Al Qaeda again threatens America (Thread 3) Daily Terror Threat

World Tribune ^ | Thursday, February 5, 2004

[MamaDearest]

When it comes to Daleel or EOM, I know where I'd like Cupid to shoot his arrow!

[MamaDearest]

And where is our national intelligence while this terrorist training right here on our own soil is going on? We should be able to incarcerate those who own the land if we can't catch the ones they are training. We do have satellites monitoring about everything going on from what I've heard. Putting these creeps out of business fast should be a very HOT priority.

[TexKat]

21 Killed, Prisoners Freed in Iraqi Raid

By MARIAM FAM, Associated Press Writer

FALLUJAH, Iraq - Guerrillas shouting "God is great" launched a bold daylight assault Saturday on an Iraqi police station and a security compound west of Baghdad, meeting little resistance as they gunned down policemen and freed prisoners in a battle that killed 21 people, police said. Most of the dead were police.

The same security compound was attacked two days earlier by gunmen just as the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, Gen. John Abizaid, was visiting the site in Fallujah. Abizaid escaped that attack unharmed.

One shop owner across the street from the compound said he and his neighbors had been told by guerrillas not to open Saturday morning because an attack was imminent.

Around 25 attackers, some masked, surrounded the police station and stormed the building, going from room to room and throwing hand grenades, survivors said. The few police present at the time had only small weapons.

"I only had a pistol with me," said Kamel Allawi, a police lieutenant. "Right away I fell on the ground and blood was gushing out of my left leg."

At the same time, another group of attackers, shouting Islamic slogans "God is great" and "There is no god but Allah," opened fire with rocket-propelled grenades and heavy machine guns on the nearby, heavily protected compound of the Iraqi Civil Defense Corps.

Iraqi security forces, firing from the concrete and sand barricades in front of the compound, battled the attackers for a half-hour in the streets.

Police Lt. Col. Jalal Sabri said 21 people were killed, almost all police. Among the dead were four attackers, two of whom carried Lebanese passports, he said. The remaining attackers escaped after freeing 75 prisoners.

A defense corps officer, Daeed Hamed, said he believed the attackers wanted to free three suspected insurgents — two Kuwaitis and a Lebanese — captured by the corps this week and handed over to the police. He said the three were in the jail at the time of the attack.

But Sabri said there were no guerrilla suspects among the prisoners, insisting all were criminals jailed for murder, theft or other crimes.

Hamed called the attack "well organized," saying some gunmen pinned down the defense corps forces while others stormed the nearby police station where the prisoners were freed.

The brazen raid — on the heels of the Abizaid attack — raised questions about the preparedness of some Iraqi police and defense units to take on security duties as the U.S. administration wants.

The U.S.-led coalition intends to hand sovereignty to the Iraqis on June 30 and rely more on Iraqi forces to fight the persistent insurgency, blamed on backers of Saddam Hussein and foreign Islamic militants.

After the Thursday attack, Abizaid said of the Iraqi civil defense unit in Fallujah: "Obviously they are not fully trained. They're not ready."

No American forces could be seen in the battle. The U.S. command has said American troops could be quickly dispatched to trouble spots to help Iraqi forces as America hands over security to the Iraqis.

Of the 33 wounded, 25 were policemen, said Adel Ali, the hospital's deputy director. Hamed of the defense corps said no members of that force were killed or wounded.

"If the situation continues this way, I might leave the police force. We joined the police to provide security, but no one wants security; they (insurgents and criminals) want chaos to continue," said one policeman, Ahmad Saad, who was comforting wounded colleagues at the hospital.

Two of the dead taken to Fallujah General Hospital appeared to be attackers. They were dressed in black T-shirts and baggy pants with hand grenades in the pockets, said Mohammed Ibrahim, a hospital administrator. One had belt of machine gun ammunition.

"I suspect they were Arabs or Syrians or belonged to al-Qaida," Sabri said of the attackers. "They want to create instability and chaos."

Last week, pamphlets signed by insurgent groups were posted in Fallujah warning Iraqis not to cooperate with U.S. forces and threatening "harsh consequences." Among the groups that signed the leaflets was Muhammad's Army, which U.S. officials say appears to be an umbrella group for former Iraqi intelligence agents, army and security officials and Baath Party members.

Also Saturday, demonstrations broke out in the northern city of Sulaimaniyah and the Baghdad suburb of Abu Ghraib, where hundreds of angry Iraqis demonstrated against U.S. military raids and searches of their homes.

Carrying placards that read "Today Demonstrations, Tomorrow Explosions," protesters gathered near a giant American-run prison — built by Saddam — and demanded the release of thousands of Iraqi prisoners.

In Kurdish-majority Sulaimaniyah, thousands of protesters clamored for an independent Kurdish state that includes the three autonomous Kurdish provinces as well as disputed parts of northern Iraq containing a large Arab population.

In Suwayrah, 30 miles southeast of Baghdad, Iraqi police shot and wounded three armed men in a pickup truck on Friday, and after searching the truck discovered it was wired with a bomb, said the provincial police chief Brig. Gen. Hassan Khatan.

Also Saturday, the international Red Cross said it had been given permission by U.S. authorities to see Saddam, but added no date has been set. The organization requested permission to visit Saddam soon after he was captured Dec. 13 and the United States declared him a prisoner of war.

[TexKat]

U.S. Seals Saddam's Final Hiding Place

By CHRIS BRUMMITT, Associated Press Writer

TIKRIT, Iraq - U.S. Army engineers have sealed the underground bunker where former Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein was captured to prevent it from becoming a tourist attraction, a military spokesman said Saturday.

Meanwhile, the international Red Cross said Saturday that U.S. authorities have given the organization permission to see Saddam, but no date has been set.

The ICRC requested permission to visit Saddam soon after he was captured on Dec. 13 and the United States declared him a prisoner of war.

"We have had a green light for a visit," Jakob Kellenberger, president of the International Committee of the Red Cross said in a newspaper interview. "However, we don't yet know when it will take place."

Kellenberger's comments were published Saturday in the daily Tribune de Geneve.

U.S. soldiers lowered a 300 pound slab of concrete over Saddam's hole Feb. 4, said Master Sgt. Robert Cargie, a spokesman for the 4th Infantry Division.

Saddam was captured in the bunker in the small farming village of Adwar, a short drive from his hometown of Tikrit.

Cargie said the hole was sealed to "limit human traffic" to the area. Since his capture, a steady stream of U.S. soldiers, journalists and visiting foreign officials have traveled to Adwar to have their picture taken next to — or inside — the bunker.

Cargie said that the cover could be removed if access to the hole was needed in the future.

"It was put in place to allow time for future decisions to be made," he said without elaborating.

Saddam, who had evaded U.S. forces for nearly eight months, escaped to the bunker when he heard U.S. patrols pass by. It is next to a small cement-floored bedroom, an outdoor kitchen and a humble bathroom, which all remain in place, Cargie said.

U.S. officials had hoped his capture would help break Iraqi resistance to the occupation, but attacks have continued unabated, especially in the "Sunni Triangle" region of the Iraq to the north and west of the capital, Baghdad.

Saddam is being held by U.S. forces at an undisclosed location. U.S. officials have said they plan to bring Saddam to trial for alleged crimes against Iraqi people, but the location of any trial and its format have yet to be decided.

[TexKat]

Qataris survey the damange Friday Feb. 13, 2004 of a car explosion in which ex-Chechen leader Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev was killed, at a crossing in the Al Dafna residential area of Doha. ( AP Photo/Qatar News Agency )

Chechen Separatist's Killing Probed

Sat Feb 14, 8:21 AM ET

By TAREK AL-ISSAWI, Associated Press Writer

DOHA, Qatar - Qatari investigators on Saturday scoured the scene of a car bombing that killed a former Chechen president, who had been linked to al-Qaida, while Russia denied accusations that it was behind the attack.

The assassination Friday of Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, who was wanted by Russian authorities for alleged terrorism, shocked people in this tiny Gulf state, a key U.S. ally that has been free of the terror attacks seen elsewhere in the region.

Plainclothes security men were collecting evidence at the scene of the blast, which ripped apart Yandarbiyev's white SUV moments after he left a mosque with his 13-year-old son.

The son, Daoud, was in stable condition at Hamad General Hospital. "He has recovered and is back on a normal diet. He has a few superficial lacerations, but otherwise he is fine," a doctor said on condition of anonymity.

At least two of the security men at the explosion site on Saturday appeared to be Western. Qatari officials declined comment on whether foreign agencies were participating in the investigation.

A Chechen rebel group called the slaying "the latest bloody Kremlin crime." But Russia's security services on Friday denied any involvement in the bombing.

The blast occurred one week after a bombing in a Moscow subway killed 41 people and wounded more than 100. President Vladimir Putin blamed Chechen rebels and took a hard line, saying, "Russia doesn't conduct negotiations with terrorists — it destroys them."

An aide to Yandarbiyev, Ibrahim Gabi, blamed the Kremlin and Russia's Federal Security Service, the FSB, for Yandarbiyev's killing, a pro-rebel Web site reported.

"There's no doubt that Lubyanka is behind this bloody terrorist act," the site quoted Gabi as saying, referring to the infamous Moscow building that was the headquarters of the Soviet KGB and now houses the FSB, its main successor.

Boris Labusov, a spokesman for Russia's Foreign Intelligence Service, another successor to the KGB, said his agency had nothing to do with the death, the ITAR-Tass news agency reported from Moscow. Russia's security services on Friday denied any involvement in the bombing.

Yandarbiyev was acting president of Chechnya in 1996-97. Russia had been seeking his extradition from Qatar, where he lived since summer 2000, accusing him of ties to kidnappers and terrorists.

Last year, the United Nations put Yandarbiyev on a list of people with alleged links to al-Qaida, which is blamed for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Washington also put him on a list of international terrorists who are subject to financial sanctions.

Yandarbiyev, who lived in Qatar for three years, will be buried Saturday at al-Rayan cemetery, a graveyard that usually is exclusively for the ruling Al Thani family.

Qatari media speculated that outside forces were behind the attack. An editorial in the daily Al-Rayah, titled "An aberrant terrorist act that is alien to the Qatari society," said the country had been envied for its security "which set it apart from other countries in the region."

The article suggested the assassination was "an extension of a conflict between outside forces."

A poet and author of a children's book, Yandarbiyev became one of the most prominent proponents of radical Islam among the Chechen rebels. During the hard-line Islamic rule of the Taliban in Afghanistan, Yandarbiyev opened a Chechen Embassy in the Afghan capital, and a consulate in the southern city of Kandahar.

Chechen exiles said Yandarbiyev had maintained contact with other Chechens since coming to Qatar, but they claimed to have no knowledge of his involvement in any terrorism-related acts.

Qatar recently has granted entry to a variety of Muslim politicians and militants, including Palestinian Hamas leaders, Algerian Muslim fundamentalists and officials of Saddam Hussein's regime. The Qataris say they are adhering to Arab traditions of providing hospitality to guests and of offering sanctuary to refugees. However, the practice also serves to defuse anger at Qatar for allowing the United States to establish military bases in the Gulf sheikdom.

[TexKat]

Irish Police Seize Trove of Explosives

Fri Feb 13, 8:23 PM ET

DUBLIN, Ireland - Irish anti-terrorist police swooped on a suburban Limerick house Friday and seized a trove of explosives and detonators that they linked to Irish Republican Army dissidents.

Police also said they arrested a 34-year-old man at the property in the Dooradoyle section of Limerick, 130 miles southwest of Dublin, on suspicion of possessing the weaponry. The commercially manufactured explosives were found in cases in a van outside the property and in a garden shed in the house's back yard.

Police did not say the amount of explosives, nor did they name the dissident group.

Surrounding houses were evacuated as an Irish army bomb squad inspected the explosives to ensure they posed no risk of detonating.

IRA dissidents opposed to the outlawed group's 1997 cease-fire continue to plan occasional attacks in Northern Ireland, a British territory. The most recent attack there came Feb. 4, when police found a booby-trap bomb hidden inside a trash can outside the homes of British army families in Ballykelly, Northern Ireland.

The dissidents — organized loosely into two small groups called the Real IRA and Continuity IRA — last claimed a life in August 2002, when a Protestant construction worker was killed by a booby-trap bomb hidden inside a lunchbox in Londonderry, the province's second-largest city.

The Real IRA also claimed responsibility for the deadliest terror strike in Northern Ireland history: the August 1998 car bombing of the town of Omagh that killed 29 people and wounded more than 300.

[TexKat]

Fox News Alert:

Another shooting today in Lincoln County Ohio along Hwy 70. No injuries, but authorities say it is linked to the other shootings.

[TexKat]

Car Reportedly Shot On Interstate 70 No Injuries Reported

POSTED: 11:21 AM EST February 14, 2004

UPDATED: 12:16 PM EST February 14, 2004

COLUMBUS, Ohio -- There is a report of a car being shot on Interstate 70 East, NewsChannel 4 reported.

The incident happened at about 10:45 a.m., west of Route 310 near the Pataskala exit.

A vehicle appeared to be shot on the front right-side panel, NewsChannel 4 reported. The shot might have been taken from the Tollgate Road overpass.

There is no word if the shooting is related to the serial shootings to the south of Columbus. This apparent shooting is outside of the general geographic location that 23 other shootings have occurred.

[TexKat]

Gunfire Hits SUV, May Be Linked to Sniper

GRANVILLE, Ohio - A sport utility vehicle was struck by gunfire Saturday morning on Interstate 70, and investigators said it appears to be linked to the series of 23 highway shootings near Columbus.

No one was injured in Saturday's shooting near Pataskala, about 20 miles east of Columbus. The Franklin County task force investigating the shootings said officers were headed to the site where the Chevy Suburban was struck, but they had not yet confirmed the link.

The driver described the shooter as a clean-shaven white male in his 30s driving a black compact car similar to a Chevy Metro, said Pat Snelling, a dispatcher with the patrol's Granville patrol post.

The serial shootings began in May, though most have occurred since mid-October. One person has been killed.

[TexKat]

U.S. May Base Troops Long-Term in Kuwait Two rebel attacks in Fallujah this week cast doubts on the pullout plan, which depends on Iraqi security forces being able to defeat such assaults. On Saturday, dozens of guerrillas routed pro-U.S. Iraqi forces inside their own compounds, freeing prisoners and sparking a gunbattle that killed 23 people.

Guerrillas had attacked the same security compound on Thursday just as the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, Gen. John Abizaid, was visiting the site. Abizaid, who escaped unharmed but observed the fighting, said Iraqi forces were ``not ready'' to take on the rebels.

[MamaDearest]

God was with us this time - at least the attackers were the dead.

[MamaDearest]

It's a wonderful world we live in. Atleast we have you TexKat - that helps make it better.

[Revel]

Iran ready to sell nuclear fuel abroad

Saturday 14 February 2004, 15:15 Makka Time, 12:15 GMT

Iranian Foreign Minister Kamal Kharazi says his country is ready to sell nuclear fuel to international buyers.

"The Islamic Republic of Iran, as a country that has the potential to produce nuclear fuel, is ready to offer (that) fuel to international markets," Kharazi told the official IRNA news agency at Tehran airport after a trip to Italy and the Vatican.

Iran has been accused by Washington of secretly developing nuclear arms, a charge Tehran denies.

Iran has said it will enrich uranium only to the level needed to fuel power stations and not to higher, weapons-grade purity.

More:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/5B71E26D-FD37-4C2C-B461-5986281A42A6.htm

[TexKat]

Thanks MamaDearest. The same to you and Happy Valentines.

Transcript: President's Weekly Radio Address

Saturday, February 14, 2004

The following is a transcript of President Bush's weekly radio address:

Good morning. On September the 11th, 2001, America and the world saw the great harm that terrorists could inflict upon our country, armed with box cutters, mace and 19 airline tickets.

Those attacks also raised the prospect of even worse dangers, of terrorists armed with chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons. The possibility of secret and sudden attack with weapons of mass destruction is the greatest threat before humanity today.

America is confronting this danger with open eyes and unbending purpose. America faces the possibility of catastrophic attack from ballistic missiles armed with weapons of mass destruction, so we are developing and deploying missile defenses to guard our people. The best intelligence is necessary to win the war on terror and to stop proliferation. So we are improving and adapting our intelligence capabilities for new and emerging threats. We are using every means of diplomacy to confront the regimes that develop deadly weapons. We are cooperating with more than a dozen nations under the Proliferation Security Initiative, to interdict lethal materials transported by land, sea or air. And we have shown our willingness to use force when force is required. No one can now doubt the determination of America to oppose and to end these threats to our security.

We are aggressively pursuing another dangerous source of proliferation: black-market operatives who sell equipment and expertise related to weapons of mass destruction. The world recently learned of the network led by A.Q. Khan, the former head of Pakistan's nuclear weapons program. Khan and his associates sold nuclear technology and know-how to rogue regimes around the world, such as Iran and North Korea. Thanks to the tireless work of intelligence officers from the United States and the United Kingdom and other nations, the Khan network is being dismantled.

This week, I proposed a series of new, ambitious steps to build on our recent success against proliferation. We must expand the international cooperation of law enforcement organizations to act against proliferation networks, to shut down their labs, to seize their materials, to freeze their assets and to bring their members to justice.

We must strengthen laws and international controls that fight proliferation. Last fall at the United Nations I proposed a new Security Council resolution requiring all states to criminalize proliferation, enact strict export controls and secure all sensitive materials within their borders. I urge the Council to pass these measures quickly.

The Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, one of the most important tools for preventing the spread of nuclear weapons, is undermined by a loophole that allows countries to seek nuclear weapons under the cover of civilian nuclear power programs. I propose that the world's leading nuclear exporters close that loophole. The Nuclear Suppliers Group should refuse to sell enrichment and reprocessing equipment and technologies to any state that does not already possess full scale, functioning enrichment and reprocessing plants.

For international rules and laws to be effective, they must be enforced. We must ensure that the International Atomic Energy Agency is fully capable of exposing and reporting banned nuclear activity. Every nation should sign what is called the Additional Protocol, which would allow the IAEA to make broader inspections of nuclear sites. We should also establish a special IAEA committee to focus on safeguards and verification. And no nation under investigation for proliferation violations should be able to serve on this committee or on the governing board of the IAEA. Governments breaking the rules should not be trusted with enforcing the rules.

Terrorists and terrorist states are in a race for weapons of mass murder, a race they must lose. They are resourceful — we must be more resourceful. They are determined — we must be more determined. We will never lose focus or resolve. We will be unrelenting in the defense of free nations, and rise to the hard demands of our dangerous time.

Thank you for listening.

[TexKat]

Iran ready to sell nuclear fuel abroad

Yes, read the President's (GWB) radio address from today in the above post.

[StillProud2BeFree]

Here's a photo of the car. There is a 7 million riyal reward for it so if you happen to be in Riyadh and see it make sure you call the cops.

[TexKat]

Nine Killed in Attack on Central Nigeria Village

JOS, Nigeria (Reuters) - At least nine people were hacked to death when a tribal militia group attacked a rival village in the latest outbreak of communal violence in central Nigeria, witnesses said on Saturday.

They said the militia, from a mainly Christian tribe, carried out the killings and burned several houses in the Muslim village of Mavo on Friday, in the latest of a series of clashes between Christians and Muslims in the Wase district of central Plateau state since 2001.

Yahaya Adamu, who fled to the state capital Jos from Mavo, said three of his relatives were killed in the attack and many villagers were still missing.

"I also saw six other dead bodies after the invasion," Adamu told reporters.

Police said four people were killed in the attack and the immediate cause of the violence was unclear.

"Four people were killed in the incident. We have sent mobile (riot) police to patrol and protect lives and property in the area," police spokesman David Michael said.

More than 1,000 people have been killed since 2001 in fighting between rival groups in Plateau, a predominantly Christian state with a significant Muslim minority.

[Domestic Church]

"A Candidate From Russia Is in London With New Tale ... Ivan P. Rybkin, the Russian presidential candidate"

Lelenin (that Russian who just changed his name) is there too.

[TexKat]

Castro: U.S. Embargo Hasn't Broken Cuba

Sat Feb 14,10:10 AM ET

By LISA J. ADAMS, Associated Press Writer

HAVANA - America's economy hangs by a thread while Cuba — after four decades under a U.S. economic blockade — continues to offer free health care and boasts an infant mortality rate lower than its northern neighbor, President Fidel Castro asserted early Saturday.

In a 4 1/2-hour speech to economists, Castro also took shots at President Bush, saying he "couldn't debate a Cuban 9th-grader." He recited for a half-hour from a published compilation of Bush malapropisms, bent over with laughter as the audience roared.

Castro also challenged Bush to be clear about how the United States plans to realize a transition to democracy in Cuba. He wondered aloud — again — if it involved a plan to kill him.

"The great difference" between Cuba and the United States is that Cuba "has learned to do a lot with very little," Castro said at the conclusion of the Sixth International Meeting of Economists on Globalization and Development Problems.

Castro noted that many of the more than 1,000 attending economists from 50 countries — including some from the United States — had sharply criticized globalization and the "neoliberal" economic policies of industrialized nations.

He lauded U.S. Nobel Prize-winning economist Daniel L. McFadden's "keen observations" — among them that the United States, with a fiscal deficit of more than $520 billion, is managing its economy like a "banana republic."

"This economy is hanging by a thread," Castro said.

Castro also lashed out at the "foolishness" of the U.S. economic blockade that has been in place since the presidency of John F. Kennedy, saying it hadn't stopped Cuba from surpassing the United States in many areas.

The communist-run island has no illiteracy, a lower infant mortality rate than the United States, lower student-teacher ratios and higher levels of educational achievement, he said.

"Bush couldn't debate a Cuban 9th-grader," Castro remarked as he leaned across the podium toward applauding listeners.

Castro's commentary addressed everything from free trade agreements and fluctuating currencies to the current presidential campaign in the United States. At one point — after offering his audience coffee to avoid falling asleep — Castro went on to quote various reports from the U.S. media severely criticizing Bush, the economy, U.S. unemployment and the war on Iraq.

He talked at length about the Bush administration's Commission for a Free Cuba — a panel set up in October and led by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell to plan a strategy for Cuba once the 77-year-old Castro is no longer in power.

When the United States announced creation of the commission, Powell suggested that the goal was not to force Castro out.

U.S. officials talk about a transition, "but how would they make this transition?" Castro asked Saturday, suggesting that "the only way is to proceed with an illegal assassination using the scores of techniques they have available."

Castro challenged Bush "to have the courage to say whether he is using this power."

Even if his days are numbered by the United States, "don't feel any pity," Castro told his listeners.

"There is no fear. To demonstrate fear would be a mistake. ... and in any case I would have to say to this illustrious gentleman (Bush) what the Roman gladiators said: 'Hail, Caesar. Those who are going to die salute you.'"

[Cindy]

NBC4COLUMBUS.com: "SERIAL SHOOTINGS" (Continuing Coverage) (Read More...)