Threat Matrix: Daily Terror Threat

Threat Matrix: Daily Terror Threat

Thread Twenty-Seven (Index)

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The Threat Matrix

The title refers to a daily report given to the president of the United States detailing the most serious terrorist threats against the country. To tackle those threats, the government has formed a top-notch task force to infiltrate the terror cells and cut off the danger.

"Every morning, the president receives a list of the top ten terrorist threats - this list is known as the threat matrix."

We here at FR are trying to be in conjunction with the daily reports around the world that involve threats. We try to provide a storehouse of information that takes hours of research.

YOU be the judge and get informed!

Expert: Al-Qaida Has Presence In South Florida
Full Story

MIRAMAR, Fla. -- Despite the massive federal, state and local law enforcement effort to stop terrorists from entering the United States, there is no strong evidence of how well it is working.

Many experts are concerned that there are plenty of terrorists or sympathizers already in the country who have been here for years. Some are even citizens.

The Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers were the first wave and now the increasing number of arrests seems to signal a second wave of terrorism in South Florida.

"I will never cower before any master nor bend to any threat."

TM Terrorism Handbook

Link to Thread Twenty-Six

"Code Red Implications:
Code Red - Stay Home and Await Word."
From Tm'er and Freeper ~MamaDearest~

Arabic Links and Resources

TM 'Be on the Lookout'

ExSoldier's Invaluable Tips

Threat Matrix Book List

Godzilla's Summaries

Tracking the Chatter with TM

TM Code of Conduct

Threat Matrix HTML designed by: Ian Livingston

Good information here notice the simplicity...

Bin Laden's followers learn to seek out 'soft targets'
By Anton La Guardia, Diplomatic Editor
(Filed: 08/07/2005)

Ever since September 11, 2001, security chiefs warned that London was a prime target for terrorist attack.

But as the weeks without an incident turned into months and then years, counter-terrorism experts began worrying about something new: public complacency.

Yesterday's bombs showed that the dangerous new world of international terrorism has not gone away.

Terrorists may have regarded Britain as a "hard" target. But they have now discovered that London's Tube and bus system is as "soft" as any target struck in recent years in Bali, Mombasa, Casablanca or Madrid.

The current phase of violent Islamist extremism against the West goes further back than the war in Iraq and, in the case of America, can be traced to the first World Trade Centre bombing in 1993.

A key role in the conflict belongs to Arab veterans of the struggle against Soviet forces and the man who has become their figurehead, Osama bin Laden.

Their return home intensified the struggle in Egypt and Algeria. At first most concentrated on fighting the Arab regimes, rather than the Western governments that supported them. But their tactics soon changed.

World Trade Centre: In 1993 Islamic extremists exploded a bomb in the New York landmark's garage, killing six and injuring more than 1,000.

Luxor: They resorted to attacking tourists in Egypt in 1997 as the means of undermining a vital pillar of the economy. Six gunmen opened fire on tour groups visiting the Temple of Queen Hatshepsut, killing 58.

Fatwa: In February 1998 bin Laden launched the "Islamic World Front for the struggle against the Jews and the Crusaders". Their fatwa said it was a duty for Muslims "to kill the Americans and their allies - civilians and military".

Embassies: In August, six months after bin Laden's declaration of war, two truck bombs destroyed the US embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salam, killing more than 200 people.

USS Cole: In October 2000, suicide bombers on motorboats damaged an American warship moored in Aden, killing 17 US sailors.

9/11: On September 11, 2001, al-Qa'eda flew aircraft into New York's Twin Towers and the Pentagon in Washington. A fourth plane crashed in Pennsylvania.

President George W Bush launched his "war on terrorism" and, with the help of Britain and other allies, toppled the Taliban.

Having lost his base of operations in Afghanistan, bin Laden is believed to have found refuge among the Pathan tribesmen on the border with Pakistan.

Security forces have arrested al-Qa'eda leaders but bin Laden still taunts the West. Intelligence sources say the al-Qa'eda "holding company" has largely collapsed. But Islamist groups inspired by bin Laden still thrive.

Shoe Bomber: In December 2001 Richard Reid, a British convert to Islam, tried to blow up an American Airlines flight to Miami by setting off explosives in his shoe but was overpowered by passengers

Tunisia: A lorry bomb killed 21 people, mostly Germans, when it exploded in April 2002 outside a synagogue on the island of Djerba.

Bali: Two bombs exploded outside nightclubs on Bali in October, 2002, killing 202 people, most of them Australian holidaymakers.

Iraq: The US-led invasion of Iraq in March 2003 intensified the attacks. In May, al-Qa'eda turned its sights on Saudi Arabia with a series of four suicide bombings at Western residential compounds in Riyadh that killed 35 people.

Four days later, five simultaneous suicide bombings are aimed at Western and Jewish targets in the Moroccan city of Casablanca, killing more than 45 people.

Turkey: Two suicide bombers set off their explosives in November 2003 near two synagogues, killing 23 people, mostly Turks. Suicide car bombs were then exploded outside the British consulate in Istanbul and the headquarters of the HSBC bank, killing 27 people, including the British consul-general, Roger Short.

Madrid: 10 remote-controlled bombs placed on commuter trains killed 191 people in the Spanish capital just days before the elections last year. The opposition socialists swept to power.

If 9/11 prompted America to go to war, Spain's attack encouraged the new prime minister, Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero, to withdraw Spanish troops from Iraq.

Extremists now appear to have been drawn mainly to Iraq. Mr Bush said last month that nation was "the central front in the war on terror". But for Mr Blair, the central front is now in British cities.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/07/08/nterr208.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/07/08/ixnewstop.html

Weekly Column - Wednesday, 03.31.2004

"The Russian Mafiya and Al Qaeda"
by J. R. Nyquist

The October 2001 issue of the Russian magazine “Top Secret,” relying on sources in Russia’s security services, claimed there was a connection between Osama bin Laden and the Russian mafia. According to the magazine’s “Black September” article the chief of the largest and most dangerous Russian crime syndicate, Semyon Mogilevich, has met bin Laden’s associates in Marbella Spain.

Mogilevich, known as “the brainy don,” is said to be the world’s most intelligent criminal. He is also very dangerous. When journalist Robert Friedman wrote about Mogilevich’s career in a book titled Red Mafiya, Mogilevich allegedly put out a $100,000 contract on Friedman’s life. According to Friedman, “hundreds of pages of classified FBI, British and Israeli intelligence documents … describe him as a malevolent figure who has become a grave threat to the stability of Israel, Eastern Europe, and North America.” According to his closest associates, Mogilevich employs Ph.D’s on his staff, has penetrated countless banks, owns military and defense industries in more than one country, controls the flow of contraband through Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport and maintains close relations with “former” communist structures and personnel. Friedman states: “He is protected by a web of relationships with high-ranking officials of international security services, high flying financiers, and politicians.”

Mogilevich, who was born in 1946 in the city of Kiev, is said to be a citizen of Russia, Ukraine, Israel and Hungary. He was educated in the Soviet Union and his teachers thought he would almost certainly become a leading scholar. Very little is known about his transition from Soviet academic superstar to crime boss, but when he left the “socialist motherland” for Israel in 1990 Mogilevich was a millionaire, and built his fortune through a variety of criminal projects. Today he directs his financial empire from a fortified compound in Budapest, Hungary – where he runs that country’s arms industry, exporting weapons to Arab and Islamist clients. As for his criminal status in America, Mogilevich was indicted on April 24, 2003, in the Eastern District of Pennsylvania on 45 counts of money laundering, racketeering, securities fraud, wire fraud and mail fraud involving the stock of YBM Magnex International, Inc. Mogilevich and his partners allegedly defrauded investors of $150 million.

According to Friedman, “Mogilevich’s lieutenants are trained in intelligence operations and countersurveillance, and provide warnings of impending police actions….” They are experts at compromising Western security services, especially by making secret agreements to provide information on rival crime groups. Mogilevich’s organization blends East Bloc intelligence professionalism with arms smuggling, money laundering, extortion, prostitution, drug trafficking and murder. Meanwhile, Mogilevich’s “former” East bloc intelligence professionals are teaching al Qaeda how to set up safe houses and smuggle weapons. (The pay is excellent and the work familiar.)

According to sources near the action, East European mobsters (including Mogilevich’s Red Mafiya) are helping al Qaeda to acquire nuclear, chemical and biological materials. These are smuggled from the “former” Soviet Union through Slovakia, the Czech Republic and Poland. They are then sold for cash or heroin.

Is al Qaeda planning a major offensive in Western Europe?

One rumor has it that London is bin Laden’s next target, and May Day will be “zero hour.” Before April is out you will doubtless hear other variants on this general theme: “al Qaeda is planning to strike such-and-such, and various mafia groups are involved.” And, no doubt, they are involved. But stop for a moment and think things over. Is it really conceivable that Russian criminals, without encouragement from Moscow, would dare to smuggle arms to terrorists in Western Europe? And why haven’t security troops stormed Mogilevich’s fortified compound in Budapest – the capital of a NATO country? It seems that Hungary is a NATO country in name but not in reality. To be sure, there is something amiss in this picture. The post Cold War version of reality offered by the six o’clock news doesn’t explain what we’re seeing. The idea that a police state (Russia) run by a police statesman (Putin) cannot cope with gangsters who steal nuclear, biological and chemical materials is not credible. Vladimir Putin is perfectly comfortable using gangster methods against his political opponents, including “oligarchs” and journalists. Why can’t he use these methods against criminals who steal WMDs from Russia’s vast arsenal of mass destruction?

Is it possible that “thefts” of Russian WMD materials are somehow useful to Vladimir Putin? After all, the stolen weapons are smuggled by Russian gangsters and “former” intelligence operatives for use against Western countries. If you think about it, Russia’s WMDs were built with Western countries in mind.

There is another set of questions we also need to ask ourselves. Why should a criminal syndicate – Russian or otherwise – be motivated to help Islamists? Are American gangsters stealing WMDs and buying arms plants, setting up compounds in neighboring countries and arming terrorists? The case of the Red Mafiya is not a case of mere organized crime. Here we have an army of Russian criminals with doctorates, with intelligence and military training, who are facilitating terrorism aimed at the West. Has there ever been a criminal formation like this before? Yet the West suspects nothing. The West takes everything at face value.

Perhaps, at this point, we ought to say something about the elephant in the room. The biggest criminal organization in history, with the largest number of murders to its credit, was no mafia at all. It was a totalitarian formation known as “communism” which killed over100 million people in the twentieth century and looted untold wealth. Communism was a formation that supposedly broke apart and no longer threatens the world. But what if this formation reformed itself in an unexpected way? What if this formation found a new path, a new set of tricks and a new avenue of attack?

Think about it.

© 2004 Jeffrey R. Nyquist

http://72.14.207.104/search?q=cache:MlCg8vmJfw4J:www.financialsense.com/stormwatch/geo/pastanalysis/2004/0331.html+russia+mafia+and+al+qaeda&hl=en

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1438832/posts

"DeLay urges national gang initiative - include terrorism and immigration"
Houston Chronicle ^ | July 8, 2005 | ERIC HANSON

Posted on 07/08/2005 12:36:39 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "House leader says effort should include terrorism and immigration - ....25,000 active gangs with 750,000 members in 3,000 jurisdictions across the country.

RICHMOND - U.S House Majority Leader Tom DeLay called Thursday for a national strategy, similar to the country's anti-terrorism effort, to battle criminal gangs that operate across thousands of jurisdictions in the United States.

DeLay made the comments after meeting with local and federal law officials at the Fort Bend County Sheriff's Office.

No major policy decisions were made at the gathering, attended by area sheriffs and several police chiefs, including Houston Police Chief Harold Hurtt and Harris County Sheriff Tommy Thomas.

"There is no reason from my perspective why we can't put together a national effort to go after gangs," DeLay said.

He said an anti-gang effort should be combined with other federal initiatives such as immigration reform, border security and anti-terrorism.

At least four homicides in Houston this year have been linked to one gang, MS-13, and one slaying in Fort Bend County could be connected to gang activity, authorities said.

One of the Houston-area crimes tied to MS-13 included the slaying of 18-month-old Aiden Naquin, who was shot in the head while strapped in an infant car seat April 12 in Huffman. The suspect awaits trial."

Note: The following text is an exact quote:
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http://www.ice.gov/graphics/news/newsreleases/articles/050707washington.htm

News Release

July 7, 2005

MAN PLEADS GUILTY TO OPERATING ILLEGAL MONEY TRANSFER FIRM IN VIRGINIA THAT MOVED MILLIONS TO MIDDLE EAST

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Paul J. McNulty, United States Attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia, announced today that Louay Habbal, age 45, a naturalized United States citizen from Syria, and resident of Vienna, Virginia, pleaded guilty today in U.S. District Court in Alexandria Virginia, to operating an unlicensed money service business.

On March 15, 2005, special agents and task force officers from the Annandale, Virginia, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area (HIDTA) and Money Laundering Initiative arrested Habbal after he was indicted by a federal grand jury, which charged him with operating Mena Exchange, an unlicensed money transmittal business, from his residence in Vienna, Virginia. He was arrested upon his arrival at Dulles International Airport on a flight from Damascus, Syria.

Habbal appeared before U.S. District Court Judge Cacheris in Alexandria today. He will be sentenced on October 7, 2005. As part of the guilty plea, Habbal agreed to forfeit $114,237.65. Habbal admitted receiving over $6 million dollars from customers in the United States between December, 2003 and March, 2005, and deposited those funds in bank accounts in Virginia and elsewhere. After taking a portion of these monies as a fee, Habbal then transferred the remaining funds to other entities for further transfer to individuals overseas who had been designated by his U.S. customers.

Habbal also admitted that he advertised his business through a website called MenaExchange.com, and that although he was aware he needed a Virginia state license to operate such a business, he operated without obtaining the license. The website described Mena Exchange as a service provided by Mena First Capital, LLC, which transmitted funds between the United States, Middle East and North Africa.

Mr. McNulty stated, “We know that terrorists and other criminals use illegal money transfers to support themselves and to fund their operations. While there is no evidence of a link to terrorism in this case, we aggressively prosecute unlicensed money transmitters to deprive terrorists and other criminals of a potential vehicle to facilitate their crimes.” Also making this announcement is Allan J. Doody, Special Agent-in-Charge of ICE in Washington, D.C., Charles R. Pine, Special Agent-in-Charge, Internal Revenue Service and Leo J. Rossiter, Chief of Police for the Washington-Metropolitan Airport Authority.

“This case demonstrates the threat posed by unlicensed money transmittal businesses,” said Allan Doody. “Any criminal or terrorist can come to these underground businesses and have their millions wired anywhere in the world in a matter of seconds with no questions asked.”

Mr. Pine stated: "The use of unlicensed money transfer businesses is an emerging area for law enforcement because of its potential use by money launderers and terrorists. This investigation showcases the cooperation among law enforcement for the common goal of national security."

This case was investigated by the Annandale HIDTA Money Laundering Initiative, an ICE-led group composed of task force officers from the FBI; U.S. Secret Service; Internal Revenue Service; Criminal Investigations; Virginia State Police; Virginia Attorney General’s Office; and Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority, Metropolitan, Prince William County, Arlington and Alexandria Police Departments. The case is being prosecuted by Assistant United States Attorney Steve Mellin and Special Assistant United States Attorney Jessica Lombardo.

# ICE #

Note: The following text is an exact quote:
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http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/pa/pa_uk.html

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
This information is current as of today, Fri Jul 08 2005 01:34:54 GMT-0700.

UNITED KINGDOM

July 7, 2005

The morning of July 7, 2005, explosions occurred at three Underground train stations and on a bus in Central London. The explosions appear to be the result of a terrorist attack. UK government officials have confirmed over 30 deaths and numerous injuries. There are reports of some American citizen injuries, but no American fatalities.

Access to Central London was temporarily restricted to accommodate emergency operations. UK officials expect transportation services on most Underground lines will be returning to normal during the course of July 8, with some disruptions. Information on disruptions to London transportation services can be found at www.tfl.gov.uk. Mobile phone systems suffered some disruptions in service but are returning to full operation.

Public services outside of Central London are available. Airports remain open and are handling normally scheduled flights. The National Rail Services are operating with some disruption. For train information, visit www.nationalrail.co.uk. Tourist sites are open to the public.

The U.S. Embassy temporarily suspended public access on July 7, although emergency services remain available. It will be open for all public services on July 8.

The public should refer to media news outlets for the most current information. For inquiries about the welfare and whereabouts of American citizens who are believed to have been in the vicinity of the explosions, please contact the U.S. Department of State by calling 1-888-407-4747 in the U.S., and for callers outside the U.S. and Canada by calling a regular toll line at 1-202-501-4444.

U.S. citizens should also consult the U.S. Department of State's Travel Warnings, Consular Information Sheets, the Worldwide Caution Public Announcement and other information, available at http://travel.state.gov. The U.S. Embassy in London can be reached at (020) 7499-9000 between the hours of 8:30 a.m. and 5:30 p.m. local time.

Americans living or traveling in the UK are encouraged to register with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate through the State Department's travel registration website, https://travelregistration.state.gov. Americans without Internet access may register directly with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate.

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