Failed AQIM assassination spurs Mauritania debate

The following article is republished with permission from Magharebia.
 

Failed AQIM assassination spurs Mauritania debate
Source:  Magharebia
By Mohamed Yahya Ould Abdel Wedoud
February 9, 2011

Nouakchott, Mauritania

Al-Qaeda in Islamic Maghreb (AQIM) issued a statement Monday (February 7th) that said the aim behind its failed Nouakchott attack was to assassinate President Mohamed Ould Abdel Aziz. Mauritanian troops successfully defended the capital but questions were raised by some about the ability of suicide bombers to enter the country.

“Al-Qaeda operates in a vast region extending from northern Mali to Chad,” explained Islamic movement expert Mohamed Mahmoud Ould Abou El Maali. “They have also started to find a foothold in Niger; something that makes any attempt to geographically besiege them a difficult thing for the Mauritanian army or any other army.”

The AQIM statement said that the terrorists managed “to get past military fortifications and barriers en route to Nouakchott to assassinate the president”, billed in the text as an “agent of France”.

“[Abdel Aziz] is the first president in the region to declare war on al-Qaeda and tracks them down in their stronghold on the outskirts of the Malian desert; something that other regimes in the region have avoided,” Ould Abou El Maali told Magharebia.

The analyst added that the al-Qaeda operation “was a clear message to the region’s presidents, in which it warned them against any military or economic crackdown on the organisation”.

“The problem is that al-Qaeda has also started to explore the Senegalese and Malian borders with Mauritania, with the aim of allowing its elements to easily infiltrate into the depth of Mauritania amid tough and complex terrain characterised by dense forests,” Ould Abou El Maali said.

The Mauritanian army was making progress on securing the borders, having set up security points on the northern and eastern borders, journalist Isselmou Ould Moustaffa said. “Therefore, we notice that al-Qaeda elements this time used uncontrolled border points, such as the Malian-Senegalese borders.”

Ould Moustaffa added that the AQIM message was “a political manoeuvre and nothing else”. He told Magharebia that “all the data confirms that al-Qaeda’s recent operation against Mauritania was not targeting the president but the French embassy and a military barracks, as shown in the official account and in the confessions of al-Qaeda elements who were arrested”.

“Al-Qaeda’s announcement of the assassination attempt against the president aims to terrorise the head of the ruling regime in Mauritania and make him feel that he is targeted,” Ould Moustaffa said. “This is very obvious for a simple reason: with its operations, al-Qaeda is targeting the Mauritanian state, and therefore, is targeting the president whether it announced that or not.”

Politicians were equally critical of the AQIM claim, with Union for the Republic Party spokesman Moktar Ould Abdellahi saying the message was “to say that they still have a presence”.

“The terrorist organisations in northern Mali and the Sahara have lost the compass that has been guiding them for several months following the blows that were dealt them by the Mauritanian army. The latest operation has shown that al-Qaeda fighters need to carry out a major operation to say that they still exist. However, they no longer have a presence,” Ould Abdellahi said.

The president “has adopted a tough security policy against al-Qaeda”, Habib Ly said. “In addition, he has organised a lot of religious gatherings aimed at convincing young people to relinquish extremism and fanaticism; something in which al-Qaeda saw as a serious, and even daring, attempts to eliminate them.”

[End.]
__________

Magharebia is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defence, Africa Command.

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Al-Qaeda Announces Holy War against Houthis

The following article is reprinted with permission from Yemen Post, Sana’a.
 

Al-Qaeda Announces Holy War against Houthis
©  Yemen Post
January 30, 2011

Yemen Post Staff

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) announced on its website jihad (holy war) against the Houthi northern Shiites.

In an audio message posted on the Internet, Saeed Ali Al-Shihri, deputy leader of the Yemen-based (AQAP), said that Houthis in Sa’ada, Jawf, and Amran will face a strong war against them, calling on Sunni Muslims in northern Yemeni provinces to be with (AQAP). He accused Iran’s regime of backing Shiite rebels.

“Jihad against northern Shiites has been declared since the implementation of the AQAP’s twin martyred car bombing attacks against convoys of Shiite rebels’ in the northern provinces of Jawf and Sa’ada on Nov. 24 and Nov. 26 of the last year,” he said.

Last year two bombings occurred in northern Yemen with one targeting a procession on its way to celebrate a religious Zaidi ceremony, Eid Al-Ghadir, in Jawf killing almost 24 and wounded several others. The other targeted Houthi followers traveling in Sa’ada to participate in a funeral, killing two mourners and wounding eight.

[End.]

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YEMEN: Al-Wahishi not dead, says expert

The following article is reprinted with permission from Yemen Times, Sana’a.

Al-Wahishi not dead, says expert
©  Yemen Times
By Ali Saeed
January 6, 2011

Naser Abdulkareem Al-Wahishi, leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula is still alive, an expert on Al-Qaeda, Saeed Ubaid, told the Yemen Times.

Media reports claimed yesterday that Al-Wahishi was killed in Pakistan by an American drone at the end of December.

But Ubaid disagreed: “I do not think that Al-Wahishi had gone to Waziristan as the organization in Yemen needs him”.

Al-Wahishi was said to be killed three times; twice by the Yemeni government during operations carried out against Al-Qaeda by Yemen in September 2010 and now, for the third time, by the Pakistani government.

Some media reports this week claimed that Pakistani officials confirmed that Al-Wahishi was killed on December 28 when two American missiles were fired on a militant camp at the Ghulam Khan sub-district of North Waziristan in Pakistan.

Al-Qaeda until now has not recognized the death of its leader and published his article in a recent copy of its magazine, Sada Al-Malahem (Echo of Battles).

“That is an indicator that he is still alive,” said Ubaid.

He explained that Al-Wahishi might have been wounded and that is why his media appearance has decreased recently.

He also said that evidence of Al-Wahishi’s existence was the tape recording published two months ago that he would protect Anwar Al-Awlaki, the U.S. citizen of Yemeni origin who is on the U.S.’s kill or capture list.

“If he was killed, Al-Qaeda would announce that and include him on its martyrs list,” said Ubaid.

He noted that until now those who claimed to have killed Al-Wahishi have not proven any evidence of that.

The expert supported his claim with the fact that Yemen’s security sources in the past announced the killing of some Al-Qaeda leaders but these persons appeared to be alive after these claims were made.

“We cannot trust security sources for killing an Al-Qaeda leader, as Ayd Al-Shabwani was announced to be killed four times by the Yemen’s security sources, Qasim Al-Raimi was announced to be killed twice by the Yemen’s security sources,” he explained.

Al-Wahishi was appointed as a leader of formerly-named Al-Qaeda in Yemen in 2007 after he escaped with 23 Yemeni captives from a security prison in Sana’a in 2006.

When the two Al-Qaeda branches in Yemen and Saudi Arabia merged in January 2009, Al-Wahishi was announced as leader of Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula.

[Photo:  Al Qaeda magazine via Yemen Times]

[End.]

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YEMEN: Al-Qaeda remains security threat in 2011

The following article is reprinted with permission from Yemen Times, Sana’a.

Al-Qaeda remains security threat in 2011
©  Yemen Times
By Ali Saeed
January 3, 2011

Al-Qaeda will remain a security threat in Yemen this year, a political analyst told the Yemen Times yesterday, after the organization claimed responsibility for at least 49 attacks.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsular (AQAP) announced in their latest edition of the Arabic magazine Sada Al-Malahem (Echo of Battles), that it was responsible for carrying out 49 operations between May and October last year in different areas of Yemen.

“Their announcement shows that they are still strong and in continuous confrontation with security forces,” said political analyst Dr. Mohamed Al-Qadi. “It also indicates that Al-Qaeda is going to remain present this year.”

He explained that AQAP’s magazine accurately reflected the 49 operations, which targeted security and military checkpoints. Some of the operations were aimed at assassinating high ranking officers and leaders in Yemen’s army and security forces, according to the magazine’s operations section.

The magazine’s report explained that most of the operations were concentrated in southern governorates, especially Shabwa and Abyan in the south-east of the country.

It indicated that the terrorist organization carried out 13 operations in five governorates against security officers and leaders. Six operations were executed in Abyan governorate.

Five officers were killed in five operations, while the last attack targeted the governor of Abyan, Ahmed Al-Misary, when he was in a military convoy hunting Al-Qaeda suspects last August. The governor survived, but eight of his bodyguards, including his brother, were killed.

Al-Qadi said that that AQAP started a new trend in 2010, the second year of operations for the new branch of Al-Qaeda, formed in January 2009 and its tactics now included targeting Yemen’s army and police.

“Targeting Yemen’s police is a development of Al-Qaeda tactics, as they found the police standing between them and their targets which are western interests,” he said.

AQAP also said in the fifty-page magazine that it was responsible for killing three police officers in Hadramout and another two police officers in Lahj.

The magazine authors also confirmed that the organization assassinated the deputy chief of criminal investigation in Marib governorate, Mohamed Fara’, at the end of August last year. It claimed that Fara’ was hunting down jihadists and hiring informants against Al-Qaeda.

The last operation targeted Colonel Ali Mohamed Salah Al-Husam, the deputy chief of the Political Security Organization in Sa’ada governorate, where Al-Husam was taken as prisoner last October, the report claims.

Other operations were carried out in Lahj, Abyan and Shabwa and took place between July and October. Only two operations were carried out in the capital, Sana’a. The first one targeted a minibus that was carrying political intelligence officers and the second targeted the British deputy ambassador in October 2010. The attempted assassination, in April, of British ambassador Tim Torlot was not mentioned.

The report denied that Al-Qaeda was responsible for the attack against Al-Wahda sports club in Aden, which killed at least four people and wounded 14 others on October 11, 2010.

Al-Qaeda said that only five of its militants were killed and four were injured during operations last year.

[End.]

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Moroccan forces apprehend six suspected members of an internet-based terrorist group

The following article is republished with permission from Magharebia.

Morocco dismantles terror cell
Source:  Magharebia
By Sarah Touahri
December 29, 2010

Security services in Morocco broke up an alleged terror network involved “in what is known as cyber-terrorism”, the Interior Ministry announced on Monday (December 27th). The terrorists were suspected of planning car bomb attacks both inside Morocco and abroad.

“Members of this network have acquired a broad experience in the making of explosives and planned to use it in sabotage acts in several international hotspots… as well as within national territory,” the ministry said.

The six suspects were reportedly arrested December 10th in Oujda, Nador and Casablanca. According to the officials, a special team of high-level experts is pursuing terrorist groups operating on the internet to prevent attacks.

Terrorists are making much use of computer technology, including the internet, political analyst Mohamed Chemlali told Magharebia. They can use the web not only to convey radical messages to the public, young people in particular, but also to train terrorists and prepare them to carry out attacks.

“The internet is like a school for terrorists, because it contains all the information they need. The web is being used increasingly by terrorists to communicate with each other. Security failings must be addressed so that the public can be protected from terrorist plots,” he said.

According to professor of political science Mohamed Darif, despite the efforts made by the security services, terrorist groups are continuing to multiply. In his view, the latest group to have been caught differed from others in that its members were experts on explosives, which marks a turning point in the creation of terrorist groups in Morocco that must be watched closely.

Since the 2003 Casablanca attacks, the Moroccan authorities have captured over 60 terrorist groups, according to the official sources. Security officials and experts constantly underline the importance of stepping up regional and international co-operation to close the net on terrorists, especially in the Sahel, which is a breeding ground for terrorists allied with al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb.

According to sociologist Samira Kassimi, the fight against terrorism is the responsibility of everyone, beginning with parents, who should protect their children against the threat posed by cyber-terrorism by teaching them about the dangers.

“Young people spend a lot of time browsing the internet and can come across terrorists who may manipulate them. You must always keep an eye on your children,” she said.

For his part, MP Mohamed Ansari emphasised that the capture of this latest group makes it essential to be vigilant and strengthen the law by adding provisions concerning the internet.

[End.]
__________

Magharebia is sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defence, Africa Command.

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More U.S. intervention in Yemen’s anti-terror plans

The following article is reprinted with permission from Yemen Times, Sana’a.

More U.S. intervention in Yemen’s anti-terror plans
©  Yemen Times
By Ali Saeed
December 27, 2010

The Yemeni Ministry of Interior’s announcement on Friday that it will create four new anti-terrorism branches for units in Shabwa, Marib, Hadramout and Abyan is a response to direct pressure from the United States.

Saeed Ubaid, an expert on Al-Qaeda, told the Yemen Times that the U.S. has recently become increasingly demanding on Yemen regarding combating terrorism. He said that this new move by the Yemeni government was in direct response to U.S. pressure on the Yemen government to step-up its efforts against terrorism.

“The increasing demands of the U.S. on Yemen have become like an order and not cooperation,” said Ubaid.

“And that makes us feel that the U.S. wants to fight a proxy war against AQAP.”

Ubaid claims that one of the most recent demands from the U.S. has been for Yemen to provide intelligence information about members of Al-Qaeda, arrested or being held by, the Yemeni government.

He described the expansion of anti-terrorism units to cover the four governorates as “a forward movement”, as long as they can prove efficient, are well equipped and local security leaders in the areas support them.

The Ministry of Interior said that its move aimed to “tighten the noose on terrorists and to paralyze their movements where they hideout”.

“Yemen has never been, and never will be a safe haven for terrorism,” it said.

The ministry claimed the step would advance its confrontation with Al-Qaeda elements to “a closing stage to root them out of Yemen”.

Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP) claimed responsibility for the recent parcel bomb plot. Packages were sent to the U.S. from Yemen and intercepted in Dubai and London at the end of October.

The four governorates chosen for the new units have witnessed intense clashes between Al-Qaeda elements and Yemen’s security forces, said Saeed.

“Shabwa is the home of Fahd Al-Qasa, listed by the FBI as the third most-wanted terrorist and the U.S. born cleric Anwar Al-Awlaki,” he said.

Lauder city in Abyan governorate, where one of the branches of the counterterrorism unit will be based, was announced as an “Islamic state by Al-Qaeda,” according to Ubaid.

Similarly, Marib, where one of the branches will be established, is also considered a heaven for Al-Qaeda in Yemen, he said.

Hadramout will host the largest of the new bases. A number of the governorate’s local security leaders have been targeted by AQAP in 2009 and 2010, according to the Ministry of Interior. In March 2009, a suicide bomber in Shibam killed four South Korean tourists, which Al-Qaeda later claimed responsibility for.

[End.]

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Agent Provocateurs: Al-Qaida’s New Strategy in Yemen

The following commentary is reprinted with permission from International Relations & Security Network (ISN), Center for Security Studies, Zurich.

Agent Provocateurs:  Al-Qaida’s New Strategy in Yemen
©  Jarret Brachman
Source:  ISN
December 9, 2010

U.S. policymakers must be ever cognizant of the trap that al-Qaida hopes to lay by using agent provocateurs in deepening U.S. engagement in Yemen and in pushing the Yemeni government to the brink of collapse.

Earlier this year, al-Qaida’s top cleric updated the group’s strategy for exploiting American involvement in the Middle East. The cleric, Shaykh Abu Yahya al-Libi, presented the strategy in the immediate aftermath of the 2009 Christmas Day bombing attempt, which meant that it got little fanfare from al-Qaida’s supporters and drew even less attention from western counterterrorism analysts.

Titled, “Yemen to the United States: I Sacrifice Myself for Your Sake,” Abu Yahya offered a new look at al-Qaida’s approach to the U.S. in the Yemeni context. He argued that, by continuously provoking the U.S., al-Qaida would be able to harness America’s manic need to act, thereby luring it into meddling with Yemen’s domestic affairs and inadvertently alienating the government from the people, thus setting the stage for a domestic al-Qaida coup.

However, unlike in 2001 when al-Qaida’s goal was to remove U.S. influence from the Middle East, the movement’s new goal of enmeshing the U.S. in Yemeni affairs as much as possible is purely instrumental. It is aimed at getting the U.S. to convince the Yemeni people that their government had become nothing more than a handmaiden for the U.S. and its interests.

A new strategy

For decades, marginal violent movements within Islam have been fruitlessly trying to overthrow Arab governments. Frustrated with their repeated failures, Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and al-Qaida’s senior leadership concluded that it was U.S. military support to these regimes that had to be removed from the equation before toppling them. Al-Qaida consequently shifted its targeting strategy: rather than continue its policy of hammering Arab governments – its “near” enemy – the group’s leadership came to believe that a few painful strikes against the “far” enemy of the U.S. would weaken the country’s resolve in supporting those regimes. Without their U.S. backers, al-Qaida predicted, those governments would be ripe for overthrow.

However, as the U.S. grew more entangled in the region, fighting two wars and engaging in extensive counterterrorism cooperation in the region, al-Qaida came to understand that severing the ties between the U.S. and Arab regimes would be next to impossible. Instead, al-Qaida formulated a new plan, one premised on embracing increasing American involvement in the Middle East. Al-Qaida’s new goal was to entice the U.S. to double-down on its commitment in the region and then use America’s involvement with Arab governments against them.

The strategy outlined by Abu Yahya is built on two assumptions about the U.S. First, according to his analysis, the U.S. has been so haunted by the specter of terrorism that al-Qaida now need only shout “boo!” and the U.S. will run, “staggering and stumbling like a drunk and confused person”, into its next foreign policy nightmare. Part of the reason for America’s ‘shoot-first’ mentality, he argues, is its delusional aspiration to comprehensively protect the country from al-Qaida.

In other words, American policymakers – goaded by an emotional public and feverish media scrutiny – have no choice but to throw money at protecting themselves from terrorism, if only to make it appear as if they are making progress. Over time, however, U.S. policymakers inadvertently perpetuate the idea that an air-tight security cocoon might just be achievable, if only YouTube removes enough Anwar al-Awlaki videos here, and its Transportation Security Agency (TSA) deploys enough body scanners there.

Abu Yahya’s second – and most important – assumption is that the U.S. cannot send its own military forces into Yemen as it did in Afghanistan and Iraq. With America’s poor track record in fighting jihadists head-on over the past two decades, its cash-strapped economy, and an exhausted military and a public unwilling to lose more lives in the region, the U.S. is simply unable to consider putting American boots on Yemeni ground, he contends.

Instead, America’s only viable option – given its neurotic compulsion to “do” things, he argues – will be to pour money into an undertrained and unreliable Yemeni military so they can hunt al-Qaida on America’s behalf. The problem with waging war by proxy, he explains, is that the more the Obama administration claims to be supporting the Yemeni regime, the less credibility and independence the government will hold in the eyes of its people, particularly as the U.S. pressures it to do unpopular things. In time, as the Yemeni government tries in vain to please two masters, it will alienate itself from its core supporters and eventually collapse, leaving the country ripe for an al-Qaida revolution.

Enter the provocateur

Abu Yahya’s assessment is idealistic, yes, but certainly not absurd. He raises many important critiques of America’s historically near-sighted foreign policy decisions in the Middle East and its spasmodic bureaucratic reflexes when terrorist attacks slip through the security cracks.

Enter Anwar al-Awlaki, the American-Yemeni cleric now operating under the rubric of al-Qaida’s Yemeni franchise, Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP). Al-Awlaki, the populist preacher turned violent jihadist poster child, now plays the role for AQAP that al-Qaida’s senior leadership had hoped another American, Adam Gadahn, would play for them: a provocateur. Al-Qaida seemed to think that promoting Gadahn would drive the U.S. berserk, knowing that one of its own was aiding the enemy. At the same time, they believed he would facilitate a recruiting boon, drawing westerners into al-Qaida’s orbit. If Gadahn could do it, so could they.

On the contrary, Gadahn became a laughing stock within the American discourse on terrorism, viewed as absurd and anomalous. He did, however, serve a useful role for al-Qaida when trying to demonstrate metrics of progress to their Arab supporters: Gadahn showed that their appeal was expanding.

Al-Awlaki has created a draw for the U.S. media, and an image within the collective American psyche, that Gadahn could not. His influence is likely due to his broad-based appeal: liking al-Awlaki does not mean that you support al-Qaida, but supporting al-Qaida now means that you probably like al-Awlaki, an increasingly popular and prominent figure among hardliners. He confounds understandings of conventional boundaries within the movement. He blurs distinctions in a way that lowers the barrier of entry to more people in the West.

It is precisely because of al-Awlaki’s unbridled “American-ness” and the impact that he seems to increasingly have in convincing Muslims in the West to go operational, that he is serving as one of those ‘lures’ that Abu Yahya believed would draw more and more American resources, time and attention to Yemen.

U.S. policymakers must, therefore, be ever cognizant of the trap that al-Qaida hopes it can lay by using agent provocateurs such as package bombs or American-styled preachers. While emotionally tempting to chase al-Awlaki around Yemen with drones or openly back the Yemeni military in its effort to bring him to justice, the long-term implications could play directly into the hands of the movement.

That said, where Abu Yahya gets his strategy most wrong, is in assuming that U.S. support for Yemen has to be publically trumpeted. If patience prevails and if the Obama administration gives counterterrorism professionals the time, discretion and resources they need, the U.S. will be able to empower Yemen to stay stable and strong in its fight against al-Qaida.

[End.]
__________

Jarret Brachman is a counterterrorism specialist, author and public lecturer with a PhD from the University of Delaware. A former Director of Research at the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, he currently works at the North Dakota State University and conduts private consulting on al-Qaida for clients inside and outside of government. He published his first book titled “Global Jihadism: Theory and Practice” in 2008 and is currently working on a book titled “The Next Bin Ladin”.

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The Spanish Connection

The following commentary is reprinted with permission from Strategic Culture Foundation.

The Spanish Connection
©  Aurobinda Mahapatra
Source:  Strategic Culture Foundation
December 6, 2010

Under what is called Operation Kampai the nexus of international terrorism worldwide has been further reinforced. The operation carried jointly by the Spanish and Thai police has unraveled a spurious network which has its operations spreading from Spain to Thailand and other parts of Europe and Asia. The network further corroborated the argument that international terrorism is appearing invincible and indomitable, with rising ranks of the terrorists, and with the involvement of more groups from different countries – from Yemen to Pakistan, from Nigeria to Thailand and so on. The arrest of the ringleader in the network in Thailand also brought to picture that the group has not only network office in Barcelona, but also in other European cities like Brussels and London. The group on behalf of one World Islamic Front provided fake passports, fake credit cards, cell phones, etc. to operatives of Al Qaeda, and many other groups like Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) linked to it.

As the international media flashed on 1 December 2010 the photographs of culprits arrested in Barcelona, the picture of this particular international terror network came to surface. The Spanish police arrested seven people including six Pakistani nationals and one Nigerian national in the morning hours of 1st of December. The group was engaged in the task of stealing passports and other crucial items such as credit cards from the tourists visiting Barcelona, and sending them to Thailand for forgery so that they could be used for terrorist purposes. As the Thai police stated, “The group supplies fake passports to many groups, including those involved in terrorism, credit card fraud, human trafficking, weapons trading and illegal immigration.” The Spanish police claimed to have seized nine passports awaiting shipment to Thailand and another that had already been forged, along with a computer and 50 cell phones during the ongoing operation. The Thai police arrested two Pakistanis and one Thai, named Muhammad Athar Butt, Zeeshan Ehsan Butt and Sirikanya Kitbamrung at the border while they were trying to escape to Laos. Athar Butt, also known as Tony, was the head of the operation, and had under his control the offices of Brussels and London. But it is naïve to believe that the network has been busted in its totality. It may be the tip of the iceberg.

On a larger scale the terrorist linkages are with every passing day and with every new revelation appear evidently wide and global. The Madrid train bombings in the year 2004 had killed more than 190 people besides injuring 1,500. In August 2009, Spanish police had arrested a Moroccan suspected of recruiting extremists through internet and helping them to go Pakistan’s Waziristan area, Afghanistan and Chechnya. Earlier in January 2008, the Spanish police had arrested 14 men, accused of being part of a wider suicide plot to target places in continental Europe. The Catalonia region of Spain has recently witnessed much turbulence, owing partly to immigrant communities, and particularly those who became influenced by extreme version of Islam. According to research institute, Elcano, 16 out of 28 anti-terrorist operations carried out since Madrid attacks of 2004 took place in the Catalonia region. Not only Spain but also the whole Europe is increasingly included in the terrorist radar. Few months back, trained militants from the Afghanistan-Pakistan border areas were arrested, who were trained to strike targets across Europe, particularly Germany.

The name of Al Qaeda and its sister organizations, particularly Pakistan based LeT appeared widely in connection with recent arrests. What is more worrying is that the increasing collusion between these groups in devising common agenda and operations. Iliyas Kashmiri, an Al Qaeda operative with links with LeT, plays a major role in masterminding attacks in Europe. While Lashkar’s major focus is India, in recent years it has increased its operations beyond India and trained terrorists from other regions including Chechnya, Germany, Central Asia, etc. to give concrete shape to its operations. As media highlighted, the network arrested this month also provided necessary instruments such as fake passports to LeT to make its India operation successful. LeT was the main force behind the Mumbai terror attack in 2008, which killed more than 160 people, besides injuring hundreds. The fragile situation in Afghanistan-Pakistan region has further bolstered the LeT spirit to act in an unrestrained manner.

The collusion between forces like the Taliban, LeT and Al Qaeda has proved dangerous and may prove further disastrous in coming years. Perhaps it was incomprehensible a decade back that the terror networks could be so wide and so dangerous in terms of its operation and reach. Of late, it has almost become beyond comprehension to see terror network existing almost everywhere, in every part and corner of the world. The Indian government claimed that in the last few years it has defused about 800 sleeping terror cells on Indian soil itself. It is also common knowledge how part of the money to fund Mumbai terror network was routed through the north Italian town of Brescia. With huge support system including finance from smuggling and drug trafficking, the terrorist forces are playing dangerous games in the world.

But what is more important is the issue of perception among the terrorists as well as non-terrorists. Addition of religion colour made terrorist ploys further deadly, and at times made the differentiation between religious propagation and propagation of violence blurred. Hence, the more dangerous is the brainwashing of the innocent minds to take to guns for some inexplicable reasons, or for reasons not explicable rationally. When the young educated skilled men join the terror groups with a religious extremist zeal and provide guidance and intelligence support, then it becomes difficult on part of the governments to tackle them by mere means of force. The Pune arrests by India in 2009 showed how the young professionals such as doctors and engineers were actively involved in terrorist operations and designs.

The recent arrests in Spain and Thailand may appear trifle in terms of the mammoth networks the terror groups have raised worldwide. This global problem obviously needs a global approach. It may not be prudent enough to raise merely the security system at home of a particular country, and leaving the situation as it is at abroad. This approach lacks one of the crucial components terror groups employ in their operations, which is the penetration of the mind of the uninitiated. While illegal trafficking in arms and passports can be curtailed though even in that it is necessary to have international cooperation, the flow of radical and extremist ideas is difficult to be contained by computers or machines. This brings the most urgent necessity of the time to the fore: a collective approach to tackle the collective menace. The recent revelations just reinforce this argument.

[End.]

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GORDON DUFF: Are Terrorists Supplying Our Airport Scanners?

The following column is reprinted with permission from Gordon Duff, staff writer and Senior Editor at Veterans Today.

Are Terrorists Supplying Our Airport Scanners?
©  Gordon Duff
Source:  Veterans Today
November 18, 2010

Profit From Scanner Sales May Have Caused Terror Attack

Two very dubious terror attacks, both seriously discredited, have provided the impetus for 70 American airports to buy scanners. The two attacks trace down to Yemen and an Al Qaeda cell that the government there has openly accused the State of Israel as funding and managing. The most recent attack is now believed to never have happened at all. The infamous “printer bandit” bombings, first aimed at Chicago synagogues, then for “mid air” explosions have been debunked. The government of Dubai says the flights didn’t exist. The government of Britain said there were no explosives and the French suspected they may be nuclear weapons.

Every day, Americans are confronted with videos of children being subjected to intrusive searches of their genital areas, we see the panic and screaming. Airline pilots, some security heads of airlines and pilot associations report the scanners are, not only ineffective but potentially dangerous sources of radiation.

The scanners themselves exist only to provide fully detailed nude videos of all passengers, highly detailed depictions of genital/pubic areas, breasts on women. From a legal standpoint, no TSA employee is authorized to view child pornography, a federal standard that the scanner images clearly qualify as. Federal law prevents even prosecution and defense attorneys in pornography cases from viewing identical images in a closed courtroom. Law enforcement officers subjected to the same images require special screening and are subjected to extensive oversight. This is considered the most distasteful and reprehensible assignment for any police agency and yet, hundreds of thousands of TSA (Transportation Safety Administration) employees are given these tasks.

The best of them will be traumatized. It is one thing for a gynecologist or urologist to stare at genitalia hours each day, quite something else for an airport screener. In 2006, the spokesman for DHS was, himself, arrested for child sex crimes:

WASHINGTON – The Homeland Security Department spokesman, Brian Doyle, was held Wednesday on felony charges of sexually preying on a detective posing as a 14-year-old girl through explicit online conversations. He was quickly suspended without pay from one of the nation’s top crime-fighting agencies.

The arrest of Brian J. Doyle, 55, raised doubts about the ability of an agency responsible for safeguarding the country to ensure the security credentials of its own people. Doyle is accused of 23 felony charges related to sexually graphic conversations with what he thought was a teenage girl, who was in fact an undercover Florida detective. The charges, lodged Tuesday night by the Polk County, Fla., Sheriff’s Department, included 16 counts of sending pornographic movie clips to a minor.

Authorities said Doyle also sent non-sexual photos of himself. They included one of him in Homeland Security headquarters, wearing an agency pin on his lapel and a lanyard that says “TSA,” which stands for the Transportation Security Administration… Homeland Security also oversees an Operation Predator unit, which investigates child predators and pornographers.

The “Crotch Bomber” Fiasco

Nearly a year ago, a Nigerian “refugee,” really the son of a powerful government official with direct ties to both the CIA and Mossad, carried an explosive device onto a plane in Amsterdam, a device he attempted to explode in Detroit.

This incident is the primary rationale for the billions of dollars being spent on scanners. Initially, this incident wasn’t considered enough. Then the “printer bandit” incident, which now appears to only be a series of false newspaper reports, was staged. Both acts are tied to Yemen, a country whose terrorism problems were, even initially, tied to Israel and are now reported by the New York Times as being staged by the government to bilk the United States out of funding to be used for local political infighting between tribes.

There is, in fact, no substantive evidence of the existence of “Al Qaeda” in Yemen, a group that the BBC, has shown was a creation of the CIA and, in fact, has never existed. Video of the Al Qaeda stronghold in Afghanistan where the CIA claimed it stormed the thousand man, 10 level, underground bunkers system, proves conclusively that the entire Al Qaeda-bin Laden myth was created to support government excesses much as the more recent supposed terror attacks now have the American government “terrorizing” travelers.

YouTube – Veterans Today

“Crotch Bomber” Incident Caused By Foreign Ownership Of Airport Security

When the “Crotch Bomber” flew into Schipol Airport in Amsterdam, he was greeted by airport security and walked around customs. Though he had a passport back in Nigeria with an American visa, he wasn’t carrying any passport at all. He should never have been allowed on the plane from Abuja in the first place.

Worse still, employees of the Israeli owned security company that manages this airport along with Detroit and other airports, including all those that the reputed 9/11 hijackers were said to have used, are directly tied directly to Israeli intelligence.

Schipol Airport is one of the most modern and heavily secured in the world. It is equipped with HD video cameras and layers of biometric security capable of, not only facial recognition but particle detection, even at long range. The day the “crotch bomber” came to Schipol, airport security devices were turned off, all video was disabled and, worse still, airport security personnel were witnessed walking a terrorist with a bomb onto an aircraft, seen by two Detroit area attorneys who discussed this incident on, not only the news but the talk show circuit as well.

This utterly bogus “false flag” terrorism incident, an obvious fundraiser for the scanner manufacturers represented by former DHS head, Michael Chertoff, is now being treated as though it actually happened. Have we lost our minds?

A Year Later, What We Have Not Seen

Since America is in a panic over one proven imaginary attack, one simply invented by the news media itself, let’s look at a couple of the things wrong with the Detroit “attack.”

·   The missing video from Schipol Airport, 40 cameras worth, has never been openly reported or discussed. As it is believed to show security personnel openly assisting a terrorist, as was reported by reliable eyewitnesses, this is particularly disturbing. Even more disturbing is the fact that the actual act of boarding the bomb toting terrorist has never been accounted for. One moment, security personnel are telling the airline “we do it all the time” and the next moment, terrorist and bomb are on the plane. What happened?

·   During the flight, a “passenger” was seen filming the terrorist over a long period of time. This “passenger” was arrested in Detroit and taken, in handcuffs, past the sequestered passengers. This person was never arraigned in federal court, in fact there is no record of his arrest or even subsequent release. He is never named. The video of this individual being moved through the airport by the FBI and local police has also been destroyed. Who was this person?

Ionizing Radiation Causes Cancer, Airport Scanners Are Medically Insane

Hospital x-ray rooms are always in basements, rooms are lined with lead and employees are shielded as are patients to the degree possible. When Alexandr Solzhenitsyn wrote his famous work, Cancer Ward, describing hospital employees in a radiology unit dying from the harmful effects of x-rays, the world knew little of the danger. Shoe stores used powerful ionizing radiation on customers’ feet as a matter of routine and dental x-rays were, at that time, more powerful than those we now use to check the welds on the hulls of nuclear submarines. X-rays killed thousands, we will never know how many.

Since that period, technology has improved and levels of radiation have been lowered substantially to what is now considered “relatively safe” levels. However, there are known proven safe levels of ionizing radiation, the kind used in conventional x-rays and the scanner units deployed in 70 airports across the United States. There has also been no safety study regarding the failure to adequately shield multiple radiation sources in an open area nor the effect on TSA employees or those likely to be frequently exposed such as airline personnel.

The initial risks are two fold:

·   Women who are pregnant, particularly those who are in the first trimester and may be unaware they are carrying a fetus that is extremely vulnerable to damage from any level of ionizing radiation

·   Skin cancer has been deemed as a real risk

Paul Joseph Watson writes:

Airport body scanners could lead to an increase in skin cancers according to scientists at Columbia University, who warn that the dose emitted by the naked x-ray devices could be up to 20 times higher than originally estimated, in another clear example of how the scanners are completely illegal, dangerous to public health, and need to be removed immediately.

Dr David Brenner, head of Columbia University’s centre for radiological research, warns that children and people with gene mutations whose bodies are less able to repair damage to their DNA are most at risk.

“If all 800 million people who use airports every year were screened with X-rays then the very small individual risk multiplied by the large number of screened people might imply a potential public health or societal risk. The population risk has the potential to be significant,” said Brenner.

Brenner’s research shows that the scanners will likely contribute to an increase in a common type of skin cancer called basal cell carcinoma which affects the head and neck.

If there are increases in cancers as a result of irradiation of children, they would most likely appear some decades in the future. It would be prudent not to scan the head and neck,” added Brenner.

Lies About Scanner Specification

Several years ago, it was announced that “Al Qaeda” was surgically implanting bombs into humans. The Sun, owned by Rupert Murdoch’s NewsCorp, parent company of Fox News has reported:

“Female suicide bombers are being fitted with exploding breast implants which are almost impossible to detect, British spies have reportedly discovered. It is believed the doctors have been trained at some of Britain’s leading teaching hospitals before returning to their own countries to perform the surgical procedures. MI5 has also discovered that extremists are inserting the explosives into the buttocks of some male suicide bombers.”

Though these reports have been proven outrageously false, total fabrications, as with the Yemen “printer cartridge” bombs, it is believed that current scanner technology using dangerous ionizing radiation, though at moderately low levels, will be scaled up to respond to this imaginary threat. Levels of radiation then used will represent, particularly in an open terminal setting, a clear and present physical danger to the public, not to mention TSA employees.

Pure Scam

If one were to be honest about the dangers of terrorism, particularly in relation to airport security, these would be my recommendations:

·   Immediately eliminate all foreign ownership and control of companies that control airport security or manufacture, install and service airport security devices

·   Accept that the involvement of security agencies known to be directly involved in terror attacks themselves in profiting from the sale of security devices has, not only brought about an exaggeration of terrorist threats but has actually caused the threats themselves

·   Accept that America’s overreaction to questionable incidents of terrorism has made America a target, not of real terrorists, but of the use of terrorism to push America into surrogate conflicts, such as support of Israeli policies in Gaza or the Tribal conflicts in Yemen.

The billions being spent to endanger and inconvenience air travelers could be better applied toward port security, an area of vulnerability far beyond our air passengers. With billions of dollars of narcotics coming into the United States each month and thousands of undocumented aliens entering the country each week, searching airline passengers to what can only be called obsession, is poorly considered. It is time America reprioritizes its national security.

Addendum:

APA president Captain Bates’ letter in full:

Fellow Pilots,

In response to increased threats to civil aviation around the world, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA) has implemented the use of Advanced Imaging Technology (AIT) body scanners at some airport locations.

While I’m sure that each of us recognizes that the threats to our lives are real, the practice of airport security screening of airline pilots has spun out of control and does nothing to improve national security. It’s long past time that policymakers take the steps necessary to exempt commercial pilots from airport security screening and grant designated pilot access to SIDA utilizing either Crew Pass or biometric identification. As I recently wrote to the TSA Administrator:

“Our pilots are highly motivated partners in the effort to protect our nation’s security, with many of us serving as Federal Flight Deck Officers. We are all keenly aware that we may serve as the last line of defense against another terrorist attack on commercial aviation. Rather than being viewed as potential threats, we should be treated commensurate with the authority and responsibility that we are vested with as professional pilots.”

It is important to note that there are “backscatter” AIT devices now being deployed that produce ionizing radiation, which could be harmful to your health. Airline pilots in the United States already receive higher doses of radiation in their on-the-job environment than nearly every other category of worker in the United States, including nuclear power plant employees. As I also stated in my recent letter to the Administrator of the TSA:

“We are exposed to radiation every day on the job. For example, a typical Atlantic crossing during a solar flare can expose a pilot to radiation equivalent to 100 chest X-rays per hour. Requiring pilots to go through the AIT means additional radiation exposure. I share our pilots’ concerns about this additional radiation exposure and plan to recommend that our pilots refrain from going through the AIT. We already experience significantly higher radiation exposure than most other occupations, and there is mounting evidence of higher-than-average cancer rates as a consequence.”

It’s safe to say that most of the APA leadership shares my view that no pilot at American Airlines should subject themselves to the needless privacy invasion and potential health risks caused by the AIT body scanners. I therefore recommend that the pilots of American Airlines consider the following guidelines:

Use designated crew lines if available.

Politely decline AIT exposure and request alternative screening.

There is absolutely no denying that the enhanced pat-down is a demeaning experience. In my view, it is unacceptable to submit to one in public while wearing the uniform of a professional airline pilot. I recommend that all pilots insist that such screening is performed in an out-of-view area to protect their privacy and dignity.

If screening delays your arrival at the cockpit, do not cut corners that jeopardize the safety of the flight. Consummate professionalism and safety are always paramount.

Maintain composure and professionalism at all times and recognize that you are probably being videotaped.

If you feel that you have been treated with less than courtesy, respect and professionalism, please submit an observer report to APA. Please be sure to include the time, date, security checkpoint and name of the TSA employee who performed the screening. Avoid confrontation.

Your APA Board of Directors and National Officers are holding a conference call this week to discuss these issues and further guidance may be forthcoming.

While I cannot promise results tomorrow, I pledge to dedicate APA resources in the days and weeks to come to achieve direct access to SIDA for the pilots of American Airlines. In the meantime, I am confident that you will continue to exhibit your usual utmost professionalism as you safely operate and protect our nation’s air transport system.

[End.]
__________

Gordon Duff is a U.S. Marine Vietnam veteran, grunt and 100% disabled vet. He has been a U.N. Diplomat, defense contractor and is a widely published expert on military and defense issues. He is active in the financial industry and is a specialist on global trade. Gordon Duff acts as political and economic advisor to a number of governments in Africa and the Middle East. He is Senior Editor at Veterans Today.

[End.]

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Gordon Duff: Is Israel Running The Taliban?

The following column is reprinted with permission from Gordon Duff, staff writer and Senior Editor at Veterans Today.

Is Israel Running The Taliban?
©  Gordon Duff
Source:  Veterans Today
September 3, 2010

Today’s Suicide Bombing In Quetta, Pakistan Leaves A Trail To Tel Aviv

Quetta, Baluchistan (Veterans Today) – Today, 43 Pakistanis were killed in a terror attack, killed for supporting Palestinians in Gaza. The signs had been there, the Wikileaks attempt to put responsibility for the Taliban on Veterans Today editor General Hamid Gul. This was debunked in a heartbeat. This attack was vicious and clearly the work of Israel. This was a terror attack meant as a message to the people of the world telling them that if they rally in support of those imprisoned in Gaza, they will be murdered.

Is it a gift for the Jewish people of Israel, another revenge attack, seemingly in response to the shooting of 4 Israeli Jews in Hebron, an attack curiously timed to disrupt peace talks between Jewish and Muslim Palestinians in Washington?

This is far from the first time Israel has been caught. The PKK, the Kurdish terrorist group, communists, who have been attacking Turkey from their mountain “caves” in Iraq for over 40 years have long been trained, funded and even recruited by Israel’s Mossad. Now the partnership between India and Israel, helped along, not only by the CIA, the Kazrai brothers “corporation” and MI-6 is becoming difficult to ignore.

With continual terror attacks a daily part of life in Pakistan, several in Lahore this week, there is no ignoring the real culprits. Nearly every contracting firm the United States uses in, not only Afghanistan but Pakistan as well, is filled to the brim with Israeli operatives. Working with them is the massive CIA assisted drug cartel and its worldwide network of private airlines for shipping heroin and cash and a dozen nations that take part.

All of this is only window dressing for the real show. In 2003, Israel got America to destroy Iraq, well, and itself also. Iraq was suicide for America. It wasn’t until 2007 that America had discovered its own corpse.

The war in Afghanistan is destroying, not only that country but Pakistan as well. Israel will not allow an Islamic nuclear power to threaten their control over Asia. The real target has always been control of the Suez Canal and the real prize, India. What appears to America to be an economic powerhouse is a deeply divided and troubled nation beset by enemies and ready to be turned into a surrogate military power and then stripped to the bones.

This is what happened to the United States.

Pakistan is important. For years, the “CIA” and other intelligence organizations have been in Baluchistan sneaking in and out of Iran blowing things up. How much of that is CIA and how much is Mossad, nobody knows for sure. This is another terrorist organization, called the “Jundallah.” Like the PKK in Turkey and the Tehrik-i-Taliban, the terrorist group making life in Pakistan a living hell, the Jundallah get all the money, weapons, training, transportation and maybe more, much more, they need to fight covert wars against the targets of Tel Aviv.

Baluchistan also has several small airports where heroin can be loaded and flown out. American contracting firms control those facilities and have for years. Narcotics are delivered there from Afghanistan and leave on aircraft meant to supply America’s “black ops” against, well, whoever it is that Israel is angry at.

For Americans, the real question, if Israel is funding terrorist organizations attacking, not only Iran but America’s NATO partner Turkey and longtime ally Pakistan, facts long in evidence everywhere but in the American press, are there also terrorist attacks against American forces and America itself being planned? Have any been carried out and if so, how many?

Does Israel gain when America marches to war against her perceived enemies? Is it a long declared policy to do anything necessary, not actually to enhance Israel’s survival, never really in question at all, not really ever actually, but their dominance?

What was obvious today is that the terror attack in Pakistan had nothing to do with Taliban of any kind. It had only one goal, to punish the people of Pakistan, ethnic Pushtu’s, not the ruling Punjabi’s, for supporting the Palestinian cause and supporting a two-state solution during the current peace initiative sponsored by President Obama. We know Israel goes after anyone who stands up for Palestine but killing dozens of civilians at a rally in Quetta, Baluchistan is an escalation, even for Israel.

No, this isn’t an escalation in violence, it isn’t even close to the biggest body count Israel has run up.

Perhaps the worst part of it is that nobody will say a word about this. Pakistan is broke, even by American standards. They survive off American foreign aid, money they continue to receive as long as they never say a word about Israel or publicly attribute the wave of terrorism they have been subjected to where the real blame belongs. I have seen the head of Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the current Director General of the ISI, hint at Osama bin Laden being dead. I have interviewed him about it personally.

I was sworn to keep the discussion private and confidential. I will keep my word.

Pakistan is being held hostage. Mrs. Clinton continually chastises them about failing to find long dead Osama bin Laden, the imaginary planner of 9/11. Former ISI Director General Hamid Gul, now retired and known for his outspoken honesty, places the blame for 9/11 exactly where it belongs, where he placed on the day it happened. With the Israeli lobby in control of Washington and Washington’s money in control of Pakistan, this won’t be the last terror attack.

The next time anyone anywhere tries to aid Palestinians or to get the truth about Israel’s apartheid policies and ethnic cleansing past the corporate controlled press, expect another suicide bombing. Look at the way the press handled Israeli murder and piracy with the Freedom Flotilla? Less than 5% of Americans know that Israel was caught back in 1967 knowingly attacking an American ship, the USS Liberty. It wasn’t the first Israeli terror attack on Americans and there have been dozens since. You will never read a word about them.

With another 9/11 anniversary coming up, Palestine peace talks going on and Israel doing everthing in its power to force America to attack Iran, security forces throughout the United States are on high alert for Islamic terrorists.

Everyone “in the know” understand that the warning is really for Israeli terrorists. Will the United States Air Force be there if needed, unlike during 9/11? Will terrorists all show up with fresh student visas courtesty of the State Department like during 9/11?

Are we past the time when America is willing to look the other way when a thousand strange coincidences bring about that “perfect storm,” exactly when and where needed, a “storm” to eclipse 9/11 in horror, enough to send a war weary people, long lied to, no longer trusting their government, down the road to war for Israel again?

Four dead Israelis in Hebron was a clue. The 43 dead in Quetta is another. The imaginary Amsterdam hijackers were meant to be one also. More will come with each day, more clues, more planted news stories, more staging, more preparing the minds to expect what so many of us know is coming.

Who do you think recruits terror cells? Who has been doing it forever? Who can travel freely, use passports of any nation and has endless money? You think there really is an Al Qaeda?

Why does everything Al Qaeda do only help Israel?

Is Al Qaeda another Mossad front?

[End.]
__________

Gordon Duff is a U.S. Marine Vietnam veteran, grunt and 100% disabled vet. He has been a U.N. Diplomat, defense contractor and is a widely published expert on military and defense issues. He is active in the financial industry and is a specialist on global trade. Gordon Duff acts as political and economic advisor to a number of governments in Africa and the Middle East. He is Senior Editor at Veterans Today.

[End.]

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