Posted on 06/18/2005 12:55:41 AM PDT by Straight Vermonter
Arkansas student held on terrorism charge
FAYETTEVILLE - A graduate student at the University of Arkansas has been arrested on charges that he was planning to join a terrorist organization and launch attacks on Israel.
Federal agents arrested Arwah J. Jaber on a criminal complaint accusing him of knowingly attempting to provide support to a foreign terrorist organization.
According to an affidavit filed with the U.S. District Court in Fort Smith, an anonymous tipster from Fayetteville placed a call earlier this month to the Department of Homeland Security to inform them that Arwah Jaber, a Ph.D. candidate in chemistry at UA, intended to go to Palestine to fight in the Palestinian Islamic Jihad.
Jaber had plans to fly out of Northwest Arkansas Regional Airport with his wife on June 14. A day earlier, government officials had interviewed Jaber’s wife at their Fayetteville home. She told officials that her husband had told his Ph.D. advisor in an e-mail about his plans to fight for the jihad. He also apparently said he would not be returning to the United States, though he is a naturalized citizen.
Investigators also interviewed Jaber that same day. He told them he would rather die fighting for freedom against what he referred to as “Israeli terrorists” than stay another six months at UA trying to complete his Ph.D.
On June 14, investigators talked with Jaber's Ph.D. advisor in the chemistry department at the university. He told them Jaber had been a student of his for five years and had never been any trouble, but that recently he had become upset when his advisor told him it was too early for him to defend his dissertation.
The professor turned over an e-mail that Jaber had send to him on May 11, 2005, which read in part:
“Since Dr. Wilkins was unable to help me graduate this May, I have decided to take an honorable job in Palestine with the Palestinian Islamic Jihad Organization to pursue a more noble cause."
5NEWS found one student on Friday who knows Jaber, but all students in the chemistry department have been advised not to speak to the press as it is still possible they will be interviewed by the FBI.
Even those students who don't know Arwah are stunned by the news.
“It’s a very scary thought to think that they're right here with you and you'd never even have any idea,” said Caryn Croxton.
“I do believe if there is some kind of threat perception and if he's really serious about something like that, then it is important that the authorities take preventive action,” added Parishram Pardhasarathy.
“It's really terrible to have someone like student involved in this kind of situation,” said Neeraj Chaudhry.
Perhaps student Craig Cox summed it up best when he said: “Whoa, that's not very relaxing talk for around campus.”
5NEWS also contacted the chemistry department and officials at the university but all declined to comment.
at the same time as the implementation of the trans-Saharan fight against terrorism initiative - which should end on 26 June - with joint exercises of American soldiers and those from the countries of the Sahel and Maghreb region. Dubbed "Flintlock 2005", these exercises, which have been going on for the past 20 years in Europe with the goal of preventing or containing terrorist thrusts, will take place in the form of training sessions organized for the benefit of the region's armies by the American command in Europe based in Germany.Ping
Good work SV. Thanks.
So much that won't make the MSM. What a shame.
>> Perhaps student Craig Cox summed it up best when he said: “Whoa, that's not very relaxing talk for around campus.”
Like, duuuuude, no joke.
Terrorism Headlines of the Week
Domestic
Lodi Men Accused of Lying to FBI
SACRAMENTO — A federal grand jury indicted a Lodi ice cream truck driver and his son Thursday on charges they lied to FBI agents during an investigation into potential ties to Pakistan terrorist training camps.
Hamid Hayat, 22, is charged with two counts of lying to agents about attending a terrorism camp and receiving weapons instruction for a holy war against the United States.
The three-count indictment accuses Umer Hayat, 47, of a single charge of falsely denying any knowledge that his son took part in terrorism training in Pakistan.
Defense attorneys said the charges, which carry a maximum penalty of eight years in prison for each count, indicate that investigators can't prove their case.
(snip)
Source: Los Angeles Times
Policies already transparent
Arguably, no detention facility in the history of warfare has been more transparent and received more scrutiny than Guantanamo. There have been numerous visits from members of the news media, congressional representatives and the International Committee of the Red Cross.
Last year, the Department of Defense declassified highly sensitive memorandums on interrogation techniques. Unfortunately, they were documents that are useful to terrorist operatives, but we posted them on the Internet specifically to set the record straight about U.S. policies and practices.
The latest calls for Guantanamo's closure were prompted by a series of news accounts about alleged mistreatment of the Koran. America has gone to unprecedented lengths to respect our enemies' religious sensibilities - including detailed regulations governing the handling of the Koran and broadcasting the five daily calls to prayer required by the Muslim faith over loudspeakers.
(snip)
Source: USA Today
Witnesses Put Faces To Jihad Attack
TAMPA - His daughter lay brain dead after a terrorist attack, and Stephen Flatow had just flown halfway around the globe to be at her side. He thought of so many movie scenes in which the father arrives and holds his child's hand, assuring her that ``Daddy's here. Everything is going to be OK.'' Sitting in a Tampa courtroom Thursday, Flatow described how his experience in 1995 ended in tragedy.
A witness in the terror-support trial of Sami Al-Arian and three codefendants, Flatow detailed how he learned of the attack that killed his daughter. It was the first testimony in the 2-week-old trial that put a human face on charges that the defendants conspired to commit murder abroad and provided material support to terrorists.
A man in a Volkswagen van crashed into the bus as it approached a settlement called Kfar Darom in the Gaza Strip. The van, packed with explosives, blew up, sending shrapnel flying. Eight people died and 40 were wounded.
The Palestinian Islamic Jihad claimed responsibility. According to the indictment, an Islamic Jihad statement with that claim arrived in Tampa that day and immediately was forwarded to the office of a think tank and charity created by Al-Arian.
None of the testimony discussed who carried out the attack. Jurors appeared to pay close attention but showed no emotion. Al-Arian and his fellow defendants sat quietly. They are charged with financing and organizing the Islamic Jihad.
Flatow, a lawyer in West Orange, N.J., said he spoke with his daughter late the night before the attack. Alisa Flatow planned to go on a spring holiday at a beach resort in the Gaza Strip with two friends. Flatow, 20, had taken a year off from college at Brandeis University to study at a seminary.
Source: Tampa Bay Tribune
Illegal immigrant pleads guilty to contributing to terrorist group
DETROIT - (KRT) - A 34-year-old man received a painful lesson Tuesday about holding house parties to raise money for Hezbollah_a 4 1/2 -year prison sentence. "I didn't mean to commit any crime or cause any inconvenience to the American people," a sobbing Mahmoud Youssef Kourani told U.S. District Judge Robert Cleland through an interpreter.
Kourani, an illegal immigrant who has been in custody since his 2003 arrest in another case, begged Cleland for mercy so he could return to his wife and ailing sons in Lebanon.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth Chadwell urged Cleland to be tough.
"The U.S. government is taking seriously any contributions to Hezbollah," Chadwell said of the Lebanon-based organization that has been designated by the United States as a terrorist group. He said the message Cleland should send to Hezbollah with the sentence is: "Don't come here."
Kourani pleaded guilty in March to conspiring to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization, which carries a maximum penalty of 5 years in prison.
The prosecution said he conducted meetings in his home in late 2002 where guest speakers from Lebanon solicited donations for Hezbollah. The meetings happened between Nov. 6 and Dec. 6, during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan.
The government said the money was intended for Hezbollah's orphans of martyrs program to benefit the families of suicide bombers and others killed in Hezbollah operations or by the group's enemies.
Source: Knight Ridder News Agency
International
French Court Sentences Three for Assisting Shoe Bomber
PARIS, June 16 -- A French court sentenced three men for conspiracy Thursday after finding them guilty of helping Richard C. Reid, the British citizen who attempted to blow up a U.S. airliner over the Atlantic with explosives hidden in his shoes. The court found that the men assisted Reid in Paris before his attempt to destroy an American Airlines flight from Paris to Miami in December 2001.
The presiding judge, Jacqueline Rebeyrotte, sentenced Ghulam Rama, a Pakistani, to five years in prison and expulsion from France after he serves his term. Rama, 67, has spent three years in jail awaiting trial. It was not immediately clear whether he would appeal.
Two Frenchmen, Hakim Mokhfi and Hassan El Cheguer, both 31, were each sentenced to four years in prison, with one year suspended. The court ordered them released because they have been in preventive detention since June 2002.
All three men had pleaded not guilty.
According to French intelligence, Rama organized terrorist attacks during trips to Britain, New York, Pakistan and Saudi Arabia between 2001 and 2002.
Source: Reuters
Wood speaks about end of his ordeal
Douglas Wood, the Australian hostage freed in Iraq, appeared to be well and in good spirits when he was filmed by a TV crew at the end of his ordeal.
Mr Wood is yet to talk to the media after being freed from his captors by Iraqi troops, but a CNN TV crew was at his bedside in a hospital in Iraq when he spoke to those around him.
In the footage, he was shown standing in a hospital corridor joking with soldiers, and sitting up in bed talking to those around him.
"You don't know how pleased I am to see you," he said.
Laughing, and in apparent good health ahead of medical and psychological tests that are still to be carried out, Mr Wood said he had been surprised and "a bit scared" by the events leading up to his release.
"I wasn't sure what was happening," Mr Wood said.
"The first thing is there was a bit of shooting outside, then they came and covered me over with a blanket.
"And then there was still a lot of yelling and screaming. And then a gun, they actually fired inside the room.
"That was a bit scary. I heard my fellow patient - or whatever he was - still alive and I'm still alive."
It's believed Mr Wood was referring to an Iraqi hostage who was also freed.
Mr Wood said "it's good" when referring to the blanket being taken off him.
Source: Australian Associated Press
Who are the suicide bombers? Pakistan's answer.
KARACHI, PAKISTAN – In four years, 28-year-old Gul Hasan went from laying bricks to recruiting suicide bombers. An antiterrorism court convicted Mr. Hasan this month of planning suicide attacks on Shiite mosques in Karachi that killed dozens of worshipers. Now he faces the gallows.
How people like Hasan get involved with militant Islam, and what they do to recruit others, are questions of increasing urgency in Pakistan, which has seen a spate of suicide bombings in recent weeks.
The attacks were carried out by splinter groups formed in the wake of a Pakistani crackdown on militant Islamic organizations after Sept. 11, 2001. Smaller and more isolated than their parent organizations, these splinter groups receive financial backing from Al Qaeda and draw their recruits from the ranks of the poor and enraged, say Pakistani investigators.
"This is a new breed [of militants], as suicide bombings are a post 9/11 phenomenon here," says Fateh Mohammad Burfat, head of the Criminology Department at the University of Karachi. The bombers are "unemployed, illiterate, and belong to poor social strata. [They also] perceive the US military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan as hostile acts against the Muslim world.... By suicide attacks, they get a sense of victory in the world and hereafter."
Hasan entered the world of militant Islam when his brother, a member of the splinter group Lashkar-e Jhangvi, was arrested. Over time, Hasan went from being a simple carrier of weapons to a dangerous militant leader in Karachi responsible for recruiting and transporting suicide bombers, say police officials.
Source: Christian Science Monitor
Nations close consulates in Lagos, Nigeria
LAGOS, Nigeria (AP) — The United States closed its consulate in the Nigerian city of Lagos after receiving a "terrorist threat" by telephone, a U.S. military official said Friday. The move prompted Britain, Germany, Italy and Russia to close their nearby diplomatic missions.
The closure of the American mission began Thursday afternoon after "there was some kind of terrorist threat made," U.S. Maj. Holly Silkman, a spokeswoman for the Germany-based U.S. European Command, told reporters in Dakar, Senegal.
The threat was "called in," she said without elaborating.
Silkman was in Dakar for U.S.-led counterterrorism exercises involving Nigeria, Senegal and seven other African nations.
Nigerian authorities are working with the United States in the investigation, Nigeria's Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
About 100 armed police patrolled the Lagos street where the U.S. consulate and several other diplomatic missions are located, with some searching cars for explosives.
A Nigerian police bomb-disposal squad brought its van to the area Friday, and American-employed security guards stood outside the consulate and patrolled in cars.
All diplomatic missions on the street bordering a lagoon were closed. British officials said they were responding to the U.S. move and hoped to reopen Monday.
Source: The Associated Press
Al Qaeda extends deadline for Iraqi soldier hostages
DUBAI: Al Qaeda's wing in Iraq gave the US-backed government another 72 hours to free women prisoners, threatening to kill 36 Iraqi soldiers it holds hostage if it does not comply, according to an internet statement yesterday.
"We, the al Qaeda Organisation in Iraq, announce extending the deadline to kill the 36 soldiers from the infidel guards to the next 72 hours," the group led by Jordanian Abu Musab al-Zarqawi said in a statement posted on an Islamist website.
"Release the helpless Muslim women from the Interior Ministry prisons and other jails," it added.
It was not immediately possible to verify the authenticity of the statement, which was signed off with a name that usually accompanies the group's official announcements.
The Sunni Muslim group, which has often abducted and killed officials and soldiers, said a high-ranking officer was among the 36 troops it was holding.
The group said in an internet posting on June 9 that it was holding the soldiers, and gave the Iraqi government 24 hours to release all women prisoners. It later extended the deadline by 72 hours and said it was interrogating the soldiers.
Iraqi police said on June 8 that 22 Iraqi soldiers from the mainly Shi'ite Muslim south had been kidnapped after leaving their base in the town of Qaim, a stronghold of the Sunni Muslim insurgency near the Syrian border in western Iraq.
Source: Reuters
Zarqawi's top aide captured, says army
US and Iraqi military forces say they have captured al-Qaeda's top leader in the Mosul area of northern Iraq.
The US military described Muhammad Khalaf Shakar, also known as Abu Talha, as the most trusted operations agent of the chief of al-Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
A military statement said "multiple intelligence sources" led coalition and Iraqi forces to a quiet neighbourhood in Mosul where Shakar was staying on Tuesday.
The military said former associates of Shakar had told authorities that he never stayed more than one night in any one place, that he wore a suicide vest and that he had vowed to die rather than surrender. But he was captured without incident, and was "fully co-operating" with military officials, the statement said.
US military officials said last month they had killed or captured at least 20 of Zarqawi's top lieutenants recently, including bomb makers, cell leaders and propaganda chiefs.
In Kuala Lumpur, Colin Powell, the former US secretary of state, defended the invasion of Iraq but admitted the US's image had taken a beating and called on the Bush Administration to be more sensitive.
Source: New York Times
Canada finds Al-Qaeda information on financier's laptop
OTTAWA (AFP) - Canadian police discovered information about al-Qaeda and the Taliban on a laptop computer belonging to the daughter of reputed militant financier Ahmed Said Khadr, officials said.
The computer, DVDs, audiotapes and Zaynab Khadr's diary were seized by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police (RCMP) upon her return from Pakistan in February, but their existence was only made public this week after police asked a court for permission to keep them longer.
In a court affadavit, the RCMP claimed they found information on the computer about wanted terrorists and details of attacks on coalition forces in Afghanistan, as well as songs that included Osama bin Laden's voice and video clips of the fugitive that are "cause for concern and require futher investigation."
Dennis Edney, a lawyer for the family, told AFP he believes the RCMP are on a "fishing expedition."
Zaynab Khadr and her brother Abdullah are under investigation for alleged ties to al-Qaeda, although neither have been charged.
Another brother, Abdurahman Khadr, has admitted on Canadian television that the family knew bin Laden and that he and some of his siblings were trained by Al-Qaeda in Afghanistan. He was taken prisoner in Kabul in November 2001 as US forces hunted Taliban and Al-Qaeda holdouts, after the September 11 attacks.
Source: Agence France Presse
Bin Laden Alive and Well: Taleban Commander
ISLAMABAD/MUSCAT, 16 June 2005 — Al-Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden and Taleban leader Mulla Mohammad Omar are both alive and in good health after more than three years on the run, a senior Taleban commander said in an interview broadcast yesterday.
News that Bin Laden is alive and not yet captured came from a senior US military official yesterday, who dismissed ‘conspiracy theories’ that Bin Laden was deliberately being kept at large to serve a grand Washington design.
“Trust me, if we had the ability, the Al-Qaeda chief would have been behind the bars by now’, Vice Adm. David C. Nichols Jr., commander of the US Naval Forces Central Command, told Arab News in Muscat.
In Islamabad Mulla Akhtar Usmani said, when asked about Bin Laden’s fate in the interview broadcast by Pakistan’s private GEO television, “He is absolutely fine, praise be to Allah. There is no problem, but I will not tell where he is.”
One-eyed Taleban supremo Mulla Omar remained in command of the hard-line militia that formerly ruled Afghanistan, added Usmani. Taleban have launched a fresh onslaught in recent months against the US-led forces who ousted them in late 2001. The commander, said to be Omar’s former deputy and now the head of Taleban operations, held a Kalashnikov assault rifle and partly covered his face with a black turban during the interview. Omar was “alive and healthy and there is no trouble,” Usmani said, adding: “He is still our commander and issuing directions.”
“I would not tell whether or not I have met him, but I listen to his voice. He gives us directions,” he said.
Source: Arab News
Spain claims to have broken up terror network
Spanish police claimed yesterday they had broken up a terrorist network that was recruiting and aiding suicide bombers for attacks on coalition forces in Iraq.
Five hundred police officers were involved in raids across the country and 16 alleged radical Islamists were arrested. Eleven of them have been accused of having links to Abu-Musab al-Zarqawi, considered to be al-Qaida's leader in Iraq.
Police said the network had tentacles that stretched to the UK, but British anti-terrorist officials said that the men in custody did not appear to have any direct links to suspected militants in Britain. Spanish police yesterday named one man whom they believed had successfully carried out a suicide attack in Iraq last month.
They also identified several others who had volunteered to travel to Iraq to carry out such attacks.
"Several members of the group had expressed their will to become martyrs for Islam," a police statement said. Police say the network targeted yesterday was linked to two Moroccans who were arrested last year in Syria and accused of helping recruits into Iraq to join the insurgency.
"Basically, what the police accuse them of is raising money and recruiting people to do activities abroad related with the international jihad," the interior minister, José Antonio Alonso, told reporters.
Police described their network as being "tied to the terrorist organisation Ansar al-Islam/Zarqawi network". Ansar al-Islam is a radical Islamist group of Iraqi Kurds and Arabs, closely linked to al-Qaida and Zarqawi.
Investigations in Spain, Italy, Germany and Sweden suggest it is now the most prominent militant group engaged in fundraising and recruitment of Iraqi insurgents.
Spanish police said that some of the men arrested yesterday had been involved in both the train bombings that killed 191 people in Madrid last year and in supporting suicide bombers in Iraq.
Anti-terrorist officials in the UK did not rule out the possibility that some of the suspects arrested in Spain could have had contacts with individuals in Britain through an "Iraqi jihad support network".
Source: The Guardian
Saudi authorities arrest Al Qaeda suspects in killing of Frenchman: report
DUBAI - Saudi security authorities have arrested five African Al Qaeda militants suspected of killing a French engineer in the kingdom last year, the Arab News daily reported Thursday.
The gang members, all from Chad, confessed to killing Laurent Barbot, a French engineer who worked for a defence electronics company, the newspapers quoted the authorities as saying.
Barbot was followed by three of the suspects, who shot him with a machine gun when he stopped his car in September 2004 after leaving a supermarket in the eastern port city of Jeddah, the report said.
The gang also unsuccessfully tried to kill another foreigner, the newspaper reported, without giving details such as the potential victim’s nationality or when he was targeted.
Source: Deutsche Presse-Agentur
Indonesian police defuse bomb at railway station's parking lot
JAKARTA, June 15 (Xinhuanet) -- Indonesian police here Wednesday defused a bomb made of the same materials as the one that exploded at the house of Muslim cleric Abu Jibril in Pamulang recently, state-owned news agency Antara quoted a spokesman as saying.
The device was found in the parking lot of the Tanjung Barat railway station in South Jakarta late Tuesday night, Jakarta police spokesman Senior Commissioner Tjiptono said.
He said police sent a bomb squad to the location after receiving a report over the phone from a local resident who had found the object.
"After being dismantled, the device proved to contain 300 gramsof potassium and sulfur. The detonator was a torch-light bulb connected to a nine-volt battery. There were also 15 three-milimeter-long nails," he said.
"The bomb is like the one that exploded in Pamulang with its low explosive materials and control system," he said, adding that the article would explode if it was lifted.
Source: Xinhua News Agency
Indonesian cleric withdraws lawsuit over imprisonment
Jailed Indonesian Muslim cleric, Abu Bakar Bashir, has withdrawn a lawsuit against the justice minister and a prison chief for his continued detention.
Bashir is currently serving a 30-month jail sentence for his role in the October 2002 Bali bombings.
His lawyers filed the suit last week, demanding the 66-year-old be released.
The lawsuit named as defendants the justice and human rights minister, Hamid Awaluddin, and Dedi Sutardi, the head of Jakarta's Cipinang prison.
Bashir is serving his prison term at Cipinang.
A lawyer for Mr Bashir says the cleric has decided not to pursue the lawsuit and will focus instead on an appeal to the supreme court.
Source: ABC Radio Australia
Three Iraqis suspected of supporting terror group arrested in Germany
BERLIN (AP) - German authorities on Tuesday arrested three Iraqis suspected of supporting Ansar al-Islam, a group believed to have links to al-Qaida, federal prosecutors said.
The three are suspected of providing money to Ansar al-Islam that they either raised or donated out of their own pockets, as well as providing other assistance such as courier services, prosecutors said.
The men were identified only as Dieman A. I., 39, a Nuremberg resident; Kawa H., 33, from Munich; and Najat O., 43, from the southwestern town of Buehl.
Prosecutors said Kawa H. and Najat O. took orders from one of three alleged Ansar al-Islam members who were arrested in Germany in December on suspicions that they planned to attack then-Iraqi Prime Minister Ayad Allawi during a visit to Berlin.
Prosecutors have said the man, identified only as Ata R., had a leading role in European fund-raising for Ansar al-Islam and maintained contact with the group's leaders in Iraq.
One of the three arrested Tuesday, Najat O., is accused of carrying out money transfers to Iraq for the group in mid-2004, prosecutors said. They did not detail the sums involved.
Source: The Associated Press
Chemistry department, This could of been very very bad.
what a great synopsis.
i just can't get enough of reading about dead terrorists.
thank you so much.
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