Smiling...great minds think alike.
So many of these reports have me feeling a bit uneasy lately. Anyone else think they know something we don't?
Expert says al-Qaida is seeking weapons
3/2/2005, 11:51 a.m. ET
By JOCELYN GECKER
The Associated Press
LYON, France (AP) — The New York City police department is "very concerned" that al-Qaida is pursuing efforts to obtain chemical, biological or nuclear weapons, a senior official said Wednesday.
Michael Sheehan, the NYPD's counterterrorism commissioner, said officials know that Osama bin Laden's terror network is searching for biological weaponry and it appears to have sympathizers with medical and scientific backgrounds who could handle them.
"We are very concerned they are still trying to seek chemical, biological or radiological weapons," he told reporters on the sidelines of an Interpol conference on bioterrorism in Lyon, southeastern France.
"We don't have any information that at this time they have that capability, but we do know they're trying to get it," Sheehan said of al-Qaida, declining to provide specifics.
He said al-Qaida's operational ability appeared to have declined since the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001 pushed them out of their bases and into hiding.
"However, we still know they are very much out there — and capable," Sheehan said. "We don't underestimate their ability to bounce back as a serious threat of terrorism."
The threat was not just al-Qaida, but could come from any terrorist organization "or some type of deranged person," Sheehan added.
His comments came a day after Interpol Secretary-General Ronald K. Noble warned the conference of al-Qaida's stated intent to use biological weaponry, noting the group has posted instructions for making such arms on the Internet.
More than 500 crime fighters, scientists and counterterrorism officials from 155 countries were on hand for the two-day conference, touted as the largest gathering of police in history.
Sheehan said that New York City was on the "cutting edge" of using technology for early detection against a potential biological terror attack.
Air detectors have been installed across the city, indoors and outdoors, to take air samples and they are checked everyday by scientists for pathogens, Sheehan said, noting that the project was still in the testing phase.
Post offices also are using new technology to search the mail for biological pathogens, such as anthrax, in the aftermath of the anthrax-by-mail attacks that terrorized the United States three years ago.
Interpol is based in the southeastern city of Lyon.
http://www.nj.com/newsflash/war/index.ssf?/base/international-11/1109782390276590.xml&storylist=njterror
March 2, 2005.
Note: The following text is an exact quote:
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Jeremy Reynalds
P O Box 27693
Alb., NM 87125-7693
Tel: (505) 400-7145
www.joyjunction.org
AMERICAN CHURCH LEADERS DEPORTED; BEIJING HOUSE CHURCH PASTOR TORTURED IN PRISON
According to the China Aid Association at least 10 foreign evangelical church leaders were detained and subsequently deported by the Chinese authorities.
In a news release the China Aid Association's (CAA) China-based field investigators said the deportees included including eight Americans, one Taiwanese and an unknown number of South Koreans. The deportation reportedly occurred on Feb. 25.
According to the news release from CAA, late on the morning of Feb. 24, more than 100 Chinese security officers from five different government agencies raided an office building used as a temporary house church leadership training site in the suburb of Harbin city, one of the major cities in northeastern China.
According to an eyewitness report from a Chinese pastor contained in the news release from CAA, those individuals deported were reportedly attending church with about 140 Chinese house church leaders from a number of Chinese provinces when the raid occurred.
CAA reported that the raid was directly orchestrated by the director of the Public Security Bureau of Heilongjiang province and carried out by a cooperative effort from a number of Chinese law enforcement agencies.
All foreigners were reportedly interrogated separately in the office building and a nearby transportation police station with interpreters of their respective languages. After a 13-hour detention and long interrogation, CAA reported that the foreigners were ordered to leave in three to five days.
Among the deported, according to CAA, were well-known American church leaders Rev. Dr. Brad Long and Rev. John Chang and his wife Susan.
Long is an evangelical Presbyterian minister (PCUSA) who is also the executive Director of Presbyterian Reformed Ministries International (www.prmi.org), a North Carolina-based Christian training ministry.
Chang, who recently retired as president of the general assembly of Reformed Church in America (RCA), is now senior pastor of the Grace Christian Church in Flushing, New York City (www.gcif.org).
A well-known Taiwanese church leader Rev. Lin Yuyuan, along with two other Chinese-speaking Korean Americans, was also expelled at the same time. The interrogators were said to be "well-behaved," CAA reported in the news release, after the US Consulate in Shenyang City intervened. All of the deported Americans reportedly made it safely back to the United States by March 1.
The Chinese house church pastors were also detained and interrogated and then released about providing their home addresses, house church affiliations and finger prints. According to a CAA source, Chinese officials confiscated about $2500 cash along with the cell phones owned by the Chinese pastors.
Meanwhile, CAA also learned from an eyewitness that the imprisoned Beijing House Church leader Pastor Zhuohua Cai, 34, was tortured into a "confession" with electric cattle prods by his interrogators.
Cai's "crime" was "illegally managing a printing business and (making illegal profits of) $25,000.
According to CAA's eyewitness, Cai was "physically wounded and spiritually depressed."
Cai was arrested in Sept. 2004 and charged with printing illegal religious literature, CAA reported. Cai's wife, Yunfei Xiao, along with her brother, Gaowen Xiao, and sister-in-law, Jinyun Hu, were also arrested Sept. 27 The Cais left a five-year old son Yabo Cai in the care of his grandmother who, CAA reported, has been constantly harassed by the police.
"To disrupt a normal Christian fellowship meeting and to detain and deport the participants of the same faith from other countries is certainly contrary to the government's claim to guarantee religious freedom in China," said Bob Fu, CAA's president, speaking in a news release.
He added, "to torture an innocent pastor like Cai for false confessions is a direct violation of the international human rights law. We urge people of all faiths to take action to protest the deportations of these pastors and demand Pastor Cai and his wife's immediate release."
For additional information about CAA go to www.chinaaid.org
Note No. 1: A new edition of Internet Haganah.online.
http://www.internet-haganah.us
Note No. 2: If you're a translator or have access to one;
you may wish to look at this article:
http://www.internet-haganah.us/harchives/003745.html
March 02, 2005
"Did they or didn't they? [A note regarding communications among Zarqawi's people]"