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Posted on 10/01/2005 8:27:27 AM PDT by nwctwx
http://www.washingtontimes.com/national/20051004-104448-5748r.htm
Page 1 of 2 next »
"Minutemen arrival chases away smugglers"
By Jerry Seper
THE WASHINGTON TIMES
October 5, 2005
FALFURRIAS, Texas
http://www.danielpipes.org/article/3005
Stupid Terrorists
by Daniel Pipes
New York Sun
October 4, 2005
By Daniel Pipes
October 4, 2005
The New York Sun
[NY Sun title: "When Terrorists' Stupidity Leads to Arrest"]
One would think Mahmoud Maawad, a 29-year-old illegal immigrant from Egypt living in Memphis, Tenn., would lay low and stay out of trouble. But no, he defiantly did just the opposite.
He used a fake Social Security number to open a bank account, arrange for household utilities, and enroll at the University of Memphis business school. He worked off-the-books at a convenience store and in early 2005 sold alcohol to a minor, for which he was arrested. And then, in mid-2005, he ordered US$3,300 worth of airline-related goods from Sporty's Pilot Shop, including such items as an airline pilot's uniform, a flight gear bag, a radio communications handbook, and an instructional DVD titled "How an Airline Captain Should Look and Act."
To top it off, he placed the order on an overdrawn credit card.
Sporty's, not surprisingly, informed the FBI about Mr. Maawad's order and federal agents searched his apartment in September. There they found flight simulation software and detailed information on Memphis International Airport. Mr. Maawad was then indicted for wire fraud and fraudulent use of a Social Security number.
While it's far from established that Maawad had terrorism on his mind, his actions are sufficiently suspicious to enroll him as an honorary member in my newly created "Stupid Terrorists Club." He joins plenty of others.
* Mohammed Salameh, the terrorist who returned to the rental agency in 1993 to retrieve the $400 deposit he had paid on a truck subsequently used to blow up the World Trade Center. His penny-pinching lead to his own capture and that of several other bombers.
* Zacarias Moussaoui, thought to have been the would-be 20th hijacker of the September 11, 2001, attacks, was sitting in jail on that date because his disheveled and impoverished appearance at a flight instruction school was so discordant ("there's really something wrong with this guy") that two of its staff phoned the FBI. In April 2005, Moussaoui pleaded guilty to six counts of conspiracy to commit terrorism.
* Michael Wagner, an African-American convert to Islam associated with Al-Qaeda, did not wear a seat belt and that got him stopped by the police in July 2004 near Council Bluffs, Iowa. His car contained "flight training manuals and a simulator, documents in Arabic, bulletproof vests and night-vision goggles, a night-vision scope for a rifle, a telescope, a 9mm semiautomatic pistol and hundreds of rounds of ammunition."
* Zaynab Khadr, accused by Canadian authorities of having "willingly participated and contributed both directly and indirectly towards enhancing the ability of Al Qaeda to facilitate its criminal activities," returned to Canada in February with a computer chock full of documents that the authorities say "provide insights into the tactics, techniques and procedures" of Al-Qaeda and other groups.
* Sami Ibrahim Isa Abdel Hadi, 39, was stopped in May for tailgating in Ridgefield Park, N.J. When a police officer called in Abdel Hadi's North Carolina license plates, he learned that Abdel Hadi had been ordered deported to Brazil in December 2001 and is listed in the FBI's National Crime Information Center database. Even more alarmingly, he had a valid temporary identity card permitting him to paint the George Washington Bridge (a high-profile potential terrorist target).
* When an accused Los Angeles terror gang, the Assembly of Authentic Islam, needed money for arms, it robbed gas stations rather than obtain funds legally. One of its holdup artists dropped a mobile phone during a June robbery, which the police retrieved and used to unravel the plot and arrest the conspirators.
Other famous dumb terrorists include Yu Kikumura, a member of the Japanese Red Army whose odd behavior prompted a search of his car at a New Jersey Turnpike rest stop in April 1988, turning up three powerful bombs. Or Timothy McVeigh, apprehended in April 1995 after bombing the Oklahoma City federal building that killed 168 people, because his car lacked a license plate.
Counterterrorism is a difficult business, so it is fortunate that terrorists often act dumb.
Why can't they keep out of trouble until the big day? In part, because terrorists, like other criminals, are usually not the sharpest knives in the drawer; and in part because their ideology and hatred cause them to disdain the enemy, leading them to take unnecessary risks.
As a result, the rest of us are a little bit safer.
ON THE NET...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1494800/posts?page=832#832
===
===
ON THE NET...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1496878/posts
"Student Investigated by the FBI"
WBNS-10TV Central Ohio ^ | Oct 1, 2005 | by Kevin Landers
Posted on 10/05/2005 3:32:03 AM PDT by Jim Robinson
Great minds and all that...
We're posting on a similar subject.
SMILING, yawning and heading to bed.
Have a good day, stillproud2befree
FWIW I suspect that a few "dirty bombs" may be quite spectacular enough. Imagine a few Oklahoma City type bombs with a significant amount of radioactive material .... It could be nasty even without a true nuclear bomb - especially since a lot of people are irrational when it comes to anything radioactive.
The simple fact remains that UBL knew he was going to get routed in Afghanistan after the attacks... he had to have plans ready to go.
Possibly. Remember that they had just gotten done with trouncing the Russians, who were much closer and should have been able to project a lot of force into the area, and they still got their clocks cleaned in Afganistan. But he had to realize that we might do better, especially since we had a chance to learn from their experience.
Even without nuclear weapons, there are still quite a few things they might have prepared that could cause significant disruption - even on a 9/11 scale. "Dirty bombs" could easily be part of that, as could chemical and biological weapons. I suspect the first two would be more likely than the latter - not because it's so difficult to put together crude biological weapons, but because anything infectious would have a high probability of "blowback," and because of the technical difficulties of using an agent like anthrax and getting more than a few casualties in the immediate area. (The key to a successful large-scale anthrax attack would be wide dispersal of aerosolized spores - a rather tricky proposition since these are somewhat contradictory goals).
However "dirty bombs" and chemical weapons are quite capable of creating a major crisis in their own right. I'd suspect both of those before either true nukes or biologicals.
Thanks for link, Cindy
Volume 2, Issue 18 (October 4, 2005) | Download PDF Version
Al-Qaeda's Next Generation: Less Visible and More Lethal
By Michael Scheuer
Experts speculate widely about the composition and
tactics of the next generation of mujahideen. This
speculation stems from the fact that transnational groups
are harder collection targets than nation-states. Such
ambiguity and imprecision is likely to endure indefinitely,
and is particularly worrisome concerning
"next-generation" terrorism studies.
Osama bin Laden has been planning for the next generation of mujahideen
since he began speaking publicly in the mid-1990s. Bin Laden has always
described the "defensive jihad" against the United States as potentially a
multi-generational struggle. After the 9/11 attacks, bin Laden explained that,
even as the anti-U.S. war intensified, the torch was being passed from his
generation to the next. "We have been struggling right from our youth," bin
Laden wrote in late 2001:
"We sacrificed our homes, families, and all the luxuries of this worldly life in
the path of Allah (was ask Allah to accept our efforts). In our youth, we
fought with and defeated the (former) Soviet Union (with the help of Allah), a
world super power, and now we are fighting the USA. We have never let the
Muslim Ummah down.
"Muslims are being humiliated, tortured and ruthlessly killed all over the
world, and its time to fight these satanic forces with the utmost strength and
power. Today the whole of the Muslim Ummah is depending (after Allah) upon
the Muslim youth, hoping that they would never let them down." [1]
The question arising is, of course, what threat will the next generation of
al-Qaeda-inspired mujahideen pose? Based on the admittedly imprecise
information available, the answer seems to lie in three discernible trends: a)
the next generation will be at least as devout but more professional and less
operationally visible; b) it will be larger, with more adherents and potential
recruits; and c) it will be better educated and more adept at using the tools
of modernity, particularly communications and weapons.
Religiosity and Quiet Professionalism
The next mujahideen generation's piety will equal or exceed that of bin
Laden's generation. The new mujahideen, having grown up in an internet
and satellite television-dominated world, will be more aware of Muslim
struggles around the world, more comfortable with a common Muslim identity,
more certain that the U.S.-led West is "oppressing" Muslims, and more
inspired by the example bin Laden has set—bin Laden's generation had no
bin Laden.
While leaders more pious than bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahiri are hard to
imagine, Western analysts tend to forget that many of bin Laden's
first-generation lieutenants did not mirror his intense religiosity. Wali Khan,
Abu Zubaidah, Abu Hajir al-Iraqi, Khalid Sheikh Muhammed, Ibn Shaykh
al-Libi, and Ramzi Yousef were first generation fighters who were both
swashbuckling and Islamist. Unlike bin Laden and Zawahiri, they were
flamboyant, multilingual, well-traveled, and eager for personal notoriety.
Their operating styles were tinged with arrogance—as if no bullet or jail cell
had been made for them—and each was captured, at least in part, because
they paid insufficient attention to personal security. Now al-Qaeda is
teaching young mujahideen to learn from the security failures that led to the
capture of first-generation fighters.
"The security issue was and still is one of the aspects that most influence the
practical course of the conflict [with the West] and one of the fronts that
most affect the war's outcome. As long as the Islamic movement does not
take this aspect seriously, the promised victory will continue to lack the most
important means for its realization.
"What is required is that the security consciousness be present with a
strength that causes it to mix with the natural course of daily action.…
However, a consideration of history and a study of events lead us to
conclude that the enemy's gain in the security conflict [with al-Qaeda]
basically cannot be due to the extraordinary strength of those organizations
or to the superior skill of those in charge of them. They are derived from the
state of defenselessness caused by the sickness of [security] laxity in Islamic
circles!" [2]
The rising mujahideen are less likely to follow the example of some notorious
first-generation fighters, and more likely to model themselves on the smiling,
pious, and proficient Mohammed Atef, al-Qaeda's military commander, killed in
late 2001 and, to this day, al-Qaeda's most severe individual loss. A former
Egyptian security officer, Atef was efficient, intelligent, patient, ruthless—and
nearly invisible. He was a combination of warrior, thinker, and bureaucrat,
pursuing his leaders' plans with no hint of ego. Atef's successor as military
commander, the Egyptian Sayf al-Adl, is cut from the same cloth. Four years
after succeeding Atef, for example, Western analysts cannot determine his
identity—whether he is in fact a former Egyptian Special Forces colonel
named Makkawi—or his location—whether he in South Asia, Iraq, or under
arrest in Iran. Similarly, the Saudis' frequent publication of lengthening lists of
"most wanted" al-Qaeda fighters—many unknown in the West—suggests the
semi-invisible Atef-model is also used by Gulf state Islamists. Finally, the
U.K.-born and -raised suicide bombers of July 7, 2005 foreshadow the next
mujahideen generation who will operate below the radar of local security
services.
Numbers
At the basic level, the steady pace of Islamist insurgencies around the
world—Iraq, Chechnya and the northern Caucasus, southern Thailand,
Mindanao, Kashmir and Afghanistan—and the incremental "Talibanization" of
places like Bangladesh, Pakistan, and northern Nigeria, ensure a bountiful
new mujahideen generation. Less-tangible factors will also contribute to this
bounty.
-Osama bin Laden remains the unrivaled hero and leader of Muslim youths
aspiring to join the mujahideen. His efforts to inspire young Muslims to jihad
against the U.S.-led West seem to be proving fruitful.
-Easily accessible satellite television and Internet streaming video will
broaden Muslim youths' perception that the West is anti-Islamic. U.S. public
diplomacy cannot negate the impressions formed by real-time video from
Palestine, Iraq, and Afghanistan that shows Muslims battling "aggressive"
Western forces and validating bin Laden‘s claim that the West intends to
destroy Islam.
-The adoption of harsher anti-terror laws in America and Europe, along with
lurid stories about Guantanamo Bay, Abu Ghraib prison, and the handling of
the Qur'an will give credence to bin Laden's claim that the West is
persecuting Muslims.
-The ongoing "fundamentalization" of the two great, evangelizing monotheist
religions will enhance an environment already conducive to Islamism. The
growth of Protestant evangelicalism in Latin America, and the aggressive,
"church militant" form of Roman Catholicism in Africa, has and will revitalize
the millennium-old Islam-vs.-Christianity confrontation, creating a sense of
threat and defensiveness on each side.
Compounding the threat posed by the next, larger generation is the
possibility that analysts underestimated the first generation's size. Western
leaders have consistently claimed large al-Qaeda-related casualties;
currently, totals range from 5,000-7,000 fighters and two-thirds of al-Qaeda's
leadership. If the claims are accurate, we should ponder whether the West
has ever fought a "terrorist group" that can lose 5,000-7,000 fighters,
dozens of leaders, and still be assessed militarily potent and perhaps
WMD-capable? The multiple captures of al-Qaeda's "third-in-command"—most
recently Abu Ashraf al-Libi—and the remarkable totals of "second- and
third-in-commands" from Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's organization suggests the
West's accounting of Islamist manpower—at the foot soldier and leadership
levels—is, at best, tenuous.
Modernity
Recent scholarship suggests al-Qaeda and its allies draw support primarily
from Muslim middle- and upper-middle classes [3]. This helps explain why bin
Laden places supreme importance on exploiting the internet for security,
intelligence, paramilitary training, communications, propaganda, religious
instruction, and news programs. It also points to the West's frequent failure
to distinguish between the Islamists' hatred for Westernization—women's
rights and secularism, for example—and their openness to modernity's tools,
especially communications and weaponry.
Several features of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's forces demonstrate that the
mujahideen embrace modern tools. Two-plus years after the U.S. invasion,
for example, Zarqawi's technicians continue building Improvised Explosive
Devices (IEDs) and car bombs that defeat the detection/jamming technology
fielded by U.S. forces. Indeed, each new iteration of defensive technology
has been trumped by improved insurgent weaponry.
Zarqawi's media apparatus is likewise the most sophisticated, flexible, and
omnipresent U.S.-led forces have encountered since 9/11. Al-Qaeda-in-Iraq's
media produce daily combat reports, near real-time video of attacks on
coalition targets, interviews with Zarqawi and other leaders, and a steady
flow of "news bulletins" to feed 24/7 satellite television networks. In doing
so, Zarqawi's media are telling the Muslim world al-Qaeda's version of the
war professionally, reliably, and in real-time. So good has Zarqawi's media
become since joining al-Qaeda that it is fair to assume the most important
help he has received is from bin Laden's world-class media organization.
Conclusion
Despite satellites, electronic intercept equipment, and expanding human
intelligence, the West does not understand al-Qaeda the way it knew the
Soviet Union. Transnational targets are substantially more difficult collection
targets than nation-states. We are, for example, unlikely to build an accurate
al-Qaeda order-of-battle or recruit assets to penetrate the al-Qaeda
equivalent of Moscow's politburo. As a result, Western analysts must closely
track broad trends within al-Qaeda and its allies, and the trends toward
greater piety, professionalism, numbers and modernity merit particular
attention.
Notes
1. Osama bin Laden, "Message to Muslim Youth," Markaz al-Dawa (Internet),
December 13, 2001.
2. Sayf-al-Din al-Ansari, "But Take Your Precautions," Al-Ansar (Internet),
March 15, 2002.
3. See especially, Marc Sageman, Understanding Terror Networks, (University
of Pennsylvania Press, 2004), and Robert Pape, Dying to Win. The Logic of
Suicide Terrorism, (Random House, 2005).
Find this article at:
http://jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=236979
I just wondered while reading that story why the store owner didn't report him for wanting to buy the ammonium nitrate "without a good reason" in his words.
Now that you mention it. LOL [stinky Bill alert]
Mystery Illness Toll in Toronto Increases To Ten Dead
Recombinomics Commentary October 4, 2005
Dr. McKeown provided the following update:
- Since yesterday there have been four additional deaths for a total of ten in the outbreak.
- The outbreak has so far affected a total of 70 residents, 12 employees and two visitors at Seven Oaks.
- 40 residents from Seven Oaks have been admitted to hospital.
The above update reveals a much more serious condition than yesterday. The number dead has increased to 10 from 6 and the number of residents admitted to Toronto area hospitals has increased from 30 to 40. Thus, 50 of the 70 residents infected have been hospitalized or died. The deaths are over 14% of the infected residents. In addition, the number of employees infected has risen form 8 to 12, suggesting more residents will show symptoms due to later exposure dates.
There has still been no etiological agent identified, so negative data for H5N1 remains suspect. The increasing numbers of dead patients should provide sufficient autopsy material for identification of this deadly and highly infectious agent.
They better figure this one out, like yesterday!
It may not be H5N1, but it sounds alot like what is happening in Indonesia.
I'm just wondering.........why did he bring this up yesterday during what was supposed to be a discussion on Miers nomination. [I think] With the use of military forces just recently approved during Katrina and Rita on US soil, are we now getting ready to pick up the sick and transport them to camps? IMO quarantines won't work. How can you quarantine a large city? It seems to me that taking the sick away would probably be their method of quarantine.
Just In.....CNN... Fort Bragg arrests, two Indonesian ILLEGALS caught. One more to be added to the deportee hearing. Showed forged documents when hired. None of them had access to classified info. [yeah right]
I've been looking for more news on the suspicious package at the WH. That's how I found the story above on the Fort Bragg breach in security. [and a big one too]
The main thread on the WH incident has the usual cast of comedians so I thought we should follow it here.
I don't see how quarantines could possibly work, not in this day.........unless extreme measures were taken......and I don't even want to think about that.
Removing only the ill for quarantine would still leave the exposed able to spread the virus.
We are a global economy. International travel is necessary to sustain that economy. Can you imagine the howls of protest from Wall Street and businesses if that access to travel were terminated?
But, I fear it may come to be.
Why is the President discussing this now? He knows the risks and is frightened for our future. I am too.
WRAL Morning News
October 04, 2005
Three people who taught foreign languages at the Joint Special Operations Command Center at Fort Bragg were arrested on immigration charges, federal officials said Tuesday.
The suspects from Indonesia and Senegal did not have access to classified material, a JSOC spokeswoman said.
Two Indonesian natives, Nurkis Qadariah, 34, and Sayf Rimal, 37, were arrested Tuesday and charged with possessing and using false documents, U.S. Attorney Frank Whitney said in a prepared statement.
Ousmane Moreau, 38, of Senegal, was arrested Monday and charged with being in the United States illegally, Whitney and Immigration and Customs Enforcement agent Jeff Jordan said. He will be placed in removal proceedings, they said.
The complaint against Qadariah and Rimal accuses them of using counterfeit resident alien cards and falsely saying that they were lawful permanent residents of the United States in order to get a job with B.I.B. Consultants Inc. for work at Fort Bragg.
Instead, there are pending removal and deportation proceedings against both men in New York City, the federal officials said.
Both men had a first court appearance Tuesday in Raleigh.
B.I.B. Consultants is a Florida-based company that provides contract language instruction services to U.S. Special Forces and other U.S. military personnel at the JSOC at Fort Bragg, federal prosecutors said.
Daniel Guillan, director of government contracting for B.I.B., told WTVD in an e-mail statement that all B.I.B. employees go through a background check and that the checks on these three "came back clear."
In addition, he said B.I.B. complied with employment guidelines established by the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.
Jordan said that unauthorized workers at U.S. military installations "may have access to some of the most sensitive work sites in the nation," but a spokeswoman for JSCO said that wasn't the case here.
"What's important to remember is they did not teach any classified materials, and they were not exposed to any classified materials," JSOC spokeswoman Tina Beller said Tuesday night.
ICE said the arrests are the latest in its effort to find illegal aliens working at sensitive sites such as airports and nuclear plants.
In July, 48 illegal aliens were arrested at Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in Goldsboro and in May, ICE agents arrested nine unauthorized aliens working at a facility in Winston-Salem that refits the U.S. Navy's P-3 Orion aircraft.
Note links for post 847
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&client=googlet&q=Osama+bin+Laden%2C+%22Message+to+Muslim+Youth%2C%22+&btnG=Search
Is this the instructions/approval for an attack?
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&client=googlet&q=+%22But+Take+Your+Precautions%22+&btnG=Search
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&client=googlet&q=Sayf-al-Din+al-Ansari&btnG=Search
http://www.google.com/search?q=Understanding+Terror+Networks&btnG=Search&hl=en&lr=&ie=ISO-8859-1&client=googlet
http://www.google.com/search?client=googlet&q=Dying%20to%20Win.%20The%20Logic%20of%0D%0A%0D%0A%20Suicide%20Terrorism
Maybe suppliers of ammonium nitrate could print reminders to store owners on the bags -- something like warnings on cigarette packs.
The 10 deaths in Canada, is strange.
The news said that theya re attempting to locate anyone who had contact with them.
A caller to one of the talk shows, also said 6 babies had died, newborns, unknown cause, his story came from the Undertaker, according to him, not said to be related, just a comment from a caller.
Said they all came from the same hospital, as that is the only one that delivers babies in the area.
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