Threat Matrix: September 2007

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[nwctwx]

The Birth of al Qaedastan

In the year 2016, the world may find itself gloomily marking September 6 as the tenth anniversary of the creation of the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan. The Emirate received de facto recognition when the Taliban used the name on the ceasefire agreement they signed with Pakistan on that day in 2006. If things go terribly wrong in the coming decade, they could come to rule a mountainous fragment of Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The Emirate would be a nightmare state: Osama bin Laden as sultan, Ayman al Zawahiri as vizier, and Mullah Omar the spiritual leader. An economy built on smuggling and heroin. Primary export: terrorism. Welcome to ‘Al Qaedastan’.

Analysts say the rise of a terrorist state straddling the rugged area between Pakistan and Afghanistan is now viable. The reason is a number of troubling trends. One, the revival of a Taliban firmly in the control of Al Qaeda. Two, the seeming inability of either Kabul or Islamabad to defeat the new threat militarily. Three, and the most striking, the Taliban’s systematic supplanting of the traditional tribal leadership in the area. Full story...

	Lebanon: Tiny Country, Big Threats
	Islamist Web Site Explains 'How to Join Al Qaeda'
	The Ongoing Hunt for Osama bin Laden

Threat Matrix:
September 2007

August 2007

Threat Matrix Index

Theat Matrix Handbook

Theat Matrix 'BOLO'

Invaluable Tips

Preparedness

[Godzilla]

I can’t believe that they are without consequence and that UBL popped out of the shadows after such a long break for no reason.

I agree. I suspect that the shock shown by the islamic sources that were suppose to release the first video when they were preempted by western analysts might point to the fact that they were suppose to be of consequence. But by being able to get a hold of them early, may have taken wind out of the sails and now are trying to put up a smoke screen of sorts.

[Kimberly GG]

Man taking photos of I-80 bridge found to be on terror watch list

STROUDSBURG, Pa. - The Monroe County district attorney says a man on a terrorism watch list was discovered taking photos of the Interstate 80 bridge crossing the Delaware River.

District Attorney E. David Christine tells The Morning Call of Allentown that police talked with the man Monday, but didn’t detain him. Christine says the man told police he was taking pictures for fun while on vacation. Christine says authorities didn’t learn that the man was on the FBI watch list until later.

The man’s name wasn’t immediately released.

The man was taking pictures from the New Jersey side of the bridge.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1895364/posts

[ExSoldier]

Oh to have this tried back during the Clinton regime! I'm very much afraid we don't have the time required for this solution to be implemented. It would take years of dedicated undermining and support of a replacement government. It could have been easily accomplished back when we weren't under such of a deadline to stop them from going atomic. We're out of time to pull it off with the required finesse. Now it's got to be done the hard way.

[Oorang]

That’s quite the list, thanks Milford.

[Oorang]

I know that notice of a third video has been posted but this article had a few more details.

Terrorism: Al-Qaeda to release third 9/11 video

Dubai, 12 Sept. 2007 - Al-Qaeda will release a third video to mark the sixth anniversary of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, according to postings on Islamist websites on the Internet on Wednesday.

The websites said that the video will be entitled, "The two expeditions to New York and Washington, causes and motives", and is expected to be a documentary which will explain the reasons why the terrorist group carried out the attacks on 11 September 2001 in the United States that killed close to 3,000 people.

Other reports, quoting US monitoring groups, say that the new video will will show Al-Qaeda's chief in Afghanistan, Mustafa Abu Al-Yazid, also known as Sheikh Said. The news of this third video comes after two others were released in connection with the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks.

Al-Qaeda released Osama bin Laden's first video in three years last Friday. Then on Tuesday, a second message showed a still image of bin Laden with a voice praising Waleed al-Shehri, one of the 9/11 hijackers. The second video also included footage of al-Shehri, speaking about what motivated him to carry out the attack.

http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.1299764380

[Oorang]

Italy 'ill-equipped' to deal with threat, explosives expert says

Parma, 12 Sept. 2007 - One of Italy's most prominent experts of the effects of explosive devices has warned the country is 'ill-equipped" to deal with possible terrorist bomb attacks such as those that have struck Madrid in 2002 and London in 2005.

"We continue to lull in the fact that so far all has gone fine," Danilo Coppe, director of the Parma-based Institute of Research in Explosives told Adnkronos. Coppe was speaking about the findings of the year-long European Union-funded ABVERC Project which investigates the vulnerability to terrorist attacks of a series of potential targets throughout Europe.

"In our country (Italy) we need to change mentality," said Coppe who was participating in an international round table discussion in Parma from Wednesday through Friday to discuss the project's findings.

Excerpted

http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.1300762440

Poll: Bin Laden tops Musharraf in Pakistan
9/11/07

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf -- a key U.S. ally -- is less popular in his own country than al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, according to a poll of Pakistanis conducted last month by an anti-terrorism organization.

Additionally, nearly three-fourths of poll respondents said they oppose U.S. military action against al Qaeda and the Taliban inside Pakistan, according to results from the poll conducted by the independent polling organization Terror Free Tomorrow. "We have conducted 23 polls all over the Muslim world, and this is the most disturbing one we have conducted," said Ken Ballen, the group's head. "Pakistan is the one Muslim nation that has nuclear weapons, and the people who want to use them against us -- like the Taliban and al Qaeda -- are more popular there than our allies like Musharraf."

The poll was conducted for Terror Free Tomorrow by D3 Systems of Vienna, Virginia., and the Pakistan Institute for Public Opinion. Interviews were conducted August 18-29, face-to-face with 1,044 Pakistanis across 105 urban and rural sampling points in all four provinces across the nation. Households were randomly selected.

Excerpted

http://www.cnn.com/2007/POLITICS/09/11/poll.pakistanis/index.html

Pakistanis Oppose US Terror Hunts
9/12/07

WASHINGTON — Only a quarter of Pakistanis support their military working with U.S. forces to pursue terrorists inside Pakistan, and even fewer favor letting American forces mount such operations on their own, a poll released on Tuesday said.

In a broader measure of America's unpopularity in its erstwhile ally against terrorism, 19 percent of Pakistanis see the U.S. favorably — half the number with a positive view of India, a bitter rival Pakistan has fought in three wars since 1947. The U.S.-backed Pakistani president, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, is less popular than Osama bin Laden, though both are far better liked than President Bush.

Excerpted

http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gwiVhWW3WkWgHNYUkBy95Su8IKcg

[Oorang]

CAIR Terror Fatwa Signatories Attend Conference Honoring HAMAS Terror Cleric Qaradawi
September 12, 2007

Despite their fatwah saying terrorism is haram (forbidden) in Islam, some of CAIR’s signatories to the fatwah attended a conference honoring a cleric who is listed by the U.S. as a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist.” FSM Contributing Editor Patrick Poole has the details.

On July 28, 2005, the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) held a press conference trumpeting a fresh fatwa issued by the Fiqh Council of North America allegedly condemning terrorism, a document that was subsequently signed by CAIR and more than one hundred other American Muslim organizations. The Fiqh Council of North America/CAIR terrorism fatwa specifically states:

In the light of the teachings of the Qur’an and Sunnah we clearly and strongly state:
1) All acts of terrorism targeting civilians are haram (forbidden) in Islam.
2) It is haram for a Muslim to cooperate with any individual or group that is involved in any act of terrorism or violence.
3) It is the civic and religious duty of Muslims to cooperate with law enforcement authorities to protect the lives of all civilians.

The CAIR media event, which featured the premiere of a public service announcement by the group heralding the issuance of the “anti-terror” fatwa, was covered by the New York Times and the Washington Post, and picked up by countless other media establishment outlets.

At the time, Steve Emerson of the Investigative Project commented at Counterterrorism Blog, “The Islamic Leaders’ ‘Fatwa’ is Bogus,” on the vacuous nature of the document:

In fact, the fatwa is bogus. Nowhere does it condemn the Islamic extremism ideology that has spawned Islamic terrorism. It does not renounce nor even acknowledge the existence of an Islamic jihadist culture that has permeated mosques and young Muslims around the world. It does not renounce Jihad let alone admit that it has been used to justify Islamic terrorist acts. It does not condemn by name any Islamic group or leader. In short, it is a fake fatwa designed merely to deceive the American public into believing that these groups are moderate. In fact, officials of both organizations have been directly linked to and associated with Islamic terrorist groups and Islamic extremist organizations. One of them is an unindicted co-conspirator in a current terrorist case; another previous member was a financier to Al-Qaeda.

Excerpted

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/terrorism.php?id=1325249

[TWhiteBear]

Along the same line as, but different than, your Whitley Fuel Fire post,

Arson destroy six school buses at Coulee City, by Grand Coulee Dam. I recall posts about school buses being stolen. I expect security is really tight, especially for ‘school buses’ around Grand Coulee.

http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003880794_webbusfire12.html?syndication=rss

[Rushmore Rocks]

Thanks for verifying what I was sure I heard this morning. I was beginning to think I was hallucinating.

There’s that pesky “three” thing again.

[Oorang]

You're welcome RR.

_____________________________

Austria arrests three with al Qaeda links
Wed 12 Sep 2007

VIENNA - Austria has arrested three people linked to al Qaeda who posted an video message on the Internet threatening attacks against Austria and Germany, Interior Minister Guenther Platter said on Wednesday.

The trio are suspected of producing the video, which demanded German and Austrian soldiers leave Afghanistan, but in electronic surveillance over several months police found no concrete indications that attacks were in the offing, he said. "Austria was not under threat of an attack at any time," Platter told a news conference. "We could determine that based on the actions of the three."

The arrests came a week after Germany said it foiled an Islamist militant plan to carry out "massive bomb attacks" on U.S. installations in the country. Germany arrested three men. Platter said he knew of no links between the German and the Austrian suspects, but said the surveillance had produced evidence the Austrians had contacts to al Qaeda.

Excerpted

http://africa.reuters.com/world/news/usnL12801344.html

Jihad Union hard-pressed to explain strange statement
Sep 12, 2007, 2007

Istanbul - The statement claiming reponsibility for planning an attack on the US airbase in Germany's Ramstein earlier in the week by the Islamic Jihad Union from Uzbekistan is considered to be genuine by German's Interior Ministry, but the message published on the internet raised more questions than it answered.

Firstly, why would a terrorist organization admit to planning an attack that has already been prevented by the security forces in the planning stages? The court appearances of two German Muslims and a Turk who were arrested on September 5 in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia for plotting attacks in Germany were certainly complicated when the Islamic Jihad Union declared them 'our brothers.'

Secondly, the internet message said that there would be further attacks against US and Uzbek consulates in Germany. At the same time, the message directed less criticism at the US than at Germany which uses the US airbase for logistical support to German troops in Afghanistan.

Thirdly, the message appeared in Arabic and Turkish. The Arabic was only used for quotations from the Koran, which is no surprise for an Islamist group, but the question remains why the terrorists used flawless Turkish for the message and not the Cyrillic script normally used in Uzbekistan.

Excerpted

http://news.monstersandcritics.com/europe/features/article_1355163.php/Jihad_Union_hard-pressed_to_explain_strange_statement

[Oorang]

Researcher: Bin Laden's beard is real, video is not
September 12, 2007

On the Friday before the sixth anniversary of 9/11, Osama bin Laden appeared in a new video, his first since prior to the U.S. presidential elections in 2004. In analyzing the video, Neal Krawetz of Hactor Factor, an expert on digital image forensics, said in his latest blogs that the video contained many visual and audio splices, and that all of the modifications were of very low quality.

Most striking is bin Laden's beard, which has been gray in recent images. For this video it is black. "As far as my tools can detect, there has been no image manipulation of the bin Laden portion of the image beyond contrast adjustment. His beard really does appear to be that color." The Washington Post has the full video here.

Krawetz says the inner frame of bin Laden was resaved at least twice, and not at the same time. The images show fine horizontal stripes on bin Laden and a background indicating these came from interlaced video sources. In contrast, the text elements, such as the As-Sahab logo, appear to be from non-interlaced sources.

The September 7 video shows bin Laden dressed in a white hat, white shirt and yellow sweater. Krawetz notes "this is the same clothing he wore in the 2004-10-29 video. In 2004 he had it unzipped, but in 2007 he zipped up the bottom half. Besides the clothing, it appears to be the same background, same lighting, and same desk. Even the camera angle is almost identical." Krawetz also notes that "if you overlay the 2007 video with the 2004 video, his face has not changed in three years--only his beard is darker and the contrast on the picture has been adjusted."

More important though are the edits. At roughly a minute and a half into the video there is a splice; bin Laden shifts from looking at the camera to looking down in less than 1/25th of a second. At 13:13 there is a second, less obvious splice. In all, Krawetz says there are at least six splices in the video. Of these, there are only two live bin Laden segments, the rest of the video composed of still images. The first live section opens the video and ends at 1:56. The second section begins at 12:29 and continues until 14:01. The two live sections appear to be from different recordings "because the desk is closer to the camera in the second section."

Then there are the audio edits. Krawetz says "the new audio has no accompanying 'live' video and consists of multiple audio recordings." References to current events are made only during the still frame sections and after splices within the audio track." And there are so many splices that I cannot help but wonder if someone spliced words and phrases together. I also cannot rule out a vocal imitator during the frozen-frame audio. The only way to prove that the audio is really bin Laden is to see him talking in the video," Krawetz says.

Another bin Laden video was released on September 11 and was much more straightforward. There was a still image of the black-bearded bin Laden (oddly, using a frame not used in the previous video), and then, as has been a tradition at al-Qaida , there was a long, unedited video of a statement read by Azzam Al Amriki, also known as American-born Adam Pearlman, who is currently being sought for treason and thought to be living in Pakistan. That doesn't mean the 9/11-released video wasn't doctored.

Click here and mouse over the image to see Krawetz's 75 percent error level analysis of one image. The white frame around Azzim reveals that his video was composited against the drawing of the World Trade Center being attacked. As Krawetz presented at this year's Black Hat conference in Las Vegas, al-Qaida has a history of doctoring background either to present propaganda or simply to disguise locations. In a separate interview, Krawetz talks with CNET News.com about some of the tools he used in his analysis.

http://news.com.com/8301-10784_3-9777136-7.html?tag=head

Islamic party forms in Finland
Sep. 12, 2007

Helsinki - Europe's first Islamic political party has formed in Finland. The Finnish Islamic Party plans to collect 5,000 signatures in order to qualify for official registration by the end of the year. Counting on support from the 55,000 Muslims living in Finland, the party anticipates some success in next year's municipal elections as well as in the 2011 parliamentary elections. Party spokesman Abdullah Tammi acknowledged to reporters that to date the party has enrolled only a few dozen members.

The Finnish Islamic Party platform supports a ban on alcohol sales, the option for Muslim children to be excused from school music classes and outings to swimming pools, legal status for ritual animal killing and male circumcision, and the eventual introduction of shari'a law in Finland. Tammi added that the purpose of Sharia law was to prevent crime.

http://www.cwnews.com/news/viewstory.cfm?recnum=53472

[ExSoldier]

Since my classes come in 2 hour "blocks" I gave my "even" numbered classes the same lesson that the "odd" classes had yesterday. I was particulary impressed and moved when I saw a couple of kids talking and basically horseplaying during the presentation only to be sternly SHUSHED by their peers. I didn't have to say a word.

Most of the kids were very earnest and serious. Their questions were cogent and logical. It's so hard for them to wrap their minds around the concept of evil for the sake of evil. They've been programmed by liberals to the degree that almost instinctively they want to try and "understand" or "negotiate" and "compromise" with the enemy to seek a lasting peace. It's almost impossible for them to accept that such actions not only won't work, but as a show of weakness, they invite further aggression. Know why it's a tough concept to internalize? They've never been taught to think outside the subservient "peace at any cost" box.

[LilyBean]

Hi Cindy. I want to thank you for all of the time you put into the TM threads. I haven’t had as much time as I did to spend on these threads. I was wondering if you could tell me if there has been any news regarding Sirjerkimoff. I know the spelling is wrong. But I am pretty sure you know who I am talking about. I havan’t heard much about him lately, and this scares me. This man is not a rookie by any means. He needs to be found. And soon.

Can you imagine the information this man could give us?

[Cindy]

“Sounds like Israeli intel was spot on...”

OPINION: Yep.

[Cindy]

THANKS to Kimberly GG (http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1890027/posts?page=1162#1162 ) and fanfan for the pings to this thread regarding THE MAN TAKING PHOTOS OF THE I-80 BRIDGE. APPARENTLY THE MAN IS ON THE TERROR WATCH LIST AND WAS NOT DETAINED.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1895364/posts

[Cindy]

Thank you Oorang.
I’m going to add your article to my link set.

http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.1299764380

#

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1890027/posts?page=1142#1142

[Cindy]

Yes, I posted about the school buses, but not that article.

Thanks for the link TWhiteBear.

MY OPINION: The security around school buses and schools should be tight.
Period.

All school bus drivers should have a thorough background before driving a school bus and all school buses should be checked each and every time before the kids gets on the bus and after all the kids have left the bus.

[Cindy]

Note to all: Do not post any personal infro from this article on this thread.
Thanks.

#

Thanks to a special emailer who has sent this article.

More details UPDATE:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/09/11/AR2007091102465.html

“Bin Laden, Brought to You by . . .”
By Joby Warrick
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, September 12, 2007; Page A01

ARTICLE SNIPPET: “It was the latest round of electronic warfare between al-Qaeda and a small community of individuals and companies that troll the Internet for messages from terrorists — as a livelihood, a personal obsession or both. Often, the groups compete to be the first to find and post a new video or message. Frequently, they accomplish their goal several steps ahead of government agencies who turn to them for the material.

Since Friday, at least three high-profile video messages have been snatched from al-Qaeda-affiliated Web sites by groups...”

[Cindy]

GREAT NEWS. Good arrest.

Thank you Oorang.

[Cindy]

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=taliban
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=taleban

#

Note: Video included.

http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/09/nefa_foundation_a_look_inside.php

“NEFA Foundation: A Look Inside a Secret Taliban Training Camp”
By Evan Kohlmann

(September 11, 2007)