Posted on 02/10/2002 6:21:48 AM PST by Wallaby
Not for commercial use. Solely to be used for the educational purposes of research and open discussion.
Suspect confesses links to shoe-bomber By ELIZABETH BRYANT, United Press International United Press International February 10, 2002, Sunday 10:00 AM Eastern Time PARIS, Feb. 10
A man arrested in France last week for allegedly planning a terrorist attack on a French cathedral has reportedly confessed to having met two prominent terrorist suspects at the same Afghan training camp in 2000: Zacarias Moussaoui and shoe-bomber Richard Reid.
Moussaoui is currently in a U.S. prison on charges of participating in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks while Reid is being held for allegedly attempting to blow up an American airliner with explosives hidden in his shoes.
Yacine Aknouche, 27, also told French investigators he met suspected terrorist Ahmed Ressam during another stint in an Afghan training camp, in 1998.
Yacine Aknouche, 27, also told French investigators he met suspected terrorist Ahmed Ressam during another stint in an Afghan training camp, in 1998, Le Journal du Dimanche reported Sunday. Aknouche, an ethnic Algerian, was among several people arrested by French police last Monday in connection with a foiled plot to bomb in Dec. 2000 the Strasbourg cathedral, in eastern France.
Ressam was arrested on the U.S.-Canadian border in 1999, after authorities found more than 100 pounds of explosives stashed in the trunk of his car. He was convicted of plotting to bomb the Los Angeles International Airport during the millennium celebrations.
But according to Journal du Dimanche, Aknouche may be linked to a larger, shadowy terrorist network operating in Europe.
Among Aknouche's alleged connections are two associates of Saudi millionaire Osama bin Laden -- Abu Zoubeyda and Abu Jaffar -- now imprisoned in Britain.
Le Journal offered few details about Aknouche's alleged confessions. The newspaper also reported that Belgian police have traced a call placed by Reid using a Belgian phone card last year. The card was found in the apartment of another terrorist suspect, Nizar Trabelsi. Trabelsi was arrested last year in connection with another foiled plot to bomb the U.S. embassy in Paris.
Reid traveled to Belgium in early December to get a new British passport, before boarding an American Airlines flight from Paris on Dec. 22, with explosives packed in his shoes.
Reid allegedly received his marching orders in e-mailed messages from Pakistan. But police reportedly believe he may have also received assistance from extremists in France and elsewhere in Europe.
French media have also reported the type of explosives found in Reid's shoes -- a highly volatile compound known as TATP -- is the same as those found in Ressam's trunk in 1999.
Oops. I meant Algerian.
That may be precisely what they wish us to do. Organizations like al Qaeda have to know that, alone, they have no hope of achieving their stated objective of bringing down "the Great Satan".
They can only hope to succeed when, as and if they can mobilize the entire Islamic world against us. Our attacking their religious symbols would achieve their aim.
Besides which, such an attack would serve no purpose toward achieving our objective -- which is the utter destruction of terrorist groups like al-Qaeda.
I'm not for making any enemies we don't need. Nor for wasting any munitions that might otherwise result in putting a terrorist's head on a pike.
Absolutely not a good idea. The worst of these terrorists (such as bin Laden and al-Qaeda) are Wahhabists. As they do with so much else of the Koran, Wahhabists take the injunction against idolatry to an absurd and vicious extreme. They consider "holy sites" of all kinds to be idols worthy of nothing less than total destruction. And this applies even to Muslim sites. The Wahhabist rebels who put ibn-Saud in power tore down minnarets and wrecked pilgrimage sites throughout Arabia; they even tried to destroy the tomb of Mohammed himself!
The only thing keeping the Kaaba safe, in fact, is the House of Saud's certain knowledge that the non-Wahhabist Muslim world would descend upon them en masse if they dared destroy it. They'd be overjoyed if we actually "threatened" to do it for them, because they'd then get to have their cake and eat it too. Whenever one of these Wahhabists talks about the "holy sites of Islam," it's simply a handy slogan, market-tested for Western ears. Just like the Democrats' "for the children" drumbeat, this supposed concern "for the holy sites" is only a ruse to disguise their thirst for power. For the West to take it seriously in any way, pro or con, is merely playing into their hands.
Cairo and Teheran are one thing. Mecca and Medina are another.
Recall that, when we were fighting the Kamikazes, we nuked Hiroshima -- not Kyoto.
Plots to attack various historical monuments in Europe including Big Ben, the Eiffel tower, our own Capitol and White House and perhaps most horribly the grand Cathedrals of Europe, I think it is time we put the Islamic nations on notice. We will consider any such attack on our cultural heritage to be a war crime and we will obliterate valued Islamic landmarks in spades should such an attack occur.
We should let these Swarmy Arabic financers/backers of these terrorists know that any attack on these Western Cultural Heritage Icons will be an automatic war crime.
First all Arabic capitals who have hosted/financed and trained such terrorists will cease to exist within a few minutes after any such attack.
Then their beloved M&M (Mecca and Medina) will be vaporized and other Islamic icons will be vaporized in minutes if our icons are attacked.
Next, we will send special service people out to hunt down and shoot the mad dog super rich Arabs who financed these terrorists where ever they may be. Any family members with them will receive the same fate!
Then, we will find every secret money account of these Arabic financiers of terror, seize the money to pay for our weapons and hunts. Any money left over will be used to rebuild/repair our cultural icons!
Menzies Aviation Group reports that two of its most senior management perished in the New York plane crash of American Airlines flight 587. Dennis Blair (55), managing director and senior vice president-Americas and Sylvie Greleau (40), director, Sales & Marketing-Americas were on the flight to Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. Mr Blair was responsible for a region that extended from Canada to the Caribbean and Latin America, where he developed operations in Mexico, Chile, Brazil, St Maarten and the Dominican Republic. Ms Greleau joined Ogden Aviation in 1999 and had been active in developing strategic expansion in cargo services for Menzies Aviation Group throughout the Americas region. Steve Harrison, chief financial officer-Americas, will assume interim managerial control for the region, supported by Ted Foster, vice president, Latin American Operations, Larry Snyder, vice president , North American Operations and Alberto Iriberri, vice president, Mexican Operations. A further announcement will be made in due course.
All in all, I think it's most unlikely she would have been a suicide bomber.
Ive heard that too.Omerta is something these scumbags dont know about.When caught,they rat out their cohorts almost everytime.
No, it isn't proper to go around frothing and the mouth and wishing you could drink the blood of your enemies. Especially when you see "the enemy" as anyone who you think resembles a terrorist (like religious pilgrims).
In that case, you're no better than they are, and you are at cross-purposes with what FR is all about.
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