Threat Matrix: October 2006

[nwctwx]

Karzai Says bin Laden Not in Afghanistan
-Full Story-

President Hamid Karzai has insisted that Osama bin Laden is not in his country, in the latest installment in a row with the leader of Pakistan who says the Al-Qaeda chief is in Afghanistan.

Other militant leaders including Islamist warlord Gulbuddin Hekmatyar were also not in the country, Karzai told reporters in a briefing about his visit to the United States that was overshadowed by the spat.

'I can assure you they are not in Afghanistan,' Karzai said yesterday after being asked for his reaction to comments by Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf who said Thursday that bin Laden is here.

	Musharraf: Bin Laden Is Alive and Hiding in Afghanistan
	Pakistan’s Intelligence Agency Comes under Fire
	Musharraf Warns West
	Behind the NIE

Thread Forty-One

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[Cindy]

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/pa/pa_1161.html

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF STATE
Office of the Spokesman
This information is current as of today, Wed Oct 04 2006 03:53:09 GMT-0700.

Worldwide Caution
June 06, 2006

[Velveeta]

Sheesh. More coffee. Meant to post this on the thread.
Sorry for the duplicate to you.

>>>This was something *very* interesting on your google link (and there were also some similarities in language between the UBL/Zawahiri tapes and Ahmadinejad's speeches earlier this year). And when you think about it, that makes absolute sense.

Heh, even 'more' interesting considering the link I posted was my google search and not the one I intended to post.

This was my intended link:
Bitter uses of honey in Bin Laden's network
http://www.iol.co.za/general/newsview.php?art_id=qw100339848123B221&click_id=3&set_id=1

But now with your connection to Ahmadinejad using the same verbage, it makes you wonder if they all have the same speechwiter.

[Velveeta]

>>>>>If, to make a self-fulfilling prophecy, they cannot literally make "the sea" swallow NYC (like the men apprehended looking to blow up one of the tunnels recently), then they could make an attack from the sea swallow NYC.

Yes, I agree. In addition, they'll still try another planes operation and as we discussed - who knows what else.

Boat stolen from Hudson, stripped
http://www.thejournalnews.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20061004/NEWS03/610040357/1023/NEWS07

Foreign nuke scans could speed cargo through U.S. ports
http://www.newsday.com/news/local/wire/newjersey/ny-bc-nj--portsecurity1003oct03,0,3395449.story?coll=ny-region-apnewjersey

[Velveeta]

Thank you for the recap.

[Velveeta]

THE JIHAD ON KING
CNN'S OUTRAGEOUS SMEAR
STEVEN EMERSON
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10042006/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_jihad_on_king_opedcolumnists_steven_emerson.htm

[Velveeta]

~Crosspost

We Will Cut Off Tongues of Those Who Try to Distort Islam With Reform and Progress
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1713382/posts

[Velveeta]

FBI says airplane stolen from Marathon has been found in Cuba
http://www.sun-sentinel.com/news/local/broward/sfl-ccubaplane04oct04,0,3738236.story?coll=sfla-news-broward


Pa. man charged with trying to help al-Qaida blow up refineries in at least 3 states
http://www3.whdh.com/news/articles/national/BO30118/

[tmp02]

Look what is really happening...



If you're one of the few remaining citizens in the country who still thinks the US has a free press, take a look at the covers of the international editions of Newsweek (or should I say Newsweak?). Europe, Asia and Latin America feature the exact same cover story on America "Losing Afghanistan" and the "Rise of Jihadistan." Special thanks to What Really Happened for first pointing out Newsweak's cover discrepancy. Excerpt: The harsh truth is that five years after the U.S. invasion on Oct. 7, 2001 …[much of ] Afghanistan appears to be failing again. Most worrisome, a new failed-state sanctuary is emerging across thousands of square miles along the Afghan-Pakistan border: "Jihadistan," it could be called. It's an autonomous quasi state of religious radicals… [that] extends well across the Pakistan border where, despite close cooperation between the U.S. and Pakistani militaries, jihadist militants … have begun calling themselves "Pakistani Taliban." No longer worried about interference from Islamabad, they openly recruit young men to fight in Afghanistan… This assessment supports the recent US intelligence report that terrorists "are increasing in both number and geographic dispersion," something Rumsfeld seems inexplicably confused about: "Are more terrorists being created in the world? We don't know," said Rumsfeld, adding that there are no good ways to measure. "The world doesn't know. There aren't good ways to measure how many terrorists are being trained at camps around the world." Why is Newsweak gently shielding Americans from this news, and instead giving us a puff piece on a celebrity photographer? By any objective measure, is Annie Leibovitz's "Life in Pictures" a more significant story than what is happening in Afghanistan? Apparently, it is all about keeping up appearances in the run-up to the November elections.


http://www.financialsense.com/fsu/editorials/nystrom/2006/1002.html

[tmp02]

...it looks as if we are fighting the media, not AQ...but we knew that...

[Godzilla]

bookmark

[KylaStarr]

Valero refinery in Houston:

http://abclocal.go.com/ktrk/story?section=local&id=4626735

>>At approximately 9:35am the Valero refinery had an incident in the refinery which caused the refinery to sound the alarm. We are surveying the community for any impact and we are in the process of accounting for personnel and notifying agencies."
According to the Houston Fire Department, sulfur dioxide was spilled. Eyewitness News has learned about 40 patients are being treated. Some have been transported to Memorial Hermann Hospital. <<

[Kimberly GG]

According to Fox:

US has detected activity around sites in North Korea.

[Cindy]

From your article Velveeta, I see there is a reward offered in this case.
----


"Boat stolen from Hudson, stripped"
By GERALD MCKINSTRY
THE JOURNAL NEWS
Reward offered

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "The couple whose $200,000 boat was stolen and stripped are offering a $1,000 reward for information. Call the Piermont police at 845-359-0240."




(Original publication: October 4, 2006)


ARTICLE SNIPPET: PIERMONT — Police are investigating a case of piracy on the waterfront, and a village boat owner fears the scallywags may strike again.

The new 32-foot Century Walk Around fishing cruiser belonging to Nancy Lucianna and her husband, Bob Biroc, disappeared over the weekend from the waters near their home while they were sleeping. It was later found far down the Hudson River, picked clean."


ARTICLE SNIPPET: "It was found by the New York Police Department's Marine Unit at 11 a.m. Saturday, floating near the George Washington Bridge in Fort Lee, O'Shea said.

"It was cannibalized," Lucianna said after she viewed the 2006 boat at an impound area at Randall's Island and saw that it had been stripped of the seats, fittings and its pair of 800-pound engines. "It was just a fiberglass shell.""

[Cindy]

REPORT SNIPPET - QUOTE:
http://www.icc-ccs.org/prc/piracyreport.php

Weekly Piracy Report
26 September-2 October 2006

The following is a summary of the daily reports broadcast by the IMB's Piracy Reporting Centre to ships in Atlantic, Indian and Pacific Ocean Regions on the SafetyNET service of Inmarsat-C from 26 September to 2 October 2006.

ALERT

Chittagong anchorage, Bangladesh
Thirty three incidents have been reported since 28.01.2006. Pirates are targeting ships preparing to anchor. Ships are advised to take extra precautions.

The IMB Report on Piracy and Armed Attacks on Ships from January to June 2006 is now published. Please see the end of this page to order.

Suspicious crafts

None reported during the week.
Recently reported incidents

02.10.2006 in posn 15:24.82N - 066:21.62E, Arabian Sea.
Two fishing boats came close to a bulk carrier underway and persons inside tried to board. Vessel increased speed and boats stop following.

01.10.2006 at 0300 LT in posn 05:52.8S - 106:04.15E, Sulfindo Jetty, Indonesia.
Four robbers in a motorboat approached a bulk carrier at port quarter during cargo operations and three robbers boarded. D/0 raised alarm and crew mustered. Robbers jumped overboard and escaped empty handed.

01.10.2006 at 0523 UTC in posn 24:05.5S - 046:21.5W, Santos outer anchorage area no.4, Brazil.
Eight robbers wearing black clothes came alongside a container ship at port side and one robber boarded. D/O raised alarm, sounded whistle and crew mustered and the robber escaped.

24.09.2006 at Visakhapatnam anchorage, India.
Robbers boarded a bulk carrier and stole engine spares. Incident was reported to authorities.

[Cindy]

You're welcome.

[Cindy]

"it looks as if we are fighting the media"

That's a very good point.

That is why the hunger for timely and factual news has enabled good blogs to thrive.

[Cindy]

Thank you KylaStarr.

From you article:

SNIPPET: "The plant was in the middle of being shut down for normal maintenance when the gas leak occurred, said Valero spokesman Fred Newhouse.

Company officials did not immediately know if there was a direct relationship between the plant's shutdown and the gas leak from a sulfuric acid tank, or if something else caused the vapor release."

Updates appreciated.

[BurbankKarl]

AP reporting of FBI raids at two spinach packaging companies in Salinas, CA this morning.

[Cindy]

ON THE NET...

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/keyword?k=shannenrossmiller

http://philadelphia.fbi.gov/pressrel.htm

http://blogsearch.google.com/blogsearch?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=%22Michael+Curtis+Reynolds%22&scoring=d

http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&tab=wn&ie=UTF-8&q=%22Michael+Curtis+Reynolds%22&scoring=d

===
===

THANKS to Velveeta for pointing to this article:

http://www3.whdh.com/news/articles/national/BO30118/

"Pa. man charged with trying to help al-Qaida blow up refineries in at least 3 states"

ARTICLE SNIPPET: "PHILADELPHIA -- A federal grand jury indicted a man on charges of offering to help al-Qaida blow up fuel facilities in at least three states.

Michael Curtis Reynolds was charged in U.S. District Court in Scranton Tuesday with two counts of providing material support for a terrorist organization and two counts of seeking to take part in the destruction of property used in interstate or foreign commerce.

He was already awaiting trial in the case on two counts of unlawful possession of a firearm or an explosive device.

The FBI arrested Reynolds in December after authorities said he tried to meet a purported al-Qaida contact in a sting operation about 25 miles from a motel in Pocatello, Idaho, where he had been staying.

Authorities said he expected to receive $40,000 to finance an alleged plot to blow up pipelines and refineries. The man Reynolds met with was a Montana judge who was working for the FBI."

[nwctwx]

'Al-Qaida in Palestine' Posts Web Video

A group calling itself al-Qaida in Palestine posted a Web video Wednesday denouncing those who "work in the service of the Jews."

The 5-minute video contains previously-aired clips of Osama bin Laden and slain al-Qaida in Iraq leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, as well as footage of a masked man sitting alongside an automatic weapon and a rocket-propelled grenade launcher.

"My speech is directed against... those who announce blasphemy against Islam and who are allied with enemies of God and religion, and work in the service of the Jews and the Christians," the man said.

It was unclear how large or sophisticated the group was, or whether it was indeed linked to al-Qaida. It has never claimed responsibility for any attacks.

A senior Palestinian security official in Gaza said he had never heard of Abu Hafs and could not confirm or deny the existence of this group.

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