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Thread Six: http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1109459/posts |
Posted on 03/12/2004 8:23:06 PM PST by 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.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnn.com ...
About 8 years ago, the same sort of incident happened on I-287, near White Plains, New York -- truck exploded and wiped out an overpass. The road was closed for weeks. AQ was not to blame then and I doubt it is to blame now. Sometimes shitzui just happens. And if AQ trying to close down an escape route, I doubt they would chose a spot 60 miles from NYC.
2 PALESTINIANS KILLED ATTACKING FROM SEA
By IBRAHIM BARZAK
The Associated Press
3/26/2004, 8:38 a.m. ET
GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) — Armed Palestinians in wetsuits and flippers emerged from the Mediterranean and fired toward a beachfront Israeli settlement in the Gaza Strip, the army said Friday. Two attackers were killed and a third was wounded and fled.
The Islamic militant group Hamas claimed responsibility for the attack on the Tel Katifa settlement in Gaza. Hamas has threatened to carry out attacks on Israelis to avenge the assassination of its founder, Sheik Ahmed Yassin.
In a farewell video, two attackers posed in their wetsuits, with oxygen tanks strapped to their backs and goggles pulled above their foreheads. The video also contained footage of a training session in which two men charged toward a rocky cliff, firing assault rifles. The settlement attack is the first of "earthshaking operations to come," a Hamas leaflet said.
Thousands of Hamas supporters marched in the West Bank towns of Nablus and Ramallah on Friday, threatening revenge. In the Nablus, the protest was led by about 200 men in masks and military-style dress. At one point, they torched a large model of an Israeli bus and ran in a circle around it.
In the nearby Balata refugee camp, a Palestinian militant was killed when a car he was driving exploded. Palestinian security officials said the car carried explosives that apparently blew up prematurely. The blast which killed Ahmed al-Abed, of the Al Aqsa Martyrs' Brigades, an armed group linked to Yasser Arafat's Fatah movement.
In the Gaza attack, the assailants came ashore late Thursday. From the beach, they fired assault rifles and rocket-propelled grenades toward the Israeli army post guarding the settlement, and soldiers returned fire.
Ari Odes, a Tel Katifa resident, said he and his wife were driving toward the settlement when they heard shooting. Moments later, he saw the attacker on the road, aiming at the car, Odes told Israel Radio.
"I pulled my head down and tried to aim the wheel so as to run him over but he jumped onto the shoulder of the road and I drove into the settlement," Odes said. "There was a second terrorist who shot massive fire at the gate of the settlement and the outpost."
An Israeli army officer said the Israeli navy spotted three men swimming toward the beach and that two approached the settlement. A third man was wounded and footsteps indicated that he fled into the sea, said the officer, identified only as Lt. Ayelet. Soldiers found rocket-propelled grenade launchers, assault rifles and explosives on the beach, along with flippers. The military believes the attackers were trying to build a bomb on the beach for use in an attack on the settlement, she said.
Tensions have increased significantly since Israel assassinated Yassin on Monday.
At the United Nations, the United States on Thursday vetoed a Security Council resolution that would have condemned Israel for the assassination. The U.S. ambassador complained that the text did not mention Hamas attacks against Israelis.
Palestinian Cabinet minister Saeb Erekat said the U.S. veto will be seen by Israel "as an encouragement to continue the path of violence, escalation, assassination and reoccupation."
At Friday noon prayers at Jerusalem's Al Aqsa Mosque, Islam's third holiest site, the prayer leader harshly attacked the United States. "The United States is not the sponsor of peace, it is the sponsor of international terrorism, and this veto is a green light to continue the assassinations," said the cleric, Yousef Abu Sneineh.
Israel's tightened security has foiled several attacks in recent days. On Wednesday, soldiers stopped a 16-year-old Palestinian youth, Hussam Abdo, with a bomb vest strapped to his body at a crowded West Bank checkpoint, setting off a tense encounter with soldiers.
Abdo remained in Israeli custody Friday, but military sources said he might be released in coming days. The Al Aqsa group denied recruiting the youth. However, Abdo's uncle, Jihad, said the boy's ID card had the words "Al Aqsa Brigades" scribbled on it. It is customary for attackers to leave their ID card with the group that dispatches them, so it can be used in a subsequent claim of responsibility.
The family of the teenager said he was gullible and easily manipulated, and relatives demanded that militants stop using children for attacks.
"It is forbidden to send him to fight. He is young, he is small, he should be in school. Someone pressured him, maybe because they killed Ahmed Yassin," wailed Abdo's mother, Tamam.
Also Friday, Israel's vice premier said Israel is not seeking U.S. approval of its plan to withdraw from most of the Gaza Strip, although it would like to coordinate certain moves with Washington.
Vice Premier Ehud Olmert, a confidant of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, told Israel Army Radio that Israel is not demanding U.S. guarantees or public statements in exchange for a unilateral withdrawal.
Sharon's aides initially suggested that in exchange for withdrawing from Gaza, Israel is seeking U.S. approval of an Israeli annexation of several West Bank settlement blocs in a final peace deal. Israeli officials, including the foreign minister, have said Washington is unwilling to give such guarantees.
Earlier this week, Israeli envoys met U.S. officials, including National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice. The officials proposed to evacuate nearly all Gaza settlements, as well as six West Bank settlements, a senior Israeli government official said.
Sharon has suggested the Gaza pullout as part of a plan to reduce friction with the Palestinians in the absence of a peace agreement. The plan is expected to include a limited pullback from the West Bank, where Israel would impose a boundary.
Fox News reporting CIA stating that new tape most likely Al-Zawahiri. The tape does mention the operations on the Pak/Afgan border, but does not mention Yassin.
By ANGELA DOLAND, Associated Press Writer
PARIS - Anti-terrorist police detained three suspects in connection with an investigation into a mysterious group's threats to bomb French railways, police said Friday.
The suspects, two men and a woman, were taken into custody Thursday in Paris and the suburban Val-de-Marne region, police officials said. They were being held for questioning at the headquarters of French anti-terrorist police.
An obscure group that calls itself AZF has threatened to blow up bombs at French railway targets unless it is paid millions of dollars.
On Thursday, the group issued a cryptic letter suggesting it could carry out an attack to surpass the terror bombings that killed 190 people in Madrid, Spain. But the group, which previously claimed to have mined railway tracks, also announced it was suspending its operations so it can perfect them.
The letter came a day after a bomb was found half-buried on a train track near the town of Troyes, some 100 miles southeast of Paris, triggering a massive inspection of France's rail network.
AZF has not carried out attacks, but its threats to blow up rail targets have heightened concerns — laid bare by the March 11 train bombings — about the vulnerability of European public transport systems.
Police said the three suspects' movements corresponded in a "troubling" manner with certain elements of the AZF inquiry, police said. They were questioned all night, police added.
AZF first contacted the government in December, then threatened in February to attack railway targets. The group directed authorities to a bomb, recovered Feb. 21, that was buried in the bed of a railway line near Limoges in central France.
That bomb and the second one found Wednesday were made from an explosive mixture of nitrates and diesel fuel. The second bomb had seven detonators, attached in the same way as the first, and both were housed in identical see-through plastic boxes, police said.
The discovery of both bombs prompted the state train authority to send about 10,000 employees out on foot to check 19,800 miles of track.
Police say they know little about the group. They have communicated with AZF using special phone lines and newspaper classified ads that addressed the blackmailers as "My big wolf." Investigators signed off as "Suzy."
AZF is the name of a chemical factory that exploded in Toulouse, in southwest France, in 2001, killing 30 people. Authorities said the explosion was accidental.
RABAT, Morocco - Police have arrested suspects in northern Morocco in connection with the March 11 train bombings in Spain, a government official said Friday.
They were the first arrests made in Morocco in the attacks, which killed 190 people. Spanish officials suspect that an Islamic extremist group from Morocco may have ties to the terror attacks.
The government official spoke on condition of anonymity and did not say how many people were arrested, where the arrests took place or when.
A total of 18 people are in custody in Spain in connection with the March 11 railway bombings. At least 14 of them are Moroccans.
Jailed Moroccan immigrant Jamal Zougam is the prime suspect in the bombings. Spanish court documents have linked him to members of an al-Qaida cell in Spain.
I remember that "accident". Interesting that this group is named for the chemical factory that "accidently" blew up.
I'm with you - that's why we live on acreage. The worst thing we have to contend with here is loose dogs.
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