Posted on 05/13/2004 11:21:09 PM PDT by Dems_R_Losers
Blog is not fact. By media reports he was found saturday.
- "Can Uganda Handle Terrorism?," OPINION, by Joshua Kato, Kampala, New Vision (Kampala), May 22, 2003 ,Posted to the web May 23, 2003
1996 : (UGANDA : FORMATION OF ADF) [snip] The formation of the Allied Democratic Forces [* My note : this group is allied with Iraq] in 1996 gave the al-Qaeda a better ally. Several ADF commanders were taken for training in the Sudan and Afghanistan, while several junior ones were trained in the Nairobi cell. This group included Jamil Mukulu, the de facto leader of ADF and one Rashid Kawaawa, currently on remand. "We have information that most of the bombers were trained in al-Qaeda cells in Afghanistan, the Sudan and even Iraq.
We have information that these people planned to kill as many people as possible and try and create a cell here in Uganda," Mayombo says. Documents recovered from Iraq and Afghanistan after both wars qualify Mayombo's statements. The "martyrs", as they are known, were supposed to come back and cause serious havoc in the country. They were supposed to organise and develop the local al-Quaeda. But because they lacked the zeal of their Arab mentors and trainers, Rashid Kawaawa and his group turned to using small time bombs, rather than blow themselves up in suicide attacks. None of them was willing to commit "martyrdom" as their Arab mentors do.
Worthy noting however is that the funding of the operations was guaranteed from al-Quaeda and supporting nations like Iraq and the Taliban of Afghanistan. To them, the ADF was an organisation fighting for the right to Islam.
A few Arabs tried to come to Uganda to reinforce members of the local cells, but did not succeed mainly because Uganda was in a state of war and intelligence was very vigilant. Secondly, since Uganda has a very small Arab population, people bent on causing havoc could easily be identified and arrested. Actually, the Ugandan cell, led by the likes of Rashid Kawaawa was supposed to co-ordinate ADF rebels to stage an attack similar to the one in Nairobi and Tanzania in 1998.
However, intelligence got wind of these moves. Rather than coming, getting arrested and exposed, they chose to back off and wait for some future openings. Otherwise, August 1998 would have been a disastrous month.
Intelligence believes that the various bomb attacks around the country, were carried out just for accountability purposes to the Arab masters, after big hits on Western installations in Kampala had failed.
After the arrest of most of the group leaders, plans for a cell went dormant. It is not clear whether the terrorists are trying to reactivate the old cell, or are using new people. "We have identified several people and we are following them up," he said. He does not give any names. The increased threat is a result of intelligence reports that a wanted terrorist was seen in the region. The terrorist, Fazul Abdalla was recently seem in Somalia, a country that has got one of the largest cells in the horn of Africa. Fazul is accused of master minding the attacks on the two embassies in Nairobi and Tanzania in 1998.
[/snip]
One of the people Berg met in Baghdad was Aziz Taee, an Iraqi who studied electrical engineering at Temple University and has lived in the Philadelphia area for most of the past 20 years. Taee is chairman of the Iraqi American Council, a business group based in Annandale that encourages investment in Iraq.
Berg had visited the group's Web site and communicated with Taee by e-mail. When the two men finally met, Taee was impressed enough that he agreed to start a small company with Berg, called Shirikat Abraj Babil, or Babylon Towers Co.
They printed business cards advertising their services in installing, inspecting and repairing telecommunications and utility towers. They rented a small corner office on the second floor of a building in Jamiaa, a neighborhood near Baghdad University.
Taee, 40, said he sometimes worried about his 26-year-old associate, who would wander freely around Baghdad.
'A lot of risks'
"He had a short haircut, like the Marines, and he was well-built," Taee said. "Most people thought that he was an Army guy in civilian clothes. He took a lot of risks. He was a guy who loved adventure and risk."
Wearing a large tool belt and using metal grippers and rope, Berg began climbing transmission towers, taking photographs of structural damage that he would later show to prospective clients. The work, which was itself dangerous, took him to hostile areas.
Once, he climbed a tower in Abu Ghraib, an impoverished western suburb of Baghdad infamous as the site of Iraq's largest prison. A local farmer became enraged, thinking that Berg was trying to steal parts of the already damaged structure.
Another time, Berg was briefly detained in the southern city of Diwaniyah by Iraqi police who became suspicious when they noticed an American traveling alone. Berg also was robbed one night in Baghdad near his hotel, Taee said.
Without having found steady work, Berg returned to the United States in February and stayed for about a month. Then he caught a flight from New York to Amman on March 14.
His business prospects had improved. He now hoped to get work helping to build and repair radio and television towers for the Iraqi Media Network, a U.S.-funded organization that is intended to become the country's public broadcasting service. The network, which broadcasts under the channel name al-Iraqiya, had hired a primary contractor and two subcontractors to carry out the work.
Berg met with representatives of Al-Fawares, one of the subcontractors, and showed them his photographs. They were impressed by his level of knowledge. "We nicknamed him 'Nick the Tower Man' because he was familiar with all the towers," said Amer Mardam-Bey, an American project manager for Al-Fawares. "He was a unique individual, in the sense that he appeared to live for climbing towers and knew anything and everything having to deal with towers."
Berg arranged to call Mardam-Bey after he returned from a trip to the northern Iraqi city of Mosul to visit a distant relative. At 6:30 p.m. on March 23, he checked into Room 102 at the $25-a-night Al-Kalaa Hotel, in Mosul's southern Guzlani district.
"He seemed very nice and extremely friendly," said Khalid Mahmoud, a clerk at the hotel. "There was nothing unusual about him." Mahmoud recalled being surprised, however, that Berg had Iranian and Jordanian currency in his pocket, along with Iraqi dinars.
Yes, I am aware of that, still doesn't answer my question. He went missing a month ago. The timeline doesn't jive.
Berg returned to Baghdad and the Al-Fanar, a hotel popular among foreigners, including freelance journalists and independent businessmen. He had stayed at the eight-story hotel, on the east bank of the Tigris River, the night before he left for Mosul.
He told one guest, Hugo Infante, a Chilean journalist, that he was arrested only because he had an Israeli stamp in his passport. Berg was Jewish.
Infante was impressed by Berg's cheerfulness. "He never said a bad word about the country," he said. "He loved the Iraqi people."
Andrew Robert Duke, an American business consultant who lived two doors down from Berg on the sixth floor, said that Berg shrugged off his detention as "a minor inconvenience."
'I ran into a little problem'
On April 8, Berg sent Taee an e-mail explaining why he hadn't been in touch. "I realize you must think I am a real flake for not contacting you as promised, following the last time we spoke in Baghdad," Berg wrote. "Suffice it to say I ran into a little problem in Mosul which held me there for the last two weeks."
The most violent month since the start of the war had begun, and the e-mail betrayed some anxiety: "If you are still in Baghdad, I hope you're keeping your head down. It's getting tough around here. Take it easy and stay in touch!"
On April 10, Berg left the Al-Fanar, leaving behind several belongings -- books, weights and a business-card wallet. In the next three weeks, the State Department sent a consultant to the hotel with Berg's photograph, his frantic family hired a private investigator to help locate him, and Taee even pulled up the records on his Iraqi cell phone to track down leads. Nothing worked.
snip
"This is the part that really tears at me: He was really looking forward to having a life, having a relationship with a woman, having children," Duke said. "He was looking forward to that: the pleasure of Thanksgiving, the pleasure of Passover."
It is just a curious piece of information added to the curious nature of this story.
yes it is important to remember blogs are not facts. unless it is a blog by unsubstantiated person who may or may not be in iraq.
It is possible that he was slipped some bad change by a cheating shop/booth owner.
I know that I was advised not to take a recently devalued (but still in circulation) type of older currency in one of my travels.
I don't know if anyone has the picture that was posted to FR.
I don't recall if this is the film or some murder mystery where the innocent exclaims something like, "how would you like to have to explain every nuance of your day?" or something like that.
There is too much tinfoil on this story (including some leftist sites' 9.11.2001-like claims that the US did this to one of our own citizens) for me to go digging for more details at this time.
The media withholds facts. That is a given. After 1 week they will generally tell all they know. After 1 month you will probably not be able to find any new details on this story (that is not to say that you will know everything or anything more in a month).
If Nick Berg was a US agent, our government will never admit it. If Nick Berg was an Israeli agent, their government will never admit it.
If Nick Berg was an Al Qaida agent, he's dead and poses no risk. If Nick served the dark side he was double crossed and I just don't buy that explanation.
Meanwhile we've recently captured an agent of Al Qaida who also was a reservist. This is a GENUINE threat and it has gotten far less play of FR than the conspiracy theories about Nick Berg.
I don't say drop this subject altogether, I just say put this in perspective with the fifth columnists that we do know. Heck, Michael Moore's support of Al Qaida/the Baath Party in Iraq has largely been overlooked on FR (see my profile page for the quote and FR thread link).
You speak much sense.
It will fall on deaf ears.
They will connect dots that don't connect. They will overlook the testimony of people who've known him for years and that the guy was a wandering sort who went to several schools but could never find the purpose in his life to keep him in one place and in school.
Someone on PakNews offered the comment that it may have also come from a difference of opinion with his dad. Trying to earn his favor.
But what is the chance that Nick Berg had a chance encounter with a terrorist and giving him his password to his e-mail address when he was in Oklahoma. That is a fact. Plus his father being an active member in the terrorist symapthizing organization ANSWER also raises red flags.
Who knows he could be a world adventuerer and got caught up in a dangerous situation or maybe he was a conduit for his father.
Either way the terrorists brutal beheading of him didn't help their cause and just shows the savagery of the enemy we are fighting.
I don't believe anyone here disagrees with you or implies that, merely by attempting to reveal the entire context of Mr Berg's presence in Iraq..
Very interesting,,he was in uganda then and came back looking terrible, had given his food away supposedly. I wonder, was he involved then? This is getting interesting. Your post ought to be highlighted,,it may be an important link!
Im not accusing anyone on here of believing that he deserved to die, I was just making a general statement about the brutality of the whole thing.
Although, the more I hear about this thing, the more interesting it gets.
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