Threat Matrix- Daily Terror Thread (4):

New York Post ^ | February 24, 2004 | By NILES LATHEM

[Revel]

February 24, 2004 -- WASHINGTON - The Pentagon has dispatched the elite commando force that hunted down Saddam Hussein to Afghanistan for a new operation aimed at getting Osama bin Laden, officials said yesterday. Military sources confirmed that members of the shadowy Task Force 121, the unit that conducted the high-tech search for Saddam and his henchmen, have recently begun operating in the remote mountainous region along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border where bin Laden and key al Qaeda and Taliban fugitives are believed to be hiding. The Task Force is made up of highly trained Delta and SEAL commandos, as well as CIA paramilitary operators. It operates outside normal military channels.

[Calpernia]

Probably the wrong thread for this; but HOW is Bush suppose to control companies outsourcing over seas?

[StillProud2BeFree]

http://www.interfax.ru/e/B/0/28.html?id_issue=9677430

Barnaul students threatened to blow up New York subway

BARNAUL. March 4 (Interfax) - A criminal investigation has been opened against two students in Barnaul, Siberia, who sent a letter to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) threatening to bomb the New York subway.

In their letter, the students gave specific dates for the attack.

The U.S. special services found that the letter had come from Barnaul and contacted the Altai Territory's law-enforcement departments specializing in the prevention of computer crimes. As a result, one of the students, who wrote the letter in an Internet cafe and e-mailed it from there, was detained (he was later released after giving a written undertaking not to leave the city).

At first the students denied any involvement in the threat, but then owned up to it, calling it "a joke."

No official charges have been filed against the students yet. They will face up to three years in jail if convicted of intentionally giving false information regarding a terrorism act. [RU EEU EUROPE ASIA EMRG VIO US] av aw

[CJ Wolf]

they directed police to one device and told them there was more.

[CJ Wolf]

"If you should get pulled over and have any reason to be suspicious, ask for a supervisor to come to the scene. A real officer will have no problem with that, Harp said."

I think that will be my standard request now when I get pulled over in the future.

[all4one]

Has anyone in the Philly, Delaware, Maryland or DC area experienced any unusual problems with tractor-trailer deliveries. I know companies in my area who are experiencing problems with deliveries because of lengthy inspections. I was awaiting a furniture delivery yesterday. The North Carolia trucking company called at 8:00 a.m., they were at the I-95 toll plaza in MD and every truck was pulled over and all shipments were being checked.

While I know that there are usual weight/shipment checks done, even the truck driver who travels north every week, found the detail of the check unusual. He even said that they really seemed like they were looking for something. I was the first delivery and they didn't arrive until 2:00 (toll plaza is only about 1 hour from me).

[TexKat]

Morrocan Mounir El Motassadeq in a Hamburg, northern Germany, court in a Feb 12, 2003 file picture. Germany's Federal Criminal Court on Thursday, March 4, 2004, ordered a retrial for Motassadeq, the only person convicted in the Sept. 11 attacks. Motassadeq was found guilty of aiding the Hamburg cell of suicide hijackers. Motassadeq is serving a 15-year prison sentence. (AP Photo/Christof Stache, pool)

Court Overturns 9/11 Suspect's Conviction

By GEIR MOULSON, Associated Press Writer

KARLSRUHE, Germany - A German court Thursday overturned the world's only conviction for the Sept. 11 attacks and ordered a retrial for a Moroccan found guilty last year of aiding the Hamburg cell of suicide hijackers.

Mounir el Motassadeq's conviction on more than 3,000 counts of accessory to murder and membership in a terrorist organization was flawed because the lower court failed to properly consider the absence of evidence from a key witness who is in U.S. custody, the Federal Criminal Court ruled. The jailed 29-year-old's case returns to court in Hamburg.

"The defendant el Motassadeq is certainly far removed from being clear of suspicion," Presiding Judge Klaus Tolksdorf said.

El Motassadeq is serving a maximum 15-year prison sentence after the Hamburg court convicted him in 2003 of giving logistical support to the Hamburg-based al-Qaida cell that included Sept. 11 suicide hijackers Mohamed Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah.

After the appeal ruling, el Motassadeq's lawyers said they would ask the Hamburg court to free the electrical engineering student from custody. El Motassadeq did not attend the session, but one of his lawyers grinned as the verdict was read in the court in the southern city of Karlsruhe.

Stephen Push, founder of the New York-based Families of Sept. 11 organization, said he was "frustrated" by the decision.

"I am hopeful that he can be (convicted)," Push, whose wife was aboard the plane that crashed into the Pentagon (news - web sites), told The Associated Press by telephone from the United States. "I believe he is guilty."

El Motassadeq's lawyers argued he was denied a fair trial because the United States refused to allow testimony by Ramzi Binalshibh, thought to be the Hamburg cell's key contact with al-Qaida.

Binalshibh was captured in Pakistan on the anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and is in secret U.S. custody.

The U.S. Justice Department (news - web sites) has told the Hamburg court that Binalshibh is "not available." Also, the German government refused to release transcripts of his interrogations, saying the United States provided them only for intelligence purposes.

El Motassadeq acknowledges knowing the hijackers. But he says he knew nothing about their plans — and maintains Binalshibh could confirm this.

Thursday's ruling brought a new setback for prosecutors after the same Hamburg court last month acquitted el Motassadeq's friend Abdelghani Mzoudi of identical charges for lack of evidence.

Mzoudi benefited from a statement presented by German investigators in which an unnamed source — believed by the court to be Binalshibh — said the only people in Hamburg who knew of the plot were hijackers Atta, Marwan al-Shehhi and Ziad Jarrah, and Binalshibh.

Though that evidence was not considered in el Motassadeq's appeal, defense lawyer Graessle-Muenscher said it would "definitely" play a role in the retrial.

Without ruling on el Motassadeq's guilt, the appeals court said the lower court erred by failing to consider whether the lack of direct evidence from Binalshibh should have influenced its decision.

In convicting el Motassadeq, the Hamburg court cited evidence that included his payment of tuition and rent for other cell members. That helped the plotters maintain appearances of having a normal student life in the city while planning the attacks, the court said.

Federal prosecutors had wanted to see el Motassadeq's conviction confirmed, insisting the Hamburg court made every effort to get Binalshibh's testimony. But experts believe a retrial is likely after critical questioning by the appeals judges at a January hearing.

El Motassadeq's lawyers also argued that al-Qaida hatched the Sept. 11 plot in Afghanistan and the hijackers trained to fly in the United States, so Atta's group did not constitute a German-based terrorist organization under laws at the time.

[Calpernia]

Thanks CJ.

Do you know about these things? Can our NEST teams dismantle such systems (ANY TYPE) if they exist here?

[rickylc]

What's your record on precognition?

[CJ Wolf]

This aren't nuclear, so I doubt NEST would be involved, more like the local bomb squad. They just blow up tracks on the rail system, creating the potential for a destructive crash of the train and resulting economic disruption.

[Happy2BMe]

He can BEGIN by taking the official position that he is FOR keeping jobs in America and AGAINST MERGING MEXICO with the UNITED STATES.

The MIGRANT INVASION + LOSING JOBS TO OVERSEAS = DEMOCRAT in White House in 2005.

These TWO ISSUES when COMBINED pose a GREATER THREAT to U.S. security and stability than even terrorist attacks.

FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS FOCUS

[TexKat]

Egypt Holds Brother of al-Qaida No. 2 Man

CAIRO, Egypt - Egypt acknowledged for the first time Thursday that it is holding Mohammed al-Zawahri, the brother of al-Qaida's No. 2 man.

Al-Zawahri had been believed to be in Egyptian police custody for at least three years, but the government never acknowledged it. He was sentenced to death in absentia for his role in Islamic Jihad attacks inside Egypt.

Interior Minister Habib el-Adly said al-Zawahri would stand trial soon but did not say when.

Ayman al-Zawahri, the top aide to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden, allegedly once led the military wing of Egypt's Jihad group. He also was sentenced to death in absentia in 1999.

[rickylc]

Water scale can be powdery looking, but would be easily recognizable as such.

[CJ Wolf]

One of the things that stick out is that even though they know they have found one device on the rail, they still wanted to keep a newsblackout. That in my opinion does not prove to me that they (govt) have the safety of the public in mind, they have economic concerns. I would not want to be riding the rail when this is going on.

[CJ Wolf]

Advice, make sure you pay the "Taxes" on that. Your shipment has been tracked and noted, you will get a notice in the mail next year after your state taxes are done, if you don't

Personal experience of a friend.

[Velveeta]

Indeed, especially if it's an "unmarked" car.

[TexKat]

U.S. Soldiers Arrest Iraqi Extremist

By MATT MOORE, Associated Press Writer

BAGHDAD, Iraq - U.S. soldiers and Iraqi police arrested 14 Iraqis, including a militant suspected of leading a terrorist cell made up of followers of the extremist Wahhabi sect of Sunni Islam, the military said Thursday.

Sami Ahmed and the others were captured late Wednesday near Baqouba, a hotbed of anti-coalition activity in the Sunni Triangle, north of Baghdad, said Maj. Josslyn Aberle of the Tikrit-based 4th Infantry Division.

Five Iraqi police were wounded in separate attacks in northern Iraq. And a U.S. Army spokesman said a rocket struck the green zone in Baghdad where the headquarters of U.S.-led occupation authority is located after five large explosions rumbled through the center of the capital late Wednesday. No injuries or damage were reported.

A roadside bomb went off as a U.S. military vehicle passed in the town of Hadid, north of Baghdad, wounding a 4th Infantry Division soldier, said Master Sgt. Robert Powell, an Army spokesman. U.S. soldiers arrested one Iraqi in relation to the attack and are searching for a second man who fled the scene on a motorcycle.

Insurgents fired a rocket-propelled grenade at U.S. soldiers guarding a building where U.S. officials were meeting Thursday with city council members in the city of Fallujah, witnesses and police said. The Americans arrested one Iraqi after storming a building from where the insurgents were firing, the witnesses said.

In Ramadi, where nearly 1,000 people rallied to condemn Tuesday's bombings at Shiite shrines, clerics and political leaders raged against the blasts, which threatened to turn Shiites against Sunnis if the bombers were found to have been Iraqi Sunni extremists.

No group claimed responsibility for the attacks, but the top U.S. commander in the Middle East, Gen. John Abizaid, said Wednesday that there was evidence that al-Qaida-linked Jordanian militant Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was behind the bombings.

An insurgent group in Fallujah, however, circulated a statement signed by the "Leadership of the Allahu Akbar Mujahedeen" claiming that al-Zarqawi was killed in northern Iraq "during the American bombing there."

The statement did not say when al-Zarqawi was supposedly killed, but U.S. jets bombed strongholds of the extremist Ansar al-Islam in the north last April as Saddam Hussein's regime was collapsing.

"The truth is, al-Qaida is not present in Iraq," the Mujahedeen statement said. Though many Arabs entered the country to fight U.S. troops, only a small number remain, the group said.

A coalition spokesman told The Associated Press the claim of al-Zarqawi's death was patently false.

Separately, insurgents struck an Iraqi police station and a police patrol in and around the northern city of Mosul on Thursday, wounding five policemen, including an officer, according to police and hospital officials.

U.S. and Iraqi officials disagreed over how many people died in Tuesday's bombings in Baghdad and Karbala — the deadliest here since the fall of Saddam Hussein. The Iraqi Governing Council said Wednesday that 271 people were killed. U.S. officials put the toll at 117.

U.S. officials said 15 people were detained in Karbala in the attacks, though none was charged. Among those detained were five Farsi speakers, a suggestion that they were Iranians. About 100,000 Iranians were believed to have come to Iraq for the Ashoura religious rituals, and Iran's news agency said 23 Iranians were among the dead.

"In the meetings held with Iraq's security and police officials in Karbala so far, they have denied (claims) about the complicity of several suspects related to the Islamic Republic in these explosions," Hassan Kazemi Qomi told the Islamic Republic News Agency.

Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Husseini al-Sistani and other Shiite leaders also accused the coalition of failing to provide adequate security for the worshippers and of not doing enough to prevent extremists from crossing Iraq's porous borders.

In what appeared to be a nod to the criticism, U.S. administrator L. Paul Bremer said the coalition would help strengthen border security, saying it was "increasingly apparent" that "a large part of terrorism" comes from outside Iraq.

"There are 8,000 border police on duty today and more are on the way," Bremer said Wednesday. "We are adding hundreds of vehicles and doubling border police staffing in selected areas. The United States has committed $60 million to support border security."

Shiites are believed to comprise about 60 percent of Iraq's 25 million people, and the collapse of Saddam's Sunni-dominated regime has offered them the opportunity to transform their numbers into domination of the government being worked out with the U.S.-led coalition.

[all4one]

Thank you for the warning. But living in the great sales tax free state of Delaware...thankfully I don't need to worry. But the tracking of my purchases....I find to be very worrisome!!!

[rickylc]

The UN and IEAE are worthless. How anyone can believe anything they say is beyond me.

Iran is getting away with an aweful lot. I hope we have some covert ops going on to topple these suckers.

[Calpernia]

I'm just speechless with that one.

[Calpernia]

Ok, I'm not going here with you.

Back to chasing terrorist.