World Terrorism: News, History and Research Of A Changing World #6 Disinformation, Inc.

VEVAK learned its methodology from the Soviet KGB and many of the Islamist revolutionaries who supported Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini actually studied at Moscow's Patrice Lumumba Friendship University, the Oxford of terrorism. Documented Iranian alumni include the current Supreme Leader (the faqih) Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, under whose Velayat-e Faqih (Rule of the Islamic Jurisprudent) apparatus it has traditionally operated. Its current head is Cabinet Minister Hojatoleslam Gholam-Hussein Mohseni-Ezhei, a graduate of Qom's Haqqani School, noted for its extremist position advocating violence against enemies and strict clerical control of society and government. The Ministry is very well funded and its charge, like that of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (the Pasdaran) is to guard the revolutionary Islamic Iranian regime at all costs and under all contingencies.

From the KGB playbook, VEVAK learned the art of disinformation. It's not so difficult to learn: tell the truth 80% of the time and lie 20%. Depending on how well a VEVAK agent wants to cover his/her tracks, the ratio may go up to 90/10, but it never drops below the 80/20 mark as such would risk suspicion and possible detection. The regime in Teheran has gone to great lengths to place its agents in locations around the world. Many of these operatives have been educated in the West, including the U.K. and the United States. Iranian government agencies such as embassies, consulates, Islamic cultural centers, and airline offices regularly provide cover for the work of VEVAK agents who dress well and are clean shaven, and move comfortably within our society. In this country, because of the severance of diplomatic relations, the principal site of VEVAK activities begins at the offices of Iran's Permanent Mission to the UN in New York.

Teheran has worked diligently to place its operatives in important think tanks and government agencies in the West. Some of its personnel have been recruited while in prison through torture or more often through bribery, or a combination of both. Others are Islamist revolutionaries that have been set up to look like dissidents - often having been arrested and imprisoned, but released for “medical reasons”. The clue to detecting the fake “dissident” is to read carefully what he/she writes, and to ask why this vocal “dissident” was released from prison when other real dissidents have not been released, indeed have been grievously tortured and executed. Other agents have been placed in this country for over twenty-five years to slowly go through the system and rise to positions of academic prominence due to their knowledge of Farsi and Shia Islam or Islamist fundamentalism.

One of the usual tactics of VEVAK is to co-opt academia to its purposes. Using various forms of bribery, academics are bought to defend the Islamic Republic or slander its enemies. Another method is to assign bright students to train for academic posts as specialists in Iranian or Middle East affairs. Once established, such individuals are often consulted by our government as it tries to get a better idea of how it should deal with Iran. These academics then are in a position to skew the information, suggesting the utility of extended dialogue and negotiation, or the danger and futility of confronting a strong Iran or its proxies such as Hizballah (Hezbollah). These academics serve to shield the regime from an aggressive American or Western policy, and thereby buy more time for the regime to attain its goals, especially in regards to its nuclear weaponry and missile programs.

MOIS likes to use the media, especially electronic media, to its advantage. One of VEVAK's favorite tricks is setting up web sites that look like they are opposition sites but which are actually controlled by the regime. These sites often will be multilingual, including Farsi, German, Arabic French, and English. Some are crafted carefully and are very subtle in how they skew their information (e.g., Iran-Interlink, set up and run by Massoud Khodabandeh and his wife Ann Singleton from Leeds, England); others are less subtle, simply providing the regime's point of view on facts and events in the news (e.g., www.mujahedeen.com or www.mojahedin.ws). This latter group is aimed at the more gullible in our open society and unfortunately such a market exists. However, if one begins to do one's homework, asking careful questions, the material on these fake sites generally does not add up.

Let's examine a few examples of VEVAK's work in the United States. In late October, 2005, VEVAK sent three of its agents to Washington to stage a press event in which the principal Iranian resistance movement, the Mojahedin-e Khalq (MeK), was to be slandered. Veteran VEVAK agent Karim Haqi flew from Amsterdam to Canada where he was joined by VEVAK's Ottawa agents Amir-Hossein Kord Rostami and Mahin (Parvin-Mahrokh) Haji, and the three flew from Toronto to Washington. Fortunately the resistance had been tracking these three, informed the FBI of their presence in Washington, and when the three tried to hold a press conference, the resistance had people assigned to ask pointed questions of them so that they ended the interview prematurely and fled back to Canada.

Abolghasem Bayyenet is a member of the Iranian government. He serves as a trade expert for the Ministry of Commerce. But his background of study and service in the Foreign Ministry indicates that Bayyenet is more than just an economist or a suave and savvy businessman. In an article published in Global Politician on April 23, 2006, entitled “Is Regime Change Possible in Iran?”, Bayyenet leads his audience to think that he is a neutral observer, concerned lest the United States make an error in its assessment of Iran similar to the errors of intelligence and judgment that led to our 2003 invasion of Iraq, with its less than successful outcome. However, his carefully crafted bottom line is that the people of Iran are not going to support regime change and that hardliner President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad actually has achieved greater popularity than his predecessors because of his concern for the problems of the poor and his fight for economic and social justice. To the naive, Bayyenet makes Ahmadinejad sound positively saintly. Conveniently overlooked is the occurrence of over four thousand acts of protest, strikes, anti-regime rallies, riots, and even political assassinations by the people of Iran against the government in the year since Ahmadinejad assumed office. So too, the following facts are ignored: the sizeable flight of capital, the increase in unemployment, and the rising two-figure rate of inflation, all within this last year. Bayyenet is a regime apologist, and when one is familiar with the facts, his arguments ring very hollow. However, his English skills are excellent, and so the naОve might be beguiled by his commentary.

Mohsen Sazegara is VEVAK's “reformed revolutionary”. A student supporter of Khomeini before the 1979 revolution, Sazegara joined the “imam” on his return from exile and served in the government for a decade before supposedly growing disillusioned.

He formed several reformist newspapers but ran afoul of the hardliners in 2003 and was arrested and imprisoned by VEVAK. Following “hunger strikes”, Sazegara was released for health reasons and permitted to seek treatment abroad. Although critical of the government and particularly of Ahmadinejad and KhameneМ, Sazegara is yet more critical of opposition groups, leaving the impression that he favors internal regime change but sees no one to lead such a movement for the foreseeable future. His bottom line: no one is capable of doing what needs to be done, so we must bide our time. Very slick, but his shadow shows his likely remaining ties to the MOIS.

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/The_Rise_And_Rise_Of_alQaidastan_999.html
The Rise And Rise Of alQaidastan

The Waziristan province of Pakistan, along the border with Afghanistan.
by Laura Heaton
UPI Intelligence Correspondent
Washington (UPI) Feb 23, 2007
Assessments from the intelligence community revealed in news reports this week indicate that al-Qaida is operating with renewed strength. Groups branching out from the Middle East pledge allegiance to core al-Qaida leaders somewhere in the mountains of Pakistan, reports say. The overall message of these reports isn't particularly new, but they do provide more details about how and where al-Qaida's resurgence is taking place.

Since its move from Afghanistan to Pakistan, it appears that al-Qaida has launched a new type of training camp -- small centers for training just 10 -20 aspiring terrorists. In a recent piece for The New Republic, journalist Peter Bergen cited a senior American military official as saying, "People want to see barracks. [In fact] the camps use dry riverbeds for shooting and are housed in compounds for 20 people, where they are taught calisthenics and bomb-making."

A New York Times report states that while the intelligence community has focused on the threat of attacks in Afghanistan from the Taliban in Pakistan and from Pakistani militias, there is a growing concern about al-Qaida leadership in northern Pakistan. Al-Qaida has long been known to operate from the mountainous region of North Waziristan, but the renewed concern surrounds intelligence indicating that bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri may be building an operations hub in that remote area.

The report indicates "the United States has also identified several new al-Qaida compounds in North Waziristan, including one that officials said might be training operatives for strikes against targets beyond Afghanistan."

Peter Bergen says that this "comfortable home" that al-Qaida found in the tribal areas of northern Pakistan is likely going to remain that way, and it may become even more welcoming. Peace agreements between Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and local militants in some of these tribal areas will likely result in the Pakistani army pulling out of the region, which can only give al-Qaida more free rein.

Reports also note an increase in the number of statements released by al-Qaida's leaders. The fact that As Sahab, al-Qaida's communication branch, produced three times as many videotapes in 2006 compared to 2005 is another sign of thwe terror group's vitality, U.S. intelligence officials said.

Within the Middle East, al-Qaida has become more cohesive, as suggested by similarities in the tactics used by insurgents on various battlegrounds. The increase in suicide bombings, improvised explosive devices, and beheading of hostages in Afghanistan points to a link between al-Qaida affiliates in Afghanistan and Iraq, reports indicate.

Following The New York Times front page story on Monday proclaiming that al-Qaida leaders and the organization as a whole are apparently gaining strength, a series of reports elaborated on this story. Al-Qaida is making a comeback through organizations in countries outside traditional al-Qaida territory, they said.

Craig Whitlock of The Washington Post reported that fighters from Morocco are traveling to Iraq to join the al-Qaida-backed insurgency there.

Craig Smith from The New York Times tracked a number of developments in terrorist factions in North Africa that indicate that formerly separate groups are banding together to create dedicated al-Qaida outposts throughout the Maghreb. Given their proximity to potential targets in Europe, these groups present an ideal opportunity for al-Qaida expansion and a major concern for European governments.

These reports are in stark contrast to the impressions many Bush administration officials have been giving of al-Qaida "on the run" or "in decline."

But even within the U.S. government it is recognized that al-Qaida could be on the rise. In April 2006, the Bush administration's own National Intelligence Estimate on "Trends in Global Terrorism: Implications for the United States" found that "the Iraq war has become the 'cause celebre' for jihadists...and is shaping a new generation of terrorist leaders and operatives."

Then in mid-January, Lt. Gen. Michael Maples, U.S. Army Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency, told the Senate Intelligence Committee that al-Qaida is "the largest and most active of the Iraq-based terrorist groups."

Journalists have long been aware that al-Qaida ideology inspires terrorist groups around the world, and reports about the trend have been published intermittently during the past few years. Bergen, for one, wrote an opinion piece for The Washington Post in July 2006 highlighting the same assessments from the intelligence community that supposedly emerged this week.

The Post's Craig Whitlock indicated in his piece about Moroccan fighters that the mosque and the slum from which these Islamists are recruited have long been under surveillance by counterterrorism investigators. Five men accused of carrying out the Madrid train bombings of March 2004 were from this area.

So perhaps what is most remarkable about this spate of reports about the resurgence of al-Qaida is not so much the content but the timing. Who are these anonymous intelligence officials, and what is their motivation for "revealing" these assessments right now?

It is possible that the recent flood of articles is simply an effect of media hype, but it could also indicate the intention of the unidentified sources to send a message: either to the American public, stressing the importance of staying on task in the "global war on terror," or to so-called U.S. partners in that war (read: Pakistan), indicating that the "ally" ruse is up.

I could just say "Here are the photos of all the Kurds that Saddam killed with poison", but it is important that we know what it was and how it smelled and how it acts, as the terrorist of today, will use the same formula, if given the chance, the photos will be shocking, if you have not seen them before.
granny

http://www.kdp.pp.se/old/chemical.html

Issue of 2002-03-25
Posted 2002-03-25

In the late morning of March 16, 1988, an Iraqi Air Force helicopter appeared over the city of Halabja, which is about fifteen miles from the border with Iran. The Iran-Iraq War was then in its eighth year, and Halabja was near the front lines. At the time, the city was home to roughly eighty thousand Kurds, who were well accustomed to the proximity of violence to ordinary life. Like most of Iraqi Kurdistan, Halabja was in perpetual revolt against the regime of Saddam Hussein, and its inhabitants were supporters of the peshmerga, the Kurdish fighters whose name means "those who face death."

A young woman named Nasreen Abdel Qadir Muhammad was outside her family's house, preparing food, when she saw the helicopter. The Iranians and the peshmerga had just attacked Iraqi military outposts around Halabja, forcing Saddam's soldiers to retreat. Iranian Revolutionary Guards then infiltrated the city, and the residents assumed that an Iraqi counterattack was imminent. Nasreen and her family expected to spend yet another day in their cellar, which was crude and dark but solid enough to withstand artillery shelling, and even napalm.

"At about ten o'clock, maybe closer to ten-thirty, I saw the helicopter," Nasreen told me. "It was not attacking, though. There were men inside it, taking pictures. One had a regular camera, and the other held what looked like a video camera. They were coming very close. Then they went away."

Nasreen thought that the sight was strange, but she was preoccupied with lunch; she and her sister Rangeen were preparing rice, bread, and beans for the thirty or forty relatives who were taking shelter in the cellar. Rangeen was fifteen at the time. Nasreen was just sixteen, but her father had married her off several months earlier, to a cousin, a thirty-year-old physician's assistant named Bakhtiar Abdul Aziz. Halabja is a conservative place, and many more women wear the veil than in the more cosmopolitan Kurdish cities to the northwest and the Arab cities to the south.

The bombardment began shortly before eleven. The Iraqi Army, positioned on the main road from the nearby town of Sayid Sadiq, fired artillery shells into Halabja, and the Air Force began dropping what is thought to have been napalm on the town, especially the northern area. Nasreen and Rangeen rushed to the cellar. Nasreen prayed that Bakhtiar, who was then outside the city, would find shelter.

The attack had ebbed by about two o'clock, and Nasreen made her way carefully upstairs to the kitchen, to get the food for the family. "At the end of the bombing, the sound changed," she said. "It wasn't so loud. It was like pieces of metal just dropping without exploding. We didn't know why it was so quiet."

A short distance away, in a neighborhood still called the Julakan, or Jewish quarter, even though Halabja's Jews left for Israel in the nineteen-fifties, a middle-aged man named Muhammad came up from his own cellar and saw an unusual sight: "A helicopter had come back to the town, and the soldiers were throwing white pieces of paper out the side." In retrospect, he understood that they were measuring wind speed and direction. Nearby, a man named Awat Omer, who was twenty at the time, was overwhelmed by a smell of garlic and apples.

Nasreen gathered the food quickly, but she, too, noticed a series of odd smells carried into the house by the wind. "At first, it smelled bad, like garbage," she said. "And then it was a good smell, like sweet apples. Then like eggs." Before she went downstairs, she happened to check on a caged partridge that her father kept in the house. "The bird was dying," she said. "It was on its side." She looked out the window. "It was very quiet, but the animals were dying. The sheep and goats were dying." Nasreen ran to the cellar. "I told everybody there was something wrong. There was something wrong with the air."

The people in the cellar were panicked. They had fled downstairs to escape the bombardment, and it was difficult to abandon their shelter. Only splinters of light penetrated the basement, but the dark provided a strange comfort. "We wanted to stay in hiding, even though we were getting sick," Nasreen said. She felt a sharp pain in her eyes, like stabbing needles. "My sister came close to my face and said, 'Your eyes are very red.' Then the children started throwing up. They kept throwing up. They were in so much pain, and crying so much. They were crying all the time. My mother was crying. Then the old people started throwing up."

Chemical weapons had been dropped on Halabja by the Iraqi Air Force, which understood that any underground shelter would become a gas chamber. "My uncle said we should go outside," Nasreen said. "We knew there were chemicals in the air. We were getting red eyes, and some of us had liquid coming out of them. We decided to run." Nasreen and her relatives stepped outside gingerly. "Our cow was lying on its side," she recalled. "It was breathing very fast, as if it had been running. The leaves were falling off the trees, even though it was spring. The partridge was dead. There were smoke clouds around, clinging to the ground. The gas was heavier than the air, and it was finding the wells and going down the wells."

The family judged the direction of the wind, and decided to run the opposite way. Running proved difficult. "The children couldn't walk, they were so sick," Nasreen said. "They were exhausted from throwing up. We carried them in our arms."

Across the city, other families were making similar decisions. Nouri Hama Ali, who lived in the northern part of town, decided to lead his family in the direction of Anab, a collective settlement on the outskirts of Halabja that housed Kurds displaced when the Iraqi Army destroyed their villages. "On the road to Anab, many of the women and children began to die," Nouri told me. "The chemical clouds were on the ground. They were heavy. We could see them." People were dying all around, he said. When a child could not go on, the parents, becoming hysterical with fear, abandoned him. "Many children were left on the ground, by the side of the road. Old people as well. They were running, then they would stop breathing and die."

Nasreen's family did not move quickly. "We wanted to wash ourselves off and find water to drink," she said. "We wanted to wash the faces of the children who were vomiting. The children were crying for water. There was powder on the ground, white. We couldn't decide whether to drink the water or not, but some people drank the water from the well they were so thirsty."

They ran in a panic through the city, Nasreen recalled, in the direction of Anab. The bombardment continued intermittently, Air Force planes circling overhead. "People were showing different symptoms. One person touched some of the powder, and her skin started bubbling."

A truck came by, driven by a neighbor. People threw themselves aboard. "We saw people lying frozen on the ground," Nasreen told me. "There was a small baby on the ground, away from her mother. I thought they were both sleeping. But she had dropped the baby and then died. And I think the baby tried to crawl away, but it died, too. It looked like everyone was sleeping."

At that moment, Nasreen believed that she and her family would make it to high ground and live. Then the truck stopped. "The driver said he couldn't go on, and he wandered away. He left his wife in the back of the truck. He told us to flee if we could. The chemicals affected his brain, because why else would someone abandon his family?"

As heavy clouds of gas smothered the city, people became sick and confused. Awat Omer was trapped in his cellar with his family; he said that his brother began laughing uncontrollably and then stripped off his clothes, and soon afterward he died. As night fell, the family's children grew sicker—too sick to move.

Nasreen's husband could not be found, and she began to think that all was lost. She led the children who were able to walk up the road.

In another neighborhood, Muhammad Ahmed Fattah, who was twenty, was overwhelmed by an oddly sweet odor of sulfur, and he, too, realized that he must evacuate his family; there were about a hundred and sixty people wedged into the cellar. "I saw the bomb drop," Muhammad told me. "It was about thirty metres from the house. I shut the door to the cellar. There was shouting and crying in the cellar, and then people became short of breath." One of the first to be stricken by the gas was Muhammad's brother Salah. "His eyes were pink," Muhammad recalled. "There was something coming out of his eyes. He was so thirsty he was demanding water." Others in the basement began suffering tremors.

March 16th was supposed to be Muhammad's wedding day. "Every preparation was done," he said. His fiancée, a woman named Bahar Jamal, was among the first in the cellar to die. "She was crying very hard," Muhammad recalled. "I tried to calm her down. I told her it was just the usual artillery shells, but it didn't smell the usual way weapons smelled. She was smart, she knew what was happening. She died on the stairs. Her father tried to help her, but it was too late."

Death came quickly to others as well. A woman named Hamida Mahmoud tried to save her two-year-old daughter by allowing her to nurse from her breast. Hamida thought that the baby wouldn't breathe in the gas if she was nursing, Muhammad said, adding, "The baby's name was Dashneh. She nursed for a long time. Her mother died while she was nursing. But she kept nursing." By the time Muhammad decided to go outside, most of the people in the basement were unconscious; many were dead, including his parents and three of his siblings.

Nasreen said that on the road to Anab all was confusion. She and the children were running toward the hills, but they were going blind. "The children were crying, 'We can't see! My eyes are bleeding!' " In the chaos, the family got separated. Nasreen's mother and father were both lost. Nasreen and several of her cousins and siblings inadvertently led the younger children in a circle, back into the city. Someone—she doesn't know who—led them away from the city again and up a hill, to a small mosque, where they sought shelter. "But we didn't stay in the mosque, because we thought it would be a target," Nasreen said. They went to a small house nearby, and Nasreen scrambled to find food and water for the children. By then, it was night, and she was exhausted.

Bakhtiar, Nasreen's husband, was frantic. Outside the city when the attacks started, he had spent much of the day searching for his wife and the rest of his family. He had acquired from a clinic two syringes of atropine, a drug that helps to counter the effects of nerve agents. He injected himself with one of the syringes, and set out to find Nasreen. He had no hope. "My plan was to bury her," he said. "At least I should bury my new wife."

After hours of searching, Bakhtiar met some neighbors, who remembered seeing Nasreen and the children moving toward the mosque on the hill. "I called out the name Nasreen," he said. "I heard crying, and I went inside the house. When I got there, I found that Nasreen was alive but blind. Everybody was blind."

Nasreen had lost her sight about an hour or two before Bakhtiar found her. She had been searching the house for food, so that she could feed the children, when her eyesight failed. "I found some milk and I felt my way to them and then I found their mouths and gave them milk," she said.

Bakhtiar organized the children. "I wanted to bring them to the well. I washed their heads. I took them two by two and washed their heads. Some of them couldn't come. They couldn't control their muscles."

Bakhtiar still had one syringe of atropine, but he did not inject his wife; she was not the worst off in the group. "There was a woman named Asme, who was my neighbor," Bakhtiar recalled. "She was not able to breathe. She was yelling and she was running into a wall, crashing her head into a wall. I gave the atropine to this woman." Asme died soon afterward. "I could have used it for Nasreen," Bakhtiar said. "I could have."

After the Iraqi bombardment subsided, the Iranians managed to retake Halabja, and they evacuated many of the sick, including Nasreen and the others in her family, to hospitals in Tehran.

Nasreen was blind for twenty days. "I was thinking the whole time, Where is my family? But I was blind. I couldn't do anything. I asked my husband about my mother, but he said he didn't know anything. He was looking in hospitals, he said. He was avoiding the question."

The Iranian Red Crescent Society, the equivalent of the Red Cross, began compiling books of photographs, pictures of the dead in Halabja. "The Red Crescent has an album of the people who were buried in Iran," Nasreen said. "And we found my mother in one of the albums." Her father, she discovered, was alive but permanently blinded. Five of her siblings, including Rangeen, had died.

Nasreen would live, the doctors said, but she kept a secret from Bakhtiar: "When I was in the hospital, I started menstruating. It wouldn't stop. I kept bleeding. We don't talk about this in our society, but eventually a lot of women in the hospital confessed they were also menstruating and couldn't stop." Doctors gave her drugs that stopped the bleeding, but they told her that she would be unable to bear children.

Nasreen stayed in Iran for several months, but eventually she and Bakhtiar returned to Kurdistan. She didn't believe the doctors who told her that she would be infertile, and in 1991 she gave birth to a boy. "We named him Arazoo," she said. Arazoo means hope in Kurdish. "He was healthy at first, but he had a hole in his heart. He died at the age of three months."

I met Nasreen last month in Erbil, the largest city in Iraqi Kurdistan. She is thirty now, a pretty woman with brown eyes and high cheekbones, but her face is expressionless. She doesn't seek pity; she would, however, like a doctor to help her with a cough that she's had ever since the attack, fourteen years ago. Like many of Saddam Hussein's victims, she tells her story without emotion.

There is much more to read.......................

http://dangermanagement.typepad.com/danger_management/2007/02/saddams_wmd_pro_1.html

February 25, 2007
Saddam's WMD Proof

Last March, the federal government set up a Web site to make public a vast archive of Iraqi documents captured during the war.

But in recent weeks, the site has posted some documents that weapons experts say are a danger themselves: detailed accounts of Iraq’s secret nuclear research before the 1991 Persian Gulf war. The documents, the experts say, constitute a basic guide to building an atom bomb.

The government shut down the Web site.

Officials of the International Atomic Energy Agency, fearing that the information could help states like Iran develop nuclear arms, had privately protested last week to the American ambassador to the agency, according to European diplomats who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the issue’s sensitivity. One diplomat said the agency’s technical experts “were shocked” at the public disclosures.

Early this morning, a spokesman for Gregory L. Schulte, the American ambassador, denied that anyone from the agency had approached Mr. Schulte about the Web site.

The documents, roughly a dozen in number, contain charts, diagrams, equations and lengthy narratives about bomb building that nuclear experts who have viewed them say go beyond what is available elsewhere on the Internet and in other public forums. For instance, the papers give detailed information on how to build nuclear firing circuits and triggering explosives, as well as the radioactive cores of atom bombs.

“For the U.S. to toss a match into this flammable area is very irresponsible,” said A. Bryan Siebert, a former director of classification at the federal Department of Energy, which runs the nation’s nuclear arms program. “There’s a lot of things about nuclear weapons that are secret and should remain so.”

The government had received earlier warnings about the contents of the Web site. Last spring, after the site began posting old Iraqi documents about chemical weapons, United Nations arms-control officials in New York won the withdrawal of a report that gave information on how to make tabun and sarin, nerve agents that kill by causing respiratory failure.

Among the dozens of documents in English were Iraqi reports written in the 1990s and in 2002 for United Nations inspectors in charge of making sure Iraq had abandoned its unconventional arms programs after the Persian Gulf war. Experts say that at the time, Mr. Hussein’s scientists were on the verge of building an atom bomb, as little as a year away.

In Europe, a senior diplomat said atomic experts there had studied the nuclear documents on the Web site and judged their public release as potentially dangerous. “It’s a cookbook,” said the diplomat, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of his agency’s rules. “If you had this, it would short-circuit a lot of things.”

Ray E. Kidder, a nuclear physicist in California, an arms design center, said “some things in these documents would be helpful” to nations aspiring to develop nuclear weapons and should have remained secret.

Some of the first posted documents dealt with Iraq’s program to make germ weapons, followed by a wave of papers on chemical arms.

In September, the Web site began posting the nuclear documents, and some soon raised concerns. On Sept. 12, it posted a document it called “Progress of Iraqi nuclear program circa 1995.”

On Sept. 20, the site posted a much larger document, “Summary of technical achievements of Iraq’s former nuclear program.” It runs to 51 pages, 18 focusing on the development of Iraq’s bomb design. Topics included physical theory, the atomic core and high-explosive experiments. By early October, diplomats and officials said, United Nations arms inspectors in New York and their counterparts in Vienna were alarmed and discussing what to do.

February 25, 2007

Terror attack thwarted in Philly? Black Muslim planned bombs in Center City Mall as "domestic terror against white Americans" in 2003

February 22, 2007

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/16744058.htm
One on trial blames another: His twin brother
By John Shiffman
Inquirer Staff Writer

Andre L. Henry - who stands accused of violent crimes against a police officer, two banks, two grand-jury witnesses, and eight fast-food restaurants - has offered jurors in his trial an unusual defense. The man secretly recorded in a prison cell confessing? Not him, Henry testified. It was his twin brother; they had traded cells in prison. "We figured, why not?" Henry told jurors. "Who would know?" A federal jury in Philadelphia is expected to begin deliberating Henry's fate this morning. If convicted of the most violent charges - including car-jacking and solicitation to murder - he probably faces life in prison. In closing arguments yesterday, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michelle Rotella mocked Henry's assertion, and said the government had provided ample evidence that Henry doesn't have a twin brother. "His story is just absurd," Rotella told the jury. Federal officials say Henry is an extremely violent man. In addition to the charges in this case, he faces state murder charges and, according to grand jury testimony, was investigated for an alleged plot to detonate pipe bombs inside the Gallery at Market East mall.

The alleged 2003 plot against shoppers and commuters at the Center City mall had not been previously reported. Henry was never charged with terror-related crimes; he and his lawyer, Christopher Warren, have denied that any attack was planned. Jurors in his trial have not been told directly about the alleged Gallery plan. But during cross-examination, Henry unexpectedly began to talk about it, accusing Rotella of fabricating evidence against his family. "When the public hears about domestic terrorism, they're going to want to know what happened," Henry said. "Were these guys actual terrorists? What happened?" "You were arrested, Mr. Henry," Rotella shot back. "That's what happened." The government's best evidence of a terror plot is the secret recording of Henry made by his cell mate - an unredacted copy of which was reviewed by The Inquirer. At one point, Henry, who is a black Muslim, said on tape that the purpose of the blasts, timed for rush hour near the Market East SEPTA station, would represent "domestic terrorism" against white Americans. At another point on the recording, however, Henry said the purpose would be to divert Philadelphia police long enough to pull off a major bank robbery. "Prior to robbing the bank, he was going to plant 17 pipe bombs in the Gallery," the cell mate, Kreg Williams, said during grand-jury testimony. When Henry was arrested on a parole violation in 2003, agents from the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said they had found materials for making pipe bombs in his trunk. In the basement of Henry's home, agents said, they found a Glock pistol, a Fanchini shotgun, a Marlin rifle, a Romanian AK-47 assault rifle, a Point Blank bulletproof vest, $14,000 in pink-dye-stained cash, and photos of Henry and others holding weapons.

As Henry sat in prison on the parole charge, the ATF received a letter from Williams. "Henry's case is much more involved than the weapons...," Williams wrote. "I can wear a wire and get all the evidence on tape." Williams, a self-styled jailhouse paralegal, was fitted with a wire. Under the guise of helping Henry prepare his legal case, Williams got him to talk. Besides speaking about the alleged Gallery plot, Henry was recorded speaking about a car-jacking, a plan to kill a grand-jury witness, a 2003 shoot-out with a Philadelphia police officer, and two bank robberies. In a tape excerpt played at trial, Henry described one of the bank robberies: "I jumped over the counter, and I emptied the drawers, and I told the manager to open up the... vault." Henry is also charged with making straw gun purchases - using women who did not have criminal records to buy his weapons, including six assault rifles. In closing arguments, Warren reminded jurors that most witnesses against Henry had testified hoping to reduce their prison sentences. The lawyer also noted that authorities had failed to obtain incriminating fingerprints or DNA from a trove of evidence, including the cash, seized at Henry's home.

MIM: In this follow up article there is no mention made that Henry is a convert to Islam nor the reasons for his allegedly planned terror plot to plant pipebombs in the Gallery Mall ( a multi storied shopping center which also serves as a transit hub) and that the judge sealed the transcripts.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/news/local/16762708.htm

City man guilty of 27 crimes, all violent

He also was accused, but not charged, in a plot to detonate multiple pipe bombs in the food court at the Gallery.

By John Shiffman

Inquirer Staff Writer

A Philadelphia man secretly recorded on tape talking about a plot to detonate pipe bombs inside the Gallery at Market East mall was convicted yesterday of 27 unrelated violent crimes that are likely to send him to prison for life.

The verdicts against Andre L. Henry are significant, federal authorities said, because they represent a brazen case of a felon using women with clean records to make straw gun purchases, then using the weapons in a crime spree.

The jury found that shortly after the women helped Henry buy assault rifles, shotguns and handguns in 2003, he robbed two banks and seven fast-food restaurants, fired shots at a Philadelphia police officer and solicited the murder of grand-jury witnesses.

Henry, 29, also faces two decade-old state murder charges. He spent much of his federal trial wearing an electronic stun belt after U.S. marshals said they caught him trying to sneak a seven-inch homemade knife into the courtroom.

Near the end of the two-week trial, Henry testified that the person who confessed to the 27 crimes on a secret recording is actually his twin brother. Assistant U.S. Attorneys Michelle Rotella and Susan Fields presented evidence that Henry does not have a twin brother.

"His story is just absurd," Rotella told jurors.

U.S. District Judge Jan E. Dubois scheduled sentencing for May 24. Under the advisory federal guidelines, Henry probably faces life imprisonment.

Henry, who quietly stroked his chin as the verdicts were read, plans to appeal, said his attorney, Christopher Warren. As Henry was escorted from court, he said: "I'll be back."

John Hageman, a spokesman for the Bureau of Alcohol Tobacco and Firearms, said that the Henry case "truly exhibits the danger and violence brought to Philadelphia by these illegally purchased firearms."

"This case also shows that this is a regional problem," Hageman said. "All of the guns were purchased in Montgomery County."

Jurors in the federal case were not told directly about the alleged 2003 Gallery bombing plot because Henry was not charged with such a crime.

However, Henry brought it up unexpectedly on cross-examination. He made vague references to the Gallery and "domestic terrorism."

Henry's cellmate secretly taped Henry talking about a plot to set off pipe bombs in the food-court area of the Gallery during rush hour.

According to a portion of the transcript of the conversation in the cell - a portion not played for jurors - Henry said he was working with an unidentified man.

Henry: "He thought it was a good idea to plant the explosives, so I did some recon and scoped them out."

Williams: "Do you know where the explosives was gonna be placed?"

Henry: "Yeah... the Gallery. Around three o'clock and see how see how busy it is because he said that might be a good target."

The alleged Gallery plot was first disclosed in an Inquirer article published Wednesday. Information in the article was based on transcripts of the Henry-Williams recording and of a grand jury proceeding. Neither transcript was used during the trial, but the transcripts had been part of the public case file. Yesterday, in response to The Inquirer report, the judge sealed both transcripts.

Henry was arrested in October 2003 for a parole violation, shortly after ATF agents conducted a compliance inspection at Abington Gun Sports Inc. and noticed that a young woman had purchased two 12-gauge shotguns and three rifles, including an AK-47, in one month's time. The woman acknowledged that she bought them for Henry, who could not lawfully buy them because he had a felony criminal record.

Soon after, federal and state authorities searched Henry's home, found the weapons and more: a Point Blank bulletproof vest, $14,000 in pink dye-stained cash and photos of Henry and others holding weapons.

Williams, who was serving time for a parole violation at the same state prison as Henry, wrote to ATF agents and offered to wear the wire.

Under the guise of helping Henry prepare his legal case, the cellmate got Henry to talk about his crimes. Besides speaking about the alleged Gallery plot, Henry was recorded speaking about other crimes.

"The robberies of the fast food joints was to buy the guns... so we can actually pull off the bank robberies," Henry said on the tape. "The purpose of the bank robberies was to buy fake identification to leave the country, after we were gonna set the explosives."

http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/2739

US Rep Joe Sestak to speak at CAIR Philly banquet with Edward Peck who met with ME terrorists on CNI "political pilgrimage" in '06

February 25, 2007

MIM: Readers are urged to call and fax Congressman Joe Sestak and tell him that it is unacceptable to speak for a Saudi funded front group for Hamas and remind him that Senator Barbara Boxer recently rescinded an award to CAIR because of their terrorism ties. It should also be noted that former Ambassador Edward Peck, his fellow featured speaker is affilated with the Council for the National Interest. In 2006 Peck went on the CNI "Political Pilgrimage" to the Middle East and met with terrorist leaders Mahmoud Al Zahar,.the Hamas leader in Gaza, Khaled Ma'aschal leader of Hamas in Syria, Hizbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon and the Bassan Kuntar, the brother of the terrorist child killer Samir Kuntar.

The story about Senator Barbara Boxer's rescinding of the CAIR award made national headlines after investigative journalist Joe Kaufman alerted her to CAIR's terrorism ties:

"...Last November, the head of the local chapter of a Muslim American civil rights group was honored by Sen. Barbara Boxer with a certificate "in recognition of (his) outstanding service..."

"...We made a bad mistake not researching the organization," Boxer told The Bee. "My organization created this problem -- I caused people grief, and I feel terrible, yet I need to set the record straight and I'm setting the record straight."

Boxer said she'd heard nothing negative about Elkarra or the Sacramento chapter: "If individuals are doing great work, I commend them personally, but not in the context of the organization."

After Elkarra received the award, Boxer said she was checking news online when an account linking her to CAIR and its alleged pro-terrorist activities "popped up. ... I said, 'Wait a minute, is any of it accurate?' "

Boxer said her staff came up with "a whole laundry list of things," including what she said was CAIR's unwillingness to condemn Osama bin Laden by name or condemn the Palestinian organization Hamas. She added, "several of them (CAIR officials) have been indicted."

Boxer's communications director, Natalie Ravitz, cited news stories detailing the convictions of two individuals, Ghassan Elashi and Ismail Royer.

Elashi, a founding board member of the Texas Chapter of CAIR, was sentenced in October to 80 months in prison for engaging in financial transactions with Hamas leader Musa abu Marzook.

Royer, a CAIR communications specialist between 1997 and October 2001, was indicted in 2003

on charges that he and 10 others were part of a conspiracy to support jihad overseas and sentenced to 20 years...

Joe Sestak

photo, Representative Joe Sestak

http://sestak.house.gov/

Washington D.C. Office

1022 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, DC 20515
Phone: (202) 225-2011
Fax: (202) 226-0280

District Office

600 N. Jackson Street
Suite 203
Media, PA 19063
Phone:(610) 892-8623
Fax:(610) 892-8628

email Congressman Sestak.

http://sestak.house.gov/contact.shtml

CAIR-PA's First Annual Banquet

American Muslims: Connecting and Sharing

Featured Speakers: Dr. Edward Peck,
Congressman Joe Sestak, 7th District

April 7, 2007 at 5:30 pm
Hilton Philadelphia,
4200 City Avenue

Download Banquet Flyer (85KB)

MIM: Eugene Bird, while on "political pilgrimage" organised by The Council for the National Interest ( aka The Council to Nuke Israel) met with terrorists in the Middle East.

Among them was Bassam Kantar (sic) the brother of Samir Kuntar. The Archille Lauro terrorist attack in which wheelchair bound Leonard Klinghoffer was thrown overboard and drowned in front of his wife was aimed at freeing Kuntar from prison. (It was masterminded by Abu Abbas of Fatah). In 1979 Kuntar murdered 4 year old Israeli Einat Haran by smashing her head on a rock after shooting her father, Danny Haran to death in front of her eyes. Another child was suffocated in hiding when Kuntar and other terrorists broke into the family's appartment. Kuntar is considered a national hero in Lebanon and was given honorary citizenship in the P.A. http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/2133

The following in the words of Smadar Haran, the wife and mother of Kuntar's victims:

"Abu Abbas, the former head of a Palestinian terrorist group who was captured in Iraq on April 15, is infamous for masterminding the 1985 hijacking of the Italian cruise ship Achille Lauro. But there are probably few who remember why Abbas' terrorists held the ship and its 400-plus passengers hostage for two days. It was to gain the release of a Lebanese terrorist named Samir Kuntar, who is locked up in an Israeli prison for life. Kuntar's name is all but unknown to the world. But I know it well. Because almost a quarter of a century ago, Kuntar murdered my family.

It was a murder of unimaginable cruelty, crueler even than the murder of Leon Klinghoffer, the American tourist who was shot on the Achille Lauro and dumped overboard in his wheelchair. Kuntar's mission against my family, which never made world headlines, was also masterminded by Abu Abbas. And my wish now is that this terrorist leader should be prosecuted in the United States, so that the world may know of all his terrorist acts, not the least of which is what he did to my family on April 22, 1979.

It had been a peaceful Sabbath day. My husband, Danny, and I had picnicked with our little girls, Einat, 4, and Yael, 2, on the beach not far from our home in Nahariya, a city on the northern coast of Israel, about six miles south of the Lebanese border. Around midnight, we were asleep in our apartment when four terrorists, sent by Abu Abbas from Lebanon, landed in a rubber boat on the beach two blocks away. Gunfire and exploding grenades awakened us as the terrorists burst into our building. They had already killed a police officer. As they charged up to the floor above ours, I opened the door to our apartment. In the moment before the hall light went off, they turned and saw me. As they moved on, our neighbor from the upper floor came running down the stairs. I grabbed her and pushed her inside our apartment and slammed the door.

Outside, we could hear the men storming about. Desperately, we sought to hide. Danny helped our neighbor climb into a crawl space above our bedroom; I went in behind her with Yael in my arms. Then Danny grabbed Einat and was dashing out the front door to take refuge in an underground shelter when the terrorists came crashing into our flat.

They held Danny and Einat while they searched for me and Yael, knowing there were more people in the apartment. I will never forget the joy and the hatred in their voices as they swaggered about hunting for us, firing their guns and throwing grenades. I knew that if Yael cried out, the terrorists would toss a grenade into the crawl space and we would be killed. So I kept my hand over her mouth, hoping she could breathe. As I lay there, I remembered my mother telling me how she had hidden from the Nazis during the Holocaust. "This is just like what happened to my mother," I thought.

As police began to arrive, the terrorists took Danny and Einat down to the beach. There, according to eyewitnesses, one of them shot Danny in front of Einat so that his death would be the last sight she would ever see. Then he smashed my little girl's skull in against a rock with his rifle butt. That terrorist was Samir Kuntar.

By the time we were rescued from the crawl space, hours later, Yael, too, was dead. In trying to save all our lives, I had smothered her..." http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/2136

MIM: In 2006 Nasrallah demanded the release of Kuntar as part of a deal to release the 2 captured Israeli soldiers.

Nasrallah: No Deal Without Kuntar

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1157913614980&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

A special envoy dispatched by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan will arrive in the region next week to begin mediating between Hizbullah and Israel on a possible prisoner swap, the leader of the terrorist group said in an interview televised Tuesday.

In the interview with the Qatar-based Al-Jazeera channel, Sheik Hassan Nasrallah vowed not to approve any prisoner exchange deal unless it included the release of Samir Kuntar. Kuntar, the longest-serving confirmed Lebanese prisoner in jail in Israel, is serving multiple life terms for the killing of three members of the Haran family and that of policeman Eliyahu Shahar in a raid on Nahariya in 1979. http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/2369

http://www.cnionline.org/news/election2006/List%20of%20Interviews.htm

Council for the National Interest Political Pilgrimage to the Middle East

January 22 – February 5, 2006

Members of the Tour:
Ambassador Edward Peck
Ambassador Robert Keeley
Eugene Bird, president, Council for the National Interest
Peter Viering
Elizabeth Viering
Dr. Hassan Fouda
Christopher Belcher

LIST OF MEETINGS

EGYPT
Amr Mousa, Secretary General, Arab League
Essam el-Erian, Islamic National Conference
Gamila Isma'il, al-Ghad movement, wife of former leader Ayman Nour, who is in jail
Nagui Ghafatri, new head of al-Ghad
Heba Raouf, Civil Society Organization
Abdel Monem Ali Sayed, al-Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies
Muhammad Mursi, NDP Party official, Mustafa Abdel Ghaffar, al-Jumhuriyya
Fahmy Howeidy, Journalist, al-Ahram
Amira Howeidy, journalist, al-Ahram
Frank Ricciardoni, US ambassador

GAZA
Mahmoud al-Zahar, Hamas leader in Gaza
Muhammad Dahlan, Fatah leader
Diana Buttu, Mahmoud Abbas's office

WEST BANK
Saeb Erikat, Fatah Party, former chief Palestinian Negotiator
Yoram Binur, Israeli Channel Two Television
Janet Mikhail, mayor of Ramallah
Shaikh Nayef Rajoub, Hamas leader, Hebron
Khalid Amayreh, Journalist, Al-Jazeera
Sonia Robbins, and other members of the Christian Peacemaking Team in Hebron

ISRAEL
Shaikh Raed Salah, Islamic Movement in Israel
Yehuda Shaul, Executive Director, Breaking the Silence
Angela Godfrey Goldstein, International Committee against House Demolitions

JERUSALEM
Mordecai Vanunu, nuclear whistleblower
Jill Baker, archaeologist, Albright Institute
Thomas Hopkins, People Peace Initiative
Jeff Halper, International Committee against House Demolition

JORDAN
Ziad Abbas Shamrouch, Director of Ibdaa Cultural Center, Dheisheh Refugee Camp
Dr. Abdellatif Arabiyat, former Parliament member

SYRIA
Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria
Farouk Sha'ara, Foreign Minister of Syria
Khaled Misha'al, Hamas leader
Stephen Seche, American charge d'affires

LEBANON
Emile Lahoud, President of Lebanon
Fouad Siniora, Prime Minister of Lebanon
Fawzi Salloukh, Foreign Minister of Lebanon
Walid Jumblatt, Druze leader and head of the Progressive Socialist Party
Hassan Nasrallah, Secretary General of Hezbollah
Bassam Kantar, brother of the longest held Lebanese detainee in Israeli jails (BR Note Samir Kuntar's brother).
John Waterbury, President, American University in Beirut
Khalil Fleyhan, a,l-Nahar Newspaper
Daily Star Editorial Board Members:
Hanna Anbar, Hanan Nasser, Maysson Zaaoura
Jeffrey Feltman, American ambassador to Lebanon

Canadian officials release Chinese banker wanted by Beijing for embezzlement

The Associated Press
Saturday, February 24, 2007

VANCOUVER, British Columbia: A former Bank of China official accused by Beijing of embezzlement has been released by a Canadian court pending the start of immigration proceedings next month.

China's Ministry of Public Security has asked Canada to extradite Gao Shan who allegedly siphoned US$128 million (€97.46 million) from customers' accounts to Canada, the Beijing Daily said Friday.

The scandal came to light Jan. 15 when the Shanghai-listed A-share company Northeast Expressway revealed that more than US$37 million (€28.17 million) of shareholders' funds deposited with the branch was missing.

Gao, head of the Bank of China in Harbin, Northeast China's Heilongjiang Province, reportedly vanished following the disappearance of the money, The China Daily reported.

Deposits by other companies, amounting to as much as US$90 million (€68.52 million) also vanished.

Gaos whereabouts had been a mystery until Feb. 16 when the Royal Canadian Mounted Police arrested him at a North Vancouver home

"We arrested him for (Canada) Immigration," said RCMP Staff Sgt. John Ward.

Ward said the arrest was made on outstanding warrants from China.

He could not comment further as the case is before the courts.

But, he added, a criminal investigation into Gao is ongoing.

"We routinely work with law enforcement agencies on bona fide investigations."

Gao had been held in custody as Canadian officials feared he would flee.

An immigration and Refugee Board adjudicator, however, disagreed, ruling Thursday that Gao poses no risk to the public and should be released pending a $300,000 Canadian (US$258,000 (€196,437) bond against two properties the family owns.

Immigration spokeswoman Melissa Anderson said Gao is a landed immigrant and is considered a permanent resident of Canada.

As such, he has more rights before the courts than an immigrant without that status, she said. But, she added, the couple could be under a removal order for deportation if a tribunal finds they misrepresented themselves on their arrival in Canada.

Anderson said the government had opposed Gaos release, claiming the performance bond money was the results of the proceeds of crime.

The global search to find the 42-year-old ex-head of the Bank of China in Harbin had Canadian and Chinese authorities looking for him in the U.K., the U.S. and South Korea.

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police has said that Gao has been under surveillance for at least a year. He is, however, being held for allegedly lying about his occupation when he entered Canada.

His wife, Li Xue, and their 17-year-old daughter were also arrested for misrepresenting such information.

While Li and their daughter were released, Gao was being held on the grounds that he is a flight risk. All three, who are permanent residents, will have to appear at an immigration hearing March 6.

Vancouver is also home to Lai Changxing who has for five years been battling through the Canadian court system in a series of failed bids to be granted refugee status.

Chinese authorities have accused Lai of being the mastermind behind a Xiamen, China-based network responsible for smuggling as much as US$10 billion (€7.61 billion) worth of goods into China with protection from corrupt officials.

Canada and China do not have an extradition treaty, primarily due to the state of human rights situation in China and Canadian fears that suspects in crimes will be executed if returned to China.

http://www.cisc.gc.ca/pharmaceuticals/pharmaceuticals_e.htm

Criminal Intelligence Service Canada

Document - Print version

Client satisfaction survey - Print version
Counterfeit Pharmaceuticals in Canada

The counterfeit criminal market in Canada

Counterfeit goods can be categorized into industry sectors: entertainment and software; clothing and accessories; industrial; and, food and pharmaceuticals. Counterfeits from all sectors have been detected, to varying degrees, across Canada . The industry sectors most commonly counterfeited in Canada are entertainment and software, and clothing and accessories (ex. CDs, DVDs or brand-name clothing).

As in other countries, some consumers in Canada knowingly purchase counterfeit goods. Other Canadian consumers unknowingly purchase a variety of counterfeit goods that are passed off as legitimate products. Counterfeit goods are sold at a wide variety of venues in Canada, ranging from flea markets and strip malls to large, well-known, retail outlet stores. Some counterfeits are concealed within legitimate goods while others are more obviously fraudulent.

The probability of consumers unknowingly purchasing counterfeits remains relatively low. However, the variety of businesses selling counterfeits remains a concern to law enforcement. Addressing the counterfeit criminal market is complicated by the varying levels of societal tolerance toward counterfeit goods in Canada.

Defining counterfeit pharmaceuticals

According to the World Health Organization (WHO), counterfeit pharmaceuticals are medicines, both brand name and generic, which are deliberately and fraudulently mislabeled with respect to identity and/or source.

Counterfeits may be produced with the correct medicinal ingredients, or those medicinal ingredients may be in insufficient quantities or absent altogether. The medications may contain toxic or poisonous chemicals. The medication’s appearance and its packaging may be visibly different (or inferior) from the genuine product. Or, the pharmaceutical packaging and the medication may be exactly replicated. In this case, laboratory testing of the drugs is required to identify fraudulent medication and then determine its chemical composition.

No country is immune from counterfeit drugs

The WHO estimates that 10% of medication globally is counterfeit. The criminal trade in counterfeit medication is more prevalent in developing countries with weak drug regulation, control and enforcement, and where basic medicines are scarce or irregularly supplied and unaffordable. The situation is endemic in southeast Asia and Africa , where the amount of counterfeit pharmaceuticals in circulation is over 50% in some countries. While t he prevalence of counterfeit pharmaceuticals varies widely between developing and industrialized countries, there are increasing numbers of incidents of counterfeit medication globally. According to the WHO, in developing countries, the most counterfeited medicines are those used to counter both infectious and serious diseases, such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV/AIDS, as well as basic infections.

New, expensive medicines such as hormones, corticosteroids, cancer drugs or anti-retrovirals1 are the most frequently counterfeited medications in industrialized countries. Other commonly counterfeited types of drugs in industrialized countries are:

* lifestyle drugs which treat such conditions as sexual impotence, baldness or obesity, and
* psychotropic drugs which include opiate-based pain-killers, tranquillizers, stimulants and depressants.

Organized crime’s involvement in counterfeit pharmaceuticals

Counterfeit pharmaceuticals, which were largely manufactured and distributed within many developing countries, have increasingly emerged in industrialized countries in recent years. Globally, organized crime groups are involved in the production and distribution of counterfeit or grey market2 pharmaceuticals, using multiple countries as manufacture, transit and destination points. Several recent U.S.-led law enforcement projects demonstrate that organized counterfeit pharmaceutical operations traffic multiple types of controlled medications simultaneously. These criminal operations are highly profitable and typically involve numerous individuals and illegal Internet pharmacies in multiple countries.

Medication is an attractive target for counterfeiting because the profits generated are high in relation to the volume of the ingredients needed for its production. Counterfeit pharmaceuticals are typically inexpensive to produce: non-medicinal or sub-potent ingredients can be substituted for the correct active medicinal ingredients. An additional public health concern is that criminal groups disregard regulatory standards for the production, distribution and storage of medication, greatly lessening the costs of illicit manufacturing.

The scope and magnitude of counterfeit pharmaceuticals in Canada remains relatively small in comparison to other industrialized countries. Currently, only a small number of criminal groups in Canada are involved in smuggling and manufacturing counterfeit medication.

Other Canadian criminal groups that have experience in the illicit synthetic drug market and have established smuggling routes domestically and internationally are well-placed to expand into the illicit importation, manufacture or distribution of counterfeit pharmaceuticals.

In one case of counterfeit medication smuggling in 2003, law enforcement seized 14.8 kg of counterfeit Viagra pills that were concealed within 118,100 cartons of counterfeit Canadian-brand cigarettes. This contraband was seized in three separate shipping containers that arrived at the Port of Vancouver from China . The counterfeit Viagra was worth an estimated $1.1 million and contained approximately 74,000 doses.

In another incident in 2005, an airline pilot was sentenced to a one-year prison sentence for smuggling into Toronto 120,000 counterfeit Viagra, Cialis and Levitra pills, all of which are used to treat erectile dysfunction. The total value of the pills was estimated to be between $366,000 and $2,440,000, depending on whether the pills were intended to be trafficked in bulk amounts or in individual doses.

Counterfeit pharmaceuticals in Canadian pharmacies

Counterfeit drugs within licensed pharmacies in Canada are a rare occurrence. Despite stringent safeguards, criminally inclined individuals will identify vulnerabilities.

In 2005, counterfeit pharmaceuticals were found in two Ontario pharmacies – the first such cases within the country’s licensed pharmaceutical system. The cases were unconnected, and in each case members of the pharmacy staff were charged with knowingly selling counterfeit medication. The seized drugs contained no active medicinal ingredients, the wrong medicinal ingredients or were grey market drugs.

In the first case, law enforcement seized grey-market Norvasc pills that are used in the treatment of hypertension and angina. As eleven patients of the pharmacy who were prescribed Norvasc died, the Ontario Coroner’s Officer conducted an investigation into their deaths to determine if the counterfeit medication was a contributing factor. In January 2006, the Coroner's Office determined that in four of the eleven deaths, the manner of death was "undetermined" and the medical cause of death included "possible unauthorized medication substitution.”

In the second case, law enforcement seized both shipments of counterfeit Viagra tablets and bulk chemical ingredients to manufacture Viagra pills. The pharmacist is alleged to have sold counterfeit Viagra from the pharmacy as well as through the pharmacy’s website.

Illegal Internet pharmacies

Licensed Internet pharmacies provide accessible, convenient and private service to consumers. However, there are also illegal Internet pharmacies that typically sell a variety of medications that can pose health and safety risks, including:

* unapproved drugs,
* legal prescription drugs dispensed without a valid prescription,
* products that are marketed with fraudulent health claims, or
* counterfeit or grey market pharmaceuticals.

Illegal Internet pharmacies remain a concern to law enforcement and health agencies. These businesses operate without any authorized doctor/patient relationship. In addition, consumers receive medication of uncertain provenance and authenticity without information on correct use, dosages, drug interactions or side effects.

As with other websites that operate illicitly, it is difficult to track and examine the activity and merchandise of illegal Internet pharmacies. These sites open and close easily, frequently change their names and may operate from servers based in other countries. As law enforcement in both the U.S. and Canada have observed, some illegal Internet pharmacies mimic the appearance of licensed sites or disguise themselves as originating from Canada to take advantage of U.S. consumers seeking Canadian pharmaceuticals. Therefore, consumers may have difficulty discerning between legitimate and illegal sites.

Some Canadians use illegal Internet pharmacies to obtain a variety of drugs for which they do not have a prescription and wish to purchase in relative anonymity. The illegal websites also supply some Canadians abusing or addicted to prescription drugs or seeking experimental or unapproved medications.

Negative effects of counterfeit pharmaceuticals

Counterfeit medicines can result in unexpected side effects, incorrect dosages, dangerous drug interactions, allergic reactions or the worsening of medical conditions. According to the World Health Organization, thousands of people around the world are injured or killed by counterfeit pharmaceuticals annually.

Substandard antibiotics that do not effectively treat bacterial infections result in antibiotic resistance causing infections that are difficult to treat, spread rapidly and are more virulent. Counterfeit medications have contributed to antibiotic-resistant forms of shigella, cholera, salmonella3 and tuberculosis. These serious diseases have endangered the lives of millions of people suffering from malaria and HIV/AIDS.

Patients may have multiple chronic or serious underlying medical conditions. As a result, it can be extremely difficult to link counterfeit drugs directly as a contributing factor to injuries or deaths.

Consistent estimates of economic losses to the pharmaceutical industry are difficult to quantify. Most estimates range in the billions annually for global losses.

Counterfeiting may also result in patients’ loss of confidence in the public health system and pharmaceutical industry. It can threaten the reputation of pharmaceutical companies.

Looking to the future

Canada has a standardized, highly regulated pharmaceutical and public health care system that is largely affordable to most Canadians. This significantly lessens any potential market for illegitimate supplies of pharmaceuticals in Canada.

The two incidents of counterfeit pharmaceuticals seized within Canadian pharmacies indicate that licensed pharmacies remain vulnerable to the infiltration of counterfeit medication, particularly when facilitated by corrupted pharmacy staff. However, the probability of counterfeit drugs within licensed pharmacies will remain limited.

In Canada , the individuals most at risk of encountering counterfeit pharmaceuticals will be those who seek psychotropic or lifestyle drugs (for which they do not have a prescription) from less than reputable sources. Other individuals at risk will be those who mix licit and illicit drugs or take multiple prescription drugs for non-medicinal uses.

Medication trafficked by criminal groups or sold by illegal Internet pharmacies is clearly more likely to be counterfeit than medication received from licensed sources. Given the multitude of websites selling pharmaceuticals of questionable provenance and authenticity, illegal Internet pharmacies provide the most likely vehicle for counterfeit drugs. However, incidents of counterfeit pharmaceuticals obtained from these sources (or resulting adverse health affects) will remain largely under-reported by victims.

Multiple criminal groups in Canada will remain involved in smuggling counterfeit medication into Canada , as well as illicitly manufacturing pharmaceuticals domestically. Distribution of this medication will continue within Canada with some smuggling to the U.S. occurring.

Counterfeit medication in Canada will remain a key concern to law enforcement and health agencies. The CISC network of law enforcement agencies will continue to assess the threat of counterfeit pharmaceuticals in Canada and target criminal groups involved in this activity.

1Corticosteroids (cortisone-like medicines) are used to relieve inflamed areas in conditions like severe allergies, skin problems, asthma, or arthritis. Anti-retroviral drugs are used to treat retroviruses, primarily HIV.

2In the “grey market,” branded products have been diverted from the authorized distribution channel within a country or are imported into a country for sale without the consent or knowledge of the manufacturer.

3Shigellosis, (or bacillary dysentery), Salmonellosis and Cholera are bacteria infections of the intestine that cause diarrheal illness. Food and water contamination are often the cause.

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