Posted on 07/20/2005 6:41:28 PM PDT by Splatter
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Investigators probing the London terror bombings are focusing on an elusive British Muslim suspect who is connected to a previous plot to set up a terrorist training camp in rural southern Oregon, according to U.S. counterterrorism officials.
Officials told both NBC News and CNN Wednesday that Haroon Rashid Aswat, believed to be a mastermind of the London bombings, is the same British-born Muslim of Indian descent who scouted a Bly, Oregon ranch to set up a terror camp.
These officials said Aswat, a Pakistani national being sought for questioning as a person of interest by British authorities, was among three unindicted co-conspirators in the Oregon incident.
U.S. officials said a 2002 indictment in the Bly case links Aswat directly to Abu Hamza al-Masri, a fiery, one-eyed radical cleric from a London mosque who is now on trial in Britain for possessing al-Qaida literature and inciting the killing of Jews and other non-Muslims.
"I think this just gives us a glimpse into what might be happening inside the United States," said retired Air Force Lt. Col. Rick Francona, an NBC News terrorism expert. "We were able to uncover one operation — how many others are out there?"
"What's very scary is not only can they travel very easily through Europe, they could travel very easily to the United States because of their British citizenship," added retired Portland State University professer Gary Perlstein, a KGW terrorism expert.
The documents reveal Aswat worked with a Seattle man, James Ujaama, who pleaded guilty in 2003 to a charge of providing support to the Taliban for his role in trying to set up the "jihad training camp." Ujaama is now cooperating with federal prosecutors.
The southern Oregon ranch that may have been scouted as a potential terrorist training camp. (KGW Photo)
Court documents in the Ujaama case said a conspirator, whom U.S. officials identified as Aswat, arrived in New York City in November 1999 on Abu Hamza's orders. He made his way to Oregon, according to the documents, "for the purpose of evaluating the Bly property as a jihad training camp."
In the indictment, prosecutors also alleged the conspirators "met potential candidates for jihad training ... established security for the Bly property ... and they and others participated in firearms training and viewed a video recording on the subject of improvised poisons."
The documents also said Aswat, along with another conspirator, lived in Seattle in early 2000 and "expounded on the teachings" of Abu Hamza.
Aswat, in his early 30s, has family that lives in Leeds in northern England, where three of the four suspected London suicide bombers resided. At his family's house, neighbors said they haven't seen Aswat in nearly 10 years.
Aswat's believed to be hiding out in Pakistan, where government officials said he wasn't in custody and remained at large as of Wednesday night.
http://www.longwarjournal.org/tags/Shabaab/common/
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http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/10/shabaab_threatens_br.php
“Shabaab threatens Britain over extradition of Abu Hamza al Masri”
By BILL ROGGIO AND LISA LUNDQUIST
October 23, 2012
SNIPPET: “Yesterday the Somali terror group Shabaab threatened to attack Britain for extraditing radical Muslim cleric Abu Hamza al Masri, who arrived in the US on Oct. 5 after being held for nine years in a British prison. The al Qaeda affiliate also pledged “to go to every possible length” to free the Blind Sheikh, another convicted terrorist, who is serving a life sentence in the US for murdering US citizens.
Shabaab threatened Britain and pledged to work to free the Blind Sheikh, in a series of 11 tweets on its Twitter account, HSM Press Office (@HSMPress, or Harakat al Shabaab al Mujahideen Press Office).”
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22165302
16 April 2013 Last updated at 05:30 ET
“Haroon Aswat US extradition opposed by court”
SNIPPET: “The European Court of Human Rights has ruled a terrorism suspect should not be extradited from the UK to the US due to his mental health problems.
Haroon Aswat allegedly tried to establish a training camp in Oregon with the radical cleric Abu Hamza, who was extradited to the US last year.
But Mr Aswat said conditions in a ‘supermax’ jail could exacerbate his paranoid schizophrenia.”
SNIPPET: “Mr Aswat has been detained at Broadmoor high security psychiatric hospital since 2008, after being transferred from prison.
He was arrested in the UK in 2005 following a request for his arrest and extradition from US authorities, after allegedly plotting to set up a terror training camp in the US state of Oregon with Abu Hamza.
In October 2012, Abu Hamza, Babar Ahmad, Syed Talha Ahsan, Adel Abdul Bary and Khaled al-Fawwaz were extradited to the US.”
Some of us have been posting and reporting on Free Republic shortly after 9/11 about Islamic terrorist training camps in the West Coast and around the nation.
Go to the key words and look up alfuqra and Jamaat ul-Fuqra to see the over a decade of documentation of these terror camps.
Unfortunately, a lot of Freepers have ignored these postings as they have other agendas.
The guy who brought up these training camps was not crazy about this.
Some of our postings have forced action by local leos and even the left wing mediots. This forced the Islamofascists to shut down the camps and even a school near Fresno and the site in Oregon which was shut down after exposure on the internet.
We have closer worries than Russia killing the cousins of these bastards in Syria.
Take a few minutes and check out the above key words: Jamaat ul-Fuqra, alfuqra about terror camps in America and maybe where you and your family live/sork.
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