Posted on 10/03/2004 6:06:03 PM PDT by JustPiper
Video of beheadings found for sale at Tampa gas station
an ABC Action News report
http://www.wfts.com/stories/2004/11/041109video.shtml
FLASHBACK: Netherlands opens first "deportation center" for immigrants
June 27, 2003
http://drudgereport.com/flash9.htm
For Dutch, anger battles with tolerance
(Excellent article)
http://www.iht.com/bin/print_ipub.php?file=/articles/2004/11/10/news/dutch.html
Eye in sky may watch Parks workers
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-gps09.html
Words cannot explain how proud iam of piper!
Words cannot express how proud we all are of you!You are the most awesome grandma around!Mom,you rock!
Pakistan Protecting bin Laden
Arnaud de Borchgrave - November 4, 2004
With his latest video sally, Osama bin Laden, the world's most wanted terrorist, has repositioned himself as the only leader willing to confront the world's sole superpower. Bin Laden has been hiding in Pakistan for almost three years, evidently with high-ranking protection. SNIP
Bin Laden now knows that certain countless millions of Muslims, surveyed by the Pew Foundation two years in a row, trust him more than George W. Bush. In Muslim countries with a combined population of 450 million, bin Laden was a clear winner as a "freedom fighter" over the U.S. president. In Morocco and Jordan, two traditionally pro-Western countries, at least at the regime-to-regime level, Mr. Bush was trusted by fewer than 10 percent in either country.
Bin Laden also scored majorities among the 6 million, mostly poverty-stricken, North Africans living in slums on the outskirts of France's major cities. Similar paeans echoed among 1 million South Asians in the greater London region.
Pakistani denials notwithstanding, Osama bin Laden has been in Pakistan since Dec. 9, 2001, when he escaped from the Tora Bora mountain range. Countrywide, bin Laden feels secure with 66 percent of Pakistanis, which moves up to plus 80 percent in the Northwest Frontier Province and Baluchistan, the two provinces bordering Afghanistan and governed by bin Laden admirers who consider Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar a personal friend.
This reporter and a multilingual UPI team, tipped by a major tribal leader about bin Laden's progress as he exited the Tora Bora mountain range through the Tirah Valley, arrived at the location Dec. 11, 2001. Local villagers confirmed that bin Laden, on horseback, accompanied by some 50 fighters, had come out of the Tirah Valley two days before. They were close to a main road that led from Pakistan's FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Areas) to Peshawar, capital of the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP). Bin Laden left in the direction of Peshawar in an SUV with darkened windows.
Bin Laden could be sheltered in any of Pakistan's major cities. The sprawling port of Karachi on the Arabian Sea, surrounded by miles of slums, has some 15 million people. In Peshawar, a city of 3.5 million, many Pathans, like bin Laden, are over six feet tall. In FATA, rickety local buses display posters of bin Laden captioned "Freedom Fighter." Bin Laden also enjoys the protection of renegade members of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI).
Conventional wisdom among the al-Qaida watchers in Pakistan says President Pervez Musharraf's regime is reluctant to launch a countrywide crackdown to find bin Laden. If bin Laden were captured, dead or alive, Mr. Musharraf would feel obligated to turn him over to the United States. And Pakistan might then face a disinterested U.S. administration and lose billions in aid.
Three months before the release of the September 11 Commission report, commission chief of staff Phil Zelikow asked a prominent Pakistani if he could "fill in the gaps about what was happening behind the scenes in Pakistan in the period immediately preceding the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington." He traveled the length and breadth of Pakistan working his sources, which included many former ranking government officials, retired senior officers and former ISI personnel.
The requested report arrived in Washington too late to be included in the commission's 567-page report, which mentioned Pakistan 311 times. Even if it had arrived in time, it probably would have been left out. The material turned over to Mr. Zelikow, a former member of the President's Foreign Intelligence Advisory Board (2001-2003), could prove even more embarrassing to Mr. Musharraf than the information supplied by U.S. intelligence about the international nuclear black market arms bazaar that was run for the benefit of America's enemies (North Korea, Iran and Libya).
The unpublished addendum to the September 11 report said:
(1) Former senior ISI officers knew about the September 11 plot before the attacks occurred.
(2) Osama bin Laden has not left Pakistan since he escaped from Tora Bora.
(3) Bin Laden was treated for renal problems at a military hospital near Peshawar.
Mr. Musharraf will, of course, deny all this. Though he was army chief before his military coup in October 1999 gave him absolute power, Mr. Musharraf told the United States he knew nothing about A.Q. Khan's activities. This stretched credulity to the breaking point. He pardoned Mr. Khan and allowed him to keep his ill-gotten nuclear fortune. Future denials about bin Laden will ring as hollow.
Snipped and excerpted for brevity's sake. Interesting read in it's entirety IMO.
http://www.worldthreats.com/al-qaeda_terrorism/Pakistan%20Hiding%20OBL.htm
India and the road to Osama
By Siddharth Srivastava
Nov 3 2004
NEW DELHI - Speculation is rife in India that Osama bin Laden, who has gate-crashed the United States elections with the release of his latest video, is holed up in eastern Pakistan, in the northern regions of the country's portion of Kashmir, with even the possibility that he might have already ventured into Indian territory
SNIP
Hideaway in Kashmir? Reports of the bin Laden sighting, even if speculative, come on the back of news of heightened activity in the Ladakh region (northern part of Indian-administered Kashmir) by the Aviation Research Center (ARC), a specialized reconnaissance agency of India's Research and Analysis Wing, which looks after external intelligence. Highly placed defense sources have been quoted as saying that the Ladakh region has seen an unusual number of sorties by ARC aircraft. While there is little information about the purpose of such missions, the ARC's sudden activities could trigger further speculation that bin Laden may be lurking in what India refers to as Pakistan-occupied Kashmir.
Excerpted
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FK03Df05.html
Old news for FReepers, but, new article.
Bin Laden wants nukes: Canadian intelligence
Jim Bronskill
Canadian Press
November 3, 2004
OTTAWA (CP) - Canadian spies have been pondering one of the more chilling questions of the post-9/11 era: Does Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida have briefcase-sized nuclear weapons?
A newly obtained intelligence report examines the intriguing notion and concludes that whatever the answer, the terrorist network is intent on acquiring nuclear means. The assessment revives concerns that emerged as early as 1992 when Stanislav Lunev, a former Russian military intelligence officer, claimed his country's intelligence services had lost many of the portable, backpack-style devices, which weigh about 55 kilograms.
Excerpted
http://www.canada.com/national/story.html?id=129fbafb-8c34-427c-b924-3d42aae69727
Girls this is my oldest daughter who has given me 4 beautiful grandchildren ;)
Say hi to your sister -g-
Charities held liable for Hamas' acts
http://www.suntimes.com/output/news/cst-nws-islamic11.html
Welcome all your children JP. You have a very special
and talanted bunch. Welcome all Piper Kids to NoE
Child struck, killed by school bus
Five-year-old Noah Barnes died Tuesday after falling down in front of his school bus.
Every morning, a Cedar Ridge School bus stops here, on Spring Meadows Parkway, to pick up children. Tuesday afternoon, 5-year-old Noah Barnes died when he fell in front of the school bus and was run over.
Christina Dicken News-Leader
Michael Flood, whose two sons use the same bus stop where a kindergartner died Tuesday, said he has long worried about safety on the street.
Christina Dicken / News-Leader
By Kathryn Buckstaff
News-Leader Staff
Branson — Grief hung like a veil over Branson's Cedar Ridge School on Wednesday as word spread about the death of a 5-year-old kindergarten student hit by a school bus.
About 3 p.m. Tuesday, Noah Barnes got off the bus in the Spring Meadows subdivision just east of Branson. According to the Missouri Highway Patrol, Noah fell down in front of the bus and was run over. The child was taken by ambulance to Skaggs Community Health Center and then airlifted to Cox South hospital in Springfield where he was pronounced dead at 4:45 p.m.
snip....
http://www.news-leader.com/today/1111-Childstruc-223837.html
My dughter went to school with this child. Please pray for
the family and the school.
November 15, 2004
On Osama's trail
Amateur sleuths scour the Web for jihadist plots. Sometimes they even find them.
MICHAEL SNIDER
On an uncommonly hot day in late September, the bucolic town of Norwood, Ont., population 1,300, seems light years away from suicide bombings and jihad warriors. But appearances can be deceiving. A few blocks south of Norwood's only stoplight, Brent Astley is hunting terrorists. A portly man with broad features and thick hair, Astley is the director of 7-Seas Global Intelligence, a small group of international amateur detectives who spend their days scouring the Internet for al-Qaeda's virtual fingerprints. When they find something suspicious -- a hint on a message board of a planned attack or the latest address of a fly-by-night militant website -- they tip off the authorities.
Yes, it sounds a bit far-fetched, especially when you first meet the 44-year-old unemployed software developer. He looks decidedly rumpled in wrinkled shorts and a short-sleeve shirt. He plies his trade on the second floor of his house (which he rather generously calls a fixer-upper), on a laptop so well-used the original black veneer has worn away to reveal the plastic underneath. But, again, appearances can be deceiving. Astley sinks into a ratty chair and nods at a website on his computer screen. "This is an individual who goes by the Net handle of Abu Banan," he says, scrolling down the page. "He's been called al-Qaeda's webmaster, and he's right here in Canada."
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, the Internet has emerged as a major weapon for extremists. Every known terror group uses it to expound ideology, recruit supporters and raise money. In response, a small but growing subculture of citizen warriors has volunteered to staunch this proliferation, fashioning themselves as resistance fighters rising up against a hostile force. Not surprisingly, most make little impact on the war on terror; what's noteworthy is that some actually have. In the two years since it formed, 7-Seas has helped put one extremist behind bars, and claims to have helped foil other terrorist plots. Astley says he maintains regular contact with intelligence agencies in Canada and the U.S., and last month spent a day lecturing members of a federal agency on 7-Seas' terrorist-tracking methods.
The inescapable question: why does he do it? "The seriousness of the threat became pretty obvious when I realized 9/11 was going to shape the rest of my life and my kids' life," says Astley, a father of three. "My dad was in World War II, my grandfather in World War I. Well, this is my war."
The sight has become tragically familiar. A man dressed in an orange jumpsuit kneels in front of kidnappers whose faces are covered with black ski masks, and pleads for his life. Then: a gruesome death by beheading. In the era of 24-hour news channels and weblogs, terrorists find it's no longer enough to dump a victim's body on the roadside and claim responsibility with a call to a local news station. Now, they want to control the message by distributing videos of their victims' final moments over the Net.
This "theatre of terror" is the latest gambit for gaining attention, says Gabriel Weimann, a communications professor at University of Haifa in Israel, who's been studying extremists' use of the Internet for seven years. "It used to be that hijacking a plane and holding passengers hostage did it," says Weimann, who has monitored more than 4,000 sites linked to militant groups. "Today it's executions. It is so dramatic, it is so cruel, nobody can ignore it." The videos also serve as recruiting tools, encouraging sympathetic Arabs to rise up against Western invaders, and as means of spreading fear among the enemy. "You can post the videos and they can be downloaded worldwide in seconds," says Weimann. It's a strategy tailor-made for the digital age.
Even before the wave of graphic videos, Muslim extremists had been using the Web as a virtual madrassa, providing disciples with manuals on how to make bombs, kidnap people and research targets. Since late 2003, for example, al-Qaeda has been publishing the online magazine al-Battar, which means "holy sword." A recent issue discusses a speech by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the most feared insurgent in Iraq, while the instructional section offers part two of a lesson on the use of pistols for assassination.
Intelligence agencies maintain constant watch over the Net, knowing that a surge in traffic or an encrypted message may hold the key to a plot. Intercepted emails led investigators to Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl's killers. And, in July, U.S. authorities alerted Italy after a third cryptic message appeared on a website known to be closely watched by Islamic terrorists. "The Internet obviously gained prominence after the invasion of Afghanistan," says Special Agent Kim Jensen, an FBI counterterrorism expert. "For the most part it's filled with propaganda and hyperbole, but once in a while something of substance comes along."
In December 2003, for example, an analyst at the private Norwegian Defense Research Establishment discovered a document entitled "Jihadi Iraq, Hopes and Dangers" on a Yahoo! forum called Global Islamic Media. It laid out a strategy for breaking up the U.S.-led coalition by directing attacks at America's allies, particularly Spain, which, it argued, could not tolerate major hits in the run-up to an election. "If its troops still remain in Iraq after these blows, the victory of the Socialist Party is almost secured, and the withdrawal of the Spanish forces will be on its electoral program." Two days before the March 2004 election, several bombs detonated in Madrid's Atocha train station, killing 191 people. Although the online paper dealt more with attacking Spanish soldiers in Iraq, its prediction came true nonetheless: the Socialists swept into power and pulled troops out of Iraq.
Stories like these spur amateurs to pore over forums, sites and blogs with the dedication of public avengers. And, on rare occasions, they hit pay dirt. Astley's group operated in secrecy ever since its eight members -- two in Canada, four in the U.S., and one each in Singapore and Australia -- met on a current-events message board after 9/11. That was until 7-Seas nabbed its first terrorist. National Guardsman Ryan Anderson, a 26-year-old Muslim convert, wanted to join al-Qaeda and fight in Iraq against the U.S. He left a posting on a website under the name Amir Abdul Rashid and was contacted by someone he thought was an al-Qaeda associate. Actually, it was Shannen Rossmiller, a small-town Montana judge and member of 7-Seas, posing as a Muslim extremist. It took four weeks, but Astley and Rossmiller tracked down "Amir Abdul Rashid" (see sidebar next page). In January, the group passed the information to the FBI, which arrested Anderson after a sting operation during which he offered to help train al-Qaeda fighters on the best ways to attack U.S. tanks.
Tracking terrorists is a laborious process. 7-Seas digs up information using search engines and data-mining programs, then converts it from Arabic into English. That's how it stumbled upon a series of postings that suggested a plot to attack Western compounds in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. In the spring of 2003, the group found a message asking for addresses of Americans and Britons in Riyadh and southern Jeddah. The writer said he wished to reward the foreigners "as they do to our brothers in Palestine and Afghanistan." 7-Seas also saw postings discussing how to detonate bombs by cellphone. It passed the information to the FBI. A mere eight hours later, terrorists attacked compounds in Riyadh, killing 35 people, including nine foreigners. Investigators later discovered the bombs were detonated by cellphone. "We had sufficient information to prevent the attack," says Astley, "and if we had got it to the authorities a couple days earlier, it might have been enough to stop them."
Astley's main target now is Abu Banan, operator of the Global Islamic Media forum, which news reports have called the "de facto al-Qaeda website." The site comes and goes as its Web host is notified of its existence and shuts it down, only to see it pop up again with a slightly different name. U.S. officials say Banan has ties to al-Qaeda and previously used the site to signal attacks. According to Astley, Banan is in Canada. Astley has tracked down the current incarnation of the site and traced the author's Internet origin -- called a router hub -- to a Toronto suburb. He says he's forwarded all the information to the RCMP, but rarely hears back. (An RCMP spokesman says that while the agency encourages the public to report possible threats, any leads provided -- and details of subsequent investigations -- are confidential.)
Not all freelance terrorist hunters are content with passing tips to the authorities -- some take a more direct approach. Internet Haganah, a group named after the clandestine military wing of the Jewish leadership during British rule in Palestine, for example, investigates sites related to Islamic extremism and, depending on what it finds, either monitors or "engages" them by asking the Web-hosting company to shut them down. "The point," says Aaron Weisburd, the group's American leader, "is to let terrorists know there are consequences to waging jihad." For his efforts, he's received copious amounts of hate mail, was the subject of a fatwa by a Muslim cleric, and has had to fight off countless attempts to overload and crash his site. More ominously, in June he received a handwritten letter addressed to "the Jewish asshole Aaron Weisburd," giving him a week to shut down his site or he'd be beheaded.
Some anti-jihad activists go so far as to set up phony terrorism websites, cataloguing who visits them before turning the information over to the authorities. Others embed homemade Trojan horse programs into bomb-making documents and other digital files; when someone downloads and opens such a file, the embedded program sends information about the user's email and surfing habits back to the program's creator. But this sort of "hacktivism" is frowned upon by most anti-terrorism activists because it can morph into vigilante acts. "I'm not sure I like the idea of individuals fighting this by themselves," says Weimann. "Once they move to hacking, I would argue it's counterproductive."
Occasionally, tactics get downright bizarre. The Northeast Intelligence Network, an anti-terrorism publication, posts beheading videos on its site, arguing the public needs to see the pictures to understand the enemy's nature. "Our objective is to show what these men really are," says NEIN director Douglas Hagmann. "They're not militants, freedom fighters or activists. They're savages."
For all the dedication and even risk-taking, does all this amateur activity make a difference? Intelligence agencies, after all, have entire departments dedicated to monitoring online traffic. For some Web detectives, the chase seems as much a hobby as a public service, with groups competing to be the first to translate a new posting and put it on their sites. Most troll the same sources, and hardly any know Arabic. "There are numerous well-meaning civilian groups," says FBI's Jensen. "Sometimes they provide helpful information that initiates investigations, but mostly they provide information on sites with which we are already familiar."
Astley admits that he sometimes wonders if he's wasting his time. He gets no money for his labours, and he hasn't worked as a programmer in six months. His wife isn't crazy about the 16 hours a day he spends on the computer. And often the leads he follows turn into dead ends. "I spent three days on this one site with jihad marching songs," he says with a chuckle. "I finally realized they were cellphone ring tones." Still, Astley finds consolation and encouragement in his few successes, and has no intention of stopping. "I just keep telling myself there would be people dead except for what we've done."
http://www.macleans.ca/topstories/world/article.jsp?content=20041115_92448_92448
Judge delays trial of accused terrorist supporter
Associated Press
TAMPA, Fla. - A federal judge has granted a request to delay the trial of a former professor suspected of terrorist ties, in part because of the publicity over Sami Al-Arian during the U.S. Senate race, as well as the amount of evidence in the case.
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/state/10174421.htm?1c
A federal judge, about to preside over the trial of Sami al-Arian, an alleged financier and supporter of Palestinian Islamic Jihad in Tampa, Fla., will wrestle with this question.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/6469357/
May God hold him and his family close
I will pray for this family.
Heartbreaking...
How horrendous...
My tears and prayers being offered for the young lad and his family. May God Bless his newest little angel and May God console his family and give them the abundant grace necessary to pull through this tragedy.
Probe: Iraqi oil money estimates double
Probe alleges surcharges, kickbacks, oil-smuggling
http://www.cnn.com/2004/ALLPOLITICS/11/15/food.for.oil.ap/index.html
Billions!!! Supporting terrorists!!!
Thank you for your prayers.
The Masjids.org Ramadhan Road Show
I would hate for you to waste too much time looking into those things that have no exploited or published beginning. The reason you cannot find out much about me is because I do not come from money and I am not rich. But I am a hard working African American who applies the Islamic teachings of morality, responsibility, and a man's role as a provider for his family and his brotheren in the most dynamic ways that he can. That is why I sincerely appreciate the compliment you made about this being a costly venture coming from a man who obviously couldn't afford it, at the end of your research into my venture, Masjids.org.
To clarify that point for you and to speed up your research, I will tell you like I told the people in Baltimore,(which we fed over 2500 people including the Mayor and the Deputy Police Commissioner), when you look into your cabinets and you see that you only have one peice of bread for you and your family to eat, 'What do you do with it?'. Do you selfishly split it amongst your family and eat for the day - You will be hungry again tommorrow - or, do you take a small piece to eat and then give the rest away to those who have no bread at all.
Now if you are not a Muslim this little perrable might not make sense, but if you are, then you know our Lord has told us that he would return our charity to us ten fold. Because an investment made to help God's creation, is a sure investment that will always pay back. That is the reason for Masjids.org and the Ramadhan Road Show. I wanted to set an example for other people to feel incited to spend thier time and resources, no matter how small it be, giving to their fellow man instead of trying to tear them down.
You called Ingrid Matteson an apologetic, well know that I will never apologize for Islam. I am a computer software designer, how could I apologize for the religion that gave the world the zero by which we are now able to do complex calculations and is the basis for the technology that I am speaking to you on, the internet, the computer. How can I apologize for a religion that took African Americans who were poor and had lost hope and who had turned towards drugs, steeling and alchohol, and brought them up from this hole, gave them dignity, made them love their fellow man, cherish their mother, stand up for truth and righteousness, give their last dollar to a needy person, and raise children that are now effective contributors to our American society.
But as for terrorism I will ask for your help, because this is where our responsibility kicks in. I need you to follow my example by spending the precious time you spent researching me towards stumping out terrorism caused by radical, individualistic interpertaions of religion throughout this world. The same radical interpretations that caused people to suffer in the holocaust and made tyrants like Hitler, the same radical interpretation that insighted the Pope to order 600 years of slavery, that caused the Spanish to kill so many innocent people in the Spanish Inquasition, that took down our towers in New York along with its inhabitants, and that drives a soldier to have no remorse when he kills a child or a mother in any country.
God created his religion but man created terrony. We must all take a stand against this radicalism, and I have made the first step. Our services, Ministry-sites.com and Masjids.org are intended to help people return to prayer and patience through utilizing the religious sanctuaries in our country to return to a way of righteousness, moral decency and moral responsibility, by making their services available to anyone at anytime. Just like our military insures that chaiplins our always available for our soldiers.
Wheter it be a fireman who is lost or feeled with rage at the site of the carnage of 9/11, a woman in Palestine who has lost hope from seeing her family slaughtered, a Jewish man who has lost hope after seeing his family slaughtered, a man sitting at his computer drawn towards the temptation of ponography and degregation of women, or a president who carries the burden of deciding other peoples lives, our services are there to extend their religious organization to their fingertips to give them hope and remind them that God's way is a way of personal peace and moral responsibility, to protect, not harm the weak and innocent and to insight people to give to others through things like the Ramadhan Road Show that fed over 15,000 people.
Because although our country gives us the freedom to be individuals, it has not forwarded us the right to impeed on others individual freedoms through our indiduality. I will open the gates for you to research me direct. I am a strong believer in total transperancy, form our organizations to our government. I believe any government or organization without transperancy has something to hide, I don't. I am a African American Male form Tuskegee, Alabama. I am the Great Great Grandson of Hunter, a slave released to sharecropping. The Great Grandson of Katie Bell hunter, the woman who brought the land our family was once inslaved on from its owners at a time when it was very uncommon for African American people to own land in our country. The son of Imam Abdul-Kareem Sayyad - Formerly Woodrow Hunter, who came from being a drug user to now being a respected father and head of the Al-Jami Islamic Center in Downtown Atlanta, which has recoverd hundreds of drug attics and aided in the successful reform of many stray citizens to establish them as moraly responsible contributing members of our society through the teachings of Islam.
I am also a father, a self taught enterpruenuer and a horrible speller. I am 26 years old, have been married for nine years and was married as a virgin to a virgin. My wife is an African American from Monroe, GA. Through God's grace, I am very gifted in Computer software programming, and web design. I am dedicated towards using my talents for more than just making money but to trying to improve the quality of our lives as americans and responsible citizens of the world.
Need to know more...
contact me personally at 404-454-6839
Sincrely,
Faruq Hunter
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