Al Qaeda again threatens New York, Washington and Los Angeles (thread 2) Daily Terror Threat

DEBKA ^ | 11/03/03

[Mossad1967]

Al Qaeda again threatens New York, Washington and Los Angeles

Link to Thread #1

[Calpernia]

You're never the only one here :)

[judicial meanz]

Personally, I dont think Al Qaeda and Russia are allied in any manner. There is too much animous between the two. I do think Russia is not above exploiting it, however.


I think the two are distinctly different but challenging threats to our national security.

[Cindy]

I believe you are correct.

[Mossad1967]

Loftus just said on WABC that the "Big Attack" turned out to be a bust.

Al Queda was not able to follow through.

What a shame, NOT!!!

[MamaDearest]

And stock in oregano oil, tea tree oil, darned if this isn't getting expensive - thanks a lot!!!

[Cindy]

NOTE: This is an exact quote:

http://travel.state.gov/afghanistan_warning.html

Travel Warning
United States Department of State
Bureau of Consular Affairs
Washington, DC 20520


This information is current as of today, Wed Feb 04 2004 20:37:54 GMT-0800.


Afghanistan




February 4, 2004


This Travel Warning adds information on the threat to U.S. citizens and employees of non-governmental organizations, provides updated information on the security situation in Afghanistan generally, and provides new phone numbers for the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. The security threat to all American citizens in Afghanistan remains high. This Travel Warning supersedes the Travel Warning for Afghanistan issued July 28, 2003.


The Department of State strongly warns U.S. citizens against travel to Afghanistan. There is an ongoing threat to kidnap and assassinate U.S. citizens and Non-Governmental Organization (NGO) workers throughout the country. The ability of Afghan authorities to maintain order and ensure the security of citizens and visitors is limited. Remnants of the former Taliban regime and the terrorist Al-Qaida network, and other groups hostile to the government, remain active. U.S.-led military operations continue. Travel in all areas of Afghanistan, including the capital Kabul, is unsafe due to military operations, landmines, banditry, armed rivalry among political and tribal groups, and the possibility of terrorist attacks, including attacks using vehicular or other bombs. The security environment remains volatile and unpredictable.


There have been a number of attacks on international organizations, international aid workers, and foreign interests and nationals, including the killing of a United Nations High Commission for Refugee (UNHCR) worker in Ghazni and carbombing in front of the United Nations Assistance Mission to Afghanistan (UNAMA) compound in Kandahar both in November 2003, and several attacks in 2002-2004 on International Security Assistance Forces (ISAF), resulting in deaths and injuries, including two deadly attacks in late January 2004. The United Nations has temporarily evacuated its international staff from Kandahar, Jalalabad and Gardez and closed its office in Ghazni. Over the past year there have been several unsuccessful rocket attacks in Kabul and elsewhere in Afghanistan, including a rocket landing in a field opposite the Embassy compound in December 2003, and an explosion in the perimeter wall of the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul on November 22, 2003.


Family members of official Americans assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Kabul are not allowed to reside in Afghanistan. In addition, unofficial travel to Afghanistan by U.S. Government employees and their family members requires prior approval by the Department of State. From time to time, the U.S. Embassy places areas frequented by foreigners off limits to its personnel depending on current security conditions. Private U.S. citizens are strongly urged to heed these restrictions as well and may obtain the latest information by calling the U.S. Embassy in Kabul or consulting the Embassy website below. As stated in the current Worldwide Caution, terrorist actions may include, but are not limited to, suicide operations, bombings, assaults or kidnappings. Possible threats include conventional weapons such as explosive devises or non-conventional weapons, including chemical or biological agents.


The United States Embassy cannot provide passport or visa services, and its ability to provide emergency consular services to U.S. citizens in Afghanistan is limited. Afghan authorities also can provide only limited assistance to U.S. citizens facing difficulties.


U.S. citizens who choose to visit or remain in Afghanistan despite this Travel Warning are urged to pay close attention to their personal security, avoid rallies and demonstrations, and to register with and obtain updated security information from the U.S. Embassy in Kabul. The U.S. Embassy is located at Great Masood Road between Radio Afghanistan and the Ministry of Public Health (the road is also known as Bebe Mahro (Airport) Road), Kabul. Phone numbers are (93-20) 290002/ 290005 fax (93-20)293-153 and (93-20)230-1364. The Embassy website is http://usembassy.state.gov /Afghanistan.


Updated information on travel and security in Afghanistan may be obtained from the Department of State by calling 1-888-407-4747 toll-free in the United States or Canada, or, from overseas,


1-317-472-2328. For additional information, consult the Department of State's Consular Information Sheet for Afghanistan and the Worldwide Caution Public Announcement located at http://travel.state.gov.


Return to Consular Information Sheets and Travel Warnings Page

[Cindy]

http://www.cbn.com/CBNNews/News/040204a.asp

"Veil of Uncertainty: Women of Afghanistan"


By George Thomas
CBN News Sr. Reporter


February 4, 2004


"Women are hoping it will get better now that Afghanistan has a new constitution guaranteeing them equal rights."

[Cindy]

http://www.afgha.com

"AFGHA.com - Press Agency - AFGHANISTAN"

[knak]

We are still posting travel warnings about Afghanistan? Wow, I would have thought that would have been in effect since 9/11!!

My 2 cents....I highly doubt theses stories involving Russia nuking the US. There are to many Russia/Chechnya/Qaeda problems out there. I also don't think they have (russians) the nuts to attempt something like this. Just my 2 cents.....

[knak]

Speaking of kavkaz, they have a very good article about Russia being a superpower again.

Can Russia Be a Great Power?

[mindspy]

Who is Loftus? I seen him mentioned here a few times. Does this mean we foiled their plans or they just couldn't get any takers on the 72 virgins. Seriously, is there any more detail?

[Cindy]

http://www.cnn.com/2003/US/02/06/sprj.irq.alqaeda.links/

"European terror suspects got al Qaeda training, sources say"


By Sheila MacVicar and Henry Schuster
CNN
Thursday, February 6, 2003 Posted: 8:38 PM EST (0138 GMT)

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "European intelligence sources tell CNN that while they are sure, based on their investigations, that Zarqawi trained the men in Georgia who were later arrested in Europe, they have found no links between Zarqawi and the Iraqi government.


Another of those said to have trained the men is Khabab, the Egyptian-born member of al Qaeda who coalition intelligence say ran the group's chemical and biological weapons testing facility at the Darunta camp in Afghanistan.


Sources say they believe some of the men recently arrested in Europe were trained by Khabab not only in Afghanistan, but also in the Caucasus. Like Zarqawi, Khabab is very high on the list of al Qaeda leaders wanted by law enforcement and intelligence officials.


Coalition intelligence sources now say that it was Khabab's voice on the videotape of dogs being poisoned in Afghanistan that was obtained and aired by CNN several months ago. The sources say Abu Khabab was directing the experiments.


Security sources believe that those being trained in the Caucasus region may also be receiving instruction from men who had experience with chemical and biological weapons in the Russian army."

[Cindy]

On The Net... INTERNET HAGANAH (NY POST.com): "'DIRTY BOMBER' HUNT New York Post Exclusive" (January 10, 2004) (Read More...)

GOOGLE Search Term: "ABU KHABAB"

GOOGLE Search Term: "MIDHAT MURSI"

[Cindy]

Hi Knak.

For a real eye opener on Russia, I like to go to this analysis - news site:

INTERNATIONAL NEWS ANALYSIS -- TODAY by Toby Westerman
http://www.inatoday.com

[knak]

thanks, I can't seem to find the link I used to have to a great russian news analysis site. It was linked off of a page called Russian Issues, but I see that there page is now gone. Dangit!

[MamaDearest]

Not only is a connect-the-dot, but it would be COMPLETELY UNEXPECTED, depending on the usage of whatever is packed in those test tubes. Could be our food sources (grocery), our clothing (retail), our liquid refreshment (soft drinks, dairy products, etc. etc. etc.). It could have massive repercussions all over the country.

[Try2Discern]

My 2 cents says that Russia doesn't either. Putin is a former military man. He knows the problems of the Russian military better than anyone, and all the money made from dealings with Iraq probably went to strengthen their military. But, I just don't think he would be dumb enough to strike.
I found this interesting article concerning Russia's relationship with Iraq from the Washington Times over at IH:

Ex-spy fingers Russians on WMD


By Ion Mihai Pacepa



On March 20, Russian PresidentVladimir Putin denounced the U.S.-led "aggression" against Iraq as "unwarranted" and "unjustifiable." Three days later, Pravda said that an anonymous Russian "military expert" was predicting that the United States would fabricate finding Iraqi weapons of mass destruction. Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov immediately started plying the idea abroad, and it has taken hold around the world ever since.
As a former Romanian spy chief who used to take orders from the Soviet KGB, it is perfectly obvious to me that Russia is behind the evanescence of Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. After all, Russia helped Saddam get his hands on them in the first place. The Soviet Union and all its bloc states always had a standard operating procedure for deep sixing weapons of mass destruction — in Romanian it was codenamed "Sarindar, meaning "emergency exit."Iimplemented it in Libya. It was for ridding Third World despots of all trace of their chemical weapons if the Western imperialists ever got near them. We wanted to make sure they would never be traced back to us, and we also wanted to frustrate the West by not giving them anything they could make propaganda with.
All chemical weapons were to be immediately burned or buried deep at sea. Technological documentation, however, would be preserved in microfiche buried in waterproof containers for future reconstruction. Chemical weapons, especially those produced in Third Worldcountries,which lack sophisticated production facilities, often do not retainlethal properties after a few months on the shelf and are routinely dumped anyway. And all chemical weapons plants had a civilian cover making detection difficult, regardless of the circumstances.
The plan included an elaborate propaganda routine. Anyone accusing Moammar Gadhafi of possessing chemical weapons would be ridiculed. Lies, all lies! Come to Libya and see! Our Western left-wing organizations, like the World Peace Council, existed for sole purpose of spreading the propaganda we gave them. These very same groups bray the exact same themes to this day. We always relied on their expertise at organizing large street demonstrations in Western Europe over America'swar-mongering whenever we wanted to distract world attention from the crimes of the vicious regimes we sponsored.
Iraq, in my view, had its own "Sarindar" plan in effect direct from Moscow. It certainly had one in the past. Nicolae Ceausescu told me so, and he heard it from Leonid Brezhnev. KGB chairman Yury Andropov, and later, Gen. Yevgeny Primakov, told me so too. In the late 1970s, Gen. Primakov ran Saddam's weapons programs. After that, as you may recall, he was promoted to head of the Soviet foreign intelligence service in 1990, to Russia's minister of foreign affairs in 1996, and in 1998, to prime minister. What you may not know is that Primakov hates Israel and has always championed Arab radicalism. He was a personal friend of Saddam's and has repeatedly visited Baghdad after 1991, quietly helping Saddam play his game of hide-and-seek.
The Soviet bloc not only sold Saddam its WMDs, but it showed them how to make them "disappear." Russia is still at it. Primakov was in Baghdad from December until a couple of days before the war, along with a team of Russian military experts led by two of Russia's topnotch "retired"generals,Vladislav Achalov, a former deputy defense minister, and Igor Maltsev, a former air defense chief of staff. They were all there receiving honorary medals from the Iraqi defense minister. They clearly were not there to give Saddam military advice for the upcomingwar—Saddam'sKatyusha launchers were of World War II vintage, and his T-72 tanks, BMP-1 fighting vehicles and MiG fighter planes were all obviously useless against America. "I did not fly to Baghdad to drink coffee," was what Gen. Achalov told the media afterward. They were there orchestrating Iraq's "Sarindar" plan.
The U.S. military in fact, has already found the only thing that would have been allowed to survive under the classic Soviet "Sarindar" plan to liquidate weapons arsenals in the event of defeat in war — the technological documents showing how to reproduce weapons stocks in just a few weeks.
Such a plan has undoubtedly been in place since August 1995 — when Saddam's son-in-law, Gen. Hussein Kamel, who ran Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological programs for 10 years, defected to Jordan. That August, UNSCOM and International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) inspectors searched a chicken farm owned by Kamel's family and found more than one hundred metal trunks and boxes containing documentation dealing with all categories of weapons, including nuclear. Caught red-handed, Iraq at last admitted to its "extensive biological warfare program, including weaponization," issued a "Full, Final and Complete Disclosure Report" and turned over documents about the nerve agent VX and nuclear weapons.
Saddam then lured Gen. Kamel back, pretending to pardon his defection. Three days later, Kamel and over 40 relatives, including women and children, were murdered, in what the official Iraqi press described as a "spontaneous administration of tribal justice." After sending that message to his cowed, miserable people, Saddam then made a show of cooperation with U.N. inspection, since Kamel had just compromised all his programs anyway. In November 1995, he issued a second "Full, Final and Complete Disclosure" as to his supposedly non-existent missile programs. That very same month, Jordan intercepted a large shipment of high-grade missile components destined for Iraq. UNSCOM soon fished similar missile components out of the Tigris River, again refuting Saddam's spluttering denials. In June 1996, Saddam slammed the door shut to UNSCOM's inspection of any "concealment mechanisms." On Aug. 5, 1998, halted cooperation with UNSCOM and the IAEA completely, and they withdrew on Dec. 16, 1998. Saddam had another four years to develop and hide his weapons of mass destruction without any annoying, prying eyes. U.N. Security Council resolutions 1115, (June 21, 1997), 1137 (Nov. 12, 1997), and 1194 (Sept. 9, 1998) were issued condemning Iraq—ineffectual words that had no effect. In 2002, under the pressure of a huge U.S. military buildup by a new U.S. administration, Saddam made yet another "Full, Final and Complete Disclosure," which was found to contain "false statements" and to constitute another "material breach" of U.N. and IAEA inspection and of paragraphs eight to 13 of resolution 687 (1991).
It was just a few days after this last "Disclosure," after a decade of intervening with the U.N. and the rest of the world on Iraq's behalf, that Gen. Primakov and his team of military experts landed in Baghdad — even though, with 200,000 U.S. troops at the border, war was imminent, and Moscow could no longer save Saddam Hussein. Gen. Primakov was undoubtedly cleaning up the loose ends of the "Sarindar" plan and assuring Saddam that Moscow would rebuild his weapons of mass destruction after the storm subsided for a good price.
Mr. Putin likes to take shots at America and wants to reassert Russia in world affairs. Why would he not take advantage of this opportunity? As minister of foreign affairs and prime minister, Gen. Primakov has authored the "multipolarity" strategy of counterbalancing American leadership by elevating Russia to great-powerstatusinEurasia. Between Feb. 9-12, Mr. Putin visited Germany and France to propose a three-power tactical alignment against the United States to advocate further inspections rather than war. On Feb. 21, the Russian Duma appealed to the German and French parliaments to join them on March 4-7 in Baghdad, for "preventing U.S. military aggression against Iraq." Crowds of European leftists, steeped for generations in left-wing propaganda straight out of Moscow, continue to find the line appealing.
Mr. Putin's tactics have worked. The United States won a brilliant military victory, demolishing a dictatorship without destroying the country, but it has begun losing the peace. While American troops unveiled the mass graves of Saddam's victims, anti-American forces in Western Europe and elsewhere, spewed out vitriolic attacks, accusing Washington of greed for oil and not of really caring about weapons of mass destruction, or exaggerating their risks, as if weapons of mass destruction were really nothing very much to worry about after all.
It is worth remembering that Andrei Sakharov, the father of the Soviet hydrogen bomb, chose to live in a Soviet gulag instead of continuing to develop the power of death. "I wanted to alert the world," Sakharov explained in 1968, "to the grave perils threatening the human race thermonuclear extinction, ecological catastrophe, famine." Even Igor Kurchatov, the KGB academician who headed the Soviet nuclear program from 1943 until his death in 1960, expressed deep qualms of conscience about helping to create weapons of mass destruction. "The rate of growth of atomic explosives is such," he warned in an article written together with several other Soviet nuclear scientists not long before he died, "that in just a few years the stockpile will be large enough to create conditions under which the existence of life on earth will be impossible."
The Cold War was fought over the reluctance to use weapons of mass destruction, yet now this logic is something only senior citizens seem to recall. Today, even lunatic regimes like that in North Korea not only possess weapons of mass destruction, but openly offer to sell them to anyone with cash, including terrorists and their state sponsors. Is anyone paying any attention? Being inured to proliferation, however, does not reduce its danger. On the contrary, it increases it.

Ion Mihai Pacepa, a Romanian, is the highest-ranking intelligence officer ever to have defected from the former Soviet bloc.

http://www.washtimes.com/op-ed/20030820-081256-6822r.htm

[Try2Discern]

Sorry, didn't realize how long that was. Should have just posted a snippet and a link!

[Cindy]

Paul Weyrich at Free Congress Foundation has a pretty indepth knowledge of Russa, too. (http://www.freecongress.org), but Toby Westerman does a lot of dot connecting. You may want to check his archives, too.

[Cindy]

That's interesting.