WASHINGTON – Al-Qaeda continues to recruit Europeans for explosives training in Pakistan because Europeans can more easily enter the United States without a visa, the nation's top intelligence officer said Tuesday. Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell said European al-Qaeda recruits in the border region of Pakistan are being trained to use commercially available substances to make explosives, and they may be able to carry out an attack on U.S. territory.
McConnell also said he worried that Osama bin Laden's recent video and audio releases may be a signal to terrorist cells to carry out operations, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “That's unusual. He had been absent from airwaves over the last year. Our concern is that's a signal,” McConnell said. “It just causes us to be concerned and vigilant.”
Europeans are being recruited specifically because they generally do not need visas to enter the United States, he said. “Purposely recruiting an operative from Europe gives them an extra edge into getting an operative, or two or three, into the country with the ability to carry out an attack that might be reminiscent of 9/11,” he said.
Excerpted
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/20070925-1226-terrorthreat.html
Algeria: Police uncover terrorist cell linked to al-Qaeda
25 Sept. 2007
Algiers - Algerian police have uncovered an alleged terrorist support group accused of aiding al-Qaeda in Lakhdariya, in the remote northern region of Cabilia. According to the Algerian daily, 'el-Khabar', police arrested seven people who reportedly provided money, food and medicine to the al-Qaeda cell hiding in the mountains of the region.
Investigations began after the arrest of a hunter who was discovered wandering in the woods of Lakhdariya. The man was reported to be carrying a load of medicines to terrorists operating on the border of Boumerdes province. The newspaper said during interrogations the man admitted taking the medicines to the leader of a local cell of Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb called Khalidi. He had apparently been injured while trying to escape an army attack.
The other six members of a group were aged between 20 and 40 years old and were said to be trading goods to help the terrorists survive. The Lakhdariya al-Qaeda cell is the one allegedly responsible for last week's suicide attack in the town. Algeria's interior ministry said nine people, including an Italian and two French, were injured in the bombing. In an "audio statement" posted on the Internet, Al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb said one of its militants carried out the Lakhdariya attack with a car laden with "more than 250 kilos (550 pounds) of explosives." Lakhdaria lies some 75 km southeast of Algiers.
http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.1345734052
Islamist 'leader' wants revolution
September 25, 2007
The mysterious sheik behind the Australian chapter of Islamist group Hizb ut-Tahrir has revealed the organisation's support for military coups and revolutions to overthrow non-Muslim governments worldwide. Ismail Al Wahwah, who was little known until last month when he was banned from a Hizb ut-Tahrir conference in Indonesia, spoke out on an Arabic radio program that revealed him as the "active member" of the group in Australia.
In an interview on SBS radio last month, he attacked the West's lack of values and backed the use of suicide bombings in Iraq and Palestine, even if they killed Australians. "I say any occupied people have the responsibility to defend their country," he told SBS's Arabic radio program. "The victim should not be asked how he is defending himself."
Sheik Wahwah is understood to be the unofficial leader of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Australia. The Australian has obtained the first pictures of the man widely known in the Muslim community as Abu Anas. Hizb ut-Tahrir's media spokesman, Wassim Doureihi, denied the sheik was the group's leader in Australia, saying Sheik Wahwah was a senior member and that his brother, Ashraf, a civil engineer at North Sydney Council, was the official leader. But Sheik Wahwah is sent to address senior members of the Islamic community in Sydney on behalf of Hizb ut-Tahrir, and he was Australia's representative for the Indonesian conference. On the radio program, he was introduced as the "active member" of the party - a statement he did not correct.
Hizb ut-Tahrir is a secretive organisation known as the Party of Islamic Liberation, which advocates the destruction of Western civilisation and the overthrow of governments and their replacement by Islamic rule. The group is banned in Europe, China and Saudi Arabia, but remains legal in Britain and Australia, actively pushing the idea of a Muslim rule.
Excerpted
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,22482616-949,00.html
>>>McConnell also said he worried that Osama bin Laden’s recent video and audio releases may be a signal to terrorist cells to carry out operations, he told the Senate Judiciary Committee. “That’s unusual. He had been absent from airwaves over the last year. Our concern is that’s a signal,” McConnell said. “It just causes us to be concerned and vigilant.”<<<
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/06/books/review/06filkins.html?pagewanted=print
. . . Wright takes the title of his book from the fourth sura of the Koran, which bin Laden repeated three times in a speech videotaped just as the hijackers were preparing to fly. The video was found later, on a computer in Hamburg. “Wherever you are, death will find you, Even in the looming tower.”
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5iqF9f-Hrq7q4CWNYolhPOUxn-k7A
Pakistan Derides Threat From Bin Laden
By STEPHEN GRAHAM –
(excerpted)
. . .But a Pakistani intelligence official said authorities had to take the statement seriously — a similar message from al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri preceded twin attempts on Musharraf’s life in December 2003. The official, who is not authorized to speak to the media, wouldn’t discuss whether the security ring around Musharraf would be tightened.
Bin Laden’s message was his third this month after a long quiet and came in a flurry of al-Qaida propaganda marking the sixth anniversary of the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States. . .
http://www.azstarnet.com/sn/hourlyupdate/202820.php
Iran’s president at Columbia University - a transcript
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 09.24.2007
(excerpt)
MR. COATSWORTH: Which was posed by President Bollinger earlier and comes from a number of other students. Why is your government providing aid to terrorists? Will you stop doing so and permit international monitoring to certify that you have stopped?
PRESIDENT AHMADINEJAD: Well, I want to pose a question here to you.
If someone comes and explodes bombs around you, threatens your president, members of the administration, kills the members of the Senate or Congress, how would you treat them?
Would you award them or would you name them a terrorist group?
Well, it’s clear. You would call them a terrorist.
My dear friends, the Iranian nation is a victim of terrorism. For — 26 years ago, where I work, close to where I work, in a terrorist operation, the elected president of the Iranian nation and the elected prime minister of Iran lost their lives in a bomb explosion. They turned into ashes.
A month later, in another terrorist operation, 72 members of our parliament and highest ranking officials, including four ministers and eight deputy ministers, bodies were shattered into pieces as a result of terrorist attacks. Within six months, over 4,000 Iranians lost their lives, assassinated by terrorist groups, all this carried out by the hand of one single terrorist group.
Regretfully that same terrorist group, now, today, in your country, is being — operating under the support of the U.S. administration, working freely, distributing declarations freely.
And their camps in Iraq are supported by the U.S. government.
They’re secured by the U.S. government. . .
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1875105/posts?page=393#393
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1890027/posts?page=949#949
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1859319/posts?page=1165#1165
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1875105/posts?page=1338#1338
http://jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2370095