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Posted on 09/01/2007 6:24:54 PM PDT by nwctwx
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With the help of the CIA, German investigators foiled what would likely have been the most devastating terror attack of its kind in the country's history. The plans of a fanatical group of Islamists trained in Pakistan reveal just how great a risk Europe faces.
It was early June at the G-8 summit in the German seaside resort of Heiligendamm, and climate protection and hedge funds were the key issues on the agenda. But then there came the moment when the news of a potential terrorist plot reached Chancellor Angela Merkel. Not a word of it was mentioned in the summit's official communiqués. Merkel and US President George W. Bush met alone to discuss what he called "the Pakistan matter." America felt threatened, and the threat, US intelligence agents told their president, was coming from Germany -- once again, just as it had on Sept. 11, 2001.
Bush, who was well briefed about the plot, even knew the names of the suspects. He made it clear to Merkel that he was taking the matter very seriously. Her officials at the Chancellery were all too familiar with what the US president was talking about. "Operation Alberich," as the intelligence agencies called the case, had top priority.
For months the operation was discussed almost every Tuesday at a weekly meeting conducted by Merkel's chief of staff, Thomas de Maizière. What began with vague information soon turned into the biggest police operation since the so-called "German Autumn" of 1977 -- a political thriller rarely seen in postwar Germany.
Operation Alberich began last October, when the US National Security Agency, the NSA, began intercepting suspicious emails between Germany and Pakistan. It ended last week in the central German Sauerland region, with the arrests of two German converts to Islam, Fritz Gelowicz, 28, the son of a southern German doctor, and 22-year-old Daniel S., who had learned how to handle weapons during his military service in the western German city of Saarlouis. His neighbors in nearby Saarbrücken had noticed that he prayed to Allah "often and very loudly." The third man arrested in the sting was Adem Y., a 28-year-old Turkish national. The trio was caught in the act of mixing chemical ingredients to make explosives at a vacation house in the mountainous Sauerland region.
Excerpted
http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,504837,00.html
Ramadan starts from tomorrow
Wednesday, 12 September, 2007
Tomorrow will be the first day of the holy fasting month of Ramadan in Qatar, according to a statement issued by the Crescent Sighting Committee of the Wakfs and Islamic Affairs Ministry.
The respective religious panels in Qatar and 11 other Arab countries agreed to start the fasting month tomorrow in the absence of testimony proving that the crescent moon of Ramadan was sighted last night, in which case the holy month would have begun today. The announcements were made individually by Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan, Egypt, Syria, Lebanon, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Tunisia, Yemen, Iraq and the Palestinian territories.
A federal judge has ordered that an Iranian-American co-founder of a defunct Islamic charity who is facing conspiracy and tax fraud charges be held until a hearing next week.
Pirouz Sedaghaty, also known as Pete Seda, was to have been freed Friday after a federal magistrate judge ruled he was not a public danger or a flight risk. But federal prosecutors appealed to U.S. District Judge Michael Hogan, the Eugene Register-Guard reported Tuesday. Hogan cited concerns about concealed assets and passports that could allow Sedaghaty to flee.
Sedaghaty, 49, returned to the United States last month to face conspiracy and tax fraud charges related to the operations of the U.S. chapter of the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation, which he co-founded in Ashland in 1997. He left the country in 2003 during an investigation that resulted in a federal grand jury indictment in February 2005 accusing him of helping to smuggle $150,000 out of the country to aid Muslim fighters in Chechnya. He has pleaded not guilty and is scheduled to go on trial April 16.
Hogan continued the detention hearing until Tuesday. Sedaghaty's lawyer, Larry Matasar of Portland, said his client has cooperated with federal officials and promised to provide additional information for Hogan's review. The U.S. government and the United Nations have declared the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation a terrorist organization. The government of Saudi Arabia, where the foundation is based, disbanded the group in 2004.
GlobalIncidentMap.com Special Notice: 09/11/2007
Thanks, Oorang.
Might be a good idea to post this as a separate thread.
We have breaking news out of Northwest Wisconsin. The Police Chief in Frederic says his department has arrested a wanted terrorist.
Chief R.J. Severude says one of his officers stopped a van about 11:30 Tuesday morning in Polk County. He says when the driver was checked, the Minnesota driver's license came up with felony warrants.
Severude says the driver was Hassan Mohammed Abdiaziz. Abdiaziz has fugitive warrants for drug trafficking, money laundering and financing terrorist attacks inside and outside the country.
Couple this with the Global Incident report warning from the Feds and it'd be an understatement to say that we're not out of the woods yet.
Nope, we’re not out of the woods yet. Stay safe Vel.
At our civic league meeting this evening, the police were there to give a presentation, and they made a big point of the very same thing. "Communicate with us. If you see something that we should know about, let us know." They banged on that several times during the presentation.
Amen
WI Police Chief Said He's Arrested Terrorist
Sep 11, 2007 8:14 pm US/Central
Frederic, Wis. - A man believed to be sought on felony charges that include funding terrorism was arrested Tuesday during a traffic stop in this northwestern Wisconsin community, the police chief said.
Hassan Mohamed Abdiaziz is in custody in the Polk County, Wis. jail. According to Sgt. Scott Nargis, Abdiaziz is being held on a United States Marshall's warrant, out of the Manhattan office in New York. As of 7:45 p.m. Tuesday, Abdiaziz was still being fingerprinted. The booking process began at the Balsam Lake, Wisc. Jail at 7:30 p.m.
Chief R.J. Severude said one of his officers stopped a van about 11:30 a.m., and when the man's Minnesota driver's license was checked there were felony warrants for him. According to the chief, the man has fugitive warrants for money laundering, drug trafficking and financing terrorist attacks inside and outside the U.S. The Milwaukee office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation had no information to give out Tuesday night, according to a spokesman who declined to give his name. Frederic is a Polk County village of about 1,250 people.
Thanks for the info SlowBoat. Even in the most calm and mundane of times, which this isn’t, it is probably good for LE to drive that point home.
You too.
Good to know they’re on top of things.
ISLAMABAD - A suicide bomber aged around 15 years old blew himself up by a crowded minivan in north-western Pakistan Tuesday, killing himself and 18 other people, news reports said. The boy detonated an explosive vest when security forces stopped the vehicle in the town of Dera Ismail Khan and asked him to turn himself into custody.
Two police officers, two soldiers and passengers died in the blast, Pakistan’s Aaj and other news channels reported, while the town’s police chief said the boy was aged 14 or 15.
Excerpted
Iran asks Germany to explain about terrorist group leader
2007/09/11
Iran asked Germany to explain about presence of leader of a terrorist group in that country, Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki said here Tuesday. Talking to reporters on the sidelines of an economic gathering, he said Berlin had to explain about presence in Germany of some elements of the Pejak terrorist group.
According to media reports, the group let leader has recently announced in an interview that he had been in Germany. Mottaki said that Iran has "naturally managed to halt some terrorist moves and tensions in its border areas. "It is necessary to prevent terrorists entry to Iran from Iraqi borders as well as other areas," said the minister.
Stressing that there is no problem in the existing relations between Iran and northern Iraq, Mottaki regretted that "there are always some elements trying to tar bilateral relations." Today, terrorist groups in the region are seeking to damage amicable ties between Iran and northern Iraq, he added.
Despite six years of promises, Saudi Arabia has failed to pursue wealthy individuals identified as sending millions of dollars to al-Qaeda, the US official in charge of tracking terror financing says.
"If I could somehow snap my fingers and cut off the funding from one country, it would be Saudi Arabia," Stuart Levey, the under secretary of the Treasury, told American network ABC. No one identified by the United States and the UN as a terror financier has been prosecuted by the Saudis, Levey said. "When the evidence is clear that these individuals have funded terrorist organisations, and knowingly done so, then that should be prosecuted and treated as real terrorism because it is," Levey said.
Saudi Arabia is a US ally in Washington's campaign to combat terrorism launched after the September 11 attacks carried out by Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network. Bin Laden, who has eluded capture for six years, is from a wealthy and influential Saudi family.
Yasin al Qadi, a wealthy Saudi businessman named in both the US and UN lists of al-Qaeda financiers one month after the September 11 attacks, is among those identified as donors, ABC reported, citing American officials. Al Qadi has repeatedly denied the allegations. He remains free and is still a prominent figure in Saudi Arabia, ABC said.
His London-based lawyer, Guy Martin, told ABC the United States has never produced any evidence in support of the allegations against his client. "He hasn't been charged or tried anywhere in any jurisdiction in the world," Martin said. "While allegations have been made, there have been no formal criminal proceedings."
The Saudi embassy in Washington had no comment, ABC said.
http://news.ninemsn.com.au/article.aspx?id=93938
Terrorist Heroshima in America?
Ryan Mauro - 9/11/2007
In 2005, the mainstream media seemed shocked when a number of news sources, including WorldNetDaily.com released a report about an "American Hiroshima" plot against the United States by Al-Qaeda The plot calls for Al-Qaeda to detonate nuclear weapons on American soil, having arrived over the Mexican border with the assistance of MS-13 gang members. The report claims Al-Qaeda has already obtained a large number of nuclear weapons currently being maintained by Pakistani and Russian scientists.
Why the shock? In November 2002, this author provided similar and nearly identical information to the American public and intelligence agencies compiled from private and open-sources. The result was a research project of an enormous size, summarily published on this site with the entire version published on WorldThreats.com. Thus, we were quite surprised when this report rocked and shocked the mainstream media over two years after we had already published the same information.
Our original report, entitled "Exposing the Next Wave of Spectacular Terrorism: Terrorist Possession of Weapons of Mass Destruction" seems antiquated as it had been tailored to the address the concerns at the onset of Operation Iraqi Freedom, including the possibility of retaliatory terrorist attacks. Although there were several subsequent updates, we have re-compiled our information, now over two years old, to illustrate we sounded this alarm bell in 2002.
There is a significant amount of intelligence and open-source documentation suggesting that al-Qaeda has obtained and is in possession of nuclear weapons. There is, unfortunately, no way to know for certain the status of these weapons. Have they been destroyed? Do the terrorists lack the expertise to use them? Are the weapons simply old and useless, or are they being kept hidden somewhere for later use? These are the questions the intelligence community needs to be asking, and should have been asking over the last few years.
There is much speculation over the reasons security and intelligence agencies are going to such great lengths to guard against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear terrorism. One of the most recent ones today is that President Bush and Tony Blair were personally advised that al-Qaeda had obtained nuclear weapons through their contact with former KGB agents. Reportedly, during the last week of October 2001, CIA director George Tenet met with the president to discuss fresh intelligence about the nuclear threat. It is said that Bush was startled by the discussion and immediately proceeded to make preparation for nuclear terrorism a top priority despite its expenses. Perhaps this is the meeting that Paul L. Williams refers to in his new book when he says our leadership was informed of the terrorists' nuclear capabilities and "went through the roof."
Excerpted
http://www.globalpolitician.com/articleshow.asp?ID=3427&cid=11
Valley Muslims to begin Ramadan celebration
William Hermann
The Arizona Republic
Sept. 11, 2007 03:38 PM
As about 1 billion Muslims worldwide begin celebrating the beginning of the month of Ramadan, a group of Valley converts to Islam Wednesday night will ascend South Mountain for their own observance of this holy time.
Tempe resident Jacqueline Freeman-Ennaffah, a spokeswoman for an organization of converts to Islam called Valley Converts, said the group will meet at 5:30 p.m. at Buena Vista Lookout in South Mountain Park.
“We’ll watch for the crescent of the new moon, which starts Ramadan,” Freeman-Ennaffah said. “We’ll talk about what Ramadan means to us personally.”
She said Ramadan is the month on the Islamic lunar calendar during which Muslims abstain from food, drink and other sensual pleasures from the break of dawn to sunset. The fast is performed to learn discipline, self-restraint and generosity, while obeying God’s commandments, Freeman-Ennaffah said.
“When you fast, as you do during Ramadan, when you are hungry and thirsty, it’s easy to be grumpy,” she said. “But we try to control those feelings and have a kind word for people and not get into arguments. We want to talk about being kind and gentle in the face of difficult situations.”
Freeman-Ennaffah said that fasting is one of the five pillars of Islam. The other pillars are the declaration of faith, daily prayers, charity and pilgrimage to Mecca.
The end of Ramadan will be marked by communal prayers called Eid ul-Fitr, or Feast of the Fast-Breaking, on Oct. 13.
Freeman-Ennaffah said Muslim leaders locally estimate there are 100,000 Muslims in the Valley and some 7 million nationwide.
Other Valley Muslim organizations organizing events and activities during Ramadan include: The Cultural Cup Food Bank in Phoenix, (602) 266-8370; The Arizona Muslim Women’s Association, (480) 390-2338; The Muslim American Society, (480) 921-3733; the Council on American Islamic Relations, (602) 262-2247.
www.azcentral.com
Well, we have made it through another 9/11 without incident (not really surprising at this point)... the videos puzzle me in many ways. I can’t believe that they are without consequence and that UBL popped out of the shadows after such a long break for no reason.
I wonder if bin Laden might be confusing his own audience in some ways.
Is he really succeeding in gaining tons of support without conducting any successful operations against the U.S. in 6 yrs?
Thanks Mata.
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