U.S.: Cleric Tried to Start Terror Camp

NEW YORK - A radical Muslim cleric, arrested Thursday in London, is accused in a U.S. indictment of trying to establish a terrorist training camp in Oregon while providing aid to both al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Mustafa Kamel Mustafa, 47, also is charged in the 11-count indictment with hostage-taking and conspiracy in connection with a December 1998 incident that left four tourists dead in Yemen.

"Those who support our terrorist enemies anywhere in the world must know that we will not rest until the threat they pose is eradicated," U.S. Attorney General John Ashcroft (news - web sites) said in announcing the arrest Thursday.

Abu Hamza al Masri, a Muslim cleric, talks during a press conference in central London Wednesday, January 20, 1999. It was reported that Abu Hamza was arrested Thursday May 27, 2004 at his home in west London on an extradition warrant issued by the US government. (AP Photo/Alastair Grant)

Radical Muslim Cleric Arrested in London

By MICHAEL McDONOUGH, Associated Press Writer

LONDON - Police on Thursday arrested a radical Muslim cleric suspected of helping the deadly 2000 suicide attack on the USS Cole, and the United States sought his extradition on terrorism charges.

The arrest of Abu Hamza al-Masri came a day after top U.S. law enforcement officials warned that a stream of credible intelligence indicates a major terror attack could occur in the United States over the summer, and the FBI posted a list of seven wanted al-Qaida operatives.

Al-Masri — who has one eye and hooks for hands, which he says were lost fighting Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s — is not among the seven wanted figures.

But the Egyptian-born cleric has been the focus of terror suspicions for years in Britain. He formerly preached at a London mosque linked to several terrorist suspects, including Sept. 11 suspect Zacarias Moussaoui and "shoe bomber" Richard Reid.

The British government has also accused him of providing "advice and support" to al-Qaida and the Islamic Army of Aden, the organization that claimed responsibility for the attack on the USS Cole that killed 17 sailors off the coast of Yemen.

Attorney General John Ashcroft planned a news conference later Thursday in New York to detail the charges against al-Masri, according to a senior U.S. law enforcement official speaking on condition of anonymity.

The exact nature of the charges could not immediately be learned because they remained under court seal, but the official said they are terrorism-related charges. The official had no timetable on when al-Masri would be extradited to the United States.

London's Metropolitan Police press office refused to confirm the detention, saying only that officers from the Extradition and International Assistance Unit arrested a "British citizen, aged 47" at about 3 a.m. Thursday following an American request for his extradition. It said he was to appear at Bow Street Magistrates' Court later Thursday.

Police sources, speaking to The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, confirmed that al-Masri was the man detained.

Al-Masri's lawyer, Maddrassar Arani, told British Broadcasting Corp. radio that she had spoken to her client, who was being held in a central London police station.

"He was quite calm about it," Arani said. "He said take your time and come down whenever you can."

She added that she didn't know what the charges were against al-Masri as she hadn't seen a copy of the warrant.

The U.S. Embassy in London said it doesn't comment on ongoing investigations. The Home Office declined to comment on the arrest.

Anti-terrorist officers also conducted a search of al-Masri's west London home, police said.

Al-Masri, one of Britain's best known Islamic radicals, has been fighting deportation by the government.

The British government revoked his British citizenship in April 2003, calling him a threat to the country's interests. He has appealed that decision to a special immigration tribunal and a ruling isn't expected until early next year.

He is also wanted in Yemen on charges of orchestrating terrorism there from Britain.

At an immigration hearing last month, a government lawyer said al-Masri had "provided advice and support to terrorist groups" and encouraged others to engage in jihad, "including fighting overseas and engaging in terrorist acts."

Al-Masri, who married a British woman and took British citizenship in 1981, denies any involvement in violence and says he is only a spokesman for political causes.

He was the head preacher at Finsbury Park Mosque in London, which Moussaoui and Reid also attended.

Al-Masri often sparked outrage with his sermons — calling the invasion of Iraq a "war against Islam," claiming the Sept. 11 attacks were a Jewish plot and calling the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster a "punishment from Allah" because Christian, Jewish and Hindu astronauts were aboard.

The mosque was shut down by its trustees after a police anti-terrorist raid in January 2003. The next month al-Masri was banned from preaching there by a government body because his "extreme and political" statements conflicted with the mosque's charitable status.

Since then, the cleric has led Friday prayers on the street outside, under the watch of police.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/715524/posts

Oregon sheriff: 'We had our suspicions' (al-Qaida in Oregon)
Seattle Times ^ | July 13, 2002 | Hal Bernton, Mike Carter and David Heath

Posted on 07/13/2002 1:59:56 AM PDT by sarcasm

BLY, Ore. — This hard-knocks hamlet seems an unlikely place to search for clues to the al-Qaida terrorist network.

It sits on an arid plateau in Southern Oregon, about 50 miles east of Klamath Falls. With a population of about 250, it has a couple of cafes and small stores, an antique shop, and the razed foundation of an abandoned lumber mill.

But in late 1999, federal authorities and other sources say, the area had something far more unusual: militant Muslims scouting a ranch outside of town as a possible training camp for jihad fighters.

That aborted effort has now thrust Bly into the thick of a Seattle-based FBI and federal grand-jury investigation into al-Qaida's activities in the United States. Authorities suspect that a group of Seattle-based Muslims, mostly U.S. citizens, were operating as a "cell" in support of al-Qaida, and that opening a terrorist-training camp was part of their plans.

For about six months beginning in September 1999, Semi Osman — a cleric at a small Seattle mosque named Dar-us-Salaam — lived on the ranch, a few miles outside town. Osman is now in federal custody in Seattle, charged with immigration and weapons violations and under investigation for terror-related activities.

Sources say Osman's visitors on the Bly ranch included two members of a London mosque led by Sheik Abu Hamza al-Masri, a radical cleric believed to be an al-Qaida recruiter, and militant members of Osman's Central Area mosque. Some of the visitors rode horses and fired automatic weapons, according to people in the area.

Police began to watch the ranch closely, said Klamath County Sheriff Tim Evinger.

THE SEATTLE TIMES

"There were reports of gunfire and of a large group of suspicious, or unusual, people there," Evinger said.

Gunfire is common in rural Southern Oregon, where many residents carry arms and engage in target practice or hunting.

But this information concerned the sheriff enough that he turned it over to the FBI. He heard nothing again until after the Sept. 11 attacks, when the information gained new importance. His detectives were briefed about the federal investigation late last year, Evinger said.

"I think even before then, we had our suspicions about what this might be," he said. "You expect terrorist activity in the big cities. I think people need to realize this sort of stuff can happen anywhere."

Neighbors say Osman, now 32, kept a low profile, tooling around in a beat-up 1984 Toyota sedan and at one point commuting to Klamath Falls to work as a mechanic, according to neighbors and a former employer.

Still, he and his family got plenty of notice. In this community of bluejeans and boots, the balding, bearded Osman dressed in a tunic and skullcap. His wife, an American who converted to Islam, dressed in a long robe and headscarf in traditional Islamic fashion. A young daughter attended the local school.

Some Bly residents who knew Osman say that he was friendly and polite, and often spoke of his hopes to join the U.S. Army after he left the ranch. Osman, a naturalized British citizen with permanent U.S. residency status, was a member of the U.S. Naval Reserve.

But at least one neighbor, retired carpet layer Perry Thompson, clashed with Osman.

Thompson said Osman was a high-strung man who didn't like unexpected visitors. On two occasions, Thompson said, an armed Osman confronted him. In one of the incidents, Thompson said, Osman forced him to stop his truck by driving up from behind and parking in front of him, then he jumped out of his car, ran to his window and pointed a semiautomatic handgun at his head.

"He had all kinds of guns," Thompson said. "And he was belligerent."

HAL BERNTON / THE SEATTLE TIMES
Later residents of the Bly ranch have found spent and live ammunition from semiautomatic weapons.

A Bly tow-truck driver, Billie Livingston, also reports an unsettling visit to the ranch. Coming to jump-start a dead battery, she was surprised to find a half-dozen men, some of whom appeared foreign-born, intently watching her.

Among the men at the ranch in December 1999 were two men who federal investigators believe were sent by al-Qaida leaders to check out the ranch as a potential training camp.

The men's presence in Southern Oregon was documented in a speeding ticket issued that December in Klamath Falls. According to a source, the police officer became suspicious of the occupants of the car and checked their identification.

Later, federal agents would determine the men had arrived from Great Britain two weeks earlier.

"Those men," the source said, "were there for a bad purpose."

The two men were followers of Abu Hamza, leader of the North London Central Mosque in Finsbury Park, the heart of militant Islam in Europe.

Abu Hamza applauded the Sept. 11 attacks. His mosque had been attended by Zacarias Moussaoui, the only man charged in connection with the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States, and by Richard Reid, the man accused of trying to blow up an American Airlines jetliner with explosives in his shoes.

Osman's attorney, Robert Leen, denies his client has any involvement with terrorism. Others who know Osman say that he was uncomfortable with the militancy of his visitors and that he sought to distance himself from them.

The Bly ranch had been owned by Esther Fisher Schneider, who died in August 1999 at age 82. She had moved from Washington state to Bly in the 1990s with a sheep rancher named Ivan Rule, known among Bly residents for espousing extreme right-wing political views.

The property is now listed as owned by the late Schneider and the Barraka Communal Corp., a nonprofit corporation created by Rule and an American Muslim woman who lived with him in 1999.

In February 2000, Osman and his family left the ranch. The daughter and son-in-law of neighbor Perry Thompson, Lona and Paul Azevedo, moved in. In walks on the property, the Azevedos have collected ammunition from semiautomatic and other weapons.

Rule, who no longer lives in Bly, was not available for comment. The IRS has a tax lien against him in Fremont County, Colo., in the amount of $10,041, dating from May 1994.

Lona Azevedo says she continues to pay rent to Rule through a Bly post office box, but she is not sure where he lives.

Meanwhile, yesterday in London, Abu Hamza denied any knowledge of a plot to set up a terrorist camp in Bly, or of a cell of al-Qaida supporters in Seattle.

"We have quite a good following in America, but we don't keep a structure because we are talking about principles," he told NBC.

"I have friends everywhere," he said. "When you are arresting people in America under suspicion, you might as well arrest the rest of the planet."

to establish a terrorist training camp in Oregon

LET'S CONNECT SOME DOTS HERE!!

Brandon Mayfield, the OR laywer arrested by the FBI in connection w/ the 3-11 Madrid train bombing, was the laywer for Leon Battle.

Who is Leon Battle??

Well, Leon and a few friends wanted to "leave the United States and travel overseas to fight in Afghanistan against the armed forces of the United States."

Where was Leon from?? He lived in a "southwest Portland home in the 65-unit Westport Square Apartments."

http://thesmokinggun.com/archive/0525041mayfield4.html

http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/terrorism/usbattle101603plea.pdf

D. Defendant JEFFREY LEON BATTLE and others, including co-defendants Patrice Ford, Ahmed Bilal, Muhammad Bilal, Maher Hawash, and Habis Al Saoub met at various times in the Portland, Oregon area and agreed with each other that they would all leave the United States and travel overseas to fight in Afghanistan against the armed forces of the United States. Defendant BATTLE knew that what he and the others were planning to do was a violation of law.

One of the prime Oregon connections with Captain Hook was/is James Ujaama, one of the Portland 7. He rolled over on Captain Hook last April. It has taken this long to arrest him. I have the feeling that Brit Intel and our Intel have been monitoring any contacts made by him or with him.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/893967/posts

Ex-associate paves the way for Abu Hamza's arrest
The Daily Telegraph ^ | April 16, 2003 | Sean O'Neill

Posted on 04/15/2003 5:03:52 PM PDT by MadIvan

Sheikh Abu Hamza, the extremist Muslim cleric, is facing imminent arrest on a US extradition warrant after a former close associate pleaded guilty to helping the Taliban.

Hamza claimed yesterday that James Ujaama, an American convert to Islam, had been coerced into giving evidence against him that would lead to "a gross miscarriage of justice".

Ujaama, 37, who ran Hamza's website and worshipped at his Finsbury Park mosque in north London, has struck a plea bargain agreement to give evidence against Hamza on terrorist allegations.

He has already supplied the US authorities, who have designated Hamza as a key al-Qa'eda recruiter in Europe, with information that they hope to use to indict the cleric.

Ujaama admitted to a court in Seattle that in late 2000, under orders from Hamza, he escorted Feroz Abbasi, a student from Croydon now detained at Guantanamo Bay, to an al-Qa'eda camp in Afghanistan "to undergo violent jihad training". While in Afghanistan, Ujaama also delivered cash and installed software programmes on computers belonging to Taliban officials.

Ujaama pleaded guilty to conspiring to support the Taliban. Prosecutors in Seattle have asked that he be jailed for two years instead of the 10-year term applicable for the offence. Other charges against him were dropped.

John Ashcroft, the US attorney general, said he expected that Ujaama's decision to co-operate with the authorities would "lead to the arrest of additional terrorists and the disruption of future terrorist activity".

But in a statement issued through his solicitors, Hamza said the American prosecutors had been "exerting pressure" on Ujaama "in order to coerce him to facilitate evidence of the nature that they wished to be provided with".

He added: "It comes as no surprise that James Ujaama under such pressure whilst on remand away from his family in the UK is likely to provide evidence which is tainted."

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