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The shark attack happened up in NJ. Small great white or a sandbar shark
You're very welcome, and thanks for the recent Al-Massari info.
Looks like we are off to an early start this yr. Watch the track of this one, the first often tells part of the tale for the years storms... Hopefully it doesn't hit FL! The position of the heat ridge now over the East Coast (went above 90 here for the first time in almost 2 yrs today) should keep it west of FL, but it will be something to watch.
FBI claims to bust US-based Al-Qaeda terror cell
SACRAMENTO, Ca. - The FBI has arrested two California men suspected of plotting terrorist attacks inside the United States.
Two other men are being held for alleged immigration violations.
Agents took a father and son into custody Tuesday and charged them with making false statements about their ties to terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden.
Agents say that when they questioned the younger man upon his return to the U.S. from Pakistan, he told them he had been trained to attack hospitals and grocery stores with the express goal of "killing Americans".
He also claimed that weapons training including shooting targets featuring the image of President Bush.
Federal officials believe the two other men in custody were trying to set up a religious school in the small town of Lodi, California, near Sacramento.
FBI officials claim they had been monitoring the men for some time.
Documents obtained by ABC news indicate that the FBI has opened over 1200 domestic investigations involving people they say are linked to Al-Qaeda.
Plus, I'm just reading that this Lodi AQ cell family raised homing pigeons.
"Documents obtained by ABC news indicate that the FBI has opened over 1200 domestic investigations involving people they say are linked to Al-Qaeda."
Does this storm have enough room to build up a head of steam before landfall?
I haven't really followed it ALL that much, outside my normal duties in watching over the weather forum...
NHC Info: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/refresh/graphics_at1+shtml/211225.shtml?table?large
Good threads on our boards:
http://www.easternuswx.com/bb/index.php?showtopic=36513
http://www.easternuswx.com/bb/index.php?showtopic=36619
Climatologically, these early-mid June GOM storms are not biggies. The waters typically are not yet warm enough to sustain any true monster storms. A Cat 1/2 storm quickly turning extratropical is definately in the realm of possibility.
That said, this year has shown warm anomalies all over the tropical atlantic.
https://128.160.23.54/products/K10/caribbeank10.gif
There is actually a very warm segment of water pointing from western cuba to the mouth of the Mississippi... Storms often find a way to travel the warm path, and the official track would take this thing over 80-85 degree water. Gotta wait and see what the upper level situation is, should have a better idea by Friday.
THANKS to a special Freeper for pointing to the MARBURG THREAD NO.2:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1413888/posts
| Stumbling down the money trail |
| By Henry Schuster |
| June 8, 2005 |
(CNN) -- If you want to understand why it is difficult to investigate financial links to terrorism, consider the case of Youssef Nada. His home, Villa Nada, perches hundreds of feet above Lake Lugano in southern Switzerland. Worth millions, the mansion is a testament to Nada's success as a businessman and banker. It's a long way from the poverty of his native Egypt. But the United Nations wants to seize the house from its owner, whom it has designated as a terrorist financier. No less than President Bush, in a November 7, 2001, speech, singled out Nada's companies for funding al Qaeda. "Ours is not a war just of soldiers and aircraft," Bush said two months after the September 11 attacks. "It's a war fought with diplomacy, by the investigations of law enforcement, by gathering intelligence and by cutting off the terrorists' money." The U.S. Treasury Department put Nada on its list of "specially designated global terrorists" that same day, freezing his assets and blocking him from entering the United States. The Swiss have been investigating him since then. Until last week that is, when the probe of Nada and his companies was halted. "We had enough elements to open that investigation. We had enough elements to lead that investigation. We [had] too many elements to close the case earlier. But we didn't have enough elements to go to trial," said Jurg-Mark Wiedmer of the Swiss Justice Ministry. The ordeal has caused strain and consternation in Washington and Bern as well as inside Nada's palatial home. "It is a disaster. It is sad and bad," Nada said by phone this week. Nada denies accusations I visited him there more than three years ago, a few months after Bush's speech and after Swiss and Italian police had raided his house and office, seizing thousands of files. He was a gracious host, ready to talk. Yes, he said with pride, he was deeply involved in the Muslim Brotherhood, the oldest of Islamist fundamentalist groups. He added that he handled the group's foreign contacts for 25 years. But he strongly denied the allegations against him and his companies. Nada says the accusations surfaced publicly in Italian newspaper Corriere della Sera in the late 1990s. The reports said Nada-al Taqwa, his Lugano, Switzerland-based management company -- along with other banks and financial companies in Switzerland, Lichtenstein, Italy, the Bahamas and elsewhere -- was sending money to the likes of al Qaeda and Hamas through charitable fronts. (Nada says he is suing the newspaper for libel.) Of particular interest, a Bahamas bank -- Bank al Taqwa, which is controlled by Nada-al Taqwa -- included several bin Laden family members among its shareholders. The bank went out of business in 2000, but not before charitable contributions (the Islamic term is zakat) from some of its shareholders allegedly had been siphoned off to terrorist groups. Then and now, Nada denies the accusations. The bin Laden link is overblown, he says, given that the relatives involved in the bank had cut off all relations with the al Qaeda leader in the early 1990s. "The bin Laden family is not [the same] as Osama bin Laden. Their business is not his," he says. Nada insists money did not go to terrorist organizations, tying the bank's collapse to large losses during the mid-1990s Southeast Asian economic slump. As he served tea during my 2002 visit, Nada expressed confidence that he would be absolved after Swiss, Italian and U.S. investigators pored through the mountains of documents. U.S. officials said the opposite -- they were optimistic they could make a winning case against him in a Swiss court. In late 2003, Nada's situation was highlighted in a U.N. report on al Qaeda. When the world body named him a terrorist financier, the Swiss government froze his assets. Since then, he's claimed to be broke, while living in his luxurious villa. Stuck in legal limbo Fast forward to last week. As the Swiss Justice Ministry explains it, a decision was due: Charge Nada or end the investigation after 3 1/2 years. While careful to give Nada the presumption of innocence, Wiedmer says the investigation is "suspended" but could be revived if new evidence arises. Wiedmer says that even with all the documents the Swiss government has, it still doesn't have the records it needs from the Bahamas. The U.S. Treasury Department still suspects Nada funded terrorists. The Swiss decision, a U.S. statement says, "does not in any way affect the designation of Youssef Nada as a supporter of terrorism or the freezing of his assets. The U.S. has a strong evidentiary basis for the designation." That assessment leaves Nada in legal limbo. The Americans don't believe him, but apparently neither they nor the Swiss can prove a case. Nada, 74, suffers from kidney and prostate problems, not to mention anxiety from the continuing scrutiny. He says he wants to know who misled President Bush and the U.S. Treasury, and he's willing to testify before Congress to clear his name. Michael Chandler, who used to track terrorist financing for the United Nations, says he finds what's happened in Nada's case disappointing for those trying to follow the money in terrorism cases. "If means can't be found to get at terrorist finance effectively, then it will pull the bottom out of the sanctions business," Chandler says. In the meantime, Nada sits in his beautiful home, wondering if it will remain his. |
| Source Link: http://www.cnn.com/2005/WORLD/europe/06/07/schuster.column/ |
Following the money can get tricky.
Thanks to Texkat for pointing to this article:
===
http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/WarOnTerrorism/2005/06/08/1077931-ap.html
"Police investigate packages found at embassies in Australia capital"
ARTICLE SNIPPET: "CANBERRA, Australia (AP) - Police were investigating a number of suspicious packages sent to Australia's Parliament House and an unspecified number of foreign embassies, an official said Thursday."
| Terror case raises fears of sleeper cells |
| By Shaun Waterman |
| June 8, 2005 |
|
Washington, DC, Jun. 8 (UPI) -- The arrest of two Pakistani-Americans on charges that they lied to federal agents about undergoing terror training in Pakistan has highlighted the threat posed by "second generation" Islamic militants and the persistent presence of terrorist bases in a country that says it is an ally in the U.S. war on terror. An FBI affidavit says that Hamid Hayat, 22, told agents he had spent six months in 2003-2004 at a camp near Rawalpindi in Pakistan, where he received paramilitary training and anti-American religious indoctrination. "Hamid further stated," the affidavit goes on, "that he and others at the camp were being trained on how to kill Americans." Hayat and his father Umer Hayat, 47, both from Lodi near Sacramento, Calif., face charges of lying to federal agents about the training. The admissions allegedly made by the Hayats will undoubtedly raise questions about the status of Pakistan as a U.S. ally in the war on terror, especially given the location of the camp -- just a few miles from the capital, Islamabad. "That's a bit like having a terrorist training camp on the outskirts of Washington, D.C.," said Richard Clarke, former White House counter-terror czar. "The closer to the capital (these facilities are) the more obvious it is that the (Pakistani) authorities are turning a blind eye," Hassan Abbas, a former senior Pakistani law enforcement official told United Press International. According to the affidavit, "hundreds of attendees from various parts of the world" were trained at the camp and then sent to "carry out their jihadi mission" to countries "including the United States, Afghanistan, Iraq, (and) Kashmir." U.S. authorities have long been aware of the danger posed by these camps, and of the possibility that U.S. citizens might be trained in them. In June 2004, a special alert from the Customs and Border Protection division of the Department of Homeland security warned of the danger posed by "individuals traveling to train at terrorist camps in Pakistan." The bulletin -- obtained by journalist Paul Sperry and reported in his book "Infiltration" -- enjoined agents at several airports to "increase scrutiny of passengers who are naturalized citizens or legal permanent residents of Pakistani descent," especially those who had made "trips to regions of Pakistan not normally associated with business activity or tourism," or who might have rope burns or other unusual bruising or injuries resulting from paramilitary training. So-called second generation jihadis -- the grown children of Muslim immigrants who turn to extremism or follow their parents into it -- have been identified as a threat by authorities in Europe and Canada, but U.S. law enforcement and intelligence officials have not hitherto publicly warned about the phenomenon. "This is the first time that a second generation Muslim-American in the post-Sept. 11 era has been accused of receiving this kind of training," said terrorism expert and analyst Peter Bergen. In spring 2003, six Yemeni-Americans from the town of Lackawanna in upstate New York pleaded guilty to having visited an al-Qaida camp near Kandahar, Afghanistan, but that visit happened months before the Sept. 11 attacks. Second generation jihadis "represent a clear and present danger to Canada and its allies," according to a recently declassified report from the Canadian Security and Intelligence Service, "and are a particularly valuable resource for the international Islamic terrorist community in view of their language skills and familiarity with Western culture and infrastructure." Baltasar Garzon, the Spanish investigating magistrate who heads that country's effort to prosecute Islamic terrorists, told a conference in Florence, Italy, last month that second generation extremists, some of them as young as 16, pose a serious threat in Europe. The Hayats, according to the complaint, were related by marriage to an Islamic religious leader and notorious militant Qazi Saeed Ur Rehman. According to the affidavit, Rehman ran an Islamic school, or madrasa, that funneled would-be jihadis to the training camp. The declassified Canadian report notes that Islamic culture places a premium on "obedience to parental figures," adding that, "The duty to obey also explains why some youth have agreed to go to Afghanistan and Pakistan for terrorist training." Noting that Hayat might well be a Pashto name from Pakistan's lawless North-West Frontier Province, Abbas told UPI, "The nature of the family structure in that part of the world is so close-knit... that it is very likely that, if a father or other older relative is involved (in Islamic extremism) the younger generation will be, too." The situation is complicated -- and made more dangerous -- by the fact that the training camp attended by Hayat was apparently overseen by a Pakistani militant leader long associated with the activities of jihadi groups in Kashmir -- the Muslim-majority region divided and disputed between Pakistan and majority-Hindu India. Maulana Fazlur Rehman Khalil is leader of the jihadi group once known as Harkat-ul-Mujahedin -- set up with the support of Pakistan's military and intelligence apparatus to wage a low-intensity war against the Indian authorities in their part of Kashmir. According to Abbas, who profiled the militant leader in his recent book "Pakistan's Drift into Extremism," Khalil "has been closely aligned to Pakistan's intelligence services." Abbas said that despite several requests from the United States very little action was ever taken against him. He was briefly detained and questioned last year and has been under house arrest, but was released earlier this year and has now vanished. "He still has acquiescence (in his activities) and sympathy, if not outright support, from the intelligence agencies," said Abbas. Talat Waseem, spokeswoman for the Pakistani embassy in Washington, told UPI that she had "never heard of" Khalil and couldn't answer any questions about him. "There are no terrorist training camps in Pakistan," she asserted. Khalil was the only prominent Pakistani jihadist to sign al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden's 1998 fatwa, urging Muslims everywhere to kill Israelis and Americans. Later that year, when the United States retaliated for the al-Qaida truck bomb attacks on its East African embassies with cruise missile strikes against the group's camps in Afghanistan, Khalil denounced the move, and pledged revenge against America. According to Abbas, "many security people I've spoken to in Pakistan say he is exactly the kind of person who should have been in (the U.S. detention center in) Guantanamo Bay." More worryingly still, according to Roger Cressey, the former deputy White House counter-terrorism adviser, "You have a network of people here in the United States who are at least sympathetic to -- and perhaps actually supportive of -- the Kashmiri jihadists." As recently as the late 1990's there was an active network in many U.S. Muslim communities raising money for the Kashmir cause, according to one expert who has studied the global jihadist movement. "There are still elements in some mosques that are supportive," said the expert, who asked for anonymity. The vision of a U.S.-based support network for Islamic terrorists is the nightmare that haunts counter-terrorism specialists. "It's one of the things that still keeps me awake at nights," Sept. 11 Commission member Tim Roemer told UPI, explaining that he believed law enforcement agencies had never entirely settled the question of whether the 19 suicide hijackers had witting help from other Muslims in the United States. The arrest of the Hayats and two other Lodi Muslims -- being held by immigration authorities for allegedly violating the terms of their religious worker visas -- are part of an "ongoing, long-term inquiry," according to Dean Boyd of Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Although some law enforcement officials have been anonymously hinting that more arrests might be in the pipeline, Boyd was non-committal. "It's ongoing, that's all I can say," he said. Bergen is skeptical that the investigation will reveal any kind of extensive Fifth Column. "I doubt that this will be the tip of an iceberg," he said. "I don't think that suddenly there will be dozens of other people in the Sacramento area who turn out to be involved in this conspiracy." Former CIA and State Department counter-terror chief Cofer Black agreed, telling UPI the arrests were "not so much the tip of an iceberg we can't see, but rather a measure of the increasing capability of our law enforcement agencies to conduct effective counterterrorism and to utilize intelligence to identify and arrest terrorists." Nonetheless, the case is likely to re-ignite fears of a network of Islamic sleeper cells in the United States. "Assuming these allegations (against the Hayats) are all true," said Cressey, "this is a very disturbing picture... You have an al-Qaida (training) infrastructure in Pakistan into which recruits are funneled from all over the world, and you have al-Qaida operatives then able to come to the United States to prepare." Although Cressey said that as far as he knew the Kashmiri jihadis had "never looked at the United States as a target." There is a significant degree of cross-over between those groups and al-Qaida, according to Husain Haqqani, a former senior Pakistani government official, now based in Washington. Haqqani, who examines the issue in his forthcoming book "Pakistan: Between the Mosque and the Military," says that represents a serious problem for the United States because Pakistan has never been able to sever the link between its military and intelligence apparatus and the militant jihadists that they supported in both Kashmir and Afghanistan. "That relationship is so deep-rooted that it is not easy to break ... people don't change their beliefs, their ideology overnight," Haqqani said. He added that one of the reasons the link was so hard to break is that "the military-intelligence apparatus has never admitted that ... the creation of these irregular armies imbued with the spirit of jihad was a mistake." Even Pakistan's military leader and enthusiastic U.S. ally Gen. Pervez Musharraf still defends Pakistan's support to the Taliban, says Haqqani. "There may be a short term impact from these arrests," he said, "but then it'll be back to business as usual. The government is in a state of denial about this." |
| Source Link: http://www.washtimes.com/upi-breaking/20050608-105315-9659r.htm |
Sami Al-Arian's Islamic Academy
In 2003, Florida taxpayers indirectly subsidized the Islamic Academy of Florida in Tampa, with over $350,000 in funds.
Why is this a problem? What makes funding an Islamic school any different from funding a Christian school?
The difference is that at the time, the school's principal was none other than Sami Al Arian, who was under indictment for terrorism-related charges. He is at this very moment going to trial.
The Florida Islamic Academy was founded in 1992 by Sami Al-Arian. North American Islamic Trust holds the the title to the school property, as well as to the Tampa-area mosques at 130th Ave. E in Temple Terrace, FL and at 6307 Barclay Avenue in Spring Hill, FL. The trust owns about 27 percent of the 1,200 mosques in the United States.
The North American Islamic Trust is a subsidiary of the Islamic Society of North America.
Sami Al Arian, along with seven others, was indicted in February 2003, on racketeering charges for allegedly financing and supporting homicide bombers in Israel.
The Florida Islamic Academy is explicitly named in the indictment:
The Islamic Academy of Florida, Inc. (hereinafter referred to as "IAF") was a tax exempt Florida corporation established on August 24, 1992. SAMI AMIN AL-ARIAN was the Director of IAF from its inception through at least June, 2002. SAMEEH HAMMOUDEH was also employed by the IAF and served as its Treasurer. IAF was located at 5910 East 130th Avenue, Tampa, Florida.
And then later goes on to state:
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Jihad-Shiqaqi Faction (PIJ), including the ICP, WISE, IAF, and others known and unknown, constituted an "enterprise" (hereinafter referred to as the "PIJ Enterprise"), as defined by Title 18, United States Code, Section 1961(4); that is, a group of individuals and entities associated in fact which engaged in, and the activities of which affected, interstate and foreign commerce. The enterprise constituted an ongoing organization whose members functioned as a continuing unit for a common purpose of achieving the objects of the enterprise.
The indictment also alleges:
On or about May 5, 2002, SAMI AMIN AL-ARIAN and SAMEEH HAMMOUDEH caused an employee at IAF to tell an unidentified woman during a telephone conversation that the woman should write a check to IAF after she indicated she wanted to send money for the Palestinians.
Yet, despite this, the Islamic Academy of Florida continued to receive money from the tuition voucher program in Florida through July 2003.
On July 19, 2003, the Palm Beach Post reported that payments to the school were being suspended:
John Kirtley, founder of the voucher organization Florida PRIDE, said he is suspending payments to the Tampa-based Islamic Academy of Florida, which has been under scrutiny by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement and the FBI in relation to its founder and former Director Sami Al-Arian. Al-Arian stands accused of being the North American leader of the Palestinian Islamic Jihad, a terrorist group responsible for numerous suicide bombings in Israel.
Florida PRIDE provides the Islamic school with money that it collects from corporations. The corporations in turn get to deduct the amount of their donations - up to $5 million - from their state taxes.
According to the Palm Beach Post article, the school received approximately $350,000 from Florida PRIDE for tuition for 100 underprivileged students in 2003. This makes up more than 50% of the school's revenue.
Islamic Academy of Florida has since been removed from the Florida PRIDE program completely.
How much, if any, of this money actually went to support terrorism is unknown.
In the meantime, while the cases of Al Arian and the others indicted move through the legal system, the North American Islamic Trust continues to operate Islamic primary and secondary schools throughout the country. The Islamic Society of North America continues to operate mosques and school as well.
How many more of these schools will eventually be linked to terrorism? How many of their faculty and staff have ties to terrorist organizations?
Those questions need to be answered.
http://www.frontpagemag.com/Articles/ReadArticle.asp?ID=18355
Baptist leader beheaded
World Net Daily ^ | June 8, 2005
Posted on 06/08/2005 10:26:42 AM EDT by NYer
A Baptist lay pastor in Bangladesh was beheaded by a group of assailants reportedly tied to a Muslim political party bent on creating a radical Islamic state.
Dulal Sarkar, 35, was the second Christian leader killed in the Asian country in the past year, according to Compass Direct, a U.S.-based news service that monitors persecution of Christians.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1418824/posts
Thanks to TEXKAT for pointing to this thread:
===
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1419171/posts
"Operation Phantom Fury--Day 214 - Now Operations River Blitz; Matador--Day 109"
Various Media Outlets | 6/9/05
Posted on 06/08/2005 5:46:52 PM PDT by TexKat
"Terror Case Raises Fears of Sleeper Cells"
Thanks nw for posting this article.
OPINION: I would be surprised and pleased if there were no
sleeper cells in the USA. However, that would be unrealistic
optimism.
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