Jeremy Reynalds, 01/06/04
...Connected with Self-Proclaimed al Qaida Operative?
A recent threat on an al Qaeda related web site threatens to destroy New York within 35 days.
According to www.debka.com, an Israeli based internet intelligence digest, the threat made headlines on the front page of Il Giornale, a respected Italian newspaper. However, there appears to have been no American media coverage.
The threat was contained in a video clip featured on a web site allegedly associated with al Qaeda. At the time of writing, the clip was still on line at www.khayma.com/iraqihell/End%20US.htm. According to debka.com, the newspaper reported the video announced al Qaeda plans to destroy New York in a nuclear blast on February 2.
The video clip showed a number of possible scenarios. A bomb or giant fireball from the sky covering New York with a radioactive cloud. A storm of radioactive clouds toppling skyscrapers one by one, along with the Statue of Liberty and Brooklyn Bridge being blown to pieces. An explosion on board a charter aircraft that would cause a radioactive cloud to spread over the city.
The video clip was also accompanied, Debka said the newspaper reported, by large, red-lettered Arabic captions saying: "If God wills it, the end of America is near."
The administrative contact for the site is apparently Dr. Sami Shaban, a professor with the United Arab Emirates (UAE) University's Dept. of Medical Education in Al-Ain in the UAE.
A university faculty listing says Shaban is listing "out of faculty." On line information for the site listed Shaban as having a street address in Bowie, MD.
Attempts to obtain a telephone number to contact Shaban at the address in Bowie were unsuccessful.
It is important not to discount the possibility that Shaban's site could have conceivably been hacked, a practise that has been routine by members of the al Qaida in the last year or so.
There could conceivably be a link between Shaban and Daleel Almojahid, a self- professed al Qaida operative who for some weeks was broadcasting messages of destruction to America through his Yahoo groups message board.
Recently all of Almojahid's writings, which included a list of demands to the Bush Administration ( fulfilment of which was apparently necessary to prevent future attacks upon America) were pulled from the site and replaced with a link to the video described in this article.
Almojahid was writing from the United Arab Emirates, initially from computers located at the American University at Sharjah. Typically very prolific, Almojahid has been conspicuously silent the last few days and has not responded to requests for comment on any connection between him and the presumed site registrant.
While neither the video or the seriousness of the threat have been assessed , as www.debka.com pointed out, "The report appeared in a newspaper widely viewed as the flagship of Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi. Such reports - even if not authenticated - tend to contribute to the mounting sense of alarm generated by ‘Orange Alert' in America and other Western countries."