Terrorism Headlines of the Week
SITE Institute
Domestic
LA Terror Plot May Have Been Linked to Gang
LOS ANGELES - Officials are investigating whether an alleged terrorist plot to attack Los Angeles-area targets on Sept. 11 or Jewish holidays was organized by members of a militant Islamic state prison gang, a top law enforcement official said Wednesday.
Federal and local counterterrorism officials are examining possible ties between a Pakistani man arrested in Los Angeles and a prison gang known as Jamat Ul-Islam Is Saheeh, said George Gascon, assistant chief of the Los Angeles Police Department.
Investigators believe Hammad Riaz Samana, who was arrested Aug. 2, has communicated with former or current inmates at California State Prison, Sacramento, involved with the gang, Gascon said.
Samana's arrest followed an investigation in which authorities found what they believe was a terrorist target list after they arrested two men on suspicion of a series of gas station robberies in Los Angeles County. That list included three National Guard facilities, the Israeli Consulate and several synagogues.
Gascon said authorities believe the attacks were to be carried out on Sept. 11, the Jewish High Holidays or other dates, and warned the consulate and guard that their buildings were on the list.
Source: The Associated Press
Pakistani authorities question Muslim cleric, son deported by U.S.
Pakistan has started questioning a Muslim cleric and his son who were deported from the United States on immigration charges earlier this week after the father was accused of having terrorist links, the interior minister said Thursday.
Muhammad Adil Khan and his son, Muhammad Hassan Adil Khan, arrived late Wednesday in the eastern city of Lahore after being deported Monday from California.
Intelligence agents were interrogating the two men, who had resisted arrest on returning to Pakistan, at an undisclosed location in Lahore, one agent said on condition of anonymity as he is not authorized to speak to media.
Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao confirmed that the men had returned to Pakistan, and said the "process" of questioning them had begun.
Pakistan often detains its citizens for questioning for a few days if they are deported from other countries. The detention can last for months if they are suspected of terrorist links.
The elder Khan was among five men arrested at a Lodi, Calif., mosque in June after U.S. authorities infiltrated the local Pakistani community and secretly recorded dozens of conversations over three years.
Source: The Associated Press
Another suspect in Lodi terror case will be deported
A second Muslim leader from Lodi agreed Monday in a brief appearance in San Francisco immigration court to be deported to his home country of Pakistan.
Immigration officials said Shabbir Ahmed's departure would protect Americans. But his defense attorney said that, by allowing Ahmed to leave the country, prosecutors revealed the weakness of a federal terror probe in the San Joaquin County city.
(snip)
Ahmed, 39, was charged only with violating the terms of his religious- worker visa, but an FBI agent testified last week that he had conspired in a complex scheme to recruit young men in Lodi to carry out violence as ordered by al Qaeda-linked extremists in Pakistan.
(excerpted)
Source: San Francisco Chronicle
Jaber Indicted By Federal Grand Jury
FAYETTEVILLE -- A University of Arkansas graduate student accused of trying to join the Palestinian holy war against Israel has been indicted by a federal grand jury.
Arwah Jaber, 33, was indicted on charges of knowingly attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization earlier this year, failing to disclose an alias on an application for naturalization in 2000 and an application for a passport in 2002, and using a fake Social Security number on a credit card application in 2000.
He is set for arraignment Sept. 6. before a federal magistrate judge in Fayetteville.
Patrick Benca, one of Jaber's attorneys, said the defense does not get a chance to present its side of the story to a grand jury and federal prosecutors are free to present or leave out whatever evidence they want.
"That's how the system is," Benca said.
The U.S. attorney's office declined comment.
Jaber was pulled out of line and arrested June 16 at the Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport. The government contends he was flying out to join the jihad. Jaber maintains he was going to visit relatives.
Source: Springdale Morning News
Al-Arian Lied To Help In-Law, Prosecutors Say
TAMPA - Sami Al-Arian desperately sought evidence that could spring his brother-in- law from jail.
He needed receipts for contributions made a decade earlier. He needed witnesses for an August 2000 immigration hearing to say his charity, the Islamic Committee for Palestine, sent money abroad for clinics, orphans and other needy people.
Prosecutors say that scramble was riddled with lies to conceal Al-Arian and Mazen Al-Najjar's involvement with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorist group.
Obstruction of justice is one of 53 counts against Al-Arian and three other men. Transcripts of secretly recorded telephone calls by Al-Arian and his fellow defendants read to jurors Wednesday showed the effort's urgency.
The men also are charged with racketeering, conspiracy and providing material support to terrorists.
In one call, Al-Arian wants a receipt, but couldn't remember where he sent money in 1990. It was a clinic in Tulkarm or Nablus, both West Bank towns, he told co-defendant Sameeh Hammoudeh.
Source: Tampa Bay Tribune
Islamic charity seeks to distance itself from fugitive founder
ASHLAND (AP) — The defunct U.S. chapter of an Islamic charity indicted on tax evasion and money laundering charges has asked a federal judge to force prosecutors to present their case or drop all charges for good.
The Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation in Ashland also wants to be dropped as a co-defendant in a combined federal lawsuit filed by Sept. 11 victims against people and groups alleged to be terrorists or who aid terrorists.
Federal prosecutors had filed a motion earlier this month to dismiss the charges against the foundation chapter, calling it a “functionless shell” left behind by its founder, Pete Seda, and Soliman Al-Buthe, a Saudi Arabian national, both international fugitives.
Seda and Al-Buthe face felony charges alleging they used the foundation chapter to send about $150,000 out of the country in 2000 to help al-Qaida fighters in Chechnya, and then filed a false tax return to hide the transaction.
Source: The Associated Press
Ill. man says he gave FBI fake terror tips
CHICAGO -- A man admitted Monday that he falsely told federal agents his relatives were linked to Osama Bin Laden's terrorist network and were plotting to blow up the Sears Tower and other landmarks.
Abdul Rauf Noormohamed pleaded guilty in federal court to one count of making false statements to federal agents. He faces up to five years in prison.
A phone message left with Noormohamed's attorney Monday was not returned.
Authorities say Noormohamed made 10 phone calls to state and federal officials between late 2003 and early 2004, falsely saying that "terrorists" were planning to detonate bombs at such landmarks as the Sears Tower, Soldier Field, City Hall and O'Hare International Airport.
The caller never gave his name, but the final call was taped by the FBI, and agents said people accused by the caller recognized the voice as Noormohamed's.
Source: The Associated Press
International
US fuel tanker terror warning extended to London
LONDON: US intelligence chiefs have warned that al-Qa'ida terrorists are plotting to drive hijacked fuel tankers into petrol stations in London, as well as US cities, in an effort to cause mass casualties some time in the next few weeks.
Details of the latest intelligence warning were leaked to the US media late last week, and published by The Weekend Australian, but no mention was made of the threat to London.
The leaked warning, contained in a bulletin issued by the US Department of Homeland Security last week, says the attacks will aim to create catastrophic damage at about the time of the fourth anniversary of the September 11 attacks on New York and Washington.
The warning came as it emerged that the British Department of Transport had for the first time issued guidelines ordering tighter security around the British road tanker fleet.
Source: The Australian
German Court Convicts Sept. 11 Suspect
HAMBURG, Germany (AP) - A German court on Friday convicted a Moroccan man suspected of helping the Sept. 11 hijackers of belonging to a terrorist organization but acquitted him of more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder.
Mounir el Motassadeq, who in 2003 became the first person convicted for the Sept. 11 attacks only to have the ruling later overturned, was given a seven-year sentence by the Hamburg court hearing his retrial.
El Motassadeq, a slight, bearded 31-year-old man, watched calmly as presiding Judge Ernst-Rainer Schudt announced the verdict.
Schudt did not immediately explain the reasons for the decision not to convict el Motassadeq of direct involvement in the Sept. 11 attacks, but criticized U.S. authorities' failure to give more evidence.
Prosecutors had demanded the maximum sentence of 15 years in prison for el Motassadeq, who was accused of helping pay tuition and other bills for cell members to allow them to live as students while they plotted the attacks.
But defense lawyers sought acquittal for the Moroccan, who acknowledges he was close to hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah but insists he knew nothing of their plans. They have criticized the lack of direct testimony from witnesses, including Ramzi Binalshibh, a key Sept. 11 suspect held by the United States.
El Motassadeq was convicted in 2003 on all charges and given the maximum sentence. But a federal appeals court last year overturned the conviction, ruling that he was unfairly denied testimony from al-Qaida suspects in U.S. custody.
Source: The Associated Press
Madrassa student with bin Laden video among 100 held after Bangladesh blasts
DHAKA - A Bangladesh madrassa student found with a video of speeches by Osama bin Laden and military-style training techniques is among 100 people held after a nationwide wave of bombings linked to Muslim extremists, police said on Friday.
A number of those arrested were students or teachers from madrassas, or Islamic seminaries, a senior security official told AFP on condition of anonymity.
“We’ve arrested three suspects including one 18-year-old madrassa student who was caught with a video which shows speeches of Osama bin Laden and military training strategies,” said Khan Sayeed Hasan, commissioner of Khulna Metropolitan Police in southwest Bangladesh.
“From the other two we found books containing training manuals,” he said, adding that all three had been transferred to the capital for further questioning.
More than 100 suspects had been detained, the official BSS news agency said Friday, quoting police officials.
Those detained after the blasts were to be interrogated at a central unit set up in the capital Dhaka, police said.
“These people are the lowest rung of the militant organisation that carried out these attacks,” the security official said.
“We are questioning them to try to find out the extent of their operation and who their chiefs are,” he added.
Source: Agence France Presse
Bin Laden's right-hand man is shot dead by Saudi police in pre-dawn raids
Saudi security forces said yesterday that they had killed Osama bin Laden's reputed chief lieutenant in the kingdom during a series of raids in which at least three other suspected militants died and 10 were arrested.
The pre-dawn operations in the capital Riyadh and the holy city of Medina is a further sign that Saudi security forces, with the help of Western and Arab counter-insurgency experts, have substantially weakened the Saudi branch of al-Qa'eda.
Saleh al-Awfi took over the leadership of the group last year, after Saudi security forces killed his predecessor, Abdulaziz al-Muqrin. According to an interior ministry statement, police raided six al-Qa'eda hideouts in Medina before finding a seventh safe house where Awfi and two others were said to be hiding.
"They opened fire heavily on the security forces and the pedestrians before police returned fire," the statement added. "Investigators were able to prove that one of the two killed is the wanted Saleh al-Awfi."
Source: The Daily Telegraph
Amnesty for Taliban fighters fails to remove sting from Afghan insurgency
NAKA DISTRICT, Afghanistan (AFP) - With a black and silver turban and an assault rifle over one shoulder, former Taliban commander turned Afghan police chief Jon Baz should be a poster boy for Afghanistan's amnesty offer to former militants. He is not.
The former mid-ranking Taliban commander surrendered as part of an Afghan government offer to the estimated 2,000 Taliban rank-and-file fighters who are still conducting a guerrilla campaign against US-led coalition and Afghan government forces.
One month before landmark parliamentary elections on September 18, the amnesty offer has attracted around 200 fighters including Baz.
But it has failed to remove the sting from a mounting insurgency.
In return for promising to give up violence and pledging support to the government of President Hamid Karzai, they are granted an amnesty. Officials are trying to find government jobs for the best qualified of the former militants.
"The general plan is... the ones who want to serve the national interests of the country be offered a job," said Sayed Sharif Yosofi, spokesman for the commission heading the amnesty program.
Naka district where Baz is police chief lies 30 kilometres (18 miles) from the rugged and remote Afghan-Pakistan border in southeastern Paktika province, which has long been a haven for Taliban fighters.
Source: Agence France Presse
Indonesia officials deny al Qaeda operative detained
JAKARTA (Reuters) - Indonesian officials denied on Friday a report that an al Qaeda operative responsible for training camps for European militants had been detained in the country, the world's most populous Moslem nation.
he Asian Wall Street Journal, quoting unnamed intelligence officials, reported on Friday that Indonesian authorities had detained Parlindungan Siregar, an al Qaeda operative Spain wants for his alleged role in the training.
Ansyaad Mbai, head of the anti-terror coordinating board at the office of Indonesia's chief security minister, told Reuters there was information recently that Siregar was in the country but police had not made any arrest.
Asked where in Indonesia, Siregar might be, he said: "That is what we don't know."
A police official who follows intelligence matters told Reuters a man who looked like the Indonesian-born Siregar had been detained this month in Sulawesi, the site where intelligence sources say the training camps operated several years ago, but ultimately proved to be someone else.
"He looked like Parlindungan Siregar, but he's not. We have released him. This guy was arrested in Maros, South Sulawesi about a week ago," said the police official, who declined to be identified.
The official said the police had sent material to the Spanish embassy documenting why Indonesia had determined the man was not Siregar.
Jakarta-based security consultant Ken Conboy of Risk Management Advisory told Reuters he also understood there had been a detention involving someone mistaken for Siregar in August, though earlier than the police official indicated.
The newspaper had reported the detention occurred about two weeks ago.
Source: Reuters
Jordanian soldier killed in twin rocket attacks near US ship
AQABA, Jordan (AFX) - One Jordanian soldier was killed when unidentified attackers fired rockets from Jordan near a US warship in the port of Aqaba and on a neighbouring Israeli resort in apparently coordinated strikes.
The soldier was hit at the dockside in Jordan and was taken to hospital where he died, a security source said.
'The two US Marine ships docked at the port of Aqaba were not hit,' Interior Minister Awni Yervas said. 'An investigation is underway to determine the cause of the explosions.'
Separately, a US military statement said: 'No US sailors and Marines of USS Ashland and USS Kearsarge were injured in an apparent rocket attack that occurred while the ships were in the port of Aqaba, Jordan.
'At approximately 8:44 am local time (0544 GMT), a suspected mortar rocket flew over the USS Ashland's bow and impacted in a warehouse on the pier in the vicinity of the Ashland and USS Kearsarge,' it said.
Source: AFX
Sunni Leaders Attacked In Iraq
BAGHDAD, Aug. 18 -- Masked gunmen in the western city of Ramadi responded violently Thursday to recent calls for political participation among Iraq's Sunni Arab minority, opening fire on local leaders who had gathered to discuss plans to register voters for a nationwide constitutional referendum.
The midmorning attack wounded three people, including the branch heads of the Sunni Endowment, the government agency responsible for Sunni religious affairs, and the Association of Muslim Scholars, Iraq's most influential Sunni religious group. The hail of machine-gun fire from slow-moving sedans came at the close of the meeting, as tribal leaders and Anbar province's governor, Mamoun Sami Rashid, were answering reporters' questions on the steps of the city's Great Mosque.
(excerpted)
Source: Washington Post
Foiled JI truck bomb attack on embassy bared
Authorities earlier this year thwarted a plot by Islamic militants to mount a truck bomb attack on the US embassy in Manila, National Security Adviser Norberto Gonzales told AFP yesterday.
The plot by the Jemaah Islamiyah would have involved “an attack on the US embassy using a 1,000 kg truck bomb,” Gonzales said in an interview.
He said the explosives were recovered after Daud Santos, a Muslim convert who is allegedly a member of the JI-linked Abu Sayyaf Group, was arrested in a police raid in Manila in March.
Also eyed as targets were the embassies of Australia and Britain, key antiterror allies of the United States, Gonzales said.
He said Santos is now free on bail, highlighting Manila’s failure to pass an antiterrorist law that would enable the government to hold terrorist suspects for longer periods.
Under existing laws, suspects detained for possessing explosives can post bail while the judiciary determines their guilt.
Source: Agence France Presse
Britain hails arrest of Al-Qaeda suspect in Turkey as 'significant success'
ANKARA - Britain welcomed Tuesday the arrest in Turkey of a suspected Syrian extremist linked to Al-Qaeda as a "significant success" in the fight against terrorism.
The arrest "underlines the professionalism and commitment shown by Turkish police and represents a significant success in the global struggle against Al-Qaeda and other terrorist organisations," a statement by the British embassy in Ankara said.
The man, named in court documents as Louai Sakra, has admitted to plotting attacks on Israeli cruise ships off Turkey's southern coast.
He is also suspected of involvement in the massive November 2003 suicide bombings at two synagogues, the British consulate and the British HSBC bank in Istanbul which killed some 60 people including the British consul-general.
The British embassy statement, which named the man as Luay Sakka, described him as being suspected of "planning and financing" the Istanbul attacks and "supporting (Abu Musab) Al-Zarqawi's efforts to destabilise Iraq."
Source: Agence France Presse
Indonesia cuts sentences for Bali bombers
JAKARTA, Indonesia --The Indonesian government Wednesday reduced prison sentences for 19 people, including the alleged spiritual head of an al-Qaida-linked group, convicted in the Bali nightclub bombings that killed 202 people. One other person was freed.
The reductions were met with dismay in Australia, home to most of the victims of the 2002 attacks.
Cleric Abu Bakar Bashir, who originally was sentenced to 30 months in prison for his role in the 2002 attacks, had his sentence reduced by 4 1/2 months, said Dedi Sutardi, chief warden at Cipinang Prison in Jakarta.
The reduction, which came on Bashir's 67th birthday, means he could be released from prison in June 2006. Bashir is believed to be the spiritual leader of the Jemaah Islamiyah militant group.
Many in Australia consider the Bali bombings tantamount to an attack on their own country.
The Australian ambassador to Indonesia, David Ritchie, spoke with Indonesian officials but was told nothing could be done to reverse it, Australian Prime Minister John Howard said.
Source: The Associated Press
Afghanistan's Taliban threatens to kill kidnapped Lebanese
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan (AFP) - Taliban militants threatened to kill a kidnapped Lebanese engineer if his Turkish construction company fails to leave Afghanistan within 24 hours.
The engineer, Ahmed Reza, was abducted on Monday near Qalat, the capital of the restive southeastern Zabul province, local officials said.
"If the Turkish company he works for will not leave or prepare for leaving we will kill this engineer" by 12:00 pm (0730 GMT) on Wednesday, Abdul Latif Hakimi, the ousted regime's purported spokesman told AFP.
Some of Hakimi's claims have proved unreliable or exaggerated in the past.
In Beirut, the foreign ministry said Lebanon was working to secure the hostage's release.
Foreign Minister Fawzi Salukh has instructed Lebanon's ambassador to Pakistan, also accredited to Afghanistan, "to undertake the necessary contacts with parties which could help uncover the truth about the kidnapping and seek to obtain his release", it said.
Source: Agence France Presse
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