Al Qaeda again threatens America (Thread 3) Daily Terror Threat

World Tribune ^ | Thursday, February 5, 2004

[Mossad1967]

SANAA, Yemen, Jan. 24 (UPI) -- A purported statement by al-Qaida in Yemen warned Saturday of a "major strike" soon in the United States.

The statement, distributed by the Yemeni Tagamoo Party for Reforms, said: "A major strike, a big event will take place in America soon," reminiscent of the Sept. 11 attacks.

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Previous threads

[Sean Osborne Lomax]

How about a word from Russia? Here is an editorial from The Moscow Times dated 3 February, 2004.


Tuesday, Feb. 3, 2004. Page 10

Strategic War Games Off Target

Editorial
Later this month, Russia's strategic nuclear forces will hold their largest exercises since the early 1980s.

The official explanation, according to a report in Kommersant, is that the war games are designed to help Russia prepare to counter terrorist threats.

But no sensible person could believe that the launching of cruise missiles over the Atlantic and satellites into space combined with the test-firing of ballistic missiles would make the military better able to interdict a group of terrorists, even if they had managed to get hold of a nuclear weapon.

When the military last held war games of a similar scale, in 1982, both the Kremlin and the White House knew perfectly well what they were for -- to simulate a global nuclear war. The planned exercises will also simulate a U.S.-Russian nuclear war, and the Russian side should not pretend otherwise.

The strategic exercises are clearly intended to send a message to Washington, but also to the voters at home as President Vladimir Putin comes up for re-election.

It would be a little alarming if the Kremlin was planning to simulate a nuclear war just to show that Russia is still a power to be reckoned with. What is more alarming is that Russian commanders, though they would not admit it in public, continue to believe that a nuclear exchange between the United States and Russia is possible and thus that they should plan for it. Sadly, the situation is the same with U.S. commanders.

Otherwise, how to explain why each country has 2,500 nuclear warheads on hair-trigger alert? Even a fraction of these would be enough to deter and, if necessary, destroy any third nuclear power. And the high state of alert greatly increases the risk of a false alarm triggering a nuclear exchange.

The reported holes in Russia's early warning system, and the fact that a joint center for exchanging data from early warning systems, which leaders of the two countries agreed to establish at a summit in 2000, has yet to materialize, increases the risk of a doomsday even more.

The sheer number of launch-ready nuclear weapons on both sides makes it easier for terrorists to try to seize one or hack into the command and control network to launch one.

True, Russian and U.S. leaders have done a lot to reduce their nuclear arsenals, increase security and improve communications between their strategic commands. They need to do even more. If they are serious about fighting terrorism, political leaders on the banks of the Potomac and the Moskva should prod their generals to game joint interdictions of nuclear terrorist attacks rather than U.S.-Russian nuclear wars.


http://www.themoscowtimes.com/stories/2004/02/03/005.html

[MamaDearest]

You're right about that. It's cheaper for them to not have insurance and risk getting caught then to pay for it. We know people who have been hit by illegals who ran from the scene and abandoned the junk vehicles they were driving. Here's an old article that provides insight about the ever-growing benefits (not) of NAFTA, which unchallenged would have permitted these vehicles free run in the USA:

Bush To Allow Mexican Trucks in US - February 7, 2001 (OA)
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By SUZANNE GAMBOA
The Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) - President Bush stands by his position that free trade obligates the United States to open its highways to Mexican trucks, the White House said Wednesday. He is reviewing how to do so after a trade panel ruled that keeping the trucks out violated the North American Free Trade Agreement.

White House spokeswoman Claire Buchan said that Bush, in keeping with a view he outlined during the campaign, is committed to letting Mexican trucks in and is focused on ensuring that the American public does not share roadways with unsafe Mexican trucks. He has made no decisions, Buchan said.

``One thing I want to stress that it pointed out in the report is that the NAFTA rules in no way inhibit the U.S. ability to set our own highway safety standards and the safety standards the drivers must abide by,'' Buchan said. ``The president has indicated that he does think the NAFTA trucking provision should be implemented. We haven't made decisions yet on how to do it but the report indicated we may use our U.S. highway safety standards.''

The Transportation Department said 35 percent of Mexican trucks that entered the United States last year were put out of service for significant safety violations.

An official from the U.S. Trade Representative's Office did not say how authorities would keep unsafe trucks from entering the country, but said Bush ``has made clear he believes the NAFTA trucking provisions should be implemented.''

Pedro Cerisola, Mexico's communications and transport secretary, said he welcomed the decision and said his agency would work with truckers on how to take advantage of the opening.

Another Mexican official, Deputy Transport Minister Aaron Dychter, said 184 Mexican trucking firms have applied to transport cargo across the border into the United States. He said Mexico has now ``harmonized'' its safety standards to meet those of the United States.

NAFTA, the trade agreement between the United States, Canada and Mexico, called for Mexican trucks to have unrestricted access to highways in border states - Texas, California, New Mexico and Arizona - by 1995 and full access to all U.S. highways by January 2000.

The Clinton administration, citing safety concerns, but also under pressure from unions representing U.S. truckers, refused to implement the provisions.

Canada has a truck inspection program similar to the U.S. system, and its truckers are allowed access to all U.S. roadways.

Mexico has no such system, and its trucks are allowed only within a 20-mile zone north of the border, where they transfer their loads to American trucks. Mexico estimates that about 14,000 trucks cross the border daily and that it has lost about $2 billion because of the U.S. policy.

About 70 percent of the approximately 5 million trucks entering the United States every year come through Texas. The Texas Department of Public Safety, which is responsible for truck safety inspections, says it inspects about 1 percent of those trucks.

A report issued Tuesday by the consumer group Public Citizen and its sister organization, Global Trade Watch, found that Texas border communities have seen a dramatic increase in highway fatalities and serious injuries from crashes involving trucks with Mexican registrations.

``It is imperative that we continue to limit access for these dangerous trucks even if it means paying trade sanctions,'' said Joan Claybrook, president of Public Citizen.

The American Trucking Associations applauded the panel's decision.

``ATA strongly believes that motor carriers operating in the United States, no matter what their nationality, must abide by U.S. safety standards,'' said president Walter McCormick Jr.

The NAFTA arbitration panel included two Americans, two Mexicans and a neutral member from the United Kingdom.

[TexKat]

Missing Russian Politician Found in Ukraine

By Ron Popeski

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian presidential candidate Ivan Rybkin, whose mystery disappearance triggered speculation he might have been kidnapped by rivals, turned up in

Ukraine Tuesday where he said he had been taking a break.

Rybkin, a fierce critic of President Vladimir Putin whom he will challenge in next month's election, told Russian media he was surprised at the fuss caused by his failure to contact family and aides.

"I didn't disappear anywhere. I bought a newspaper today and was stunned," Ekho Moskvy radio quoted him as saying.

Rybkin, who disappeared last Thursday, told Interfax news agency that he was entitled to go on a short break.

"I have the right to two or three days of personal life. I went to Kiev to my friends, walked around, switched off my mobile phones, and didn't watch TV," he was quoted as saying.

"Over the last week I decided to have a rest from the fuss, which has surrounded me. I left my wife, who is now taking care of our grandchildren, fruit and money, but didn't tell her anything. I changed my jacket, got onto the train and left for Kiev."

He said he telephoned after reading newspapers in Kiev.

Rybkin was due to fly back to Moscow later in the evening and was certain to face hordes of reporters as well as his own baffled campaign workers.

Rybkin's aide said he had telephoned to say he had been relaxing in Ukraine.

"His voice was cheerful and jolly, I am very glad that he is alive and healthy," Ksenia Ponomaryova said by telephone. "I do not know why he didn't tell anyone anything."

Rybkin, 57, went missing last Thursday triggering suggestions that he had been kidnapped by political rivals.

Two days later he was formally registered as one of six candidates running against Putin in the March 14 presidential election. None is seen as posing any serious threat to Putin's chances of winning by a landslide a second term in the Kremlin.

[MamaDearest]

It's a logical rumor as well.

[Sean Osborne Lomax]

"Here's the latest semi-inside rumor I have heard today, paraphrased...

One of the unwritten rules of journalism is that if you hear something once, then its a rumor; hear it from two different sources, then its a fact."

Hmmm...


What about three (3) sources saying the same thing? And then a week later a fourth (4).

Then, within days, the Italian Foreign Minister reports directly to the US SECSTATE via phone call about just concluded talks with the government of Iran, then the President of Afghanistan, then a US Senator chimes in as well US Army field commanders in Afghanistan and others begin chiming in on the subject...

...which is about the "capture" of Osama bin Laden.

[milkncookies]

Probably went to see his mistress.

[TexKat]

Um, I was referring to Vreeland. I do not see any mention of him in the posts you referred me to. Am i missing something?

If you would click on the link of Fair Opinion's post #1513, scrool down past the image of the moon and read the article that appears there you will find info regarding Vreeland.

[eastforker]

Ok I lied, I said I wasn't going to post to this thread anymore, but, does anyone remember the airline the ukaraine shot down with a missle about 2 years ago? Accidently they said, but a definate missle. Maybe someone here bookmarked it.This was around maybe feb- march 2002, maybe earlier. The point I am making is that it was shot down with a missle. This is a state entity with vast resources.

[milkncookies]

Sean, I hope it's proven you are right. But what is the "real" significance of this?
AQ has taken the "cell" metholodology of terrorism honed so well by Sinn Fein, and made it even better. Do you really think OBL intentionally kept himself "in the loop" on every little thing going on, knowing that if he were ever caught, it would probably compromise their entire operation?
Sure it will be a significant moral defeat, and yes, we will probably learn things we didn't know. But how much will we really learn?

[TexKat]

and then after Osama was captured he started talking about his purchase of suitcase nukes from Khan.

[milkncookies]

Ok, then back to my original question to you, FairOpinion, and ALL....Have you done any research into the Vreeland story? It encompasses way more than "red mercury". If you have, do you have an opinion?

[Calpernia]

There were postings here at FR a while ago about Vreeland. I didn't follow them too closely.

I have a page up now in ref. to it.

[TexKat]

Glad to see that you lied eastforker. I will see what I can find on the ukaraine missle and downed plane. Good morning, glad to hear from you.

[Mossad1967]

I agree!!!

IMHO, Al Zawahiri is the one we need to get.

Much more so than OBL.

He is the operational brains of the organization.

All bets are off while he remains on the loose.

[milkncookies]

Thanks Cal, do you have an opinion on Vreeland? And how do I access your site?

[TexKat]

Okay, we will research VREELAND and see what we come up with.

VREELAND

[Rushmore Rocks]

Bump for "Threat Matrix".

[Sean Osborne Lomax]

Seems like all kinds of new info is flooding the major media these days about alQaeda nukes. There is also a flood other information suddenly coming in to NEIN about the problem of the massive proliferation of rogue nuclear weapons in the hands of terrorists and our ability to keep track of them all.

Here's a real good article on this subject which reiterates many points I have posted in this thread previously.

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=29109

WAR ON TERROR
Does al-Qaida have
20 suitcase nukes?
Author claims bin Laden purchased them in '98 from ex-KGB agents for $30 million

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Posted: October 2, 2002
1:00 a.m. Eastern



© 2002 WorldNetDaily.com


Editor's note: The following story was posted on Oct. 2. For an update, see 'Bush, Blair warned of bin Laden nukes'

A new book by an FBI consultant on international terrorism says Osama bin Laden's al-Qaida terrorist network purchased 20 suitcase nuclear weapons from former KGB agents in 1998 for $30 million.

The book,"Al Qaeda: Brotherhood of Terror," by Paul L. Williams, also says this deal was one of at least three in the last decade in which al-Qaida purchased small nuclear weapons or weapons-grade nuclear uranium.

Williams says bin Laden's search for nuclear weapons began in 1988 when he hired a team of five nuclear scientists from Turkmenistan. These were former employees at the atomic reactor in Iraq before it was destroyed by Israel, Williams says. The team's project was the development of a nuclear reactor that could be used "to transform a very small amount of material that could be placed in a package smaller than a backpack."

"By 1990 bin Laden had hired hundreds of atomic scientists from the former Soviet Union for $2,000 a month – an amount far greater that their wages in the former Soviet republics," Williams writes. "They worked in a highly sophisticated and well-fortified laboratory in Kandahar, Afghanistan."

This work continued throughout the 1990s, the author says.

In 1993, according to the book, Jamal Ahmed al-Fadl, a bin Laden agent who turned into a Central Intelligence Agency source, purchased for al-Qaida a cylinder of weapons-grade uranium from a former Sudanese government minister who represented businessmen from South Africa. The purchase price was $1.5 million and the uranium was tested in Cyprus and transported to Afghanistan.

Al-Fadl reported that, at the time of this transfer, al-Qaida was already working on a deal for suitcase nukes developed for the KGB.

Williams says the Russian Mafia made another mysterious deal with "Afghani Arabs" in search of nuclear weapons in 1996. The Russians who sold the material now live in New York.

Then again in 1998, Mamdouh Mahmud Salim was arrested in Munich and charged with acting as an al-Qaida agent to purchase highly enriched uranium from a German laboratory.

That same year, according to Williams, bin Laden succeeded in buying the 20 suitcase nukes from Chechen Mafia figures, including former KGB agents. The $30 million deal was partly cash and partly heroin with a street value of $700 million.

"After the devices were obtained, they were placed in the hands of Arab nuclear scientists who, federal sources say, 'were probably trained at American universities,'" says Williams.

Though the devices were designed only to be operated by Soviet SPETZNAZ personnel, or special forces, al-Qaida scientists came up with a way of hot-wiring the bombs to the bodies of would-be martyrs, according to the book.

Suitcase nukes are not really suitcases at all, but suitcase-size nuclear devices. The weapons can be fired from grenade or rocket launchers or detonated by timers. A bomb placed in the center of a metropolitan area would be capable of instantly killing hundreds of thousands and exposing millions of others to lethal radiation.

Yossef Bodansky, author of "Bin Laden: The Man Who Declared War on America" and the U.S. Congress' top terrorism expert, concurs that bin Laden has already succeeded in purchasing suitcase nukes. Former Russian security chief Alexander Lebed also testified to Congress that 40 nuclear suitcases disappeared from the Russian arsenal after the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Williams quotes an anonymous federal official as saying: "The question isn't whether bin Laden has nuclear weapons, it's when he will try to use them."

In addition to the suitcase nukes, Williams reports that al-Qaida has also obtained chemical weapons from North Korea and Iraq. Williams says the FBI confirmed to him that Saddam Hussein provided bin Laden with a "gift" of anthrax spores.

Williams says al-Qaida also includes in its arsenal plague viruses, including ebola and salmonella, from the former Soviet Union and Iraq, samples of botulism biotoxin from the Czech Republic, and sarin from Iraq and North Korea.

[Calpernia]

No opinion yet. Since I haven't followed this Vreeland thing at all...it will take a lot more than one site to learn.

I'm on this one: http://www.gnosticliberationfront.org/delmart_edward_vreeland_case.htm#latest%20on

No reason, it was just the first one I looked at. I have to see who's info came from where...sources, who has an agenda, et al.

This will take longer then one search to form an opinoin.

[Mossad1967]

"After the devices were obtained, they were placed in the hands of Arab nuclear scientists who, federal sources say, 'were probably trained at American universities,'" says Williams.


Incredible!!!