Posted on 11/11/2007 11:57:59 PM PST by HAL9000
Excerpt -
Washington - A Pakistani businessman suspected of playing a role in the 2002 brutal killing of American journalist Daniel Pearl died earlier this year, shortly after being interrogated by US and Pakistani intelligence, The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday.Pearl, a Karachi-based correspondent for the Journal, was kidnapped on January 23 2002, and killed execution-style shortly after.
The newspaper said Karachi businessman Saud Memon became a key suspect in the case because he owned a nursery where Pearl had been held captive.
Citing an unnamed senior US law enforcement official, the report said Memon was interrogated by both US and Pakistani intelligence services.
The interrogation produced information that Memon was helping al-Qaeda develop anthrax strains, the newspaper said.
~ snip ~
(Excerpt) Read more at news24.com ...
I give you a lot of points for honesty here, but...there are many (and I am one) who regard this man and his fellow travellers as enemies of our country. His irresponsible, no, TREASONOUS leaks of intelligence information that has crossed his desk or the desks of his staffers has made the fight against these people harder. Anything that does not make the fight easier is costing lives, and that is precisely what he has done.
That is EXACTLY what he was saying...or at least it was the way I read it. And then the smoke and mirrors about anthrax- whatever. He has yet to explain that that was NOT what he was saying, so I am left to assume that that WAS his point. *shrugs*
The post above about torture by me was cut-and-paste from a section on “Motive” relating to the anthrax crimes.
The full outline is below and hyperlinked at
http://www.anthraxandalqaeda.com
Ed, one of the posters, above, has always argued that Al Qaeda was not responsible for the anthrax mailings, among other reasons, because two democrats, Leahy and Daschle, were targeted. The cut-and-paste job was to explain that the US-based Salafists responsible for the anthrax did in fact have strong reason to target Leahy and Daschle (and they have said as much). That’s all.
Kicking Al Qaeda’s butt truly does require a non-partisan approach. Just as internal bickering among EIJ leaders undermines their effectiveness, they at least conceal it from the public for the sake of presenting a united front. We should to. Ed uses the “hang em high” / bomb ‘em to smithereens type rhetoric in arguing against an Al Qaeda theory. He reasons that it is “all political.” And so it is only in the context of the true crime or intelligence analysis that I urge that politics has no role. Politics, of course, are central to our values.
StarCMC here is the context of that post. It came from a subsection in the “Motive” section relating to the “Leahy Law” and why Senator Leahy was targeted. I am by no means an apologist for the militants. I want them caught and prosecuted to the full extent of the law or the ongoing war that they launched by killing the 3,000 innocents.
As my respect for the way Leahy and Specter work together in a non-partisan manner, I have the same respect for Mueller and Mukasey. I think it is in our own interest to show such respect as divisiveness only provides comfort to the enemy.
The poster is correct that the article is not about the anthrax mailings as such. It just happens to be my focus. We all have our own interests and I thought the article notable because of what it may shed to KSM’s connection to the cell weaponizing anthrax.
I. Vanguards Of Conquest
II. Means: Al Qaeda’s Biochem Program Codenamed Yogurt
a. The March 1999 Announcement Of Zawahiri’s Quest To Weaponize Anthrax
b. Zawahiri’s April/May 1999 Memos To Al Qaeda’s Military Commander Atef And Interest In Anthrax And Pesticides
c. “I Successfully Achieved The Targets”: Pakistan Scientist Rauf Ahmad’s Assistance In 1999 And 2000
d. “You Are Dead! Bang”: Ayman’s Plan To Use Charities And Universities As Cover
e. Al Qaeda’s 2001 Threat To Use Mailed Anthrax In Connection With Jailed EIJ Leader And Former Bin Laden Farm Manager Mahmoud Mahjoub
f. Taliban’s Interest In The Anthrax Vaccine Laboratory
g. The Empire Strikes Back
h. Hambali, Anthrax Lab Tech Yazid Sufaat, And Ayman’s Anthrax Bomb Maker
i. March 2003 Seizure Of Anthrax Production Documents On KSM’s Laptop And Arrest Of Bacteriologist Dr. Abdul Qudus Khan
j. 2003 Capture Of Hambali And Sufaat’s Assistants, And Seizure Of “Extremely Virulent” (But Unweaponized) Anthrax
k. Gitmo Charges And Anthrax Powder
l. Unconfirmed Claim: 2007 Capture Of Taliban Spokesman With Anthrax Packets Intended For Mailing To Government Officials
m. Access To Ames Strain
n. Made In USA: Cell Culture
In Cipro We Trust
Silica
Isotope Ratios
Curdled Milk
A Potential Lead
Mixed Genotype and Inverted Plasmid
III. Motive: Reason Senators Leahy And Daschle And The US Media Were Targeted
a. The Anthrax Letters: “Written In Language You Can Understand”
b. Profile Of An Angry Man: Ayman
c. FBI Director Mueller: Remember 9/11. Remember Oklahoma City.
d. Deterrence Against Invasion of Afghanistan
e. Significance Of Mailing Dates: Camp David Accord And Sadat’s Assassination
f. “Leahy Law” And Appropriations To Military And Security Units
g. Zawahiri’s View Of The “Lies” Of Secular Media
h. “Release Him”: Retaliation For Detention Of Blind Sheikh And Other Detainees
i. “The Far Enemy”: Zawahiri’s Victory In EIJ Debate Whether to Target US
j. Despots and Democracy
k. The CIA’s December 4, 1998 Presidential Daily Brief : The Ghost Of Sadat’s Assassin Islambouli Visits United States To Plan the Attacks Using Aircraft And Other Means
IV. Modus Operandi: “Pouring Musk On Barren Lands”
a. Targeted Assassination Of Individuals In Symbolic Positions
b. Hallmark Greetings: Egyptian Islamists’ Earlier 1996 Letter Bombs To DC And New York Papers And Symbolic Targets
c. Requirement Under Laws Of Jihad Of Warning Before Using Biochemical Weapons
d. Continuing Practice Of Sending Poisonous Letters As Threats
e. Use Of Code:
KSM And Clouds (Al-Sahab)
Jennifer Lopez Letter And Atta’s Jenny Code
“Greendale School”
“Franklin Park”
“In The Hearts of Green Birds” (Inside Green Birds)
Allusion to Atta and Genomic Sequencing of the Ames Strain
f. Summer 2001 Inquiries About Cropdusters And Helicopters
g. Choice Of Mailbox At 10 Nassau St. In Princeton
h. KSM’s Plan To Poison A Reservoir
i Al Qaeda’s Spymaster On Amerithrax
j. Poisoned Penpal: The Murder Of Chechen Rebel Leader Ibn Khattab
V. Opportunity: Tracking Potential Al Qaeda or Egyptian Islamic Jihad or Islamic Group Supporters
a. Know Not Just Your Enemy, But Who He Knew
b. Chasing Islambouli’s Ghost: A Tree Grows In Brooklyn
c. When Insiders Go Postal: US Postal Employee Ahmed Abdel Sattar
d. Charity Is As Charity Does: The US-Based Blind Sheik Followers Who Saw No Evil
e. 2001 Greenlight Of Biological Attack By US-Based Operatives
f. Hani And Nawaf On “The Straight Path”: Connecting The Kuala Lumpur, Falls Church And New Jersey Dots
g. Kandahar Souvenir: Hijacker Ahmed’s Blackened Leg Lesion in June 2001
h. Astonishing Aafia And Boston Branch Of Blind Sheik’s Services Organization
i. Hoax Letters That May Fly As Real Thing
j. North Brunswick, NJ Connection To Al Qaeda’s Website
k. “Jafar The Pilot”
VI. Sheiks, Bioweaponeers, And DARPA
a. Hardball Tactics In An Era Of Threats
b. The Education Of Ali Al-Timimi
c. “The Straight Path”: Connecting the Dots
d. GMU Center For Biodefense: Discovery Hall
e. Islamic Ruling On The Peace Process
f. The 2006 Arrest Of Former Falls Church “911 Imam” And Fellow Salafist Lecturer Awlaqi
g. Real Men Don’t Type: Ability of Intelligence To Prevent Domestic Bioterrorism
Conclusion
See today’s press release.
ExecutiveAction Announces Press Conference to Release Threat Assessment on a Terrorist Anthrax Attack Against America
But first a comment:
Proliferation of research ventures leads to greater risk of infiltration such as occurred with Ali Al-Timimi’s infiltration of the DARPA-funded Center for Biodefense where he had a high security clearance for work for the Navy and worked about 10-15 feet from famed Russian bioweaponeer Ken Alibek and former USAMRIID head Charles Bailey. Funny thing about a avoiding “future” attacks is that — given experience tends to show these jihadists are drawing from a relatively shallow pool of recruits — it always helps to take care of old business. at the very least, so as to demonstrate that the US is not as confused as it seem in its analysis of what is going on. Fortunately, the much -heralded confusion in 2002 and 2003 relating to Hatfill just represented leaks from one of two stove-piped squads on the Amerithrax Task Force, and there is no reason to think they have not aggressively pursued all leads, leaving no stone unturned.
Now for the press release about the new monograph.
12. November 2007
ExecutiveAction Announces Press Conference to Release Threat Assessment on a Terrorist Anthrax Attack Against America
ExecutiveAction Announces Press Conference to Release Threat Assessment on a Terrorist Anthrax Attack Against America
WASHINGTONDC-EXECUTIVEACTION
ExecutiveAction today announced it will hold a press conference on Wednesday, November 14, at 10:30 a.m. at the National Press Club to release the threat assessment ? Spores: The Threat of a Catastrophic Anthrax Attack on America.
At the press conference will be:
• Neil Livingstone - CEO of ExecutiveAction and one of the nation?s top terrorism experts.
• R. James Woolsey - Former Director of the CIA and Vice President of Booz Allen Hamilton.
• Professor Yonah Alexander - Senior Fellow at the Homeland Security Policy Institute at George Washington University and author of more than 90 books on terrorism and international affairs.
• David Wright - CEO of PharmAthene, a biodefense company headquartered in Annapolis.
The monograph examines the risk of a terrorist anthrax attack on America, the challenges terrorists face to develop or gain access to an anthrax weapon, and our preparedness in the event of a strike. The assessment also contains three attack scenarios.
About the monograph, Kay Goss, former Associate FEMA Director in charge of National Preparedness, Training and Exercises, said “We tend to prepare for the last catastrophic disaster. The monograph points us toward a Future catastrophic event. The 9/11 Commission concluded that our greatest weakness in emergency preparedness for that event was lack of imagination.” This report show the necessary process to, in fact, prepare for the future.
I want them dead. Bombing the WTC was not a CRIME, it was an act of WAR.
Kicking Al Qaeda’s butt truly does require a non-partisan approach...snip...As my respect for the way Leahy and Specter work together in a non-partisan manner,
Specter is as liberal as Leahy -- it's no stretch that they work together. Just so you know.
As for the rest, I honestly don't give a hoot whatever else you have to say because anyone who believes that we are LOSING THIS WAR needs to be further educated.
Good day to you.
Well let’s start at the beginning.
The foe was a guy named Ayman with Coke bottled glasses.
As recently as 1999, his correspondence would show he gave his colleagues a hard time when they replaced a fax or upgraded a computer without his advance authorization because they had such meager funds.
Then he and his few hundred supporters — who were endlessly bickering — picked a fight with a world power.
Now billions and billions of dollars he and his network remain about the same, having shown great resilience. But now for a while there he was averaging one video every 2.7 days. Last week I read 11 books on Bin Laden terrorism, most focused on how we fared in the 1990s. If you think we are doing any better, you haven’t learned much from the history. 9/11 was entirely avoidable as was WTC 1993. As will be the next attack.
Show me a single Presidential candidate who could have accomplished what Zawahiri has.
Nice to see you singing the praises of our enemy.
My gracious, you certainly seem to know a great deal about topics our intelligence departments find opaque, including the whereabouts of Osama bin Laden at any given moment. Perhaps instead of reading what was it, eleven books in a week about the same topic you ought to be professing...or is that what you're here for?
As far as the anthrax threat, nothing of the sort is as clear-cut as you're stating it. Weaponized anthrax was the topic of at least a half-dozen BW programs of my knowledge, including Saddam's. That isn't speculation in his case. And pursuit of his NBC programs wasn't as futile as you're pretending (for political purposes, I suggest, even while you're stating that politics is immaterial to you, which is, I am afraid, a lie, else why would you be here?); far from it, if anything it validates the worldwide suspicion toward Saddam which you're conveniently side-stepping in an effort to make our efforts in Iraq appear misdirected.
The al-Qaeda network is, if you have actually read one reputable source on the topic, much less eleven, quite a bit attenuated from that of 1998. The war is not endless, and al-Qaeda is not omnipresent and omniscient. Endlessly footnoted garbage is still garbage. Welcome to FR.
ZacandPook...you read nearly as many books as Al Gore does! What do you do for work? That is nearly two books a night...I consider myself pretty well read, but it takes me about three days to get through a book.
I suspect if I got through nearly two books a night, my wife would divorce me...but hey, I am a slow reader!
I should have said that I took 11 books out from the library. The local University allows citizens borrowing privileges which is cool. A beautiful FBI agent had come to visit and so I wanted to impress her with a pile of books in my bedroom. She takes exception to my suggestion that the FBI folks at Quantico really botched the Amerithrax profile in October 2001 by profiling a “lone wolf.” I recommend Peter Lance’s TRIPLE CROSS (2006) about infiltrator Ali Mohammed as Exhibit A as to why we shouldn’t be overconfident that the CIA and FBI are getting it right this time around.
The last book I read cover to cover that wasn’t assigned was the Hardy Boys in 4th grade.
I’m an index / table of contents / and highlights over key lime pie at Barnes and Noble kind of guy — looking for something I can post on FreeRepublic showing that my friend Ed is wrong. As for what I do, who has time to do anything beyond posting on FreeRepublic and why would anyone want to? (even though I went 6 years without ever letting it slip that I thought Ayman was a brilliant strategist who was whipping our ass). Oops. Won’t let it happen again.
I’ve been posting regularly for 6 years. Welcome to an anthrax thread.
The folks having the press conference on
Wednesday do not think Al Qaeda is responsible — they think Saddam is responsible. Though in their monograph and at the press conference they will sidestep the Fall 2001 mailings and focus on the need for theraupeutics.
If ever there is any evidence Saddam was responsible, I’ll be fascinated to see it. The monograph cites some newspaper articles as evidence Iraq had Ames when actually the 5 invoices from ATCC were not Ames and the attempt to get it from the UK was unsuccessful. Dany Shoham does not point to any direct evidence. Nor would my friend TrebleRebel. So one is left to assume that they could have gotten it, which likely is true. No reason to doubt Russia had it and Dr. Alibek says a senior Russian scientist was helping Iraq.
Certainly they had the means to produce a dry aerosol.
But I don’t know of any motive or choice as to targeting.
And it wasn’t their modus operandi (whereas it was Al Qaeda’s modus operandi).
It only gets interesting given Iraqi intelligence’s infiltration of Ansar al-Islam and the fact that Al-Timimi had a connection to the Iraqi embassy. But he was hardcore Salafist, to be sure.
Dennis Kucinich, I didn't know you posted on FR!
I wish someone would get back to the question I sincerely have about pharmaceuticals.
Aren’t there pharmaceuticals that are effective in getting folks to talk?
And empirically, aren’t they much more effective than torture? (I don’t watch 24 but I’m sure it’s been addressed).
Perhaps Zawahiri would not have gone on his quarter-century quest if the jailer had played chess with him and snuck him doobies instead of torturing him.
Who here has blabbed something he shouldn’t have when extremely drunk?
Who here has had his better half do the same?
Shouldn’t we just take all the folks in Gitmo and fly them to Negril, Jamaica and show them a good time?
I think there are. Sorry about the Kucinich joke, I couldn't resist.
This paragraph from Tenet is a good summary:
“The most startling revelation from this intelligence success story was that the anthrax program had been developed in parallel to 9/11 planning. As best as we could determine, al-Zawahiri’s project had been wrapped up in the summer of 2001, when the al-Qaida deputy, along with Hambali, were briefed over a week by Sufaat on the progress he had made to isolate anthrax. The entire operation had been managed at the top of al-Qai’da with strict compartmentalization. Having completed this phase of his work, Sufaat fled Afghanistan in December 2001 and was captured by authorities trying to sneak back into Malaysia. Rauf Ahmad was detained by Pakistani authorities in December 2001. Our hope was that these and our many other actions had neutralized the anthrax threat, at least temporarily.”
- George Tenet, in At the Center of the Storm: My Years at the CIA, at 278-279 (April 30, 2007)
But I don’t understand. You mean, you guys aren’t for Colbert for President?
I mean, FreeRepublic for over half a decade has been the one safe haven from a mad world. In FreeRepublic, it was obvious to most everyone that Al Qaeda was responsible (with or without an assist from Iraq, no matter). No need to trot out that cliche “looks like a duck, quacks like a duck, probably is a duck..” line.
I just assumed that the same good sense carried over to your choice for President.
Now as for Kucinich, he at least would be clever enough to fake an alien abduction and make KSM think he was about to be probed.
Really? What was your handle before, and why did you drop it? Were you banned?
Not under this nick - it's only been active since 30 April of this year. But welcome anyway even if it's a little late.
Weaponized anthrax spores aren't actually that difficult to come up with if you've filters of the right size and are willing to be very patient. If, however, you are in a hurry or need a lot of them you can try shaving them to the appropriate size to enter the alveoli - Saddam's programs explored that (so did the Soviets and some of our own allies back in The Day).
I agree with you absolutely that the distribution is the interesting aspect of this. Some people I do trust have stated that they think several of the principals may be dead, some with help. Call it an occupational hazard of being a terrorist.
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