Threat Matrix: Daily Terror Threat - Thread 5

CNN ^ | March 12, 2004

[thecabal]

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- This week's deadly train bombings in Spain will not lead to a rise in the U.S. color-coded terror threat alert system, a Department of Homeland Security spokesman said Friday.

"Based on the current intelligence, we have no specific indicators that terrorist groups are considering such an attack in the U.S. in the near term," said department spokesman Brian Roehrkasse.

[WestCoastGal]

What *&%$#% next??? Not really cussing but thought it merits something close to that.

[Mrs. Xtrmst]

Well none of that sounds very nice. (shudder)

What the heck is this about:

"- in a month of 3 he is perpendicular 4 celestial bodies on a single axis .
- the beginning of probability space body appearance from a Rabi I, all of the peoples see it ."

And what planet are they on if they think Saddam would ever be back in power?

"- Saddam 's return in Iraq ."

[knak]

hope you're not cussing at me!

[Oorang]

Thanks for the ping to the new thread. I've been out of town, and offline, for a week. Boy, do I have my catching up work cut out for me now.

[TexKat]

The mysterious group that calls itself AZF has issued a new threat to the French government, saying it will bomb the country's rail network unless it receives millions in ransom money, sources close to the investigation said on Saturday."

Right about now Franch is now regretting that they pissed the American people off. They could have sold enough cheese and wine to the American infidels to raise the millions that their rail lines are being held ransom for.

Chirac you can kiss your job goodbye, and you did not even help the American infidels. Chirac boy, chirac boy, watcha gonna do, watcha gonna do when da come fo u.

[knak]

N. AFRICAN SLEEPERS USED FOR SPAIN ATTACK

LONDON [MENL] -- Al Qaida was believed to have employed insurgents from North Africa for the train bombings in Spain that killed about 200 people.

Western intelligence sources said Spanish and other European intelligence and security agencies believe that sleeper cells established by Al Qaida-aligned groups helped designate the targets and provide logistics and safe haven for operatives who detonated 10 backpack bombs aboard commuter trains in Madrid on Thursday. The sources said the cells were established by organizations that stem from Algeria and Morocco and employed local insurgency operatives, including Basque separatists.

"These attacks were the result of years of liasion and planning between North African groups aligned with Al Qaida and Basque separatists and other local terrorist operatives," a European intelligence source said. "Everybody knew a major attack was coming, but nobody expected it to be this lethal."

The North African groups believed to have been involved in the Madrid attacks include the Salafist Jihadiya in Morocco and the Salafist Brigade for Combat and Call in Algeria. Salafist Jihadiya was said to have been contracted by Al Qaida for the May 2003 suicide bombings in Casablanca in which 44 people were killed. Algeria's Salafist Brigade has been regarded as the chief subcontractor for Al Qaida in Europe and North Africa.

[virtude]

"welcome to FR"

Thanks. Great site with lots of intelligent people here.

[rickylc]

This is a link to a thread here on FR. An article from the Jerusalem Post. It's a very good read!!

It's a world war

[WestCoastGal]

*&^%$#$ No.... :-)

[TexKat]

The prediction now is that he's dead?

Oh, this is getting to be too much, too confusing. LOL.

OBL died after being blown to smitherings at Tora Bora. no

Hes alivein the hills on the border of Pakistan/Afganistan. no

He was spotted in the mountains in Iran. no

He is working at a kiosk in New Jersey. no

He is conference with the other Al Queda higher up wackjobs discussing which country to hit next. no

There he goes hes flying around in the belly of the eagle. mp

Oh just bring me his head on a pole and I'll decide whether he is dead or alive.

[WestCoastGal]

I went over to NEIN to see if there are any more messages. The entire paragraph re: BL"S death is confusing. It starts out with "New message expected from Bin Laden" then by the end of the paragraph he's dead.

---

13 March 2004: al Ansar, Fox News and Reuters have picked up what Network analysts have referenced a short time ago- the release of a new message from Osama bin Laden. We suspect that the message will be consistent with previous tapes; it will be congratulatory in nature but very vague, speaking to the success of the attack in Spain only in generalities.

Analysts are considering the possibility that the message will not be released in its entirety, which is what happened in December 2003. At this point, if the message is not released in its entirety, we can assume that the message contains operational instructions for another attack. If so, the authorities need to be vigilant and watch for its release outside of normal channels - such as on an Internet site - and carefully review the text for operational instructions.

All indications continue to suggest that Osama bin Laden is NOT free to record new messages - and that his "capture" will soon be announced - with the notification of his death from ill health.

[knak]

I wonder if we'll get to see what state of decomposition he's in. (Not to be gross)

This is getting ridiculous!

[oceanview]

politically for Bush, if he dies, it had better be in the present tense as related to the "spring offensive" going on to get him. having him just turn up someplace like jimmy hoffa isn't the way to do it. the Dems would be all over it, saying "Bush knew he was dead all along and just released it now". Frankly, I would have my doubts also.

[StillProud2BeFree]

From FoxNews.com just a few moments ago:
Breaking Point
Could Usama bin Laden stroll across the Canadian border? Tune in Saturday 10 pm / 1 am ET for an FNC investigation.

Perhaps Osama has made a bunch of tapes to be broadcast after the planned attacks. The tapes, unless they contain information regarding recent events, don't say anything about when they were made. If he planned the event, then he could make a tape in advance and leave it with someone else to release when the event occurs.

[knak]

Not if he's dead!

[StillProud2BeFree]

If anyone runs across a link to the OBL statement please let me know. I'm looking all over for it.

[rickylc]

And another heralding WWIII, This time form the NY Daily News. This one is also a must read and fairly short, so I will post it here.

World War III strikes Spain
NY Daily News ^ | March 12 2004

Posted on 03/12/2004 2:58:56 PM PST by knighthawk

Whether the train blasts in Madrid were the work of Basque separatists, as Spanish officials first reflexively alleged, or of regrouped and reenergized Al Qaeda malevolents, which would be truly terrifying news, hardly makes a difference to the innocent legions of dead and maimed. But it is of enormous consequence to those of us left living in daily fear. The Basques' grievance is with Spain alone; they're unlikely to strike elsewhere. But if this horror is indeed the work of Al Qaeda, the world has just plunged again into nightmare.

Is there now even moderate confidence that anywhere can be assured safety from terrorism, the most monstrous evil of modern times? Not Berlin, where authorities have been tipped to some act of public mayhem set to occur perhaps as early as tonight. Not Paris, where terror alerts have been raised and where soldiers are today deployed in the streets. Not Vienna, where the world's counterterrorism experts have assembled to address the darkening shadows of global menace. And surely not the United States of America.

Yesterday's brutishly boastful letter purporting to be from Osama Bin Laden's Abu Hafs al-Masri Brigades not only proudly claimed responsibility for the Madrid havoc but warned that the U.S. very soon will suffer another devastating attack on its soil. "Winds of Black Death," these chop-licking lunatics have titled the glorious destruction to come. The plan, they chortle, is already 90% in place.

That letter is unauthenticated at this hour. Nonetheless, the world is manifestly at war. This must be recognized, without further equivocation. The enemy is an army of Islamic zombies utterly dedicated to the demolition and eradication of Western civilization and Western values. Western militaries and Western intelligence services must band together to stop them, by any methods available. This is the world in which we live today. It is not a world for the faint-hearted and mush-headed.

[TexKat]

N. AFRICAN SLEEPERS USED FOR SPAIN ATTACK

I don't know about your state (area), but for the last few years the africans are cashiers and attendants in our 7-eleven and other convenience stores and gas stations. They have taken the place of Arabs. And I must say not very congenial and still the same the same communication problems.

[StillProud2BeFree]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/allnews/content_objectid=14047194_method=full_siteid=50143_headline=-MASSACRE-OF-MADRID--BABY-GIRL---VICTIM199-name_page.html


MASSACRE OF MADRID: BABY GIRL ..VICTIM199 Mar 13 2004

Grim task of identifying bodies as train death toll rises

By Graham Brough In Madrid And Mark Ellis In London


THE death toll from the Madrid blasts reached 199 after the youngest victim died last night.

A seven-month-old girl called Patricia survived for around 30 hours following the explosions.

She had been found on the floor at Atocha station covered in bloody remains and clothes. Doctors who rescued her said she had most likely been trampled by stampeding survivors as well as hurt in the blast.

Distraught hospital officials said the baby's mother was one of the critically wounded. Her father was missing feared dead.

The baby's aunt, called Katya, said hours before she died: "I have got my sister in one hospital seriously ill, my brother-in-law is most likely dead and their baby is in a terrible state."

The horror of the attacks were last night heard in a taped phone call from a young woman to her mother seconds after the train on which she was travelling was hit by a blast.

As the terrified, high-pitched voice related the horror, two other bombs were heard ripping through the wreckage and the call was cut short.

It was recorded on the mother's answer machine. There was no indication whether the girl survived.

Dozens of victims still in hospital are in a critical condition, many with missing limbs.

Spanish Health minister Ana Pastor said there were still 406 people in wards all over Madrid, of which 38 were critical.

She added: "We are hoping and praying none of the critical become part of the death statistics."

Of the dead, the bodies of 80 were too mutilated to be identified.

The number of children robbed of a parent is estimated at between 200 and 300.

One boy was just 50 yards away from one of the bombs in which his mum and dad died as he ate breakfast at school.

Modesto Pardo, head of the Ciudad de Valencia school, said six other parents of children there had died.

Two more unborn babies and their mothers were still seriously ill in the Gregorio Mananon hospital. One mother is just six weeks into her pregnancy, the other 20 weeks.

More than 125 of the dead had been identified by yesterday.

One counsellor at a hospital said: "The people whose relatives haven't been identified yet...keep on hoping. It's very hard to insist that they shouldn't hang on to that.

"There are a lot of foreigners and it's harder for them to understand. It's a struggle that's got nothing to do with them."

Hundreds of crying, wailing relatives arrived to identify the charred remains of loved ones at the IFEMA festival hall in western Madrid. Some collapsed on the floor in tears.

Psychologist Manuel Desviat, one of a team of doctors trying to console the grief-stricken, said: "They go to pieces on the floor with grief.

"We try to persuade them not to look at the bodies if they are in too bad a state of injury."

One mother said of her daughter who was killed: "She had no right to die. She was 25 and had been married just three months."

Volunteer taxi drivers ferried many relatives of the dead to and from the hall for free.

Hotels supplied blankets, sheets and rooms. At Atocha station, a normally bustling building, mourners sobbed, lit candles and left flowers as a steady procession of silent people came to pay their respects to the dead.

On the tracks, passengers fell silent as their train rumbled past the burned and twisted carriages that were blown up in Thursday's atrocities.

Tearful commuter Isabel Galan, 32, said: "I saw the trains and burst into tears. I felt so helpless, such anger." Another passenger, Isabel Pinto, told how she "saw people escaping from the train asking: 'Have I got eyes?' 'Have I got a face?'"

She added: "They were like zombies."

Black ribbons were stuck to cab window of trains by their drivers.

The two wrecked trains at Atocha remained on tracks just outside the station. Bloodstains on the tracks and bloodied clothing still lay scattered on the ground.

Emergency workers sifted through the wreckage near a banner reading "death will not silence our voice".

Silent locals, many weeping and pale, brought candles and flowers to place by the wreckage.

Forensic experts had worked through the night to trace victims and search for clues as to who was behind the blasts. Officials were last night divided over whether ETA or al-Qaeda was responsible.

Those claiming Islamic terrorists caused the blasts point to the email sent to London-based Arabic newspaper Al Quds.

The message, said to be from Osama bin Laden's terror outfit and issued by the Brigade of Abu Hafs al-Masri, said its "death squad" had penetrated "one of the pillars of the crusader alliance".

It added: "This is part of settling old accounts with Spain, the crusader, and America's ally in its war against Islam."

Spanish police also discovered a van on the outskirts of the city with detonators and an Arabic language tape with verses from the Koran. Spain has been regarded as a potential target for Islamic terrorists because of Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar's support for Britain and America in the war against Iraq.

But Interior Minister Angel Acebes insisted the attack bore all the hallmarks of an ETA strike and that the Arabic tape may have been intended to confuse matters. He said the types of explosives used, recent threats to bomb Madrid's trains and the fact that an identical plan was prevented on Christmas Eve, pointed to the Basque terror group.

And United Nations counter terrorism chief Inocencio Arias added: "It has all the fingerprints of ETA."

[knak]

Not in my area. The darkest skinned people here are the mexican farm workers. No arabs that I've noticed either.