparatory to in-depth attacks in Israel, according to DEBKAfile’s exclusive counter-terror sources. It joins the Al Qaeda-Palestine cell established some weeks ago in the Gaza Strip.

A high-ranking Israeli army officer confided to us: “For years, we fought al Qaeda in unpublicized encounters in remote places far from our borders. Now we have to admit they are here, on our very threshold.” The officer went on to warn: “The conjunction of al Qaeda and Palestinian terrorist structures confronts Israel with a grave strategic threat.”

According to our sources, Israeli intelligence briefed prime minister Ariel Sharon and defense minister Shaul Mofaz in the first week of December on the Zarqawi group’s infiltration of the Gaza Strip from Sinai and its arrival in Gaza City.

Part of the incoming terror group transited the Rafah terminal (where US officials say the security video cameras have broken down), past European monitors, by showing forged Palestinian documents; part were smuggled in through the Philadelphi border enclave which is guarded by Egyptian police. Intelligence chiefs informed the prime minister that the new cell linked up with the local branch of the Palestinian terror umbrella, the Popular Resistance Committees, which is headed by Shekh Khalil Kuka. The PRC welcomed the newcomer by making its publicity outlets available. Since Monday, Dec. 5, PRC Internet websites have been posting daily bulletins on Zarqawi’s attacks on US and Iraqi targets which often run to 20-30 communiques a day.

These bulletins are now released simultaneously in Baghdad, Gaza, Rafah and Khan Younes. In Gaza, they appear alongside a PRC statement declaring: “The Palestinian and Zarqawi’s struggles are one and the same.”

It is the first time that a Palestinian combat-terrorist organization has aligned itself directly and openly with al Qaeda’s commander in Iraq. Yet, although no attempt has been made to conceal this alliance, it has received no publicity in Israel.

DEBKAfile’s sources report that Israeli counter-terror agencies are quietly working on the premise that the Popular Resistance Committees of Gaza and the Fatah-al Aqsa Brigades of the West Bank plan to make their operational structures available to Zarqawi’s cell for in-depth attacks in Israel.

Meanwhile, the new cell is not letting the grass grow under its feet. Its leaders have managed to enlist the support of the Bedouin clans of southern Gaza, which number tens of thousands of tribesmen, thereby substantially expanding their logistical base. Al Qaeda’s Sinai cell, which Egypt has been unable to root out, already counts on northern Sinai’s Bedouin clans for logistical support.

The pledge of solidarity issued by Gaza’s Khan Younes and Deir Balah Bedouin chiefs declares: “We are now committed to following Zarqawi’s flag.”

It condemns the Bani Hassan Bedouin tribe of Jordan for reprimanding and expelling members who joined al Qaeda and accuses their chiefs of capitulating to the rulers of Jordan.

(Last Tuesday, a Jordanian military tribunal issued a third death sentence in absentia against the Jordanian-Palestinian al Qaeda chief in Iraq.)

The Palestinian Bedouin statement ends with a traditional piece of poetry to mark the new pact. This is a free translation:

How is it that our lords Osama bin Laden and Musab Zarqawi are persecuted, while the enemies of our faith walk straight-backed

How is it that Jihad warriors are treated as aliens, while corrupt infidels are beloved

How is it that true believers are condemned to death, while the flags of the licentious are held aloft

How is it that jihadists are killed, while others make peace with usurers

In July and August, 2005, ahead of Israel’s evacuation of the Gaza Strip, DEBKAfile warned that Zarqawi and al Qaeda’s terrorists were waiting for the pullback to establish forward bases in the Gaza Strip. Four months later, they are poised for action on Israel’s borders.

http://www.debka.com/article.php?aid=1122

Petronas

12-20-2005, 02:19 PM

Key 'al-Qaeda militant' surfaces
Monday, 19 December 2005, 13:41 GMT

The Arab television, Al Arabiya, has shown a video tape of a militant who claims to have escaped from the main American base in Afghanistan. The purported militant, Abu-Yahya al-Libbi, is said to be one of four detainees who escaped from the Bagram airbase in July. US officials did not identify them at the time but described the men as "dangerous enemy combatants". In November, US prosecutors said that one of the four was Omar al-Faruq. Al-Faruq was seen as one of Osama bin Laden's key lieutenants in Asia.

It is not clear what Abu-Yahya al-Libbi - also identified as Hassan Qayid - is doing in the Al Arabiya video. There has been no reaction to the tape from the American military. Al-Arabiya claims that the other detainees who escaped from Bagram are Muhammad Ja'far al-Qahtani, who is a Saudi national, Abdallah al-Hashimi, a Syrian national and Omar al-Faruq who is described as an Iraqi national.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4542086.stm

Casey

12-20-2005, 03:38 PM

Pakistan nabs most wanted sectarian terrorist
20 December 2005

ISLAMABAD - Pakistani security agencies have arrested the operations chief of an Al Qaeda-linked Sunni militant group who was wanted for a spate of sectarian killings in the country, officials said on Tuesday.

Osman Choto, 23, of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ) group, was captured on the outskirts of Karachi over the weekend.

“Osman Choto was arrested from a hideout on the outskirts of Karachi,” the official, who declined to be identified. told AFP.

Osman had stepped in as chief of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi in September after the arrest of Asif Choto, who had been running the outfit.

“He was one of the most wanted sectarian terrorists and carried a price of one million rupees (60,000 dollars) on his head,” the official said.

“It is a major success for the government in the fight against sectarian terrorism in the country.”

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2005/December/subcontinent_December744.xml&section=subcontinent&col=

Vancouver

12-21-2005, 03:19 AM

New Security Realities and al-Qaeda’s Changing Tactics: An Interview with Saad al-Faqih
Ah, another chance to bash Sa'ad al-Faqih :D
The quality of the contributions at Jamestown is mixed, I'd say, and their man in Londinistan, called Mahan Abedin, is at the low end. Twice before he has interviewed this "expert" Sa'ad al-Faqih.
http://www.ustreas.gov/offices/enforcement/ofac/sdn/sdnlist.txt
http://www.un.org/Docs/sc/committees/1267/tablelist.htm #29
http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/analysts.php?authorid=118
plus these guys:
Ali Bayanouni
Muhammad Al-Massari
"Sheikh" Omar Bakri Mohammed
Jalaluddin Patel
but he does not give us the whole story about any of them. E.g. this latest al-Faqih interview makes no mention of the numerous jihadist forums that al-Faqih used to run. Al-Faqih simply wants to be the next dictator of KSA and he hopes that somebody (he doesn't care who) will destroy the Saud regime so that he can walk in and take over. He's on the SDGT list as an enabler of al-Qaeda and AQAP, but IMO Al-Faqih is a fool, with no following anywhere except maybe in the London gutter, despite his years of daily efforts to look like a big player.

The 801

12-21-2005, 08:21 AM

Armed and dangerous: Taliban gear up
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - Any resistance movement is generally only as good as the weapons it uses, and that is something that has bedeviled the poorly-equipped Taliban-led anti-US forces in Afghanistan for a long time.

The resistance has steadily taken steps, though, to beef up its arsenal to include modern automatic weapons and ground-to-air missiles. This it has done in part by forging closer links with the resistance in Iraq, as well as with the Liberation Tigers of Tamil

According to intelligence sources who spoke to Asia Times Online, al-Qaeda concluded that its attack on the USS Cole in Yemen in 2000 was a failure, even though 17 American sailors were killed. As a result, al-Qaeda sent a team to the LTTE to gain expertise in maritime combat operations. The LTTE, as part of its longstanding battle against the Sri Lankan government, has developed a relatively sophisticated maritime wing.

The interaction was brief and inconclusive, and al-Qaeda subsequently rejected the idea of maritime combat, deciding instead to fight the United States on land. Nevertheless, the links established between the two groups were to prove useful in another way.

Pakistani intelligence sources say that al-Qaeda now works with the LTTE to get weapons, including automatic arms and ground-to-air missiles. The weapons are paid for in cash, as well as in drugs originating from Afghanistan, according to the sources. The drugs primarily are sent to Scandinavian countries and Thailand, the latter being a traditional base from which the LTTE has smuggled weapons.

"This is a perfect arrangement as resources are complemented - the Tigers get ideological support, while regular arms supplies on the other hand go to al-Qaeda, which ultimately feeds its fronts in Iraq and Afghanistan," said the source.

"The smuggling channels are the same that the Tamil Tigers have adopted for years [with international arms cartels]. The latest weapons originate through arm dealers, as well as those stolen from arms depots and shipped from South America and Lebanon. They are transferred from ship to ship and sometimes offloaded at small ports, and from there, using various channels, they reach the final destination," the source said.

In the firing line
In the mountains and on the plains of Afghanistan, the resistance operates in several ways, ranging from suicide bombings to attacking convoys and brief pitched battles.

"But an air defense system [ground-to-air missiles] can break the back [of the enemy] in low-intensity conflicts," a top Pakistani security official told Asia Times Online.

"The resistance movement in Afghanistan has now acquired that system in bulk. There are possibilities that some pieces will also have been supplied to Iraq. As soon as this system comes into full action, drastic results will come," he said.

After the Taliban retreated in the face of the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, the Afghan resistance was largely scattered. The Taliban did preserve some heavy weapons, but these could not be easily accessed due to the strong US military presence, and many caches were seized.

Furthermore, some of the armory, especially missiles, required special storage facilities to prevent exposure to harsh climatic conditions, but this was not possible, and the weapons were damaged.

Slowly, as the resistance took firmer root and with the help of money from foreign Arab fighters who had fled to the tribal areas of South and North Waziristan in Pakistan, the resistance acquired missiles, guns and ammunition from the indigenous home-made arms industry at Dara Adam Khel near Peshawar.

However, these arms were of poor quality and simply not good enough to take on the US-led forces in Afghanistan. For instance, the home-made M16 rifles were only semi-automatic and the G-3 rifles lacked the original specifications and accuracy which had made the original version of the weapon popular. Locally-made rockets did not fly properly and lacked sensors, which made them all but useless.

Authentic weapons are, of course, expensive. Now the Taliban has solved this problem by tapping into Afghanistan's - and the world's - richest cash crop, poppies. Using contacts among the warlords who control the drug trade, the Taliban are able to divert some of the money, which is then earmarked for weapons purchases.

With the drug money and the networks of the LTTE, the Afghan resistance is now well positioned to sufficiently arm itself to take its war with foreign forces in Afghanistan to a new level.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GL22Df01.html

Petronas

12-24-2005, 02:21 PM

Thwarted plot to kill Bush reported
12/23/2005 12:21:00 PM -0500

Before he was captured last spring, Osama bin Laden's top operational commander planned to assassinate U.S. President George Bush, it was reported Friday. The New York Daily News said Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf also was a target in the plot.

The capture last May of al-Qaida's No. 3 leader, Abu Faraj Al-Libi, apparently thwarted plots to assassinate the two partners in the global war on terror, according to a senior Pakistani official. His information was reported corroborated by two senior U.S. counterterrorism officials.

"Al-Libi had one mission: Kill Bush and Musharraf," the Pakistani official told the Daily News. "He wanted to kill Bush in the White House, preferably." "It was clearly something they wanted to do. It's the holy grail of jihad," a senior U.S. counterterrorism official confirmed. Al-Libi organized several assassination attempts on Musharraf before he was nabbed, officials have said. But the plot to kill Bush was only disclosed this week.

http://www.upi.com/NewsTrack/view.php?StoryID=20051223-120427-5373r

The 801

12-25-2005, 05:44 AM

I have to question the political timing of this news item. Al-Libbi was captured in Pakistan NW territory in April of 05, and I would guess every AQ member is sworn to kill Bush. Wasn't that the idea of the 911 stooges? I don't know why this is considered news now.

Petronas

12-29-2005, 03:28 PM

Al-qaeda terror threat in Asia more diffuse and difficult
29th DEC 10:51 hrs IST

From senior Al-Qaeda commanders killed or arrested in Pakistan, to multiple bombings in Bangladesh and new attacks on tourists in Bali, the terror threat in Asia is more diffused and difficult to combat than ever. Experts say the Al-Qaeda network has been definitely weakened but the four-year US-led war on terror has not brought to its knees the network of world's most hunted, Osama bin Laden, whose fate remains unknown. More than 800 people have been killed, mostly in Asian countries, in some 14 attacks blamed on Al-Qaeda since the September 9, 2001 attacks on the United States which killed almost 3,000 people.

Analysts say the terror group has won to its side several local and regional Islamist militant groups, particularly in Asia. Al Qaeda has been providing them with finances, training and counseling in target selection. "The Asian, Middle Eastern, African and Caucasian Groups within Al Qaedas ideological orbit of global jihad that received support now emulate Al Qaeda," Rohan Gunaratna, head of the terrorism research center in Singapore, said.

"They conduct coordinated simultaneous mass fatality bombings including suicide attacks, hallmark Al Qaeda attacks," he said in an email interview. Since its formation, Al Qaeda has supported some of the key Mujahedin groups who were forced out of Afghanistan in the aftermath of US-led invasion of Afghanistan and created a network of support and hideouts for the group's hardcore members in Pakistan.

http://www.manoramaonline.com/servlet/ContentServer?pagename=manorama/MmArticle/CommonFullStory&cid=1135749916331&c=MmArticle&p=1002194839100&count=10&colid=1002258272837&channel=News

Petronas

01-02-2006, 11:42 PM

Alleged al-Qaida Aide Said to Fake Death
Sun Jan 1, 5:09 PM ET

ISTANBUL, Turkey - An alleged al-Qaida operative accused of serving as a key link between the group's leaders and suicide bombers hid his tracks so well that even fellow militants thought he was dead. Loa'i Mohammad Haj Bakr al-Saqa, wanted by Turkey for 2003 bombings in Istanbul that killed 58 people, is said to have eluded intelligence services by using an array of fake IDs, employing aliases even with his al-Qaida contacts and finally faking his death in Fallujah, Iraq, in late 2004.

The Syrian radical didn't surface until last August, when an accidental explosion forced him to flee his safehouse in the Turkish resort of Antalya, police say. Officers reported finding bomb-making materials meant for an attack on an Israeli cruise ship as well as fake IDs and passports from several countries. Police eventually cornered al-Saqa in southeastern Turkey and he is awaiting trial on terrorism charges. His story is an example of how al-Qaida militants operate in the shadows, changing identities, moving from country to country and covering their tracks to help the loosely organized terror network carry out attacks.

Until recent years, al-Saqa was not well-known to international intelligence agencies despite his conviction in absentia in 2002 — along with al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi — for a failed plot to attack Americans and Israelis in Jordan with poison gas during millennium celebrations. He and al-Zarqawi were each sentenced to 15 years in prison. Al-Saqa later emerged as a key al-Qaida operative in the Middle East. Two Turkish terror suspects interrogated at Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq said al-Saqa served as a connection between the 2003 Istanbul bombers and al-Qaida, according to testimony obtained by The Associated Press.

"He is a very important person for that region because obviously he knows more people than the locals themselves," said Michael Radu, a terrorism analyst at the Foreign Policy Research Institute in Philadelphia. "He probably meets people from different cells, different subgroups who do not know each other, but he knows them so he can have a much better picture."

Al-Saqa, 32, juggled identities, and rumors, to elude intelligence agencies. Turkish al-Qaida suspect Burhan Kus said at Abu Ghraib that he had heard al-Saqa and Habib Akdas, the accused ringleader of the Istanbul bombers, were killed in a U.S. bombardment of the Iraqi town of Fallujah in November 2004. "Al-Saqa apparently faked his own death, borrowing a disinformation tactic used by Chechen militants," said Ercan Citlioglu, a terrorism expert at the Center for Eurasian Strategic Studies in Ankara, the Turkish capital.

Several accused Turkish al-Qaida suspects recognized al-Saqa's photos but identified him with different names, most calling him "Syrian Alaaddin." "The al-Saqa case clearly shows how al-Qaida is taking advantage of fake IDs and porous borders to spread its terror, forcing countries to take more sophisticated measures, like taking fingerprints in the United States, to increase border security," Citlioglu said.

Analysts said his capture was a blow to al-Qaida since he would be one of only a few people who understood the infrastructure of an organization that lacks permanent, hierarchical links. "That is a serious blow because it is very hard to replace these kind of people," said Radu. But Turkish security officials warn that others still operate in the region. One official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, described al-Saqa as one of fewer than a dozen al-Qaida "middle managers" who serve as contacts between local cells and the al-Qaida leadership.

Al-Saqa's success in eluding capture for so long underlines the challenges that authorities face in trying to crack down on al-Qaida and the insurgency in Iraq. He apparently left Iraq after spreading the rumor about his death in Fallujah. Nine months later, police responding to the Antalya explosion discovered more than 1,320 pounds of bomb-making materials, falsified Syrian and Turkish IDs and two Tunisian passports. All bore al-Saqa's picture. He eventually was captured at Diyarbakir airport in southeastern Turkey with yet another fake Turkish ID. Only then did Turkish police realize they had captured and deported al-Saqa — without knowing his real identity — in March 2003 for carrying a fake Syrian passport.

Identifying himself as a "mujahed" — guerrilla fighter — al-Saqa admitted to failed plans to make a bomb and to stage an attack on Israeli tourist ships, similar to the attack on the destroyer USS Cole off Yemen in October 2000 that killed 17 sailors, said Emin Demirel, a terrorism expert and author of several books on al-Qaida's structure in Turkey. According to testimony obtained by AP, al-Saqa told Turkish prosecutors: "I was going to blow up the Israeli ship in international waters."

Prosecutors charged al-Saqa with being a senior al-Qaida member, making bombs and smuggling explosives into Turkey. He is being held at the high-security Kandira prison near Istanbul. No trial date has been set. Al-Saqa could also be extradited to Jordan, where a military court convicted him, al-Zarqawi and Jordanian-American Raed Hijazi in connection with the failed millennium terror attack. Jordanian prosecutors suggested in their indictment that al-Saqa was an agent coordinating between militants traveling through Turkey to Pakistan and Afghanistan. In Istanbul, Al-Saqa played host to Hijazi and two other militants, including a cousin of al-Zarqawi, helping to arrange their travel to Pakistan for training in neighboring Afghanistan, court documents said.

Kus, the terror suspect held at Abu Ghraib, said al-Saqa was known to have provided passports to insurgents in Istanbul. He said al-Saqa brought $50,000 to Istanbul for the 2003 bombings at the British consulate, the local headquarters of the London-based bank HSBC and two synagogues. A total of 58 people were killed and hundreds suffered wounds. Kus said al-Saqa and fellow ringleader Akdas cheered and shouted "Allahu Akbar" — Arabic for "God is great" — as they watched TV news in Syria about the bombings. Seventy-two suspects were eventually charged in the attacks. The next hearing in that case is scheduled for Jan. 24. Kus, charged with helping to build the Istanbul truck bombs, said he later traveled from Syria with Akdas to Iraq, where al-Saqa was a commander in Fallujah, then an insurgent stronghold west of Baghdad.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060101/ap_on_re_mi_ea/al_qaida_operative

Casey

01-03-2006, 12:05 AM

TERRORISM: VIDEO OF AL-QAEDA No.2 APPEARS WITH ITALIAN SUBTITLES

al Qaeda / News
Date: Jan 02, 2006 - 10:02 PM

Rome, 2 Nov. (AKI) - A video message by al-Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, first broadcast by the Qatar-based TV network Aljazeera in September, has been posted with Italian subtitles on several Islamist internet sites. The move appears to be an attempt by al-Qaeda to reach directly to an Italian audience. In the 40-minute clip, titled 'A meeting with Doctor Ayman al-Zawahiri four years after the [September 11, 2001] attacks agaisnt New York and Washington," the Egyptian-born militant denounces last September's general elections in Afghanistan, and praises the July bombings in London.

The Islamist sites which bill the clip as the first to be translated in Italian urge readers to distribute the message on the Internet so that as many Italians as possible can view it. The poor grammar used in the subtitles suggest that the translation was not done by a mother-tongue Italian, observers say.

This is only the second time that an al-Qaeda message has been translated into Italian and posted on the Internet. In July 2004, Adnkronos International (AKI) located a speech by Osama bin-Laden which was posted on Islamist sites with an Italian translation.

Bin Laden has warned Italy in the past that it will be targeted for terrorist attacks because of the backing given to the US-led invasion of Iraq given by premier Silvio Berlusconi's government.

(Ham/Aki)

02-Jan-06 18:48

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=8.0.245322080&par=

The 801

01-04-2006, 08:53 AM

TERRORISM: AL-QAEDA LEADER IN PAKISTAN DETAINED

Karachi, 4 Jan. (AKI) - (by Syed Saleem Shahzad) - A man considered a leading figure of the al-Qaeda network in Pakistan is being detained by the Pakistani intelligence agencies, Adnkronos International (AKI) has learnt from informed sources. However the same sources said that news of the capture of Ghulam Mustafa, alias Omar, alias Shahjee has not been shared with the US authorities as part of normal cooperation in the "war on terror". The fact that Mustafa was coordinating attacks in Indian Kashmir, in collaboration with the Pakistani military and secret services, may explain their reticence.

Ghulam Mustafa was picked up in the city of Lahore by the Pakistani intelligence agencies about 10 days ago. It is Mustafa’s second arrest; he was also detained on 11 August, 2004 after his brother-in-law Usman was picked up for allegedly involved in plans for sabotage in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad. Ghulam Mustafa made a telephone call to Usman at that time and that was traced by the authorities to Karachi and he was eventually arrested.

During his interrogation, Ghulam Mustafa confessed that he was close to the al-Qaeda chief, Osama bin Laden, but refused to admit that he was ever been involved in any activity related to violence. He told his interrogators that his role was limited to financial and logistical support to al-Qaeda operations.

He also admitted that he was the sector commander at the Line of Control (LOC) that divides the disputed region of Kashmir between India and Pakistan and had helped militants enter India from the areas of Bagh and Athmuqam in the Neelam valley. For this task he coordinated his assignments with Pakistan army officials of the Tenth Corps as well as the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) which is Pakistan's military intelligence service.

India and Pakistan have fought two out of their three wars over Kashmir. Delhi accuses Islamabad of funding and arming Kashmiri separatists, to support the insurgency in Indian Kashmir. Pakistan has denied these allegations.

Ghulam Mustafa's confessions that he was doing logistics for al-Qaeda while also coordinating with Pakistan's secret services in Kashmir were if not a surprise, certainly an embarrassment. The interrogators opted to remain tight-lipped about his arrest and formally handed him over to the police and registered a case against him for alleged terrorist activities. However Pakistan's anti-terrorist court eventually released Ghulam Mustafa in September 2005 after they found no proof of his involvement in any violence.

Sources now tell AKI that Ghulam Mustafa was picked up by Pakistan's intelligence agencies after they uncovered a conspiracy to kill Pakistani president General Pervez Musharraf in December 2005. This led to a crackdown on those circles believed to be close to al-Qaeda, including the prayer leaders of the Lal Masjid mosque in Islamabad, Ghazi Abdul Rasheed and Maulana Abdul Aziz.

However, since Ghulam Mustafa has been involved in low-level operations in the disputed region of Kashmir together with the ISI, his real identitiy as al-Qaeda chief in Pakistan was not shared with the Americans. The sources add that Mustafa has instead been locked up in a secret prison, and no charges have been filed against him.

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=8.0.245813144&par=0

Al-Qaeda's man who knows too much

By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - He was once close to Osama bin Laden, has intimate knowledge of al-Qaeda's logistics and financing and its nexus with the military in Pakistan, yet US intelligence has not been able to get its hands on him.

Ghulam Mustafa, 38, was picked up about 10 days ago in Lahore, and no charges have been brought against him: he is expected to disappear into a "black hole" and quietly be forgotten.

This is because Mustafa, erstwhile head of al-Qaeda's Pakistani operations, has some tales to tell, but the authorities in Pakistan would rather they were not heard, especially by the Americans, even though Islamabad is a signed-up member in the "war on terror".

Mustafa's rise and fall provide a case study of the complexities within Pakistan and of the powerful forces that make the country's intelligence and military such unpredictable allies of the United States.

The making of a jihadi
Mustafa comes from the Punjab, where he was once the leader of the Jamaat-i-Islami (Punjab), Pakistan's most prominent Islamic party. In the 1980s, believing that the party's ideology was being diluted by election politics, he went to Afghanistan to join the mujahideen in the fight against the occupying Soviet forces.

His educated background and clarity of thought on ideological matters soon drew him into the camp of the Arab fighters in the country, and it was not long before he entered bin Laden's inner circle.

The year 1989 proved significant on two fronts for Mustafa, also known by his jihadi name of Omar, or Shahjee among friends.

First, when the Soviets withdrew, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) decided to "win" at least one Afghan city in which it could set up a puppet mujahideen government and get it endorsed by the world community. Jalalabad was selected, and the main commanders of the Afghan resistance, including Arabs, Pakistanis and Afghans, were gathered into an ISI cell to achieve this. Both bin Laden and Mustafa were in the cell.

Also in 1989, the uprising in Kashmir started. The ISI was involved in providing logistical and financial support both to Kashmiris in Indian-administered Kashmir fighting Delhi's writ, and to militants based in Pakistan-administered Kashmir engaged in cross-border activities.

Many of the militants were trained in guerrilla warfare in camps established by the Afghan resistance in and around Jalalabad. Mustafa was assigned by the ISI to oversee these operations, in conjunction with bin Laden, bringing him even closer to the al-Qaeda leader.

Meanwhile, Mustafa had penetrated deeply into the circle of Syed Mubarik Ali Gilani, a revered Sufi and custodian of the Mian Mir shrine in Lahore, from where the ISI runs one of its most effective networks. (Slain US reporter Daniel Pearl made his ill-fated visit to Pakistan to investigate Gilani's network.)

In handling logistical and financial matters for the Kashmiri mujahideen, on behalf of the ISI, Mustafa came into contact with army officers of Corps 10 who were involved in Kashmir operations.

Indeed, he was the point man for contact between bin Laden and the army in arranging for militants to be trained in Afghanistan.

In this way, Mustafa wore two hats, the one as chief coordinator of militant activities in Kashmir, the other as organizer of al-Qaeda's transfer of money and human resources from Pakistan to Afghanistan, and vice versa.

After September 11, 2001, Mustafa was placed in charge of al-Qaeda's Pakistan circle. His basic assignments included coordination between bin Laden and his followers in Pakistan. He took dictates directly from bin Laden and passed them on to al-Qaeda men scattered all over Pakistan. He also remained involved in al-Qaeda's money matters.

However, by this time Pakistan had joined in the "war on terror" and was under pressure from Washington to deliver al-Qaeda members.

On August 11, 2004, Mustafa's brother-in-law Usman was arrested in Islamabad in connection with alleged sabotage activities in the capital. Calls from Usman's phone were traced to Mustafa in Karachi and he was also arrested.

Calls from the minaret
At this point two prominent religious personalities enter the story, Ghazi Abdul Rasheed and Maulana Abdul Aziz are the sons of slain religious leader Maulana Abdullah of the Lal Mosque in Islamabad. Abdullah was close to the late dictator, General Zia ul-Haq. His Friday sermons were popular among the military and the civilian bureaucracy, and he often preached the cause of jihad.

His sons have continued his legacy, both his calls for jihad and his mysticism, and were the driving force behind a religious decree insisting that Pakistani army personnel killed while fighting against tribals in South Waziristan be denied a Muslim burial.

They were literally calling for mutiny in the army, which some heeded. However, given the background of the brothers and their clout, the government chose to ignore their defiance.

But after the arrest of Mustafa and Usman, a car was recovered from Usman that was owned by one of the brothers, Rasheed. For President General Pervez Musharraf this was clear proof of a link between the Lal Mosque and al-Qaeda.

Orders of arrest were issued at the highest level, but the brothers succeeded in escaping from their seminary - tipped off by sympathizers in the security forces.

While the brothers were in hiding, the minister of religious affairs and the son of General Zia, Ejaz ul-Haq, met with Musharraf and explained that if the government dared to put a hand on the pair, devastation would result.

Musharraf was convinced, and the brothers returned to Lal Mosque's pulpit after striking a deal with Ejaz.

In the meantime, Mustafa and Usman were still in separate ISI interrogation centers. Detained in a safe house in Karachi, Mustafa spelled out his strong links with bin Laden, army officials and the Kashmiri struggle.

Most likely fearing that Mustafa knew far too much that might implicate Pakistan, the ISI never handed him over to US intelligence. Instead, they put him into the hands of the police, who took him to an anti-terrorism court. Perhaps unsurprisingly, the court found no charges against him and he was released last September.

But by now Mustafa was tainted, and al-Qaeda would have nothing to do with him as he was seen as a marked man.

A new enemy
Being a part of the "mainstream" al-Qaeda, Mustafa was single-minded in the belief that jihad should be waged against the US, but not against pro-US Muslim countries.

An al-Qaeda faction in Pakistan led by Sheikh Essa believes that any sympathizers of the US are targets, whether or not they are Muslims.

When Mustafa was first arrested, many of his supporters, bitter that the state had turned against one of its prime assets, joined Essa's camp. These disgruntled al-Qaeda supporters were behind several attempts on Musharraf's life. Other assassination attempts were made by jihadis and army personnel.

And now that Mustafa has been detained again, more people are expected to fall in line with Essa's hardline vision, which includes targeting Musharraf.

At the same time, the authorities are pushing Lal Mosque against the wall. While they are still too scared to arrest the brothers, they have been declared "wanted terrorists" and "criminals".

This is a dangerous move as the deal struck between Ejaz and the firebrand brothers was that in return for their freedom, they would use their influence where possible to rein in those going after Musharraf.

Mustafa might be out of sight, but his detention has stirred an already volatile pot.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HA05Df03.html

I maintain that Pakistan is not our friend in this issue, never was, never will be....
The "cynical" 801

The 801

01-06-2006, 02:39 PM

From a readers forum in a Bangladeshi Newspaper.

Thought it was interesting.

An open letter to Osama, Al-Zawahiri
By S.A.Rehman
Fri, 6 Jan 2006, 09:36:00

Aslam-o-Alaikum! Do you know what degree of shame, abomination, misery and wretchedness is being heaped on the innocent and peace-following Muslims all over the world because of this so-called and self styled Jihad of yours?

Do you know how many innocent, unsullied people are being daily butchered as result of this professed Jihad of yours? How many children are being orphaned and women being widowed precisely for the same reason.

And do you know, killing one faultless human being is like killing the entire humanity. You must definitely be knowing that you will surely be held accountable for this all bloodshed. Will you, then, be able to face your God? I challenge, no!

Then, why have you become an agent of some hidden hand. Why are you taking the responsibility of the murder of entire humanity to yourself on his behest. Why are you dragging the Muslims down? Why are you demeaning Islam by presenting it as a terrorist religion? Act
ing like this, which religion are you rendering a great service to? Are you raising the standard of Islam high or you (if you reflect on it) are causing the heads of the followers of the path of the righteous bow down with shame in-front of the entire humanity.

Today most of the Muslims believe that you are not a true Muslim but planted by the enemies to destroy the image of Islam.

For God's sake, take recourse to sense, and announce a CEASEFIRE at once so the inhabitants of world may be introduced to that divine aspect of the Muslims at whose hands no soul suffer, whose words and actions bear no tinge of dichotomy, whose speech, when uttered, conveys to others the message of love and protection, whose thoughts, when thought, are devoted to the well being of others. Herein lies the true success, and herein lies the victory of the true religion of Allah.

Islamabad, Pakistan

http://nation.ittefaq.com/artman/publish/article_24517.shtml

Casey

01-06-2006, 06:09 PM

If more would chime in like this it might make a difference.

We can only hope.

From a readers forum in a Bangladeshi Newspaper.

Thought it was interesting.

An open letter to Osama, Al-Zawahiri
By S.A.Rehman
Fri, 6 Jan 2006, 09:36:00

Aslam-o-Alaikum! Do you know what degree of shame, abomination, misery and wretchedness is being heaped on the innocent and peace-following Muslims all over the world because of this so-called and self styled Jihad of yours?

Do you know how many innocent, unsullied people are being daily butchered as result of this professed Jihad of yours? How many children are being orphaned and women being widowed precisely for the same reason.

And do you know, killing one faultless human being is like killing the entire humanity. You must definitely be knowing that you will surely be held accountable for this all bloodshed. Will you, then, be able to face your God? I challenge, no!

Then, why have you become an agent of some hidden hand. Why are you taking the responsibility of the murder of entire humanity to yourself on his behest. Why are you dragging the Muslims down? Why are you demeaning Islam by presenting it as a terrorist religion? Act
ing like this, which religion are you rendering a great service to? Are you raising the standard of Islam high or you (if you reflect on it) are causing the heads of the followers of the path of the righteous bow down with shame in-front of the entire humanity.

Today most of the Muslims believe that you are not a true Muslim but planted by the enemies to destroy the image of Islam.

For God's sake, take recourse to sense, and announce a CEASEFIRE at once so the inhabitants of world may be introduced to that divine aspect of the Muslims at whose hands no soul suffer, whose words and actions bear no tinge of dichotomy, whose speech, when uttered, conveys to others the message of love and protection, whose thoughts, when thought, are devoted to the well being of others. Herein lies the true success, and herein lies the victory of the true religion of Allah.

Islamabad, Pakistan

http://nation.ittefaq.com/artman/publish/article_24517.shtml

al-Canine

01-06-2006, 07:03 PM

oooops, duplicate post to Casey's...

http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=23815

The 801

01-08-2006, 08:44 PM

HIV BOMBERS
EXCLUSIVE Al-Qaeda's plot to infect troops with AIDS virus
By Rupert Hamer Defence Correspondent

AL-QAEDA is recruiting suicide bombers who are infected with the AIDS virus, according to documents revealed to the Sunday Mirror.

Terror chiefs are also targeting fanatics who suffer other lethal blood diseases such as hepatitis and dengue fever in order to increase their "kill rate" from an explosion. The chilling new threat is revealed in papers distributed to British military camps in Iraq and across Europe.

Under the heading "HIV/Hepatitis" the document states: "There is evidence that terrorists might be deliberately recruiting volunteers with diseases that are spread by blood transference."

Experts have found that bones and other blood-spattered fragments from a suicide bomber could penetrate the skin of a victim 50 metres away and infect them.

In the papers (part of which is summarised above) soldiers are warned to wear special protective clothing when on guard duty or if they have to deal with casualties in the event of an attack.

All bases must also have snipers hidden behind blast-proof defences ready to take out would-be suicide bombers. The guidelines were issued following the 7/7 London bombings which left 52 dead and injured hundreds more.

Spy chiefs have also examined other attacks, including a car-bombing on the Black Watch in central Iraq which killed three soldiers a year ago.

Last night an MoD spokesman confirmed that bases had been made aware of the new threat.

He added: "The Army go to great lengths to prepare our soldiers for every eventuality."

http://www.sundaymirror.co.uk/news/tm_objectid=16559740%26method=full%26siteid=62484% 26headline=hiv%2dbombers%2d-name_page.html

Umm, Just Great. - 801

The 801

01-09-2006, 05:50 PM

Filed under Al-Qaeda news... probibly should start to go somewhere else. Hasn't hit the mainstream news yet, but probibly will.....

TERRORISM: TOP SUSPECT CONTINUES TO EMBARRASS PAKISTANI AUTHORITIES

Karachi, 9 Jan. (AKI) - (Syed Saleem Shahzad) - The news of the detention by Pakistani authorities of Ghulam Mustafa, a man once close to Osama bin Laden but also sponsored by the Pakistani intelligence services, is getting more and more embarrassing for Islamabad. When it emerged on 4 January that Mustafa, 38, was in custody, the security forces tried to down play his importance, linking him to the sectarian Sunni Muslim group Lashkar-i-Jhangvi. Adnkronos International (AKI) has learnt he never belonged to this shadowy group, but was a paid up member of al-Badr, run by the Pakistani secret services to keep the indigenous guerilla movements in Kashmir under its own control.

It was Ghulam Mustafa’s closeness to the establishment which prevented the government from making an announcement of his capture. Only after Adnkronos International (AKI) broke the story, was it forced to announce the arrest which had not been passed on to Pakistan's 'war on terrror' ally, Washington. Yet several weeks on, the man considered the head of al-Qaeda's Pakistani operations has still not been charged and is believed held at a secret location.

Ghulam Mustafa was never a member of an anti-establishment, shadowy organization Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, AKI has learnt, but instead a completely pro-establishment organization al-Badr. This was set up by the Pakistani secret service ISI to try to break the influence of Kashmiri indigenous armed liberation movements, like Hizb ul Mujahadeen, and to keep the control of insurgency in Kashmir.

Ghulam Mustafa's lawyer, Chaudhary Mohammad Farooq, told AKI that his client's only 'crime' was that he was a good Muslim and that he had no ties at all with the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi.

He was released from Adyala Jail on Sep 16, 2005, after being cleared of organising a terrorist plot. He had been in custody for 14 months. During this period, his lawyer said, the police continuously blackmailed his family members to the tune of 500,000 rupees (around 8,400 dollars) and even after his acquittal in the terrorism case intelligence agencies tried to arrest him on different occasions.

Lawyer Chaudhary Farooq maintained that intelligence agencies were skeptical that Ghulam Mustafa’s release from the anti-terrorist court was genuine and sent a team of investigators to probe whether he had paid any bribe to get a favourable court ruling.

Farooq, who also heads a prisoners' rights group, said Ghulama Mustafa came to his chamber in Lahore on December 17, 2005 asking him to file a writ for harassment of his family members by the intelligence agencies. As soon as he left the office and was sitting outside on his motorcycle Ghulam Mustafa was rounded up by men in plain clothes. He filed a Habeas Corpus petition in Lahore High Court for his release and the Punjab government has asked till December 29th to respond.

Chaudhary Farooq told AKI that Ghulam Mustafa was released on 29 December and he came not to his chambers but to his residence. He claimed that intelligence officers barged in and took Ghulam Mustafa away, saying clearly that he would not come back again!

Sources said that interesting aspect of Ghulam Mustafa’s detention is that so far no case has been registered, probably because intelligence agencies do not want to present him in the court of law for fear he may reveal his true identity.

Mustafa was first detained on 11 August, 2004 after his brother-in-law Usman was picked up for allegedly planning sabotage attacks in the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

During his 2004 interrogation, Ghulam Mustafa confessed that he was close to the al-Qaeda chief, Osama bin Laden, but denied any involvement in violence. He told his interrogators that his role was limited to financial and logistical support to al-Qaeda operations.

He also admitted that he was the sector commander at the Line of Control (LOC), that divides the disputed region of Kashmir between India and Pakistan, and had helped militants enter India from the areas of Bagh and Athmuqam in the Neelam valley. For this task he coordinated his assignments with Pakistan army officials of the Tenth Corps as well as the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) which is Pakistan's military intelligence service.

Ghulam Mustafa's confessions that he was doing logistics for al-Qaeda while also coordinating with Pakistan's secret services in Kashmir were if not a surprise, certainly an embarrassment. The interrogators opted to remain tight-lipped about his arrest and formally handed him over to the police and registered a case against him for alleged terrorist activities. However Pakistan's anti-terrorist court eventually released Ghulam Mustafa in September 2005 after they found no proof of his involvement in any violence.

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=8.0.247399379&par=0

The 801

01-12-2006, 08:52 AM

Pakistani News gets interesting.

US turns against Musharraf
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
Thursday, Jan. 12, 2006, KARACHI - Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf seized power in a military coup in 1999 and, as commander-in-chief of the armed forces, still in effect rules as a military dictator.
Musharraf's firm grip on the affairs of state has until now served Washington's interests well, as he has been able to steer the country into the US camp as an ally in the "war on terror".

However, with the Taliban nowhere near defeated in Afghanistan and Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda still unbroken (the two major reasons that the US solicited Pakistan's assistance in the first place), the US is looking at its allies in Islamabad in a new light: Musharraf may be more the problem than the solution.

An indication of how things have slipped in the region is news that Afghan President Hamid Karzai has openly called for a truce with Taliban leader Mullah Omar. This was not how events were supposed to play out.

According to sources close to the power corridors in Washington who spoke to Asia Times Online, the administration of US President George W Bush is now convinced that a weaker Pakistani army is as necessary now as a powerful one was when Islamabad did a U-turn on its support for the Taliban soon after September 11, 2001.

This realization has taken root over the past few months, and developments since last November have been enough to set alarm bells ringing among the military leadership of Pakistan.

Goings-on in Balochistan

Rebellious tribesmen in the restive but resource-rich province of Balochistan have for decades challenged the writ of the central government in Islamabad. The Baloch insurgents have traditionally received weapons via Kandahar in Afghanistan, and via sea smuggling routes.

The Pakistani army has engaged in a number of operations in Balochistan over the years, and the most recent is continuing. The involvement of the military is highly unpopular not only among Balochis, but also among many segments of Pakistani society.

What is new in Balochistan, and which is causing concern in Islamabad, is the emergence of two sons of insurgent tribal chief Nawab Khair Bux Muri as organizers of a strong financial network to fund the insurgency.

"The whole operation of financing the Baloch insurgency is directed from Qatar, although this is a very unlikely place. One of the sons of Khair Bux Muri - Gazn Muri - has been shuttling between Qatar and the UAE [United Arab Emirates] and is the main financial link between the insurgents in Balochistan, where command is in the hands of a brother, Balaach Muri," a top Pakistani security official told Asia Times Online.

"The real question, though, is not the transmission of money, but from where Gazn Muri is getting this kind of huge money. The answer lies in the activities of another brother, Harbayar Muri, who is based in London."

Although the official would not spell it out in as many words, he was questioning how Harbayar Muri could raise funds in Britain, where there is a negligible Balochi expatriate community. It was a clear hint at the involvement of Western intelligence agencies, which have strong centers of operations in Qatar-UAE and London.

Political maneuvering

The US is also making some backroom political moves in relation to Pakistan's interests in the region.

According to a contact who spoke to Asia Times Online, a person close to the US Central Intelligence Agency paid a low-profile visit to New Delhi in the third week of December and briefed strategic planners on Washington's plan to try to curtail the role of the Pakistani army, while at the same time renewing support for democratic forces in Pakistan.

India's cold shoulder on the diplomatic front toward Pakistan and a policy statement against the military operation in Balochistan was an immediate outcome. Islamabad promptly responded by accusing India of meddling in Balochistan, charges that Delhi strenuously denied.

The same person then visited Islamabad and held high-level meetings with political personalities. On his return to the US he stopped over in Dubai in the UAE and held detailed meetings with former Pakistani premier Benazir Bhutto, who lives there.

A sudden upsurge in the activities in Pakistan of the Alliance for the Restoration of Democracy - which Bhutto supports - followed.

Musharraf's mystique

The US first made contact with Musharraf in a meaningful way when he was still Corps Commander Mangla and he approached the Americans through a Pakistani mediator. Musharraf had no particular request, but the move was seen as "unusual and meaningful".

The US concluded first that he was ambitious and only wanted power, and that he had a flawed, "split" vision.

US officials noted that to build a constituency in the Pakistani Army, Musharraf embraced the Kashmir issue and enthusiastically supported the liberation movement there.

Last year's earthquake in Kashmir, in which the extensive jihadi influence in Pakistan-administered Kashmir was made clear (they played a significant part in relief operations), convinced the Americans that the Pakistani army would never back out from its strategic activities in Kashmir through supporting the armed struggle in the Indian-administered part of the Valley.

Musharraf, who derives much of his legitimacy from the army, simply cannot afford to abandon this cause. The militancy will continue.

In this regard, the US noted the ill-fated Pakistani army venture into Kargil in Kashmir in 1999, which was conceived by Musharraf shortly before he took power. Pakistan believed that India would respond to the aggression by going to the peace table, but instead it launched its troops in a full-out assault, quite ready to go to all-out war. Pakistan pulled back its troops from the ill-conceived operation.

On the domestic front, the Musharraf administration in essence facilitated the formation of the the six-party alliance, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), which made impressive political gains in the general elections of 2002.

The aim was to scare the Americans by pointing to the emergence of Islamic fundamentalism in order to garner US support for Musharraf's uniform.

Similarly, the sweeping defeat of the MMA in local elections late last year amid widespread claims of fraud was to show the Americans that Musharraf had the ability to outwit fundamentalism. In this game, Musharraf's split vision does not allow him to visualize what kind of a message he is really passing on to Washington.

According to Asia Times Online information, Washington has now decided that the best outcome would be for a new man to replace Musharraf, 64, as chief of army staff, and at the same time to encourage liberal democratic forces to take over parliament.

As for Musharraf, the ideal way out for him is to become a civilian constitutional head of the country.

Syed Saleem Shahzadis Bureau Chief, Pakistan Asia Times Online. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

http://indiamonitor.com/news/readNews.jsp?ni=10122

Casey

01-16-2006, 09:02 PM

Iraq al Qaeda sets up insurgent umbrella body - Web

DUBAI (Reuters) - Al Qaeda in Iraq and some other militant groups have set up an umbrella body to coordinate their fight against U.S.-led forces and the Iraqi government, according to a Web statement posted on Sunday.

The Mujahideen Council aims to confront the "crusaders and their rejectionist (Shi'ite) and secularist followers who have seized Baghdad", said the statement attributed to al Qaeda, the Army of the Victorious Sect and four less known Sunni Muslim groups.

The council, which does not include leading groups such as the Army of Ansar al-Sunna and the Islamic Army in Iraq, said it "welcomes anyone desiring (Islam's) victory to join".

The statement's authenticity could not be verified. It was posted on a Web site often used by insurgents, which subsequently carried messages from the council claiming responsibility for attacks in recent days.

"The council also calls on Muslims in Iraq and across the world to join the jihad in Iraq to fight for the victory of religion and to defend the oppressed," it said.

Al Qaeda in Iraq, led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi -- Washington's most wanted man in the country, is one of the main insurgent groups fighting U.S.-led forces and the U.S.-backed Iraqi government, which is dominated by Kurds and Shi'ite Muslim Arabs.

http://thestar.com.my/news/story.asp?file=/2006/1/16/worldupdates/2006-01-15T210113Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_-232072-1&sec=Worldupdates

Casey

01-16-2006, 09:04 PM

Date : 2006-01-17
14 Al-Qaeda branches in North East India
By Raymond R Kharmujai – Asian Tribune

Shillong, 17 January, (Asiantribune.com): The North East Students' Organization has claimed that the Al-Qaeda, have set up more than 'fourteen branches in the North East India' with the support of the Pakistan intelligence agency, the Inter Service Intelligence.

The NESO in its memorandum to all the seven states Governor in the region urged to take it as a 'serious matter' with the United Progressive Alliance government so as to take measures to curb their illegal activities that may disturb the tranquility of the region and its indigenous people.

The NESO an all the students' body of the region, reiterated its demand to the centre for expediting all ongoing political negotiations with different armed groups and to work out a time frame for an early and permanent solution for bringing peace in the North Eastern Region.

More than a dozen of armed groups in the region are fighting for a 'sovereign state or homeland' with the support of the ISI in Bangladesh and Pakistan.

Demanding a special constitutional status for the North East region, "like in the case of Jammu and Kashmir," the NESO in its memorandum stated "The north eastern region is a microscopic minority in terms of ethnicity, religion. Language. and such we need special protection".

Welcoming the 'Look East Policy' of the central government, the NESO urged the UPA government not to set up an administrative center in Kolkata. "The road map of the 'Look East policy' be made transparent and beneficial to the people of north east", the memo stated.

Extending its support to the Khasi Students' Union in its opposition to Uranium mining in Meghalaya due to "well-known-ill-effects" that such mining could bring about to the land and its people, the NESO demanded from the centre to immediately stop this dangerous and hazardous project for the protection and well-being of the environment and the indigenous people whose only source of livelihood is through the land and its resources.

- Asian Tribune -

http://www.asiantribune.com/show_news.php?id=16757

The 801

01-18-2006, 08:56 AM

TERRORISM: PAKISTAN INFORMED AHEAD OF AL-ZAWAHIRI STRIKE

Karachi, 17 Jan. (AKI) - (Syed Saleem Shahzad) - US intelligence officials had reliable information about a gathering of senior al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders in Pakistan's Bajour district and shared it with Islamabad before last Friday's air strike which killed 18 people, says a top Pakistani intelligence official. The official told Adnkronos International(AKI) there was authentic information about a meeting of senior personnel, but it was conjecture that those present included al-Qaeda number 2, Ayman al-Zawahiri, or Taliban leader Mullah Omar. There have been widespread anti-US protests in Pakistan over the raid and no word on al-Zawahiri's fate.

Details have emerged in the media suggesting that the air strike targeting al-Zawahiri - the Egyptian doctor and lieutenant to Osama bin Laden - failed because he did not show up for a dinner he was invited to marking the Islamic holiday of Eid al-Adha.

In the pre-dawn raid on the remote village of Damadola, three houses and a school were destroyed by missiles fired from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones. Eighteen civilians, including six children, were killed.

The raids triggered two days of anti-US protests throughout Pakistan. The foreign ministry summoned the US ambassador for an explanation and information minister Sheikh Rashid condemned the attack.

Considered Osama bin Laden's mentor, al-Zawahiri is at the heart of the al-Qaida leadership, and Washington is offering a 25 million dollar bounty for his capture.

AKI sources revealed there was authentic information on the gathering in Bajour district of high- profile Taliban and al-Qaeda commanders who recently fled from Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province.

The catalyst for the CIA raid on Bajour Agency - news of which was supplied to Islamabad well in advance - was information gathered by a joint intelligence unit of Pakistani-US operators based in Islamabad, who exchanged hand-delivered notes, on a daily basis.

The Islamabad unit provides a centralised daily monitoring report on Pakistan-Afghan border areas, based on information from Pakistani agencies nationwide. The US contributes report on al-Qaeda and Taliban activities, and the security situation in the border provinces of Afghanistan.

Sources told AKI that for the past few weeks, there had been an upsurge in activities in the eastern Kunar province, and the US intelligence partners were reporting that Kunar had become a centre for al-Qaeda members.

Previously, a corridor had been traced which started from Kunar and ended at Chitral in Pakistan, as a probable route frequently used by leaders such as Osama bin Laden, al-Zawahiri and Afghan resistance leader Gulbadin Hikmatyar.

The use of the Kunar-Chitral route was confirmed by leading al-Qaeda militant Abu al Faraj al-Libbi when he was interrogated after his arrest in North West Frontier Province last June. Raids have since been conducted but failed to yield any 'big fish'.
Bajour is on the edge of that corridor and there is a passage which connects Kunar from Bajour. This has made Bajour a suspect region, where joint ISI-FBI teams have conducted raids in past but failed to net any high profile al-Qaeda or Taliban leaders.

AKI's sources said that a recent dispatch from the US side confirmed a movement of Arab-Afghans towards the Pakistani side. As the Chittral area was fully manned by the Pakistan Army, joint intelligence believes those Arab-Afghans entered Bajour.

Earlier it was also suspected that along with the Arab fighters there was a high profile Afghan personality, maybe Mullah Omar or Gulbadin Hikmatyar. The dispatch clearly mentioned that if the suspects were spotted, they would be targeted immediately.

Though last Friday’s attack was the first such incident in Bajour since US forces invaded Afghanistan at the end of 2001, it was the second incident in which Pakistani villagers have been attacked from across the border in under a week. Eight people were killed in an alleged US gunship rocket attack on a house in the North Waziristan Agency on 6 January.

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=8.0.253941954&par=0

The 801

01-18-2006, 02:43 PM

Pakistan's misplaced ire over US misfire
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - Pakistan's Foreign Ministry summoned the US ambassador for an explanation and Information Minister Sheikh Rashid said the act was "highly condemnable".

But the fact is that Pakistan knew in advance of the US raid in Pakistan on Friday aimed at killing al-Qaeda's No 2, Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, who was believed to be in the area. Instead, 18 civilians were killed near the village of Damadola in the Bajur tribal area on the Afghan border in a raid by a US Predator drone.

Media reports claim that Zawahiri only escaped death because he did not keep a dinner date in the area that was targeted. Yet intelligence contacts tell Asia Times Online that the target was not specifically Zawahiri - it could equally have been Taliban leader Mullah Omar or Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, leader of the Hizb-i-Islami Afghanistan and a key figure in the Afghan resistance.

A Western intelligence source told Asia Times Online that the US had heard of a "big meeting" in Bajur of Taliban, Pakistani and al-Qaeda leaders. "They flew three Predator drones over the area for a few days and a few hours before the strike, and that seems to be what tipped Zawahiri off," the source said.

Whether or not Zawahiri missed dinner, the US is becoming increasingly aggressive in its hunt for a major scalp in the "war on terror", so much so that it can now launch such attacks in Pakistani territory.

Intelligence cooperation
Members of a joint intelligence cell of Pakistani and US operators based in Islamabad exchange notes on a daily basis, usually at about 10pm. The parties simply swap files by hand.

The cell then provides a centralized daily monitoring report of activity in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas. On the Pakistani side, its intelligence agents report from within Pakistan, while US operatives provide information from the border provinces of Afghanistan, with emphasis on al-Qaeda and the Taliban.

The cell noted that for several weeks prior to the raid in Bajur there had been an upsurge in activity in Kunar province, especially of suspected al-Qaeda members.

Previously, a corridor had been traced that started in Kunar and ended in Chitral province in Pakistan. It was suspected that al-Qaeda and the Afghan resistance used the route to travel between the two countries.

This was confirmed when Libyan Abu Faraj al-Libbi was arrested in Pakistan last May. He was incorrectly touted as being No 3 in al-Qaeda, although he had once been influential.

During interrogation, he spoke of the corridor, and joint US-Pakistan raids were conducted, to no avail. Bajur lies in this corridor, and is connected to Kunar by a mountain pass.

A recent dispatch from the US intelligence side confirmed the movement of Arab-Afghans toward Pakistan. Since the Chitral area is fully manned by the Pakistani army, it was assumed that the suspects went instead to Bajur tribal area.

These were said possibly to include "a high-profile Afghan personality" such as Mullah Omar or Hekmatyar. The dispatch clearly mentioned that if the suspects were spotted, they would be targeted immediately.

So someone clearly thought they had a target, but it was not to be. Those killed in the drone raid included locals and a few Punjabis (from central Pakistan).

The attack stirred up protests all over the country, and even the government's most important coalition partner in Sindh province and in the federal government, the pro-American and pro-India Muttahida Quami Movement, took to the streets in Karachi, along with the six-party religious alliance, the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA). The MMA even proclaimed that it would gather the masses in an attempt to topple the government.

It is most likely, therefore, that the government issued its protests as a way to defuse tension and save face, as it is almost inconceivable that it did not know what was happening. Given the strategic alliance between the United States and Pakistan, the US would not keep Islamabad completely in the dark in an operation such as that in Bajur, where Pakistani territory was violated.

"Even during the Bill Clinton administration, when cruise missiles only passed through Pakistani space to hit Osama bin Laden in Kandahar and Khost [after the al-Qaeda attacks on US embassies in Africa in 1998], Pakistan was informed well in advance," said a Pakistani official on condition of anonymity.

"So it must have been the same in this case in which the CIA [Central Intelligence Agency] struck inside a Pakistani-administered tribal area. However, from the very beginning, targeting Ayman, Mullah Omar or Gulbuddin in Bajur was more a myth than an operation based on real hard facts," the official added.

/www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HA18Df01.html

Vancouver

01-18-2006, 06:04 PM

There is a rumour from the States that Midhat Mursi, a.k.a. Abu Khabab al-Masri, was killed at Damadola.
http://www.rewardsforjustice.net/english/wanted_captured/index.cfm?page=Midhat_Mursi
Mursi, like Zawahiri, is Egyptian.
http://www.rewardsforjustice.net/images/wantedCaptured/Midhat_Mursi_al-Sayid_Umar.jpg

Vancouver

01-18-2006, 06:28 PM

Associated Press:

Updated: 1:24 a.m. ET Jan. 18, 2006
PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Four or five foreign terrorists died in the purported U.S. airstrike aimed at al-Qaida’s No. 2 leader in a Pakistani border village, the provincial government said Tuesday.

Vancouver

01-18-2006, 08:04 PM

http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/Investigation/story?id=1517986
Excerpts:

Jan. 18, 2006
ABC News has learned that Pakistani officials now believe that al Qaeda's master bomb maker and chemical weapons expert [Midhat Mursi] was one of the men killed in last week's U.S. missile attack in eastern Pakistan.

Pakistani officials also said that Khalid Habib, the al Qaeda operations chief for Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Abdul Rehman al Magrabi, a senior operations commander for al Qaeda, were killed in the Damadola attack. Authorities tell ABC News that the terror summit was called to funnel new money into attacks against U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Vancouver

01-19-2006, 03:45 PM

... and Abdul Rehman al Magrabi, a senior operations commander for al Qaeda ...This has been revised to "Abdurrahman al-Maghribi", a relative, maybe son-in-law, of Zawahiri. Al-Maghribi means the Moroccan.
At last word, the number of dead al-Qaeda members at Damadola is from 4 to 8.

Vancouver

01-19-2006, 09:13 PM

Synopsis from CNN of bin Ladin's appearances since 911:

1) OCTOBER 7, 2001
Hours after U.S.-led forces began dropping bombs on Afghanistan, bin Laden taunts the U.S. in a video broadcast on the Arabic-language Al-Jazeera station.
He praises the September 11 attacks, but does not claim responsibility. The tape shows him seated in a cave next to his lieutenants Ayman al-Zawahiri and Sulaiman Abu Ghaith. Bin Laden insists, "Every Muslim must rise to defend his religion. The wind of faith is blowing."

2) NOVEMBER 3, 2001
Osama bin Laden lashes out at the United States and United Nations in a videotape broadcast on Al-Jazeera.
Bin Laden condemns U.S.-led airstrikes in Afghanistan and claims the United States is targeting civilians. Bin Laden does not deny that his al Qaeda organization was responsible for the September 11 attacks and says true Muslims celebrated those acts.

3) DECEMBER 13, 2001
The Bush administration releases a videotape of bin Laden bragging about the deadly attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. The tape was found in a private residence in Jalalabad, Afghanistan, but was made in Kandahar and dated November 9, officials say.
Bin Laden indicates he knew of the September 11 plan several days before the attacks. He jokes that some of the hijackers thought they were assisting in a non-suicide hijacking.

4) DECEMBER 26, 2001
Al-Jazeera broadcasts excerpts of a videotape of bin Laden in which the al Qaeda leader calls the September 11 attacks "blessed terror" and accuses the West of hating Islam.
"We say our terror against America is blessed terror in order to put an end to suppression, in order for the United States to stop its support to Israel," bin Laden says on the tape.

5) JANUARY 31, 2002
Despite Al-Jazeera's objections, CNN airs an interview that Al-Jazeera conducted with bin Laden in October 2001 -- less than a month before the Taliban collapsed and al Qaeda's leadership fled.
Bin Laden says the U.S. accusations that he was involved in the September 11 attacks are "unwarranted." He later says, "If inciting people to do that is terrorism, and if killing those who kill our sons is terrorism, then let history be witness that we are terrorists."

6) APRIL 15, 2002
Al-Jazeera broadcasts a videotape that shows Osama bin Laden with his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who claims credit for the September 11 attacks.
"This great victory that has been accomplished can only be attributed to God alone," al-Zawahiri says on the tape. "Those 19 brothers who went out and gave their souls to Allah almighty, God almighty has granted them this victory we are enjoying now."

7) OCTOBER 6, 2002
Al-Jazeera broadcasts an audiotape of bin Laden, in which he says, "That's why I tell you, as God is my witness, whether America increases or reduces tensions, we will surely answer back in the same manner, with God's blessing and grace, and I promise you that the Islamic youth are preparing for you what will fill your hearts with horror, and they will target the centers of your economy until you stop your tyranny and terror."

8) NOVEMBER 12, 2002
An audiotape indicates that the al Qaeda leader might be alive and warns of future attacks against U.S. targets.
The message, broadcast by Al-Jazeera, praises terror attacks in Yemen, Kuwait, Bali and Moscow, Russia, and warns U.S. allies, "Just like you kill us, we will kill you."

9) FEBRUARY 11, 2003
Bin Laden tells Muslims around the world to challenge the U.S.-led war in Iraq. The audiotape aired on Al-Jazeera, which originally denied its existence.
Bin Laden adds that any nation that helps the U.S. attack Iraq, "[Has] to know that they are outside this Islamic nation. Jordan and Morocco and Nigeria and Saudi Arabia should be careful that this war, this crusade, is attacking the people of Islam first."

10) SEPTEMBER 10, 2003
Al-Jazeera airs a videotape of bin Laden and his top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, walking down a hillside path in an undisclosed location.
In audiotaped statements accompanying the video, bin Laden praises the hijackers who crashed jetliners into the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and a Pennsylvania field on September 11, 2001.

11) OCTOBER 18, 2003
Al-Jazeera airs a tape that the CIA says was recorded no more than six months before it was aired, since the speaker makes "specific references to recent events."
The recording threatens to launch suicide attacks against the United States and any countries that assist it in Iraq. "Most of you are a mob with no trace of good morals," the speaker said, addressing Americans. "We will continue to fight you as long as we have weapons in our hands."

12) JANUARY 5, 2004
Unlike previous tapes attributed to al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, this one, aired on Al-Jazeera, begins with the speaker stating that he is bin Laden.
The speaker describes the U.S. occupation of Iraq as the beginning of an occupation of Persian Gulf states for their oil and urges Muslims to challenge U.S.-allied governments in the Middle East.
"There is no dialogue except with weapons," he said.

13) APRIL 14, 2004
Al-Jazeera broadcasts an audiotape that the CIA says is likely Osama bin Laden offering a truce to European nations if they pull troops out of Muslim countries. The speaker also threatens revenge on the United States for the death of Hamas founder Sheikh Ahmed Yassin, who was killed March 22 in an Israeli targeted helicopter attack in Gaza City. The "truce" or "non-aggression" is offered to any European country that stops "attacking Muslims," but excludes the United States from any such deal. Many European leaders quickly ruled out any negotiations with the al Qaeda leader.

14) MAY 6, 2004
An audiotape message purportedly from bin Laden is posted on an Islamic Web site, offering 22 pounds of gold to anyone who kills Coalition Provisional Authority head Paul Bremer, top U.S. military officers and U.N. officials.
The message suggests that the bounties were being offered in response to rewards the United States has offered for wanted figures in Afghanistan and Iraq, including bin Laden.

15) OCTOBER 29, 2004
Four days before the U.S. presidential election, al-Jazeera broadcast a videotape of Osama bin Laden addressing the American people. He said their security depends on U.S. policy, not on who is elected president.
"Your security is not in the hands of Kerry or Bush or al Qaeda. Your security is in your own hands," he said. "Any nation that does not attack us will not be attacked."

16) DECEMBER 16, 2004
An audiotape message purportedly from bin Laden is posted on Arabic Web sites. The message praises the attackers who stormed the American consulate in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on December 6, 2004.
"We pray to Allah to accept the mujahedeen who stormed the U.S. consulate in Jeddah as martyrs," the speaker says.
A Saudi militant group with ties to al Qaeda claimed responsibility for the attack.

17) DECEMBER 27, 2004
In an audiotape aired on Arabic-language television network Al-Jazeera, a speaker claiming to be bin Laden endorses the terror campaign of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian terrorist whose group has been responsible for numerous car bombings, kidnappings and beheadings in Iraq. The speaker also urges Iraqis not to participate in elections the following month. A CIA analysis of the tape found that it appears to be authentic, a U.S. official told CNN.

18) JANUARY 19, 2006
An audio message purportedly from bin Laden airs on Arabic-language television network Al-Jazeera, warning of upcoming attacks on the United States. "We have seen explosions in many European countries. As for similar operations taking place in America, it's only a question of time. They are under way, and you will hear about them soon."

The 801

01-20-2006, 08:16 AM

Good post Vancouver, now for some informed analyisis by a guy who is in a position to know...

New al-Qaeda phase begins
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - The release of a new audio tape featuring al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden marks the group's announcement that the new strategy it has been developing is now very much in place.

The tape, the first from bin Laden in more than a year, was aired on Thursday by the Al-Jazeera satellite TV channel. It appeared to have been made in early December, US intelligence officials said.

In the tape, bin Laden warned that al-Qaeda was preparing terrorist attacks on the United States: "Operations are in preparation, and you will see them on your own [US] ground once the preparations are finished."

Since the ouster in 2001 of the Taliban from Afghanistan, where al-Qaeda had a strong base, and with the ongoing "war on terror", al-Qaeda has lost hundreds of operatives through killings and arrest. By the end of 2003, the organization was in the doldrums and its cadre infested with spies.

As a result, the organization as it had been run was practically dismantled. Its vertical, centralized structure was abolished and its various groups and cells - apart from a few - were abandoned and allowed to scatter. Bin Laden, in the meantime, went low-key.

The US attack on Iraq then provided al-Qaeda with a trump card as it was able to reactivate members and sympathizers in Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Egypt, Morocco and beyond.

In fact the success of the Iraqi resistance, in which al-Qaeda is a component, figured significantly in the thinking of al-Qaeda's leadership to relaunch the group as an open organization to pitch a worldwide battle against US interests. Serious debate on this new direction began in 2004, with two main issues prominent:

# Should al-Qaeda drop its shadowy nature and call for a jihad in the open against the United States?
# Should the "war" be exclusively against the US, or also against Muslim regimes sympathetic to the US?

These issues were later linked with two conditions:
# The acquisition of bases to launch a war in the open.
# The reorganization of sympathizers and new recruits to launch a worldwide battle.

At this time, al-Qaeda decided to defer its war against Muslim regimes until a clear-cut victory was gained in Iraq. Bin Laden has always resisted taking the fight to these countries.

Throughout 2005 al-Qaeda underwent extensive changes to prepare itself for major operations.

The new structure of al-Qaeda

Information gathered by Asia Times Online from various sources suggests that though al-Qaeda is now working on a horizontal structure, some top-level decision-making bodies have been revived to discuss key issues and to communicate decisions to other levels. These include a religious committee and an al-Qaeda council.

First the council addresses issues and then passes its decisions to the religious committee, which reviews the religious implications of the decisions. It then gives the final approval, or not.

A special committee coordinates matters worldwide with other organizations, including Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Ansar al-Sunna and other Iraqi resistance groups.

Al-Qaeda has now achieved many of its targets, including the acquisition of various bases in the shape of small pockets. The leadership has safe havens in areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas, including Khost-North Waziristan, South Waziristan, Kunar-Chitral and Kunar-Bajur.

The areas in the South and North Waziristan tribal areas are the most significant as the Pakistan government has virtually lost its writ there. According to credible information, there is very little room left for Pakistani security agencies to move around beyond South Waziristan's headquarters, Wana, and North Waziristan's headquarters, Miramshah.

Pro-Taliban militants rule the roost here, and even local journalists cannot file stories without the prior approval of these militants. Other journalists simply are not allowed into the area. As a result, very little information filters out from North and South Waziristan.

Nonetheless, contacts in various jihadi organizations suggest that both North and South Waziristan have become hubs for all jihadi activities.

Hundreds of youths previously belonging to such organizations as the Laskhar-i-Toiba, Jaish-i-Mohammed, Harkat-i-Jihadi-i-Islami, Harkatul Mujahideen etc, left for bases in South and North Waziristan.

Here they receive fresh jihadi orientation, including both military and ideological training, and after a few months they are launched into Afghanistan. Their numbers run into the thousands.

The acquisition of these bases and fresh recruits are the prime successes of al-Qaeda as it prepares to wage its new battle. Bin Laden's appearance confirms this to his followers.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Bureau Chief, Pakistan Asia Times Online.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HA21Df02.html

Casey

01-22-2006, 08:44 PM

How Two Terror Attacks Were Planned And Executed

The Nation (Nairobi)
GUEST COLUMN
January 21, 2006
Posted to the web January 20, 2006

By Mwenda Njoka
Nairobi

Nothing has tested the capacity of intelligence agencies worldwide than organised terrorism. The most prominent of the terror groups is Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network.

What makes the group different from other enemies of peace is that it is borderless and stateless. The world intelligence community has had to deal with a universal organisation with fanatical support across the globe.

Tackling terrorism such as that perpetrated by al-Qaeda needs a new approach that should tackle factors such as intention, support networks, financial transfer systems and unconventional training.

US President George W. Bush has tried to address this by signing the Patriot Act. The law, which has drawn criticism from civil liberty activists, enhanced the power to conduct electronic surveillance, eased restrictions on search warrants and strengthened mechanisms of tracing suspect funds across the world.

An example is the closure of Somalia money-transfer institution Al Barrakat.

Nothing illustrates the complex and tedious nature of intelligence gathering better than the challenges posed by terrorism. Today's terrorists operate in sophisticated, often well-funded and impenetrable networks. As the 1998 Nairobi US embassy bombing showed, they attack after years of careful planning.

As it emerged later during the trial in New York of the suspects, the planning of the Nairobi raid attack started almost five years before. It began in 1993 when the mastermind, Wadi el-Hage, moved to Kenya from the Sudan and set up an NGO and businesses as his cover.

Between 1993 and 1994, members of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad working closely with el Hage came to Kenya and carried out discrete but elaborate target studies. The probable targets, apart from the US mission, were key western interests in Kenya.

Around the same time, a group of Mujaheedin war veterans who had been co-opted into al-Qaeda during the Afghanistan war, were sneaking into Sudan, Kenya and Tanzania in preparation for a major operation.

Having established enough cover via the NGO and businesses, el Hage and his colleagues started training cell members around 1996. The following year, the trainees bought the explosive TNT as they continued their course and target surveillance.

By November, the Kenyan intelligence had enough suspicion about el Hage operations, but there was nothing concrete enough to warrant his being charged in court. Detailed surveillance and monitoring had not linked him with any planned attacks.

But, the intelligence had enough suspicion to push for his arrest and deportation. And this was done in late 1997. Apparently, though, this did not deal a lethal blow to the terrorism "sleeper" cells already established.

After a brief lull, during which they went underground, the cell members were back in operation, and by May 1998, they had rented a house in the posh Runda estate in Nairobi to spruce up the attack plan. The leafy and quiet suburb was ideal for their covert operations.

The following month - June - a bomb expert arrived from Afghanistan and continued to train the cell members on handling explosives and mines.

The choice of the US embassy as a target was made in July after senior al-Qaeda figures - Abu Ubeida, Abdallah Saleh and Abu Hafs Al Masri - slipped into Kenya. The next task was assembling the bomb, and this was done in the Runda house.

The bomb parts were in inconspicuous wooden crates packed in the rear compartment of a pick-up truck and covered with old tyres.

On August 4, the US mission was surveyed again and for the last time before the raid three days later. The bomb expert then connected the weapon to the detonation device.

The next two days were spent putting the final touches on the attack. The terrorist group logistics team held it last meeting in a downtown hotel and left the country a day before the raid.

Barely a year after the bombing - which killed more than 200 people and injured about 5,000 others -another group started planning another raid. This time around the targets were the Israeli-owned Paradise Hotel of Kikambala, Kilifi, and a passenger jet belonging to Israeli airliner Arkia.

The planning began in 1999 when world attention was on the US embassy bombing, and no-one, not even the intelligence, thought terrorists would be so daring as to come back so soon.

As Kenya's National Security Intelligence Service and America's CIA tried to put the pieces together, terrorists were back in business planning a fresh attack in early 1999. Surprisingly, among the key architects of the new attack were people who slipped out of the country immediately after planning and executing the August 7, 1998, attack. But this time around, the recruitment and training took place in Somalia, where the fugitives had surreptitiously settled.

Then they started sneaking back into Kenya and, one by one, they moved into a Mombasa suburb where they were assimilated by the local community. By late 2000, as the Kenyan, Israeli and US intelligence agencies found out later, the mastermind of the Paradise Hotel bombing, Fazul Abdullah Mohamed - who was also wanted by security forces over the US embassy bombing - received $80,000 (about Sh6 million) from al-Qaeda for operations in Kenya.

And in April 2002, Somalia-based cell members planned and coordinated the preparations with their counterparts in Kenya.

In August, core operatives started holding clandestine meetings in a Mombasa mosque to plan the attack. The following month, those in charge of logistics rented a house in Mombasa's Tudor estate, which the group was to use for planning meetings.

Intelligence reports later said that on November 22, the logistics man visited Lamu in search of a speed-boat to be used for a quick escape after the attack. With the vessel found, the following day it was time to move the arsenal into the Tudor house.

The logistician left for a last trip to Lamu on November 26 to ensure the boat was in good shape. And with an escape route assured, it was time to get to the final stage. Guests at Paradise had no idea what was in store for them as they had their breakfast and made plans for the sunny day that November 28, 2002, promised.

At the reception, some tourists were checking in, looking forward to a wonderful holiday in one of the best beach hotels in Kenya.

Meanwhile, in the Tudor house, 15km from Kikambala, a group of terrorists was doing something that would disrupt the serene atmosphere of Paradise and end the lives of many guests. That morning, a Mitsubishi Pajeropulled up at the entrance when the guards stopped it, insisting on perusing the occupants' papers. But, in no mood for the delay or argument, they smashed the gate and drove full speed towards the reception.

The vehicle exploded into fire and killed more than a dozen guests and employees and damaged the hotel itself. And as this was happening, a second group of terrorists was at Moi International Airport, Mombasa, shooting missiles at an Israeli commercial jet. Fortunately though, they missed the target.

A day after the two attacks, the al-Qaeda cell members found their way onto Lamu island from where they departed for Somalia aboard the boat.

Although intelligence agencies the world over cooperate and share information, rivalry between even the friendliest is a common feature, which often frustrates their efforts and minimises their combined efficiency.

Intelligence sources say that had there been enough cooperation between the Kenyan and other agencies, the US embassy and Paradise Hotel attacks might not have happened. NSIS must have learnt a lesson from the two attacks within about four years.

It is hoped that new spy chief Michael Gichangi will pick from where his predecessor, Brig Wilson Boinett, left and ensure the spy agency lives up to its motto, Apti Parati Fideles (Capable, Available and Reliable) and, by so doing, safeguard the republic of Kenya against threats emanating from within and without.

Mwenda Njoka is a journalist and media consultant.

http://allafrica.com/stories/200601200761.html

Vancouver

01-22-2006, 10:32 PM

There is a rumour from the North Waziristan hillbillies that helicopters landed near Saidgi (8 km north of Miran Shah, North Waziristan) and took away four or five people. This happened about one week before the unexplained explosion at the house of Maulana Noor Muhammad in Saidgi. That guy is Taliban in everything execpt name. Google on "saidgi".

The 801

01-24-2006, 08:49 AM

Whoa, nice catch on the saidgi story. I think we need a thread to track this apparently expanding situation. Looks like the trail on Bin laden is heating up. Any thoughts?

Vancouver

01-24-2006, 11:09 AM

Um, I'd say the trail on Zawahiri and several other Egyptians is quite warm now. Surely the raid at Damadola was neither the beginning nor the end of the story. And it was natural to expect that something was happening on the ground, since there would be little point in blowing up those three houses without any way of demonstrating who was in them.
If the people who were "abducted" by chopper were locals, the reaction from the town would have been louder, I figure. So they weren't locals. Spies or scouts on our side, possibly. There doesn't seem to have been any fighting before the pickup.
But we know that Zawahiri and UBL have not been seen together for a long time, so if Zawahiri is in the area, UBL probably isn't.
Still thinking about this one...

Vancouver

01-24-2006, 12:47 PM

I saw this at InfoVlad. They're quoting a Pakistani newspaper story about Damadola.
======
"My house is at a distance of 2.5 km from the spot of the raid. On the night of January 13, four drones were monitoring the area. After a few hours, four to five jet planes bombed the house. They fired missiles. I reached the spot at 9 am. The local people removed the dead under the rubble after 5,6 hours. The dead were buried in front of my eyes. There were 13 casualties, not 18. There were three, four men. The rest of the dead were women and children including an infant," says Sahibzada Haroon. Damadola is 40 km away from Kunar and has a population of 10,000.
======
The raid was at 3:10 AM.

Casey

01-26-2006, 09:47 AM

Thursday, January 26, 2006

‘Fear of Al Qaeda’ keeps Bajaur elders from joining administration against militants

By Iqbal Khattak

PESHAWAR: The Bajaur Agency administration is finding it difficult to get tribal chieftains on its side against wanted militant Maulvi Faqir Muhammad, who is suspected to be sheltering Al Qaeda-linked militants in the border area with Afghanistan.

Sources close to the Bajaur administration said that they had tried three times since the US air strike on Damadola village on January 13 to raise a lashkar, or tribal army, to track down Muhammad or make him leave Bajaur.

“They (tribal chieftains) are wary of getting on board because speaking openly against Al Qaeda can invite serious problems from the militants,” the sources said.

The administration was able to put together a lashkar against Muhammad last year, but it resulted in three attacks by the militants on senior tribal elders, a tribal elder told Daily Times.

“It is difficult to take on Al Qaeda since the organisation shows no mercy to people working against it and for the government,” said the tribal elder, who wished not to be named for fear of reprisals from the administration and Al Qaeda.

Malik Shahjehan, key pro-government tribal elder from Bajaur, went underground last year after militants tried to kill him and his family. He was also part of the all-tribal jirga that negotiated peace in Wana with Waziristan elders in 2004.

In 2005, suspected militants tried three unsuccessful assassination attempts on Shahjehan, his son Malik Sultan Zeb and his son-in-law Dr Muhammad Tahir after a lashkar set fire to the houses of Muhammad and his relatives.

“Three jirgas have been called since the Damadola incident but most tribal elders stayed away for fear that Al Qaeda-linked militants may target them as they are targeting people in Waziristan,” the sources close to the administration said.

Muhammad appears not to have been affected by the US missile attack in Damadola village, which killed at least 13 civilians, and is still roaming around freely in an area just 15 minutes from Bajaur chief administrator Faheem Wazir’s office in Khar.

“I would be privileged if Osama Bin Laden or Mullah Muhammad Omar accept my invitation. They are welcome any time and I will receive them as per Pashtun tradition,” he told reporters in Damadola a day after the US missile strike, though he denied Ayman al-Zahawri was in the area on the night of the attack.

Muhammad, 36, led thousands of volunteers into Afghanistan to fight alongside the Taliban against the Washington-backed Northern Alliance soon after the 9/11 attacks on the US.

“He (Muhammad) is young and as emotional as Nek Muhammad (the Wana militant killed in a missile attack in June 2004) and a diehard mujahid,” Damadola villagers told Daily Times.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C01%5C26%5Cstory_26-1-2006_pg1_2

Vancouver

01-27-2006, 06:53 AM

It seems to be a good bet that Midhat Mursi was killed at Damadola. His poster is still up:
http://www.rewardsforjustice.net/english/wanted_captured/index.cfm?page=Midhat_Mursi
but the photo which it used to carry, seems to be in fact an old shot of Abu Hamza al-Masri:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11042211/
The photo was grainy and seems to have been more than 10 years old. Nobody I know (on either side) noticed the error until NBC News, quite recently.

Alli

01-27-2006, 12:43 PM

Fake Passport Ring With Terror Ties Busted

By JOSHUA GOODMAN, Associated Press Writer
Fri Jan 27, 1:44 AM ET

BOGOTA, Colombia - Colombian has dismantled a false passport ring with links to al-Qaida and Hamas militants, the acting attorney general said Thursday after authorities led dozens of simultaneous raids across five cities in collaboration with U.S. officials.

In Washington, however, Justice and Homeland Security officials were surprised by the announcement of the investigation, which they said involved people posing as members of Colombia's largest rebel army, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC — not al-Qaida or Hamas.

Colombian officials said the gang allegedly supplied an unknown number of citizens from Pakistan, Jordan, Iraq, Egypt and other countries with false passports and Colombian nationality without them ever setting foot in the country.

...The counterfeit Colombian, Spanish, Portugese and German passports were used to enter the United States and Europe, he said.

But Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra said an indictment unsealed Wednesday in Miami charges 10 foreign nationals with smuggling "people that they thought were members of FARC into the United States."

"We are not alleging any connections to any terror organization other than the FARC," said Justice Department spokesman Bryan Sierra.

He said the U.S. will seek to extradite the 10 alleged smugglers, of whom eight have been arrested.

"The operation was, in fact, a sting operation led by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement," he said, adding that Colombian law enforcement were "an active and critical part" of the investigation
full story (http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060127/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/colombia_passport_ring)

zapcomix

01-27-2006, 10:03 PM

Don't know how long the link will be good. This is a 17 minute video chronicling a suicide attack by "al Qaeda in Iraq," from start to finish. Including the "last message" by the three young men who carried out the attack.

The good stuff starts at 13 minutes 13 seconds. The bombs used, the mechanism the driver or passenger used to detonate, the van and where they put it together. And the detonation.

http://www.terroristmedia.com/nukem/modules.php?name=Downloads&d_op=getit&lid=426

Petronas

01-29-2006, 02:27 PM

Al Qaeda's Mad Scientist: The significance of Abu Khabab's death
01/19/2006 1:15:00 AM

BEFORE HIS UNTIMELY DEMISE in Damadola, Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar--a man known better among both jihadists and intelligence agencies as Abu Khabab al-Masri--was one of the most reclusive members of the al Qaeda leadership. Despite having been identified as a senior member of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, little public information exists about him. He was among the dozens of Islamists arrested in the 1980s for participation in the conspiracy to kill Anwar Sadat and no information except his birth date (April 29, 1953) is available on the "Rewards for Justice" poster circulated by the U.S. government which offered a $5,000,000 reward for his capture.

According to an Associated Press report from December 2005, which cited Islamist researchers from the London-based Islamic Observation Center, Khabab grew up in Alexandria's crowded al-Asafirah district and graduated from Alexandria University in 1975. He left Egypt for Saudi Arabia in 1987 and from there traveled to Afghanistan to join the jihad against the Soviet Union. His activities following the Afghan War are clouded in mystery, but as of the late 1990s he was in charge of his own facility at al Qaeda's Darunta training camp in Afghanistan. It is the activities undertaken at that camp and other facilities like it, however, that elevated Khabab's profile.

According to computer files recovered by the Wall Street Journal in the wake of the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan, as of May 1999 the al Qaeda leadership, spearheaded by the group's second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri, had decided to establish an unconventional weapons program codenamed al Zabadi ("curdled milk"). The unit was to be headed by Khabab; a large sum amounting to several thousand dollars was approved as its start-up budget. As of May 26, 1999, another computer file noted that Khabab had made "significant progress" with his work, a comment made all the more ominous by the discovery of al Qaeda videotapes aired on CNN in 2002, which showed Khabab and several assistants killing three dogs in crude chemical weapons experiments using what is believed to have been hydrogen cyanide, the same agent used by the in gas chambers in Nazi death camps.

How far Khabab got with al Zabadi before the war in Afghanistan is unknown, but according to the Robb-Silberman commission on weapons of mass destruction, U.S. intelligence had assessed prior to the invasion that al Qaeda "had small quantities of toxic chemicals and pesticides, and had produced small amounts of World War I-era agents such as hydrogen cyanide, chlorine, and phosgene . . . Training manuals . . . indicated that group members were familiar with the production and deployment of common chemical agents" and that unconfirmed reports "indicated that al-Qa'ida operatives had sought to acquire more modern and sophisticated chemical agents."

More alarmingly, the commission noted that post-war discoveries had shown that the terror network's biological weapons program "was further along . . . than pre-war intelligence indicated," particularly with regard to an agent the report referred to by the commission as "Agent X." According to the commission, "Reporting supports the hypothesis that al-Qa'ida had acquired several biological agents possibly as early as 1999, and had the necessary equipment to enable limited, basic production of Agent X."

Following the fall of the Taliban, Khabab vanished from the public eye, only to resurface in a February 2003 CNN report on a series of suspected chemical and biological terrorist plots in France and the United Kingdom. Citing European intelligence sources, CNN reported that the terror suspects arrested in these raids "trained at a camp in the Caucasus region, particularly the Pankisi Gorge of Georgia and in nearby Chechnya" and "some of the men recently arrested in Europe were trained by Khabab not only in Afghanistan, but also in the Caucasus . . . those being trained in the Caucasus region may also be receiving instruction from men who had experience with chemical and biological weapons in the Russian army."

CNN noted that Khabab was not the only leader involved in the Caucasus training: "according to interrogations of prisoners, Zarqawi was at the Pankisi Gorge providing training for the men."

(It is interesting to note that these European terror plots served as the basis for Secretary Powell's presentation to the U.N. Security Council on the threat posed by the Zarqawi network. According to the State Department's 2002 Patterns of Global Terrorism report, "In the past year, al-Qaida operatives in northern Iraq concocted suspect chemicals under the direction of senior al-Qaida associate Abu Mus'ab al-Zarqawi and tried to smuggle them into Russia, Western Europe, and the United States for terrorist operations," thus making its true scope more extensive than that noted by Secretary Powell.)

Since the failed European plots, Khabab's location and activities have been unknown to the general public with the exception of a January 2004 report in the New York Post claiming that U.S. intelligence agencies were mounting a worldwide manhunt for him based on new intelligence that he had resumed his activities and may have been involved in the construction of a "dirty bomb" or other devices for use in terrorist attacks in the United States.

In March 2004, Egypt arrested his teenage son, Hamzah, following his deportation from Pakistan in an apparent bid to gain leverage on the boy's father. Since then, it is unknown whether or to what extent Khabab was involved with either the disrupted April 2004 plot by followers of Abu Musab Zarqawi to carry out a terrorist attack in Amman (Jordanian authorities claimed it would have involved the use of chemical weapons to kill thousands of civilians) or the May 2005 plot using cyanide-based substances that the Russian government claims was organized by Chechen Islamists and a Jordanian terrorist known as Abu Mudjaid.

IF KHABAB CAN BE SAID to have had a lasting effect on the development of Islamist extremism, it would be that he moved the possibility of Islamists using unconventional weapons out of the theoretical and into the practical. Those wishing to view his legacy need look no further than the extremely crude but deadly chemical and biological experiments set up under the auspices of Ansar al-Islam in northern Iraq prior to the U.S. invasion.

With Khabab dead, it is unclear what has become of the leadership of al Zabadi, particularly if the other Egyptians killed in Damadola include any of Khabab's assistants or aides. The issue of determining Khabab's successor is complicated by the fact that the U.S.-led campaign against al Qaeda has already dealt a number of blows to the terror network's unconventional weapons efforts--including the capture of Mohammed Omar Abdel Rahman, the son of the convicted Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman whom the Los Angeles Times identified in April 2004 under his kuniyat (assumed name) of Asadullah as being a member of al Zabadi prior to his capture in February 2003. Another senior al Qaeda leader, Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, is believed to have worked closely with Khabab in Afghanistan and was captured in Pakistan in November 2005.

In the absence of either man, one possible successor would be Abu Bashir Yemeni, whom the Los Angeles Times reported in April 2004 had worked with both Khabab and Mohammed Omar Abdel Rahman. While Khabab was not listed among the senior echelons of the al Qaeda leadership, he was one of its most dangerous engineers.

http://www.weeklystandard.com/Utilities/printer_preview.asp?idArticle=6602&R=EAD81C077

Casey

02-10-2006, 12:07 AM

Murder of sheikh provokes Sunnis to turn on al-Qaeda

Iraq / Middle East & Africa
Date: Feb 09, 2006 - 10:59 PM

From Anthony Loyd in Baghdad
Ramadi, stronghold of the insurgents, has turned against al-Zarqawi

REGARDED as untouchable by the Sunni populace, Sheikh Naser Abdul Karim al-Miklif believed that he had no need for bodyguards.
Leader of the huge al-Bu Fahad tribe in Anbar province, the seat of the Sunni insurgency, he was revered by insurgents and local residents alike as a man faithful to the interests of his people. His position of power was unmatched.

Yet three weeks ago, driving alone through the centre of Ramadi in his maroon Mercedes after attending a tribal wake, the sheikh was killed, riddled with bullets by assassins who fired from two passing Opels.

Coming only days after a huge bomb killed more than 80 Sunni police recruits in Ramadi, the capital of Anbar, his killing has sparked a tit-for-tat cycle between Iraqi resistance cells and those they see as responsible for the death of the sheikh — al-Qaeda.

“We aren’t talking about scattered incidents,” a Ramadi man, who is connected with the insurgency, said. “We are talking about many operations with the Mujahidin hunting down al-Qaeda, specific patrols tracking them and killing them in and around Ramadi.”

Local tribes and foreign fighters are vying for control in Sunni Triangle towns such as Taji and Samarra. In Ramadi tribal leaders say that the three dominant Iraqi insurgency groups, the 1920 Brigades, the Anuman Brigade and the Islamic Mujahidin Army, have formed a body known as the Advisory Council to expel or kill al-Qaeda members.

“It is true that al-Qaeda has become unwelcome in the city,” a leading Ramadi sheikh and relative of al-Miklif said. “But it won’t be an easy task to throw them out. They are well armed and funded. Five more of Sheikh al-Miklif’s aides have been killed since his death. Between five and ten people from both sides die each day.”

Al-Qaeda cells loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, their Jordanian leader, once had considerable support in Ramadi. US intelligence officers say that al-Zarqawi even picked his bodyguards from the city.

At the start of the insurgency, when Iraqi fighters were disorganised, al-Qaeda’s help in attacking coalition forces was welcomed. Yet, as the insurgency has progressed, the aims of the sides have diverged.

Al-Qaeda still insists that it is justifiable to kill any Iraqi linked to the Government, including local Sunni policemen, an ideology increasingly rejected by local residents who want a stronger Sunni representation in the security forces.

A similar rift opened during the elections last year, as Sunnis voted in large numbers, while al-Zarqawi, fixated by the notion of an Islamic caliphate, rejected the political process. Sheikh al-Miklif had become a central figure in the efforts to lead Anbar into the political process. Last autumn he played host to meetings with other tribal leaders and insurgency chiefs to arrange security measures for the referendum and election votes, occasions that passed peacefully in Ramadi.

With the apparent acquiescence of the insurgents, he also encouraged tribal leaders to commit recruits to the Ramadi police force.

The bomb on January 5 that tore apart a queue of recruits in Ramadi was claimed by al-Qaeda and condemned by Sheikh al-Miklif, whose tribe comprises 40 per cent of the provincial population.

“There is a hatred for Zarqawi in Ramadi now,” a resident said. “People are exhausted by what he has done. Six months ago he was still accepted, though not 100 per cent. Now we see him continue to target locals and their sons and kill our leaders, and we reject him totally.”

Residents of Ramadi say that the Iraqi insurgents in the city are not the hit-and-run fugitives that they were a year ago. Rather, they are involved with civil administration in a way similar to Hezbollah in Beirut, supplying neighbourhood security patrols, clearing the roads of bandits and organising petrol queues.

Jill Carroll, the American journalist kidnapped in Iraq, last night appeared in a video aired on Kuwaiti television. “I am here. I am fine. Please just do whatever they want, give them whatever they want as quickly as possible,” she said.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,7374-2033304,00.html

Solo

02-11-2006, 09:39 PM

Musharraf confirms 'al-Qaeda' hit

Saturday, 11 February 2006, 15:12 GMT

Pakistan's president has confirmed that "a close relative" of al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri was killed in a US air strike in Pakistan last month.

Pervez Musharraf also confirmed for the first time that Zawahiri had been expected to be at the house targeted by the US, a military spokesman says.

President Musharraf added that another wanted militant was among five foreigners killed in the bombing.

Eighteen local people died in the raid, sparking widespread anger.

"Five foreigners were killed in the US attack," Gen Musharraf told tribal leaders in north-western Pakistan, the Associated Press news agency reports.

"One of them was a close relative of Ayman al-Zawahri and the other man was wanted by the US and had a US$5 million (4.19 million euro) reward on his head."

He did not name the foreigners who had died in the attack.

Shortly after the raid, unconfirmed intelligence reports said three high-ranking al-Qaeda members were among those killed in the raid on a village in the Bajaur Agency region on the border with Afghanistan.

They named Egyptian bomb expert Midhat Mursi - information on whose whereabouts carries a $5m US bounty.

They also named Abdul Rehman al-Misri al-Maghribi, the son-in-law of Zawahiri and reputed head of the al-Qaeda's media operations.

The third person named was Abu Obaidah al-Misri, al-Qaeda's head of operations in Kunar province, just over the border in eastern Afghanistan.

US officials have refused to comment on the attack.

Border village

When news of the attack first emerged, there were reports that Ayman al-Zawahiri had been killed.

He has eluded capture since the US overthrew the Taleban in Afghanistan in 2001 - despite a $25m bounty on his head.

Osama Bin Laden's second-in-command is regarded as the ideological brains behind the al-Qaeda network.

The Egyptian has also become its most visible spokesperson, issuing a number of video and audio tapes.

The raid took place in the village of Damadola in the Bajaur tribal area, about 7km (4.5 miles) from the Afghan border.

Jets - or in some accounts a Predator drone - reportedly fired missiles at a particular housing compound in the village.

Reporters who reached Damadola spoke of three houses hundreds of metres apart that had been destroyed.

The US has about 20,000 troops in Afghanistan, but Pakistan does not officially allow them to operate across the border.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4704436.stm

al-Canine

02-17-2006, 03:34 PM

Studies: Al Qaeda both complex and dull

Terror group portrayed as much like a flawed corporation

(CNN) -- Al Qaeda and the like have similar weaknesses to other modern organizations, according to two West Point studies that portray the terror network as sophisticated but its daily operations as banal.

As a consequence, the study "Stealing al Qaeda's Playbook" says, the United States should conduct counterinsurgency and psychological operations against terrorist organizations in a subtle manner that avoids "direct engagement" whenever possible.

The other study, "Harmony and Disharmony: Exploiting al Qaeda's Organizational Vulnerabilities," analyzes seized al Qaeda documents and lists ways to combat the group on many levels, such as targeting its finances and undermining it with propaganda.

The documents, which reside in a classified database called "Harmony," examine what the study calls "the banality of al Qaeda's day-to-day operations."

The Harmony materials "identify the al Qaeda recruitment criteria, the training program for 'new hires,' and the tactics of information, political and military warfare needed to defeat the Jews and Crusaders."

"The documents reflect meticulous operational calculations being made by the leadership over intended results and available opportunities for exploitation," according to the study. "The strategic discussions reflect a patient, organized and determined foe that has known defeats, but one with the ability to learn from its mistakes."

The study recommends different means of attacking al Qaeda, such as targeting its finances, confusing and embarrassing the rank and file, and exploiting ideological rifts.

It also looks at al Qaeda as a business, with the same inherent personality conflicts, intra-organizational disputes and arguments over allocating resources of any corporation.

"The corporate culture appears to be similar to other modern organizations," the study states.

Indeed, some of the documents used by researchers indicate that al Qaeda has vacation plans -- seven days every three weeks for married members, five days a month for bachelors -- and provides its members with 15 days of sick leave a year.

One document states that al Qaeda operatives must request vacation 10 weeks in advance, and another document outlines the pay scale for members: about $108 a month for married members, less if they're single and more if they have more than one wife.

The Harmony documents, some of which date back to the 1970s, when Islamists tried to overthrow the secular government of Syria, "also reveal a high level of arrogance and intense ambition" common to jihadist groups, the study states.

"While the theology may seem reactionary, the organization insists on using modern management principles as well. Instruction is provided on applying information technology, manipulating the media and researching the use of nuclear weapons for the cause of jihad."

Trends in jihad

The "Playbook" study takes a different approach, outlining six major trends in the thinking of prominent jihadists, including al Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri, and describing how the United States could counter each one:

Direct engagement with the United States has been positive for the movement because it rallies locals, drains U.S. resources and puts pressure on Washington's allies.

To counter the first trend, the study says the United States "should avoid direct, large-scale military action in the Middle East. If such fighting is necessary, it must be done through proxies whenever possible."

The movement has become decentralized, making training camps obsolete and opening doors to new venues for training, such as urban areas and the Internet.

Therefore, the study authors write, the United States "must be aware of the consequences of creating new theaters for jihad, particularly in the Arab world. The U.S. must also find ways to redirect the alienation among Muslim youth that is fueling recruitment."

Jihadist ideologues want to establish Islamic states that can be used as training bases and to help develop the "nuclei of the future jihadi order." But rather than overthrowing a sitting ruler, they would be content to create enclaves in poorly policed regions.

The United States should compete by helping local surrogates establish their own enclaves "in regions where there are security vacuums," according to the study.

Jihadists frown on bad publicity and want to foster an image that will convince people to join their groups.

The study suggests using Cold War-era propaganda tactics to covertly sway public opinion. Attempts by the U.S. "to elicit pro-American feelings in the Middle East by making public pronouncements about the true nature of Islam or the virtues of democracy" should be avoided.

Jihadists see religious leadership as integral to attracting youths and lending legitimacy to violence.

The United States "should very carefully and unobtrusively support Muslim religious leaders and movements" that counter the movement, even if the leaders are not friendly with the West," the study says.

"If the bottom line is a rejection of violence against the United States and its allies, [such groups] should be supported."

Jihadists look for insights in Western thought and U.S. strategic planning.

According to the study, the United States should counter these efforts by "establishing a think tank staffed with highly trained experts on the Middle East and counterinsurgency whose sole purpose would be to identify the major jihadi thinkers and analyze their works."

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/02/16/jihad.study

al-Canine

02-19-2006, 01:21 PM

Al-Qaeda Escape in Yemen: Facts, Rumors and Theories
http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showpost.php?p=558964&postcount=10

exitwound

02-19-2006, 02:31 PM

Unfortunately, the next generation are learning from AQ's mistakes, even as it overlooks them in favor of its shinier "glories..."

The 801

02-21-2006, 04:23 PM

Here's another heartwarming story.....

A bomb-builder emerges from the shadows
Syrian linked to al Qaeda plots describes plan to attack cruise ship
By Karl Vick

Updated: 11:05 p.m. ET Feb. 19, 2006
ANTALYA, Turkey - Right up to the hot August night his apartment exploded, Louai Sakka's neighbors took him for a newlywed. The lanky Syrian was not seen much in the corridors of the high-rise residential complex where he lived in this sunny resort city, but he spent time nuzzling an attractive young brunette and sipping beer beside the pool.

His real identity began to emerge shortly after 3 a.m. on Aug. 4, when the windows of Apt. 1703 blew out, showering the parking lot with the contents of the kitchen and bits and pieces of the massive bomb Sakka had been painstakingly assembling in the living room. Sakka, who escaped the inferno only to be arrested two days later, turned out to be a senior operative for al Qaeda and intimately linked to major terrorist plots in Turkey, Jordan and Iraq, where he had worked beside Abu Musab Zarqawi, a longtime confederate.

He showed up in Antalya last summer with tens of thousands of dollars in cash and a face altered by plastic surgery. After his arrest, he told investigators he had planned to die steering a yacht laden with explosives into a cruise ship he believed was filled with U.S. soldiers and which was already approaching across the turquoise Mediterranean.

The attack, just 48 hours away when the chemicals ignited, was intended to crown a wide-ranging career in terrorism. Sakka played a role in the so-called millennium plot to attack hotels in Amman, Jordan, on Dec. 31, 1999. Turkish prosecutors also describe him as the planner of the 2003 truck bombings that killed 57 people in Istanbul, financed with $160,000 in al Qaeda funds.

Between attacks, according to his attorney, Sakka provided false passports and other means to help Islamic militants through the web of paths that U.S. military officials call rat lines. The routes crisscross Turkey to and from Afghanistan, Chechnya and, since 2003, Iraq, where Sakka traveled after the Istanbul bombings. Insurgents say Louai al-Turki, as he was known there, played a prominent role in major attacks on U.S. bases and commanded insurgent forces in Fallujah when it served as the militants' headquarters.

"He's been involved in this for 15 years," said the attorney, Osman Karahan.

The significance of Sakka, who was 32 at the time of his arrest, was slow to emerge. But he spoke at length to Turkish interrogators, admitting his role in past plots and describing Iraq as a training ground for terrorists comparable to Chechnya and Bosnia in the past, according to people who have read a summary of his statement. Sakka, who remains in a jail in Istanbul, declined to sign the account, however, on the advice of his controversial attorney.

"Actually, he does not deny his past activities," said Karahan, who subscribes to the same militant vision of Islam as many of his clients. "We are people who work for justice, so we want to tell the truth. Things need to be taken out of the shadows." Investigators have pressed Sakka to provide evidence against Karahan.

The attorney's office candidly declares his beliefs. The waiting room features copies of Kaide magazine, the Turkish spelling of Qaeda, with ads announcing the martyrdom of Turkish volunteers in Iraq. Copies of a paperback titled "Virgins of Paradise: Eyes Like Fawns and Shining Skin" are on sale for $4. Every image of a human face, including the portrait on Karahan's diploma, is covered by a tab of paper. "Angels don't come where faces are pictured," Karahan explained.

Logistical hub for terrorists
The lawyer said he handles almost 80 percent of the criminal cases brought against Islamic militants in Turkey, a practice that increased sharply after Sept. 11, 2001, when Turkey began detaining large numbers of suspects at its borders. In 2000, he secured the release of Sakka's wife and three children, who were taken in an operation that narrowly missed Sakka.

"He called me on the phone from Holland," Karahan said. "He said he was in Istanbul a few days earlier but managed to escape."

Born in Aleppo, in Syria's north, the son of successful factory owner, Sakka forsook a "rich life" for the struggles of radical Islam, the attorney said. He said Sakka worked in Turkey starting in 1998, easing the passage of militants through a country that U.S. and Turkish authorities have long acknowledged is a major logistical hub for terrorists. Karahan said that included preparations for the Sept. 11 attacks, notably in Bursa, a city 60 miles south of Istanbul.

It is unclear when Sakka crossed paths with Zarqawi, but a Jordanian court convicted both men in absentia for plotting to attack an Amman hotel, border crossings and Christian tourist sites during the celebration of the millennium.

By 2003, Turkish prosecutors say, Sakka was in the thick of the planning for the bombings of two synagogues, the British Consulate and a British bank in Istanbul over two days in November that year. Though Karahan said Sakka now denies involvement, an indictment released Feb. 10 charges that he "proposed" the attacks, with specific approval from both Zarqawi and Osama bin Laden. Testimony in the mass trial of more than 70 Turks already charged in the case indicated that Sakka provided all the funds for the attacks, with the largest installment delivered in a sock stuffed with euros from Saudi sympathizers, according to the indictment. When the bombs went off, he cheered as he watched satellite television reports with the leading Turkish plotters, all of whom had fled to Aleppo.

Sakka next surfaced in Iraq, infiltrating the border via routes he was known for helping volunteers navigate, insurgents said. A former member of Zarqawi's group, Abu Khalid Dulaimi, 55, said Sakka arrived in Fallujah in March 2004 with seven Turkish men and helped defend the city against the first, aborted Marine offensive in April. Reunited with Zarqawi, he was well known as a key aide to the insurgent leader. Prosecutors say he was involved in the slaying of a Turkish truck driver.

Dulaimi said Sakka provided coordinates for mortar attacks on U.S. bases in Mosul, Samarra, Baghdad and Anbar province. He said Sakka also played a "vivid" role in an attack on Abu Ghraib prison, where the inmates included two organizers of the Istanbul bombings. A third organizer, Habib Akdas, was reported killed in the second, successful Marine offensive on Fallujah in November 2004.

Fall of Fallujah
In the aftermath of the fall of Fallujah, foreign fighters in Iraq convened a shura, or council, Karahan said. The meeting authorized 10 separate attacks on Israeli targets. Sakka, who told Turkish interrogators he learned bomb-making in Iraq, volunteered to strike the Israeli cruise ships that regularly call on Turkey's southern coast, Karahan said. The attorney said Sakka believed U.S. soldiers used the vessels for R & R and that his own days were numbered because his surgically altered face had appeared on an insurgent video of a downed American drone in Iraq. Turkish doctors had detected a nose job and scars suggesting Sakka might also have altered his chin and eyebrows. ( Now where did he get that idea - 801)

"He decided it's about time his life ends, because he changed his face but he was still recognized," Karahan said.

In Antalya, Sakka spent lavishly preparing for the attack. Using an alias, he put down $60,000 on a villa in the Beldibi neighborhood, insisting on the unit closest to the beach, with a panoramic view of the resort city and its harbor. "His criterion was it had to be directly on the water, no matter what the price was," said Mehmet Yildirim, the watchman.

The two-bedroom Apt. 1703 was closer to town, in a complex overlooking the marina where Sakka moored a 27-foot yacht, the Tufan. On board was diving equipment and a submersible water scooter, capable of running for 45 minutes at a depth of 75 feet.

Karahan said Sakka spent days chatting with Israeli tourists, who flocked to the Turkish coast in summer, and learned the precise arrival time and route of the ship he planned to attack as it approached Antalya. In a rented Hyundai, he ferried the ingredients for a one-ton bomb -- hydrogen peroxide, aluminum powder, acetone -- from the port city of Mersin. Then he scoured Antalya's industrial zone for a shop that worked with chrome.
Sakka needed someone to build a distiller, a glorified pressure cooker to concentrate the hydrogen.

"He said he wanted to increase the hydrogen peroxide to 70 or 75 percent by extracting the water," said the metalworker who did the job, at the cost of another 2,000 euros, after checking out Sakka's claim that he wanted to use the chemical to bleach wood. The metalworker, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of fears for his safety, said his only suspicion was that Sakka might be making drugs. But he said a friend who works with chemicals told him the wood-bleaching purpose made sense, and Sakka named a genuine firm in Syria as his employer.

During the week it took to build the device, Sakka spent time at the shop; one day, the conversation turned to al Qaeda. "God knows how it came up," the metalworker said. "I said, 'Nah, there's no such thing as al Qaeda.' Probably he was thinking, 'Yeah, you'll find out!' "

He did not look the part of an Islamic radical. The metalworker recalled pulling up next to Sakka on a street, rapping on the window and asking him why he wasn't in Syria, where he claimed he was headed the day the distiller was lifted into his trunk. Sakka's reply was a leering nod toward the striking young woman in the passenger seat, apparently the companion neighbors saw him nuzzling by the pool at the apartment complex.

Inside his apartment, the living room became a workshop crowded with plastic vats, gas masks, fire extinguishers and PVC pipes to circulate the water needed to keep stable more than 1,000 pounds of hydrogen. The room held 200 pounds of aluminum powder and 13 pounds of C-4 plastic explosives. Sakka said he intended to finish assembling the bomb on board the Tufan to ensure that no Turks were endangered.

Suspicious ID
How the fire began is unclear. The metalworker suspects it was sparked by his creation, wired for industrial use at 7,500 watts, enough to melt the wiring in a residential building. Hamid Obysi, a fellow Syrian who was assisting Sakka, told police they were both awakened by the explosion -- a small one, by all accounts, and less damaging than the resulting fire -- and scrambled for their lives, leaving behind a laptop computer, four cell phones, a digital camera and seven fake IDs. They took a taxi to Beldibi, where, after a quick visit to the villa, Sakka gave the guard 2,000 euros and instructions to keep quiet, prosecutors said. The fugitives left town by bus, with Sakka giving Obysi 1,000 euros in getaway money. Obysi was arrested trying to enter Syria.

Sakka proceeded east to Diyarbakir and made plans to double back, booking a domestic flight to Istanbul. He got as far as the police check at the airport, where his attorney said he surrendered to police officers who found his ID suspicious.

"I'm the one you're looking for," he said.

© 2006 The Washington Post Company

http://msnbc.msn.com/id/11451355/

Petronas

02-25-2006, 12:33 PM

Al-Qaeda's Clandestine Courier Service
February 21, 2006
By Sohail Abdul Nasir

The recent release of audio and videotapes from Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri call attention to al-Qaeda's couriers and how they transport tapes to major media outlets (al-Jazeera, January 21). Audiotapes, videotapes and the internet are the major mass media tools of al-Qaeda and are used to tilt and blur the realities of the locations of al-Qaeda leaders. They are an effective means to threaten the U.S. and the West. Al-Qaeda's videos are produced by the organization's in-house production team, al-Sahab, identified by the al-Sahab logo that appears in the videos. It appears that al-Sahab consists of multiple individuals and is not centrally located. While the videos have improved in quality, at its most basic level the videographers require computer images, e-mail transmission, and a production expert who uses a computer to compile it together in broadcast quality.

After the tapes are produced, they make their way to a major media outlet. The previous route of the videotapes was from southern and eastern Afghanistan to South Waziristan, and then to Peshawar. The final destination used to be the al-Jazeera office in Islamabad. It became easy, however, for various intelligence agencies to track this route. In at least two instances—in 2003 and in 2004—the tape messenger was intercepted. In 2003, the carrier was of Central Asian origin and was captured by security agents while traveling through South Waziristan. The second incident occurred in late 2004 and the carrier was arrested near Dera Ismail Khan in southern Pakistan. Nevertheless, little information was gleaned from the messenger because the tape had already passed through more than a dozen different carriers. Through this method, the tapes are handed over in a manner so that the next carrier does not know the other carriers.

The amount of time that each carrier handles the tapes depends on the prevailing security conditions in that particular area. Carriers attempt to pass on the tapes as quickly as possible, which is usually in one or two days. If security is tight then it is passed on in quick succession in order to keep the tapes secure, otherwise each carrier may travel more than 100 kilometers. On a few occasions, the content of the tapes were electronically transmitted to their final destination through e-mail.

The carriers of the tapes are diehard local and Central Asian operatives. The carriers are always young, tough and experienced; the task of a carrier is a specialized job. Simple sympathizers are not usually carriers because if the carrier is arrested, he is tried under anti-terrorism laws, deterring those who are not completely committed to al-Qaeda's cause.

For the last year, the tape route has been modified due to repeated successful interventions by Pakistani authorities and continuous surveillance of known transfer locations. Currently, tapes are dispatched to Herat, in the western province of Afghanistan, to coastal areas of Iran and then to the final destination. The tapes are generally made inside Afghanistan. Additionally, the Taliban is now also involved in producing tapes in a new campaign of media warfare. Taliban guerrillas are often accompanied by a videographer who films their attacks against Afghan or international security forces. These tapes are later used within the Taliban ranks to boost the morale of Taliban fighters and the participating mujahideen.

http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2369903

The 801

02-26-2006, 04:11 PM

i thought these guys were out of business.

Al-Qaeda Issues Fresh Statement Detailing “Osama Bin Laden Unit Expedition”
Feb 25, 2006
By Ubaidah Al-Saif , Translation © Jihad Unspun 2006

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula have issued a fresh statement detailing the attack against the worlds largest oil facility in Abqaiq that tells a much different story than that being peddled by Saudi authorities and mainstream press.

Working on direct orders from Sheikh Osama Bin Laden himself, the “Osama bin Laden Unit” carried out the daring operation that emphasizes the groups ability to penetrate the Saudi security apparatus anywhere at any time. This latest breach of Saudi security is sure to have the house of Saud, Bush and the oligarchs shaking in their boots.

As of press time, the Brothers of Tawheed who formed the advance team that stormed the facility in its initial phase are being hunted by Sulul helicopters in the open Saudi desert. We will provide updates over the weekend as more news becomes available, inshaAllah.

Here are the details of the expedition as released early today by Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, published here uncut and uncensored, as translated by JUS.

We remind our viewers that the opinions and points of view expressed in this article are those of the author and shall not be deemed to mean that they are necessarily those of Jihad Unspun, the publisher, editor, writers, contributors or staff.

Al-Qaeda Issues A Statement Detailing The Blessed “Osama Bin Laden Unit Expedition”

Allah, the Most High Says:

{Verily, Allâh has purchased of the believers their lives and their properties for (the price) that theirs shall be Paradise. They fight in Allâh’s Cause, so they kill (others) and are killed. It is a promise in truth which is binding on Him in the Taurât (Torah) and the Injeel (Gospel) and the Qur’ân. And who is truer to his covenant than Allâh? Then rejoice in the bargain which you have concluded. That is the supreme success} 09:111

Following direct orders from our Commander, Skeikh Osama Bin Laden, may Allah preserve him, your Mujahideen brothers of the Osama Bin Laden Unit were able to carry out a very unique operation against a vital oil installation that supplies the cross worshipers with oil products. The operation was very successful by the power and Grace of Allah.

The Expedition started on Friday at 3:45 P.M. The Mujahideen stormed the largest refinery compound in the world, which is located in the city of Abqaiq in the eastern part of the Arabian Peninsuala. The attack started at the back gate, with the Mujahideen storming that gate and quickly killing the driver of the Jeep (the vehicle assigned to secure and defend that gate) and the rifle man.

Upon eliminating the unit defending that gate, Mujahideen gained entry to the compound, they combed the area and killed another soldier while the remaining soldiers fled the scene. The Mujahideen, secured the entrance and opened the gate for the martyrdom seeker brothers, Abu Al-Bara’a Al-Najdi (Abdullah Andul Aziz Ibrahim Al-Tobjiri) and Urwah Al-Najdi (Muhammad Saleh Muhammad Ghaith), may Allah accept them as martyrs.

Five hundred meters away from that back gate is another gate that proved no resistance at all. Its guards have already fled and therefore it was opened with relative ease. The martyrdom seekers proceeded with their explosive laden vehicles to the heart of the compound and waited until the storming unit withdrew to safety and then detonated their cargo.

Your Mujahideen brothers were able to leave the scene afterwards in spite of heavy security.

We would like to inform you that the story which was propagated by Al-Sulul media is totally false. They claimed to have foiled the operation and caused both vehicles to blow up at the gate. This claim is totally untrue.

We thank and praise Allah for the aid and power given to us to make this operation successful. We renew our commitment to crush the crusaders and the tyrant (King Abdullah) and stop them from stealing Muslim’s wealth. Muslim’s wealth has been put at the disposal of the enemies of Allah to use it to fight Muslims everywhere. We pledge to continue our fight to liberate all Muslim land and establish Allah’s Shariah. We further pledge to cleanse the Arabian Peninsula and expel all infidels from it in accordance to the mandate of our prophet, Muhammad, peace and prayer be upon him.

(And Allah has full power and control over His affairs; but most among mankind know it not.) 12:21

Al-Qaeda Organization In The Arabian Peninsula
27th of Muharram, 1427
February 25, 2006

http://www.jihadunspun.com/intheatre_internal.php?article=106430&list=/home.php

Atlas

02-26-2006, 04:15 PM

IMO Not out of business... it's just every act done "in the name of" will be claimed by the "organization"

Petronas

02-27-2006, 11:56 PM

Former Lackawanna man on FBI list of top terror suspects
February 25, 2006, 11:42 AM EST

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- A former Lackawanna resident has been placed on the FBI's list of 26 "most wanted" terrorist suspects. Jaber A. Elbaneh, 39, is accused of training with the "Lackawanna Six" in 2001. He was among a group of 23 suspected terrorists who tunneled out of a prison in Yemen Feb. 3. He still has relatives in the city of Lackawanna, near Buffalo. "He's an individual who has not only associated with al-Qaida, but has taken part in a prison breakout with al-Qaida," Buffalo FBI spokesman Paul Moskal said. The most wanted list is headed by al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden.

The U.S. State Department issued a reward of up to $5 million for Elbaneh's capture in September 2003. Federal agents believe Elbaneh had been in the custody of Yemen officials for more than two years. Elbaneh left the United States in the spring of 2001 as part of a larger group recruited from Lackawanna to bin Laden's al-Farooq training camp in Afghanistan.

Six of his traveling companions _ dubbed the "Lackawanna Six" _ returned to the United States and were arrested in September 2002. All are serving sentences ranging from seven to 10 years after pleading guilty in 2003 to providing support to a terrorist organization. Elbaneh never returned to the United States, authorities said, traveling instead to his native Yemen to live. His wife and children followed in 2001.

http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newyork/ny-bc-ny--lackawanna-terror0225feb25,0,3702351.story?coll=ny-region-apnewyork

Casey

03-10-2006, 09:22 AM

TERRORISM: AGE NO BARRIER IN AL-QAEDA BATTLE FOR HEARTS AND MINDS, VIDEO SHOWS

al Qaeda / Terrorism
Date: Mar 10, 2006 - 08:20 AM

Rome, 10 March. (AKI) - The most chilling footage in a new al-Qaeda video comes near the end of the hour-long extravaganza of bomb blasts, sheep-slaying, and maimed Americans. It shows hooded militants at work in a primary school class in the Iraqi city of Ramadi. Children are asked to sing jihadi songs, quizzed on what they think of America and rewarded with pens, rulers and erasers. The video, of which Adnkronos International (AKI) has obtained a copy, is the work of Ansar al-Sunna, part of the galaxy of Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, and seeks to show the extent of militants' control in the restive al-Anbar province.

The video, shot in high resolution and professionally edited, is a collage of various propaganda excerpts, linked together by a presenter, wearing a balaclava, who gives his name as Abu Suleiman al-Ruwi, and says he belongs to the media division of Ansar al-Sunna.

Ansar al-Sunna, or Army of the Protectors of the Sunna [which refers to the collective teachings of the Prophet Muhammad], is a Sunni extremist group said to be linked to al-Qaeda and Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. It has claimed responsibility for a number of deadly attacks and kidnappings in Iraq.

Children have appeared only on rare occasions in video propaganda material by al-Qaeda and its affiliates and this video is unprecedented in its use of children.

The hour-long film begins with a historical recap, from the start of the war in Iraq, (the marines landing, the toppling of the giant statue of Saddam Hussein and the speech by US president George W. Bush) to the emergence of Islamic militants attacking US military posts, as well as footage of anti-war demonstrations around the world, snippets from last year's Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and copies of the Koran being thrown to the ground or having pages ripped out.

This chronological review precedes the footage of the Ansar al-Sunna militants who are ready to launch missiles and attack US armoured vehicles, but also to support the local population.

In the segment dedicated to the town of Ramadi, hooded men are seen slaying and butchering sheep and then delivering cuts of fresh meat in black plastic bags to children in the street, a helping hand to the poorer families.

It is children of Ramadi who the terrorist formation are seeking to influence. In a segment entitled "Lions of the country in the city of Ramadi", a hooded man carrying a microphone and his camera-wielding colleague interview youngsters on the streets. The children contest the US presence and say they are happy that Ramadi remains under the control of the mujahadeen.

Forty six minutes in, the presenter announces the visit by mujahadeen to the schools of Ramadi. The first to welcome the men, again masked, are boys in class 6B, aged 10-11. As well as reciting jihadi songs, the youngsters are asked for an opinion on the US. "Americans kill children" one boy says.

The Ansar al-Sunna operatives then move on to talk to much younger boys, in their first years at primary school.

The school appears a modern, solid and well kept structure, albeit spartan; the children are clean, tidily dressed and seem well-nourished.

Rome, 10 March. The next stop is an all-girls class, where headbands outnumber Islamic headscarves, and the young girls appear giggling and far from fearful of their masked interlocutors.

Several girls, aged 8-9, are asked to sing Islamic songs. All classes are given pens, pencils, rulers and erasers.

Before the closing salute of the Ansar al-Sunna presenter, there are images of two small boys, clad in black tunics and wearing black ski masks, just like the adult jihadis. They hold each others' hands as the smaller of the pair struggles to hold aloft a pistol, too big for his tiny hand

(Ham/Aki)

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Terrorism&loid=8.0.273973330&par=0#

The 801

03-13-2006, 07:31 PM

Syed Saleem Shahzad does it again....

AFGHANISTAN: TALIBAN TRAINED IN IRAQ AHEAD OF SPRING OFFENSIVE

Karachi, 13 March (AKI) - (by Syed Saleem Shahzad) - After receiving special training from militants in Iraq, Afghanistan's Taliban fighters are now set to launch their spring offensive against Afghan security forces and US-led coalition troops. Sources told Adnkronos International (AKI) that up to 100 'death squads' are now ready to launch targeted attacks. Their offensive has already begun in tribal region situation on the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

As the snow begins to melt in and around the Afghan cities of Kabul, Kunar and Nooristan, the Taliban have already begun their spring offensive with a strategy that appears to be more targeted and comprehensive to counter the efforts of both the US-led forces as well as the Pakistani forces in the tribal regions which lie on the Afghan-Pakistan border.

Currently there are 20,000 American troops in Afghanistan but Pakistan does not officially allow them to operate across the border. Pakistan for its part has deployed 80,000 troops in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.

The focus of this year's offensive is in the tribal regions and the Taliban appears to have two precise aims: the first to cripple the power of the Afghan administration and the allied forces and the second, to cripple the Pakistan army and their access to the Taliban

bases so that they will then be able to launch attacks.

A fierce resistance by pro-Taliban militans in the tribal region of North Waziristan is already underway and has even reached South Waziristan. Even towns like Bannu in Waziristan have been hit, with rocket attacks on military barracks. Sources told AKI that this spread of violence in the tribal belt is part of the Taliban's strategy to engage Pakistani troops and intensify the battle along the border. The strategy has so far been successful as the Pakistan army has already concentrated all its efforts in North and South Waziristan.

In putting together this latest offensive, the Taliban has also turned to Iraq. Sources told AKI that some 500 Taliban fighters travelled to Iraq where they were hosted by an organisation known as the Islamic Army of Iraq. The group provided them with training in guerilla warfare. The men learnt how to build improvised explosive devices, lay mines, spy on their target and carry out the attacks at the most appropriate time.

AKI has learnt that up to 100 'death squads' are ready to launch targeted attacks in the Taliban’s spring offence.

Afghanistan has in fact seen a recent spate of suicide attacks, most of them in the south of the country. There have been 12 such attacks this year along, compared to 17 in 2005.

The threat of a spring offensive by the Taliban is not a new one, but the situation this time is different. For the past two years the Taliban has threatened these attacks and while they did carry them out in large numbers, the attacks did not cause significant casualties among the allied forces. Most of the time, Afghan soldiers were killed or injured in the Taliban-led activities.

It is believed that the reason for the failure was a lack of strategy. However at the end of 2003, a Taliban leader Mullah Mehmood Allah Haq Yar who had been sent by fugitive Taliban leader and founder of the hardline group, Mullah Muhammed Omar, to Iraq, eventually returned to Afghanistan. He had been told to go to Iraq where he had stayed with the Ansar al-Islam, a Kurdish Islamic militant group, in order to fight against the US forces based in Iraq.

Although Haq Yar stayed with the Iraqis for only a few months, he quickly picked up the techniques of urban guerrilla warfare. As a result, in 2004 he established various groups within the Taliban and assigned tasks for them to carry out the targeted attacks. The strategy appears to have worked as there have been fewer casualties among the Taliban during the attacks, with the allied forces suffering some losses.

However, the Taliban were still facing several challenges while fighting the allied forces, in particular their deterrance capability. The military bases of the US-led forces are very well-protected and fortified. The armoured vehicles they use are also made with special materials which are resistant to ordinary bombs and bullets.

In order to deal with these challenges, the Taliban fighters were sent for fresh training in Iraq on the latest explosive devices and their applications. Sources told AKI that from 2004 up to 2005, about 500 Taliban fighters were sent to Iraq in groups where they stayed with the Islamic Army of Iraq as well as Ansar al-Sunna.

It was after they returned that the spring offensive was launched, designed to tackle the high-tech deterrance of the allied forces.

Sources said that with the Taliban now ready to take-on the allied forces on a daily basis, the militant group hopes that the fear of these attacks will then alienate the Afghan security forces from the US-led troops.

At the same time, renowned Taliban commanders like Mullah Dadullah, Mullah Akhtar
Usmani, Maulana Jalaluddin Haqqani and others will also be in the field, using persuasion or force to encourage those in the tribal areas on the Afghan-Pakistan border, to join the Taliban-led insurgency.

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Security&loid=8.0.275042512&par=0

Casey

03-16-2006, 11:52 PM

Afghan police arrest men with Al-Qaeda Memo

al Qaeda / Middle East & Africa
Date: Mar 16, 2006 - 10:45 PM

'Pakistan Times' Monitoring Desk

JALALABAD (Afghanistan): Afghan police says that it arrested Thursday two suspected Taliban insurgents carrying letters from the movement's fugitive leader and Al-Qaeda second-in-command Ayman al-Zawahiri.

The Afghan nationals were arrested separately in eastern Nangarhar province. "One of them was carrying letters from (the Taliban's) Mullah Omar and Ayman al-Zawahiri," a report said.

The man had served as a district chief in Nangarhar during the 1996-2001 Taliban regime, the report said.

"The second man was arrested with some 500 'night' letters which asked people not to cooperate with the 'illegitimate government' and to obey orders of Mullah Omar and Ayman al-Zawahiri."•

http://pakistantimes.net/breaking3-16032006.htm

Petronas

03-28-2006, 09:07 PM

Al-Qaeda recruiting Azeri girls
Baku, 25 March 2006

The Al Qaeda terror cell is trying to recruit Azeri girls to carry out suicide attacks, the National Security Minister Eldar Mahmudov has said. The persons supposedly being drawn to join such extremist groups include believers from low-income families, religious students or the unemployed aged between 20 and 25, Mahmudov told Russian Interfax news agency.

"The secret service bodies have been frequently encountering the activity of extremist groups aiming to disrupt the secular and democratic state-building in Azerbaijan and prompt the country to back off from the international anti-terror coalition. Such groups target strategic sites, embassies, the offices of foreign companies and areas densely populated by foreigners."

The minister said that although the country has extensive experience in fighting extremism, the data suggesting that young women are being recruited by the Al Qaeda Caucasus cell "was the worst discovery for us over the past years". Mahmudov said combat against religious extremists is one of the priorities for the secret service. Azerbaijan is actively cooperating with other countries, including the Commonwealth of Independent States, in fighting terror, Mahmudov said. "The terror acts committed recently in Europe and Asia once again showed that not a single state can counter terrorism on its own and deem itself fully protected from it."

http://www.caucaz.com/home_eng/depeches.php?idp=955

Casey

04-03-2006, 09:06 AM

Al Qaeda's Master Plan
By Olivier Guitta : BIO| 03 Apr 2006

Palestinian Authority's President Abu Mazen's recent interview with the pan-Arabic daily Al Hayat is getting lots of attention. In fact, his recognition of Al Qaeda's presence in Gaza and the West Bank coupled with his warning of the "destruction of the whole region" because of the terrorist entity, is only confirming what Israeli security services have been saying for months: Al Qaeda is fast expanding in the neighborhood.

Signs of Al Qaeda's infiltration in the Palestinian territories have been increasing in the past few months. In fact, Ely Karmon, the noted Senior Research Scholar at The Institute for Counter-Terrorism (ICT), confirmed that Al-Qaeda members who remained in the peninsula after the Sharm El Sheikh terror attacks of July 2005 started then to move towards Gaza and the West Bank. The timing is telling since it coincides with Israel's withdrawal from Gaza. Also Hamas leader Mahmoud A-Zahar acknowledged Al Qaeda's presence in a September 2005 interview to the Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera.

But an even more troublesome possible sign of Al Qaeda's expansion in the Palestinian territories has been revealed by the UAE daily Al Ittihad. A thus-far unknown Palestinian group named "The Army of Jihad and fight against corruption" has been sending messages to foreign diplomatic representatives in Gaza demanding that all personnel leave within a month. The communiqués call for all non-Muslim foreigners to leave Gaza. It also denounces a Western-style democracy on Muslim land and affirms its determination to impose sharia law. Finally it mentions that a man such as Saladeen, Bin Laden or Zarqawi is "on its way to Palestine to fight the symbols of corruption and the supporters of the infidels' democracy." These threats are not taken lightly because -- for instance, in the past six weeks -- Israel had warned France three times of kidnapping risks. Coincidence or not, according to the news Website Proche-Orient.info, France has very quietly asked that all its citizens leave Gaza and the West Bank (and apparently they have).

Last but not least, Al Qaeda's number 2, Ayman Al-Zawahiri, video message offering its support to Hamas might indicate according to the London-based Palestinian daily Al Quds Al Arabi that "the Al Qaeda network is trying to build cells inside the Territories." This would explain Hamas officials' statement regarding the tape: "Hamas believes that Islam is completely different to the ideology of Mr. Al-Zawahiri."

Al Qaeda is also turning its focus to Lebanon. In an explosive February 11 interview with the French daily Liberation, Ahmed Fatfat, the new incoming Lebanese Interior Minister, revealed details about Al Qaeda's presence in his country. Fatfat noted: "For the past forty-five months, Al-Qaeda has been trying to settle in Lebanon. The organization infiltrates combatants and recruits on the ground. We recently dismantled two groups suspected of belonging to this network. One month ago, we stopped thirteen individuals, coming from various countries of the Middle East, who were preparing attacks inside the country. We also have just stopped five people implied in attacks against military positions."

Regarding the December rocket attacks against Israel from the south of the country that Al Qaeda's leader in Iraq, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi claimed responsibility for, Fatfat confirmed it was indeed the work of Al Qaeda. He added that it was an attack carried out by the Palestinian terror group FPLP-GC of Ahmed Jibril based out of Damascus, but financed directly by Al Qaeda.

The Kuwaiti daily Al-Seyassah of February 9 seconded Fatfat's assertions. Quoting an Iraqi source, the journalist stated that Al-Qaeda is leading a large infiltration operation inside Lebanon, where it already has sleeper cells.

"It seems that the Iraqi Al-Qaeda branch has been thinking for a long time to transform Lebanon into a strengthened base, and to make in particular the area of Tripoli (in the north of Lebanon) a new Afghanistan since several of its bases are in this city," specified the source. He added that the interrogations carried out by the Lebanese police force of 13 Al-Qaeda members brought precise details on the infiltration operation, carried out under the direct supervision of Zarqawi. "Some 700 experienced militants of the terrorist network would have left Iraq for Lebanon," adds this anonymous witness.

Lastly, when questioned by Al Hayat about Al Qaeda's presence in Lebanon, Hassan Nasrallah -- leader of the Lebanese Shia terror group Hezbollah which has de facto control of the south of the country -- did not deny the infiltration. He pointed to the possible implication in the December attack of elements in the Ain Al Hilweh Palestinian camp "who have pledged their loyalty to al-Zarqawi." He acknowledged that it was a "dangerous and unacceptable" situation but thought it was "unlikely" that Hezbollah would clash with Al Qaeda in the future. Nonetheless, Hezbollah must not be happy about Al Qaeda's settling in Hezbollah land.

Finally, Jordan has also become one of Al Qaeda's (and, in particular, of Jordanian Zarqawi's) favorite targets. The triple suicide attack against Western hotels in Amman on November 9, 2005 killed 60 and injured more than 100. Also on March 1, Jordanian authorities revealed they had foiled a major Al Qaeda attack on a "vital civilian installation." In the past few weeks, Israel's intelligence services have been on the lookout for of a potential attack by Jordan-based Al Qaeda cells.

The fact that Al Qaeda is infiltrating countries surrounding Israel is no coincidence. It is aimed at preparing different bases to attack the Jewish state. In fact, while Al Qaeda was really shunning the issue of the Palestinians until 2001, it has now become one of the central issues of the terror network. It is a clear tactical decision in order to gather support recently lost in the Muslim world. This fits totally in Al Qaeda's master plan as exposed by Jordanian journalist Fouad Hussein in his recent book "Al Zarqawi: Al Qaeda's second Generation"(only available in Arabic). Thanks to his personal connection to Zarqawi -- many years ago, they spent time together in prison -- Hussein was able to interview him along with other major Al Qaeda leaders. Unsurprisingly, Hussein explains that Al Qaeda's final goal is to establish an Islamic Caliphate in seven phases.

Interestingly, the third phase called "The Rising" advocates heavy attacks against Israel because it will then force the world to acknowledge al Qaeda as a major power, and negotiate with it. This phase should last three years and allow Al Qaeda to infiltrate Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. According to Zarqawi, the very likely collision between the United States and Iran over the nuclear issue is going to help reach that goal because Iran is going to be less focused on exerting its control on Syria and Lebanon.

After September 11, we learned the hardest way that Al Qaeda needed to be taken seriously. That is why this "third phase" is not at all far-fetched in light of the recent infiltration in Jordan, Lebanon and the Palestinian territories. It could have major geopolitical implications with the destabilization of a whole region.

Olivier Guitta is a foreign affairs and counter terrorism consultant in Washington

http://www.tcsdaily.com/article.aspx?id=040306D

al-Canine

04-03-2006, 10:46 PM

Al-Qaida: Training the individual warrior

Being a member of al-Qaida means not only training the body, but training the mind as well.

By Michael Scheuer for The Jamestown Foundation

While Terrorism Focus previously examined al-Qaida's strategic and tactical doctrine (28 February, 14 March), this article looks at the type and purpose of the non-military training that is given to the individual al-Qaida fighter or mujahid. Based on al-Qaida sources (see notes for complete listing), this training appears to be common to both the organization's insurgents and their special forces, and is intended to produce fighters who are pious, disciplined and unity-minded, fatalistic, and cognizant of the requirements and attitudes of those they are defending.

Piety

When training each mujahid, al-Qaida's doctrine declares that the first priority must be "spiritual preparation […] because it is necessary to attain victory". The key to this preparation is two-fold, al-Qaida's Ma'adh al-Mansur explained. First, each fighter must completely accept the fact that God has promised victory to the Muslims if they obey His word. Second, the fighter must recognize that victory has not yet come because most Muslims love life and hate death, and thus have strayed from God's path, most specifically from the path of jihad. As a result, al-Mansur directs that each trainee be taught that "God has set the infidel nations against them [the Muslims] to inflict on them humiliation and lowly status. This is an inevitable and ordained punishment that befalls those who abandon jihad". For this degraded status, each Muslim man should be deeply ashamed, and should "die of grief if he does not ward off the calamities inflicted on his fellow Muslims and Kinsmen".

In other words, al-Qaida doctrine does not argue that the current predicament of Muslims is the fault of what Al-Faruq al-Amiri calls "the campaign and reality of the crusader enemy". Rather, that predicament flows from the refusal of Muslims to resist the infidels' attack. The commonly held Western view that al-Qaida and its followers blame the West for all of Islam's woes - an understanding most stridently advocated by Bernard Lewis - thus falls by the wayside. Al-Qaida trainees are taught that the humiliation God has inflicted on Muslims for their failure to obey Him can only be lifted by Muslims accepting God's word and "returning to jihad". If they do so, they will win victories like those the Prophet Muhammad and his companions won in the battles of Badr and The Trench in Islam's first years of existence. "Although the Muslims [with Muhammad] were few and had scanty military means, and the infidels were many and well-equipped," al-Mansur reminds today's mujahedin, "victory was in the hands of God."

Discipline and Unity

If an al-Qaida trainee is not thoroughly inculcated with the discipline of the Shariah, Abu-Hajar Abd-al-Aziz al-Muqrin warned, "[he] will turn into an outlaw." Abu Jandal, bin Laden's former bodyguard, noted that each trainee must learn that his "mission in life is to protect the ummah," and that this is the "cause" all fighters "carried in our hearts wherever we are able to go". Reflecting on his own training, al-Muqrin recalled that he and his colleagues, "the sons of the Arabian Peninsula," came to the Afghan training camps with much to learn. We were "not used to military order and discipline," al-Muqrin wrote, and found "many things full of restrictions and difficult". After receiving what al-Amiri called intense training for "faith, spirit and heart," however, al-Muqrin said that he and his comrades became mentally "tough and arduous" and knew that they "must fear no one but God and must be ready to sacrifice everything for upholding God's word".

While Shariah instruction develops a disciplined, focused mindset, al-Qaida doctrine acknowledges that unity of belief does not automatically yield a consistently united organization. Of the other factors impacting unity, al-Qaida doctrine focuses most on eliminating animosities between trainees, or groups of trainees, that are based on national origins. Abu Jandal, for example, said that in the late 1990s he was often called on by al-Qaida leaders to travel to camps in Afghanistan to settle disagreements between different nationalities, most commonly Saudis and Egyptians. Al-Qaida is unique for a number of reasons, but most of all because it is the only Islamist insurgent organization that has been able to remain cohesive and effective despite a heterogeneous membership drawn from several dozen Muslim and non-Muslim states. Abu Jandal has written that bin Laden has long contended that to successfully confront the United States and its allies al-Qaida fighters "needed to entrench amity among ourselves and eliminate regional rivalries". Part of the training regimen is to ensure, according to Abu Jandal, that "the issue of nationalism was put out of our minds, and we acquired a wider view than that, namely the issue of the ummah".

Fatalism

"What does a mujahid seek from jihad?" Shaykh Yusaf al-Alyiri answers his own question: "He seeks one of two happy endings, either victory or martyrdom. He will be victorious when he achieves either of them." Of all the non-weapons training an al-Qaida trainee receives, this seems the most simple and straightforward. The mujahid, al-Muqrin concludes, "must be eager to enrage God's enemies and he must believe that God's victory is certain, as promised." He must not worry about the future. "Whatever is going to happen to you," al-Muqrin instructed would-be insurgents, "will not miss you, and whatever is going to miss you will not happen to you; if it were your fate to be killed, taken prisoner, or wounded , then this would be your fate, and caution will not save you from fate."

Area Awareness

Al-Qaida's training in piety, discipline, unity, and fatalism is designed to produce a mujahid who is part of an elite vanguard organization that is deployed in multiple areas of the Muslim world. Al-Qaida doctrine tells each mujahid that he is "fighting for the whole [Islamic] nation to preserve its religion, sanctities, the blood, honor, and property of the [Muslim] people, and to repulse injustice and aggression." That said, the doctrine notes that al-Qaida fighters may not encounter a fully supportive population when they first arrive in the theater of fighting. This is because the mujahedin themselves are outsiders as far as the locals are concerned, and they have not yet proved they can protect the local population. In many instances, therefore, the most the mujahedin can expect is passive assistance. "The mujahedin," al-Muqrin explained, "must pay attention to the fact that most people are busy with life and pursuing their own livelihood. If the mujahedin keep this in mind they will realize that in many circumstances they will not get great support unless God wishes otherwise."

Since this situation will be common across the Muslim world, the mujahedin must be disciplined and behave according to the tenets of their training. To turn passive support into active support, al-Muqrin claims, each mujahid must "be known for his nobility of character, ethics, and loyalty to the believers". He continues:

"The troops must be marked by their good manners and conduct. A mujahid must serve as a beacon to lighten the road for the people and a model for other colleagues to follow. He must be careful not to be like those whom God referred to as: 'Do ye enjoin right conduct on the people, and forget [to practice it] yourselves?'"

Conclusion

For national militaries and insurgent groups military doctrine is a set of ideals that cannot be perfectly applied during the unpredictable course of a war. Clear, demanding, and repetitive doctrinal training probably is the best means of ensuring the fullest possible application of doctrine in war situations. The fact that al-Qaida has remained a united and disciplined fighting force in a war against the world's greatest military power, and continues to be welcomed in multiple Muslim countries in which insurgencies are underway or being kindled, suggests the inculcation of its training doctrine for individual fighters has been largely successful.

http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2369944

Casey

04-09-2006, 09:35 PM

Al-Qaeda's unfinished work
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - Prior to September 11, al-Qaeda was widely viewed in intelligence circles as a group of mercenaries or mafia, not as a sophisticated organization capable of orchestrating such large attacks as those on the United States.

Yet even with the new awareness of al-Qaeda's capabilities, its true nature - and intentions - remain much of a mystery. Intensive investigations carried out by Asia Times Online over many months, including discussions with people ranging from intelligence officials to sources directly or indirectly related to al-Qaeda, reveal that neither Iraq, Afghanistan, Pakistan nor any other place but the United States is the single obsession of al-Qaeda. And in this regard, al-Qaeda has big plans.

Enter Osama bin Laden
At six feet three inches tall, rich and like a member of the royal family, Osama bin Laden was taken as an "angry young man" 14 years ago in his native Saudi Arabia when he spoke out against the kingdom for allowing Western forces to use its territory after the first Gulf War. His family - influential in business and highly respected - was persuaded to convince him to appear personally before King Fahd for a royal pardon. Many important members of the royal family, including Prince Turki and Prince Abdullah, tried hard to settle the dispute, to no avail.

That was the beginning of the misconception about bin Laden and his team. US intelligence agencies reported him as a Saudi dissident who had bravely fought in Afghanistan against the Soviets in the 1980s and who was now prepared to create a political nuisance in Saudi Arabia.

However, the al-Qaeda attacks on US embassies in Africa in 1998 jolted the US's perception, and Washington came to the realization that a new terror ring had emerged which was after US interests. September 11 confirmed this, in no uncertain manner.

Yet US decision-makers were still very much in the dark over al-Qaeda's thinking, despite millions of dollars being spent, countless hours consumed and counter-terrorism networks formed across the world.

Al-Qaeda's evolution
The seeds to al-Qaeda's thinking were planted during the decade-long jihad against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s. The Arabs who poured into the country to join hands with the Afghan resistance fell into two broad camps - Yemeni and Egyptian.

The religious zealots who went to Afghanistan after being inspired by their local clerics fell into the Yemeni camp. They exercised hard, doing military drills all day long between fighting, cooked their own food and then slept straight after isha (the last prayers of the day). As the Afghan jihad tailed off toward the end of the late 1980s, these jihadis returned to their countries. Those who did not want to go home melted into the Afghan population or went to Pakistan, where many married. In al-Qaeda circles, they were termed dravesh - easy-going.

The Egyptian camp comprised those who were extremely politically minded and ideologically motivated. Though most belonged to the Muslim Brotherhood, they were discontented with the organization for its insistence on changing societies through elections and democratic processes. The Afghan jihad served as a powerful glue for these like-minded people, many of them educated, including doctors, engineers etc. Many, though, were former personnel of the Egyptian army associated with the underground Egyptian movement Jamaatul Jihad of Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri (now bin Laden's deputy) . This group was responsible for the assassination of president Anwar Sadat in 1981 after he signed a peace deal with Israel at Camp David. All, though, agreed on a single point: the reason for Arab "doom" was the US and its puppet governments in the Middle East.

This Egyptian camp was in the hands of bin Laden and Zawahiri. After isha they would discuss contemporary issues in the Arab world. One of the messages that the leaders drummed home was that members should invest their resources on the armies of their countries, and ideologically cultivate the best brains.

In the mid-1990s, when then Afghan president Professor Burhanuddin Rabbani and his powerful minister of defense, Ahmed Shah Masoud, allowed bin Laden to move from Sudan to Afghanistan, the Egyptian camp drew many strategic community members from across the world to Afghanistan, where they headed maaskars (training camps) to teach strategies for their future fight.

By the time the Taliban had emerged as a force in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s, the Egyptian camp had settled on its strategies, the most important being:

To speak out against corrupt and despotic Muslim governments and make them targets, as this would destroy their image in the eyes of the common people, who interrelate state, rulers and nation.
Focus on the US role, which is to support Israel and tyrant Middle Eastern countries, and make everyone understand this.

The 1998 attacks on the US embassies in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania and Nairobi, Kenya, were the start of al-Qaeda's - as it was now known - offensive against US interests. In retaliation, though, the US launched cruise missiles on Kandahar and Khost in Afghanistan. Consequent to this, al-Qaeda formed a special task force to plan for the September 11 attacks.

It took three years for the plan to reach fruition, but discussions continued after September 11 among members of the Egyptian camp - who were now senior members of al-Qaeda - over broader plans to bring the world's superpower to its knees.

Before October 7, 2001, when the US invaded Afghanistan in retaliation for September 11, most of al-Qaeda's top minds had already left the country. Their mission involved several targets:
To ideologically cultivate new faces from strategic communities, such as among armed forces and intelligence circles.
Get these new recruits to establish cells.
Each cell would be assigned to raise its own resources to chalk out a plan. However, only one of them would implement a plan, the others would serve as decoys to "misdirect" intelligence agencies.

Muslim regimes targeted
After September 11, Muslim governments were more active against al-Qaeda, and in Pakistan alone more than 400 of its members were arrested. The same happened in Egypt, Syria, Jordan, Yemen, Tunis and in Saudi Arabia. Yet al-Qaeda did not utter a word against Muslim governments until the US gave clear signals that it would attack Iraq.

The collaboration of Muslim governments with the US against Iraq was the ideal time to stir the resentment of the masses against their regimes by exploiting the US's strategic alliance with Muslim countries.

Soon after the US invasion of Afghanistan, bin Laden released his first tape in which he spoke against the Saudi government. "You are a US stooge and your fathers were stooges of Britain. You help the US in attacking a Muslim country and your fathers rebelled against the caliph to facilitate British rule in the Middle East."

In the next few months, Zawahiri spoke for the first time against President General Pervez Musharraf in Pakistan and asked the people of that country to topple "the closest Muslim ally to the US in the world". Immediately after, pro-al-Qaeda groups were encouraged to carry out attacks in Saudi Arabia and Pakistan.

There was no reason for al-Qaeda to get involved in Iraq. The strategy they had evolved over more than a decade never suggested that they take on their enemy on the battlefield. Its only aim is to keep the enemy engaged and work toward organizing a Muslim backlash so that when its new strike on the US comes it will not go in isolation, and will change the world on a much broader scale than September 11: al-Qaeda will conveniently fade into the background and let the angry Muslim masses decide the course of the world.

Syed Saleem Shahzad, Bureau Chief, Pakistan, Asia Times Online. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GA05Ak03.html

Petronas

04-14-2006, 02:27 PM

Wanted
Muhsin Musa Matwalli Atwah

Up to $5 Million Reward
Date of birth: June 19, 1964
Place of birth: Egypt
Height: Approximately 5'3" to 5'7"
Weight: Unknown
Build: Medium
Hair: Dark, but graying.
Eyes: Dark
Sex: Male
Citizen: Egyptian
Status: Fugitive
Aliases: Abdul Rahman, Abdul Rahman Al-Muhajir, Abdel Rahman, Mohammed K.A. Al-Namer

Atwah is believed to currently be in Afghanistan.

Indicted for conspiracy to kill United States nationals, to murder, to destroy buildings and property of the United States, and to destroy National Defense utilities of the United States.

Usama Bin Laden, Muhammad Atef, Ayman Al Zawahiri , Mustafa Mohammed Fadhil , Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani , Fahid Mohammed Ally Msalam , Sheikh Ahmed Salim Swedan , Abdullah Ahmed Abdullah, Saif Al-Adel, Anas Al-Liby , Ahmed Mohamed Hamed Ali , and Muhsin Musa Matwalli Atwah , and others already in custody are believed to be responsible for the bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya on August, 7, 1998. These terrorist attacks indiscriminately killed 224 innocent civilians and wounded over 5,000 others. These terrorist are believed to be part of an international criminal conspiracy headed by Usama Bin Laden. The U. S. Government is offering a reward for information leading to the arrest or conviction,

http://www.rewardsforjustice.net/english/wanted_captured/index.cfm?page=Atwah

Pakistani Forces Kill al-Qaida Terrorist
Thu Apr 13

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - An al-Qaida member wanted for his suspected role in the bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa was killed by Pakistani forces in a raid near the Afghan border, a Pakistani Cabinet minister said Thursday. Egyptian Mohsin Musa Matawalli Atwah, 45, who was on the FBI's list of most-wanted terrorists, was killed along with at least six other militants in a raid led by helicopter gunships late Wednesday in the remote North Waziristan village of Naghar Kalai, near the Afghan border, the minister said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the situation.

Another senior Pakistani intelligence official said military reports from the field indicated that Atwah had been killed in the attack, along with the militants and two children. The intelligence official also declined to be identified because of the sensitive nature of the case. Neither official specified how they knew Atwah had been killed. Officials and village residents said that armed men took bodies away after the attack.

U.S. authorities had posted a $5 million bounty for Atwah, who was accused of involvement in the Aug. 7, 1998, bombings of the U.S. embassies in Tanzania and Kenya that killed more than 200 people, including 12 Americans. FBI officials in Washington and U.S. and Egyptian diplomats in Islamabad were unable to confirm that Atwah had been killed. ...

According to a senior army official, Atwah was tracked down to the suspected al-Qaida hideout with information gleaned from militants detained during a recent military operation in the region. Atwah was a key supplier of "weapons, explosive material and other ammunition to terrorists who often target our forces in North and South Waziristan," the official said on condition of anonymity, as he was not authorized to speak to the media.

An intelligence official in Miran Shah, the main town in the volatile North Waziristan region, said Wednesday's raid killed nine people — seven militants, including five non-Pakistanis, and 2-year-old and 2-month-old brothers who lived in the house. Residents in Naghar Kalai said they heard at least one loud explosion followed by intense machine-gun fire focused on a house in which a group of men from "outside the village" had been staying.

The building near an Islamic school was destroyed and three cars exploded. "There was a huge explosion, which we think was a missile attack, before the helicopters came and bombed the house," said village tribal elder Khan Wazir. "When we came to the house there was dust and other people who were already trying to pull out bodies and sift through the rubble."

After the attack, a group of armed men surrounded the crumpled house to keep onlookers back before taking at least seven bodies away, Wazir said. "We had information about the presence of foreign militants," said Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, the top Pakistan army spokesman. "It was a sting operation and the target was knocked out."

Sultan said al-Qaida members are moving in small groups and mixing with locals in North Waziristan, which has witnessed a spike in militant activity in recent months, with almost daily attacks on Pakistani security forces in the area. "The people (behind the attacks) are certainly the al-Qaida people," Sultan told Associated Press Television News. "They are the ones who are financing and they do have some local facilitators." Pakistani security officials have previously said bin Laden, his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri and other top al-Qaida figures could be hiding in the Pakistan-Afghan border region. Some 80,000 Pakistani troops have been deployed along the Pakistani side of the border to catch al-Qaida and Taliban militants.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060414/ap_on_re_as/pakistan_al_qaida_6;_ylt=AlIfQPTPOO.KRLnp6RpxWpYwu ecA;_ylu=X3oDMTBiMW04NW9mBHNlYwMlJVRPUCUl

Casey

04-24-2006, 11:53 PM

al Qaeda: Update 1: Slain Militant Said Close to Al-Zawahri

By SADAQAT JAN , 04.23.2006, 12:53 PM

A Syrian terrorist killed in northwestern Pakistan was a close aide of al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri, a top minister said Sunday.

Marwan Hadid al-Suri, 38, was killed Thursday in a shootout in Bajur, a tribal region along the Afghan border. Al-Suri ran al-Qaida operations there and was behind attacks on Afghan and coalition forces in Afghanistan, officials have said.

Al-Suri was "an important man" in al-Qaida believed to have run a financial network for the terror group, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said Sunday.

"Anyone handling finances in an organization is important," Ahmed told The Associated Press. "He was an important man and close to al-Zawahri."

Al-Suri had distributed money among terrorists and their families, including a relative of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the leader of al-Qaida in Iraq, a security official said Saturday on condition of anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak to media.

Bajur, where al-Suri died, also was the site of a January U.S. missile strike purportedly targeting al-Zawahri, who Afghan and Pakistan officials have said may be at large along the mountainous, porous Afghan-Pakistan frontier.

But al-Zawahri, the top deputy to Osama bin Laden, was not believed to have been at the site, where at least four al-Qaida militants were killed, along with 13 villagers.

Al-Suri was the second major terrorism suspect reported killed in Pakistan this month. On April 12, Pakistani forces killed Mohsin Musa Matawalli Atwah, 45, an Egyptian put on the FBI list for alleged involvement in the 1998 bombings of two U.S. embassies in East Africa.

Al-Suri's identity was confirmed by studying a laptop computer, a diary and documents found in his vehicle after the shootout, which also killed a Pakistani officer, officials said Saturday.

Pakistani troops have been battling Taliban militants and sympathizers as well as al-Qaida fugitives in Bajur and the six other Afghan border-hugging tribal-dominated regions, including North Waziristan. Arab, Central Asian and Afghan fighters linked with al-Qaida also are believed to be in the region.

Pakistani troops shot dead three unidentified armed men in a speeding van after its driver ignored orders to stop at a checkpoint near Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan, some 200 miles southwest of the capital, Islamabad.

Armed men in the van also fired at the soldiers, killing one and wounding another, an intelligence official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was unauthorized to speak to the media.

It could not be determined if the gunmen were militants as many tribesmen in the area carry weapons.

On Saturday, Pakistani security forces fired artillery at a suspected militant hide-out in the village of Spelga, some nine miles south of Miran Shah, after extremists fired six rockets at a roadside security post, a security official said.

No Pakistani forces were hurt in the rocket attack.

Spelga residents fled the fighting, which included Pakistani helicopter gunships firing on suspected militant positions. Several homes were hit but no casualties were reported.

The fighting was the latest in a series of clashes between suspected Islamic militants and Pakistani troops in the area. On Thursday, militants killed seven soldiers and wounded 22 in an ambush near Spelga. Troops responded by killing five to eight militants.

http://www.forbes.com/business/manufacturing/feeds/ap/2006/04/23/ap2689805.html

Casey

04-30-2006, 07:33 PM

I wish al Jazeera had published this article in English.

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Ben Laden and Al-Zarqawi and Al Zawahri they ignited the war of the Internet
http://www.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/251C4545-9EC8-4DBB-913D-0BED58F8F1BB

Osama Ben Ladin

Increasing question marks that the appearance of three leaders raised in the Al-Qaeda Network they Osama Ben Ladin AndAyman Zawahiri AndAbu Mosaab Al Zarkoi On the Internet . Through less than a single week so that they urge the Muslims in an urgent and direct way on the jihad .

And in this regard Yasser Al Siri the Islamic media observatory manager who takes from London a headquarters said that he is without doubt there an urgent and direct incitement on the jihad, Ben Laden urges his supporters to targeting who offends the Islam, and Al-Zarqawi he warns the Iraqis including the Sunnis of the joining to the Iraqi government and of the joining of the political operation, and Al Zawahri incites a direct incitement for getting rid of the Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf .

And he says the Egyptian the Islamic secret by besides these incitements coincide and shares in the timing, Ben Laden 's message represented a direct targeting of specific persons, and especially in the Saudi Arab and in particular the Minister of Labour Ghazi Al-Qusaibi .

Al-Zarqawi threatened the Americans with more operations ( AlJazeera )
A non declared coordination
From its side the Saudi opponent Mohamed Al Msari who stays in the exile in London pointed to he comes across the incitements, adding that Ben Laden and Al Zawahri it appear that there is between them a coordination and that they are in two different places .

And for Al-Zarqawi 's message Al Msari said that it coincided by chance, but the successive circumstances are in Iraq the one that incited Al-Zarqawi to issuing this statement at this time .

And Al Msari does not exclude that this leads the successive and dense statements to the start of moves all over the world and especially in the Arabian Peninsula, and especially in Saudi Arabia and Occupied Palestine and African Horn and the situation may burn in Algeria .

And he follows up for the west that there may be a symbolic hitting in Britain or America, but it has not the priority ... Despite that I exclude very such hitting .

And Ben Laden called in a strip that the space Al-Jazeera TV transmitted in 23 April to the readiness for a long-term war in west of Sudan, considering on the other side that the boycott of the Palestinian government of Hamas internationally confirms the presence of a Zionist Crusade on the Muslims .

And in 25 April in the noon of the Al-Qaeda Network leader in Iraq Abu Mosaab Al Zarkoi for the first time an open the face in a videotape through the Internet, and it threatened with the affliction of the defeat in The United States .

And the second official in the Al-Qaeda Ayman Zawahiri from his side in a videotape that has been broadcast Friday through the Internet on the Pakistani president who described him as the bribed betraying criminal, loaded and said that he incites Pakistan to the dark fate, calling the Pakistani nation and army to his dropping .

The source : The Frenchism

بن لادن والزرقاوي والظواهري أشعلوا حرب الإنترنت

أسامة بن لادن

علامات استفهام متزايدة أثارها ظهور ثلاثة زعماء في تنظيم القاعدة هم أسامة بن لادن وأيمن الظواهري وأبومصعب الزرقاوي على شبكة الإنترنت. خلال أقل من أسبوع واحد ليحثوا المسلمين بشكل ملح ومباشر على الجهاد.

وفي هذا الصدد قال ياسر السري مدير المرصد الإعلامي الإسلامي الذي يتخذ من لندن مقرا إنه "من دون شك هناك تحريض ملح ومباشر على الجهاد، بن لادن يحث أنصاره على استهداف الذين يسيئون إلى الإسلام، والزرقاوي يحذر العراقيين بمن فيهم أهل السنة من الانضمام إلى الحكومة العراقية ومن الانخراط في العملية السياسية، والظواهري يحرض تحريضا مباشرا للتخلص من الرئيس الباكستاني برويز مشرف".

ويقول السري الإسلامي المصري "بالإضافة إلى أن هذه التحريضات تتزامن وتشترك في التوقيت، فإن رسالة بن لادن مثلت استهدافا مباشرا لأشخاص محددين، خاصة في العربية السعودية وبالذات وزير العمل غازي القصيبي".

الزرقاوي توعد الأميركيين بمزيد من العمليات (الجزيرة)
تنسيق غير معلن
من جانبه أشار المعارض السعودي محمد المسعري الذي يقيم في المنفى بلندن إلى "تصادف التحريضات"، مضيفا أن "بن لادن والظواهري يبدو أن بينهما تنسيقا وأنهما في مكانين مختلفين".

وبالنسبة لرسالة الزرقاوي قال المسعري إنها تزامنت بالصدفة، لكن الظروف المتتابعة في العراق هي التي دفعت الزرقاوي إلى إصدار هذا البيان في هذا الوقت.

ولا يستبعد المسعري "أن تؤدي هذه التصريحات المتواترة والكثيفة إلى بدء تحركات في شتى أنحاء العالم خاصة في الجزيرة العربية، خاصة في السعودية وفلسطين المحتلة والقرن الأفريقي وربما يشتعل الوضع في الجزائر".

ويتابع "بالنسبة للغرب ربما تكون هناك ضربة رمزية في بريطانيا أو أميركا، لكن ليست لها الأولوية... رغم أنني أستبعد جدا مثل هذه الضربة".

وكان بن لادن دعا في شريط بثته قناة الجزيرة الفضائية في 23 أبريل/ نيسان إلى الاستعداد "لحرب طويلة الأمد" في غرب السودان، معتبرا من جهة أخرى أن مقاطعة حكومة حماس الفلسطينية دوليا تؤكد وجود "حرب صليبية صهيونية" على المسلمين.

وفي 25 أبريل/ نيسان ظهر زعيم تنظيم القاعدة في العراق أبو مصعب الزرقاوي للمرة الأولى مكشوف الوجه في شريط مصور عبر الإنترنت، وهدد بإلحاق الهزيمة بالولايات المتحدة.

وحمل المسؤول الثاني في القاعدة أيمن الظواهري من ج