Threat Matrix- Daily Terror Thread (4):

New York Post ^ | February 24, 2004 | By NILES LATHEM

[StillProud2BeFree]

Well if anyone could get a copy of the entire text of both messages in either English or preferably Arabic we might know the answer. All I can find are summaries and excerpts.

[Myrddin]

In a major emergency, I would be working in a RACES (Radio Amateur Civil Emergency Service) and ARES (Amateur Radio Emergency Services) networks along with local law enforcement. My wife would be on a police/fire radio console plus the amateur radio nets. I probably would not be actively "FReeping" under such conditions. I also have COP (Citizens on Patrol) responsibilities with local law enforcement.

If you have a scanner, you should tune to 146.52 MHz to catch the initial emergency services activities. Check your local scanner directory to lookup the ham repeater frequencies for RACES. Add local PD, FD, road crews and ambulance services as you have room. These frequencies will get real busy in a real emergency. Feel free to listen, but avoid playing "looky lou" at the active scenes. You may indavertantly put yourself in harm's way or impede necessary services.

[Velveeta]

Just wondering if we should be concentrating on the opposite of what he says.

There's no way to know. All we can do is just continue to look at all the little dots.....and pray.

I haven't heard anything about EOM lately either.

[Myrddin]

Another target for a deep sea diver is a communications cable. It would take months or years to lay new communications cables across the Atlantic or Pacific if they were damaged.

[StillProud2BeFree]

In most of the postings on the jihad board "Arabian Island" is pretty clearly Saudi.

With that said, I think that you may be right that they may target Hawaii. There was a posting on Monday that implied that on one of the Arabic forums.

There was also another posting which said one thing in the text (referring to an attack AFTER the end of February) and also mentioned that it would come from the North. There was an image attached and the text in the image mentioned a different location and time. They are clearly aware many people are using automated translators and that translators do not read graphics. The text in the image stated that the date was BEFORE the end of February.

Again, it takes a lot of information coming together for me to become as concerned as I am right now. Hopefully the feds will handle the situation and nothing will happen. But as I said, I am concerned.

[WestCoastGal]

Boy are we running slow on FR this morning. Is this the post you mean?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

this is what the right hand man said!!may god protect him

In a tape aired by Al Jazeera television, Zawahri said: "Bush, strengthen your defenses and your security measures for the Muslim nation which sent you the legion of New York and Washington has determined to send you legion after legion seeking death and paradise."

i am doing this for your good trust me. atleast your getting a notice before others that dont even know what is going on!!

again its not a date its a time line between 2 points in time starting today this is the first point but ending when ? thats the Question.

till now i havnt got a single right answer.


alaah akbaar
daleel_almojahid
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Was this posted on the 24th? Does this have something to do with Easter? A time line between two points is the clue.

[WestCoastGal]

You all keep up the good work today, I have to go to work. Be back later!!

[freeperfromnj]

That's it. I've read it over and over and can't come up with anything. StillProud suggests that there is more text to the Zawahiri tape that hasn't been released that might contain a clue.

[Calpernia]

Bump! I think the same thing!

[Oorang]

Many thanks for that update. I agree with you, he seems legit. I just got a few more grey hairs :-)

[swarthyguy]

Divers in February? Wouldn't be recreational, alway a chance, tho.

If not attached to any river authority, then the total lack of coverage is, IMO, a good indication, that something was stopped.

But then again, I'm paranoid and might connect dots that don't exist.

[all4one]

Two articles on Al Qaeda threats to Maritime Industry one is from the UK and the other is from Australia/New Zealand. Have there been articles such as these recently in the U.S.?

#1 UK Article - 02-18-04:

Al Qaeda Threat to Maritime Industry Growing
18 Feb 2004 19:12:07 GMT

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L18608853.htm

By Stefano Ambrogi
LONDON, Feb 18 (Reuters) - The global maritime industry, already plagued by organised crime, is increasingly vulnerable to seaborne attack by al Qaeda guerrillas, security experts said on Wednesday.

"We believe al Qaeda and its associates may be planning a maritime 'spectacular'," said Dominick Donald, a senior analyst with Aegis Defence Services, a leading London-based risk and security consultancy.

"We think there are enough indications now that al Qaeda would like to do this, is thinking hard about it, and is probably beginning to prepare for it," said Donald, speaking at an oil and transport security conference in London.

He said oil and gas tankers and cruise ships were prime targets for al Qaeda -- blamed for the September 11 attacks -- because of their respective economic and "iconic" importance.

Donald acknowledged the threat was not new but said it was growing more acute as militant Islamist groups became more adept at sharing information on how to carry out seaborne attacks.

"There is no doubt about it: the industry is vulnerable and more attention is focused on it as a likely target," said Chris Austen, formerly a counter-terrorism specialist with Britain's Royal Navy and now managing director of Maritime Underwater Security Consultants.

Citing a surge in piracy attacks and ocean crime, he said the building blocks for an attack were already in place, particularly in little-patrolled waters around the Horn of Africa and in Southeast Asia.

"Terrorism is imitative; it learns from other terrorists, and from organised crime. If organised criminals are using the maritime environment, terrorists will follow," he said.
The International Maritime Bureau (IMB), the world's top ocean crime watchdog, said last month that piracy attacks jumped 20 percent in 2003 to 445.

Violent crime also jumped with 21 seafarers killed, 88 injured and 71 crew or passengers listed as missing.
The IMB has said it has not found any evidence linking militant groups to acts of piracy and ocean crime but said the growing lawlessness could help militant groups to gain a foothold.

Donald said militant groups could learn how to use a merchant ship as a delivery vessel for a "dirty bomb" by interrogating kidnapped mariners.
"Piracy is the perfect mask for maritime terrorism," he said.

#2 - Article from Australia/New Zealand 02-20-04:

Maritime Terrorist Act Imminent, Experts Warn

Friday, 20th February, 2004

http://www.portfocus.co.nz/news.php?cat_name=aus&s=782

A British Intelligence group has joined, visiting UN and Australian experts warning that world ports and shipping are vulnerable to a major terrorist attack

AL-QAEDA and its associates could be planning a "maritime spectacular," Dominick Donald of Aegis Research and Intelligence told a London security conference this week.

"If a boat that didn't cost $1,000 managed to devastate an oil tanker of that magnitude, imagine the extent of the danger that threatens the West's commercial lifeline, which is petroleum," he said.

Donald was referring to concerns raised since the attack on the oil tanker VLCC Limburg.

Addressing delegates at the Intermodal Petroleum Transportation event, Donald warned that the maritime sector was an obvious and easy target.

"Maritime attacks can deliver results, as 90 per cent of world trade moves by sea and maritime traffic has a number of vulnerable choke points [such as the pirate infested] Malacca Straits, Bab-el-Mandab and the Suez and Panama Canals".

Both the tanker and the cruise sectors are "iconic and economic", Donald said.

Meanwhile former Australian transport minister Peter Morris, who nows heads the International Commission on Shipping (ICONS), has also raised the alarm that shipping could be used as a weapon of mass destruction on Australian cities.

"Any one of the thousands of foreign ships which dock each year in Australian ports, particularly Sydney, has the potential to become a weapon of mass destruction," said Mr Morris.

"The ships themselves may be the weapon," he said. "They can carry enough innocent-looking cargo - fertiliser and diesel fuel - to become the biggest bomb ever detonated in an Australian capital city or major port in war or peace."

Mr Morris said the United States, the world's largest trading nation and a prime target for terrorists, has already acknowledged the danger.

"But Australia is making itself more vulnerable than most countries by suppressing Australian shipping in favour of foreign shipping and relying almost totally on offshore-registered ships where the real owners or operators of freighters, tankers, and bulk carriers are easily concealed."

Most ships calling in Australian ports are registered in countries like Liberia and Panama, which fail to even make a pretence of knowing the real ownership of those ships.

A recent bipartisan review of Australian shipping conducted by Mr Morris and the former Minister for Transport in the Howard government, John Sharp, warned that there was conflict between the Federal Government's two aims of cheap shipping and the simultaneous strengthening of our border protection.

[TexKat]

Al-Qaida letter documents ‘race against time’ strategy

February 11, 2004

By Hamza Hendawi

Associated Press

BAGHDAD, Iraq — Foreign Islamic fighters in Iraq want to accelerate their anti-U.S. campaign by attacking Kurds, kidnapping U.S. soldiers and trying to “control land at night,” according to a letter from an operative to al-Qaida leaders intercepted by the U.S. military. The Associated Press obtained a copy of the letter, which the military announced Monday it had found on an al-Qaida operative captured in Iraq.

The letter’s author says the insurgency is in a “race against time” to wreck American plans to hand over sovereignty to the Iraqis on June 30. If it fails to prevent that, “then there will be no choice but to pack our bags and move to another land where we can once again carry our banner.”

He also complains that Iraqi insurgents battling the Americans have not cooperated enough with foreign fighters and outlines a strategy to attack Shiites in order to spark a sectarian war that Sunni Muslims will join.

The military believes Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant thought to be linked to al-Qaida, wrote the document. The letter, 11 pages long in Arabic, is written in flowery prose and addressed to “our two kind brothers,” whom it also refers to as the “men in the mountains.”

It is thought to have been sent to senior al-Qaida leaders, perhaps Osama bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri, who are believed hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan or western Pakistan.

Insurgents must act quickly to prevent the handover of power to Iraqi police and military forces, since Iraqi fighters would be less willing to attack them, the letter’s author says. “The noose is beginning to tighten around the necks of the mujahedeen, and the future is frightening with the future deployment of more troops and police,” he writes.

“Our hope is for the pace of our work to accelerate, to form brigades and battalions that have experience and perseverance and to wait for zero hour, when we begin to appear in public and control the land at night and, God willing, also during the day,” he says.

The document vows to target “symbols” of the Kurdish community and to increase attacks on troops, police men and “collaborators” — Iraqis who work with the U.S.-led coalition.

It calls Americans “the most cowardly of God’s creatures,” saying, “We ask God to enable us to get at them, either through killing them or capturing them to swap them for our sheiks and brothers in detention.”

But it says the “only solution” is to repeatedly attack the Shiites to prompt them into retaliating against Sunnis.

“If we succeed in dragging them into the sectarian battlefield, the slumbering Sunnis will wake up,” the letter says.

The author rails against Kurds and Shiites, saying Kurdish leaders have turned northern Iraq into a “Trojan horse for Israelis.” It brands Shiites as “heretics” aiming to create a Shiite state “extending from Iran, passing by Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon and ending with the cardboard kingdom of the Gulf” — an apparent reference to Saudi Arabia.

He also says Iraqi fighters are hesitant about carrying out suicide attacks and restrict themselves to planting explosives and firing rockets. Some Iraqi fighters “brag among themselves that none of them had been killed or captured. We have repeatedly told them that safety and victory don’t go together.”

[nw_arizona_granny]

If you do a simple google search for:

muslim scuba divers

there are many listed, one of these had a picture like we remember, could be the same diver, and the first site has a better article on the dead N.Y. diver.

http://www.cdnn.info/safety/s040224/s040224.html

http://www.underwatertimes.com/scuba/scuba.php

[freeperfromnj]

But then again, I'm paranoid and might connect dots that don't exist.

Ditto

[freeperfromnj]

Thanks. That first article has a lot more info. Case has been referred to agencies which are overseen by Dept. of Homeland Security.

[swarthyguy]

Just to inflame paranoia, how can you assume anything is as is?

Walker, Padilla, Yee, , Sgt. Akbar, Malvo, Anderson...

What better cover for a blue eyed jihadi than a cross or biker emblems - perhaps on there before his conversion.

I think we've found anecdotal evidence of something that was probably stopped or is happening right now.

[SCR1]

Here is a repost from Anomalies.net of Sean's recent post that reiterated the placment of Nukes in CONUS. The total he states is at about 40.

"In my opinion I believe the intel reports I have heard over the phone in person-to-person conversation of intelligence sharing within the past month that there are approximately 40 such devices currently within the borders of the United States. That is the number mentioned by a US SOF operator who I am told is a member of one of the search teams."

[watchwoman]

Re: Timeline---Here you go...for what its worth (not much, IMO - Daleel is not to be taken seriously, as you will soon see why.)

It was posted yesterday, #557 on this thread.

[nw_arizona_granny]

Are you scared yet?

Two ship accidents over the pipeline they want to blow up?

I think there is another article on being trained to go down and not to come up, from Florida, as my puny memory recalls it, I had forgotten this report, so it isn't the one I was thinking of.

Thanks for sending it.