Free Republic

Romania deports al-Qaida-linked students

BUCHAREST, Romania - Romania has deported five students accused of having ties to al-Qaida and trying to recruit members of the country's Muslim community, an intelligence official said Thursday. The five were placed under surveillance in the capital and the northeast city of Iasi and later deported and banned from returning for the next 15 years, intelligence service spokesman Marius Bercaru said. He would only say the deportations took place this year, and he declined to say where the five students were sent. "The operation aimed to stop this radical Islamic group in Romania and remove these people from the national territory," he told The Associated Press. The five suspects were trying to recruit other members in Bucharest and Iasi, Bercaru said. The newspaper Jurnalul National identified the group leader as Musaab Ahmed Mohamed Mujalli, a Saudi citizen. Other members were Khaldoon Walid Monir Nabhan, an Omani citizen; Sudanese national Aymen Ahmed Fouad Jadkareem; and Asad Abrar Qureshi, a Pakistani. All were students in the city of Iasi, which has a large student population. Bercaru confirmed the details of the newspaper report to The Associated Press. The paper said the group began operating in Iasi and then in Bucharest. Their goal, the report said, was "to brainwash Muslims, indoctrinating them in the spirit of fundamental extremism." Romania has a Muslim population of about 140,000, of which 66,000 are Romanian citizens. The rest are foreigners residing in the country. The paper reported that Mujalli, the group leader, worked from an al-Qaida textbook outlining operational preparations and counterintelligence. "When (the group) met they made propaganda for terrorist acts committed in Afghanistan, Iraq, Chechnya or Bosnia-Herzegovina with the aim of supporting the radical al-Qaida ideology and of approving suicide terrorist attacks," the report said. Group members used the Internet to communicate, and Mujalli had links with Islamic structures outside Romania, including receiving funding from the Middle East, the paper said. Romania has been a strong U.S. ally since the Sept. 11 attacks and currently has 860 troops in Iraq and 700 in Afghanistan.

Unfortunately not yet. This is from my new book. It is not publish on Internet yet. As soon as it happen will send a link.

The International Tribunal in The Hague received the statements of at least ten POWs from the VRS captured by the El-Mujahid unit of the ABiH’s 3rd Corps on Mt. Ozren. They confirm one of the captives was ritually beheaded.

One technician (statement # KRI-61/97 dated 21 May 1997), captured in the village of Lozna on the Vozuca front on 21 July 1995, was first taken to camp Livade. After two days, he was transferred to the mujahid’din-run camp in Gostovici, where he spent 34 days. Here is how he described his captivity: …I was captured by a group of 12 mujahid’din, one of which was a Bosnian Muslim acting as an interpreter. Immediately upon capture I was beaten. One of the mujahid’din ordered me to kneel, then took an axe with a half-moon blade and a short handle, which he held on a cord around his neck. He wanted to cut my head off, but the interpreter intervened by telling him something in Arabic. I was taken to Livade, where their infirmary was, and they beat me again, brandishing axes and knives and threatening to cut my head off again. One of them ordered me to lie on the ground, then swung an axe right by my head.

I was then taken to a storehouse, where I found two other VRS prisoners, Š.B. and T.V. After a little while, they took the three of us out, tied us up, and wrote on a piece of paper “Here is how Chetniks [derogatory term for Serbs] end”; they taped it to Š.B.’s back. Afterwards, they ordered us to strip, took us to a room, and said “Now you will see how we slaughter Chetniks.” They hog-tied us [hands and feet behind our backs], then put knives to our throats and yelled that they were going to cut our throats. Then they brought in a cardboard box containing two human heads, which were still bleeding. At the entrance to the room, I had seen two bodies in the uniforms of my unit, but at the time I could not see if they still had their heads. Two days later, we were transferred to Gostovici near Zavidovici. At every checkpoint, they stopped the van in which we were transported, and the mujahid’din that were there would come in and beat us. Civilians who happened to be there would beat us too.

The mujahid’din camp in Gostovici had tents in a big circle, one of which was bigger and served for religious rituals. Since we could not walk, the mujahid’din carried us into a small, yellow tent. Later, we were moved to a small house with a damaged roof, which was within the camp. They held us in a room on the ground floor. The windows were boarded, and the door had an opening through which the guard could look at us. V.T. was in charge of bringing in and out the bucket which we used for bodily functions.

We were chained – my left leg to V.T’s right, his left to M.K.’s right, and so on. Each of us was secured by a separate lock. Abuses continued. One of the mujahid’din asked Dr. S. if he was a physician, then tried to force him to slaughter M.K. with a knife. He refused, saying he was supposed to help people, not kill them. Since our hands and feet were chained, we could not feed ourselves. So they unchained one V.G.’s hands, and he fed us, crawling on his knees.

Mujahid’din would often burst into the room and beat us with clubs and took handles. They sometimes carried handsaws and chainsaws, threatening to cut off our heads. This was psychological torture. One time, they took me outside and one of the mujahid’din kicked me in the mouth. They put a blindfold over my eyes and walked me around so I would lose orientation. Then they put me face-down on the ground, with my hands tied up on my back and my legs tied up with a rubber hose and pulled up. Some other prisoners were brought along, and were beaten and abused one by one.

One of us, G.V., was wounded in the right thigh before capture. That wound was never treated, so he was in a bad shape. During the beatings, he would howl in pain, and begged the mujahid’din to stop. At one moment, I heard him curse god, since he could no longer take the pain. Then I heard a gunshot. They cut off his head – I did not see the act itself, but others did. The mujahid’din then took our blindfolds off and brought the head to us, ordering us to kiss it. We had to do it. Afterwards, they untied out legs and took us back into the room where we were held, one by one. They also brought in the severed head, and hung it on a hook on the wall. As far as I can recall, the head was there for two days.

One day, we were taken out into the camp, so all the mujahid’din could see us. I estimated there were about 1000. They surrounded us, and started singing and shouting in Arabic. One was holding a knife and kept trying to approach us – wanting to slit our throats – but was held back by two others. He was angry, foaming at the mouth. We were returned to our prison room afterwards.

On August 23, 1995, the mujahid’din took us out to the soccer field behind the building where they’d kept us. Three mujahid’din approached me, and one threw down the keys to our locks at my feet. They ordered me to find the key to my lock. When I had done so, they ordered me to get up, and one told me, in Serbian, “Your last minute has come.” They took me behind the goal post and told me to kneel in the little ditch. One was talking in English, and the other was translating to the other mujahid’din. He was telling them to step back, so my blood would not spray all over them. But then he changed his mind, told me to get up, and took me to the middle of the field. There, another mujahid’din that spoke Serbian told me to kneel and put my hands on the ground. The one with the pistol grabbed my hair, pulled my head back, shoved the barrel of the pistol into my mouth, and pulled the trigger. The pistol clicked – it was empty. The other mujahid’din fired two rounds from his rifle right next to me. Then they beat me for about an hour. They stopped only when two MPs from the Muslim army showed up. The MPs took us to the Zenica penitentiary. I was registered with the International Red Cross on December 31, 1995, in Zenica. Until then, I was held secretly.

At the mujahid’din camp, I suffered five broken ribs, several damaged vertebrae, 11 broken teeth, a broken nose, and head injuries. I’m still in pain. I have medical records to prove it. I was declared an 80% invalid.

The heads of Mr. Blagoj Blagojevic, Mr.Brane Djuric and Nenad Petkovic

Crni Vrh near Teslica. The head of Mr. Blagoje Blagojevic held by Arap-jihad fighter mudzahedin from military units “El Mudzahid”. Mr.Alija Izetbegovic are honorary commander of this terrorist unit.

Mr.Stojan Pudic, Serb civilin from Bosnia, arrested by Arap-jihad fighter. Before his head was cut by sword, his fingers and foots were cut on “traditional” way according to mind of Islamic terrorist. Victims of Islamic fundamentalist cruelty must be killed with great pain, because “Allah is Great”.

The same sort of brutality was sawn in Iraq where members of Al Qaida killed Nicholas Berg who sits in front of his masked captors in this image from the video. The one standing directly behind Berg reads a statement identifying himself, and then Berg is pushed to the floor. Berg is heard screaming as his throat is cut. One of the captors then holds up his severed head.

Extremist cleric urges Muslims via Internet to join Al-Qaeda

LONDON : An extremist London cleric is appealing to young British Muslims to join Al-Qaeda in live broadcasts on the Internet, the Times reported.

The Times said cleric Omar Bakri Mohammed, who is banned from many British mosques, says a "covenant of security" allowing Muslims to live peacefully in Britain had been "violated" by anti-terrorist legislation enacted after the September 11, 2001 attacks.

"I believe the whole of Britain has become Dar ul Harb (land of war)," he says in one of his daily two-hour Internet broadcasts, which the Times said it had monitored three days in a row from January 10 to 12.

He said in such a place "the kuffar (nonbeliever) has no sanctity for their own life or property".

"Al-Qaeda and all its branches and organisations of the world, that is the victorious group and they have the emir and you are obliged to join".

The Times said the 46-year-old Syrian-born cleric stopped short during his broadcasts on an Internet chatroom of calling for attacks on Britain but said Muslims should join the jihad (holy war) "wherever you are".

He told one woman she was allowed to become a suicide bomber.

"It happened many times in Palestine, in Chechnya, in Russia... this is no problem, there is no restriction," he said

He said the voices of dead fighters were calling on British Muslims to fight.

"These people are calling you and shouting to you from far distant places: al jihad, al jihad. They say to you my dear Muslim brothers, 'Where is your weapon, where is your weapon?'. Come on to the jihad".

Bakri Mohammed, who has lived in Britain for 18 years since being thrown out of Saudi Arabia and has indefinite leave to remain, disbanded his al-Muhajiroun movement last October.

The Times said he was believed to reach an audience of between 60 and 70 committed listeners, most of whom were under 30, through his web broadcasts.

Bakri Mohammed denied when questioned by the Times that he was calling for violent action and said his definition of Britain as Dar ul-Harb was "theoretical".

He added: "It means that Muslims can no longer be considered to have sanctity and security here, therefore they should consider leaving this country and going back to their homelands.

"Otherwise they are under siege and obviously we do not want to see that we are living under siege."

- AFP

New York judge orders former Bosnian U.N. ambassador extradited

By LARRY NEUMEISTER, Associated Press Writer

NEW YORK -- A judge has ordered the extradition of the former Bosnian ambassador to the United Nations after authorities in Bosnia accused him of stealing more than $2.4 million of their government's money.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Frank Maas stayed the effect of his extradition order for 10 days to allow Muhamed Sacirbey, 48, to appeal the ruling. He also permitted Sacirbey to remain free on bail.

Sacirbey, reached by telephone Wednesday at his Staten Island home, said he would quickly challenge the ruling.

"We stand by the position that this is not only a political issue but that I did have full authority to expend funds in the way that I did," said Sacirbey, who was born in Sarajevo in 1956 and became a U.S. citizen in 1973.

The judge issued the order Tuesday. He wrote in a ruling there was probable cause to conclude Sacirbey embezzled, even if the crime requires him to have acted intentionally to steal funds for personal gain.

Sacirbey, whose name is spelled on the title page of legal documents as Sacirbegovic, said the judge's conclusions were wrong.

A judge in Bosnia issued a warrant for his arrest in December 2001.

Sacirbey has testified that he acted properly while he was ambassador to the United Nations for Bosnia and Herzegovina from 1992 to 2000, even using his own money to fund operations when he did not receive government money.

He contends that he received no improper personal benefit from government funds and that any shortfalls were overcome by personal funds he contributed to Bosnia's mission and by his decision not to accept a salary while he was ambassador.

The Bosnian government accused him of stealing about $1.8 million from its Investment Fund Ministry. And a commission appointed by Bosnia's Foreign Ministry found in 2001 that $610,980 was missing from Bosnia's mission to the United Nations.

The judge said the evidence he saw suggested that Sacirbey all but conceded that some of his expenditures were improper by telling an investigator he would be able to restore some of the missing funds. The judge said that despite that representation, Sacirbey evidently "never replenished the mission account."

"Worse yet," the judge added, Sacirbey apparently diverted some emergency financial assistance for the mission that had been sent to pay overdue bills after it was learned that money was missing.

He said evidence suggests Sacirbey also may have evaded efforts by investigators to contact him to resolve some of the problems auditors had discovered. He said the ambassador also failed to account for personal advances he took against the mission account, including large sums of cash paid to lawyers.

"From this evidence, a finder of fact reasonably could conclude that Sacirbey embezzled funds from the mission account and used them for his own personal needs," the judge wrote.

Sacirbey said Wednesday that he has invited Bosnian prosecutors to interview him in the United States before concluding whether to bring formal charges against him.

"I look forward to the opportunity through the appeals process to set this injustice straight," he said.

Inaugural Fear: Exploding Limousines

Adding to the inventory of potential terror tools at inaugural events are vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices, acording to a report in Time magazine.

These so-called VBIEDs may possibly be disguised as limousines, and the intel behind the latest fear is a document perhaps written by Issa al-Hindi, an al-Qaida operative captured in Britain last year.

"Rough Presentation for Gas Limo Project" describes using limousines to deliver bombs equipped with cylinders of a flammable gas.

The document specifically mentions that limos "blend in" and "can transport larger payloads than sedans ... and do not require special driving skills."

Furthermore, such vehicle could "access underground parking structures that do not accommodate trucks" and "have tinted windows that can hide an improvised explosive device from outside."

Al-Qaida used exploding gas devices in the truck bomb that blew up the U.S. Embassy in Dar es Salaam in 1998 and also in a 2002 attack on a Tunisian synagogue.

Hundreds of limos are expected to swarm over the capital this week, and authorities have warned limo rental agencies to be on the lookout.

Sunni Muslim group owns killing of Shiite

Baghdad, Iraq, Jan. 15 (UPI) -- Iraqi officials searched Saturday for a political leader's teenage daughter, abducted as she walked home from a math tutoring session in Baghdad, CNN said. The abductors used the 16-year-old's cell phone Friday night to send a text message to Khadim Yousef Hulfi, saying, "We have fulfilled our promise to you. We have your daughter." Hulfi is the assistant to the secretary-general of the Iraqi Council of Ministers. Police said the kidnappers have not made any demands and were being sought. Meanwhile, a Muslim group linked to the al-Qaida terror network claimed responsibility for killing a top aide to Iraq's leading Shiite cleric. Ansar al-Islam took responsibility Friday for killing Mahmoud Madaeni, who was shot to death with his son and four bodyguards as he walked home from prayers Wednesday night near his house southeast of Baghdad, the Washington Post reported Saturday. Madaeni was a local clerical representative of Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, whose support for the Jan. 30 election has mobilized much of Iraq's Shiite majority. Ansar al-Islam called Madaeni "one of the main supporters of the election" and reiterated its threats to target voters and candidates and to attack polling stations."

Iraq war is breeding a new generation of professional terrorists, warns CIA report

Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington Saturday January 15, 2005 The Guardian

The chaos of Iraq is giving rise to a new generation of "professional" terrorists who will eventually replace al-Qaida as a global threat, according to a CIA thinktank. A report by the National Intelligence Council says the war in Iraq has provided a training and recruitment ground for Islamist militants, much as Afghanistan did for the founding generation of al-Qaida during the war against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s. As new terror organisations emerge on the world stage, al-Qaida will splinter into regional separatist groups, says the report, which forecasts global trends over the next 15 years. "Iraq and other possible conflicts in the future could provide recruitment, training grounds, technical skills and language proficiency for a new class of terrorists who are 'professionalised' and for whom political violence becomes an end in itself," the report says. It gives warning that veterans of the conflict in Iraq could disperse around the world, exporting their deadly expertise. Specifically, the report warns that the US faces an increasing risk of an attack involving biological agents, such as anthrax, and that an emerging and more sophisticated generation of terrorists could also use chemical weapons. The bleak forecast undermines one of the Bush administration's central justifications for invading Iraq: that it was necessary to curb terrorism; that the country was a central front in the "war on terror"; and that the deposed Iraqi dictator, Saddam Hussein, had links to al-Qaida's chief, Osama bin Laden. Instead, the report describes how hundreds of foreign terrorists entered Iraq after the US invasion, and how the insurgency against American forces was viewed by radical Muslims as a war against a foreign occupier, akin to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Terrorists also took advantage of postwar chaos, porous borders and a country awash with weapons. But unlike the rise of al-Qaida in Afghanistan, the emerging terrorists do not require a geographical base, and are expected to rely increasingly on the internet. "While taking advantage of sanctuaries around the world to train, terrorists will not need a stationary headquarters to plan and carry out operations," the report says. "Training materials, targeting guidance, weapons knowhow and fundraising will increasingly be virtual." The terrorists now recruited and trained in Iraq will eventually become the successor generation to al-Qaida, it predicts. "Al-Qaida membership that was distinguished by having trained in Afghanistan will gradually dissipate, to be replaced in part by the dispersion of the experienced survivors of the conflict in Iraq." The 119-page report was based on analysis from more than 1,000 US and foreign observers, and is designed to help the White House track world trends up to 2020. • Staff Sergeant Cardenas Alban was sentenced at a court martial yesterday to a year in jail for the murder of a severely wounded Iraqi teenager in a Baghdad slum district during a Shi'ite uprising last year, the US military said.

Video Featuring the Terrorist Attack at the Karni Crossing Released

January 14, 2005

A nearly three minute video featuring the Thursday night (January 13, 2005) terrorist attack at the Karni crossing on the border between Gaza and Israel is being circulated on jihadist message boards. The attack, which resulted in the death of six Israeli civilians and wounded five others, was named “Zalzalat al-Housoun” [The Quaking of the Strongholds]. The attack was jointly carried out by three terrorists, one each from al-Aqsa Martyrs’ Brigades, the Popular Resistance Committees, and Ezzeddine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas. The three gunmen were killed by Israeli soldiers.

In the video, the three terrorists introduce themselves as,

1. “Allâh above willing, I the living martyr, Muhannad Abdul Rahman al-Mansi [Abu Jandal], son of al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Nabil Massoud Martyrdom Unit.”

2. “The living martyr, Samir Muhammad Jeha from the legions of an-Naser Salaheddine in the Popular Resistance Committees, from the occupied city of Yafa.”

3. “The living martyr, Mahmoud Majdi Muhammad Muhammad al-Masri, from martyr Ezzeddine al-Qassam Brigades, the military wing of Hamas.”

Their statements indicated that this attack is for revenge on the Jews, the enemies of Allâh, and is in retaliation for the assassination of their leaders and the massacres performed by the occupation forces against the proud Palestinian people.

Ansar al-Islam Group in Iraq Claims Responsibility for Assassination of al-Sistani’s Assistant, Mahmoud al-Mada’en

In a statement posted to several jihadist message boards on Thursday, January 13, 2005, Ansar al-Islam [Supporters of Islam] - the Iraqi terrorist group closely affiliated with Al-Qaeda and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi - claims responsibility for the January 12 assassination of Mahmoud al-Mada’en, an aide to Iraqi Shiite cleric Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, along with five others.

The statement notes that al-Mada’en “was considered one of the main supporters of the elections” and further declares: “We also request that fellow citizens not take part in the Iraqi elections, for we will attack the electoral centers in case the elections are held. And in case Arab and Islamic countries send troops to Iraq, we are not going to cross our arms [sit on our hands]; we will fight them before the enemies. Allâh willing, the queues of booby-trapped cars will not stop.”

Loopholes and weaknesses of immigration controls:

Foreign nationals who are terrorist operatives routinely utilize false identity documents to illegally enter the US and/or remain here once they have entered. There are no shortages of examples in this regard - the recent Washington State and Vermont arrests clearly show this. The ability of Islamic Jihad leader Abdel Aziz Odeh to have entered the US numerous times, without leaving a record under his real name, is yet another example. Ghazi Ibrahim Abu Mezer and Lafi Khalil were arrested on July 31, 1997 in a Brooklyn apartment by police officers from the New York City Police Department, based on a tip that people in the apartment were intending to bomb the New York subway system. The arrests narrowly averted a series of bombings that could have killed hundreds of commuters. After the arrests, police determined that Mezer and Khalil were in the United States illegally. Mezer was apprehended three times by the Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) in the thirteen months prior to the arrest in New York for attempting to illegally enter the United States from Canada. At the time of arrest, the INS had begun formal deportation proceedings against him, but he was free on bail and had filed a request for political asylum based on his fear that the Israeli government would arrest him for membership in Hamas. False documents are as important to terrorists and their organizations as their guns and bombs -- they are tools that help them ply their international trade of death and destruction.

In addition to false documents, alien terrorists and their support operatives frequently engage in immigration benefit fraud. One of the most glaring examples would be asylum fraud. All one has to do is show up at a US port of entry, even without documents, utter the two magic words "political asylum," have any moderately truthful sounding story and one is likely to be processed in - at least temporarily. The tightening of the asylum process over the past couple of years has helped - but, be a fraudulent asylum claimant showing up at a very busy Point of Entry such as JFK Airport or Miami International Airport - and you are likely to remain in detention for only a short time before you are paroled out to (hopefully) appear at a later hearing! If a name (real or false) does not appear in any of the lookout systems and the applicant merely has an alleged "friend" to stay with in the US, then parole from detention is most likely. Of course, it goes without saying, terrorist aliens so released seldom show up again - and the INS, because of serious manpower shortages and conflicting priorities, rarely pursues such absconders. Of course, any number of other immigration fraud schemes abound - marriage fraud, other familial relation fraud, naturalization fraud, work visa fraud (H-1 and L-1 and "E" status - as used by Islamic Jihad officials Ramadan Abdullah Shallah and Bashir Nafi), investor fraud and religious worker fraud.

Smuggling of alien terrorist operatives - apart from the noted utilization of false documents: alien terrorists use established alien smuggling pipelines across both the US-Mexico and US-Canada border. Maritime smuggling along the coasts, particularly via the Caribbean as well as East and West Coast seaports, occurs. How easy can it be for a terrorist operative to bribe his/her way onto a freighter destined to a busy US seaport, and simply be hidden aboard the vessel until Customs and INS have done their routine inspections, then to simply disembark the vessel?

The issue of classified evidence in immigration proceedings is now under assault by editorialists in the media and from some members of Congress. What they forget is that these proceedings are administrative in nature - not criminal - and such evidence, in spite of all the recent hoopla, is only rarely and very selectively utilized. Deportation proceedings ultimately result in a person being removed from the US - not sentenced to prison (as in criminal proceedings) - even though aliens may be detained while those proceedings go forward. As such, it should be remembered that aliens detained hold their own cell keys -all they have to is simply agree to be deported and they can be free - just not in the US. Moreover, Congress itself approved of the Classified Information Procedures Act, in which classified information can be introduced in criminal trials without releasing this information to the defendant.

Unfortunately, too many senior INS managers do not recognize the critically important role INS enforcement branches, particularly the Investigations Division, can and should play in the counter-terrorism and national security arena. These are officials at both the HQ and field levels. INS has but a small contingent of agents dedicated to this work - and, often those do not receive the recognition and support from higher management they should. INS should have at least a hundred field agents assigned to these missions - at least the same it has assigned to Organized Crime Drug Task Force efforts - but in fact INS has less than half that assigned to counter-terrorist efforts in the field. I have been told that it is not unusual for very senior INS officials - especially at headquarters (who should know otherwise), when the topic of counter-terrorism arises in senior staff meetings, to state, "that's the FBI's responsibility" and "what does INS have to do with that"! Certain key, senior INS managers fail to even understand and recognize the very statutes within the Immigration and Nationality Act they are charged with enforcing!

New Prime Minister of Kosovo and Metohija

RAMUSH (Hilmi) HARADINAJ

Born on July 3, 1968, in the village of Glodjani, Municipality of Decani. Suspected to have committed criminal acts of terrorism, association with hostile intentions and the murder of civilians, 108 criminal charges were brought against him. He emigrated to Switzerland in 1989, after which he joined the Foreign Legion in France.

In 1996 he completed his diversionary terrorist training. In Albania he took part in establishing the logistics bases of Al Qaeda in Kuks and Tropoj which he later used, with a group of trustworthy associates, to transport weapons to K&M.

In mid-1997, he illegally entered the country and, together with his brothers, Daut and Shkelzen, organized terrorist attacks against the police department in the village of Ranic, Municipality of Decani, and the village of Ponoševac, Municipality of Djakovica, and on the refugee camps in Junik and Babaloc.

At the beginning of 1998, in Glodjani, he formed a diversionary terrorist group which, following his orders, intercepted and threatened the Serbs and Albanians loyal to the Republic of Serbia. This group, headed by the Haradinaj brothers, attacked a police patrol in the village of Glodjani, in which Miodrag Otovic was murdered.

In April of the same year, the terrorist group, led by Ramush Haradinaj, established the KLA general staff in Glodjani for Metohija, the members of which became his brothers Daut and Skeljzen, as well as Hilmi Haradinaj, Faton Mehmeti, Rasim Haradinaj, Fadil Nimonaj, Maliq Ndrecaj and others, while Ramush himself was engaged in the promotion and establishment of local general staffs on the overall region of Decani and Djakovica. At the same time, on his initiative, a special KLA unit was formed in Glodjani, called „Black Eagles“, whose commander was Idriz Balaj, aka „Toger“. Under the leadership of Ramush Haradinaj, the „Black Eagles“ kidnapped and brutally mur- dered dozens of Serb civilians. A number of bodies were found in the Radonjic Lake and village wells in the Decani Municipality.

After KPC was formed, Haradinaj was appointed Deputy Commander of the commander of KPC, Agim Çeku. Towards the end of 2000, he left KPC and established the ABK party. In order to maintain his influence over KPC, he managed to place his brother Daut as the commander of the 3rd RTG of KPC which carries out the assassinations of Ramush’s political rivals. Haradinaj also has close connection within the KPS structure, bearing in mind that a large number of policemen and officers of this formation were active in KLA at the time when Haradinaj was the commander of the KLA general staff in Metohija.

Ramush Haradinaj is the most influential criminal in Metohija, in the region of Pec, Decani and Djakovica. In cooperation with Ekrem Lluka and Naser Kelmendi, he created a criminal organization which controls the organized smuggling of drugs, cigarettes, oil, oil derivates, weapons, vehicles and other goods. His close associates, Isa Balaj, Arton Tolaj, Avdyl Mushkoli and Ali Haskaj, all from Decani, are in contact with the members of the Albanian mafia.

A part of the acquired profit from the criminal activities of Haradinaj and his criminal group was given to KPC, and from the same source, a significant part of the financial means was forwarded to Nazim Haradinaj, who supplied the Albanian terrorists in Macedonia with weapons.

He belongs to an influential family in the Pec region, which has great rivals in the Rugova and the Musaj clan, which traditionally aids Rugova’s DSK, and formerly had close connections with FARK of Bujar Bukosi. On July 7, 2000, he was seriously wounded in the village of Strelci, in the western part of K&M, which was a result of inter-mafia conflict between the groups belonging to Hashim Thaqi and Haradinaj and the Musaj family. Before and after that, a series of murders were committed as a consequence of the blood feud among the warring clans.

In the second half of 2002, an investigation was launched and Daut Haradinaj and a group of top KPC officers were arrested and sentenced to a number of years in prison. Beside that, criminal charges were brought in the District Court in Pec, against Ramush Haradinaj.

Aiming to free his brother from prison, Haradinaj, by the mediation of Avdyl Mushkoli, organized demonstrations and initiated the formation of a group of some 30 people who attempted to release Daut Haradinaj by force from the Dubrava prison, Istok Municipality.

In January 2003, Haradinaj organized the assassination of Tahir Zemaj, a FARK commander, his son Enis and nephew Hysen, on the Priština – Peæ road, in the vicinity of a lumber plant, due to the fact that Zemaj was supposed to be the crown witness in the proceedings against Daut Haradinaj and himself.

Following Ramush Haradinaj’s orders, Maliq Ndrecaj was sent to the Vitina region, in order to organize the terrorist ANA, which proof of Haradinaj’s involvement in the incidents in southern Serbia. He was especially active in arms procurement and the secret training of terrorists from this region, which was organized in the villages along the administrative border.

The Morgellons Research Foundation is dedicated to finding the primary cause of an increasingly prevalent skin disease, which mimics scabies and lice.

The majority of individuals reporting symptoms of Morgellons Disease reside in California, Texas, and Florida. Several distinct "cluster" areas of this disease have been noted (in order of cluster density) near Los Angeles, San Francisco, Houston, Dallas, and Austin, Texas.

Physicians treating patients with this disease believe that it involves a novel organism. This organism has been difficult to identify, but appears to infect individuals whose immune systems have been altered by Lyme Disease, also known as Lyme Borreliosis. This foundation is working to identify this novel organism and determine the source of the disturbing crawling, stinging, and biting sensations experienced by people with this disease.

Most individuals with this disease report non-healing skin lesions, which are associated with highly unusual structures. These structures can be described as fiber-like or filamentous, and are the most striking features of this disease. In addition, many people consistently report finding objects described as black specks, and granules associated with their skin and skin lesions. The granules have also been described as sand or seeds, but are often seen to have fibers emerging from one end. The elongated fibers are often twisted into balls or what appear to be bundles of fibers, as they grow within the skin. Many people refer to these bundles as fiber balls, fuzz balls, or lint balls. The fibers are clearly hyphae-like structures, and yet, due their immense size (150+/- microns wide), they do not fall within the description of known hyphae or pseudohyphae. The fibers are most often white, but are also consistently seen as blue, black, and rarely red. The fibers exhibit a high degree of autofluorescence and are not, repeat not, textile derived.

Additional organisms may be found on the skin of individuals with this disease, but are considered incidental findings related to skin integrity. The only consistencies observed by laboratories affiliated with this foundation, have been the fibers, black specks, and granule-like structures. These consistencies are the main focus of our investigation of the primary cause of Morgellons Disease. However, this foundation remains dedicated to finding clear answers for all individuals who have received a diagnosis of Delusional Parasitosis.

Remarkably, not all people with this disease have overt skin lesions, as some individuals report intact skin. The troubling sensations and accompanying physical structures, are the consistent clues to this bizarre skin disease, which we will refer to as a Borrelia coinfection.

What are the additional symptoms of this disease? An extremely high percentage of our members report the following: Chronic Fatigue Syndrome (CFS), Fibromyalgia (Myalgic Encephalopathy or ME), "brain fog" or cognitive decline, ADHD, mood disorders (primarily Bipolar Disorder and depression), joint swelling and pain, rapid visual and neurological decline, autoimmune disease, and hair loss. Many of these common additional symptoms appear to be related to inflammation. What is inflammation?

Some of the symptoms and physical structures associated with this disease are unusual and may lead physicians to assume that the patient is misinterpreting their situation. Nearly all (95% of) adults with the symptoms of this skin disease have received a diagnosis of DOP or Delusional Parasitosis. What is Delusional Parasitosis?

LINKS BETWEEN 9/11 (MUHAMAED ATTA) AND THE AL-QAEDA NETWORK IN BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

Officials of the Muslim-Croat Federation in BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA never released any information to the US investigators or lawyers representing the families of 9/11 victims, because such information would cast a new light on the entire BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA conflict. They would have made it obvious that the war was a jihad, a religious war waged against Bosnia’s Christians by the Islamic extremists. The Interpol office in Wiesbaden, Germany sent a request to the Bosnian authorities on 18 September 2001 to verify the identity of a certain Mr. Atta, who according to their information used to reside in the hamlet of Bakotiæ, 8 km outside Maglaj, in 1999. Attached to the request was the photo of Mohamed Atta, and a note to verify it through a certain Mehmed Hasaniæ, a resident of Bakotiæ. This means Mohamed Atta was traine in BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA; it is known that he left BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA for Hamburg, from where he proceeded to the United States and his ultimate mission – to destroy the Twin Towers. 4. FIVE KEY AL-QAEDA MEMBERS WHO DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY TOOK PART IN 9/11 AND ARE LINKED TO BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

• Sheikh Omar abd-al Rahman (convicted of the 1993 attack on the WTC) was connected with the so-called humanitarian organization TWRA, which was a cover for terrorists. Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic made personal guarantees for TWRA’s general director and personal friend Elfatih Hassanein, so he could open an account with Die Erste Osterreich Bank in Vienna, Austria in 1993. • Mohammed Haydar Zammar, who recruited Mohamed Atta into Al-Qaeda, had a terrorist base in Bosnia. Zammar is also responsible for recruiting two of Atta’s lieutenants, Ramzi Binalsahib and Said Bahaji. • Osama bin Laden received a Bosnian passport from the Embassy in Vienna, Austria. Many other Al-Qaeda members were issued BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA passports, which enabled them to continue their terrorist activities. • Abu al-Ma’ali (Abdelkader Mokhtari), a senior Al-Qaeda operative, was stationed in Bosnia until recently. Just a few years ago, US officials used to call him “Osama Bin Laden, Jr.” • Bensayah Belkacem was arrested in Bosnia in October 2001. Numbers saved in his cell phone connected him with at least one top-rank associate of Bin Laden. American investigators intercepted telephone calls and other evidence showed that Bensayah Belkacem, who was believed to be a native of Algeria or Yemen with Bosnian citizenship, had numerous conversations on cellular telephones last fall with leaders of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. He has been identified as a European lieutenant in Al-Qaeda who was ordered to carry out attacks on American targets in the Balkans after Sept. 11.

The officials said FBI and military investigators were particularly eager to question Mr. Belkacem about the personal background and possible hiding places of Mr. Zubaydah, a Saudi-born Palestinian in his early 30´s who is believed to have coordinated the terrorist attacks ordered by bin Laden.

Al-Qaeda’s role in radical Islamic activities and events in Bosnia has been frequently mentioned in US media and official government reports since the 9/11 tragedy.

5. MORE ON SEPTEMBER 11 AND BOSNIA’S AL-QAEDA NETWORK Another senior commander of Mujahedeen battalion in central Bosnia-Herzegovina was Abu Zubair al-Haili (a.k.a. Mohammed Haydar Zammar, "the Bear"), German citizen of Syrian descent. He was the chief handler of the Hamburg Al-Qaeda cell responsible for September 11 suicide hijackings. He received military training in Pakistan in 1991 plied his deadly skills in what militant Islamic fundamentalists refer to as the " Jihad - holy war" which raged in ethnically strife-torn Bosnia in the 1990s.

Zammar was travelling under the cover of "Tabligh", a missionary sect of Muslims, that he conveniently used for fundamentalist recruiting purposes.

German investigators have learned that one of the individuals whom Zammar tied into the Al-Qaida network was Mohammed Atta, the pilot of one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center. Zammar also brought two of Atta's lieutenants into the al-Qaida network, Ramzi Bin al-Shaibah and Said Bahaji. Indonesian citizen Agus Budiman, who spend more than nine months in a US prison as a terrorist suspect, met Bin al-Shaibah, a Muslim cleric from Hamburg.

Ramzi Bin al-Shaibah told Budiman that he wanted to take part in the Jihad, or holy war, in Bosnia. Bin al-Shaibah is the 20th hijacker who was supposed to be aboard the plane that crashed into a Pennsylvania field.

Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar (American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon) were not like the other hijackers. The two Saudis militant backgrounds is more comprehensive than the others, despite their young ages. In the mid-1990s both apparently were in the Bosnia conflict, and then fought in Chechnya at various times between 1996 and 1998. This was confirmed by the Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet during the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearings.

American investigators intercepted telephone calls and other evidence showed that Bensayah Belkacem, who was believed to be a native of Algeria or Yemen with Bosnian citizenship, had numerous conversations on cellular telephones last fall with leaders of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. He has been identified as a European lieutenant in Al-Qaeda who was ordered to carry out attacks on American targets in the Balkans after Sept. 11.

The officials said FBI and military investigators were particularly eager to question Mr. Belkacem about the personal background and possible hiding places of Mr. Zubaydah, a Saudi-born Palestinian in his early 30´s who is believed to have coordinated the terrorist attacks ordered by bin Laden.

LINKS BETWEEN 9/11 (MUHAMAED ATTA) AND THE AL-QAEDA NETWORK IN BOSNIA-HERZEGOVINA

Officials of the Muslim-Croat Federation in BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA never released any information to the US investigators or lawyers representing the families of 9/11 victims, because such information would cast a new light on the entire BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA conflict. They would have made it obvious that the war was a jihad, a religious war waged against Bosnia’s Christians by the Islamic extremists.
The Interpol office in Wiesbaden, Germany sent a request to the Bosnian authorities on 18 September 2001 to verify the identity of a certain Mr. Atta, who according to their information used to reside in the hamlet of Bakotiæ, 8 km outside Maglaj, in 1999. Attached to the request was the photo of Mohamed Atta, and a note to verify it through a certain Mehmed Hasaniæ, a resident of Bakotiæ. This means Mohamed Atta was traine in BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA; it is known that he left BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA for Hamburg, from where he proceeded to the United States and his ultimate mission – to destroy the Twin Towers.
4. FIVE KEY AL-QAEDA MEMBERS WHO DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY TOOK PART IN 9/11 AND ARE LINKED TO BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA

• Sheikh Omar abd-al Rahman (convicted of the 1993 attack on the WTC) was connected with the so-called humanitarian organization TWRA, which was a cover for terrorists. Bosnian president Alija Izetbegovic made personal guarantees for TWRA’s general director and personal friend Elfatih Hassanein, so he could open an account with Die Erste Osterreich Bank in Vienna, Austria in 1993.
• Mohammed Haydar Zammar, who recruited Mohamed Atta into Al-Qaeda, had a terrorist base in Bosnia. Zammar is also responsible for recruiting two of Atta’s lieutenants, Ramzi Binalsahib and Said Bahaji.
• Osama bin Laden received a Bosnian passport from the Embassy in Vienna, Austria. Many other Al-Qaeda members were issued BOSNIA AND HERZEGOVINA passports, which enabled them to continue their terrorist activities.
• Abu al-Ma’ali (Abdelkader Mokhtari), a senior Al-Qaeda operative, was stationed in Bosnia until recently. Just a few years ago, US officials used to call him “Osama Bin Laden, Jr.”
• Bensayah Belkacem was arrested in Bosnia in October 2001. Numbers saved in his cell phone connected him with at least one top-rank associate of Bin Laden. American investigators intercepted telephone calls and other evidence showed that Bensayah Belkacem, who was believed to be a native of Algeria or Yemen with Bosnian citizenship, had numerous conversations on cellular telephones last fall with leaders of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. He has been identified as a European lieutenant in Al-Qaeda who was ordered to carry out attacks on American targets in the Balkans after Sept. 11.

The officials said FBI and military investigators were particularly eager to question Mr. Belkacem about the personal background and possible hiding places of Mr. Zubaydah, a Saudi-born Palestinian in his early 30´s who is believed to have coordinated the terrorist attacks ordered by bin Laden.

Al-Qaeda’s role in radical Islamic activities and events in Bosnia has been frequently mentioned in US media and official government reports since the 9/11 tragedy.

5. MORE ON SEPTEMBER 11 AND BOSNIA’S AL-QAEDA NETWORK
Another senior commander of Mujahedeen battalion in central Bosnia-Herzegovina was Abu Zubair al-Haili (a.k.a. Mohammed Haydar Zammar, "the Bear"), German citizen of Syrian descent. He was the chief handler of the Hamburg Al-Qaeda cell responsible for September 11 suicide hijackings. He received military training in Pakistan in 1991 plied his deadly skills in what militant Islamic fundamentalists refer to as the " Jihad - holy war" which raged in ethnically strife-torn Bosnia in the 1990s.


Zammar was travelling under the cover of "Tabligh", a missionary sect of Muslims, that he conveniently used for fundamentalist recruiting purposes.

German investigators have learned that one of the individuals whom Zammar tied into the Al-Qaida network was Mohammed Atta, the pilot of one of the planes that crashed into the World Trade Center. Zammar also brought two of Atta's lieutenants into the al-Qaida network, Ramzi Bin al-Shaibah and Said Bahaji. Indonesian citizen Agus Budiman, who spend more than nine months in a US prison as a terrorist suspect, met Bin al-Shaibah, a Muslim cleric from Hamburg.

Ramzi Bin al-Shaibah told Budiman that he wanted to take part in the Jihad, or holy war, in Bosnia. Bin al-Shaibah is the 20th hijacker who was supposed to be aboard the plane that crashed into a Pennsylvania field.

Nawaf Alhazmi and Khalid al-Mihdhar (American Airlines Flight 77 that crashed into the Pentagon) were not like the other hijackers. The two Saudis militant backgrounds is more comprehensive than the others, despite their young ages. In the mid-1990s both apparently were in the Bosnia conflict, and then fought in Chechnya at various times between 1996 and 1998. This was confirmed by the Director of Central Intelligence George J. Tenet during the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence hearings.

American investigators intercepted telephone calls and other evidence showed that Bensayah Belkacem, who was believed to be a native of Algeria or Yemen with Bosnian citizenship, had numerous conversations on cellular telephones last fall with leaders of Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. He has been identified as a European lieutenant in Al-Qaeda who was ordered to carry out attacks on American targets in the Balkans after Sept. 11.

The officials said FBI and military investigators were particularly eager to question Mr. Belkacem about the personal background and possible hiding places of Mr. Zubaydah, a Saudi-born Palestinian in his early 30´s who is believed to have coordinated the terrorist attacks ordered by bin Laden.

Al-Qaida Leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed’s Bosnian Links Emerging

Exclusive. Analysis. With input from GIS Station Sarajevo. Very reliable sources within the Islamist community in Bosnia-Herzegovina told GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs on November 22, 2004, that evidence was beginning to emerge of very significant links between senior al-Qaida leader Khalid Sheikh Mohammed — the ostensible “master mind” of the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States — and Islamist groups in Bosnia. Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was detained by US officials in March 2003, and remains in US custody.

See Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, September 17, 2003: Bosnian Official Links With Terrorism, Including 9/11, Become Increasingly Apparent as Clinton, Clark Attempt to Justify Support of Bosnian Militants.

The sources, who have been extremely reliable in the past, produced definitive evidence that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was integrally linked into the Bosnia al-Qaida terrorist logistical hub. Despite the long chain of evidence which has already emerged over the past three years, the European Union’s appointed ruler of Bosnia-Herzegovina, Paddy Ashdown, has consistently claimed that there was no evidence of terrorist basing or involvement in Bosnia, and has supported the Islamist groups which were, in fact, involved with terrorist support activities.

The GIS sources had documentary evidence that Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the son of Salem, was born October 22, 1966, in Kuwait. He was in Bosnia as first member of El-Mudzahid unit and then, since 1996, became a member of Egyptian Islamist radical operations. He also obtained Bosnian citizenship and a Bosnian passport under the Government of the late Alija Izetbegovic. By a decision of Sarajevo Police No. 09/2-204-108 dated April 30, 1994, Khaled obtain his Bosnian citizenship certificate and immediately after that his Bosnian passport. This absolutely tied Khalid Sheikh Mohammed into the Bosnian terrorist network; Osama bin Laden and the two al-Zawahiri brothers also obtained their Bosnian credentials in similar ways.

Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily of September 17, 2003, noted:

A series of documents, just acquired by GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, highlight the links between radical Islamists in key positions in the Government of Bosnia-Herzegovina (B-H) and known and suspected Islamists with terrorist links. Significantly, one of the key Bosnian Islamist officials, Huso (he later called himself Hussein) Zivalj, was B-H Ambassador to the United Nations during the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York. He arrived just before the attacks and left the post shortly thereafter.

It is now becoming increasingly clear that the movement of Zivalj to the New York post just before (and his departure just after) the September 11, 2001, attacks was not coincidental.

Significantly, the clarity of the links between the Bosnian Islamists and anti-US terrorism is now becoming apparent at a time when former US President William Clinton and his former military appointee and Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), Gen. Wesley Clark (now a Democratic Party presidential aspirant for the US 2004 elections), have begun moves to justify their military support for Bosnian and Kosovo Islamists in moves which will almost certainly lead to a new wave of ethnic division in B-H and in neighboring Serbia. [See Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, September 8, 2003: US Official Implicated With Bosnian High Representative Ashdown in Attempting to Force Fabricated Report on Srebrenica.]

Zivalj had earlier — between 1992 and 1995 — been B-H Ambassador to Vienna, Austria. At that time, he approved a significant number of visas and passports to radical Islamists of non-Bosnian origin. He then went on to be Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs, the most senior Muslim position in the Ministry. He maintained a constant shuttle during his time as Deputy Minister from Sarajevo to Vienna, the United States and a number of Arab countries.

Significantly, Huso Zivalj was a key component of the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US, attacks apparently organized in large part by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. If both were involved, at a senior level, in the September 11, 2001, attacks, it is reasonable to accept that there was liaison either between the two, or between entities the two used. A significant number of the known September 11 attackers also had direct links into Bosnia.

It is also significant that, despite the fact that the US Government has had Khalid Sheikh Mohammed in custody for more than a year, there has been no mention of Bosnia‘s rôle in the September 11, 2001, attacks, despite the growing volume of evidence linking Bosnia to the attacks. There has been some suggestion that the linkage was an embarrassment to the US Government — and particularly to the US Dept. of State — which had been a significant source of support for the Bosnian Islamists during and after the Bosnian civil war.

Terror suspects detained in Russia's Tatarstan had explosives

Kazan, 19 November: Four members of an international terrorist organization who were attempting to distribute leaflets of an extremist nature have been detained in Almetyevsk, the press centre of the Tatarstan Interior Ministry announced today.

Those detained, who are of Central Asian origin, are members of the terrorist organization, Hizb ut-Tahrir (Islamic Liberation Party). A search of their flats revealed explosives and explosive devices, something that "allows one to say that they were preparing a terrorist act", a press centre spokesman said.

The prosecutor's office has instituted a criminal case under the article dealing with "instigation of national, racial and religious enmity".

According to the Federal Security Service Directorate for Tatarstan, more than 20 militants and one of the ringleaders of the terrorist organization, which operated in Kazan, Naberezhnyye Chelny, Almetyevsk and Yelabuga, have been detained in recent days.

Madrid Bombings Highlight Extent and Capability of Islamist Networks
Reactivation of Bosnian Support Net for New US Attacks?
Analysis. By Gregory R. Copley, Editor, GIS. A series of tightly coordinated bombings on the commuter rail networks of Madrid, Spain, during rush hour on the morning of March 11, 2004, were clearly linked to the al-Qaida-related group, the Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades, which during 2003 and 2004 were engaged in geographically dispersed terrorist bombings in Ankara, Turkey, and against the UN compound in Baghdad, Iraq, in August 2003. More than anything, however, the March 11, 2004, bombings highlighted the extensive European network of the various Islamist groups and gave some indications of further activities.
There is now evidence to indicate a pattern of terrorist attacks during 2004 designed to help remove the governments of Spain, the US and Australia. In this context, in the US and Spanish operations, the Bosnian Islamist terror support network plays a key rôle, and GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs has continued to gain information which highlights this fact. [GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs readers are familiar with the extensive volume of intelligence material on this matter produced over the past decade; much of that is available in the Special Reports and Archival sections of the Global Information System.]
Operations of the magnitude of the March 11, 2004, “Operation Death Trains” (as it was described in the al-Masri communiqué which followed the bombings) require massive support infrastructures. The earlier and most recent al-Masri actions demonstrated a seamless and comprehensive capability which spans Western Europe, and involves networks which have embedded themselves into Western society over the past 15 or more years. In the case of the Iranian aspects of the support network — which not only has supported nominally Shi’i terrorists, but also nominally Sunni (Wahabbi) terrorists — the process of embedding support structures in Western Europe and North America has been underway since 1979, when extremist clerics seized power when the Shah left Iran.
In the case of the latest Spanish attacks, Iran had long coordinated terrorist activities, training and other support measures which linked Spain's ETA Basque separatist terrorist organization with other groups. ETA, which was apparently not represented at the gathering of terrorist organizations in Tehran earlier in 2004, has in the past attended Iranian terrorist conclaves, convened, ostensibly, to discuss the Palestinian issue. In reality, the more-or-less annual gatherings in Tehran — addressed and most significantly supported by the so-called “moderate” Iranian Pres. Hojjat ol-Eslam (Ali) Mohammad, Khatami-Ardakani — are gatherings to facilitate cooperation, training, interoperability and financing of disparate terrorist groups aimed at common enemies, particularly the US.
ETA routinely attends these gatherings, and its members meet with other Shi’ite and Sunni (and non-Muslim) terrorists from other areas. As well, ETA has trained and used Iranian-controlled terrorist facilities in Lebanon’s Beqa’a Valley. However, it is almost certainly the case that ETA was not officially involved in the March 11, 2004, bombings in Madrid, at least from the evidence known thus far. But it is almost certain that some individuals within ETA provided some of the logistical support or local area knowledge for the attacks.
Most significant in the European capability for the range of Islamist terrorist activities is the network built up, mostly since 1990-91, in Bosnia & Herzegovina. This network has become the hub of operations extending into Germany, France, Spain, Britain and elsewhere in Western Europe and North America.
The Bosnian-based operations — which engage a number of different Iranian-run terrorism/insurgency cadres as well as a variety of Arab mujahedin groups as well as direct Bosnian Islamist operations — provided the essential capability for the September 11, 2001, terrorists. That Bosnian network extended to the use of the Bosnia-Herzegovina Mission to the United Nations, in New York.
A September 17, 2003, report in Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, and entitled Bosnian Official Links With Terrorism, Including 9/11, Become Increasingly Apparent as Clinton, Clark Attempt to Justify Support of Bosnian Militants, noted:
A series of documents, just acquired by GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily, highlight the links between radical Islamists in key positions in the Government of Bosnia-Herzegovina (B-H) and known and suspected Islamists with terrorist links. Significantly, one of the key Bosnian Islamist officials, Huso (he later called himself Hussein) Zivalj, was B-H Ambassador to the United Nations during the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on New York. He arrived just before the attacks and left the post shortly thereafter.
It is now becoming increasingly clear that the movement of Zivalj to the New York post just before (and his departure just after) the September 11, 2001, attacks was not coincidental.
That extensive report also said:
Significantly, Zivalj, who is regarded as the most important radical Islamist in the B-H networks, working closely with al-Qaida and Iranian terrorist officials, has a US Green Card (permanent residency), and his family is believed to be living still in Florida. Zivalj now is believed to be a director of Islamic Bank, in B-H. He spent some time, during the communist era in the former Yugoslavia, in prison with Alija Izetbegovic, who later became the Islamist President of B-H. Significantly, Zivalj used his position in Vienna to issue, in 1995, a B-H passport to Safet Catovic [Passport No. BH-46600], and GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily has the documentation on this. Earlier, he had issued a B-H passport to Osama bin Laden, head of the al-Qaida networks.
Zivalj had been a Vice-President and member of the governing board of the Third World Relief Agency (TWRA), which had been funded by Osama bin Laden, and with which Sheikh Omar Abd-al-Rahman (the so-called “blind sheikh”) was involved. The Egyptian Sheikh Omar was convicted for his rôle in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing in New York. TWRA was founded in Vienna in 1987 and had links with the Izetbegovic Government in Bosnia-Herzegovina as well as with Dr Hassan al-Turabi and his terrorist operations in Sudan.
This network, which played a key and direct rôle in the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, has been at the center of the so-called "green transversal", the line which runs essentially from Afghanistan through Western Europe to North America, running drugs and arms and supporting Islamist proselytization and terrorism. This network, essentially established and managed with the immense support of the late Bosnia-Herzegovina leader Alija Izetbegovic, remains in existence and is tied directly to both al-Qaida as well as with the Iranian Government, which stations Pasdaran (Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps: IRGC) fighters in organized groups and compounds inside Bosnia.
GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily has provided extensive reporting, with documented details and collateral, on this subject for some years, but particularly during the past year. A number of US and European officials engaged in monitoring the implementation of the 1995 Dayton Accords in Bosnia-Herzegovina, however, have consistently refuted the data, largely because it would imply a failure of their mission and, more significantly, it would imply that the current rundown of peacekeeping forces in Bosnia — to meet needs in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere — should not be undertaken.
Now, however, the messages emanating from Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades and other al-Qaida and Islamist sources is that “al-Qaida” was now 99 percent ready for another major terrorist attack on the United States. In fact, it is not just the amorphous “al-Qaida” — which is merely a convenient catch-all name for the activities now underway — but a heavy campaign to strike at the US and its allies, including particularly Spain and probably the UK (and perhaps Australia), before the US-led Coalition succeeds in helping Iranians remove the radical clerical leaders and find and destroy Osama bin Laden himself. The attack on Madrid, timed three days before general elections, was clearly not a coincidence, and was meant to warn voters that they must pay the price for their Government’s support for the US-led “war on terror”.
A similar campaign was clearly planned for the US in 2004, a year which gives the Iranian clerics the chance to achieve “regime change” in the US. Only the removal of the US Bush Administration would give both the Iranian clerics and the bin Laden hierarchy the breathing space they seek.
GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs Daily reported in 2003 that the Iranian clerics were known to have committed some $200-million to achieving “regime change” in the US. It is not insignificant that a major flow of funds through Albanian-Americans reached now-failed Democratic candidate Gen. Wesley Clark and significant funding is reaching the campaign of Democratic Presidential candidate John Kerry through Iranian-Americans, even though the expatriates of both those countries may in large part be unaware why their help had been solicited in funneling funds to the candidates. But the Iranian-bin Laden attempts will go far deeper than that; they will almost certainly include attempts at staging terrorist “spectaculars”.
However, the timing and success of these attacks is critical. Clearly, the attacks must be seen to be overwhelmingly successful, and therefore all planning precautions will be taken to ensure that they do not appear to be “damp squibs” which merely embarrass the perpetrators.
Significantly, there are indications that the Bosnian support network in the United States remains intact and functioning. Even former BH Ambassador to the UN Huso Zivali remains at large; he has a US permanent resident “Green Card” and his family lives in Florida. One of his key functionaries in the build-up to September 11, 2001, Safet Catevic, and who was clearly involved in the US Islamist operations linked to the September 11, 2001, attacks, also remains at large and may still be in the US.
But more significantly, GIS/Defense & Foreign Affairs on March 11, 2001, uncovered extensive intelligence material on the background to the current Bosnia-Herzegovina Permanent Representative (Ambassador) to the United Nations, Kušljugic Mirza, a committed member of the Islamist leadership which had conducted the Bosniak side of the civil war with Iranian and bin Ladenist help in Bosnia, and which later was documented to have supported the September 11, 2001, attacks in the US. A translation from the dossier is quoted at length as follows:
Kušljugic Mirza, ambassador of BiH [Bosnia & Herzegovina] to UN, during the armed conflict in former Bosnia and Herzegovina, was a member of the highest leadership of Municipal Assembly of the town of Tuzla and the War Presidency of SDP Tuzla, where he planned, encouraged, ordered, committed or in some other way supported planning, preparations and executing the following:
1. Persecutions of Serbs in the municipality of Tuzla, establishing Muslim authorities based on ethnic and religious background in towns, municipalities and villages where the Serb population lived and worked;
He participated in a national rebellion in the party SDP BiH in Tuzla when Muslims in 1991 and 1992 informally took over the leadership, keeping all other Serb activists isolated from information and real activities. They created the ruling system based on national and religious background, preparing themselves to illegally attack the Serbs.1
As a member of the War Presidency SDP in Tuzla and a member of the War Presidency of the Municipal Assembly (MA) in Tuzla, he contributed, by his deeds and actions, to the ethnic cleansing of Serbs in the region of municipality of Tuzla, which consequently led to a downfall of the number of Serbs from 22,000 to 2,000 in 1995.
Together with the other members of the War Presidency of MA Tuzla, he ordered and supported illegal mobilization of Serbs although many of them had been incapable for military service and ill, manipulating mobilization in such a way to collect the Serbs on important scientific and professional positions and consequently changing the structure of the authorities.
During 1992, 1993, and 1994 he supported arresting and dismissing from work the respectable citizens of Serb nationality, and refused to protect them.
As a member of the highest leadership of the MA Tuzla, he supported torturing and beating of Serbs who had been regularly coming to work (for example, in the company "Solana" and salt mines).
Together with Ademir Mešetovic, Mevlid Vlaic, Jasmin Imamovic and the others he had been hiding those facts from the foreign politicians and officials of the International Community, humanitarian workers and foreign journalist, as well as hiding the war truth about what was happening in the municipality of Tuzla. In addition, he created a false image on Selim Bešlagic, a president of the War Presidency of MA Tuzla, glorifying his “war charisma” and falsely presenting him in public as a multi-ethnically oriented and democratic politician.
Together with Rusmir Mahmutcehajic he formed an international forum “Bosnia”, which used the motto of democracy, human rights and multi-ethnicity to cover the position of the absolute domination of Bosniaks in BiH aimed at achieving not - democratic goals in the whole territory of BiH.
2. War Crimes against Serbs (illegal arrests, imprisonment, liquidations, inhuman and brutal treatments)
As a member of the highest leadership of the municipality Tuzla he was acquainted with the fact that the secret lists for arrests and liquidations of Serbs had been made, thus he allowed and supported establishment of private jails in Tuzla kept by jailkeepers Faruk Prcic and Ahmet Šerija Zaimovic. All the members of the Presidency knew what was happening in jails, they refused to prevent torturing and abuse of prisoners. On one occasion when Faruk Prcic shot dead a Serb in premises of the Institute where one of the jails was based, he was told not to do it in that place.
As a member of the War Presidency, Kušljugic knew that the arrests and liquidations of Serbs had been going on but he did not do anything to prevent it nor to take them into his protection. Serbs had been arrested and liquidated in their apartments, houses, streets and factories, and the arrested ones taken to death camps Ljubace and Kladanj. The bodies of the liquidated Serbs had been thrown into pits, and afterwards dug-out and buried in some secret places by special forces of the central party SDA.2
The purpose of those crimes was to eliminate Serbs from a political and public life.
3. Hiding traces of the committed war crimes
As a member of the War Presidency he knew that the bodies of dead soldiers in Trnovo had been dug out next to the Orthodox cemetery. The bodies were removed to different locations three times. Excavations were done by Faruk Prcic and organized by Timun Mumic from the SDA headquarters, while an advisor was Amir Meševic.
4. Involvement in preparations, planning and organization of attacks on the civilians and religious sites
Kušljugic participated in making decisions on the attacks launched at Dubica and Kalesije, refusing to forbid burning and plundering of Serbs' houses and churches.
In addition, he participated in making decisions on the attacks and cleansing in Caklovici, Simin Han, and Pozarnica where significant numbers of civilians were murdered, houses plundered and burned down; the rest of the population fled, and the Orthodox church was severely devastated (Faruk Prcic, a member of an engineering unit of the Tuzla's brigade, destroyed it), and nothing was done to prevent or forbid such activities.
Together with Sead Avdic and Selim Bešlagic, Kušljugic made decisions to launch attacks on Tinj and Duboki Potok, where they burned down, destroyed and plundered everything on their way with a purpose to make a military and logistic corridor toward the North and Croatia. Within the War Presidency, Kusljugiæ was one of the decisionmakers who launched attacks on Smoluca.3
5. Participation in weapons supplies to Muslims- Bosniaks and preparations of attacks against Serbs
Together with Ademir Mešetovic [Kušljugic] participated in illegal weapons supplies from Croatia in 1991 and 1992, making payments by distribution of newly build flats by "Tehnograd" Tuzla.
As a member of the War Presidency he participated in planning of the attacks launched at a convoy of JNA [Yugoslav National Army] although it had been arranged in advance, on May 15 1992, that the convoy would leave the town of Tuzla in peace;
6. Participated in illegal production an use of prohibited weapons
As a member of the War Presidency of MA Tuzla, Kušljugic participated in making decisions on production of chemical weapons based on chlorine. Adem Tucakovic alias Tuke was in charge of production of chlorine weapons in the "HAK". Shells filled with chlorine were made under the supervision of Faruk Prcic in "TTU". The chlorine shells were produced in premises of "UMEL" behind the UNHCR field office.
7. Direct cooperation with Islamic fundamentalists
During the war in Tuzla, Kušljugic established a direct cooperation with the representatives of TWRA in Vienna, known for its undemocratic, Islamist, militaristic and intelligence role in the whole world.
8. Other
What gives the best description of Kušljugic’s personality is the fact that in his Cabinet based in premises of Electro-technical Faculty in Tuzla, he keeps stolen paintings of an artist Nezir Corbic from Tuzla. The paintings were stolen from the artist's studio in Tuzla in 1992. Allegedly, Kušljugic has bought the paintings from Cazim Sarajlic, a manager of the gallery of fine arts in Tuzla.
Footnotes to the Dossier
1. The war structure of SDP party and its leadership was a such one that it included only Muslims or rather Bosniaks, having eliminated all the Serbs, Croats and Bosniak- intellectuals who had refused to abide with the policy of a national selection.
2. The list had been made by Adnan Jahic, Rifet Haskic (SDA bought him an apartment), Vedad Spahic - Vana, Salih Brkic (at the time advisor and a coordinator), Meho Krainovic (supported those activities, a refugee from Bijeljina). One of the jails was in a basement of the Institute in Miladije, where distinguished citizens from Tuzla, Serbs, had been tortured and beaten. Only two floors above the jail, in the same Institute building, the War Presidency was based led by Selim Bešlagic. Citizens who resided next to the Institute on daily basis used to hear screams and moans of the tortured people, so they would sent their children away from the Institute. Zaimovic has received a pension from the Government of Netherlands, he freely goes visiting his daughter in the Netherlands, remaining free from any sanctions by the Federation BiH for having committed war crimes.
3. Immediate carriers and perpetrators of crimes against Serbs were the following persons:
(i) ŽILIC MEHMED, Chief of Security in the 2nd Corps HQ Army FBiH, so called ABiH, in charge of the death camps in Lubaca and Kladanj;
(ii) ENES BECIC, today employed as an engineer in Tuzla;
(iii) JAHIC- brother of SULJO JAHIC, employed in the Headquarters in Tuzla;
(iv) AVDO MEŠIC (company "Tuzla - Broker") had given his minibuses for the purpose of arresting and transporting Serbs into the death camps;
(v) TUFIK SELIMBAŠIC, an armed escort of SIFET KREKIC, used to murder some of the arrested Serbs immediately on the spot. Today, an owner of a sawmill in Brateljevici near the town of Kladanj, enjoying protection of some Cauševic from getting arrested;
(vi) MEHO BEGIC, at the time in charge of making lists of the Orthodox churches to be destroyed;
(vii) JASMIN IMAMOVIC, in charge of the action of destroying the building "Borac".
The situation is now that both the Iranian and “al-Qaida” leaderships must move with increasing speed and rapidity if they are to remove their major opponents before they themselves can be removed: 2004 is the decisive year for them both. Striking Madrid on March 11, 2004, was intended to help remove the current Spanish Government of Prime Minister José Maria Aznar at the forthcoming elections. If the Spanish electorate responds by overwhelmingly supporting Sr Aznar’s Popular Party (Partido Popular, PP), then the Iranian and bin Ladenist leadership could conceivably reconsider how it conducted further attacks against, say, the US in the run-up to the November 2004 Presidential and Congressional elections. But if the Spanish electorate is perceived to react in a manner which reproaches Prime Minister Aznar, then the Iranian and bin Laden team would almost certainly move to implement major terrorist “spectaculars” in the US, attempting to show how the Bush Administration had failed to protect the US from terrorist attacks.
Having said that, it is now almost inconceivable that — regardless of the outcome of the Spanish elections — the Iranian and bin Ladenist leadership would not go ahead with attacks on the US in an attempt to influence the elections there. Equally, attacks will almost certainly be held to influence the elections which must be held in Australia before November 10, 2004.
In the interim, the “success” of the March 11, 2004, attacks in Madrid would provide impetus for the attacks which intelligence reporting indicates have been planned for the August 2004 Athens Olympic Games. In attacks on the US and the Olympics, as with the attacks of March 11, 2004, in Madrid, the Bosnian Islamist network plays a crucial rôle. Attacks on the Olympics would risk to a certain degree the operational planning, distribution and safe-have hub which Bosnia has provided for the Islamist push into Europe, just as attacks in Australia would end the safe-haven status of that country for Islamists who have wished to move out of sight.
However, given the fact that both Osama bin Laden and his team, and the Iranian clerics are fighting for their lives, the short-term objective of survival should be expected to prevail over the risk of such attacks to the long-term viability of the safe-haven bases. Indeed, if Iran and bin Laden were to be successful in removing the Bush Administration in the US, the Aznar Administration in Spain and the Howard Administration in Australia, then it is entirely likely that they would have broken the back of their opposition, and the “war on terror” would be sidelined.
The push into Western and Central Europe by the Islamists would then move forward, including a renewed outbreak of war in Bosnia-Herzegovina — to drive the Serbs of Republica Srpska out of that remaining territory in Bosnia — and in Serbia, to remove the Serbs from Kosovo and Metohija as well as the Raška area of southern Serbia; and in Montenegro, to ensure the removal of Montenegrin Christians; and in Macedonia, to ensure the geographic security of the Muslim territory which could provide a clean, almost unbroken link from Afghanistan to the heart of Europe.
In all of this, the Bosnian network is paramount. It has provided weapons and manpower for the conflict against the US-led Coalitions in Iraq and Afghanistan during the past year, and provided the essential infrastructure in Europe which helped the Madrid attacks. Significantly, Bosnia-Herzegovina has in place in its UN Embassy in New York a committed Islamist, already tied to major war crimes. Just as it did in the run-up to the September 11, 2001, attacks. The US did not even investigate the links following September 11; the Bosniak leadership is counting on the fact that the US will not now look into the Bosnian link.

Spanish court upholds indictment of 21 members of Al Qaeda cell Spain's top terrorist-crimes court on Wednesday sustained the indictment of 21 suspected members of a Spanish cell of Al Qaeda believed to have played a major role in the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States.

Spain's National Court rejected motions to dismiss charges against 21 of the 35 men indicted in the case, including several fugitives, the most notorious of which is Osama bin Laden.

The court found that the investigating judge, Baltasar Garzon, found "rational evidence of criminality that, in his judgment, attends each of the accused as members of the terrorist organization Al Qaeda in Spain."

In June, Garzon, finished putting together the case against Al Qaeda in Spain, with Saudi citizen Osama bin Laden as chief suspect.

Another is Imad Eddin Barakat Yarkas, known as Abu Dahdah, alleged head of the Spanish cell, which authorities believe ceased to exist as a result of Operation Date - named after the nut of an Arabian palm tree - conducted following the Sept. 11 attacks.

In his indictment, Garzon concluded the accused used Spain as a base for preparing the U.S. attacks, as well as for obtaining funds and support for the organization.

Garzon charged each of the defendants, a dozen of which are behind bars in Spain, with a count of terrorist homicide for person killed in the Sept. 11 attacks in New York, Washington and Pennsylvania.

He also charged Bin Laden and other members of Al Qaeda with belonging to or collaborating with terrorists, tax evasion, forgery of a business document, fraud and weapons possession.

In the course of his investigation, Garzon sought and obtained information from Germany, the United States, Indonesia, Greece, Great Britain, Belgium, Yemen, Syria, Sweden, Turkey, Jordan and Saudi Arabia.

Irish Times. Source: Financial Times Information Limited - Europe Intelligence Wire

Thanks.