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Al-Qaida planned U.S. forest fires
JOSEPH FARAH'S G2 BULLETIN ^ | October 27, 2003 | Joseph Farah

Posted on 10/27/2003 5:20:13 AM PST by joesnuffy

FROM JOSEPH FARAH'S G2 BULLETIN Al-Qaida planned U.S. forest fires FBI memo described plot to set blazes in the West

Posted: October 27, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern

Editor's note: Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin is a weekly online, subscription intelligence news service from the creator of WorldNetDaily.com – a journalist who has been developing sources around the world for the last 25 years.

© 2003 WorldNetDaily.com

As arson wildfires consumed nearly 200,000 acres in Southern California, destroying 850 homes and killing at least 13, the inevitable question arises: Who started the fires?

While firefighters focus on containing the blazes rather than the detective work necessary to prosecute arsonists, many are wondering about a possible connection with terrorism.

In August, Australian authorities launched an investigation into reports al-Qaida planned to spark bushfires in a new wave of devastating terror attacks.

A June 25 FBI memo to United States law enforcement agencies revealed a senior al-Qaida detainee claimed to have developed a plan to start midsummer forest fires in the U.S.

The terrorist hoped to mimic the destruction that devastated Canberra last summer, killing four people and destroying more than 500 homes, as well as in other parts of Australia.

The memo, obtained by the Arizona Republic newspaper, said an unidentified detainee revealed he hoped to create several large, catastrophic wildfires at once.

"The detainee believed that significant damage to the U.S. economy would result and once it was realized that the fires were terrorist acts, U.S. citizens would put pressure on the U.S. government to change its policies," the memo said.

The detainee told investigators his plan called for three or four operatives to travel to the U.S. and set timed explosive devices in forests and grasslands.

"Australian security authorities are aware of reports that al-Qaida has considered starting bushfires in the U.S. as a form of terrorist attack," said a spokeswoman Australian Attorney General Daryl Williams. "Arson attacks are just one of a wide range of scenarios which have been considered as part of our investigations into al-Qaida's ability to conduct attacks in Australia."

In fact, Arab terrorists in Israel have started dozens of major forest fires over the years. And al-Qaida has been known to learn from and take inspiration from the activities of Palestinian Arab terrorists – who, for instance, first pioneered airline hijackings.

As far back as 1988, Israeli police caught more than a dozen Palestinian adults in the act of setting fires, while other Arabs confessed to arson after arrest. Some fires followed specific calls by underground Arab terrorists. A leaflet issued by the Palestinian uprising's underground leadership called for ''the destruction and burning of the enemy's properties, industry and agriculture.''

Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir said at the time: ''The need to set fires, which also leads to murders, is in my eyes worse than fundamentalism.''

Israeli nature reserve authorities said 408 fires in May and June of 1988 destroyed 400,000 acres of land, nearly seven times the acreage burned from 1974 to 1986.

Last year, Gilad "Gidi" Mastai, chief ranger in the Galilee region of Israel, told the Jerusalem Post: "It's extremely hard to find arsonists, just like it's hard to close off the Green Line to terrorists. The forests here are on the front line."

But, he said, the vast majority of deliberate fires are started by Arabs with political motives.

Forest rangers often need the help of the Israel Defense Forces to battle the terror blazes.

Arson cases account for one-third of Israeli forest fires. "Political" arsonists cause the most with negligent hikers a close second.

Subscribe to Joseph Farah's G2 Bulletin


TOPICS: News/Current Events; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: alqaeda; alqaida; arabterrorists; arizonarepublic; cair; detainee; farah; fbimemo; fire; fires; homelandsecurity; imam; josephfarah; koran; middleeasternmuslim; mullah; muslimterrorism; palestinian; saudiarabia; terrorism; wahhabi; waronterror; wildfireds; wildfires
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1 posted on 10/27/2003 5:20:13 AM PST by joesnuffy
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To: joesnuffy
FOX news crew was just talking about this. They seemed to conclude it was far-fetched. It's not hard for me to believe however.

Prairie
2 posted on 10/27/2003 5:23:18 AM PST by prairiebreeze (We will not deny, ignore or pass our problems along to other Presidents. ---GWBush)
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To: joesnuffy
That settles it. I guess the Islamofascists are all bedwetters.
3 posted on 10/27/2003 5:24:14 AM PST by OpusatFR (The leftwing lies because the truth would kill them all off.)
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To: joesnuffy
Just wait until the enviromentalist get hold of them. Then they will be sorry.
4 posted on 10/27/2003 5:27:37 AM PST by Piquaboy
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To: prairiebreeze
FOX news crew was just talking about this. They seemed to conclude it was far-fetched. It's not hard for me to believe however.

Well of course. First the terrorist would have to make it into our country. Assuming they were able to make it past our racial profiling they would then have to obtain a drivers license in California just to get around. Assuming they could prove they were a citizen in order to get a license they would then have to purchase gasoline and matches -- and -- be able to drive into a forest. Fox is right its just ludicrous to assume. /sarcasm

5 posted on 10/27/2003 5:27:54 AM PST by Naspino
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To: prairiebreeze
Things that make you go hmmmmm..

I can't believe FOX thinks it's far fetched, unless they are trying to keep everyone in a coma-like state of everything is OK.

Reality - arson would be a very simple way to create distruction, especially when nature has started it for you.. all they are probably doing is setting a few fires here and there to add to the natural devestation and create confusion.

Is it me or did anyone else read the threads from last night and the folks in San Diego.. those people posting and in SD were really freaked b/c there were sooo many fires.
6 posted on 10/27/2003 5:28:19 AM PST by tray-sea (I think Mother Theresa just created her first miracle! Terri is ALIVE for now!)
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To: All
One of these fires started at a firing range at Camp Pendleton, didn't it? Speaking of Foxnews, "Rev" Al Sharpton is on...what a blowhard.
7 posted on 10/27/2003 5:29:38 AM PST by Belisaurius ("Fat, drunk and stupid is no way to go through life, Ted" - Joseph Kennedy 1958)
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To: Belisaurius
My remote control made my TV go dark when the Rev. Dullness came on. Saw enough of all those dam* fools last night....!

Prairie
8 posted on 10/27/2003 5:33:50 AM PST by prairiebreeze (We will not deny, ignore or pass our problems along to other Presidents. ---GWBush)
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To: joesnuffy
Yeah, maybe, but wouldn't it make more sense for the terrorist to commit acts that would never be mistaken for a natural event? There is no ambiguity when a bomb takes out a building. Not so with a brush or forest fire.
9 posted on 10/27/2003 5:34:36 AM PST by Fresh Wind
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To: joesnuffy
The news media does NOT report these incidents since they would back the "theory" of terrorist attack on our soil!

http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/7657408p-8597551c.html

More power towers are discovered vandalized
By Carrie Peyton Dahlberg -- Bee Staff Writer
Published 2:15 a.m. PDT Friday, October 24, 2003
As authorities issued an arrest warrant Thursday and the tally of vandalized electric towers grew to four, power experts said this is far from the first time that someone has tried to disable, dynamite or shoot at high-voltage towers.
Sometimes the sabotage has caused outages, and other times it has had no impact at all, even when transmission towers came tumbling down.

"More often than not there's no loss of customer load, no customer outages," said Dennis Eyre, chief executive officer of the Western Electricity Coordinating Council, which sets rules for how utilities operate on the Western power grid.

The reassurances haven't diminished the intensity of the hunt for Michael Devlyn Poulin, 62, whom the FBI named Thursday as its suspect in the attempted sabotage of high-voltage lines in Oregon and California.

"We're most anxious to locate and arrest him so that he's not able to continue attempting these types of activities," said FBI Special Agent Karen Ernst.

Meanwhile, federal power workers said Thursday that the sprawling federal Bonneville Power Authority discovered one tower with missing bolts in northern Oregon on Monday and another in central Oregon on Wednesday. The FBI suspects that Poulin, acting alone, tampered with those two towers, as well as another in Oregon and the one near Redding in Northern California where a culprit was seen, prompting the search.

There has been no indication of why Poulin, who has a background of political activism and an explosives conviction, might allegedly be targeting power lines.

He served time in Folsom Prison for injuring his girlfriend's father with an explosive device, according to a Bee account from 1979. State Department of Corrections records show Poulin served eight years, from 1971 to 1979, after being convicted in San Mateo County of using an explosive device that causes "death, mayhem or great bodily injury."

He later lived in the East Bay Area, where he was active in Palestinian issues, before he and his wife moved to Spokane, Wash., to be closer to their grandchildren, said Mary Moore, a friend, fellow activist and editor of the online Sonoma County Free Press.

Neither violence nor energy issues attracted him when she knew him best and he wrote for her publication, Moore recalled.

The FBI is asking people to call authorities if they spot Poulin or his truck, a gray 1997 Toyota T-100 pickup with a white shell attached and Washington state license plate A36457P.

The FBI does not believe there is any connection with an earlier, unsolved Oregon case of someone removing bolts from guy wires that held up a high-voltage tower near Bend a few days before New Year's in 1999. That tower fell, but power was rerouted, no blackouts occurred, and the tower was righted the next day, Bonneville officials said.

Bonneville helicopter crews have been using binoculars to patrol power lines and look for more missing bolts.

"Bringing down a transmission line, anyplace, can cause major outages. The system is designed to prevent that, but it can happen," said Bonneville spokesman Ed Mosey.

Bonneville was targeted by an extortionist in the 1970s who dynamited towers and demanded money, but even those assaults did not cause outages, he said.

Around the country, attackers have gone after high-voltage towers with welding torches and explosives, and undermined them by shearing off or removing bolts, often with minimal effect, grid experts said.

"There's some resilience built into the system," said Eyre.

That's partly because industry operating guidelines, set by the North American Electric Reliability Council, require that the grid be able to recover without a glitch from the single worst failure of a major power line or power plant, said Lou Leffler, the council's manager of critical infrastructure protection.

Eyre said he believed federal records were once kept on vandalism incidents, but Leffler and others were reluctant to give many specifics, for fear of encouraging copycat or escalating attacks.

News coverage from pre-9/11 days has been far more specific, noting 1980s episodes of lines to a nuclear plant being disabled in Arizona and of a Kentucky high-voltage tower dynamited during a mine strike. In the 1990s, bolt removals took down a small power line in New York state and a Pacific Gas and Electric Co. line near Santa Cruz, in incidents that caused outages, according to published accounts.

Experts say a person wishing to cause major blackouts by downing a tower would need a fairly thorough knowledge of the power grid's workings at that specific point in time.

"The conditions would have to be just right," said Ross McFate, director of line maintenance at the Western Area Power Administration. "Even then ... we have ways of switching things around and getting back up quick, so it's not a critical thing like railroads or taking out the Golden Gate Bridge."






About the Writer



The Bee's Carrie Peyton Dahlberg can be reached at (916) 321-1086 or cpeytondahlberg@sacbee.com.


http://www.spadata.com

Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any band of regular troops that can be, on any pretence, raised in the United States.

-- Noah Webster


10 posted on 10/27/2003 5:35:24 AM PST by steplock (www.FOCUS.GOHOTSPRINGS.com)
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To: joesnuffy
This would be so easy for the terrorists to do that I'd be surprised if they hadn't already tried it.
11 posted on 10/27/2003 5:35:27 AM PST by Peach (The Clintons have pardoned more terrorists than they ever captured or killed.)
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To: joesnuffy
.....once it was realized that the fires were terrorist acts, U.S. citizens would put pressure on the U.S. government to change its policies......

The idiot's right -- we would change our policies, but not the way he thinks. We'd come down hard on mid-easterners harder.

12 posted on 10/27/2003 5:38:39 AM PST by expatpat
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To: joesnuffy
I've been concerned about this for some time. It's cheap, it's easy, and you can get all the info you need about areas with the worst drought conditions from online. You wouldn't need anything more sophisticated than a a car, a map, a few boxes of military trioxane bars and a finger to test the wind direction.
13 posted on 10/27/2003 5:38:39 AM PST by Kenton
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To: Piquaboy
Just wait until the enviromentalist get hold of them. Then they will be sorry.

Actually, it is my opinion that forest fires are part of a deliberate hard-green strategy to drive humans out of rural areas and into the cities. Our Hayman fire in CO last year makes it more difficult to get hazard insurance on rural residences. No insurance means no financing on sales, no construction loans etc.

All they have to do is prevent thinning for another twenty years and their dream of concentrating humans in cities will be nearly complete.

14 posted on 10/27/2003 5:40:12 AM PST by ModelBreaker
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To: Piquaboy
Just wait until the enviromentalist get hold of them. Then they will be sorry.
It is my belief that the "If I can't have it nobody can" enviro-nazis will join with Al-Qaida to implement this. McVeigh was an enviro PETA wacko as well and probably had close ties to Middle East terrorist organizations. And they all share contempt for Western values and capitalism.
15 posted on 10/27/2003 5:40:32 AM PST by avg_freeper (Gunga galunga. Gunga, gunga galunga)
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To: joesnuffy
Uh, didn't the Al Qaeda propagandist warn muslims to be prepared to endure shortages and a blanket of smoke the Ramadan? Didn't they say the earth would burn beneath our feet. Seem's far fetched? NOT.

The reason the government discounts this is because of the anger and loss of confidence (economic dislocation) that would result should it be determined to be an act of war.
16 posted on 10/27/2003 5:41:26 AM PST by kinghorse
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To: joesnuffy
They dont want 'backlash' against muslims or against our Saudi Allies......

After all we dont want them to stop building their Mosques and Islamic Centers or buying up

large tracts of US land for their Training Summer Camps

There are organized terrorists taking orders from central command..and then their are wannabe terrorists graduating from muslim training centers...and sympathetic others to the muslim cause...many America haters of various 'other' groups willing to hide behind other groups..

Though fire as an act of terrorism and causing mass amounts of destruction pain and anger would be a good tool for these bass turds to use against us...

On a global scale many large fires causing mass amounts of destruction seem to have been set as of late

17 posted on 10/27/2003 5:43:04 AM PST by joesnuffy (Moderate Islam Is For Dilettantes)
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To: joesnuffy
Immediately after 9/11, I, who live in So. Calif., said, if they want to demolish OUR economy, all they need do is start fires on a hot, dry day.

I live in San Diego County, and paced from the TV to the street yesterday, assessing the need to evacuate.

Many businesses will be closed today, and the air quality is BAD. The smell of smoke fills the air. It well could be another day of battling the fires, and resources get drained.

18 posted on 10/27/2003 5:43:43 AM PST by SnarlinCubBear (to you he's a dog...to me he's short, hairy, and cannot speak clearly. I have no problem w/this.)
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To: joesnuffy
Well, there were certainly plenty of fires in The Golden State before there was ever an Al-Qaeda.

But, who knows? 9-11 would have seemed far-fetched until it happened...

19 posted on 10/27/2003 5:48:36 AM PST by Pharmboy (Dems lie 'cause they have to...)
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To: Fresh Wind
wouldn't it make more sense for the terrorist to commit acts that would never be mistaken for a natural event? There is no ambiguity when a bomb takes out a building. Not so with a brush or forest fire.

Don't they make a big deal about claiming credit for what they do? In fact don't they try to claim credit even for things they didn't do, like the big blackout? Or are they suspected of that in reality? I wouldn't be surprised if they are behind the fires. I wouldn't be surprised if they say they are but the government says they aren't. Who should be beleived in that case?

20 posted on 10/27/2003 5:51:42 AM PST by milemark (Don't mess with me, I'm celebrating the holy month of Ramada Inn)
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