http://www.politico.com/blogs/bensmith/0708/Obama_press_told_to_cover_up_not_wear_green.html
Politico’s Carrie Budoff Brown, accompanying Obama on his trip to the Middle East and Europe, emails: Reporters traveling overseas with Sen. Barack Obama were thrown a bit of curve last week when the campaign emailed a “dress code” for Israel and Jordan. Aides had passed along as a courtesy the list that they had distributed to their staff to follow. But some of the tips raised a few eyebrows, particularly among the female reporters. “Do not wear green.” (Explained later as the color of Hamas)
Comment:
“Greendale” School is the return address of the anthrax letters to Senators Daschle and Leahy — two Senators who played key roles in both appropriations to Israel and Arab secular regimes and the rendering of senior Egyptian Islamic Jihad leaders. In December 2002, the Arabic paper London Al-Sharq al-Awsat reported that correspondence on Zawahiri’s computer (which was obtained by the Wall Street Journal) shows Zawahiri uses “school” as code for Egyptian Islamic Jihad. The letter was found on Al Zawahiri’s computer. The letter was designed to look innocent. It was dated 3 May 2001 and signed “Dr. Nour, Chairman of the Company.”
Green dale refers to green “river valley” — Egypt, Cairo, Egyptian Islamic Jihad and/or Egyptian Islamic Group. Put it all together and you have their new official name (though the American press does not use it) — Qaeda al Jihad. For what it is worth, at the Darunta complex where jihadis trained, recruits would wear green uniforms, except for Friday when they would be washed.
It was widely published among the militant islamists that martyrs go to paradise “in the hearts of green birds.” The stamp used in the anthrax mailings was designed by artist Michael Doret. Mr. Doret advises me that the color of the eagle is a “teal” or greenish-blue.
In the very interview in which they admitted 9/11, and described the codes used for the four targets for the planes, KSM and Ramzi Binalshibh admitted to the Jenny code, the code for representing the date 9/11, and used the symbolism of the “Green Birds.” Osama Bin Laden later invoked the symbolism in his video “The 19 Martyrs”, describing a hijacker as “A man of worship who enjoined good and forbade evil. His body was on earth but his heart roamed with the green birds that perch beneath the Throne of the Most Merciful.”
9-11 plotter Ramzi Binalshibh a few months earlier in his interview with al-Jazeera, in a lengthy and articulate essay “The Nineteen Lions” published by Azzam Publications on December 2002, explained:
“One of the explanations of the Quranic verse [3:169] in which Allah says that the shuhadaa (martyrs) are not dead, is that as well as their souls being inside the hearts of green birds, they are alive because the shaheed (martyr) gives life to those around him. Indeed evidence of this is apparent throughout the Ummah today.”
Peter Finn of the Washington Post explains the symbolism:
“Around 7 one evening during Ramadan in 1998, the believers filed down a long corridor leading to the prayer room of the Al Muhadjirin mosque here, placing their shoes on the dark brown shelves before stepping onto a carpet the color of turquoise, a mixture of green for Islam and blue for heaven. Among the worshipers was a small group of men who clustered around a severe, slight Egyptian named Mohamed Atta. ..
In the [9/11/2002] interview with al-Jazeera, Binalshibh, said that Al-Shehhi, even before he learned of the operation, used to have beautiful visions that he flies in the sky with huge green birds and crashes into things.”
A FAQ on Al Qaeda’s website, the Azzam Publications website, explained that “In the Hearts of Green Birds” refers to what is inside: “The actual Arabic word used in the Hadith is not Qalb (heart) but it is Jowf which can mean any of interior, inside, or heart (as in center).” There was a video based on the hadith with the title “In The Hearts of Green Birds” about foreign mujahideen that had been martyred in Bosnia. The audiocasette was created in August 1996 and its 3rd edition was released in January 1997. The azzam.org website selling the “In the Hearts of Green Birds” audiocassette was shut down after 9/11 because authorities thought it might contain codes and instructions to militants.
Azzam.com posted an exclusive interview with Ayman al-Zawahiri and stressed the importance of cash donations and gas masks and chemical-resistant suits. Ibn Khattab, the Arab Chechnyan fighter who was Bin Laden’s good friend, had told his public that azzam.com was highly recommended and that only the two charities identified by the website should be used to route donations — announcing in 2000 that Benevolence International Foundation was one of the charities that should be used. The other was the Islamic Assembly of North America (”IANA”). Ibu al-Khattab, the late Arab-Afghan commander of foreign mujahideen in Chechnya (who in March 2002 was killed by a poison letter), expressly endorsed Azzam Publications.
Azzam.org had “no bricks and mortar address, but operates a post office box in London, and bill[ed] itself as “an independent media organisation providing authentic news and information about jihad and the Foreign Mujahideen everywhere.” One posting datelined from the southern Afghan city of Kandahar and was a message to Muslim youth from top terror suspect Bin Laden. A farewell message from Azzam Publications .. exhorts “Muslims all over the World (to) render as much financial, physical, medical, media and moral support to the Taliban as they can.” Azzam also urged those with computer expertise to mirror the website so as to keep it up after authorities took it down. One can access old websites as they existed on past dates through www.archives.org and its wonderful Wayback Machine.
British and US intelligence sources suspected that some of Azzam.com’s jihad photos and graphics contain messages embedded with a technology known as steganography. The code instead perhaps was there separately for all to see on the stamps of the lethal missives being sent.
A man formerly known as Paul Hall, was arrested in Phoenix on a federal criminal complaint in March 2007 and agreed to be removed to District of Connecticut for further prosecution where there has been investigation of Azzam Publications website located on a server there He is alleged to have provided classified information to the London-based Azzam Publications about a U.S. Navy battle group as it traveled from California to the Persian Gulf region in 2001. He allegedly “described a recent force protection briefing given aboard his ship, voiced enmity toward America, praised Osama bin Laden and the mujahedeen [and] praised the October 2000 attack on the USS Cole.”
Even Zarqawi invoked the imagery in a 60-minute audio message:
“The martyrs rejoice in the bounty provided by God. Their souls are inside the bodies of green birds that fly in heaven.”
In Fall 2004, the federal authorities indicted the fellow behind Azzam Publications selling “Green Birds,” Babar Ahmad, pointing, in part, to the “distribution of videotapes and compact discs depicting fighters in Bosnia, Chechnya and elsewhere, and the eulogizing of dead fighters, for the purpose of recruiting individuals and soliciting donations to support the mujahideen in Afghanistan and Chechnya.” Of Pakistani descent, Ahmad is a British computer specialist. He is associated with KSM, who had anthrax production documents on his laptop and admits to having headed the cell (after Atef’s death) planning to use weaponized anthrax against the United States. Ahmad is also the cousin of Muhammad Naeem Noor Khan, who was arrested mid-2004 in Pakistan. Khan’s computers carried detailed surveillance of five financial buildings in New York, Newark and Washington and once prompted the Department of Homeland Security to elevate the threat alert level to orange.
In an affidavit, an FBI special agent and computer investigative specialist, alleged that a New Brunswick, NJ man, Mazen Mokhtar, assisted Babar in maintaining the continued operation of the Azzam sites, through the use of mirror sites, when the administrators of Azzam sites shut down the Azzam.com site down after 9/11. The mirror sites, www.qoqaz.net and www.waaqiah.com, allegedly routed people trying to access www.azzam.com. The affidavit alleges that Mr. Mokhtar is listed as the administrative contact for the mirror sites. He also operated minna.com. A friend reports: “He said he used to run a hosting service four or five years ago that used to resell Web hosting services to people. He said he didn’t know those guys (mentioned in court papers) and he is not involved in anything like that.” An Egyptian-born imam and political activist, he is a supporter of Palestinian cause and frequent speaker before groups in Brooklyn and the Bronx. He is said to be nice and seems a man of peace.
Of course, given that the symbolism used in this regard in the anthrax mailings had an origin in religious writing, there is no direct tie with the website — the tie could be with the hadith. The webmaster has said that the FBI allowed it to remain up (while it moved from server to server) for another year hoping to get leads on supporters.
Bin Laden was using “Green Birds” in the same way he used the repeated phrase “Looming Tower” to hint of what was to come with the planes attack on the World Trade Center. He would say:
“Wherever you are, death will find you, even in the looming tower.”
On October 7, 2001 in a prerecorded tape aired October 7, Bin Laden said “The winds of faith have come.” This would be enough to keep Director of National Intelligence Mike McConnell and VP Dick Cheney up at night — or when they do sleep, keep them dreaming about green birds.
The same counsel prosecuting and defending the criminal contempt of Dr. Al-Arian for refusing to testify before the grand jury in Northern Virginia are the respective counsel in the case involving microbiologist Ali Al-Timimi, who his lawyer describes as an “anthrax weapons suspect.”
Who was at the 2001 (and/or 2002) meetings referenced below on the subject of advocacy against the use of secret evidence in immigration proceedings?
The same defense lawyers use similar language as used in the affidavit below in explaining that microbiologist Al-Timimi met with the “911 imam” Anwar Aulaqi in coordinating the outreach to the US government over 9/11 in October 2002. Ali then arranged to have a letter from Bin Laden’s sheik hand-delivered to every member of Congress on the first anniversary of the anthrax mailings.
Were Al-Timimi and the “911 imam” at these meetings chaired by Sami Al-Arian? Is that why they are being so aggressive toward Al-Arian?
As I recall, Leahy and Daschle were involved in approval of MLAT, a treaty that would allow the use of secret evidence from abroad. The blind sheik Abdel-Rahman’s previous liaison had been held for years based on secret evidence, as had (Lynne Stewart’s partner) Stanley Cohen’s client Abu Marzouk. Does the Department of Justice suspect that one or more people complicitous in the anthrax mailings attended the 2001 and 2002 meetings? This same AUSA argued the case on appeal before the Fourth Circuit — recently affirmed — involving someone who I recall as being a former GMU student. While I am ignorant of all matters relating to Palestine/Israel, and Department of Justice practices, it seems notable that the AUSA prosecuting Al-Timimi is pressing so hard for information in other cases.
In a 21-page June 12, 2008 affidavit by Dr. Sami Al-Arian (that was followed by a detailed supplementary affidavit two weeks later), he affirms:
“46. During the 1999-2000 presidential campaign and up until September 11, 2001, I was very much involved in lobbying activities before Congress and in lobbying the administration to ban the use of secret evidence in immigration proceedings, among other civil rights issues. I recall having contacted a couple of dozen Muslim leaders and intellectuals across the United States in the summer of 2001 to establish a permanent lobbying group and political training organization. ... They encouraged me to pursue the project and promised to promote it as best they could when it got off the ground. The full plan for such organization was seized in the 2003 search and is currently in the FBI Tampa office.
47. I chaired a strategy and brain-storming session regarding this project in July 2001 in the northern Virginia area. I recall that it was attended by several of the above mentioned individuals. The minutes of the meeting and the attendance list were seized by the FBI during the 2003 search and is currently in the FBI office in Tampa.
48. After September 11, 2001, I chaired another meeting in the northern Virginia area (possibly in late 2001 or early 2002) which was attended by at least a dozen people including some people from IIIT. I believed that the objective of the meeting was to explore an effective strategy for the Muslim community in the United States to respond to the 9/11 tragedy. The minutes of this meeting meeting, along with the attendance list, were seized by the FBI during the 2003 search and are currently being held in the FBI office in Tampa.”