Threat Matrix: Daily Terror Threat - Thread Twenty-Seven

[Velveeta]

Oh, I agree!

[Velveeta]

Do elephants eat garlic???

:::ducking:::

[Cindy]

Karl, have you seen this?
You may want to click on the hyptertext links in the message.
It is interesting.

http://www.internet-haganah.us/harchives/004457.html

[MamaDearest]

***You know, I think that a nuke attack -- if they can ever pull it off -- will be/is reserved for our country.***

If not with legal or illegal jihadis, it may be like deja vu with the Kennedy-Cuba days. Wishing that 90 mile distance was more like 9,000 miles these days.

[DAVEY CROCKETT]

This is old article...but

Al-Qaida detainee may know about plans to attack UK

Richard Norton-Taylor
Saturday May 14, 2005
The Guardian

A top al-Qaida suspect arrested in Pakistan could have vital information about possible terrorist attacks on Britain, intelligence sources believe.
British security and intelligence officials are seeking information from Abu Faraj al-Libbi, believed to be number three in the al-Qaida leadership, to find out what he knows about any operations planned against Britain or British interests abroad.

Mr Libbi had no direct contact with al-Qaida sympathisers in the UK, officials say. But, as the controller of a number of overseas networks, he would be in a position to know what attacks, if any, were being prepared against Britain and other western targets.

"He masterminded operations and had oversight over funding," an official said, describing him as "top of the [al-Qaida] machinery".

MI5 and MI6 officials have yet to interrogate Mr Libbi, preferring to leave initial questioning to the Pakistani authorities. But British anti-terrorist sources are anxious to find out as soon as possible what he knows about al-Qaida's networks.

The US is also keen to question him.

The New York Times reported yesterday that Mr Libbi, a Libyan, was still in Pakistani custody and would not be handed over to the US quickly.

It quoted the Pakistani foreign minister, Khurshid Mehmood Kasuri, as saying: "Until all the issues are cleared, there is no question of him being handed over to anyone else. Anything relevant to American security is being shared."

Mr Libbi is suspected of planning two assassination attempts on Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, and a plot to kill its prime minister, Shaukat Aziz.

A number of arrests followed the seizure of Mr Libbi near Peshawar, the capital of the country's North-West Frontier Province, which was announced 10 days ago. Pakistani officials said the army had stepped up the hunt for Osama bin Laden.

Mr Kasuri said Bin Laden was probably continually moving among the tribal areas of Pakistan and Afghanistan - and was not with a large group of people, "otherwise he'd be detected".

George Bush described Mr Libbi as "a major facilitator and a chief planner" for Bin Laden and said his arrest removed a "dangerous enemy".

There have been reports from Pakistan that he has not provided significant information during interrogations, during which he came under "physical pressure".

Intelligence officials say Mr Libbi had taken over from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, believed to be a mastermind behind the September 11 attacks in the US, who was arrested in Rawalpindi in March 2003.

Sheikh Mohammed was the head of al-Qaida's "military committee", in charge of operations and recruiting overseas fighters. He is believed to have been behind the kidnap and murder of the US journalist Daniel Pearl in Pakistan in 2002, and a suicide bomb attack on a Tunisian synagogue in which 21 people died.

He is understood to have referred under questioning to two Britons, at least one of whom has been arrested. Officials say he was particularly interested in the UK.

Though officials say Mr Libbi had no known direct link with Britain, given his importance as successor to Sheikh Mohammed they believe he must have significant information to divulge.

• Protests spread across the Muslim world from Gaza to Indonesia yesterday over a report that US interrogators at Guantánamo Bay had desecrated the Qur'an.

In Afghanistan, at least nine people were killed in protests following the Newsweek report, bringing the country's death toll to 16 this week.

Meanwhile, a US soldier convicted of abuses at Abu Ghraib prison told a court martial that he had attached wires to the hands of a prisoner who thought he could be electrocuted as a "joking type of thing".

guardian.co.uk/alqaida

http://www.guardian.co.uk/alqaida/story/0,12469,1483812,00.html

[Cindy]

If one doesn't want to be an anti-American; one must eat their garlic everyday.

Smiling...

[BurbankKarl]

That is interesting.

I just have this gut feeling this is a splinter off the Madrid cell. There were zero warnings beforehand, so the group hasnt been infiltrated or under surveillance (that we know of), there is really no response in the US other than an appearance to make commuters feel better (No military air, etc)

The message is the same (Get out of Iraq)

BTW: It took LA twelve full hours to cover their commuter stations...

That guy in your link looks like those "Westernized Al Qaedas" we were told to look out for several years ago.

[Domestic Church]

"I am still searching through my files to see what I may have on that "things will start in London" threat."


"The TM thread was from the week of July 10, 2004!"

I had 'bad vibes' yesterday and I was thinking it must be because London was picked for 2012 Olympics.

[Donna Lee Nardo]

I just saw this on Drudge; I hope it wasn't already posted here earlier:

Secret 'gas' test staged at G. Central

BY PETE DONOHUE
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER

The Federal Department of Homeland Security released gas in Grand Central Terminal last month in a secret study of how dangerous chemicals might flow through the landmark in a terrorist attack.

Nontoxic "tracer gases" were released into the terminal between June 26-30, as scientists from four national laboratories observed, including physicists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California.

"If there was some kind of emergency - smoke or who knows what - released in Grand Central Terminal, we want to know how it's going to move around and how best to evacuate it," Metro-North spokeswoman Marjorie Anders said. "Everybody knows that some kind of biological, chemical or radiological threat is something we have to plan for, and this is part of that planning."

The colorless, odorless gas was released at different times to determine, among other things, how the movement of people through the landmark building would affect the path of potentially harmful substances.

The information gathered from the tests was in part designed to improve emergency response planning for the terminal and provide data that could be used when assessing the security of other transportation hubs in the country. It also might be used to make protective alterations to the heating, ventilation and air-conditioning system at Grand Central or lead to the use of technological devices under development, authorities said.

There are several devices in Grand Central that would detect the release of potentially deadly agents.

Approximately 750,000 people pass through Grand Central a day, including commuter rail riders, subway riders, shoppers and tourists.

Officials have long tagged Grand Central as a potential target because of its prominence as a landmark and the number of people who use it.

Police in March revealed that a simplistic drawing of Grand Central was found on the computer of a suspected Madrid train bomber, but officials described it as an amateur sketch and said they didn't believe it was part of a plan to launch an attack.

July 7, 2005

http://www.nydailynews.com/front/story/325980p-278531c.html

[Cindy]

Well, those bombs are going to offer a whole lot of clues.
(Hint: Bad boys/gals, what are you doing to do; What are you
going to do when they come for you. Only God knows. Amen.)
===
===

http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,161840,00.html

"Hunt Intensifies for London Terrorists"
Thursday, July 07, 2005


ARTICLE SNIPPET: "LONDON — With England's capital city reeling from Thursday's terrorist attacks on its public transportation system, the focus turned to the hunt for who was responsible.

An organization calling itself the "Secret Group of Al Qaeda's Jihad in Europe" (search) claimed it carried out the coordinated series of four explosions, three on the subway and one on a double-decker bus during the morning rush hour.

That claim couldn't immediately be confirmed.

At least 37 people were reported dead and more than 700 were wounded in the worst attack on London since World War II, according to U.S. officials.

The four blasts all went off within an hour, beginning at 8:51 a.m. (3:51 a.m. EDT). Authorities immediately shut down the subway and bus lines that log 8.4 million passenger trips every weekday."

[Godzilla]

I had 'bad vibes' yesterday and I was thinking it must be because London was picked for 2012 Olympics.

Well, things outside of Iraq and Afghanistan have been very quiet. I was concerned about the Al-Zarhiri tape of last month, but the threats were towards middle east, not europe. Not sure if there is linkage yet.

[Domestic Church]

"BUT, if there was no chatter and London was caught completely off guard, what are the chances of having an
terrorist operative inside the British Government/Scotland Yard/SIS?"


According to PBS radio station early this morning(~6:30), Scotland Yard did forwarn Israel right before the blasts occurred so they had a short warning of some sort and at 6 AM they were saying it was Al Quada, no doubt.


I think Scotland Yard should check out their translators.

[Cindy]

http://www.dhs.gov/dhspublic/interapp/press_release/press_release_0700.xml

Press Releases
"Transcript from Secretary Michael Chertoff Press Briefing on the London Bombings"

Secretary Chertoff

For Immediate Release
Office of the Press Secretary
Contact: 202-282-8010
July 7, 2005

[Domestic Church]

Might the Egyptian diplomat be the high level assassination?

[Velveeta]

LOL

My spaghetti sauce has been simmering for an hour, with LOTS of garlic.

[Velveeta]

I'm not positive about that, DC...but it sure fits, doesn't it?

[Cindy]

That sounds just right.
I can smell it from here.

[Velveeta]

Remains of the bombed bus.

[BurbankKarl]

"There is real passion now in the police to make arrests quickly before further attacks can be carried out," said Charles Shoebridge, a security analyst and former counterterrorism intelligence officer.

"While (the bombers) are at large now, a second attack is very likely, because there's no reason for them not to, they've broken their cover," he said. "They will now try to exploit whatever freedom they have left" to kill again, because it is likely they will eventually be caught, Shoebridge said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/07/07/AR2005070701681_pf.html

[Cindy]

Yep. Bad guys/gals are probably looking over their shoulders now.