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Posted on 11/03/2003 9:17:27 AM PST by tubavil
Edited on 01/26/2004 3:58:09 PM PST by Sidebar Moderator. [history]
Monday, November 3, 2003
A new message was posted in the last few hours by the Jeddah-based al-Qaeda-linked Al-Islah (Reform) society calling on Muslims to flee New York, Washington and Los Angeles in advance of major al Qaeda attacks in those cities. This is revealed by DEBKAfile.
The message accuses the United States of predetermining its end (doom) by its policies. ?The Jews rule the Pentagon by remote control and (are the cause) of Muslims being killed in every corner of the world. The United States should therefore expect more blows.?
The message is signed on behalf of the al Bayan (The Threat) movement by ?your warrior brother, Abul Hassan al Khadrami?.
Our Muslim expert identifies the name of the signatory as belonging to a Yemeni from Hadhrameuth, the Bin Ladens? place of origin where Osama enjoys substantial tribal support.
DEBKAfile?s counter-terror sources stress that warnings appearing on these forums are taken both very seriously and with caution by the intelligence services keeping track of the terrorist network?s electronic traffic.
Last November, Jeddah-based fundamentalist forums addressed a message to an Al Qaeda member, saying whoever understands ? understands; whoever knows, knows, but we are marching towards an operation that will take us to Paradise. Three days later, the Mombasa Paradise hotel was blown up killing 12 Kenyans and 3 Israelis and a failed shoulder-launched Strela anti-air missile missed an Israeli airliner at Mombasa airport.
My only nit is with the following as the rest of your post is a well measured, thoughtful analysis.
My primary concern was that this thread is over-emphasizing the relative risk of being caught in a terror event.
If you take the whole of the USA and jumble in the 10s of thousands killed or injured during 9/11, this is indeed true.
If you take merely the number of people in Manhatten at the time, or folks like myself who watched it from across the Hudson, your percentage goes up significantly. If you were in WTC 1 or 2, your risk was 100%.
My mother and father live in small towns in Ohio. I work in southern Bergen county NJ, I travel into Manhatten on occasion. Who's risk is higher?
My point is that one needs to factor in proximity to high value targets to identify risk as best as possible. Calculating risk by using the population of the country or the world as a benchmark is disengenuous.
I do not follow sports, but do know that the Super Bowl Sunday is shortly after the beginning of the year. How intriguing, that when I Googled it, I discovered that it is scheduled for just the date I suspected... February 1.
Furthermore, a search of "super bowl" and "back breaking" generated quite a few hits, in reference to touchdowns.
If the target isn't the superbowl, perhaps it's a metaphor for a success... a big score... a back-breaking touchdown. Looking down the links, I noticed that in game XXXI (1987), their was a super bowl record of a 99 yard touchdown. Can't go higher than that, can you, except maybe from Mars? The point is, allah has 99 names. Maybe Al Qaeda likes football-allah analogies. Of course, this is a long thread, so surely someone covered these points already. Sorry for any duplicate ideas here. Carry on...
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