Daily Terrorist Round-Up Stories - April 13, 2005 (Terrorists killed in Western Iraq)

US troops kill unknown number of insurgents in western Iraq

BAGHDAD, Iraq The U-S military says it's killed several insurgents running a weapons smuggling ring in western Iraq.
Hospital officials say at least nine people are dead and nearly two dozen were wounded. Residents say a dozen more bodies were buried and not taken to the hospital.

The military says insurgents opened fire on U-S soldiers, and a firefight followed. The U-S says at least one suicide bomber is among the dead. No American troops were hurt.

The raid comes a day after insurgents tried unsuccessfully to ram three car bombs, including a fire truck, into a U-S military base in the same town. The terror group al-Qaida in Iraq claimed responsibility.

The U-S military says the attack and raid are unrelated.

Two Algerian Qaeda suspects arrested

PESHAWAR: Pakistan security forces have arrested two Algerians who admitted during interrogation to receiving money from the al Qaeda network, a security official said yesterday. The two, identified as Medjouri Mohammad Said and Mehdi Rabbah, were arrested on Friday in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, near the Afghan border. They initially told interrogators they were from Iraq but later confessed to being Algerians, the official said. “Both have admitted they were paid regularly by al Qaeda contacts,” said the official, who declined to be identified.

Investigators were still trying to determine why the two had been getting money from al Qaeda, although neither man was regarded as a prominent member of the group, or was on any wanted list, the official said. The two had been living in Pakistan since 1990 and had married Pakistani women, he said.

Pakistan has arrested hundreds of al Qaeda suspects since joining the U.S.-led war on terrorism declared after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. Those arrested included Sept. 11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Other senior figures, including al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and his deputy, Ayman al Zawahri, remain at large.

U.S. officials have said they believe bin Laden may be hiding in the rugged border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan. Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf said in March his forces believed they had come close to catching bin Laden about 10 months earlier, but the trail had since gone cold.

Ex-Member of Saddam's Regime Arrested

The Iraqi government said Tuesday it captured a former member of Saddam Hussein's regime who was believed to be funding the insurgency.

The government said in a statement it captured Fadhil Ibrahim Mahmud Al-Mashadani at a farm northeast of Baghdad. It said he worked as the former leader of the military bureau in Baghdad under Saddam.

The statement said al-Mashadani was a high-ranking member of Saddam's Baath Party and was "among the main facilitators of many terrorist attacks in Iraq."

"Mashadani is believed to be personally responsible for coordinating and funding attacks against the Iraqi people," the statement said.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Federal authorities unsealed an indictment Tuesday listing charges against three men now in British custody in connection with the scouting of U.S. financial targets in preparation for a possible terrorist attack.

Several sources described one of the men as an al Qaeda operative. He allegedly conducted some of that surveillance in 2000 and 2001.

The men are charged with conspiracy to use weapons of mass destruction, conspiracy to provide and conceal material support and resources, and conspiracy to damage and destroy buildings used in interstate and foreign commerce.

British authorities took them into custody last August after a series of arrests in Pakistan. A U.S. government source said the men may be extradited to the United States.

In August 2004, Pakistani authorities said they found computer evidence that led them to determine that U.S. buildings had been under surveillance by the suspects in Britain.

Officials said they found detailed surveillance of the Citigroup and New York Stock Exchange buildings in Manhattan, the Prudential headquarters in New Jersey as well as the International Monetary Fund and World Bank buildings in Washington.

In August, the Department of Homeland Security raised its terror threat level for those areas to orange, or high, and then Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge said the move was based on "alarming" intelligence from multiple sources that indicated that al Qaeda terrorists could be poised to strike financial institutions.

Last July, a U.S. intelligence official said the arrest in Pakistan of a then 25-year-old computer expert with suspected ties to al Qaeda yielded a "treasure trove" of evidence that detailed potential attacks against financial targets.

A senior military official told CNN last summer that the computer contained hundreds of images, including photographs, drawings and layouts of various potential U.S. targets.

Some of the photos were years old, while others were more recent, he said. Some images showed underground garages, leading investigators to conclude those areas had been under surveillance.

At the time, law enforcement officials said they believed al Qaeda members were planning another attack on the United States before last November's presidential election.

No such attack materialized.

CNN) -- The alleged recruiter of six Yemeni-Americans from upstate New York who went to al Qaeda military training camps in the summer of 2001 denies recruiting the men or being connected to the terrorist organization linked to the September 11 attacks.

Juma Mohammed Abdul Latif al-Dosari, a Saudi who has been in custody at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, since his capture by U.S. forces near the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, has told a military tribunal reviewing his status that the accusation "that I was recruiting for al Qaeda is not true," according to newly unclassified documents released to a federal court.

Al-Dosari's file is among more than 60 case files of hundreds of Guantanamo detainees that have been deposited with the U.S District Court in Washington, which is handling lawsuits challenging the imprisonments. The files were obtained and posted on the Internet by The Associated Press. (Detainees judge U.S. justice)

According to the documents, the U.S. Navy told an enemy combatant status review board that al-Dosari is a member of al Qaeda who trained at an al Qaeda camp in Afghanistan as early as 1989, learning how to use an AK-47 assault rifle.

Al-Dosari allegedly fought with Muslims in Bosnia in 1995 and with Arabs fighting Russian soldiers in Chechnya in 1996, according to evidence presented to the tribunal by a Navy lawyer.

Saudi authorities detained al-Dosari for questioning in the June 1996 bombing of the Khobar Towers military housing that killed 19 Americans.

Al-Dosari returned to Afghanistan in 2001 and fought with al Qaeda against a U.S. led assault in Tora Bora, according to the Navy. He surrendered to Pakistani authorities later in that year.

"I am not an enemy of the United States," al-Dosari told his Guantanamo interrogators last December, according to the case file.

"I am not a member of al Qaeda. I did not encourage anyone to go fight with al Qaeda, and I had no relationship with al Qaeda," he said.

He denied that his travels to Bosnia were for militant activities, according to the interview notes in the case file.

"I didn't go to Bosnia for jihad. I went there for a blonde white female, to get married," he said.

He also denied that his 1996 trip to Azerbaijan was a stop en route to Chechnya.

"My intention was to sight-see in Azerbaijan because I had never been there before," al-Dosari said. "I went to Azerbaijan to go back to Saudi Arabia, not to go to Chechnya."

A three-person military tribunal upheld al-Dosari's detention after a hearing he chose not to attend.

The hearings were prompted by a Supreme Court decision requiring the military to provide a forum for 550 foreign nationals detained as terrorism suspects to hear evidence behind their detention and challenge it.

"The detainee is properly classified as an enemy combatant and is a member of al Qaeda, that had affiliation with, and was supportive of Taliban forces engaged in hostilities against the United States," the panel found regarding al-Dosari, according to the court documents.

The lead recruiter of Buffalo Six, a Saudi born in Buffalo named Kamal Derwish, was killed in November 2002 by a CIA-launched Predator missile attack on al Qaeda operatives in Yemen.

Al-Dosari, believed to be a friend of Derwish, lived for six months in Bloomington, Ind., and visited Lackawanna, New York, in 2001, speaking at the local mosque and staying with one of the men who later went to Afghanistan.

The six recruits from Lackawanna, a small city five miles from Buffalo, individually pleaded guilty to terrorism-related charges in 2003 and are serving seven- to 10-year sentences in federal prison.

A seventh man who allegedly traveled with the group to Afghanistan, Jaber Elbaneh, is still at large, and the U.S. government is offering $5 million for information leading to his arrest.

SV-Officer I saw this vehicle on the side of the road and I just wanted to make sure it got back to its rightful owner.

Afghan women go into business
By Matthew Pennington

Afghan entrepreneur Sara Rahmani holds a dress, refashioned from the all-covering burqa that was mandatory under the Taliban regime, inside her Kabul clothing shop. The 36-year old former refugee is among the growing number of Afghan women going into business and capitalizing on new opportunities in a thriving yet male-dominated economy./Associated press
Entrepreneur Sara Rahmani picks a brown burqa-style dress from the rack, and holding it in front of her face, shows with a broad smile how she re-fashioned it for post-Taliban Afghanistan.

The all-covering shroud that was mandatory under the hardline regime has become a flowing gown, with head uncovered and the eye-level gauze dropped to the chest - though not too low. It's on sale now for US$30 at her Kabul showroom.

The 36-year old former refugee is among the growing number of Afghan women going into business, capitalizing on new opportunities in a thriving yet male-dominated economy three years after the fall of the Islamist militia.

A smattering of small textile and handicraft workshops, boutiques, beauty parlors and even a soccer ball factory - run by women and employing women - have sprung up around the capital, and the country's first female business association set up with foreign-funding 18 months ago says it has 500 members.

Barred from education and jobs during the five years of Taliban rule, women now have the right, at least on paper, to pursue careers of their choosing. But illiteracy among 86 percent of adult women and cultural constraints still stand in their way.

Men are traditionally regarded as the breadwinners, controlling the purse-strings and usually inheriting all the property within families.

According to the United Nations, the per capita income of Afghan women is only about one third of what it is for men. A recent survey of 360 rural households by a Kabul-based research group found that less than 2 percent of women owned land in their own right.

Mina Sherzoy, head of the government's department of Women's Entrepreneurship Development, said that if women want to get money to start up a business, they typically need financial support or collateral from a male relative.

"There are barriers, and they will be lifted slowly," she said. "We are recovering from war and devastation and Taliban repression ... But there's nothing in Shariah (Islamic law) that says women can't do business."

Rahmani started making clothes during years as a refugee in neighboring Pakistan. She returned to Afghanistan last year, and with a US$35,000 loan from her brother in the United States, set up shop in a cramped, two-story terrace.

After seven months, she employs 70 women: 10 doing machine stitching on site, and 60 others doing embroidery by hand from home; and two Afghan men - one tailor to teach the workers, another English-speaker to help with marketing and shopping for fabric.

Her company, Sara Afghan, is still struggling to make ends meet, but is busy with orders from two American clients for 100 blouses and 100 sets of duvet covers and sheets, from which Rahmani hopes to make about US$2,000 profit.

"We have two orders, so we should be OK to pay salaries and rent for the next two months. God willing, after that, more business will come," she said. "A lot of poor women are praying for me."

Across town, another cottage industry makes quality leather balls for soccer, volleyball and handball - hand-stitched by about 130 women working from home, many of them widowed during a quarter-century of war.

Aziza Mohmmand, 45, who ran a secret girls' school at her house during the Taliban rule and heads an Afghan aid group to help women, said she got the idea two years ago when she saw a young boy on a Kabul street trying to sell a homemade ball.

"At the start, it was a struggle. We had so many footballs, we'd spent lots of money and we couldn't seem to sell them," she said at her Kabul office above the din of a generator that drives a machine used to cut out hexagons of leather for stitching together.

"But demand gradually picked up. Before Ramadan (last November) we discovered for the first time we were actually out of stock."

They produce more than 1,000 balls a month - each with a two-year guarantee - supplying local markets and the Afghan Olympic association. A German aid group has helped fund training of the workforce, and now the factory can at least cover its costs.

Wages are paltry, but with few factories and job opportunities for women in the sprawling city of between 3 and 4 million people, they're welcome. Women earn 32 Afghanis (US$0.64) for each ball they stitch - a few Afghanis less if the quality is not so good.

A new worker can take two days to stitch a ball, but those with experience can make up to four a day. The factory sells soccer balls for about 300 Afghanis (US$6) a piece.

"Before this we had no job," said 16-year old Morsal, a returned refugee as she stitched a ball in front of the family's simple house, plastic sheeting covering the windows. "I'm happy we got training and have this skill," she said.

11 Pakistanis charged over Spanish terror plot

Madrid: Spanish authorities have charged 11 Pakistani nationals over suspected links with Al-Qaeda sympathisers who carried out the Madrid train bombings a year ago, judicial sources said on Wednesday.

One of the 11, Shahzad Ali Gujar, is suspected of having transferred funds to members of Al-Qaeda, including Amjad Farooki, who Pakistani security forces killed last September and who was implicated in the murder of US journalist Daniel Pearl.

Wall Street Journal reporter Pearl was executed by Islamic extremists in the Pakistani city of Karachi in early 2002.

Farooki is widely believed to have been an Al-Qaeda recruiter. In all, investigators believe Al-Qaeda members in Pakistan received some 800,000 euros (one million dollars) in funds from Spain.

Mohamed Afzaal, believed to have headed the Pakistani cell in question, is suspected of sending money last September to Rabei Ousman Sayed Ahmed, alias "Mohammed the Egyptian", who is currently in custody on suspicion of involvement in the train bombings which killed 191 people.

Two of the 11, Shahzad Ali Gujar and Adnan Aslam, are thought to have met "Mohammed the Egyptian" in Brescia, Italy, in May 2003.

Shahzad Ali Gujar is suspected of meeting Othman el Gnaout, another March 11 suspect, three days before Spain's worst ever terrorist attack, while he is additionally suspected of meeting Saed el Harrak, also in Spanish detention, the day after the blasts.

The judge overseeing the case says that "a group was constituted in Barcelona with a view to supporting global jihad from Spanish territory (via) the financing of concrete terrorist acts and people recruited to carry them out."

The judge considers there is hard evidence to suggest that Mohamed Afzaal travelled to Dubai in early 2004 where Al-Qaeda operatives instructed him to create terrorist cells in Spain and Norway or Denmark to finance the terrorist network's activities.

The Pakistanis are further charged with preparing an attack in Barcelona, having been found to be in possession of films and detailed maps of several major buildings in the eastern Spanish metropolis. One of the maps depicted a shopping mall in the city's port area.

Spanish authorities named the 11-strong group as Mohamed Afzaal, Shahzad Ali Gujar, Nasser Ahmad Khan, Masoud Akhtar, Shafqat Ali, Mahmoud Anwar, Adnan Aslam, Farhat Iqbat, Irfan Khan, Zaman Qamar Uz and Mohamed Choudhry Aslam.

JAKARTA (Reuters) - An Indonesian court jailed two Muslim militants, one of them from Malaysia, on Wednesday for involvement in the 2003 bombing of the JW Marriott Hotel in Jakarta that killed 12 people.

Sunarto, a 56-year-old Indonesian man also known as Adung, was jailed for seven years for providing assistance to the bombmakers and possession of a firearm.

Prosecutors had asked for 10 years.

"The defendant is proven to have intentionally given assistance to terror criminals by concealing information of their whereabouts," said Judge Efran Basuning of the South Jakarta Court.

"The defendant knew that Noordin M. Top was a fugitive ... but he did not report to the police," the judge said, referring to a Malaysian national accused of planning and carrying out a string of deadly blasts, including the 2002 Bali bombings that killed 202 people, most of them foreign tourists.

A Malaysian man, Sabtu Rani, 30, also known as Ruslan bin Abdul Hamid, was sentenced to four years, less than the seven demanded by prosecutors.

The court said he had hidden information on the whereabouts of fellow militants from the police.

Two Malaysian fugitives, Noordin M. Top and Azahari bin Husin, are accused by Indonesian authorities and many foreign governments of being key players in the al Qaeda-linked Jemaah Islamiah militant network operating in Asia.

Tinsukia, Apr 12: A total of 21 militants, including 16 of the ULFA, today surrendered before the Army in Assam`s Tinsukia district. The militants surrendered before General Officer Commanding of 2 Mountain Division Major General P S Rana at 181 Mountain Brigade at Laipuli area of the district along with a huge cache of arms and ammunitions.

The militants deposited three AK-47 with magazines and 71 rounds of live ammunition, nine pistols, six 12 bore guns, two grenades, a radio set and assorted ammunitions. Speaking on the occasion, Maj Gen Rana congratulated the surrendered cadres for leaving the path of violence and deciding to start a new life.

He also urged militants in the region also to follow the example of the surrendered militants and work towards building a peaceful and prosperous Assam. ``The surrender by the militants is a Bihu gift to their families and also indicates a positive response to the general amnesty announced by Assam government``, he added.

NARATHIWAT, Apr 12 (TNA) - Police in violence-ridden Narathiwat said Tuesday they have arrested two men on suspicion of bombing a local hotel and shooting to death as many as 15 people.

Pol Col Thanongsak Pattraphanu, deputy chief of Narathiwat Provincial Police, said police have gathered solid evidence to prosecute the suspects-- even though they have denied the charges. The police spoke to reporters at a press conference this morning, when they announced the arrests.

Police identified the first suspect as the 33-year-old Yuelam Sama, arrested Monday evening while buying food in a fresh market. Yuelam is suspected of bombing the Luan Heng Hotel in Ra Ngae district last Friday. The bombing injured several persons and caused property damage.

Meanwhile, Marorsuelan Naepeenae, 22, was arrested on charges of manslaughter. Police found a 9mm pistol in his possession and said it was the same gun used to kill a police informer last September.

Pol Col Thanongsak said they suspected him of being the killer and said that he also has shot dead as many as 15 others with the same gun. The weapon has been sent to experts for further inspection.

'Va. Jihad' Witness Says He Urged Holy War

By MATTHEW BARAKAT

(AP) - ALEXANDRIA, Va.-A key prosecution witness at the trial of an Islamic scholar accused of exhorting his followers to fight U.S. troops in Afghanistan admitted under cross-examination Monday that he had long urged his friends to engage in holy war independent of any encouragement from the defendant.

Yong Ki Kwon has testified that he was inspired by the defendant - Ali al-Timimi, 41, of Fairfax - at a Sept. 16, 2001 meeting to aid the Taliban in Afghanistan as it faced a looming U.S. invasion after Sept. 11.
Click here to find out more!

Kwon is one of four men who traveled to Pakistan in late September 2001 to train with a militant group called Lashkar-e-Taiba. Kwon has said it was his intention to use his training on behalf of the Taliban, though he never actually made it into Afghanistan and eventually established a business in Pakistan selling mangoes.

Kwon has said it was at the Sept. 16 meeting with al-Timimi that he was inspired to use his training on the Taliban's behalf, after hearing al-Timimi warn that an apocalyptic battle between Muslims and non-believers was at hand, and that it was the duty of all Muslims to engage in holy war in Afghanistan or anywhere else that Muslims are under attack.

But during Monday's cross-examination, Kwon's recollection of what was said during that meeting was often faulty, and he spoke haltingly.

Kwon admitted that well before Sept. 11 he had urged his friends - who often got together to play paintball in the Virginia woods - to train with Lashkar-e-Taiba so they might be able to fight in Kashmir, Chechnya or other hot spots in the Muslim world. Kwon said Monday that he never discussed those recruiting efforts with al-Timimi.

Kwon already has struck a plea bargain and been convicted for his role in what prosecutors described as a "Virginia jihad network."

Prosecutors have said al-Timimi was a respected scholar who enjoyed "rock star" status among his followers and that he used that influence to guide them into holy war against the United states.

Al-Timimi's lawyers have said he only counseled young Muslims after Sept. 11 that they might be wise to leave the United states because it would become difficult to practice their faith in this country.

Two militants killed in Srinagar encounter

(ANI News) Srinagar: Security forces today killed two suspected militants of a Pakistan-based group in an encounter at Pattan, 50 kilometers from Srinagar.
Security forces laid a cordon in the area following a tip-off. The militants, who are suspected of having links with Lashkar-e-Taiba, started firing after they refused to surrender. Search is on for the third militant who was injured in the encounter.

“At around 12, they started firing again. We came to know of the place from where they were firing at us. After a prolonged encounter, we were able to eliminate two of them, while the third who was injured managed to escape. Hopefully, we will soon catch him too,” said Mumram Singh, Brigadier of 10 sector of Rashtriya Rifles.

The armed forces also recovered arms and ammunition from the slain militants.

Violence in Kashmir has dipped after India and Pakistan started peace talks, but escalated in the last two weeks as rebels tried to stop the bus service across the region.

The bus service, launched last week, is the most visible sign of progress in a slow-moving peace process between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan, who have fought two wars over Kashmir in the last half a century.

More than 45,000 people have been killed in Jammu and Kashmir. (India News)

To: AdmSmith; Cap Huff; Coop; Dog; Ernest_at_the_Beach; ganeshpuri89; Boot Hill; Snapple; ...

2 posted on 04/13/2005 7:50:38 AM PDT by Straight Vermonter (Proud parent of Vermont's 6th grade state chess champion.)

SV-Officer I saw this vehicle on the side of the road and I just wanted to make sure it got back to its rightful owner.

Do I detect a hint of sarcasm?

3 posted on 04/13/2005 8:05:07 AM PDT by Valin (The Problem with Reality is the lack of background music)

Investigators were still trying to determine why the two had been getting money from al Qaeda,

Lets see two guys from Algeria (a county where you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a terrorist) and they're getting money from Al Qaeda.

I'm thinking they wanted to open a McDonalds.

4 posted on 04/13/2005 8:08:36 AM PDT by Valin (The Problem with Reality is the lack of background music)

Yong Ki Kwon has testified that he was inspired by the defendant

It sounds like a Chinese name. I hope its not the Islam extremists of Uighur from China flooding into Afghanistan joining the Taliban.

Thank you for your efforts in accumulating and posting these articles!

TXnMA

Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.