Linkage logarithms

Jewish World Review ^ | Oct. 22, 2003 /26 Tishrei, 5764 | Mark Steyn

[yonif]

http://www.jewishworldreview.com | A year ago, when the self-regarding buffoon Chief Charles Moose was bungling the Washington sniper investigation and the cable-news shows were full of endless psychological profiles of "white male loners," a few of us columnists entertained the notion that the killer was linked to Islamist terrorism.

The Chicago Sun-Times' Richard Roeper thought this was so absurd he very kindly apologized to readers on my behalf. "An awful lot of conservatives really, really wanted the snipers to be terrorists," explained Richard. "But they were wrong. I'll say that because they never will."

Even at the time, the Roeper position required a certain suspension of disbelief. John Allen Muhammad was a Muslim, a supporter of al Qaeda's actions, a man who marked the events of September 11, 2001, by changing his name to "Muhammad" and a man who marked the first anniversary of September 11 by buying the Chevy Caprice subsequently used in the sniper attacks. Coincidence? Of course. It's only a handful of conservative kooks who would even think otherwise.

Interesting item from the London Evening Standard last week:

"Evidence has emerged linking Washington sniper John Allen Muhammad with an Islamic terror group. Muhammad has been connected to Al Fuqra, a cult devoted to spiritual purification through violence. The group has been linked to British shoe bomber Richard Reid and the murderers of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan last year."

Hmm. Might be nothing. Might be just another coincidence. Lot of them around at the moment — like that Saudi Cabinet minister who coincidentally stayed in the same hotel on the night of Sept. 10 as some of the September 11 terrorists. Just one of those things. But the authorities seem to be taking the links more seriously than when they first surfaced a year ago.

[yonif]

Ping.

[farmfriend]

bttt

[Mr. Bird]

That would also include the pro-Saudi Middle East Institute, whose "adjunct scholar" is one Joseph C Wilson IV.

Kaboom.

[brbethke]

You mean that Joseph "George W. Bush endangered my wife by revealing her identity as a CIA agent!" Wilson is on the Saudi payroll?!?!

Unbelievable!

Sounds like the CIA is long, long overdue for a drastic housecleaning. Or maybe just a flush.

[Mr. Bird]

Breathtakingly absurd, no? If this type of thing was in a freakin' movie, we'd all dismiss it as Hollywood making us out to be buffoons. Turns out, it looks like we are....

[Salem]

"...After all, the Saudis are our friends. Thank goodness."

Indeed. Lovely people.

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[Consort]

I was never an exponent of logarithms.

[Sabertooth]

"Evidence has emerged linking Washington sniper John Allen Muhammad with an Islamic terror group. Muhammad has been connected to Al Fuqra, a cult devoted to spiritual purification through violence. The group has been linked to British shoe bomber Richard Reid and the murderers of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan last year."

I'm dusting off the Sniper Muhammad ping list.

Freepers were making the connection between Muhammad and al Fuqra last year....

Examine Gunman's Possible Ties to AL FUQRA (Sniper Muhammad)
			Posted by Sabertooth On 10/31/2002 6:24 AM PST with 20 comments SFFT.org ^ | October 30th, 2002 | Christian M. Weber æDefenseWatch æ"The Voice of the Grunt" æSpecial Report: Protect Home Base First æARTICLE 02 October 30, 2002Examine Gunman's Possible Ties to al FurqaBy Christian M. WeberIn the Middle East today, we see a young generation of Muslims being trained to hate Israel and the West while cherishing the thought of martyrdom. It is easy to see the brutal path that has been chosen for these children. However, for those not schooled in this path of destruction, the road to terrorism usually takes on one of two forms.The first form includes Islamic extremists, such as Osama Bin Laden, who rose...
Al Fuqra: Holy Warriors of Terrorism
			Posted by Sabertooth On 11/04/2002 4:16 PM PST with 22 comments Anti-Defamation League (pdf) ^ | 1993 Al-Fuqra Holy Warriors of Terrorism Introduction For over ten years, a secretive Black Muslim sect in the United States and Canada has sought to carry out a self-declared policy of "jihad," or holy war, by taking violent action against its perceived enemies, generally other minorities or other Muslims with whom they disagree. The sect, known as Al-Fuqra, has been linked by law enforcement officials to terrorist violence in Colorado, Arizona, Pennsylvania, the Pacific-northwest and Canada. Most recently, attention has been focused on the group in connection with a plot to bomb public sites in New York, including the United Nations,...
Sniper killings, hideout, clustered near old Al-Fuqra terror target!
			Posted by Sabertooth On 11/04/2002 7:42 PM PST with 54 comments November 4th, 2002 | Sabertooth On September 11th, 2002, suspected Sniper John Allen Muhammad walked into the Camden, New Jersey State Motor Vehicles office, to register the now-notorious "blue Caprice" he'd just purchased. Though the car had not yet converted been into a rolling sniper's nest, what happened in the next several minutes leaves little doubt that Muhammad had something sinister in mind. The registration transaction began at 8:52 am. At 8:58 am., while Muhammad was still standing at the counter, someone (now believed to be fellow suspect, Lee Malvo) phoned a bomb threat at the Motor Vehicles office on the 1st Anniversary of what...
SNIPER LINK TO AL-FUQRA PROBED
			Posted by goody2shooz On 11/10/2002 11:52 PM PST with 38 comments WorldNetDaily.com ^ | 11/11/02 | World Net Daily Staff Sniper suspect John Muhammad fits the profile of a disaffected outcast who becomes increasingly radicalized under the influence of Islamism, say terrorism analysts and investigators, who suspect he is connected with the radical Islamist group, al-Fuqra. According to Christian M. Weber, contributing editor for Soldiers for the Truth, an organization headed by Col. David Hackworth, Muhammad seems to follow the model of John Walker Lindh, Richard Reid and Jose Padilla, men exposed to Islamism who become disenchanted with the movement's pace and progress and who take the road to jihad. "As one traces John Muhammad's life from his conversion to...
Were Snipers Linked to al-Fuqra Muslim Sect?
			Posted by Tailgunner Joe On 11/13/2002 1:20 PM PST with 14 comments www.insightmag.com ^ | Nov. 13, 2002 | Jerry Seper and Steve Miller Federal authorities are investigating whether accused snipers John Allen Muhammad and John Lee Malvo had ties to a growing sect of militant American Muslims committed to waging holy war against the United States. Law-enforcement authorities yesterday said investigators want to know whether the suspects „ now awaiting separate murder trials in Virginia „ were involved with Jamaat al-Fuqra, a militant Muslim group with documented ties to international terrorism that has been linked to 13 slayings and 17 firebombings in the United States and Canada. The al-Fuqra network, through an offshoot group known as the Muslims of America, has established a...

In fact, if I might blow my own horn, I was one of the first, if not the first, to suspect a connection between John Muhammad and Al-Fuqra, here...

It's early yet... as this investigation unfolds, keep an eye out for the word : "Jamaat," as in Jamaat al Fuqra, Jamaat al Islam, or Jamaat al Tabligh. They are front groups for elements within Pakistan's ISI that are shoulder to shoulder with the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
October 24th, 2002 - link

Freepers had this story a week before it was showing up anywhere else, and we saw a lot of our research cribbed in other places.

Hey Shermy and FL Engineer, I know you two also have a bunch of lnks on Muhammad and Fuqra. Time to get them out of mothballs.

[genefromjersey]

Nothing to see here . Move along ! Move along !

By the by, who was the Arab diplomat (or whatever) who spent the night in the same hotel with the hijackers ?

Which of the hijackers ?

What hotel ? Where ?

[Fzob]

bump for later. very interesting read

[yonif]

Can't remember where, but it was a Saudi Arabian "diplomat"

[Sabertooth]

See the links at #8. Freepers were breaking the connection between John Muhammad and Al-Fuqra a full week before anyone else had it, and within days of Muhammad's capture. More links will follow.

A.M., in the meantime, if it's ok with yonif, can we get a parenthetical change on the headline here?

Suggest: Linkage logarithms (Sniper Muhammad - al Fuqra)

This will tie in to a lot of related Sniper Muhammad stories posted here in the last year.

Thanks.

[Southack]

You definitely called it on this one.

[yonif]

Yeah, sure. Make the change in the title. This is an important topic regarding American Muslims.

-Yoni

[TexKat]

Sabertooth at long last there has been a connection found. After all our hard work, long nights, research, it has finally come to the light. Its been a long time coming.

[CHICAGOFARMER]

"Evidence has emerged linking Washington sniper John Allen Muhammad with an Islamic terror group. Muhammad has been connected to Al Fuqra, a cult devoted to spiritual purification through violence. The group has been linked to British shoe bomber Richard Reid and the murderers of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan last year."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Good work dude.

[Travis McGee]

FR led the way, by YEARS.

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks for posting these links. For some reason FR's search mechanism is not turning up any of the 2001 and much of the 2002 threads on al Fuqra.

Thanks to the great indexers like you, Fl Engineer, backhoe, ernest at the beach, seamole and piasa, those links will be there.

[cyncooper]

Sounds like the CIA is long, long overdue for a drastic housecleaning. Or maybe just a flush.

Yes, it is.

The real scandal about the Wilson/CIA/Niger affair is not that his wife's affiliation with the CIA was "leaked", but why Wilson was sent on that trip in the first place, and why an anonymous "CIA official" was leaking to the likes of the BBC before Wilson penned his editorial that the Bush administration had misrepresented the uranium intelligence.

It's of a piece with the BBC/Kelly "sexed-up document" brouhaha.

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks to the earth shattering article by Clovis Skeptic late in 2001, a lot of us at FR learned about al Fuqra and established an incredible data base on our home grown terrorists with connections across to Pakistan and ?.

As soon as many us realized what PC Moose was up to with his phoney white vans driven by whacko white guys, we figured that al Fuqra was part of the picture.

The data/articles coming out this week from the WSJ, Mark Steyn and other well known writers are now confirming what we knew a long time ago.

[TexKat]

The Sniper Archive--

[Grampa Dave]

One of the best kept secrets is the former CIA boss of Plame, Foley, resigned or was asked to resign in August.

When this story is fully outed, we will find out that Foley, Plame, Wilson and some of their Clintoonian buddies planned this whole episode to set a trap for GW.

[MJY1288]

Add Greg Thielman to that list, he also retired in protest and has been attacking this administration since

[Grampa Dave]

Do you have any links on Greg Thielman?

[MJY1288]

Here is one

Greg Thielmann

[Grampa Dave]

Thanks he is the career rat who had a second career in the State Department. Thanks for the link.

[browardchad]

Why is the London Evening Standard making the connection? Why not an American newspaper, such as the Wall Street Journal?

WSJ reporter Daniel Pearl had Gillani's name in the notebook he left at his hotel, and the fact that he was trying to tie shoe-bomber Richard Reid to Gillani was widely reported. Gillani was arrested in Pakistan, and exonerated.

The best the WSJ can come up with, in yesterday's story reporting that Khalid Mohammed personally killed Pearl, was this:

Among the many unresolved questions in the Pearl case have been the most basic ones: Who ordered him killed, and why did they do it? If Mr. Mohammed is indeed found to be the killer, that could answer the first question. Until his arrest, he was regarded as Mr. bin Laden's operations chief, so he wouldn't necessarily require anyone's orders for a relatively small operation. The second question remains unanswered, though.

It's as if the Al Fuqra connection, to Reid, Pearl, the DC snipers or Al Qaeda has evaporated in the American media.

[Rummyfan]

..when the self-regarding buffoon Chief Charles Moose was bungling the Washington sniper investigation...

Already posted but this description of Moose alone made the piece worth rereading!

[lainde]

ping!

[nunya bidness]

I think I even made the connection from one of the notes to lryics from the Wu-Tang clan, a noted Nation of Islam outfit.

[iceskater]

Why is the London Evening Standard making the connection? Why not an American newspaper, such as the Wall Street Journal?

Because they're kool-aid drinkers.
Well, that's the easy answer. Actually, the Richmond Times-Dispatch had a piece in the op-ed pages in the last week that highlighted some of these same connections. However, it was not on the front page with all the other sniper trial coverage.

[iceskater]

thanks for the ping!

[iceskater]

Here's the article from the Times-Dispatch. I think it was posted on FR last week.

---

On John Muhammad: A Fifth-Column Footsoldier in War Against Infidel U.S.?
ROSS MACKENZIE
TIMES-DISPATCH COLUMNIST
Thursday, October 16, 2003


In Virginia Beach they're into jury selection in the capital murder trial of John Muhammad, one of two implicated in the sniper shootings that terrorized the D.C. area south to Richmond a year ago. The trial may last two months. The trial of his alleged young accomplice, Lee Malvo, is set to begin later in nearby Chesapeake.

Muhammad, who has pleaded not guilty, may be found innocent. But circumstantial evidence of his involvement abounds.

In the realm of motive - if Muhammad participated in or helped plan the sniper shootings, why? - the principal piece of evidence, apparently carrying telltale DNA, is the note left for authorities at the scene of the shooting in Ashland, demanding $10 million. In the sniper case there may have been a parallel motive as well: hostility to the United States and its values generally, and to its white Christian people in particular.

The sniper shootings happened about a year after 9/11. What follows, drawn partly from material appearing in this space last November, is based solely on information contained in newspaper accounts . . . .

BORN JOHN Williams, he changed his name to John Muhammad in April, 2001 - 16 years after his conversion to Islam. He was a member of Louis Farrakhan's Nation of Islam.
(A Times-Dispatch news account cites a Manassas prison guard testifying Malvo and Muhammad "blamed white people for plotting an assassination attempt on . . . Farrakhan. When [the guard] noted that the [sniper] shooting victims were of all races, Malvo said he and Muhammad intentionally selected racially diverse targets . . . .'He said, "If we only shot white people, the cops would catch up to us quicker, so we shot all kinds of people."'")

A former Washington state friend said Muhammad disparaged Christians and Jews. "In his mind, even black people were no good if they stood with whites or Christians." The friend added it might not be merely coincidental that none of the sniper victims was visibly Muslim.
Muhammad is believed to have shot up a synagogue in Tacoma, Washington. He was connected with the Islamic Center in Laurel, Maryland. Federal authorities have investigated whether he had ties to a sect of militant American Muslims (al-Fuqra) committed to waging holy war against the U.S. - and linked (as of a year ago) to 13 killings and 17 firebombings in the U.S. and Canada. Specifically, Muhammad may have had connections to an al-Fuqra commune in Georgia.
(Al-Fuqra - "the impoverished," seeking to purify Islam through violence - is suspected of having had ties to Richard Reid, the Briton convicted of trying to blow up a Paris-to-Miami jetliner with a shoe-bomb two years ago. Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl, on his way through Pakistan to meet al-Fuqra's top sheik, Mubarik Ali Shah Gilani, was kidnapped and beheaded.)

THE SNIPER shootings began October 2, the anniversary of the 1995 conviction of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing's ringleader Sheik Omar Abdul Rahman and others, including reputed al-Fuqra members.
Some who knew Muhammad said he embraced the anti-Americanism of Osama bin Laden. He also is said to have rejoiced in 9/11, saying the 9/11 attacks "should have happened a long time ago." In Camden, New Jersey, he registered the Caprice implicated in the year-later sniper shootings to his name on 9/11 - apparently with a time notation coinciding with the World Trade Center jetliner attacks.
A Washington state acquaintance told the FBI two years ago he suspected Muhammad of being a member of a terrorist group. Another Washington acquaintance who is not a Muslim said Muhammad always greeted him with a traditional Muslim salutation in Arabic.
. . .

John Muhammad seems clearly to be embittered and an Islamist terrorist sympathizer. As noted here previously, if he were a Branch Davidian or a religious rightist calling himself "God," and if his declared religion had broadly known terrorist factions, everyone would be all over his religious connections and those connections to terror. His trial could prove him to be not only guilty in the sniper shootings, but the Muslims' worst nightmare.

Prior to the sniper shootings, Muhammad dwelled outside the law in an underworld of scams, guns, and false documents. He was a control freak who may have manipulated the much-younger Malvo. He may have been a Hamas or Islamic Jihad come-here or even a sleeper al-Qaedist - or if not so formally, then may have viewed himself as such. We may never know. Contrarily, many of his associations and sympathies may come out at his trial.

Indeed, if guilty in the sniper shootings, his motives may have gone beyond mere money. John Muhammad may have viewed himself - may style himself even now - as a fifth-column footsoldier in the Islamist terror war against the infidel United States.


This story can be found at: http://www.timesdispatch.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=RTD%2FMGArticle%2FRTD_BasicArticle&c=MGArticle&cid=1031771573759&path=%21editorials%21oped&s=1045855935007

[tubavil]

Fabulous article ping.