Daily Terrorist Round-Up Stories 4/16/05 (CAIR Founder convicted - Another Top Chechen Killed?)

4/16/05

[Straight Vermonter]

CAIR leader convicted on terror charges - Founding board member of Texas chapter funded Hamas
By Art Moore

A founder of the Texas chapter of a highly influential U.S. Islamic lobby group was found guilty of supporting terrorism.

Ghassan Elashi, along with two brothers, was convicted in Dallas yesterday of channeling funds to a high-ranking official of the Palestinian terrorist group Hamas, Mousa Abu Marzook.

Elashi was a board member of the Texas chapter of the Washington, D.C.-based Council on American Islamic Relations -- the third CAIR figure to be convicted on federal terrorism charges since 9-11.

CAIR is a spin-off of the Richardson, Texas-based Islamic Association For Palestine, or IAP, which was founded by Marzook.

Former FBI counterterrorism chief Oliver Revell has called the IAF "a front organization for Hamas that engages in propaganda for Islamic militants."

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2 Abu Sayyaf suspects killed by Philippine air force
 
    MANILA, April 15 (Xinhuanet) -- Two suspected members of the Al Qaeda-linked Abu Sayyaf group were killed as Philippine security forces pounded a known rebel territory in a marshy area in southern Philippines, the military said Friday.

    Armed Forces Southern Command spokesperson Col. Domingo Tutaan Jr. said that the clash erupted earlier this morning when a Philippine Air Force plane dropped four bombs at the southwest portion of the Butilan marsh in Maguindanao province.

    Operating troops, however, could not retrieve the bodies of the slain rebels as they were being subjected to sniper fire, Tutaan said.

    Tutaan said the Abu Sayyaf rebels hiding in the marshy area were led by chieftain Khadaffy Janjalani and Commanders Isnilon Hapilon and Abu Solaiman.

    "They were positively sighted in the clash site," Tutaan said.

    Butilan marsh has been a frequent site of heavy government offensive against local terrorists aided by operatives of the southeast Asian terrorist group Jemaah Islamiyah (JI).

    In last November, government forces pounded the area and shortly after, pronounced that Janjalani was believed killed in the operation.

    However, a captured JI bomb instructor, an Indonesian national identified as Rohmay alias Zaki, later told reporters that Janjalani survived the air strike that time.

    In February this year, another air strike was conducted in the region with military authorities claiming to have killed two JI operatives involved in the October 2002 Bali bombing.
 

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4 arrested for Quetta bombing

QUETTA: Four militants have been arrested for bombing the shrine of a Shia saint last month that killed 43 people, police said on Friday.

The men were detained two days after the March 19 attack on Dargah Khel Shah Fatehpur Gandawaha close to Naseerabad after a bomb-making accident in the same region that injured one of them, said Balochistan police chief Chaudhry Yaqub at a press conference.

“Police arrested Maulvi Abdul Hakim, Muhammad Aslam, Abdullah and Abdul Hakim who masterminded the attack, from a local mosque. They belong to the banned militant group Sipah-e-Sahaba. They were very clever people. They kept changing their statements during investigations, but now they have confessed to masterminding and carrying out the bomb attack near Naseerabad,” said Yaqub. He said the suspects had trained at camps in Afghanistan during the Taliban’s tenure, but he would not say whether they were involved in previous sectarian attacks.

“They are terrorists and their trial will be held very soon,” he said. The suspects and their lawyers were not available for comment. All four have been in police custody for the past month.
 
 

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Israel captures Syrian gunman  -The attacker was from Fatah and said he planned to abduct an Israeli soldier
 
MATT SPETALNICK
 
JERUSALEM, APRIL 15 A Palestinian gunman infiltrated the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights from Syria and fired on Israeli troops on Friday in a rare flare-up on the normally quiet border that the Jewish state blamed on Damascus.  The Army said it captured the lone attacker, a 21-year-old militant belonging to Fatah, the Palestinians’ ruling faction, and that he told interrogators he had planned to abduct an Israeli soldier and take him back to Syria. No casualties were reported.

Israel, which recently has accused Syria of trying to disrupt an Israeli-Palestinian truce, called the incident a ‘‘grave violation’’ of UN-brokered security arrangements set up in the area after the 1973 Middle East war.  ‘‘The Syrians should not be allowing armed terrorists to cross the border,’’ an Israeli Foreign Ministry spokesman said. ‘‘We demand... that the agreement be strictly upheld.’’ There was no immediate comment from Syria, which for decades has sought to recover the Golan Heights captured by Israel in the 1967 Middle East war.

Israeli officials have voiced suspicions that Syria wants to undermine Israeli-Palestinian peace moves to deflect international attention from a US-led campaign to speed up the withdrawal of Syrian forces from neighbouring Lebanon.

The gunman, who came from a Palestinian refugee camp in Syria, penetrated a border fence armed with a shotgun and fired into an Israeli Army post in an attempt to blow up petrol tanks, Israeli officials said. He was surrounded and captured after running out of ammunition. Israel’s Army Radio said the man told interrogators he had wanted to avenge the deaths of his parents during one of Israel’s military offensives in Lebanon in the 1980s.

Israel carried out an air raid deep inside Syria in 2003 against a suspected Palestinian militant training camp following a suicide bombing at a Haifa restaurant that killed 23 people. Israel again pointed the finger at Damascus for a Palestinian suicide bombing in Tel Aviv on February 25, saying Syrian-based militants ordered the attack and thus Syria shared responsibility. Syria denied any role. —Reuters 

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Canadian Jihadi? JTF2 soldier missing since 2003 surfaces in Thailand

OTTAWA - An explosives expert with Canada's elite commando unit who disappeared after a two-week leave in August 2003 is now in military custody in Canada after showing up in Thailand.

Questions remain about what Special Forces Sergeant Montgomery Paisley of Joint Task Force 2 did while he was missing, officials said.

Paisley served a 2002 tour of duty in Afghanistan, fighting Taliban and al-Qaeda groups, before cleaning out his bank account, taking a commercial flight to Bangkok and vanishing.

The native of Brown's Flat, N.B., had been in the Canadian military for 16 years.

The case was a particular concern to Canadian authorities because Paisley specialized in explosives, mines and booby traps. Authorities believed he had a laptop computer containing bomb-making information when he disappeared.

A total of 13 military investigators turned up no clues to his whereabouts for almost two years, said Capt. Mark Giles of the National Investigation Service (NIS).

"Last week, Sgt. Montgomery Paisley approached the Canadian Embassy in Bangkok, Thailand, indicating he would like to return to Canada," Giles said Thursday. "After consultation with Thai authorities, members of the NIS travelled to Thailand and returned him safely home."

The fact that Paisley emptied out his bank account indicates some premeditation, said military analyst David Rudd of the Canadian Institute of Strategic Studies.

"Given the fact that he went to Southeast Asia, given the fact that his whereabouts and activities were unknown for the better part of two years ... this [is] a national security issue. You just can't avoid it," Rudd told CBC News.

He said it's worrisome that highly trained military investigators could not track down the soldier.

The military won't disclose Paisley's current location, citing national security. They will only say that he is safe and in custody at a "defence establishment in Canada."

Members of Paisley's family in New Brunswick say they're glad he's safe but know nothing more about where he is.

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 3 militants, foreign mercenary killed in Chechnya
 
 GROZNY, April 15 (Itar-Tass) - Federal forces in Chechnya destroyed on Friday three militants and a foreign mercenary near the village of Berbikel, Groznensky rural district.

The operation was carried out at 4:00, Moscow time, spokesman for the regional headquarters in control of the anti-terrorist operation in the North Caucasus Ilya Shabalkin told Itar-Tass.

The militants, armed with two Strela shoulder-fired air defense systems, were moving to take a position to hit airborne targets, Shabalkin said.
 

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Top Chechen warlord among several militants killed

Moscow, Apr 15 (UNI) Top Chechen warlord Doku Umarov was believed to be killed in a special operation in Grozny, the Chechen capital, along with several other guerrillas today.

''Information has been obtained suggesting that Doku Umarov was among the militants killed in an apartment building in Grozny today,'' a law enforcement source told Interfax news agency.

He added that an ongoing sweep operation had entered its final stage and confirmation will be available soon on whether Umarov was among the three militants killed.

He said that military helicopters were flying over the building at the start of the operation. Several residents of the Ippodromny neighborhood, where the operation was underway, suffered gunshots and shrapnel wounds.

Chechnya's state television and radio company Vainakh reported that shooting resumed in Grozny's Leninsky district shortly after 1400 hrs (1530 hrs IST) today, which is located near the scene.

Meanwhile, the building of the Prosecutor's Office of the Leninsky district in the Dagestani capital Makhachkala, was exploded this morning.

A duty officer of the Dagestani Interior Ministry said that a sack containing explosives was allegedly thrown to the roof of the Prosecutor's Office from an upper floor of an uncompleted nearby high-rise building. The number of the victims was being verified.

 SV-There are conflicting reports about the death of Umarov. Stay tuned.

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Top militant among four killed in Kashmir :

[India News] Srinagar, Apr 14 : A self-styled company commander of Hizbul Mujahideen and two other militants of the outfit were killed while an army officer was injured in an encounter in Kashmir valley toaday, official sources said.

Acting on specific information, a joint search party of eight Assam battalion and BSF raided Kellar village in Pulwama district in the small hours of today.

The search parties came under fire from hiding ultras and in the ensuing gunbattle three militants identified as company commander of Hizb Mohammad Yousuf Gursi alias Qazi, Abdul Hamid Paswal alias Salman and Mohammad Ashraf Deedad alias Imran were killed and an army officer was injured, the sources said adding some arms and ammunition were recovered from them.

Army troops apprehended an upper ground worker of Harkat-ul-Ansar Mir Hussain during a search operation at Devar village of Kupwara district, the sources said adding some arms and ammunition were also seized.

They said a Hizbul Mujahideen militant was arrested by army at Batmaloo in central Srinagar. Raja Wali Mohammad Chenaja of Chunt Wali Mar village of Ganderbal area of Srinagar, was an active militant operating in the city. An AK 47 rifle, its two magazines and 25 rounds were recovered from him, Defence sources said.

Meanwhile, a government employee was killed by militants who pulled him out of his house and shot at and critically injured him. He succumbed to injuries in hospital.

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Jaish-e-Mohammad leader among six killed in J-K
  
Srinagar, April 15: SIX PERSONS, including a divisional commander of Jaish-e-Mohammad, have been killed in separate incidents of violence in the Valley since Thursday evening.
According to police, following a late night information yesterday, troops of 53 Rashtriya Rifles and SOG cordoned Kantroo village in Budgam district. Suspecting presence of militants, they launched a house-to-house search. According to a spokesman, the troops found an underground hideout used by militants while searching the house of one Ghulam Mohammad Mir (of the village). Trapped, the militants opened fire on the troops, However, the search team retaliated by firing on the militants.

When the encounter ended this afternoon, the Army recovered five bodies from the debris of the house. One of the bodies, recovered from the debris, has been identified as that of Ghulam Mohammad Wagay, a civilian.

The locals allege that Wagay was taken forcibly into the house by the search party and was killed in the exchange fire.

An Army has identified the bodies of two slain militants — of Rehamani, divisional commander of Jaish-e-Mohammad, and Ilias Bhai, district commander, Lashkar-e-Toiba. The other two militants killed in the operation are still to be identified.

Terming the killing of four militants, including two commanders, as a setback to militants operating in Budgam district, the spokesman said the encounter also led to the seizure of four AK rifles, four magazines, a wireless set and a grenade thrower.

In an another encounter at Kuswan Kulgam, a militant was killed by the security forces. The slain militant has been identified as Bilal Ahmad. Late yesterday night, militants abducted Firdous Ahmad at Budan in Baramulla, and shot him dead in the village outskirts later. Sources claim the slain person was working as an informer with the 46 Rashtriya Rifles.
 

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WARNING: GRAPHIC

Shattered corpse puts face to Iraq suicide bombers

BAGHDAD: The torn corpse of a suicide bomber left on a street overnight in southern Iraq put a rare face to the anonymous attackers terrorising Iraq.  The remains of the man who blew up four police officers in a quiet market square on Thursday evening drew a crowd of curious onlookers yesterday, overseen by police toting AK-47 assault rifles.  The man staggered up to a group of officers acting as if he were retarded, then triggered a vest laden with explosives, Hussein al-Ta’i, mayor of the small town of Mahawil, told Reuters Television.

Suicide bombers-men believed to be from across the Arab world-are usually shredded when they pull detonators in attacks that have killed thousands. So Iraqis only see body parts of victims and burning, mangled cars after the explosions. But not with the attacker in Mahawil, about 80km (50 miles) south of Baghdad on the edge of an area dubbed the “triangle of death” for the frequency of rebel attacks.

The body was severed below the rib cage and the torso lay on its right side on top of a cloth, Reuters Television images showed. The undamaged head was still attached, unusual among militants who use explosive vests. His eyes were still staring across the square of the typical impoverished town.  Small groups of young men gathered around gawking and chatting. Nobody knew why the corpse was left in public for so long.

The shirtless man had short dark hair and appeared to be in his 20s or early 30s. He had a few days of dark beard, heavier around the slightly open mouth. The man’s left hand hung down by his side.  “I was drinking juice nearby and the police were gathering here. Then there was an explosion and the four policemen were dead,” said an Iraqi man. “What the terrorists are doing is terrible.”

Suicide bombers believe they will become martyrs in a holy war against Iraqi security forces and their American allies, that the violence is for a higher purpose. But many ordinary Iraqis are struggling to understand the concept of suicide bombings, which happened during the 2003 war but were unheard of during Saddam Hussein’s rule.

The Mahawil’s bomber’s legs and other body parts were heaped on a cross-striped blanket next to the trunk.

“We were surprised that he drew closer, blew himself up and four of our sons were martyred,” said Al-Ta’i.

The man’s name and nationality were unknown. He could have been one of the militants from countries such as Saudi Arabia, Egypt or Yemen fighting for Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, Al Qaeda’s leader in Iraq. Or he may have been one of the Iraqis who have embraced militant Islam since a US-led invasion toppled Saddam.

“Our sons are dying, and this is not a small problem,” said al-Ta’i.

[Straight Vermonter]

Let me know if you want on/off the terrorist roundup ping list

Terrorist Scorecard

The Iraqi "Deck of Cards" Scoreboard

Centcom's New Iraq Scorecard

Saudi Arabia's Most Wanted Scorecard

[razorback-bert]

Thanks!

[Deetes]

CAIR to go to prison ..

[Diogenesis]

"Islam isn't in America to be equal to any other faith,
but to become dominant. The Qur'an should be the highest authority in America,
and Islam the only accepted religion on earth"

--Omar Ahmed, Chairman of the Board of CAIR (Council of American Islamic Relations), San Ramon Valley Herald, July 1998

Qur’an 8:12 “I shall terrorize the infidels.
So wound their bodies and incapacitate them
because they oppose Allah and His Apostle.”

Qur’an 8:57 “If you gain mastery over them in battle,
inflict such a defeat as would terrorize them,
so that they would learn a lesson and be warned.”

[poobear]

"But Lord, all these things we did in Your Name" and the Lord shall say unto them "I never knew you".

!

[Valin]

Elashi was a board member of the Texas chapter of the Washington, D.C.-based Council on American Islamic Relations -- the third CAIR figure to be convicted on federal terrorism charges since 9-11.

HELLO! Paging Grover Norquist, paging Grover Norquist. Your clue is ready.

[Valin]

A self-styled company commander of Hizbul Mujahideen and two other militants of the outfit were killed while an army officer was injured in an encounter in Kashmir valley toaday, official sources said.

It's getting to the point where being a "Top Militant" is not a really good career move.

[Valin]

Shameless Plug
Al Fayhaa Interviews Saddam Hussein
arablog.net ^ | 4/16/05
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1384997/posts
/Shameless Plug

[RottiBiz]

Excellent articles -- thanks for the ping.

[Dog]

Thanks for the ping SV..