Beware of strange men with rocket launchers

This week, New Jersey Transit officials joined the New York Police Department in performing hapless random searches of Granny's knitting bag and Junior's Thomas the Tank backpack to prevent the next al Qaeda attack.

But not everyone is fighting the War on Terror blind. Some U.S. military personnel have been given a very clear and un-p.c. mission:

Yup, that's right. Many readers have e-mailed me about a recent report floating on the Internet that reveals military concerns about a suspicious trio of Middle Eastern men who apparently pointed a rocket launcher at low-flying aircraft near Tinker Air Force Base in Oklahoma earlier this month. It's authentic. Battle Staff Directive No. 41, categorized as "For Official Use Only," was issued at Hill Air Force Base in Utah last week to raise a red flag about the incident at Tinker AFB:

"On 14 Jul 05, three individuals were observed outside of the perimeter of Tinker AFB, OK. They were looking through binoculars, taking pictures and one appeared to be holding a large weapon at chest level. The weapon appeared to be aimed towards a low flying aircraft. The three individuals were described as being of Middle Eastern descent and left the area when approached. The weapon was later identified as a rocket launcher (MANPAD) and the low flying aircraft to be a B-1 Bomber. FBI in Oklahoma City and AFOSI [Air Force Office of Special Investigations] determined the threat to be credible."

Someone leaked the directive to a website called Soldiers For The Truth (sftt.org), and it was picked up by another site, the Northeast Intelligence Network (homelandsecurityus.com). Tinker AFB staff and FBI officials remain tight-lipped about the incident. But Capt. Sean Carter, a public affairs officer at Hill AFB, verified the directive for me.

In a phone interview, Capt. Carter told me the memo was issued to let base personnel know that "there's a threat out there somewhere" and to inform them of what to look for to guard against possible terrorist activity. Hill AFB participates in the "Eagle Eyes" program, an anti-terrorism initiative launched by the Air Force Office of Special Investigations that "enlists the eyes and ears of Air Force members and citizens in the war on terror."

The threat of an al Qaeda attack using shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles has been of increasing concern to homeland security officials. Last year, the FBI arrested two imams in Albany, N.Y., in connection with a sting operation involving laundered funds that the defendants were led to believe were proceeds from the sale of a missile launcher to be used in a New York City terrorist plot. Federal prosecutors noted during the trial of convicted al Qaeda bomb plotter Wadih El-Hage that his role entailed "conveying military orders from Bin Laden including . . . seeking weapons including Stinger missiles for al Qaeda members." In 2002, al Qaeda terrorists used two Russian-made Strela missiles to try and bring down an Israeli-chartered airliner departing from Mombasa, Kenya.

That effort failed, but the terrorists will no doubt try, try again. Hundreds of Stinger missiles have gone missing since the first Persian Gulf War, according to the General Accounting Office. Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., noted last year that "there are an estimated 300,000 to one million shoulder-fired missiles in the world today -- thousands are thought to be in the hands of terrorist and other non-state entities." Thomas B. Hunter of Jane's Intelligence Review reported: "Al-Qaeda reportedly possesses a number of MANPADs, including SA-7s and Stingers. . . . It is logical to assume that Al-Qaeda is in possession of additional MANPADs. If this is true, then Al-Qaeda represents the most significant threat to international civil aviation."

Washington has been squabbling over whether and how much money to spend on retrofitting all 6,000 planes in the American commercial fleet with electronic countermeasures to combat the threat. In the meantime, common-sense vigilance is the best defense.

Thankfully, military watchdogs on guard against Islamist terrorists with rocket launchers know better than to stop Paris Hilton and Lindsay Lohan look-a-likes with Louis Vuitton pet carriers strapped around their shoulders.

Michelle Malkin is a syndicated columnist and maintains her weblog at michellemalkin.com

http://www.pakistan-facts.com/article.php?story=20030627174524631

11 Lashkar-e-Taeba terrorists arrested in US

Friday, June 27 2003 @ 05:45 PM Central Daylight Time
The US authorities on Friday detained eight people they accused of supporting Lashkar-e-Taeba, which has been engaged in terrorist activities in the state Jammu and Kashmir. Another three people said to be living in Saudi Arabia were arraigned with the eight. All were accused of conspiring to help violence by Muslim terrorists in Kashmir, Chechnya, the Philippines and other countries. Anti-terrorist raids were carried out in three states in the Washington region, the justice department said in a statement. The eight detained "have been indicted on conspiracy, firearms and other charges for their alleged roles in a conspiracy to train and participate in jihad in Kashmir," said US Attorney Paul McNulty. The 11 who face charges include at least two men born in Pakistan, one Yemeni and one from South Korea. They were to appear in court in Alexandria, Virginia, in the Washington suburbs.

They were accused of giving support to the radical Muslim group, Lashkar-e-Taeba. A Justice Department statement quoted the indictment as saying "the 11 defendants allegedly conspired to prepare for and engage in violent jihad on behalf of Muslims in Kashmir, Chechnya, the Philippines and other countries. "As part of this conspiracy, the defendants allegedly obtained weapons, including AK-47-style rifles, and practiced small-unit military tactics in Virginia using paintball weapons and other equipment to simulate actual combat in preparation for violent jihad. The indictment alleged that some the 11 went to Pakistan and trained with Lashkar-e-Taeba. "The indictment also alleges that some of the defendants fired weapons in Jammu and in Kashmir," said the statement. The United States put Lashkar-e-Taeba on its list of foreign terrorist organisations in October 2001.

"When individuals meet in the shadows of our nation's capital to prepare for violent jihad, we will take action," said US acting assistant attorney general Christopher Wray. "Our success in the nation's war on terrorism depends on our ability to detect terrorist threats and prevent acts of violence," Wray said. The suspects were arrested in the states of Maryland, Virginia and Pennsylvania, an FBI official said, speaking on condition of anonymity. The eight detained were named as Randall Todd Royer, 30, Ibrahim Ahmed al-Hamdi, a Yemeni; Masoud Ahmad Khan, 31; Yong Ki Kwon, 27, a naturalised American born in South Korea; Mohammed Aatique, a 30-year-old Pakistani; Hammad Abdur-Raheem, 35; Donald Thomas Surratt, 30; and Caliph Basha Ibn Abdur-Raheem, 29. Three others -- Khwaja Mahmood Hasan, 27, a Pakistani-born American; Sabri Benkhala, 28; and Seifullah Chapman, 30 -- are believed to be in Saudi Arabia.

Complete article from Hindustan Times/Agence France-Presse.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/08/05/attack/main566688.shtml

Kashmir Plots Hatched In U.S.?

(CBS/AP) Eleven men, nine of them U.S. citizens, were charged with conspiring to join a Muslim extremist terror group that has been blamed for thousands of deaths in the disputed Kashmir territory of India and Pakistan.

A federal indictment unsealed Friday contends the men, who lived in suburban Fairfax County just south of Washington from early 2000 to May 2003, obtained AK-47-style assault weapons and ammunition, trained in military tactics and visited terrorist camps in Pakistan linked to the Lashkar-e-Taiba group dedicated to driving India out of Kashmir.

Six of the men were arrested Friday, two were in custody earlier and three were being sought.

U.S. Attorney Paul McNulty called the indictment "a stark reminder that terrorist organizations of various allegiances are active in the United States. And these groups exploit America's freedom as a weapon to recruit and position themselves on our shores."

McNulty said that Lashkar-e-Taiba has claimed responsibility for the deaths of 14,000 Indian soldiers and the killing of more than 300 civilians. The group, which appears on the State Department's international terror list, was behind the Dec. 13, 2001 attack on India's Parliament that killed 12 people.

There have also been reports of links between the Kashmir group, whose name means "army of the righteous," and al Qaeda, McNulty said. Although Friday's indictment does not allege any plots to stage attacks in the United States, it does say that members were told that U.S. troops in Afghanistan were legitimate targets and that "the United States was the greatest enemy of Muslims."

Alice Fisher, chief deputy in the Justice Department's criminal division, said the indictment underscores the government's "strong commitment to disrupting terrorist activities" before an attack occurs.

The 11 were charged with conspiracy, a variety of firearms violations and attempting to mount a military attack against a friendly nation, India. The indictment says that they used warlike paintball games to train in military tactics and practiced with firearms at shooting ranges.

Six of those charged were arrested Friday by the FBI: Mohammed Aatique, 30, a Pakistani national and U.S. visa holder, in Philadelphia; Masoud Ahmad Khan, 31, and Donald Thomas Surratt, 30, both U.S. citizens, in Baltimore; and U.S. citizens Randall Todd Royer, 30; Hammad Abdur-Raheem, 29; and Caliph Basha Ibn Abdur-Raheem, 29, in northern Virginia.

Two had previously been taken into custody: Ibrahim Ahmed Al-Hamdi, 25, a Yemeni national; and Yong Ki Kwon, 27, a naturalized U.S. citizen originally from South Korea.

Three others, all U.S. citizens, are believed to be in Saudi Arabia: Seifullah Chapman, 30, Khwaja Mahmood Hasan, 27 and Sabri Benkhala, 28. FBI officials said the United States is working with Saudi authorities to locate and apprehend the men.

Before the indictments were unsealed, the fathers of two suspects held a news conference at Washington's National Press Club to criticize what they called the government's heavy-handed tactics and proclaim their sons' innocence. King Lyon and Ramone Royer said they were present when federal agents made the arrests early Friday morning.

"My son is a veteran of the U.S. Army. He took an oath to uphold the laws of the United States of America," said Lyon, father of Hammad Abdur-Raheem. "He is a loyal citizen, the same as I am."

Trial dates for those arrested were not immediately announced. McNulty said each could face long sentences if convicted. =

India and Pakistan have fought two of their three wars over the mountainous, Muslim-dominated Kashmir region, which was made part of Hindu-majority India when Britain made both countries independent in 1947.

The two countries regularly trade fire over the "line of control" that separates their forces in the region.

Fighting escalated to the brink of war in 1999 and again last summer, raising fears of an all-out confrontation between the nuclear-armed rivals.

Pakistan claims to give only moral support to the rebels, but India says the association between Islamabad and the militants is stronger than that.

The arrests are the latest development in the Bush administration's "war on terrorism."

Last week, the Justice Department revealed that an Ohio trucker, Iyman Faris, had pleaded guilty to conspiring with al Qaeda to scout sites for possible terrorist attacks.

This week, the U.S. government opted to declare Ali Saleh Kahlah Al Marri, a Qatar native who had been in U.S. custody for more than a year, an enemy combatant. Two enemy combatants have already been declared; they remain in federal prison with no access to lawyers and no charges against them.

A top FBI counterterrorism official told Congress this week that the bureau is hunting possible al Qaeda cells in 40 states, but that a major attack on the United States did not appear imminent.

©MMIII, CBS Broadcasting Inc. All Rights Reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. The Associated Press contributed to this report.

http://www.jihadwatch.org/archives/000860.php

February 10, 2004
Islamic extremists invade U.S., join sleeper cells
"Islamic radicals are being trained at terrorist camps in Pakistan and Kashmir (India) as part of a conspiracy to send hundreds of operatives to 'sleeper cells' in the United States, according to U.S. and foreign officials." This from the Washington Times:

The intelligence and law-enforcement officials say dozens of Islamic extremists have already been routed through Europe to Muslim communities in the United States, based on secret intelligence data and information from terrorists and others detained by U.S. authorities.
A high-ranking foreign intelligence chief told The Washington Times in an interview last week that this clandestine but aggressive network of training camps "represents a serious threat to the United States, one that cannot be ignored." The official said as many as 400 terrorists have been and are being trained at camps in Pakistan and Kashmir.

U.S. intelligence officials said the camps, located in the remote regions of western Pakistan and in Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, are financed in part by various terrorist networks, including al Qaeda, and by sources in Saudi Arabia. ...

Several other camps are being operated by an anti-U.S. Muslim group known as Lashkar-e-Taiba, according to U.S. and foreign intelligence officials. Listed by the State Department in 2001 as a terrorist organization, Lashkar-e-Taiba is the armed wing of the Pakistan-based religious organization Markaz-ud-Dawa-wal-Irshad.

Eleven men, including nine U.S. citizens, were arrested last year in Virginia in what authorities called the "Virginia jihad." The men were accused in a 41-count grand jury indictment of engaging in "holy jihad" to drive India out of the disputed Kashmir territory. Six have since pleaded guilty.

The indictment said some of the men traveled to Lashkar-e-Taiba terrorist camps in Pakistan, where they were trained in the use of various weapons, including small arms, machine guns and grenade launchers. The indictment also said the trips occurred both before and after the September 11 attacks.

Posted by Robert at February 10, 2004 09:49 AM

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